I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

For any who want more, complete list of all posts by month since 2011

  • Calling All Cousins!


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    So Pretty and I have always been interested in our family trees, and this year I decided to give us our DNA tests as a Christmas present to each other. I can never pick any gift for Pretty because whatever I pick she already bought for herself years ago, and that makes me struggle to come up with something creative for special occasions. DNA idea was brilliant, I thought.

    I’ve been dealing with ordering the kits, supervising and returning sample collections and registering at the appropriate sites to activate. Whew. Quite the ordeal.

    Hooray, one of our results came in this week: mine. I have been thoroughly entertained with the pie chart and other info. Seriously. Thoroughly entertained. I can roam through the site for hours looking for relatives.

    Now I am searching for the 710 cousins who are Out There Somewhere…Calling All Cousins…let’s catch up.

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    Oh, as for Pretty, well, her sample didn’t pass the sample test – so she has to do another one. Sigh. So much for creativity

  • One Woman Tries to Break Glass Ceiling While Another One Tries to Repair It


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    Hillary Clinton is trying to crack the ultimate Glass Ceiling by becoming the most powerful woman on earth as President of the United States.

    This afternoon our neighbor across the street was replacing their roof with a new one, and one of the hard-working roofers was a woman.

    You go, girls.

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  • Trick or Treat? Pumpkin in Action!


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    Heard while sitting on the porch and handing out candy to scores of costumed children at Casa de Canterbury during tonight’s neighborhood twilight Trick or Treat marathon:

    “Don’t go to that house – they’re gay,” said a father to his children. And they turned away.

    I told Pretty that, even after our 40 years of activism, my feelings were still hurt.

    “Unkindness always hurts,” Pretty said.

  • Hang on Spooky, Spooky, Hang on!


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    Happy Halloween to all our friends in cyberspace – this was a surprise pumpkin left on our front porch by two very creative Hillary and Halloween supporters, Kati and Sheila Go ( as opposed to Sheila Slo). Thanks to them for the fun – our candle will be glowing for our trick-or-treaters tonight!

    8 days to Election – what can I say except relief is on the way.

     

  • Doubling Down on Debates, Dems, Demagogues, Divisiveness and Depression: I VOTED


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    The most recent polling of my personal state of mind reveals a slight shift from 52% Negative and 48% Positive to 52% Positive and 48% Negative. Jeopardy host Alex Trebek asks what are readily identifiable factors that have led to this impressive 4-point swing? The answer is the Daily Double, or the Daily Doubling Down: I voted. My depression is slightly improved without an increase in my anti-depressant medication.

    I feel like a great burden has been lifted from my scrambled brain that has been trying for the past two years to sift facts from fiction at debates in the bruising endless primaries and now bipartisan presidential debates. Is it my imagination or are the debates really longer with just two candidates onstage than they were with a gazillion candidates vying for attention. Whatever. For the most part, the candidates have been unresponsive to the moderators’ questions, and the moderators have been unresponsive to their unresponsiveness. The single most consistent feeling I have after I watch a debate is that I would have been a better moderator. I’m just saying.

    But guess what?

    What?

    I don’t even need to watch the final debate tomorrow because I already voted. Yep. One of the perks of being older than dirt is the right to vote absentee and I jumped all over that yesterday. Me and my 1.5 million early voting friends, that is.

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    Today’s buzz words for the campaigns according to the political talking heads are Doubling Down. Whatever a candidate advocates that will solidify her/his voter base (those voters who will vote for you regardless of any mention of sex, lies, emails or videotapes), now is the time to pull out all the stops, say whatever motivates your base the most and make sure your peeps vote. For example, comment on the “rigged system” of voting in general. This is Doubling Down – a populist candidate appealing to supporters who already feel like political outsiders – by attempting to suggest the voting process itself is fundamentally flawed. Oops – flawed unless you win, of course.

    I pity the Undecideds because they will, no doubt, be watching tomorrow night’s debates with the same “wishy- washyness” they’ve been watching all of the previous ones. They’ll still be hanging onto the sounds and images of every political TV commercial between now and November 08th. hoping and praying for that moment of inspiration, that pearl of wisdom which will finally push them into someone’s camp. But not me. I already voted. I can mute those suckers and the divisiveness they perpetrate.

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    No really, seriously. I voted.