She's waiting at the gate when I go down to feed my five horses this morning.

She's a little sorrel mare with a big big blaze and a big desire to live over here at my house apparently and not in the scrubby field next door.

I look at my watch and realize that I have a whole 10 minutes for me to feed my own horses, jump into my work clothes that have been laid out on my bed for the last hour, and make the dash to get the kids to school in Santa Fe. I can't lead her back home, wrangle with all of the barbed wire twisted around the back gate of her dirt and weeds pasture, and return her where she belongs as the clock is ticking down.

She gazes at me with her large, resolute eyes. They have that softness about them that makes you really like a little horse like this. You see, we know each other now. She's come visiting before. Defecting from Mr. H.'s place. Mr. H., the puffed up banty rooster of a man who has a terrible reputation, so I hear, on the race track, and whose horses I've had to feed during a few bad spells when he just simply ... forgot. Sometimes I think he's playing chicken with me. If his horses get skinny enough, he's pretty sure I'll feed them for him. I suspect he thinks I'm rich and I can afford it.

What a rat. A rat with a cubic zirconia horseshoe ring he brandishes about as he brags and boasts about this and that while Jack Bauer and I do our best to be nice, and keep our mouths shut about what we really think, because no doubt Mr. H. has a bunch of relatives about.

So, with a big sigh, I go feed my five their alfalfa and then get myself a lead rope. No halter necessary. Miss Doe Eyes knows I won't hurt her and that our interactions have been positive, with the exception of the small fact that each time I return her from whence she came, even though I'd rather not. Where she and her pasture mate are not fed all that well. Yes, I can see a few of her ribs, but she's not in starvation territory. Not yet. And with the economy going south, I can't afford another mouth around here.

She lets me slip the lead rope over her head. It's the same movement she uses to slip beneath the single strand of barbed wire Mr. H. uses as his back ... er ... fence. You see, she's let me in on her secret, because she sneaked under the fence like that the first day I led her back and was wrangling with the rusted gate at the back of Mr. H.'s place. It's heartaching how she puts her head down for me, quite submissive, very trusting, all relaxed. I know I shouldn't be doing this, but I think about the freight trains and the Amtrak that run behind my little ranch on a regular basis. I think about the fact that her path of travel from her pasture to mine runs right along the tracks, along the top of both properties, and then down. To where there's water. And lots of food. And, I'm rubbing her forehead now, apparently a kind hand and a friendly face.

Maybe it's just my imagination. But I think she'd rather live here.

Once an ugly black dog in the Pojoaque Valley, one with a huge square block head and menacing jowls and amber eyes, decided that he'd rather live with me, and he did, for many years. But in that case, it was just a little dog chow. And my own naivete. I didn't even realize Cowboy was a pit bull dog until I took him in to have him neutered and get him his very first shots. And I couldn't have asked for a better dog all those years, even though he did scare people half to death just by standing there in the driveway.

I put Doe in my small corral. Where she's got plenty of water. And a couple of flakes of hay. And where she settles in all comfy, which makes me think I'm making a mistake, well, I know I am. I'm just encouraging her. I'm letting her believe for today that she'll be safe and tended to and cared for. And I'm not the owner she's going to be able to have.

I start calling Mr. H. first thing in the morning when I get back to the office. Might as well just put him on my speed dial. Under "M". For moron.

Posted by Kimberly at September 30, 2008 | Permalink

Boston Herald. Despite the vote by the House of Representatives yesterday, the fact remains that America desperately needs a bailout - a massive rescue plan for an institution vital to our nation and its economy.

My bailout target?

Personal responsibility.

Read it all.

Posted by Kimberly at September 30, 2008 | Permalink

New York Post. WHAT exactly does a "community organizer" do? Barack Obama's rise has left many Americans asking themselves that question. Here's a big part of the answer: Community organizers intimidate banks into making high-risk loans to customers with poor credit.

In the name of fairness to minorities, community organizers occupy private offices, chant inside bank lobbies, and confront executives at their homes - and thereby force financial institutions to direct hundreds of millions of dollars in mortgages to low-credit customers.

In other words, community organizers help to undermine the US economy by pushing the banking system into a sinkhole of bad loans. And Obama has spent years training and funding the organizers who do it.

THE seeds of today's financial meltdown lie in the Community Reinvestment Act - a law passed in 1977 and made riskier by unwise amendments and regulatory rulings in later decades.

CRA was meant to encourage banks to make loans to high-risk borrowers, often minorities living in unstable neighborhoods. That has provided an opening to radical groups like ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) to abuse the law by forcing banks to make hundreds of millions of dollars in "subprime" loans to often uncreditworthy poor and minority customers.

Any bank that wants to expand or merge with another has to show it has complied with CRA - and approval can be held up by complaints filed by groups like ACORN.

In fact, intimidation tactics, public charges of racism and threats to use CRA to block business expansion have enabled ACORN to extract hundreds of millions of dollars in loans and contributions from America's financial institutions.

Banks already overexposed by these shaky loans were pushed still further in the wrong direction when government-sponsored Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac began buying up their bad loans and offering them for sale on world markets.

Fannie and Freddie acted in response to Clinton administration pressure to boost homeownership rates among minorities and the poor. However compassionate the motive, the result of this systematic disregard for normal credit standards has been financial disaster. Read it all.

Posted by Kimberly at September 29, 2008 | Permalink

I too am not a bit tamed—I too am untranslatable; I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world. -- Walt Whitman

There's a cartoon I remember seeing when I was a very little girl, back when there were three television channels, not counting, what was it -- UHF? A little cartoon man walked around singing the same song again and again. It was his song, you see. It lilted up and down the scale, and was clipped on the ends:

La La La LA! LA!
La La La LA! LA!
La La La LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA
LA LA
LAAAAAAA!!!!!!
(Repeat)

He sang it in the grocery store. No one listened. He sang it on the street. No one listened. He sang it at home. No one listened. He sang it at work. No one listened. Finally, someone must have heard him and gotten really annoyed, because I remember a Tom and Jerry kind of pounding that took place on the little black and white television screen, in which the little man was killed, or at least beaten silly, because he was left splayed out on the street with two X X s where his eyes had been, and that's cartoon language for done in. What did that cartoon mean, I wondered? I've never forgotten it. I've pondered it for years.

I Think Walt Whitman Said it Best. Yes, we all have a "Mighty Yawp" inside waiting to come out and be proclaimed to the world. Yet, what is this "Yawp" that Whitman spoke of? Of course, it's your true, real self fully accepted and embraced, owned and claimed. All things within both good and bad seen in an equally accepting light, faced with courage and with the light of truth.

Sure, none of us is perfect and I'm no exception to that. I certainly have my own share of faults, flaws, shortcomings and character defects and these are things that I work on in myself daily.

One of the odd things that I've realized over the years is that people in general tend to present themselves in one or two ways; the one way is in which people try to present themselves and be what they think others and society tries to impose on them. This is generally true among conformists and others seeking general social approval for the sake of what's euphemistically called "popularity".

Then there are the other, far more rare kind of people who, seeing artificiality for what it is, choose to reject that and seek instead their true, inner selves; the people that they really are.

Yet, the question remains for all; who are we, really? How do we find out? How can we tell what's "real" in us and what's not? Read it all.

La La La LA! LA!

Posted by Kimberly at September 26, 2008 | Permalink

I love exploring the inner geography. I'm still pondering this dream from last week ...

Jack Bauer and I hire a sailing ship at some port in some unknown South American-looking city. At the Rent A Ship Store. There's a sign, I'm serious, just like at the U-Haul Store.

But this is no trailer.

We sail her north, skimming the waves, sails filled with wind, up the river. Jack is, after all, a sailor. The blue skein of water twists and turns like a serpent through dense rain forest. White birds lead the way. They dart and wheel and screech in the sky above. I trace our course on a map like one in an old MGM pirate movie. The parchment paper burns at the corners and the edges turn as black as night.

We finally arrive somewhere. On a shore. I've no idea what to expect. We disembark.

There's a glamorous looking vixen of a woman with jet black hair and ruby red lipstick (rather like this lady) waiting for us in a stone building filled with shadows. It's a maze of halls and doorways. I think it's a hotel. Or her house. With her luminous eyes and half-smoked cigarette, I feel a little afraid of her dark beauty, especially when she smiles a broad, lustrous smile, showing teeth as white as ivory. I think in the animal kingdom, you'd call that a threat.

Outside the enormous windows of the stone house, we spot a tiger prowling through the trees. Each calculated step brings him closer to his prey. Us. His eyes glimmer wickedly in the darkness, like a painting I've seen somewhere but can't remember except in cartoon caricatures. And I know we are in trouble.

The woman disappears in a flash of perfume.

Suddenly, the tiger is chasing us through the stone house, his long claws scrawling across the stone as we round yet another corner. We're frantically trying to outrun him, but we know we can't. Somehow or other, we manage to lock him in the bathroom. I see his tail wrapped around the claw foot of the bathtub as we slam the door shut. He is growling and snarling and throwing himself against the heavy wooden door, but that tiger can't get out.

We lean against the door, gasping and panting, looking at each other in disbelief at how we managed to trick that big cat, relieved to be alive and not to have been tiger food. Nearly laughing out loud with it. We are giddy.

But not for long.

A big black dog with burly shoulders comes clicking up the hallway.

Posted by Kimberly at September 26, 2008 | Permalink

Eyes of a Blue Dog, Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Then she looked at me. I thought that she was looking at me for the first time. But then, when she turned around behind the lamp and I kept feeling her slippery and oily look in back of me, over my shoulder, I understood that it was I who was looking at her for the first time. I lit a cigarette. I took a drag on the harsh, strong smoke, before spinning in the chair, balancing on one of the rear legs. After that I saw her there, as if she'd been standing beside the lamp looking at me every night. For a few brief minutes that's all we did: look at each other. I looked from the chair, balancing on one of the rear legs. She stood, with a long and quiet hand on the lamp, looking at me. I saw her eyelids lighted up as on every night. It was then that I remembered the usual thing, when I said to her: 'Eyes of a blue dog.' Without taking her hand off the lamp she said to me: 'That. We'll never forget that.' She left the orbit, sighing: 'Eyes of a blue dog. I've written it everywhere.'

I read this story about a man and woman who meet only in their dreams and have a code phrase to recognize each other in their waking lives for the first time approximately 20 years ago. And I am still astonished by it.

I've been blessed my entire life with interesting, full-blown Technicolor dreams. They are a part of my life I've always enjoyed immensely.

Check out the Jung Podcast series by John D. Betts, Jungian Analyst. Here's a link to Dreams: Episode 1 introducing a Jungian approach to dream interpretation. There are three episodes total on dreams. I've found the full series to be a very informative introduction to Jungian analysis.

My 7th grade daughter just started what I think is going to be a fabulous college preparatory middle school for her, and I was delighted yesterday when her Literature teacher told me that the kids are currently studying symbolism in literature and taking their time to understand it and absorb what that means as the instructor thinks symbolism in literature immensely important. Whoa. Now how cool is that? My kid and I had a very thoughtful conversation about the "anima" and "animus" the other day...

Jack Bauer and I agree we would have each given our right arm for that kind of school experience. We both went to public school. My dad was the first out of his family to go to college. Jack's mom the first in hers, and graduated well into her fifties. You just keep on lifting your kids and the generations beyond you up on your shoulders. Now that's America.

Back to the dreams, I don't think I'll ever see a blue heeler in the same light again after Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Posted by Kimberly at September 26, 2008 | Permalink

Urban Dictionary. McMansion. A large, grandiose and completely obnoxious home that looks so generic it had to come out of a greasy, styrofoam box.

Democrats Try to Hijack the So-Called "Bailout". They demand that bankruptcy judges be allowed to rewrite the terms of the underlying mortgages, in order to "provide direct assistance to homeowners caught in the foreclosure crisis"... in other words, to allow people who took out loans much too big for houses they could not afford to nevertheless keep those houses, even though they cannot make the payments. All at the expense of financial institutions that are teetering at the brink as it is.

Enough social engineering. By Democrats and Republicans. If there's going to be a bailout, then let's do it without the socialist-populist earmarks.

I'm growing very weary of this class warfare stuff that's being stuffed down my throat by the news media and The Messiah and his followers. Most of us are rich. It's greed that's gotten us into this mess. And irresponsibility.

Rishon Rishon has an interesting take on this. “Who is rich?” is part of a famous passage from Pirqey Avot:

Eyzehu hakham – halomed mikol adam
Eyzehu gibor – hakovesh et yisro
Eyzehu `ashir – hasameah b’helko
Eyzehu m’khubad – ham’khabed et habriyot

Who is wise – one who learns from every human being
Who is a hero – one who conquers his inclinations
Who is rich – one who is happy with his lot
Who is respectable – one who respects his fellow man

We have romantic images of people living on the American frontier in the mid-1800s. Though their lives were hard, we don’t think of them as living in abject poverty. In fact, they weren’t; I am in frequent contact with people who live in what would be considered abject poverty, but in fact live very rich lives – they just have less things. On the other hand, one of the reasons why being poor in the US is so horrible is that it makes it hard to get away from people who are impoverished also in spirit.

I've often wondered at the increasing amounts of people who are buying these McMansions and filling them up with perfect furniture and every creature comfort known to mankind when it's pretty obvious that they simply can't afford it, unless they are secretly heirs and heiresses.

Why do responsible, hardworking Americans have to pay for this? And this?

Posted by Kimberly at September 25, 2008 | Permalink

Gaping Void.

Sure, by mainstream American standards you could argue the Desert Rats are an eccentric, "out there" bunch. But there's something compelling about them, too. That great American ideal, "Rugged Individualism" is clear to see in their faces. Their lives somehow seem a lot closer to the 19th-Century Western pioneers, than to say, the present-day, Blackberry-addicted commuters of New York and San Francisco.

And you always ask yourself, Why? What makes them take this particular path?

Short Answer: Because they can.

Posted by Kimberly at September 25, 2008 | Permalink

Most of the time during the warm weather, you'll find all five of our horses beneath this old juniper tree. Yesterday, it was just Miss Pinon, who had the whole thing to herself.

Despite being chewed on, rubbed on, banged and battered with percheron Toby's pie-plate sized hooves when he's feeling bored, this tree still thrives.

Posted by Kimberly at September 25, 2008 | Permalink

Reuters. Burlesque dancer Dita Von Teese poses during a photocall to promote her new Wonderbra collection in London September 23, 2008.

Yesterday morning I had to wear Jack Bauer's adventure gear long johns to keep from freezing to death on my motorcycle commute to work because my polar fleece gear from Wonderbra hasn't arrived in the mail yet ...

Posted by Kimberly at September 25, 2008 | Permalink

This morning, I was rushing to get to work.

This afternoon, I took the long way home, past the Forked Lightening Ranch in Pecos.

In Glorieta Pass, on the highway, I was stalked by a fat man in a baby blue Cadillac, circa 1970. He pulled up alongside of me and Odin. If I sped up, he did too. If I slowed down, so did he. It was extremely annoying.

I think the fact that I am covered from head to toe in armor, gloves, a helmet, albeit with my long (and upon closer inspection, graying) hair billowing out beneath, leaves him some room for old reprobates like this fellow to fantasize about the fact that there must be some nineteen year old hottie beneath all of that leather. I'm not as svelte as I used to be, however, I'm no fattie. Boy, would he have been surprised when I removed my helmet, to find a middle aged woman with abundant laugh lines and worry lines and every other kind of life line you can think of around her eyes and mouth beneath all of that.

Talk about disappointment.

Finally, I decided to acknowledge my admirer's presence. Generally, my feeling is that if you ignore a pest like this, he will go away, but this one didn't. Not sure if I was being followed by a baby blue Cadillac full of gang bangers or not, I finally looked to my left, nodded my head at the overly exuberant old fellow, and he drove off, waving over the backseat of the boat he was driving.

When I exited at Pecos, he was waiting in the baby blue cadillac on the other side of the overpass.

Now that's when it began to get creepy.

Needless to say, Odie and I beat a fast retreat.

I could have stayed out until the shadows grew long, riding up and down the valley, enjoying what may be one of the last hurrahs of summer, the warm air with a golden undertow. And while I didn't do exactly that, I did manage to take the very longest way possible home.

Posted by Kimberly at September 24, 2008 | Permalink

Huffington Post: Please Barack Say It's Nonsense that You Tried to Stall Troop Withdrawal Until after the Elections

Obama Undermines Own Country, Media Ignores It; Why? They Want What He Wants It is now becoming abundantly clear that Barack Obama, in a meeting with Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, tried to undermine his own country’s negotiations with Iraq during his July visit to Baghdad. Even the Obama campaign can’t deny it because there were multiple witnesses to the exchange.

Looks like the Obama campaign confirmed that he did:

In the New York Post, conservative Iranian-born columnist Amir Taheri quoted Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari as saying the Democrat made the demand when he visited Baghdad in July, while publicly demanding an early withdrawal.

“He asked why we were not prepared to delay an agreement until after the US elections and the formation of a new administration in Washington,” Zebari said in an interview, according to Taheri.

“However, as an Iraqi, I prefer to have a security agreement that regulates the activities of foreign troops, rather than keeping the matter open,” Zebari reportedly said. …

Obama’s national security spokeswoman Wendy Morigi said Taheri’s article bore “as much resemblance to the truth as a McCain campaign commercial.”

In fact, Obama had told the Iraqis that they should not rush through a “Strategic Framework Agreement” governing the future of US forces until after President George W. Bush leaves office, she said.

McCain-Palin Response:

“At this point, it is not yet clear what official American negotiations Senator Obama tried to undermine with Iraqi leaders, but the possibility of such actions is unprecedented. It should be concerning to all that he reportedly urged that the democratically-elected Iraqi government listen to him rather than the US administration in power. If news reports are accurate, this is an egregious act of political interference by a presidential candidate seeking political advantage overseas. Senator Obama needs to reveal what he said to Iraq’s Foreign Minister during their closed door meeting. The charge that he sought to delay the withdrawal of Americans from Iraq raises serious questions about Senator Obama’s judgment and it demands an explanation.” —Randy Scheunemann, Senior Adviser McCain-Palin 2008

As I said yesterday, Nobama is not fit to be entrusted with U.S. national security.

Amir Taheri from the New York Post is receiving death threats from Obama sympathizers in response to his articles--

OBAMA TRIED TO STALL GIS' IRAQ WITHDRAWAL

OBAMA OBJECTS: BUT THE EVIDENCE SAYS I'M RIGHT

Posted by Kimberly at September 17, 2008 | Permalink

A ground-based missile interceptor is lowered into its missile silo during a recent emplacement at the Missile Defense Complex at Fort Greely, Alaska. Eighteen interceptors are emplaced in two fields on the 800-acre complex. Photo by Sgt. Jack W. Carlson III, USA.

Some of you think I'm making this stuff up, apparently. This sure looks like an Alaska National Guard missile defense operation to me. (And Sarah Palin is the commander of the Alaska National Guard, by the way. Obama has passed out flyers for ACORN.)

Alaska Guard Troops Conduct Vital Missile Defense Mission

Eleven ground-based interceptor missiles buried in underground silos here represent a key part of a multi-layered defense system designed to protect the United States from a ballistic missile attack. These interceptors, and two more at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., would destroy incoming missiles at the “midcourse phase,” outside the earth’s atmosphere.

In the event of an attack, members of the Alaska Army National Guard’s 49th Missile Defense Battalion based here would use sophisticated surveillance and radar systems to track the missile through its initial boost phase, explained Maj. Joe Miley, the unit’s operations officer. If the missile reached the midcourse phase, the Alaska Guardsmen would await the order to engage it.

On order, they would fire an interceptor at the incoming missile. The force of the collision --the equivalent of two refrigerators slamming into each other at 15,000 mph -- would destroy the target before it reentered the atmosphere, Miley said.

Miley noted that the National Guard is perfectly suited to perform such an important mission.

Alaska Guardsmen Serve on Front Line of U.S. Missile Defense

In the last 20 years, the number of countries interested in having or actually having intercontinental ballistic missile capability has increased from six nations to more than 20, Besch said. The number of test launches has increased every year.

“The world’s a dangerous place, and the future is uncertain, and technology allows us to have this capability,” Besch said. “We know from 9/11 that if an event were to occur in a major city … that the impact to human life and the cost in dollars would be astronomical.”

The intent of the system, Besch said, was to create an integrated system to defend the United States and its friends and allies against all ranges of missiles in all phases of flight.

The 49th Missile Defense Battalion focuses primarily on intercepting missiles during their midcourse phase of flight, or while they are arching in the “exoatmosphere” -- the region of space just outside the Earth's atmosphere.

While the 54-foot-6-inch interceptors look like missiles, there are no explosive warheads attached. The main body acts as a booster vehicle. The booster vehicle serves to propel into space the embedded kill vehicle, a 152-pound “smart bullet” that basically steers itself into the path of the oncoming warhead, causing an explosion on impact.

The first interceptor was emplaced in July 2004. Now, 18 such interceptors are emplaced in the site’s two missile fields. When finished, the complex will house 40 interceptors in three fields.

Posted by Kimberly at September 17, 2008 | Permalink

Sarah Palin is Commander of the Alaska National Guard.

Alaska is the first line of defense in our missile interceptor defense system. The 49th Missile Defense Battalion of the Alaska National Guard is the unit that protects the entire nation from ballistic missile attacks. It's on permanent active duty, unlike other Guard units.

As governor of Alaska , Palin is briefed on highly classified military issues, homeland security, and counterterrorism. Her exposure to classified material may rival even Biden's and certainly by far exceeds Obama's.

She's also the commander in chief of the Alaska State Defense Force (ASDF), a federally recognized militia incorporated into Homeland Security's counterterrorism plans.

Palin is privy to military and intelligence secrets that are vital to the entire country's defense. Given Alaska 's proximity to Russia, she may have security clearances we don't even know about.

According to the Washington Post, she first met with McCain in February, but nobody ever found out. This is a woman used to keeping secrets.

She can be entrusted with our national security, because she already is.

Obambi on the other hand, wouldn't be able to pass the background check for an entry-level FBI job or certainly for a Secret Services job. His own willful associations of long standing with hateful, racist individuals like Jeremiah Wright (who preached 'Not God bless American, No, No, No, God Damn America!) to Obama and his children, and most importantly with the likes of Bill Ayers, the unrepentant, arrogant, and militantly anti-American political connection where Obama kicked off his own political career, who bombed the US Pentagon, the US Capitol, and NY City Police Headquarters and then claimed in an interview published on 911 that his only regret was that he had not done enough, would preclude him from consideration for those national security jobs. Not to mention his associations with Toni Rezco, Pleger, and others.

(Video flashback: Obama touts experience at nonprofit founded by Ayers)

And, Obama sure as heck wouldn't begin to pass the rigorous background check for Jack Bauer's job.

This guy has no business being President of the United States. I think it's time for the main stream media to start asking The One some questions a little harder than these:

How does it feel to break a glass ceiling?
How does it feel to “win”?
How does your family feel about your “winning” breaking a glass ceiling?
Who will be your VP?
Should you choose Hillary Clinton as VP?
Will you accept public finance?
What issues is your campaign about?
Will you visit Iraq?
Will you debate McCain at a town hall?
What did you think of your competitor’s [Clinton] speech?

Posted by Kimberly at September 15, 2008 | Permalink

May I speak plainly?...If you'll forgive me, he's common!...He's like an animal. He has an animal's habits. There's even something subhuman about him. Thousands of years have passed him right by, and there he is! Stanley Kowalski, survivor of the Stone Age, bearing the raw meat home from the kill in the jungle! And you - you here waiting for him. Maybe he'll strike you or maybe grunt and kiss you, that's if kisses have been discovered yet. His poker night you call it. This party of apes! Blanche, A Streetcar Named Desire

I’m sitting outside of my beehives, watching the girls at work. A couple of foragers from the Italian hive fly around my head to check me out.

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

They whisper in my ear. One diminutive Italian, the size of my pinky fingernail, lands on my sleeve, all sleek and gold and shiny and fat. She and I hang out, enjoying the sunshine.

This beautiful zen moment is shattered by what sounds like a buzz saw coming straight at me.

BUZZ.
BUZZ.
BUZZ. BUZZ.

It’s the sound of an old World War I fighter plane that’s spewing and sputtering black smoke and looking for a dog fight.

BUZZZZZZ.

And I cringe and wait for what I’m sure will be the sting from some unimaginably gigantic killer bee that’s flown up here to New Mexico from Africa looking for easy pickings in the form of first-year beekeepers.

But instead, there’s this baby elephant sized bee BUZZing right at eye level, taking up twice the space the little forager who has just launched herself from my shirt sleeve does. I’m staring into two great big shining eyes on the top of a big lug head. At long, gangly legs hanging down limp beneath a glistening body that makes this specimen the Percheron, no, the Clydesdale of honeybees, and then I realize what this is.

A drone.

“Drones are a biological imperative for a colony of Honey Bees. Drones are the means to keep alive that genetic component of the queen laying the unfertilized egg to share with virgins as they venture into a Drone Congregation Area (DCA).”

For us non-biologists, that’s a boy bee. This is one of the big guys the girls keep around for one thing and one thing only: sex.

As Stanley Kowalski likes to say, “having them colored lights goin'…”

Drones live, as I understand it, a life of relative leisure in the hive, where they hang out in their recliners, drink beer, and are fed and tended by the female worker bees. But with the last few very cold nights we’ve had, bordering on bitter, actually, and the fact that a lot of the flowers are done for pollen, and not to mention that drones are a dime a dozen (easy to raise, that is, when they are needed), this drone is doomed.

Doomed.

I wonder if he knows that yet.

He BUZZes to the front porch of the Italian hive, where he is immediately escorted off by a score of petite lady wrestler bees in yellow and black spandex. The air rips with more BUZZ BUZZ BUZZing, and two more drones are trying to fight their way back into the hive, flexing their muscles beneath their sleek muscle shirts. One succeeds, slipping in covertly. One does not. After a lengthy tussle, he is dumped unceremoniously off of the front porch of the hive.

He looks rather surprised.

I'm feeling real sorry for him and imagine him screaming “Hey, Stell - Laaahhhhh!” But instead there’s just a plaintive … buzz. No chest pounding going on here.

The drones are now pouring out of the hive. I’m not even exactly sure what it is I’m seeing, and I have to consult the bee tomes afterward to make sure I’m guessing right about the drones being evicted.

Which I am.

Guess those old boys are going to miss football season.

Good night, Stanley.

Posted by Kimberly at September 15, 2008 | Permalink

The Misfits. 1961. Roslyn divorces Ray in Reno and then meets widower Guido. He likes her but introduces her to cowboy Gay, and those two fall in love. When she learns that Gay, Guido and Perce are going to turn wild horses ("misfits") into dog food, she protests.

After a day of woodcutting up on the mesa yesterday, and two cords of pinon later, I was so exhausted I could hardly speak in complete sentences.

After a hot bath, we caught this 1961 movie on AMC. I had no idea Marilyn Monroe was really such a talented actress.

Anyway, the horse part at the end is rather hard to take. But the symbolism is compelling. I don't think there were many protections in place for animals in film in 1961?

[Last lines]
Roslyn: Which way is home?
Gay: God bless you girl.
Roslyn: How do you find your way back in the dark?
Gay: Just head for that big star straight on. The highway's under it. It'll take us right home.

Posted by Kimberly at September 14, 2008 | Permalink

This has been a year of firsts. I learned to ride a motorcycle. I caught a wild swarm of bees. And this morning, I helped wrestle a poor pot-bellied pig who was in sore need of a hoof trim and whose owner's back is not exactly up to the task single-handed. I'm not sure you could do this job by yourself, quite frankly.

It was a little unsettling to have 250+ pound pot-bellied pig Otis on his back, and I'm holding his short little front legs with his big bristly head in my lap, like a slat-gray brillo pad, squeezing his bristly shoulders with my thighs, while his owner is holding his hind legs and Jack Bauer is giving a pig pedicure.

The tighter I squeezed poor Otis, the more relaxed that big pig got. So I'm awfully glad I found this video after we brilliantly volunteered to help with something we know absolutely nothing about.

For some reason, despite the wet snout frantically searching in my direction, and a squealing gaping mouth full of irregular little teeth and two thankfully somewhat short tusks, I sat there in the dirt envisioning that cute blonde actress from the sitcom Three's Company and her Thigh Master commercials after she'd become more or less a has-been. (I remembered meeting her at a dinner party once in Santa Fe, something I had actually forgotten ...) Otis wriggled harder and I squeezed him back. But as he turned his head in my direction, making me wonder if pigs bit, and if they bit hard, this time it was more like the thigh squeeze of death that hot Russian spy gave 007 in one of those James Bond flicks.

I was a little afraid as we were counting to three to get ready to set poor screeching Otis free, that he'd spin around and charge me, black bristles, well, bristling like a porcupine, and let me have it, as I was, after all, the big meanie giving him the big squeeze. By the count of 2 and nervous looks all around, I had decided I was leaping to my feet and running like hell in the opposite direction. My cohorts would have to fend for themselves. I was awfully relieved when the pig merely scuttled off, tail wringing in agitation, because I'm not exactly that fast.

And, after a few apples slices from each of the perpetrators who so cruelly tricked him, all was forgiven.

Kudos to Jack Bauer for doing a great trim job.

We are now, apparently, pig wrestlers.

Posted by Kimberly at September 14, 2008 | Permalink

Palin has run Alaska in an inclusive, bipartisan manner while limiting her interventions on social issues.

USA Today--Palin Governed from the Center, Went After "Big Oil". Weeks after taking office as Alaska’s governor in December 2006, Sarah Palin vetoed a bill that sought to ban benefits for the same-sex partners of state workers. It was unconstitutional, she said.

This year, she rebuffed religious conservatives who wanted her to add two abortion restriction measures to a special legislative session on oil and gas policy, even though she supported the bills. Former aide Larry Persily said she didn’t want to risk offending Democrats, whose votes she needed on energy legislation.

Since Republican presidential candidate John McCain picked Palin as his running mate, much attention has been focused on her deeply conservative social views — including her opposition to abortion even in cases of rape and incest and her attendance at a church that promotes the “transformation” of homosexuals through prayer.

But in her 21 months as governor, Palin has taken few steps to advance culturally conservative causes. Instead, after she knocked off an incumbent amid an influence-peddling scandal linked to the oil industry, Palin pursued a populist agenda that toughened ethics rules and raised taxes on oil and gas companies.

Posted by Kimberly at September 12, 2008 | Permalink

Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal. After the past 10 days, it is not remarkable that Mr. McCain has caught up with Mr. Obama. It is amazing that Mr. Obama is still roughly even with Mr. McCain.

There is no denying that Mr. Obama is in a bad place, that he must now be considered the underdog, that he's wearing Loser-Glo. The slide started with the Rick Warren interviews in August, just as America was starting to pay attention. Verdict? McCain: normal. Obama: odd.

Then Mrs. Palin, and the catastrophe of the Democratic and media response to her. Books will be written about this, but because it's so recent, and so known, we're almost not absorbing how huge it was, and is. Here was the central liberal mistake: They used the atom bomb just a few days in. They used it so brutally, and yet so ineptly, in a way so oblivious to the true contours of the field, that the radiation blew back over their own lines. They used it without preliminary diplomatic talks, multilateral meetings or Security Council debate. They just went boom. And it boomeranged.

The atom bomb was personal and sexual perfidy, backwoods knuckle-draggin' ma and pa saying, Tell the neighbors the baby's ours. Then the ritual abuse of the 17-year-old girl. Then the rest of it—bad mother, religious weirdo. (On this latter it must be noted that Mrs. Palin never told a church that the Iraq war was God's will; she asked them to pray that it was God's will. It wasn't the sound of Republican hubris, it was the sound of Christian humility: We can't know the mind of God, we can only pray we are in accord with it.)

All of this was unacceptable to normal Americans. They experienced it as the town gossip spreading rumor and slander before the new neighbor even got to put down her bags. It offended the American sense of fairness. And—it still lives!—gallantry.

Most crucially, the snobbery of it, the meanness of it, reminded the entire country, for the first time in a decade, what it is they don't like about the left. Really, America had forgotten. Mr. Obama's friends reminded them. Unforgettably.

And it wasn't just excitable bloggers or 24-hour cable news shows desperate to fill the maw. The chairwoman of the South Carolina Democratic Party said this week that Mrs. Palin's "primary qualification [for vice president] seems to be that she hasn't had an abortion."

The Democrats were up against Xena the Warrior Princess and came across, in response, as pale-lipped Puritans who actually, at the end of the day, don't really like women all that much. Mrs. Palin radiates the sense that she'd never give up her femininity in her quest for power because her femininity is part of her power. (On the Democratic side, she can be compared in this to Nancy Pelosi.)

A certain normal-versus-sissy template was captured in a deadly email that is making the rounds. It offers two pictures. One is of a young Mrs. Palin in a short skirt, smiling at the camera as she leans against a big ol' motorcycle. The other is of a thin and careful Obama on a bicycle, in a plastic safety helmet, looking like a tony suburban professional trying to lower his carbon footprint. The headline on the email: "This settles it."

Read it all.

Posted by Kimberly at September 12, 2008 | Permalink

Posted by Kimberly at September 11, 2008 | Permalink

Unbelievable.

The crowd he was addressing had no doubt about what he meant. They seem to think it's pretty amusing.

Update: Here's the McCain response:

Suddenly, McCain/Obama battle over lipstick -- Porky's or Palin's. Could Obama be so stupid as to imply that his newest opponent is like a barnyard animal, this candidate they've tried to portray as an inexperienced lightweight from a rural area who seems to increasingly preoccupy Obama's monologues instead of the GOP's top candidate?

Is that smart for the No. 1 on the Democratic ticket to be so distracted by the No. 2 on the GOP side? And where is Biden in this debate?

To be sure, other candidates including McCain himself have used that pig line or similar pig references about their opponent's programs, implying you can't hide what a hog is merely by applying some makeup.

But, to be honest, pig among men is another word for an ugly woman. And none of those past references came so close on the heels of such a widely read, widely viewed and widely heard lipstick line as Palin's and with the two party's national tickets set, one of them with the first female in its party's history.

Coming in a context where everything in public dialogue is perceived as political and the lawyerly Obama always appears to measure his words so carefully, it hardly seemed an accident.

Fight the Smears About Sarah Palin.

Posted by Kimberly at September 9, 2008 | Permalink

As The Organizer goes down in flames.

I haven't been this angry in a long time.

Obama: 'Lipstick on a pig'

Amie Parnes reports from Lebanon, VA:

Obama poked fun of McCain and Palin's new "change" mantra.

"You can put lipstick on a pig," he said as the crowd cheered. "It's still a pig."

"You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change. It's still gonna stink."

"We've had enough of the same old thing."

The crowd apparently took the "lipstick" line as a reference to Palin, who described the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull in a single word: "lipstick."

ABC News. Obama Says McCain Is Offering Fake Change: 'You Can Put Lipstick on a Pig, But It's Still a Pig'

NY Times. Shades of Lipstick Tint a Race

Posted by Kimberly at September 9, 2008 | Permalink

My super glamorous job will have me at the New Mexico State Fair four out of five days this week.

Yesterday, I managed to sneak a peek at the palomino and the paint horses. I enjoy the Western Pleasure shows, but am always kind of regretful from where I sit in the bleachers about the fact that I'm probably not going to be one of those western pleasure cowgirls in a delightfully sparkly outfit. Autumn always makes me kind of wistful ...

I think I'm going to have to wait for the topes in Costa Rica one of these days. I imagine I can have something sparkly then.

I ate a deliciously greasy gyro at lunch and was surprised to find ... Ophelia ... on the midway. Well, a dive show anyway, complete with a State Fair mermaid whose outfit was red (and sparkly). The swimming pool was made of glass, and you should have seen the little kids reaching out to try and touch the eternally youthful mystery of the deep (from Florida, I understand) swimming by with her hair fanning out around her in the blue water.

I was quite surprised to see her there. She perched as pretty as could be, resplendent in her red mermaid costume and bright red lipstick, on the edge of the glass pool while a blonde young man performed a high dive from 90 feet into 9 feet of water.

Funny, when our internet connection was down over the weekend and I was trying to locate a paper dictionary for my daughter, I unearthed my old college Riverside Shakespeare. In DC, at the Eastern Market, there was a woman there who was selling handbags made of old books. One of them was made out of my collected works of Shakespeare from a million years ago. I came this close to buying it.

And maybe I still can ... I think this is her! Wonder if I could get a bag made out of a Grimms' collection of fairy tales? That would be cool.

Tomorrow, I'll try to take a photo of that mermaid.

Posted by Kimberly at September 9, 2008 | Permalink

Oprah: Sarah Palin Can Come on My Show After the Election

I love the Huffington Post. Honestly. I do.

If Oprah's scared of her (probably more scared about what she'll do to her candidate as Sarah's got a higher approval rating than Obama and McCain right now as I wright [update: was that a Freudian slip?]), then in my book that's an excellent recommendation for the next Vice President of the United States.

Posted by Kimberly at September 5, 2008 | Permalink

The closest I've come to seeing a critter this size out in the wild is the herd of elk who live up above our little ranch on the Mesa. (Of course, I see a domesticated critter this size every morning when I go down to the barn to feed my Percheron horse Toby.) One Christmas, when we were up on the mesa getting our Christmas tree, a few elk soared over the barbed wire fence right in front of our eyes and bounded off into the wilderness. It made our spirits all soar, complete with four impossibly long legs and rugged hooves tucked up neatly beneath as we cleared the wire, to see them.

I know some people who visit my neck of the woods from large cities, where people live all piled up on top of each other (and I did my 2+ year stint in the Back Bay of Boston, right there on Beacon Street and decided it wasn't my cup of tea), feel some discomfort, even some fear in the face of the big landscapes that characterize a western state like New Mexico.

I wonder if that's the same kind of feeling that makes people expect the government to take care of them? And do they understand what they are giving up?

Republicans Rediscover Idealism. So I was surprised that instead of eulogizing personal freedom and capitalism, as was done in Denver, Huckabee praised these ideals as the pillars of Republican philosophy. He offered a tangible distinction (rhetorically, at least) between his party and those who derive power from victimhood and dependency.

"I'm not a Republican because I grew up rich," Huckabee said. "I'm a Republican because I didn't want to spend the rest of my life poor, waiting for the government to rescue me." Huckabee went on to quote Abraham Lincoln, who never said: "A government big enough to give you everything you want is strong enough to take everything you have."

This maxim (delivered by Gerald Ford rather than the acutely romantic Honest Abe) would be a brilliant Republican slogan this year, certainly an improvement over "Country First" -- which conjures up, for me, nightmares of a local commissar demanding I dig wells for the common good. Read it all.

Posted by Kimberly at September 5, 2008 | Permalink

Are we looking at the beginning of a new Western Conservatism?

So here's why she matters.

First of all she offers an opportunity for an ailing Republican party to reconnect with ordinary Americans. She's conservative, but her conservatism is not that of the intolerant, uncomprehending white male sort that has so hurt the party in recent years. She is much closer to a model of the lives of ordinary Americans - working mother, plainspoken everywoman juggling home and office - than any Republican leader in memory.

The contrast with Mr Obama is especially powerful. The very fact that Mrs Palin didn't go to elite schools but succeeded nonetheless - the very ordinariness with which she so piquantly jabbed Mr Obama on Wednesday - is what will make her so appealing to Americans. And as a pro-life conservative she debunks in one swoop the enduring myth that all women subscribe to the obligatory nostrums of radical feminism.

But there's more to it than that.

Read it all.

Posted by Kimberly at September 5, 2008 | Permalink

I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.

(Take that, Fairness Doctrine liberals!)

Jack Bauer and I rented mountain bikes and cruised all over DC. What a joy to have been cruising around the Santa Fe Plaza on my bicycle one day, and the next to be pedaling around the Washington Mall. (Although I will take New Mexico weather any day.)

I love Thomas Jefferson. He is my favorite founding father. The Jefferson Memorial is without a doubt the one that speaks the most to me. Founding the United States of America was indeed an inspired experiment in human freedom.

Human consciousness is a great and sublime gift.

Posted by Kimberly at September 5, 2008 | Permalink

I just returned from a few days in Washington DC.

Being in our nation's capitol made me think of what Ronald Reagan said about America being a "shining city on the hill". I had a strong sense of that last night, listening to Sarah Palin speak. Anne from Smells Horsey is right, all Sarah Palin lacks is a horse.

I'd ride with this maverick any day.

Welcome Back, Dad -- by Michael Reagan. Much has been made of the fact that she is a woman. What we saw last night, however, was something much more than a just a woman accomplishing something no Republican woman has ever achieved. What we saw was a red-blooded American with that rare, God-given ability to rally her dispirited fellow Republicans and take up the daunting task of leading them -- and all her fellow Americans -- on a pilgrimage to that shining city on the hill my father envisioned as our nation’s real destination.

In a few words she managed to rip the mask from the faces of her Democratic rivals and reveal them for what they are -- a pair of old-fashioned liberals making promises that cannot be kept without bankrupting the nation and reducing most Americans to the status of mendicants begging for their daily bread at the feet of an all-powerful government.

Most important, by comparing her own stunning record of achievement with his, she showed Barack Obama for the sham that he is, a man without any solid accomplishments beyond conspicuous self-aggrandizement.

Like Ronald Reagan, Sarah Palin is one of us. She knows how most of us live because that’s the way she lives. She shares our homespun values and our beliefs, and she glories in her status as a small-town woman who put her shoulder to the wheel and made life better for her neighbors.

Read it all.

Posted by Kimberly at September 4, 2008 | Permalink

Michelle Malkin: The media has done more for John McCain in the last two days than he’s done for himself in the last year and a half,” [Tom] DeLay said. “Trashing her is waking up the sleeping giant, and the sleeping giant is Republican women.”

Turns out old feminism is really just a bunch of good 'ole girls telling you what to think. A FEMINIST DREAM AT THE GOP.

Video: Megyn Kelly destroys Us Weekly bottom-feeder over Palin story. Click here for audio.

Seems the metrosexual arugula eaters are rattled up too. Stupidity. Some guy named er ... "Reg" (Is that kind of like "Skip" or "Scooter"?) from Pittsburgh is alarmed by Sarah Palin's "penchant" for moosehunting.

Someone said it today, and I'm inclined to agree. Sarah Palin is twice the man Barack Obama is.

Posted by Kimberly at September 4, 2008 | Permalink

Now Sarah Palin is my idea of a woman. Seems the liberal media is terrified of the pioneer woman archetype. But let me tell you, I like this lady. I see myself in her. I suspect a lot of American women, those of the more red-blooded and, shall we say, hands-on and living life variety do.

A New Kind of Political Woman (MAGGIE GALLAGHE, New York Post). But Palin is something completely new. She is still young, still beautiful, still in the middle of all the messy complications that the sexual role of being a woman brings - a Down-syndrome baby, a teen daughter's pregnancy. The downsides are obvious; the potential for delegitmating her candidacy remains intense.

But the potential upside for American women who are tired of pretending to be men, while remaining anxious to contribute all we can, is also intense.

What we need here is a new sexual archetype for female achievement. And in Gov. Palin, I think we have an extraordinary one: pioneer woman.

A pioneer woman is a traditional figure. She stands beside her man, not at war with him. She takes care of her home and her community. If her man is around, maybe she lets him kill the bear. But if he falls, or fails, she picks up the rifle and gets the job done - whatever job needs to be done.

Here's the larger message of the Sarah Palin story:

Life is messy. First things first: Take care of your babies. Do what you have to do, and deep down you never give up on life. You refuse to choose. The unexpected will happen, but that's OK - you can deal with it. You are resilient, optimistic, competent and caring.

How did McCain know? A moose-hunting pioneer woman is the perfect choice to be our first female vice president.

Is Sarah Palin up to being president? Hey, anyone who can raise five children while governing Alaska successfully enough to earn over an 80 percent approval rating - I'm just not worried about.

Gov. Sarah Palin can do whatever she has to do, and she can do whatever needs to be done.

Posted by Kimberly at September 3, 2008 | Permalink