Please Let the Door Hit You in the Ass!

I know, I know, I generally try to keep this a g-rated blog and my political rants are relatively infrequent, but sometimes I just can't resist a good swift kick in the (choose your body part) for certain people who poison the world around us. This. Worst. President. Ever. Has been a terrifying thorn in our nation's heart for eight long, dark years now and it's finally time to shovel the ample execrement he has made of our Constitution out the door of the White House and turn a new, more hopeful --though risky-- page in our history. I say risky, not because I fear Obama (quite the contrary, I was an avid supporter after he beat out John Edwards in the caucuses a year ago), it's because of all of the messes this Shrub, this Constitution shredding, spoiled rich kid leaves behind for others to clean up.

Way back in the 90's, the prescient (now, alas departed) Molly Ivins tried to warn the nation about SHRUB as he prepared to run for the presidency. She correctly predicted, that if given the chance to "govern" (using that term very loosely), he would leave the country in smoldering ruins, just like every business he had attempted to run up to that point in his life ... a failed oil company, a failed baseball team, you name it, he managed to muck up everything he attempted with his reverse Midas touch. Now we've seen the results of the vaunted "CEO Presidency" and the Nation has finally woken up to the disaster the Supreme Court wrought with its meddling in the Florida recount in 2000. When you appoint idiots to run the country, nothing good can come from it! And now, our long national nightmare is over... though when Gerald Ford uttered those words in 1974, I doubt he realized what an understatement it was, given what followed from Nixon's famous "Southern Strategy" that laid the groundwork for the coup of 2000. Having lived through the Nixon years from ages 10-16 and having thoroughly loathed him as evil, in retrospect, Nixon was a veritable bleeding heart liberal! Back in those days, I would have never believed that one day I would look back at Nixon somewhat positively, but that's one of those ironies that history sometimes cruelly makes us realize as we experience more of the world as we get older....

In any case, it will all be over in a matter of hours, and President Obama will assume the burden of power and enter the White House, thus ending what has to be the darkest political period of my adult life. Obama won't be perfect. He'll make mistakes, to be sure. But at his core, Barack Obama has a kind heart and a conscience, something the SHRUB never figured out in all the years of his pampered nepotistic existence. Let's all give Obama the chance he deserves to try to get things back on track! After all, look at the latitude that other one had for eight disastrous years and where that got us....

We'll be celebrating the Inauguration after work today with a few toasts and blessings for Barack and catch up with what we missed during the day (yeah, there's that thing called work), along with our new little bouncing bundle of joy who's going to get lots of treats so she can celebrate the new era with us!

So on to the fun stuff, and enough political rants. I feel better now that the calendar (which seemed so fat and interminable a year ago) only has one more page to tear off....

Here's a fun shot of Hanna I took tonight as Fernymoss had her pose for a treat ... she's quite good at sitting on her hind legs (as well as walking around that way), and doesn't the camera just love her?
I took this second shot last night as I was making dinner (French potage and fresh baguettes) and she was asking permission to enter the kitchen. I can already see that Hanna, just like Rolly and Pepa is going to be haunting the kitchen when I cook, and after all, what doggie can resist the room of good smells? Not to mention, it's where they eat their food and get their water, so it's a natural. In fact, I'd be wondering what was wrong with Hanna if she hadn't so quickly figured that one out!
Hanna's settling in remarkably well so far and when I took her out first thing this morning (it was about 12F) she headed straight for the back door, waited for me to put the leash on and then charged outside and got right down to her business. Once done (oh, maybe in a couple of minutes) she headed right back to the door and inside, where it was warm and cozy, to eat her breakfast. She spent some more quality time with Fernymoss before he went to work, then joined me in my office for the rest of the day as I worked, spending much of the time curled up by my feet under the desk. I think she's already liking it here at Casa IVG and is getting good coaching from Pepa and Rolly on the fine arts of being a good dog. Yeah, there are those little "manners" things we have to teach her, but so far she's so way ahead of most dogs her age. But then, I'm not exactly an objective observer, but what new parent is? So cut me some slack, at least for a little while, as we all enter the post-SHRUB era as a newly reconstituted family!