My blood ran a little cold when I realized that I was going to have to be the "technical expert" for my group for half an hour to 45 minutes.
We had just sat through a presentation that I know was in English. It even contained words that I had heard before, but somehow when strung together, rapid fire, it made about as much sense as if I were trying to decipher the chant of an auctioneer.
I am so out of my depth on this board. The problem is that I know a lot of this stuff, but since I've never had a job where I had to deal with complicated databases, with a larger corporation that needed to communicate electronically, or with anything wider than my own little net on Funny the World, it was just hard to wrap my brain around the concepts, much less understand the tools to implement them, or the process by which they were to be identified.
It may also have been that I wasn't on top of my game. I had forgotten about the meeting, but remembered at some point during the day. I hadn't studied up on all the tools that the Davis Community Network offers to non-profit groups so that I could sound like I knew what I was talking about in working with my little 3-person group (me being one of the people).
And then there was the sad news that Walt's mother is back in the hospital again, and Walt's indecision about when he was going to go back to Santa Barbara. His brother is there now. Words like "may not make it this time" had been spoken, though she is adamant that she is going to be there for Jeri's wedding.
Then there is my mother, whose pain is no better, no matter how much they up the medication and the frustration of knowing I can't do anything to help her.
And I had no car. Walt went off to the symphony. Someone had offered to come and get me, but I had forgotten to bring something to drink and the room was hot and there was no water available, which made it difficult to concentrate on anything other than how thirsty I was, especially when I didn't really understand what was being said anyway.
But I was going to try to make my way through my "helping" the nonprofit to which I had been assigned. Fortunately, their database needs are pretty simple and along the way they said the magic word: "blog." They wanted to know what was the point of adding a blog to their web site. I easily slide into my own personal milieu and we filled out the rest of the time talking blogs and their various options with respect to adding a blog to their web site.
I figured we'd be leaving right after the meeting, but there was a post-meeting meeting of the "experts," and I continued to try to figure out more of what I needed to know.
And when we finally left, there was extended chit chat between my ride and someone else. I was able to contribute a bit, and knew what I was talking about, but the longer the chat went on, the more every molecule in my body just needed to sit down now. I'm much better at walking than I am at standing. If the lengthy conversation had gone on another 10 minutes, I would have walked to the nearby picnic table to sit down, but I didn't want to admit publicly that I couldn't concentrate on anything because I was having such a hard time standing up straight (the 10 lb shoulder bag doesn't help either!)
The day had started nicely, at the writing group. We met at Joan's, because she is sitll recovering from her recent heart attack. We spent a lot more time discussing than actually reading.
Joan had written something incredibly powerful about the fact that Dennis Kucinich had read articles of impeachment of George Bush in Congress (how many headlines did you see about that? Any at all?). We talked a lot about how angry it made us that Congress was tied up for months bringing impeachment charges against Bill Clinton for lying to Congress about an issue that should have concerned only three people. According to another little document you haven't heard much about, the just-released Senate Intelligence Committee's 200 page Phase II report,
"More than five years after the initial invasion of Iraq, the Senate Intelligence Committee has finally gone on the record: the Bush administration misused, and in some cases disregarded, intelligence which led the nation into war. The two final sections of a long-delayed and much anticipated "Phase II" report on the Bush administration's use of prewar intelligence, released on Thursday morning, accuse senior White House officials of repeatedly misrepresenting the threat posed by Iraq."
Nobody died when Monica did her little consensual under-the-desk dance. More than 4,000 Americans have now died in Iraq. More and more people are coming out with proof that the President lied to the American people to take us to war. Yet it is only Kucinich who seems to have the gumption to call him on it...and it doesn't even make the evening news.
From the London Times on line:
President Bush has admitted to The Times that his gun-slinging rhetoric made the world believe that he was a “guy really anxious for war” in Iraq. He said that his aim now was to leave his successor a legacy of international diplomacy for tackling Iran.
In an exclusive interview, he expressed regret at the bitter divisions over the war and said that he was troubled about how his country had been misunderstood. “I think that in retrospect I could have used a different tone, a different rhetoric.”
Phrases such as “bring them on” or “dead or alive”, he said, “indicated to people that I was, you know, not a man of peace”. He said that he found it very painful “to put youngsters in harm’s way”. He added: “I try to meet with as many of the families as I can. And I have an obligation to comfort and console as best as I possibly can. I also have an obligation to make sure that those lives were not lost in vain.”
Unfortunately those are English words that I understand. Too little, too late, Buckaroo.
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