What in the world is going on?

Two headline events loom large in my mind tonight. The first is a picture on the front page of this morning's Fort Worth Star-Telegram, a huge picture, above the fold, crowding out side stories. It shows Rick Santorum praying with about a hundred pastors in a town north of the Metroplex and, yes, they're laying on hands. Santorum claims he doesn't want to be the "pastor of the United States" and yet that seems to be the office he's running for. Is he one bit familiar with the Consitution? You know, that pesky business about separation of church and state? Put aside the fact that I disagree with him on every social issue, from abortion to gay marriage, and that I shudder to think of him as an international representative of this country--well, I disagree with his policies there too. But I can't believe Americans would ever think of electing a man who runs on an openly religious--and bigoted--platform. It scares the you know what out of me. The only laughable thing to come out of his North Texas visit was that someone gave him a cowboy hat--doubt it was a real Stetson--and local columnist and raconteur Bud Kennedy quipped that it probably had the worst crease of any cowboy hat ever. But that badly creased hat won't save us.
The other thing that bothers me is the new book telling all about a woman's affair with JFK when she was a nineteen-year-old, virginal intern at the White House. I am horrified by Kennedy (who is one of my heroes). As the resident medical authority on the TODAY Show said today, he was the president of the United States, forty-five years old, and he took her into a bedroom; she was nineteen, inexperienced, and not in a position to resist power. It was rape. There go the clay feet of one of my heroes, even though we already knew he was an outrageous womanizer.  This was extreme, making you want to say, "Pick on somone one your own size."
But I am bothered about all the hoorah being made over this woman and her book. Sure, she was outed in 2002 or thereabouts and it caused her great pain in her life. I've heard there have been more "outings" but I don't remember ever hearing about it. If she hadn't written this book, which is getting a ton of play in all media, it might have remained a quietly forgotten episode. Now it's a "big thing." How does the author feel about Caroline Kennedy hearing about this?  How does she feel about her own place in history--pretty shabby. Sure, she wanted to tell her side of the story--don't we all after affairs gone awry? But maybe she could have kept a diary. Or, hey, I know a memoir class where she could have told all and it wouldn't have gone beyond the room. Sorry, folks, but I see it as a publicity grab.
The good things out of the day: went to Half Price Books and got $29 for six grocery bags of books. Sorry but I expected more. So Jeannie and I went to Winslow's Wine Cafe and had a good lunch--I spent most of my $29. Easy come, easy go. The good thing? My book shelves are relatively neat.

And tonight was my memoir class--a powerful one in which women shared some heavy stuff. I was both grateful and inspired. Linda came for supper beforehand, as she usually does, and I fixed what I thought was a classic light supper: tomato basil soup, tuna salad, cherry tomatoes, and hearts of palm. Notice the funny color of some of the tomatoes--I didn't like those as well. But notice the new stoneware I bought at a garage sale double bargain.

Touring the Fort Worth suburbs--well, sort of

Actually, our tour ended up being of Tarrant, Johnson, and Hood counties, but my story begins a bit before that. I have what I call a night-time cold. I'm fine in the daytime, well mostly, but at night I'm besieged with the symptoms of a head cold. Add to that the fact that I had lunch arrangments every day this week--and they all cancelled, for one good reason or another. In truth, I cancelled Wednesday and elected not to go to a luncheon because I was still busy at the office. But it's sort of an amazing record. Last night I had a scratchy throat and just generally felt bad--two aspirin, dinner, and a bit of wine helped.
This morning Jeannie and I were scheduled to go to Half Price Books in Burleson (where they pay more than the store in Fort Worth) and then to Babe's Fried Chicken for lunch. I was ready to give it up, settle for lunch at Neiman's, and forget the trip, but Jeannie convinced me that getting out would be good for me. I agreed, but begged not to go to Babe's--I lost slightly over two pounds last week and didn't want to undo that with fried chicken, in spite of the fact that I've been longing to go to Babe's forever. So we went to Half Price Books, but it wasn't quite that easy.
I always assume Jeannie knows where she's going--not so. She said it was right off the freeway, and sure enough it was--we saw it as we sailed by. So we had to go a long distance south, then double back a long way, and circle around. For me it was worth it--$81 for the books I decided I could part with to make room on my shelves.
Then Jeannie wanted to eat at the Purple Turnip in Cleburne, so we set off in that direction, only to be lost again, doing our loop around thing until we finally got on the road to Cleburne. Then there was construction, and traffic was awful. Then Jeannie overshot the road where the restaurant was. We finally got there, had a good lunch (salmon burgers and Caesar salad) and headed home. Only we got lost again, because of the construction, had to do another loop, and finally found the road to 377 that bypasses all the Burleson traffic. I showed Jeannie a way to bypass the Benbook traffic, and we sailed home. It all would have been a lovely adventure in the country (barring the congested surburban areas) except that it was rainy, windy and cold. Still, we had a good time, and I came home a bit richer. We decided, come spring and good weather, we'd do it again and then go sit on my brother's patio and drink wine--he's in that part of the country.
Tonight my cold is back--lots of sneezing and blowing my nose until it's red. And Jacob is here, though fairly subdued. I gave him ten minutes to play with his toys and then it's sleep time, so I must go check on him.