call it a blog report
so i get a call from c.i. this afternoon. 'are you blogging tonight?' to which i reply 'are you my parent?' c.i. laughs and says 'i forgot something in the mid-day entry and was wondering if you wanted to grab it if you had space.' i always have space.
what's up for the third estate sunday review? well there will be another 'five books, five minutes' because the readers are really enjoying those. it's a way to highlight 5 books and often a jumping off point for us to discuss a current event or a belief we hold or any other topic in the world. of course, there will be an editorial. what else will be in it?
oh come on, you all know you only have 1 question and that's will there be a tv review from ava and c.i.? yes, there will be. and i know what on. but both would kill me if i told. so instead i'll tell you that i've spoken to both today and yes, they still don't think their recent tv review make room for bully is funny. of course it's funny. the e-mails show people think it's funny. ava and c.i. are too tough on their own work. when jim, dona, ty, jess, kat, betty, mike and myself were all reading it, we were laughing. it's funny.
my personal favorite review that they've written would probably be either the 1 on what i like about you or the 1 on jake in progress. no, wait. it's the 1 they did on smallville. i'll stick with the last 1 as my favorite. they're all funny.
so what else is going on? i'm trying to remember. i was all set to do this and then i got off on a tangent about what my favorite tv review by ava and c.i. was and forgot everything.
well let's just make this a blog report because i got an e-mail from elaine that i agree with whole heartedly. so this will be our blog report.
c.i. forgot to mention what was coming up at third estate but look at that entry and everything in it and you'll understand why, it's long.
is mike not doing an incredible job at blogging? i love his site and i mean what is this, his 3rd week. i love his emphasis on recruiting and on answering questions. he makes me laugh.
now let's run over to betty's site. she's doing a 2 parter and has the 1st part up already. it's a fourth of july with friedman. let me give you a sample because it's hilarious as always:
We had a "roof picnic" Monday. It was a nightmare. Nicky K and Mrs. Kristof were there as well as this woman named Patti Limerick Nelson.
There was Thomas Friedman the not so great man up on our roof wearing a "Kiss the Chef" apron. Did I mention it was over his shorty robe?
I kept begging him to put on some clothes but he insisted on wearing the shorty robe because he wanted an "all body tan" to go with his highlights. He's had more done. Mrs. K again asked if he was getting more gray hairs and Thomas Friedman again pouted.
While he was pouting and on the ledge of the roof insisting that since no one understood him, appreciated him, valued him or even wanted him for their partner in charades (his fault, he can't keep his mouth shut even when he's acting out the clues) he might as well jump, Nicky K, probably because of the heat, launched into a version of Van Halen's "Jump."
the thought of thomas friedman in a shorty robe is both disgusting and hilarious! i love it whenever betty manages to work in the shorty robe.
and let's note kat's brave entry 'i had an abortion.'
and the wonderful ruth has another wonderful post and i'd say it even if she didn't include some yiddish just for me! it's an interesting look at the bombing of london via a trip to the pediatrician with her granddaughter tracey and her infant grandson. here's a slice:
While a few small children played, all the adults were listening to the radio broadcast.
A twenty-three year-old woman named Christy had a son who will be two in October. She whispered to Tracey and I that she had voted for the Bully Boy in November and it was because she believed that we needed to "stay the course" and that invading Iraq had made the world safer. Now, as she hears Donald Rumsfeld saying that we may be occupying Iraq for twelve more years, as the body count continues to mount and as London is bombed, she feels she made a huge mistake in her vote.
She told us she'd been feeling that way since March. What we call Operation Happy Talk no longer works on her. The news of the elections gave her hope and she wanted to believe the statements that the elections would result in peace and stability but that didn't end up being the case. She said when people were speaking of purple fingers she felt some doubts but silenced them. When the violence continued after the elections, she stopped silencing the doubts. Now when she hears people talk up Iraq, she just feels sick to her stomach.
and i want to note common ills community party member, british pru with her remarks on the bombings:
But as I looked around yesterday, I saw grief that was mature and reasoned. There was no need to question, "Why us?" It's perfectly obvious why us. We have engaged with and supported the policies of the United States not limited to the invasion and occupation of Iraq. This has been done despite the large objection coming from the people of our country and despite the fact that the objection has only grown as we have been confronted with the reality that there is no "win" in Iraq, not for us, not for the States.
"Why us" does not trip off our tongues because the answer is obvious and frightening.
Equally obvious has been the answer which is that we must pull out of the illegal occupation. Thursday's events make that quite clear and, all around me, that was the sentiment most often shared.
Prime Minister Tony Blair did not shirk the way the Bully Boy did. He was present and accounted for. However, what he had to offer were empty words that, while more eloquent than anything that tumbles out of the Bully Boy's smirking mouth, said very little. Terrorist attacks. Check. Empty words supposed to warm us. Check. The reasons for the attack? Silence.
All around I heard people asking the hard questions and supplying the tough answers that the Prime Minister refused to address. We've grown to expect that from him and there is a sense among some that what is in the best interest of England is not the primary concern of our current Prime Minister.
as for folding star, i don't know what to tell you. i'm reading the e-mails. c.i.'s getting them too. we weren't told ahead of time, any of the community bloggers, that it was happening. i don't know what to tell you. the only 1 who has heard from folding star is c.i. maybe folding star will start blogging again, maybe it's the end of a winding road.
bette davis said aging wasn't for sissies. if she were alive today, she might say that about blogging. but having received attack e-mails repeatedly, i do understand how you can want to give up. folding star made that decision. i haven't. i've kept on. and we actually had a conversation about this, c.i., mike, betty, jim, dona, ty, jess and myself. what does this mean? how do we address it? we've all gotten some questions on it.
here are the questions you've been asking me in e-mails.
why?
what do you think about it?
will folding star blog again?
is this a prank, stunt or drama?
why did fs stop blogging? it's in the only post that's left at the site.
what do i think about it? every 1 has their own opinion. i think, considering that i pushed a winding road over and over here, for me to find out about it by visiting the site was pretty lame.
no head's up and nothing after the entries were deleted.
is it a prank? a stunt? drama? i don't know. if it is any of 3, it should have been executed better.
i will say that if you're having problems with e-mails, you talk about it to others. you can't keep it inside. laugh about it with other people and it seems a lot less important. if you are doubting yourself as a blogger, figure out why. do you need to improve? if you think you do, work at that.
but maybe folding star never wanted to blog? there weren't a lot of posts in june or may. so when a critical e-mail comes in maybe folding star saw it as a way to end a hobby?
i'm being pretty frank here and i'll hear about it from c.i. and possibly others.
if i decided to stop blogging next week, i wouldn't delete what i'd already written. and it's really silly to have deleted everything because folding star still has entries up at the third estate sunday review. those aren't being deleted. they aren't going anywhere.
i would e-mail people like sherry and wally who have been strong supporters of my site and let them know. if i was upset, i might do it after i posted an announcement but they would get a personal e-mail from me because they have been here through good posts and bad posts.
and you better believe that i would call up jim, c.i., kat, betty, ruth and mike to say 'i'm bagging it guys.' they have helped me. (jim would pass it on to dona, ty, jess and ava.) they have plugged my site. when i have been down or confused or hurt, they have been there for me. when things have gone really good, they've shared my joy.
c.i. has gotten e-mails but only because c.i. has e-mailed folding star. folding star didn't even tell c.i. about shutting down a winding road. i was the 1 who told c.i. on monday morning. i was painting my toe nails because i was wearing sandals to the cookout and i was surfing around online while i did thinking i'd find something to blog on before i left. so i am going from site to site and then i land on a winding road and think 'what?'
i call c.i. who had a house full of guests and i could hear most of them over the phone and have to repeat what i'm saying due to the noise. even after i do, c.i. asks, 'rebecca, what did you say?' only this time out of disbelief not because it was hard to hear.
i really thought c.i. would have known. i get off the phone with c.i. and call kat and she doesn't know anything about it. i call jess's mother because i knew he was going there and jess is there but knows nothing about it.
during the phone call mid-week, while we were all discussing how to answer the questions, c.i. said, 'let me see if i can get permission for an answer' because c.i. didn't want any 1 speculating.
i don't know why it happened.
if you make chocolate chip cookies and i'm telling every 1 'oh you have to taste folding star's chocolate chip cookies' over and over and it turns out that there are no cookies being brought to the party and, in fact, folding star has decided not to attend, then i look like an idiot.
so i don't think it was handled well. i'm not supposed to say that. i'll hear about it from others (not just c.i.) but that's how i feel.
