Apropos of Nothing

This morning on NPR they played an ad for a program that will be talking about how the first wave of Baby Boomers is reaching retirement age and how it is affecting the community. I know, doesn't that sound riveting? Anyway, the ad referred to people over the age of 65 as "elderly" and so I was inspired to send my mother a teasing text message that said something to the effect of, "Haha, only thirteen more years until you're officially elderly!" (because I'm such a kind, loving daughter). But then I realized that in only thirteen more years I will officially be middle-aged! That made the whole text message idea suddenly lose its appeal and I didn't send it after all. Because thirteen years ago I was in middle school, and most of the time that does NOT feel like a very long time ago at all. So to think that thirteen years from now I'll be almost forty is pretty damn horrifying.

Also, today I made a small donation to a dog rescue and as a result my dog now has a "Basset Hounds for Obama" pin on its way to my mailbox. For all I know my hound may be a McCain supporter, but until he learns how to speak and expresses a definite preference--which is highly unlikely to happen in the next eight weeks--he'll be sporting an Obama pin on his harness. And that's about all the political talk you'll get from me, I think, except to say that I'm pretty much the epitome of the swing voter (socially I'm extremely liberal, but I'm fiscally fairly conservative and not a fan of big government). And if the McCain campaign thought they were going to capture the American swing voter's vote by putting Sarah Palin on the ticket, I think they were mistaken. Not that I can generalize my own opinion to thousands of other people, of course, particularly since I don't have children and supposedly her great appeal is to working mothers (really?), but...
I do have tons and tons of snarky things to say about the effectiveness of abstinence-only education, but I'm also going to refrain from going on and on about that except to say, hey, CLEARLY that was effective in Governor Palin's family! How many times do you think Bristol Palin's boyfriend has thought, "Wow, I definitely knocked up the wrong girl at the really, REALLY wrong time"? Poor kids. Accidentally impregnating someone when you're Joe Blow out in the sticks has got to be bad enough. Having to deal with it on national television? Wow.

Off to read for hours and hours so that I can relax a bit this weekend.