Tell me what democracy looks like?

We’re supposed to get more “Wintery Mix” on Thursday., according to the weather service it should start about lunch time and run through the afternoon. The schools will be closed by noon on Wednesday.

I was talking to a guy at the dog park and he said he hoped that the sky falls on us. He said he was tired of pretend winter. He said if he is going to have winter he really wanted real winter. Lot’s of snow, ice the whole thing. I think if he wants “real” winter he should move to Wisconsin. Here we suffer hurricanes for the privilege of not having to scrape our windshields.

While I was spending most of Saturday on the bus, I learned something. When we are surrounded by people we don’t know,. We don’t care what they hear. I learned all about one of the woman’s adopted daughter. It seems she was nine when they adopted her and she had all ready been through the wringer, the garbage disposal and a whole season of Lifetime movies of the week. She was damaged. So damaged that she spent a year in an inpatient program. She came out and was fine for a while but started to run away by the time she was 12. By the time she was 16 she was gone more than she was there and the woman and her husband told her if she ran away again she needed to stay away permanently, the girl slammed the door hard when she left. A few months later she showed up again pregnant. They told her she could stay until she had the baby and then she had to get it together, if she got it together she and the baby could stay. She didn’t and she had to go. The baby stayed. Now, three babies later she wants her parents to take her 5 year old for the weekends, because she “can’t deal with her”. Her Mother told her if the child comes to live with them, she is staying with them. They adopted baby one and they play for keeps when it comes to the grandkids. The woman said they have a total of three calm months since she came into their lives.

Another woman told her seat mate and the rest of us about the affair her teenage son had with his twenty-something youth group leader. The girls boyfriend was not amused and the church ostracized them, that led to the family being given the cold shoulder by the whole town! Small town living must be like living on a train set.

Both of these women just went on and on and on in full voice in front of Gawd and everybody about things that I wouldn’t have felt comfortable whispering in private - I also learned that many women of a certain age feel comfortable sharing what euphemisms they use instead of saying “vagina” and why were we discussing vagina? I don’t know! There are things you just don’t want to know about people you just met. I don’t even know these women’s names and I know about their “hoo-has”. Gawd. But I guess if you say these things in front of strangers, people you are never going to see again, it’s almost like you never said them at all and yet you still got to say them out loud. It’s almost like confessing sill things to your dog but having the dog able to laugh with you about it. What does your dog call her vagina? You know? You’ll never know, but you can find out with some stranger that she calls hers a “woo-woo”.

What else did I learn? there are different kinds of peaceniks. Our bus was separate into the “Religious” and “Secular “ sections Religious in the front, secular in the rear - Moderate Babtists, you don’t count! . Quakers pray before meals and are anti-war. On the subway on the way back to the bus, I saw one protester of a certain age sidle up to another protester of a certain age and deliver the saddest pick up line ever : ”Are you against all war or do you believe in just war?” . Lord.