I watch my son watch a basketball game. He’s sitting in the student section. The kids are all yelling and doing the cheers along with the cheerleaders. All but a few. My son is among the few that are standing but not clapping or yelling. Does he think he’s too cool?

Or… is he afraid? Is he embarrassed to yell and clap? Does he think he will look stupid? Does he want to? And is he afraid? Or does he not want to?

I wish I could reach down and pull out a good measure of confidence from within myself and inject it into him. I remember at that age I lacked confidence. I was so self-conscious. I missed out on so many things because I was afraid. What would you do if you weren’t afraid? Today, although I still feel the fear, I’ve learned to push past it and do what I think I should do, or what I want to do. But I didn’t manage to do that until my 30s.

Does he want to? Do you want to? Then do it.

Yes, it has been a while since I posted. Between being busy and being sick, I haven't had time to get anything on the site. I have been writing in a notebook, but I didn't have time to get poet it here. Finally, I had a few minutes and I decided I'd better get something written here.

Here is a poem I wrote while sitting at a basketball game and thinking about life. And realizing that I needed to post!

Pen to paper.
Life flies by
Work and play
Games and obligations
Time drags on
And flies by
It's the same everyday
Yet everything changes

In the United States, with the inauguration of a new president, great expectations abound. I don’t ever remember such a big deal being made out of inauguration day. Yes, Barak Obama is the first black president the United States has ever had, but if we have truly progressed in the area of civil rights, this would seem to me to be an ordinary progression of things rather than an extraordinary event. Quite frankly, I am more surprised that the people elected a man with such a Muslim-sounding name to the office. When I first heard that a senator from Illinois names Obama was running for president, I thought, Obama? Osama? That guy might as well quit now. Little did I know.

However, now that Barak Obama is president of the United States, expectations are high. We are involved in a war that we can’t quite seem to end and the economy is in the toilet. Personally, I wouldn’t want to be in charge at a time like this. I can’t imagine why anyone would. But in charge he is, and President Obama seems to have the support of the American people. I truly hope he digs right in and turns things around, although I have absolutely no idea how he will do that, or if it can even be done.

Have you noticed how people turn on politicians when things get difficult? I wonder, will they turn on their golden boy, Obama? Or will they continue to support him, no matter what. Don’t misunderstand me. I wish him the best of success. I voted for the man. I believe he was the best choice. But when things become difficult, which they will because they already are, I don’t know if he support will erode or stay strong.

After all of the campaigning and celebrating on hoopla, it is now time to get to work. Good luck, Mr. President.

I have mentioned that I’m working on Live Healthy, Iowa. Well, yesterday I…blew it? Slipped? I don’t know what you want to call it. When I was at work, someone brought in cookies and I tried one. Not really a big deal, I thought. It was also someone’s birthday, and on a whim I ate a piece of cake.

OH MY GOD!!!! It was like I had stumbled upon something incredible. Okay, it wasn’t so much the cake as the frosting. It was butter cream frosting and tasted just like the stuff bakeries around here put on their cakes. It takes like sugar that melts in your mouth. I ate a good-sized piece of cake. Then I ate a smaller piece. Despite the fact that my tummy hurt a little bit, I could easily have sat and ate that stuff until it was all gone. I thought about asking for the recipe, particularly for the frosting, but I will not. I could see myself putting the stuff in a ziplock bag, cutting a corner, and laying back and drizzling the stuff into my mouth, stomach ache be damned.

As you can tell, I rediscovered my major weakness last night. I even decided to wait until after supper and have a third piece before I went home. I really was going to, but by the time I was finished the craving wasn’t nearly so bad. I asked myself, why should I eat one more piece? All that I could come up with was that I wanted it. Somehow, that just didn’t seem to be a good enough reason at that point. I did not eat any more.

This is where I must say that I truly have an addiction. This is also the reason they tell you if you are addicted to anything, DON’T TOUCH IT AT ALL! It is difficult to control the urge to keep having it. I guess in that respect I didn’t do so badly. After all, I did eventually quit, and I have no plans to go looking for more. I’m probably lucky. It would be easy to sink into a sugar induced haze and to hell with everything else. I didn’t do that. Nor do I intend to.

I found this very interesting story on the Internet:


Wed Jan 14, 3:21 pm ET

LIMA (Reuters) – Peru's top court has ruled that workers cannot be fired for being drunk on the job, a decision that was criticized by the government on Wednesday for setting a dangerous precedent.

The Constitutional Tribunal ordered that Pablo Cayo be given his job back as a janitor for the municipality of Chorrillos, which fired him for being intoxicated at work.

The firing was excessive because even though Cayo was drunk, he did not offend or hurt anybody, Fernando Calle, one of the justices, said on Wednesday.

Calle said the court would not revise its decision, despite complaints from the government.

"It's not a good idea to relax rules at workplaces," said Labor Minister Jorge Villasante.

Celso Becerra, the administrative chief of Chorrillos, a suburb of Lima, denounced the ruling.

"We've fired four workers for showing up drunk, and two of them were drivers," he said. "How can we allow a drunk to work who might run somebody over?"

Lest you think this cannot happen in the United States of America, think again. An incident happened in western Iowa. A woman who helps care for mentally disabled people came to work drunk. She was not fired because being alcoholic is considered a disability, and you cannot fire someone for being disabled, so conditions were placed upon her in an attempt to treat her addiction. But then she was charged with neglect (since she was drunk when she was supposed to be caring for her charges) and was subsequently fired.

In light of this second story, perhaps we should rethink this:

Drunk worker starts fire in museum

*

Mon Jan 12, 12:42 pm ET

MOSCOW (Reuters) – A drunk electrician started a fire at a world-famous Moscow art museum after he fell asleep while smoking a cigarette, a police source told RIA news agency Sunday.

The blaze at Moscow's Tretyakov Gallery started in an engineering building next to the main gallery Saturday and damaged technical equipment but not any of the museum's valuable art works.

A police source told RIA that a 49-year-old workman had caused the fire, but a spokeswoman for the Moscow museum said it was too early to say what started the blaze.

"According to preliminary reports, the man fell asleep with a lit cigarette when he was drunk," RIA quoted the source as saying.

"He is now in a hospital intensive care unit and it is not yet possible to take a testimony on the accident."

The gallery houses some of the best-known Russian art, from 9th century Orthodox icons to 19th century impressionism and portraits of famous Russian writers.

One of its most famous paintings, by the 19th century painter Ilya Repin, depicts a tortured Ivan the Terrible after he killed his son in a violent rage.