Ms. Lulu Goes to the Capitol

The Capitol building in this state is something to see, though the capital itself is nothing special. The Capitol sits high on a bluff overlooking the broad, muddy river. It's a mini version of the U.S. Capitol only much more colorful inside. The windows at the top of the rotunda are intricate stained glass, and multicolored murals decorate the rest. It's very lovely and certainly impressively and appropriately (I guess) solid and imposing.

Legislators' offices were probably a lot cooler back in the days when each rep and senator had a large office with those cool arched doors all to themselves. With population growth, computers, and armies of interns came office readjustments, and some of our elected officials have to squeeze into office 'suites' with several other officials, their staff, their technology, and many crappy desks and fading 80s-era navy/burgundy/forest green plaid sofas. Some of them were even on the interior side of the building, so besides only having enough room to form a narrow, twisted path through desks, there were no windows. Cheery! I couldn't handle that complete lack of privacy coupled with ugly furniture and no windows. At least the cubicle farm at the Hill had, well, cubicle walls and big windows.

I was at the capital's capitol with the only active member of the tourism board for 'Capitol Days for Tourism', the big lobbying event for the tourism industry. Despite being a billion dollar industry, there were only about 60 people there and 3 of them were from Hometown (Go, Us!). We first heard about some of the legislative issues that would have an impact on tourism, which was surprisingly interesting, and then heard that the state tourism budget was getting cut by nearly 4 million (out of about 24 million). Bummer because tourism is the second-largest industry in the state and the only major industry that is a consistent income-generator, paying for itself (and other programs) many times over. So it would make sense to spend more on tourism, or at least not cut the money the state was going to use to advertise in the Chicago area.

Not a huge deal--the tourism industry will survive--and it's to be expected "in these economic times", but it's also, perhaps, a small glimpse at the attitudes of some legislators who view tourism as some sort of frivolous thing instead of as an essential arm of economic development that brings NEW money to the state with minimal effort. This attitude extends to Hometown (and many other Hometowns) where backwards ass city council reps visualize a few red hat ladies shopping for antiques when they hear the word "tourism" and don't see the thousands of other people coming through and dropping money left and right. They don't seem to get that their money is new money and that local people benefit without having to pay a dime. But some people are dumbasses and we all know that. The rest can be educated.

Here's an interesting fact that warms my heart: The Midwest tourism industry tends to do very well in economic downturns because it's cheap to get to the Midwest and it's deemed 'family-oriented'. Even when all those mom-and-dad trips to Vegas get nixed, by god we're not going to give up the family roadtrip.

Anyway, we went to the capital and got briefed and then went to visit our local reps to nag them about the tourism budget. We caught one--our state rep--and the first thing he said to me when he figured out who I was--we've been to some of the same social functions--was "I tried to get you (and your husband) to help sponsor my golf tournament fundraiser and you wouldn't do it."

Sure enough! So just as I'm reaching out to my reps and trying to get in good with them, I find that one of them is harboring a hateful grudge against my little monument company! OK, not really hateful or even a grudge, but definitely the first thought in his mind. Well, he is a single guy, and my companion is an attractive woman nearer his age with blonde hair and big boobs, so maybe his second. I explained that 1. when he came to us, we had just opened and were broke as hell and 2. we decided after his visit to not sponsor anything political (nothing personal, of course). He said, "Well, I'm not a very political guy--I just wanted to get you all out for a steak dinner."

Be that as it may, I think we were smart to put the kibosh on mixing our fledging business with political types, especially when, at the time, we didn't know the guy or his Republican voting record and, for all we knew, he could be one of those anti-stem cell, pro-Intelligent Design, Abramoff-associatin' whack jobs and our precious $50 to get our business name on the flag at hole 12 could have been our contract with the devil himself. But he didn't seem to think so and I found myself saying, "The moment has passed! Why don't you let us take you to lunch the next time you're in Hometown?" as he was whisked away to the Chamber of Secrets for some super-special committee meeting.

I found myself wondering...is his office on the 4th floor with the awesome view of the river...the spacious office he only has to share with one other person (madame secretary)...is that his office because he's been in office so long and gets a cool office, or is that Hometown District's office and whoever is representing that district gets it? Because, if it's the latter, well, that's a pretty cool office and it would be kind of fun, maybe, to go to that Chamber of Secrets and those super-special committee meetings. All I'd have to do to get there is change political affiliations, stage my own death to get rid of all FBI files linking me to my teenage fling with American Atheists and, oh yeah,this blog, and I'm halfway there! I've paid all my taxes! And is that something that I'd really, really want to do someday? A tidbit in this chamber exec newsletter that I get said to ask myself if I'm really doing, or at least on track to doing, what I really want to do. I definitely like what I'm doing right now. And I've thought of running for office many times. Do I really want to run for office one day? I don't know.

Cool offices and personal glory aside, I would have to listen to a WHOLE LOT of bitching and respond politely to letters and calls, and even personal visits (!) from a lot of dumbass constituents. Mmmm, I don't know....

We went to see our state senator. Turns out he was already in a super-special ag committee meeting. They were talking about noodling. What the hell is noodling? It's fishing for catfish without a fishing pole or even a string and a stick. It's reaching into the water with your bare hand, grabbing an innocent catfish mother as she roosts on her eggs, and scooping her up to her--and her brood's--death. This is illegal in this state, and I sleep better because of it.

Why the hell is noodling illegal? Because the only fish a bunch of dumbass constituents can hope to catch with their bare hand is a devoted catfish mom just trying to protect her innocent younguns from the harsh realities of the liquid world. And when you take her, you kill them, and then there won't be anymore slimy catfish to fry on Friday nights, and there are lots of Catholics around here and I witnessed them in the flesh as they strolled around the building with ash smudged on their noggins, and if Catholics ate something besides fried catfish on Friday nights God would be displeased with this state for sure and our beautiful capitol building would slide into the catfishless river.

So you can't noodle. And for good reason!

But you can buy a pole and catch those very same mommy catfish with a pole. That is legal. And, thus, the senators meet in super special ag committee meetings.

Considering that, I'm feeling pretty good about where I am. I'll fill you in on my budding midlife crisis another time, dear reader.

I'd better get you all caught up.

I killed two roosters with an ax because, well, they're roosters and they were crowing at 3 in the morning and we have neighbors, and they bother the hens and the hens are actually useful and really cute. There were little splats of blood on my muck boots and I felt a little like Louise in Thelma in Louise when she found that little speck of blood on her face. It was my first killing on that scale and it really wasn't too bad. When it's practical, it takes the edge off.

The secretary at the Chamber of Secrets has terminal cancer and has been given a 25% shot at making it 2 years. She started chemo this morning. Obviously, this changes things a bit. My chamber job is probably going to go full-time, which doesn't leave enough money for a secretary...unless we do get the tourism money and can apply some of it towards that. How death does intermingle with practical matters.

Kevin quit smoking! But he seems to have largely given up on helping around the house, too. Note that I have a full-time job with its own set of demands and lots of evening meetings yet I still do, oh, 90% of the grocery shopping, at least 98% of the cooking (less if you count toaster waffles in the morning as cooking), 99% of the out-of-kitchen house cleaning, maybe 50% of the kitchen cleaning, and nearly all of the animal care. I help Stevie with his homework, still make all the doctor and dentist appts., AND do all the bills! Now I'm just getting pissed.

We haven't been out. We never go anywhere. Well, I occasionally fly places to work for the Hill (including a January trip to, yikes!, Buffalo). That's about it.

We're broke as hell, as usual. I might get a raise after the dust settles around my jobs. I'm still the only one bringing home a paycheck, but the shop is picking up. I was a couple of HOURS late paying our biggest credit card balance and the APR shot up to 28%. I would rather lose parts of a finger than pay that shite. I asked Kevin to call because he is the primary, and he needs to ask them to bring down the rate or else we really won't be able to pay the minimum. It's been 1 1/2 weeks since I've asked. He hasn't called.

I didn't intend for this post to be a rant against my ordinarily wonderful husband! I have been pretty irritated with this stuff lately, which transfers into much less affection and that's no fun. He needs to step up his game around the house. He's a fricking hero at the shop, but I feel like he treats the house as a place to sleep when he can't be at work. Same old shit.

Don't worry--our love isn't in jeopardy or anything. But when I read those articles that say things like 'even though women work outside the home, too, they're still doing all the house crap as well', I am one of them and it pisses me off. I was one of those budding feminists who saw--and spoke out--against the gross inequity that played itself out at every big family gathering. You know the ones--the women, most of whom worked outside the home, invite everyone, clean, shop, cook, and serve. Everyone eats. Then the women clean up while the men sit on their asses and watch football. It was bullshit then and, even though overall things are much, much better now (oh, how I squirm waiting for certain generations to die off) it still happens. And it's happening to ME! Urgh.

Positive side...I love my family, I love my work (and have work), a home, animals, and some choices in this world. I might rant and rave, but things aren't all bad. I read a really interesting article on slate.com about the movie "The Reader" and how it's part of a disturbing Hollywood trend of forgiving Nazi monsters--in this case because the heroine was gasp! illiterate. I'm reading quite a bit. I have three lovely little ewe lambs and one runty ram. They all have great names. One (Leia) has one bright blue eye like David Bowie.

Mark, after having been given a little bag of animal crackers from a big box of the same, peered into the box and asked, "Do you have any cracker barns?" Stevie asked me just this afternoon what a 'mortgage crisis' is (we were listening to NPR) and listened, with interest (ha!) to the answer. I even managed to avoid the terms "fat cat bankers" and "stupid greedy asshole Wall Street types". So that's good!

Enough for now, dear reader.