Hymn for Year's End

Hello all.

I don't have a proper post for you all tonight. I just wanted to wish everyone a safe and happy New Year's Eve. Ring it in safely! I'll make a note to post tomorrow morning. And for anyone who lives outside the US, who has already rung in 2008: I hope you had a fabulous evening.

In the meantime, I'd like to share the lyrics of a song that I love during this season. It calls for bells ringing out for Christmas, but I like it for New Year's Eve, too. (Plus, I like the liturgical calendar that celebrates Christmas through January 6 or 7. Why stop the festivities on the 26th?) It's called "The Closing of the Year" and was written for the movie Toys, back in 1992. (I loved that movie, btw.) I've always loved it and its desire to bring hope in times of coldness. Apparently Sarah Brightman and Placido Domingo like it, too because they performed it last year at some Christmas concert.

Since I haven't figured out how to embed video so you can just click and play, here's a link to the original movie video on youtube. Enjoy!

If I cannot bring you comfort
Then at least I bring you hope
For nothing is more precious
Than the time we have and so
We all must learn from small misfortune
Count the blessings that are real
Let the bells ring out for Christmas
At the closing of the year
Let the bells ring out for Christmas
At the closing of the year.

If I cannot bring you comfort
Then at least I bring you hope.

Now all the winter bells are ringing
Hear them echo through the snow
And the children's voices singing
on the streets so far below

This is a time to be together
And the truth is somewhere here
Within our love of people
At the closing of the year.

Sad and confounded

Benazir Bhutto is dead.

That was not the breaking news headline that greeted me at 8:30 this morning. Instead it was "Suicide Bomber kills 2o at Bhutto rally ... more details to come." It was only as I was pulling into the parking lot of my office that I heard the announcer on our local NPR station say that the blast also took Bhutto. I felt a welling sadness sink into my stomach and my eyes began to wet.

I liked Benazir Bhutto and I'm not really sure why. Like most Americans, I don't keep up with Pakistani politics, other than knowing they get into nuclear pissing contests with India every few years. I know that Bhutto was controversial and probably marginally better than other Pakistani leaders, at best, if that. I don't know if her human rights record was any better than anyone else's. Nonetheless, she seemed to be modern and unashamed. She seemed to be exactly the kind of female the Muslim world needs in a leadership position. (Hell, in a visible position at all.) My God: she didn't marry until she was 34! And she really only did it because she knew her political career needed it. Maybe she was otherwise happy being single. She did not demure, publicly, once she was a wife. Her marital status did not subject her to being a submissive piece of property. Hell no! And though she wore a veil when in office, she made it look good, girlfriend! How I WISH the Muslim world produced more women like her! Now that she's gone, what Muslim women carry the banner of Strong, Public and visible at all? Queens Noor and Rania are the only ones I can think of. Bhutto was a kind of hero in my book. ... of course, it doesn't hurt that she at least gave the impression of being pro-American during my lifetime.

And now she's dead.

Another bloody idiot with a bomb strapped to his chest sent her, and 20 innocent human beings, to their deaths! I am so angry and sick and tired of these self-hating, self-righteous morons who feel that other people should have to suffer - AND DIE - for their own pain. Your life sucks. I get it. So if you're not going to get help, kill your own self. Don't barge into a classroom and knock out a couple dozen students before you spray your own brains; don't go park-and-pop next to a group of job applicants trying to feed their families after a botched to hell invasion; ; don't barge into church or a mosque and take out some worshippers and the clergy because your wife hates you or whatever; don't brood-and-boom on a public bus because the ruling class in your country is treating you like shit; don't hijack a plane and crash it into heavily populated buildings because the owner of the building is an imperial prick. The adage of "if you're not part of the solution you're part of the problem" is not only true, it should have an extra line for suicide bombers: "you make the problem worse for everybody - and 1,000 times worse for everybody you think you're helping."

Of course, I can't help thinking Musharraf might be behind this. He may have been helpful to us post-9/11, but seriously, this is dude who took over his country in a military coup. I can never tell what to make of him. Sometimes I want to like him, and others ... not so much. Especially in the last year or so. I don't envy his position. But I don't take him off the hook for this one. ... Pervez, you'd better not be behind this one. Jon Stewart gave you a Twinkie, for God's sake!

What a difference a week makes

This time last week, I was strapped to a hospital bed, with an IV drip in my arm. I also had a morphine button to juice me up when I needed. And I was totally loopy from anethesia. Now, my scar is itchy, but the pain is diminishing in noticeable increments.

My mom is coming up to visit this coming week. I'm looking for it. She's going to help us out while I recover from my surgery. By the time she gets here, I'll feel even better than I do, now, but her assistance will still be appreciated immensely. Honey will be working a LOT, and I can't decorate the house with these stitches, so Mom will have her work cut out for her.

Operation recovery has been harder than I thought. The doc said to take one to two weeks off of work. I'm playing it by ear, right now, hoping to return to work by Wednesday. But I find that I'm still pooped. It took me forever to wake up this morning, and it's been a week! My scar is healing up okay, but if I'm up and about too much, I just get malaised and tire quickly. I just made the mistake of checking my office email. There's an irritated customer there. I don't know if my body needs that kind of stress right now. (Yeah, that's the ticket!) But frankly, as I'm paid by the day, I really don't have the luxury of waiting till I'm fully recovered. Eh. I'll probably be okay enough by mid-next week, at least to do half-days.

In the meantime, I am going to count my blessings, like my grandmother told me I should:

1) Everything was caught in time.
2) Everything so far feels like it's healing up alright.
3) I'm catching up on Netflix and TiVo.
4) I'm blogging more.
5) My cousin just had a baby.
6) My dog no longer smells like the dead bird she excitedly nosed around in in our backyard.
7) I'm getting some reading done.
8) I'm take a legitimate breather after a year of hectic activity.
9) Showering is optional, since I'm not going anywhere. (Woohoo!)
10) I'm getting lots of my Christmas cards done.
11) I have discovered how utterly fantastic my friends are.

There are many more, but it's about lunchtime and I'd like to cruise the fridge.