Yes, We have No Delusions; We Have No Delusions Today.

I was thinking about my dad today. Come to think of it, I've been thinking about him more than usual lately. Yeah, I miss him. I miss the snarky rejoinders, off-color jokes, and excruciatingly bad puns. There has been a dearth of lively riposte in my life of late. I can't lay all that blame on Dad; Ziggy owns a fair chunk with his poorly planned departure. But that's all in the past, and I'm here without their constant commentary.

What I was thinking about was how much I am not enjoying this election. I'm at a point where I don't wanna watch the news. I've stopped listening to the usual array of pundits. I can't even sit through REAL TIME with BILL MAHER these days. It's all so annoying. I've taken to reading books about stuff that has no relation to anything. 

c.1924

I'm reading The Romanov Empress (by C.W. Gortner) about Princess Dagmar of Denmark who became Tsarina Maria Feodorovna when she married Sasha, aka Alexander III. It's a novel, in the first person, but a very interesting take on a woman who stood at the center of the collapse of monarchical Europe. Her sister was married to Edward VII of the UK, her brother was king of Denmark. Her father was referred to as "The Father-in-Law of Europe." Anyway, she was also the mother of Nicholas II, the last Tsar. In other words, she lived through the worst any mother could experience, from losing babies to burying adult children, to hearing about the murder of her other children. She was her own Greek tragedy. But she was also an interesting tough old bird. 

I am fascinated by women in government, whether they are born into it, married into it, or elected into it. Women who are powerful have to work ten times harder than a man to get from point A to point B, never mind point Z. Histories written by men tend to dismiss or denigrate powerful women, and this tsarina is no different. You have to wade through a whole lotta opinionated men to get to the center of Maria Feodorovna's steel spine. For good or for bad, she went to bat for the people of Russia, pushing her father-in-law's original idea of a constitution and a participatory Duma. Didn't do her much good; she was an outlier and no one was interested in her opinions on state. Nursing and war relief? Sure. 

Women have been having the same discussions with their husbands about power since someone thought up the idea of a headman. Mrs. Headman probably didn't sit around combing mammoth hair into thread. In fact, I would venture to guess Mrs. Headman was a very active participant in the running of the village because unless the women were of a mind to cooperate, not much got done. I am certain that Henry II was at odds with Eleanor of Aquitaine because she told him in no uncertain terms to naff off. And I am equally certain that all those history king movies where the women sit placidly on the dais are totally bullshit. 

Which is why I don't understand why having a vagina precludes you from being elected to the highest office in this land. 

There is something so fundamentally wrong with American society when a woman who is supposed to be brilliant is part of a group that calls its women handmaids, and instructs them to be subservient to their husbands. People will point to Victorian England as a time when women were subservient and subdued...but hey, folks, Victoria had a rather productive uterus and she was Empress. Excuse me...men were falling over themselves taking direction from her. Queen Elizabeth doesn't seem to be suffering fools with any regularity, either. 

Ergo, the docile subservient woman is a myth promulgated by men who can't deal with women in general. (Which really makes me wonder about Melania.) Men who want that myth are not men; they are cowards. They are abusers. They are weak and fragile. They can't control stuff, so they blame strong women. Did you catch our Feckless Leader begging suburban white women to like him at a rally in Johnstown, Pennsylvania?

Suburban women, will you please like me? Please. Please.

 Listening to Kamala Harris at the VP debate was an enlightening experience for me. 

Her modulated toddler-teacher tone when saying, "Mr. Vice President, I'm speaking. Okay?" was so wonderfully maternal in the delivery of that line, that I figured the look on his face must be the one he gives Mother when she corrects him. He has no balls and Harris knew it. That line was so take no prisoners in the gentlest, most unassuming way of all.

When Kamala Harris has to use her patient toddler voice to silence Mike Pence, is it because she really thinks he's a child...or because she knows he is  afraid of the power of the vagina? Long have I believed that men like Pence and his moronic master are abusers of women not because women are weak, but because women can do one thing they cannot: 

give birth.

If these so-called Christian soldiers are supposed to be superior beings, partnering with their God as masculine heads of household all because they have a penis, why do they have to control women? Seriously, if they're so good at being masterminds, why is it necessary to belittle and humiliate women? Well, maybe it's not actually about the dingle. Maybe it's because once the dingle has done its thing, they're done. Women grow the babies. Women feed the babies. And ultimately women teach the babies. The man's role is ZERO in the extended game plan.

Stop to think about it for a moment. Wouldn't that be the perfect reason to oppose reproductive rights? That gives the vagina owner the ability to control life and non-life. In the end, that's just too scary for the weakling sex...and I don't mean women.

Feckless Leader grabs 'em by the pussy. Little Boy Pence calls his wife "Mother." Amy Coney Barrett's husband calls her his "handmaid." 

I cannot speak for other women out there, but I find it all rather creepy. 

And the really creepy part? Almost half this country thinks all of that is okay. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

14 days left until the election.

If you haven't cast your ballot already,

please do so as soon as you can.

Remember, only you can prevent 

forest fires. 

And sorry....I cannot help myself