How Grandchildren Perceive Their Grandparents

.
OK, which is your favorite?

1. She was in the bathroom, putting on her makeup, under the watchful eyes of her young granddaughter, as she'd done many times before. After she applied her lipstick and started to leave, the little one said, "But Grandma, you forgot to kiss the toilet paper good-bye!" I will probably never put lipstick on again without thinking about kissing the toilet paper good-bye.

2. My young grandson called the other day to wish me Happy Birthday. He asked me how old I was, and I told him, "80". My grandson was quiet for a moment, and then he asked, "Did you start at 1?"

3. After putting her grandchildren to bed, a grandmother changed into old slacks and a droopy blouse and proceeded to wash her hair. As she heard the children getting more and more rambunctious, her patience grew thin. Finally, she threw a towel around her head and stormed into their room, putting them back to bed with stern warnings. As she left the room, she heard the three-year-old say with a trembling voice,
"Who was THAT?"

4. A grandmother was telling her little granddaughter what her own childhood was like. "We used to skate outside on a pond. I had a swing made from a tire; it hung from a tree in our front yard. We rode our pony. We picked wild raspberries in the woods."
The little girl was wide-eyed, taking all this in. At last she said, "I sure wish I'd gotten to know you sooner!"

5. My grandson was visiting one day when he asked, "Grandma, do you know how you and God are alike?" I mentally polished my halo and replied, "No, how are we alike?'' "You're both old," he replied.

6. A little girl was diligently pounding away on her grandfather's word processor. She told him she was writing a story.
"What's it about?", he asked.
"I don't know", she replied. "I can't read."

7. I didn't know if my granddaughter had learned her colors yet, so I decided to test her. I would point out something and ask what color it was. She would tell me and was always correct. It was fun for me, so I continued. At last, she headed for the door, saying, "Grandma, I think you should try to figure out some of these colors yourself!"

8. When my grandson Billy and I entered our vacation cabin, we kept the lights off until we were inside to avoid attracting pesky insects. Still, a few fireflies followed us in. Noticing them before I did, Billy whispered, "It's no use Grandpa. Now the mosquitoes are coming after us with flashlights."

9. When my grandson asked me how old I was, I teasingly replied, "I'm not sure."
"Look in your underwear, Grandpa", he advised .. . . "Mine says I'm 4 to 6."

10. A second grader came home from school and said to her grandmother, "Grandma, guess what? We learned how to make babies today." The grandmother, more than a little surprised, tried to keep her cool. "That's interesting." she said . . . "How do you make babies?"
"It's simple", replied the girl. "You just change 'y' to 'i' and add 'es'."

11. Children's Logic: "Give me a sentence about a public servant", said a teacher. The small boy wrote: "The fireman came down the ladder, pregnant." The teacher took the lad aside to correct him. "Don't you know what pregnant means?", she asked.
"Sure", replied the young boy confidently. 'It means carrying a child."

12. A grandfather was delivering his grandchildren to their home one day when a fire truck zoomed past. Sitting in the front seat of the fire truck was a Dalmatian dog. The children started discussing the dog's duties.
"They use him to keep crowds back", said one child.
"No", said another. "He's just for good luck."
A third child brought the argument to a close. "You're both wrong . . . They use the dogs", she said firmly, "to find the fire hydrants."

13. A 6-year-old was asked where his grandma lived. "Oh," he said, "she lives at the airport, and when we want her, we just go get her. Then, when we're done having her visit, we take her back to the airport."

14. Grandpa is the smartest man on earth! He teaches me good things, but I don't get to see him enough to get as smart as him!

15. My Grandparents are funny. When they bend over, you hear gas leaks and they blame their dog.

2013 is Waning. 2014 is Nearly Upon Us

The year is nearly gone. What did you do with it? What are your plans for next year?

This is my 11th year of retirement. I worked hard for 45 years and appreciate being able to live out my life in relative comfort.

In 2013 I spent significant hours in the classroom at the Center for Learning in Retirement (CLIR), with family, online, lobbying on behalf of our planet’s health, watching the SF Giants’ games, and seeing movies. It’s not unusual for me to check email, then go to Facebook and Twitter to see what’s happened overnight.

In 2014 I plan to concentrate on lobbying for the protection of Social Security and Medicare. I hope you will join me in urging our President and Congress to

a) raise, or eliminate, the cap on contributions to our Social Security fund, and
b) revolutionize the way Medicare pays for healthcare services. We need to lower the percentage of our GDP that is spent on healthcare significantly.

How would you accomplish it?

How to Pay Off All Student Loans

.

Let's buy out all student loans and refinance them at about 1%. We could borrow,the money from the fed at the current rate of 0% and still make some money, and the students could pay off,their debt in a reasonable period of time

Equal Pay for Equal Work

.
When I started fighting for the ERA in 1972 women were paid $.69 per hour for every $1.00 men were paid. Geez in 40 years we've pulled it up to $.77 ($.08 per hour). So at that rate how long would it take us to achieve equal pay? Check my figures but it looks like about 159 years. Women, can you wait?
.

Individual vs Communitarian Thinking

. We currently have a difference of opinion about individual vs communitarian thinking in our country. It is a legitimate difference and one that deserves discussion at a time when individual thinking led us to the current condition of our economy. It stems from short-term vs long-term planning. Our economy has morphed into one where making money on money is its primary focus (short-term planning). It ensures that individuals may be able to gain wealth but ignores the infrastructure that those individuals use to do so while arguing they should not contribute equally to the maintenance of that infrastructure. I posit that a healthier scenario would be to rebuild the broader economy, including manufacturing and service industries other than financial (long-term planning); one where all people contribute equally to, and benefit equally from, that infrastructure. And that infrastructure would include not just roads, bridges, a strong military, modern power grids, etc, but also healthcare for all, strong public education, affordable child care, and other programs that encourage and ensure that we have a strong middle class; one that spends and creates its own jobs. What do you think? .

Equal Rights for America's Women!

America's women are fed up. It's time to demand equal rights. We've been screwed long enough & it's long past time we fought back.

I urge you to lobby your Congressmember & Senators to introduce and/or sponsor the ERA of 2012. All it has to say is:

Equality of rights under the law shall not be abridged or denied on account of gender.

If you agree with me share this with everyone you know.

It's time this law was enforced, full stop!

.

The thought of men, who are ostensibly not sexually active, dictating what sexual practices women may employ is offensive enough, but their pontification from high horses that employers must not be required to provide equal access to healthcare benefiting women (read contraception), while remaining stonily silent as those same employers provide healthcare policies that include coverage for Viagra and Cialis, is fairly dripping with irony. Depaul, America’s largest Catholic university has been complying with this law for ten years without a peep, as are many other such institutions in 28 states.

This is an issue of labor law, not religion. If a religious institution decides they don’t want to provide workers compensation, or comply with minimum wage, or child labor laws should we say, Let’s find a compromise? I think not. The administration must stand firm on behalf of America's women.

It’s time religious institutions respected the separation of church and state. It's time to enforce the healthcare law, full stop.