What happens next: Gardening, guns, gold and gangrene

"I can't get the computer to run," I said. "Is the power out?" I poked my head out the door. The whole block was without electricity. Bother.

Two whole days later, the [gosh-darned] electricity came back on. Is this Baghdad or what?

That was the beginning of my story -- back in 2006. Then more and more things started to go wrong -- and I was totally unprepared.

"For years, they warned us that this was coming -- that wasting our nation's incredible wealth on conspicuous consumption and war toys was a stupid choice; that hundreds of thousands of soldiers and children were already starting to die from exposure to depleted uranium; that global warming was a reality and that, with a 51 trillion dollar deficit, the US economy had already started to tank," I told my grandchildren, "yet I did nothing."

"What could you have done?" Hummm.... What would I have done differently, knowing that civilization as we knew it was about to collapse? "First of all, I would have JOINED A UNION! Then I would have moved heaven and earth to jail George Bush." Failing that, I would have taken a course in first aid.

"I would have learned how to use a BB gun." Hunting squirrels and cats by hand is hard work when you are over 60. "I would have bought as many small gold rings as I could so I could trade them for chickens and beans. I would have started a garden. And I would have gone to the local community college and learned sewing and carpentry."

"What's a community college," my granddaughter asked.

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I have become shocked and amazed lately at how bitter and cynical and mean my e-mails are becoming -- but ever since Bush, Rove, Rumsfeld and Cheney bombed several defenseless countries into rubble, failed to protect my country from 9-11, scalped our treasury and blatantly STOLE two national elections, I've just not been the same. I WANT to be a kind and loving and caring person but the example being set for me by America's "leaders" has precluded that from happening. My apologies.

In defense of my country, I must fight fire with fire. Those people in the White House are NASTY.

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From Ed: Bush has just nominated John Negroponte to be chief of national intelligence. [Who will they nominate next? Osama bin Ladin? Charles Manson?]

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From "Amy Goes to Belfast": What was it like in Belfast during The Troubles? Terrible. Like it will be here if George Bush keeps up his warmongering nonsense. "Now I am safely ensconced in the top back room of a two-up two-down Belfast row house one block off of Falls Road where British troops and Loyalist paramilitaries have pretty much burned and shot and bombed indiscriminately for the past 30 years. What a strange vacation this is turning out to be." Travels with Amy www.travelswithamy.blogspot.com/