I do agree with Stella. These are the saddest election choices that I can ever remember. When my friends and I speak of this election; first there is the sad shaking of heads, then a wish for a “redo”. Incredible as it may be, we seem to be about to get a president that will make us yearn for the days of our current one.

I do believe that Michelle Obama is out of tune with society, but then so is our current administration and those before them and those before them and so on and so on. Michelle Obama seems to open her mouth to change feet, yet she keeps on going on. Her husband is running for president; someone needs to ger her in line and have her think before she speaks. Does this make me a fan of Hillary’s? No. This election is the worse one in my memory without a viable candidate for whom to vote.

This election scares me to death! How a country like ours ended up with these three vying for president is beyond me. If a man like Colin Powell or Colin Powell himself ran, a man who has transcended race, gender and politics, I would have been out working for him to get him elected. I may still write him in just to register my protest with this race. We need someone to clean up the mess we’re in. None of the three can get beyond their own egos to do this. For the first time since I’ve been old enough to vote….and I’ve been old enough since Kennedy…..I may not because the choices aren’t choices at all. If Obama and Clinton ran together, perhaps the Democrats would have a good ticket, but that would never happen. They could not stop bickering long enough to decide which would be president! War Mongerer McCain will win this election for all the wrong reasons.

I agree with JMK Singer: Thanks for sharing.

Ah Miss Marcie, could we be sisters? I was “advised” to take secretarial courses even though I had gone to an advanced junior high (three years in two) and was always placed in advanced classes. Add get married and raise a family “and support your parents” and you’ve got it. So, did I become what I dreamed? Far beyond my imagination in many ways, but never realizing what I now know to be my potential in others. At 66 with profound hearing loss, it’s difficult to pursue that dream so sometimes I take a step sideways and pursue others. It’s still a wonderful life with gifts far beyond my dreams. (Unless of course I could wiggle my nose and turn into Diane Sawyer :) )

Oh, I wish I could be as calm as PR, but I know that I would be so hurt. After a really sleepless night where I ran the range from “confront to let it pass (right, I can see that) to poison his coffee”, I would definitely talk. Part of me, admittedly, would be afraid of the answers, but I would ask the questions.

We live in a suburb or Baltimore, MD. A small town when we moved here that has been growing, but slowly. We have a Main Street with many unique and lovely shops. We’re watching while that little bit of Americana disappears. The little shops that were here for so many years, can no longer afford to remain and have, one by one, been closing.

When I was very young, I remember sitting on the front porch thinking that my grandmother was on the very cloud that I could see from my chair and, if I looked up quickly enough, would see her watching over me. I was so comforted by that, it’s still something I’d like to believe……………….sixty years later. During a serious illness, sixteen years ago, four years after my own mother passed away, we all, my daughters, myself, my son and I, felt the presence of my mother. My daughters would ask each other, how they will tell Grandma; they would plan on taking turns picking her up to bring her to see me before the inevitable shock of speaking of her in the present would kick in. It was strange, all of us with this very real sense of her presence at a time when she was needed. The extraordinary thing as well was that she wasn’t a nurturing mother. Not the June Cleaver of my youth; yet this is what she would do if she was worried. she would summon the children to drive her, to take her wherever it was she had to go. Telling her about the incident would be difficult since I was held in an unrealistic light and my illness would be viewed as catastrophic; especially a life-threatening illness. It would be my mother who would have to be comforted. At one other time I felt this same presence: when my first granddaughter was born. If one believes in reincarnation (and I “kind of” do) then the feeling my daughter, my granddaughter’s mother, and I had was that my mother reincarnated as our litle Rebecca. So, who knows? Who really knows? And, if it gives comfort to believe that we’re where those who need us can find us, who does it harm?

This is a ‘women’s’ site, but that doesn’t mean that only women are on it. The question should have included gender to see if things have changed all that much. PS Caroline, my husband also says that……with his mouth, but I’m not so sure about his mind :)

Like Liz, I take my health and energy for granted. Like Joey on “Friends” when he turned 30 (oy vey, 30!, I’d take 50); when he looked up at said “God, I thought we had a deal, maybe other people, but not me.” It surprises me when those twinges of age show up. When my mind thinks I can still do it and body says: “who’re you kidding?”

I absolutely agree! The male has been given a ‘pass’ on fidelity. We have a friend who, with such an incredulous look on his face, told my husband that he (my husband) is the only married guy he knows that doesn’t cheat! He wasn’t sure if that made me the greatest thing since Eve or made my husband some sort of weird anamoly. I’m in the middle of reading “The Senator’s Wife” by Sue Miller where she so poignantly describes the feelings of the betrayed wife…….such pain, such sorrow, such loss. And, of course, such limited choices are then left to a wife so betrayed. How sad that we must plan ahead for “human foibles”…..are to be as Harry in “When Harry Met Sally” and he’s on his rant about labeling ashtrays and vases?

I agree that the presidency seems to be a popularity contest where the most charismatic, television adaptable will win. This then is the crux of my comment: how does it feel to be running for president, relative to any of the candidates, when no one likes any of them? The people I talk to about this election are either not going to vote (…”for the first time since I was overseas in the army when I voted with an absentee ballot..”) or are writing in Colin Powell’s name; …..”a man too good to be president”. How sad, that the two people in our current times that would have gotten my vote: Colin Powell today, and Mario Cuomo when he abruptly dropped out of the race, are too good to be president. Something inherently wrong here.

During our holiday of Yom Kippur, we’re supposed to fast. Taking away my food is the worst thing one can do to me! Do I fast for personal reward? No! I fast because I can’t let my husband be better than me :) Guilt will do it every time…….and so it goes.