Day 1

Hello.

If you've found yourself here, it's because I've posted this on Facebook and you were either bored, curious or just plain crazy enough to follow the link.  Good for you. (I think)

Why start a blog?  Why start a blog now?

Well, you can blame my mother. (Yes, Mom, you.)  I posted something on Facebook a day or two after the 2012 election.  I call it my "Rodney King screed" wherein I pleaded with my Republican and my Democratic friends to try to calm down and moderate their tones and words.  Of course, neither side did anything of the sort, but my brilliant writing style and biting wit won my mom's heart (as if she didn't already love everything I do), and she told me that she thought I should write more.  I put my head in my hands and groaned.

A momentary diversion:  As many of you know, I'm a legal assistant at a small law firm in suburban Minneapolis.  What you don't know is that I'm also my boss' ghost writer, for everything from memos of law, to client reports to snotty letters. My hands and brain are at the disposal of my boss, who loves them to pieces and uses them every single day.  So, the thought of writing some MORE was, well... you can imagine why the head fell into the hands and the groan ensued.

Nevertheless, the idea wouldn't let me go.  It kept dancing around the edges, flirting with me, teasing me with the possibilities.  I could become RICH, I could become FAMOUS... I could... yeah, right.   Not.  Like all flirts, it promised more than it probably will ever deliver.

I wasn't taking all of the flirt's promises seriously.  But at my age, to have anything flirt with me is a miracle, so I began to think about it some more.  I began to think about wanting a bigger and better forum to spew my nonsense.  I began thinking it might be fun to create something, rather than play Castleville all night every night after I get supper fixed and Ben to bed.  (Hello, my name is Kathy, and I'm a Castleville-oholic)  I think I finally realized I had to do something different when I started dreaming about doing nothing but crafting gold bars.  (Those of you who are fellow Castleville-oholics can quit laughing now.  It will happen to you).

So, this is part "okay, Mom, you win," part "Castleville rehab," and part "yeah, it's about time I used the talent for something other than figuring out why the shingles on a mansard roof are falling off.."  This is either going to be a fabulous success, a horrific failure, or somewhere in the middle.  My bet is on door number 3.

Which brings me to why I named this blog "In the middle of things."  I'm known for being in the middle of things politically -- my liberal friends think I'm conservative, and my conservative friends think I'm liberal.  I'm moderate in my choice of religions.  Episcopalianism is the epitome of moderation.  I'm moderate in my habits -- except for eating.  I only drink with my pals and even then, I'm more than likely to be nursing a brew than pounding them down.  Don't smoke, but I am not a big fan of hounding other people who choose to smoke off the face of the earth.

I'm also in the middle of my life -- okay, just beyond the middle of my life, if you believe the life expectancy tables, which I don't.  (Hey, both my grandmothers lived to be in their mid-90s... it is possible).

So, this will be an avenue to explore the things that I care about -- family, friends, the state of our nation and the world, politics, arts, science, and even the art of moderation itself.  I won't always be moderate -- I don't have a moderate temper -- but I will try to be more than moderately entertaining.  I won't be more than moderately poetic, so don't worry too much about that.  I may be more than moderately snarky at times, and I do apologize for that right now.

I may need some help in decorating the joint, so if you have some ideas, feel free to share.  Just nothing too wild....

That's it for now.  Tomorrow night I will try to tackle something moderately (okay, okay, I'll quit now!) more interesting.  Thanks for reading, and let's see how this goes...