I'm Still Here

Here are a few bits and pieces of my mind while we've been busy getting our dream house ready to sell so we can buy our really, really dream house (no snide comments accepted; we have already made them all at ourselves):

On my mind: The other day I saw a woman turned away from the dermatologist's office because she didn't have the proper voucher or something. She certainly didn't have health insurance as we luckier-than-thou types do. It was humiliating for the woman, uncomfortable for the receptionist who could only follow her employers' rules, and embarrassing for those of us in the waiting room who could not escape the woman's tearful and then angry response. Tax me. Tax me, take the burden off those employers who give a @&$ about their employees, put the burden on all of us and together let's fix this horrible system of haves and have-nots. Man, I hope she didn't have melanoma.

A challenge: An awesome replacement for the word "awesome."
I tend to continue to use the word awesome, but only in an ironic context, such as saying that it was awesome the way Bushy's eyes flicked around the room, looking for someone (Uncle Dick? Carl? Dad?), anyone to jump in and take the blame for the pathetically inept and bureaucratically hamstrung hurricane disaster relief effort before he could get to the part in his prepared "whoops" speech where he had to say a qualified "I take responsibility." That was awesome.
Oops, sorry, I keep going off on political tangents today, and I'm trying to avoid this becoming a political blog. That is so done. Besides, my family will shun me as a black, black, bleeding-heart sheep more than they already do.
Turning around now, marching back to the beginning of the conversation:
Although I try to limit my use of the word "awesome" to certain delicious ironies, Drew continues to use it in its more middle-school usage, as in, "You bought a boat today? That's awesome!" Of course there's nothing wrong with that. If you're in middle school. From a 44-year-old, it tends to match his surf t-shirts, both of which scream "Boy, did I love the 70's!"
In order to try to save him the embarrassment of telling adults who are not fire fighters (who still pretty much live in a constant middle school anyway) that something is sincerely awesome, I am enlisting the help of friends and family out there: what is a fresh, new way to say "awesome," "neat-o," "far out," and/or "sw-eet!"?

I welcome any sincere, and/or ironic, suggestions.

And Finally:
I thought you would like to know that the Vancouver library has three (3) copies of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Past Life Regression. True story.