Election Day

At long last, Election Day has arrived.  The build-up to this day has seemed to go on for an eternity.  I have never been very politically active but acknowledge the importance of voting and trying to understand the candidates' positions, measures and issues on the ballot.  Also, as a woman I am very aware that it is doubly important to cast my vote.  A great many women before me had to go to great lengths and much suffering to secure the right to vote.  I feel duty bound to honor their perserverence and ultimate victory.

This evening, after work, my husband and I will go to our polling place and vote.  I want to say thank you to the journalists whose entries I read regularly for their combined political information, opinions and input in general.  I believe you know who you are and I've read your entries and ensuing comments with great interest over the past months.  Your collective passion is inspiring.  Your knowledge and grasp of the myriad of problems existing in our country, our world, is impressive.  Your opinions of same have served as a guideline of sorts for me.  Do I agree with all that you say?  Not necessarily but you've all provided much intelligent food for thought and I am sated for now.

This is the first time in my voting life that a presidential election has coincided with my own access to the almighty internet on a personal computer in the privacy of my own home.  I also want to thank you all for your caring, time spent, your insight and your fervor for a better, more knowledgeable take on the issues concerning our country and the world which affect us all.

Never before have I been privy to such an articulate outpouring of opinion concerning our political challenges.  I've made my choices and I'm ready to vote.  May the best man win.  I believe we're all agreed on who that should be.  Time will soon tell.

Halloween - in retrospect

 It all started with the wings.  Have you ever seen something you simply had to have?  Something you were drawn and kept returning to until you finally gave in and bought it?

A few weeks before Halloween, I came across a pair of fairy wings for sale in the costume department of one of the stores I frequent.  They were beautiful and I was enchanted.  I picked them up and put them back down again.  The next time I returned to the store they were still there and I did the same thing.  This went on for several more visits until I succumbed.  Now that I was the proud owner of these lovely fairy wings, what was I going to do with them?

My work has a Halloween party for the residents and the staff is always invited (read strongly encouraged) to dress up.  I'm not one who's big on masquerading and usually find myself sitting on the fence as to whether I will or won't dress up.   Then, something almost always comes over me and I find myself trying to come up with something at the eleventh hour the night before.  Now that I had this great prop, I decided to bypass the valley of indecision and actually prepare a costume for the day.

I put on a long blue, lacy dress, blue socks and sandals, a blonde wig with a silver cap and donned my new silvery blue wings. I added a silver and blue necklace, heavily made-up eyes with blue eyeshadow and liner and applied silver glitter gel to my face, neck and upper chest. A star-tipped silver fairy wand completed the outfit.  To my mind's eye, I was trying to be "The Blue Fairy" from Walt Disney's "Pinocchio".  I had to pull all this together very early in the morning before I left for work.  

My husband took one look at me, proclaimed me beautiful and said, "you know who you should go as, don't you?"  I, being the fish who always bites, answered innocently, "no, who?"  He wrote down on a piece of paper what he thought I should bill myself as and it was this:

          The Lady of Rising Hopes; The Fairy Princess Viagra

Oh my!  We shared a good laugh over this before I left for work.  I stuck to the "Blue Fairy" persona among the residents but I shared my husband's take on my get-up with my administrator and the office staff and much appreciative laughter was shared all around.  The old folks got a big charge seeing me dressed as I was and a few had no idea who I was--what fun.

My daughter and son-in-law invited me to join them for my granddaughter's trick-or-treating adventure.  She was dressed up as the cutest, most sparkling "Cupid" you could possibly imagine.  To me, she looked like a beautiful Valentine but what the hey.  I decided to don my costume once more and go with them.  It was refreshing to step back and experience Halloween through the eyes of a four and a half year old and feel all the enthusiasm that ensued.  I wanted to share this Halloween with my daughter's little family and get a new, not so negative perspective on this holiday which, as a child, I once adored.  I think I got just that.

This morning, I went outside and as I looked up and down the street, I was so pleased to see no traces of broken eggs or smashed pumpkins.  I really hate to see anyone's carved masterpiece reduced to a pulverized orange mess in the middle of the street.  All in all, I enjoyed this Halloween more than I have in many a year. 

 

A Halloween Saturday Six

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1. What is the most clever Halloween costume someone you know has worn (that you wish you'd have come up with yourself)?

When my daughter was around ten, she put together a costume that featured her head being served up on a plate as the main dish.  She had it all--table, tablecloth, placemat, utensils, napkin.  I believe she even made construction paper "lettuce" to surround her head as garnish.  It was somewhat awkward to trick or treat in but she managed.  I thought it was very creative and clever.  Sixteen years later, I still use those adjectives to describe my daughter.

  2. You're invited to a Halloween party that begins in one hour.  You have to make a costume only from what is already in your house.  So how would you dress up?

I'd grab a plastic laundry basket and cut a hole in the bottom big enough to fit around my waist.  I'd then put in an assortment of clean clothes around myself in the basket and add a box or bottle of laundry detergent and/or an empty bottle of bleach, box of fabric softener, etc.  For an added touch, I'd drape a provocative article of clothing over the side.  Voila!  I'm a basket of dirty laundry.

I've got to give credit to my husband for this idea.  Many years ago, he had to scramble and pull together a costume just before leaving for work.  This is what he came up with and he returned home that evening with a bottle of wine he'd won as a prize.

3. What is the amount of the last check you wrote?

$30

4. How many keys are on your keyring, and are there any that you've forgotten that you even had?

I have four keys on my keyring; all accounted for and none forgotten.

5. Who was the last musical performer you saw live in concert, and was it worth the admission price?

The last musical performer I saw was Ray Charles.  The ticket price was definitely worth the show and evening.  We went with several other couples, rented a limosine and made quite a night of it.

6. READER'S CHOICE QUESTION #29 from DaBabysBack:  What is your favorite day of the week and why?

My favorite day of the week is Monday.  This is one of my days off from work.  My son goes to school, my husband goes to work and I do as much or as little as I like depending upon how I feel.

A Bicycle Story

As it so often happens, my husband and I discovered the fun of going on scenic bike rides with my brother and sister-in-law a bit late in the year.  This past Sunday was only the second time we got together for a ride this year and due to the early arrival of the rain, I doubt we'll get another opportunity until next year.

The experience of going on a long, leisurely bike ride with my brother has brought me full circle in my recreational biking.  I learned how to ride a bike embarrassingly late in life and it was my brother who took on the job of teaching me.  He is the oldest of my siblings, 11 years older than I, and I have always adored him.  You couldn't ask for a kinder big brother.  I was given a second-hand bike on my 10th birthday and why it took me so long to get and learn how to ride one, I can't tell you.  I wasn't known for my exceptional skills of coordination and perhaps that had something to do with it.

He taught me how to ride in the classic method; holding the bike and running alongside as I pedaled furiously.  When I turned to ask him how I was doing, it was only to find he'd let go of the bike some some back and, of course, I immediately fell off.  And so it went until I could start off, ride and stop on my own.  I recall that for some strange reason, whenever I stopped I would slide off the seat rather hard and hit the front of the bike between the handlebars.  For the longest time, I had an ongoing bruise in various stages of color in the area of my pubic bone.  Ouch!

In the short period between my birthday in the middle of August and the start of school in the beginning of September, I learned to ride well enough that I became over confident and, ultimately, too cocky.  One evening after an early dinner, I rode over to a nearby development with lots of lovely smooth roads and nice hills.  I got myself to the top of one and readied myself for the glorious descent.  Oh, I descended all right--right into the curb at the bottom of the hill after being tossed over the handlebars.

I remember gathering myself up and sitting on the curb for a while.  I knew I'd hurt myself because I could feel that stickiness that you just know without looking is blood.  Eventually I looked at my bike; it was totaled and as sad a looking sight as I'm sure I was.  The handlebars were twisted and the frame was bent; the bike was unridable.  I walked the sorry thing back to the house and I still remember distinctly the "pinging" sound of the broken spokes hitting against the wheel.  I got as far as the end of our driveway and just stood there, bleeding, until my mother found me eventually.  I was unable to provide an answer to her query about what happened to me.  I couldn't remember a thing past leaving the house after dinner.  My mother who had once been an R.N. hustled me into the bathroom to clean me up and put things to right once again.  These procedures were carried out very proficiently and almost always involved a bottle of iodine.  Mother was a great believer in the stuff.  I would begin to scream and carry on at the mere sight of the bottle but she persevered despite my protests.

I ended up with a deep, nasty cut under my chin which my mother pulled together with adhesive tape.  To this day, I have a small scar there as a reminder.  My forehead and cheeks were bruised and cut and these were cleaned up and bandaged as well.  I still couldn't tell her what happened so she put me to bed in my room with a fan blowing cool air and it wasn't until I woke up a few hours later that I was able to tell her I must've hit a big rock while going downhill.  She diagnosed my short lapse of memory as a minor concussion and seeing that I was none the worse for wear, the episode was over.  The true fact of the matter, however, was that I didn't hit a rock in the road at all.  When my briefly- interrupted memory returned, I remembered that I had been putting the tip of my shoes in- between the spokes of the front wheel while zooming downhill because I discovered it made a "neat" sound.  I never told my mother or anyone else in my family that this is what I'd been doing.  My penance was having to endure the misery and total embarrassment of starting 5th grade in a new school with new teachers with my head wrapped up looking like something out of "The Mummy"!  Served me right!!

There I was with no bike to ride.  My brother took pity on me and bought me a beautiful, brand new bicycle.  He told me that none of us kids had ever had a new bike and he wanted to change that.  It was new, purple and sparkled in the sun.  I loved it and wasso proud and pleased with it.

There we were, this past Sunday, and I found myself turning around to look back every once in a while to make sure my brother was safe and doing fine.  Of course he was, but it struck me as a bit of a role reversal and I rather liked that.

This is a picture of my current bicyle, a Bianchi Avenue.  Sweet! 

 

 

 

The Saturday Six...on a Saturday. Gasp!

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1. Think back to your years of Trick or Treating:  Which one of your past Halloween costumes are you most proud of?

I think it was when I was in second grade, 7 years old, my mother made me a fantastic devil costume.  It was perfect, from the horns on the hood on the top of my head to the long red tail which finished with a point.  One of my older sisters agreed to take me trick-or-treating that year and either volunteered or was mildly coerced into wearing a devil costume as well.  She was 14 years old and wore a costume identical to mine.  I remember a lot of people getting a kick out of the big and little sister "devils" and being asked into houses to have our picture taken.  This, of course, was back in the days when entering a stranger's house in your own neighborhood wasn't possibly taking your life in your hands.  Ah, those were the days.

2. What is the format of your favorite radio station?  (In other words, what type of music does it play?)

I listen to the KRSH, an adult alternative station which offers a mixture of blues, folk, Americana, world music and rock.

3. What is the oldest thing in your medicine cabinet?

Whoops!  A container of Tinactin for athlete's foot which expired Sept. 1994.  Hmmm...I guess I need to check my medicine cabinet just a little more frequently.  Truth of the matter is, there's not much in there.

4. What kind of book do you most prefer:  hardback, paperback, audio or library?

My favorite kind of book is a hardback.  However, books are so expensive today that I generally buy used paperbacks.  If it's a book that's very special to me, I look for (and usually find) a used hardback version in good condition.  And God bless the library; a most wonderful resource.  Thank you, Ben Franklin!

5. What is your favorite comfort food and when was the last time you felt bad enough that you needed a big helping of it?

My favorite comfort food is macaroni and cheese (didn't we have a question similar to this some time ago?).  I don't resort to food, comfort or not, when I feel bad but if I did, I would've had a big, heaping plateful this past week.

6. READER'S CHOICE QUESTION #28 from Tara:  
Dust off your high school yearbook.  What was your Senior quote and/or what were you voted ''Most...'' or ''Most Likely To....''?

We didn't do these "fun" things in my senior yearbook.  I will share that my senior picture was so terrible that to this day, it makes me cringe to look at it.  It was one of those pictures that one writes all over when signing a friend's yearbook in a feeble attempt to obliterate it.  Yes, it was that bad.

Assignment Time!

"Assignment:  What gone, but not forgotten, TV series do you miss the most?

Extra Credit:  If you had to be on a game show or reality show, which one would it be?"

Every morning when I went into Room 36 around the same time each day to tend to that resident's needs, the strangest program was always on the television.  I could never stay in the apartment long enough to make any sense of it; it was like nothing I'd ever seen before.

Many years later, a mutual friend of my husband's and mine who lived with us for a while introduced me to a TV show.  It was Northern Exposure and I instantly recognized it as the curious program I'd seen before in fleeting bits and pieces.

This is the show I miss the most but I wouldn't want to see it resurrected or worse yet, redone.  It played itself out and ended with a grand finish.  I came to love this quirky hour-long show and the characters within.  It was many things but most of all, it was different and highly imaginative.  This program often took the viewer to the left and quite a bit sideways from the norm.  The ensemble cast was excellent and I really cared about these people.  I always got a little charge from the fact that I had seen John Cullum, the actor who portrayed "Holling" in the title role of "The Man of La Mancha" on Broadway way, way back when.

Northern Exposure hasn't appeared on TV for a while now but thank God for reruns.  It will be back again some day, some time on some little channel.  For my birthday this year, my daughter gave me a gift of four Northern Exposure episodes on tape.  It was a great present and a real surprise.

 The cast of "Northern Exposure"

For my "extra credit", if I were to pick a game show to be on, it would be "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire".  I would never never, ever appear on any reality (and I use the term very loosely) show at any time, for anyone for any price!

And So It Continues

Next up in the fall lineup of things to do is dealing with the property taxes.  We always try to pay the entire amount rather than opting for the two-payment plan so we can get it out of the way.  I want to know who the incredibly shortsighted idiot is who determined that the first installment of property taxes should be due before Christmas and the second, right around income tax time.  I would call that very poor planning.

The taxes being handled brings me to Thanksgiving preparations.  We have been hosting Thanksgiving for at least the past twenty years.  For years, we did it all and slowly but surely over the years we have welcomed assistance with food and drink from our guests.  Being from the east coast originally, this has been a hard lesson to learn.  When one is extended an invitation in the east, it's expected that the host will provide all the amenities.  When an invitation is extended in the west, the first words out of the invited's mouth are, "what do you want me to bring?"  Of course, down through the years our guests have offered to bring food and such but we've always wanted to make everything ourselves.  At long last, we've come to our senses!

We've had anywhere from eight to twenty-six people for Thanksgiving dinner.  Over the years, my husband and I have handled the meal preparations.  We do a lot of work ahead of time.  I've been known to make as many as four pies (and I'm not talking the heat and eat variety here).  This takes some doing but we always seem to manage.  Our house isn't tiny but it's far from huge.  Seating two dozen people can be quite a challenge but we've learned how to do it.  By the time everything's ready and the time has come to sit down to dinner, our living room resembles something along the line of St. Anthony's Dining Hall.  It's cozy and somewhat cramped but the result is a Thanksgiving of intimate proportions.

The date Thanksgiving falls on determines how soon we get our Christmas tree.  Thanksgiving is on November 25th this year.  Oh my!  Just one month before Christmas.  This means we'll probably venture out the next day in search of the perfect tree.  This also depends upon whether or not I get the day after Thanksgiving off from work which I requested but haven't had confirmed as yet.

There are lots of Christmas tree farms in the area and a freshly cut tree properly cared for lasts an unbelievably long time.  One of my favorite parts of the season is my Christmas tree but that's another story.