Ten ways to Lighten My Mood. Are you insinuating I’m cranky???!!!!?

1. Plant sunflowers in your garden.
2. Go out to lunch with a friend.
3. Change the routine. We all need a little variety. So that would be peanut butter on the English muffin instead of jam.
4. Spend time puttering in the garden. As long as there are no aphids. Bastids.
5. Read an entertaining book. Fiction is best, although I just read Laurie Hertzel’s memoir News to Me: Adventures of an Accidental Journalist about growing up in the newspaper business and loved it.
6. Soak up some Vitamin D from the sun. Definitely need sun.
7. Get rid of that one thing that’s been nagging you because it’s not done, needs work, is a mess or is a constant irritation (We’re not talking husbands here, people. Stop it.) Throw that project in the trash and stop feeling guilty about it. You’ll feel so much better.
8. Clean something. It works to have my space tidy and organized. Because mostly it’s not. So when I get it organized I give myself a pat on the back.
9. I generally don’t eat to make myself feel better, but if I did it would be coffee ice cream in the summer and a baked potato with lots of butter and cheese in the winter.
10. Move. Go for a walk, a bike ride, stretch, do yoga, whatever it takes to get those endorphins flowing.

Go see Carole for more ideas.

~

Life is busy, busy, busy. I got approached to host a get-together for a local political candidate and turned that down only to get sucked into working for the campaign. Should have seen that one coming.

There’s been very little time to play with the Ladybug so the bonding process is slow. She’s beginning to grow on me but so far I haven’t been tempted to name her. Either she doesn’t need a name or Bug will have to do.

The garden is sort of winding down for the year. There’s not  a lot to do except water occasionally and watch things grow. And attack aphids. I’ve planted fall crops of carrots, spinach, beets and Swiss Chard so hopefully we’ll get a harvest of some sort later this year. The straw bales are decomposing nicely. While straw may make good compost, as a growing medium my considered opinion is that it sucks. Or maybe I’m just a lousy gardener.

/sigh

Next year.

And then we had Proposition C which would invalidate the federal requirement that most people purchase health insurance or face a tax penalty. Prop C passed with a 71% approval rating statewide. The issue is expected to be settled in the courts so I’m not getting too overheated about it except to note that nearly twice as many Republicans as Democrats voted statewide. I wonder how the results would have differed if the vote had been held in November.

Anyway, let’s not start down that road, I don’t have the patience for it tonight.

Tuesday didn’t get off to an auspicious start. I got up at 3:30 am to allow a little extra time to slide by the big McD’s for coffee and an egg thingie — only to find out that McD’s didn’t open until 5 am — which is when I had to be at the polling place. Scrap breakfast.

So I head over to the church thinking I might be lucky and catch the janitor there early to unlock the door. There’s nobody around when I get there but I can see lights on so I tried the door. Unlocked and the room is ready to go. Makes up for missing breakfast.

I start unloading the car to get a head start on the day. I was on my next to last trip with just one bag and the voting signs to unload when I grabbed the door handle and pulled.

It didn’t budge. Turned it again. Shook it, pushed it, pounded it.

Locked.

And my purse and cell phone are inside the building.

Walked around the church but there’s nobody to be seen and no lights on. Just when I’m seriously cursing my luck another judge arrives with a cell phone. A couple phone calls (“Yes, the door really is locked. Yes, really. If you don’t believe me, come try it for yourself.”) and 20 minutes later, the church lady arrives with a key (“I don’t know how you managed to lock this door, it takes a key.”)

I kept my snort to myself when the door locked on her without the key.

Meanwhile, even though it’s 5:30 and the polls don’t open until 6 am, there are 3 voters waiting to vote.

And we haven’t broken the seal on the first ballot box yet.

We hustled. We got the place open in half an hour but things were a little cockeyed. Nobody cared and the door stayed unlocked until mid-afternoon when it locked itself again. Some masking tape took care of it and removing it made locking up at the end of the day easy.

I never did get breakfast. A PB&J sandwich, a little fruit and a handful of granola kept me going until closing at 7 pm.

Home at 8 pm, a quick dinner, a shower and bed were all I could manage. It was tough going to work today.

I hurt in places I didn’t know I had.

Yesterday was the day of service project that I’ve been working on for several months.  I overslept and didn’t get up until 5:30 and from then it was non-stop on my feet until 9 pm. That’s tough duty for somebody who’s been sitting on her arse for 10-hour work days for the last 6 weeks. It was a very long day.

I woke up at 4 am this morning in so much pain from the waist down I couldn’t sleep. Two Advil didn’t touch it and I finally got up at 5 am so I could move and stretch which helped and I took a nap this afternoon so I don’t feel quite so wiped out.

Our recruiting efforts netted nearly 50 volunteers that we split into two crews to rehab an elderly couple’s home and transitional housing run by a local charity. We ran into our share of problems but managed to accomplish a lot.  Not everything got finished, so we’ll send a couple skilled people back this week to put the finishing touches on it.

Here’s what we did in about 10 hours just at the elderly couple’s home:

• Scraped and painted the ceiling and walls in the living room and kitchen, two coats and on some walls, three coats.
• Tore out the bathroom floor and toilet, repaired it, laid a new floor, new vinyl tile and installed a new higher toilet to accommodate their disabilities. This one job took one and a half guys nearly 12 hours by itself. It was horrendous when we started and terrific when we finished.
• Tore out the kitchen carpet, repaired the floor and prepared it for vinyl tile that will go down this week.
• Installed new electrical and water lines for a washer and dryer and moved them to the main floor from the basement.
• Cut down an overgrown tree that was causing drainage problems and hauled that away.
• Repaired rotted window sills and door thresholds.
• Dug two drainage ditches and installed tile to redirect runoff away from the house.
• Caulked huge cracks in the basement foundation walls.
• Installed new light fixtures including one that was determined to be a safety hazard.
• Hauled out her stove and installed a new one. This was a total surprise. As part of the rebuilding project Sears provided free service calls to the homes with appliance problems. When Sears determined they couldn’t get the part they needed to fix the homeowner’s stove they delivered a brand new stove. Major kudos to their organization. It was a generous gesture and I was totally impressed with the way they handled it.
• Cleaned and parged two other basement walls (masonry work).
• Washed windows.
• Built new basement steps (this was actually done before we got there) so they can get into the basement/garage without having to walk outside.
• Made numerous trips to the home improvement stores for more supplies and materials.
• Raked the yard, cleaned up flower beds, sowed grass seed.
• Cut up the old basement steps, hauled all the trash away, composted all the leaves and weeds and tidied up the outside of the house.

At the end of the day, we walked away knowing that there was a lot more that could be done, but the home was so much better than when we started and our single day of work will allow them to “age in place”, a term I heard this morning and don’t like. It sounds like what you do to cheese.

I don’t know much about what went on at the second project site because our volunteers there joined another team who didn’t have enough volunteers for the job. However I’ve heard reports that one of our volunteers was harassed by someone from the other team. I’m still finding out what went down so I’ll leave it unsaid for now but I’m not pleased on a lot of levels. Bullies used to scare me but not anymore and I don’t tolerate morons, particularly self-righteous conservative religious wingnuts who haven’t used their brain cells for more than taking up the space between their ears since they left high school. There. And I said I wouldn’t say anything. I’ll get to the bottom of it and there will be discussions with the other team captain and our rebuilding partner.

There’s still administrative stuff to do, thank you letters to write and reports to fill out. Our volunteers said they’d like to do it again next year, so we’ll see.  I failed to recruit enough skilled tradespeople but now I’ve got better contacts so if there’s a next time the job would be easier. It was a tremendous amount of work not just for me but for my committee and we’ll have to decide if it’s a direction we want to continue to pursue.

For now, I’m just glad there’s at least one part of my body that doesn’t hurt.  And I’m looking forward to sitting on my arse again tomorrow.

We spent last evening and today watching the coverage of Ted Kennedy’s funeral. There has been a Kennedy at the center of American politics all my life. It’s hard to imagine how different Washington will be now. I have to wonder how his political acumen would have impacted the health care debate had he been able to participate.

I was also struck by how many people told of how Ted Kennedy found time to reach out to them in times of personal crises and sorrows; how he managed to make friends across the aisle; how they will miss his laughter and sense of humor. If you ignored all the rest of his extraordinary life, those tributes to his personal relationships alone would be a remarkable thing.

&&

The second week of my temp assignment went better, at least as far as getting up in the morning and figuring out which end was up.  It already seems incredibly busy, but we’ve been told this is the quiet before the storm.

We can wear jeans to work every day which is a first for me.  I own one pair of decent jeans so I’m still “dressing up” (khakis or twill).  And I’m trying to figure out why it’s OK to wear flip flops and graphic T-shirts, but not running shoes.

I’m fortunate to have landed in a department/company that treats us as something other than low-paid drudges. We’re included in staff meetings and given privileges that I didn’t expect. Of course we’re still making half the rate that these jobs should pay, but given the employment market companies don’t have to be generous to attract quality these days. One of my fellow temps has a masters’ degree and is happy to have the work.

&&

Even though the morning routine is getting easier, I’m still figuring out how to allocate my limited free time.  I’m organizing a day of service this fall, recruiting volunteers to rehab the home of an elderly couple through a partnership with a local organization. Since I’ve never done this before it’s sort of a seat-of-the-pants effort and I’m hopeful we can pull it off without too many screw-ups. We visited the home this week and there are some major repairs to be made. While I have enough bodies signed up, I’m still looking for skilled labor since we need a carpenter, electrician and plumber to handle the major stuff. I’ll hit the unions up this week and see if someone doesn’t want to donate their time. It helps that this is co-sponsored by the local Democratic organization.

So just because I didn’t have enough on my plate, I also got the bright idea to have a fall fiber picnic. I rented a picnic shelter today and will send out an invitation this week to our knitting group. It really should be easy to pull together because everybody will bring a dish to share; the rest is just details.

&

Fall is in the air.  The temps tonight will be in the 50′s. I’m sitting here in shorts and a shawl. Fashioned challenged, I know. We’ve had the house open all day when usually August means suffering through the dog days. The cooler temps make me want to pull out the winter knitting — sweaters instead of lace. Maybe this week.

“Are these for me?”

Here you go folks; the first time ever that I’ve completed a sock in one day. I cast on for the second sock of the pair at 6 am yesterday while I was serving as an election judge for our municipal offices and school board. I reached the top about mid-afternoon in between voters. (I completed the first sock last week except for kitchenering the toe and knitting a row or two at the top.) Ignore the fact that I haven’t cast off either sock; I’m debating making them longer.

I also read most of a book, A Dram of Poison by Charlotte Armstrong, another on the list of 100 Favorite Mysteries of the 20th Century. As I suspected, I’ve read this before and remember it only because of one particular scene. Otherwise I have no memory of the book at all. I’d still recommend it if you like mysteries with humor and good dialogue.

Yeah, so we weren’t very busy during yesterday’s election. There were 10 judges to handle less than 200 voters in the two precincts at our polling place. I do believe the county over prepared for this one. Ten judges, 185 voters, 14 hours. You do the math. Other precincts were busier but even the mayor’s race only drew 3500 votes citywide. (Three out of four  of “my” candidates won their races.)

The day went off with only one voter not being on the rolls when she should have been, but even that excitement didn’t happen until almost 6 pm so it was pretty much a matter of keeping yourself occupied all day.

I found it remarkable that none of the other judges came prepared to spend the day without going nuts — despite all having done this before. I was the only one who had never worked an election. Almost no one brought reading material or food, nothing to help pass the time.

By 10:30 the local newspaper had been read front to back, back to front by everyone, the cross word puzzle was a community effort and People magazine and the two catalogs someone brought had been passed around and thoroughly discussed.

I was never so grateful for knowing how to knit.

And food. In 15 hours I normally eat 3 meals. So I stopped at McDonald’s on the way for breakfast. I brought snacks, a sandwich and soda.  Most of the others took lunch breaks but were still starving, mostly out of boredom, by 3 pm.

In the end my most significant contribution was that I didn’t commit homicide after spending the day sitting next to someone who just did not have a “mute” button. Please know I did not harm one hair on this lovely person’s head even though I fantasized about many, many ways of making her just….stop…..talking.

Particularly when she said she just didn’t have the patience to learn to knit.

Oh and the socks are toe-up, generic 4 by 2 rib and the yarn is some Opal I had in my stash. If you need the color I can look it up.  I do a provisional cast on for the toe and then go back and kitchener it because I struggle with most toe cast ons and kitchener is easy for me. And yes, they are really that pink. I like powerful pinks.

I decided to play along with the ABC-Along this year and see what I can come up a picture for a letter of the alphabet every two weeks.

My two needle bags have about reached capacity and I’ve been threatening for some time to pull all the needles out and reorganize the mess. The big needles (anything over a size that I don’t use very often are going to be put in closet storage and I’ll divide the rest by length and size so each pocket isn’t stuffed quite so full.  My goal is to be able to remove one needle from a pocket without the whole contents popping out too.

The pink looking needle in the front is really an Addi, it’s picking up reflected color from something else. Although pink needles would be cool….

ETA: I’m seeing a smiley face where there should be a “size eight” above. Anybody else?

After rehashing our efforts and getting behind-the-scenes info about what the national campaign really had planned for Missouri (some of which we had already surmised), everybody’s thoughts turned to what comes next.

Most of us had never worked on a political campaign before, let alone spent hours each week volunteering. Everyone feels involved and energized and….and….and….we have nothing to do. All those weeks of making phone calls and knocking on doors and realizing we could made a difference, what were we supposed to do with all that? What about all of the other volunteers who stepped up to do their part? Do we just lose track of them until four years from now? Or is there something else we could be doing as a local grass-roots activist organization?

Our host, who has been tied in with the local Democratic party for years, invited a member of the local committee to the meeting. A pitch was made for working with them to blunt the strong Republican machine that swamped our county candidates this year.

Talk soon turned to forming a separate group with our own agenda, loosely affiliated with the local party but open to those who had identified themselves as Independents. While the goal would be to strengthen the local Democratic presence, we’d have the freedom to focus on issues that we felt were important; like education, hunger and the environment. There’s also the expectation that Barack Obama’s organization is too smart not to take advantage of us “legacy volunteers” once he’s in office.

Nothing was resolved, but the committee man left the meeting with our contact information so I’m sure that’s not the end of it.

Now imagine this happening with the other 400 neighborhood teams in Missouri and multiply that by 49 other states. Do you begin to get the sense that perhaps we have the opportunity to take back politics from the big special interest groups and make our government accountable to us once again?

There is hope.

For those of you tired of this political stuff, what can I say? That’s where my head is these days. I’m knitting but don’t have much to show for it right now. I’m also looking for a job; a discouraging prospect in the current environment and for the near future. I watch the stock market making an omelette of our nest egg day after day and need to distract myself with the hope that the incoming group of politicians won’t screw up.

To reward you for reading this far, I leave you with purple asters from one of my Vermont trips.

On a county level, there were 110,000 votes cast which translates into a record 80% turnout. Unfortunately Obama lost the county by 770 votes. On a statewide level, McCain won by about 6,000 votes. Because there’s only a 0.2% difference between the two candidates, provisional and overseas ballots will be counted before determining the final outcome. I believe there are only about 7,100 outstanding ballots so I don’t expect Obama to carry Missouri. Still, we moved the state much closer to the blue column for next time.

The long lines at the polls never materialized in our county, even with the high turnout. That says a lot for how well the local election board prepared and for the staff they had available. I think the longest wait was a little more than an hour and most of the polls were able to close promptly at 7 pm. One of our poll watchers reported that his poll was so quiet at 6:45 pm that a 10-point buck walked passed him through the parking lot.

Our team worked well together for the 4-day GOTV effort. We could have used more canvassers, especially on Election Day itself, but we managed. The delay in obtaining a staging location handicapped us a little but I don’t think it made a substantial difference. We had a lot of fun along with all the work. I lost 5 pounds over the GOTV period but I wouldn’t recommend it as a diet technique.

I thought John McCain showed more class during his concession speech than he did during the whole campaign. I wonder if he’s secretly relieved not to have to solve the financial crisis. On the other hand, Sarah Palin wasted too much time in departing for Alaska and showed very little class in distancing herself from “John’s defeat”. Hello? Weren’t you defeated too?

Yesterday Jack and I went out to breakfast and snagged copies of the New York Times and USA Today to read all the election coverage. Then I mostly napped for the rest of the day.

Today I’ve been cleaning up all the piles that have accumulated around the house. My friend E is out of town for several days so I’m taking her 7-month-old puppy for walks every day. It’s like being attached to a whirlwind by a leash. I’m also cat-sitting for some neighbors who are traveling. All the houseplants need to be moved to their winter homes since we’re expecting our first heavy freeze this week.. And our kitchen TV crapped out after 15 years so we’re going shopping for a spiffy new one – yah! I picked up my knitting last night for the first time in 10 days.

Life is back to normal.

“…And to all those who have wondered if America’s beacon still burns as bright: tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals — democracy, liberty, opportunity and unyielding hope.”

President-elect Barack Hussein Obama