Happy Halloween again

It's been a disappointing showing for Trick Or Treaters. About 15 so far. And one of those was a 40 year old Mexican woman who didn't even say thank you. And it isn't even raining.

But we got all our pumpkins carved and they look nice, even if it's only us here to appreciate them.

And you, now, too:

Frik and Maddie

We are getting ready for a little trip to South Dakota - a quick run there and back. Or as quick as you can actually manage from here, which isn't all that quick. Anyway, 'us getting ready to go away' always means some preventive medication for our asthmatic cat, Frik. So I hauled him off to the vet yesterday for a steroid injection, or whatever it is one does for asthmatic cats.

And when we got home, Maddie went completely berserk at him. Acted like she didn't know him at all. Growled at him. Hissed at him. Charged him as if in battle.

He was stunned. So were we. That Frik is OUR cat and Maddie is Frik's cat has been pretty well established in the two years we've had her. She is devoted to him and has been known to howl after him if he leaves her presence. When she is frightened, she runs to him for protection, not us.

There were other cats in the vet's office. And people who handled Frik and took his temperature (and you know what THAT entails) and did other manner of things that might have made him smell different than he usually does. But even at that, her reaction was extreme.

And tonight, over 24 hours later, she's still miffed.

Who knew she even had that long an attention span?

Doesn't make us feel very comfortable about leaving them!

Leaves

We have trees in our front yard. Big ones. There is a huge yellow cedar right in front of the dining room window – a tree that evidently sheds in the fall. And another, smaller cedar at the corner of the driveway. And another great big pine tree of some sort on the far corner. And right in the middle of them is a great big maple.

Or at least I think it is a maple.

I tried to consult the Western Garden Book to see if I could figure out what it was. I looked in the index for ‘Maple’ and was first informed that I needed to see ‘Acer’ instead. What? Since when are maples not maples but ‘Acers?’ Is there not at least one Maple Street in every city in the country? Whoever heard of Acer Street? Is nothing sacred?

Then I find this entry:

“ACER. Aceraceae. MAPLE. Deciduous or evergreen trees or large shrubs.”

Evidently nothing IS sacred. They are called maple but listed as acer? They loose their leaves, but some of them don’t? They might be trees, but then again they might be shrubs? Some have ‘dense, compact and rounded heads’; others have ‘narrow to rounded crowns’; still others are ‘broad-topped’ – all of which could mean pretty much the same thing? Or not.

There is Trident Maple, Hedge Maple, Coliseum Maple, Formosan Maple, Bigleaf Maple (maybe that's mine?,) Japanese Maple, Black Maple... It goes on and on. And, curiously, also includes Box Elder. Shouldn't that be an Elder, not a Maple? Oh well.

I have 4 pages of tiny print and a few sparse drawings to sort through in an effort to identify my tree. I probably won’t do that.

But the reason I was wondering about it in the first place is that today dawned windy and rainy and that tree is loosing leaves like there is no tomorrow. It is looking like the flora version of “raining cats and dogs.” My lawn is full of huge yellow leaves – leaves big enough to cover your head in a storm. And, unfortunately, my neighbor’s lawn is full of them too. And the lawn next door to them as well…

Today is the first day off of daylight savings time. Today is the day we will have bare trees, and for the rest of the winter.

(Tomorrow is the day I’ll have to call our garbage service and sign up for ‘yard debris’ collection! Or, actually, maybe my neighbor will have to instead!)

Lowered Expectations

We used to watch a show called MADD TV (is it still on?) which had a regular feature, complete with theme song, called 'Lowered Expectations.' I can't remember any of the skits but do remember the little musical introduction, which showed a (by TV standards) 'marginal' couple walking hand in hand on a beach in not very good weather. The musical ditty comes to mind all the time in response to Current Events in our lives. (We haven’t had a real good year!)

But in this season of political campaigns, Lowered Expectations has become a regular mantra in a not-so-humorous way. I can't remember the last time I voted FOR a candidate I thought would do a good job. (Isn't that what is supposed to happen?)

In Washington State the mud slinging started a few months ago and has escalated as the election comes closer. Each political ad tries to characterize the opponent's position on something in so negative a light that the opponent is then 'forced' to respond in kind. We really have no idea what the truth is - if indeed there is a truth to any of this. We don't ever get to find out, directly, what the candidates are actually FOR – what they think or believe or are committed to themselves – but we do know what they are against! Each other. Big time. All their air and ad time is devoted to telling us what awful, unconscionable thing they think their opponent is up to.

I’d like to see someone run for office promising to do NOTHING. We don’t need any more laws. We don’t need any more policies, spending packages, taxes, treaties, or resolutions. We have too many already. How about rolling it all back? How about letting the economy do its job and the local schools do theirs, and the border patrol do what the border patrol is supposed to do and on and on. Let’s not invade anyone for a while. Let’s not interfere with businesses or churches, or people’s lives or bedrooms.

Mostly let’s not sacrifice our freedom and way of life to out-of-control laws and executive orders.

Let’s be FOR something. Let’s be for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Let’s RAISE our expectations!

Art imitating Life

I had trouble sleeping last night and finally just got out of bed about 4:00 – and the cats got up with me, of course. They were disappointed that we didn’t begin our usual morning routine, a series of events they chain together until we come to the ‘special’ part where we play the String Game. When I finally went back to bed around 6:30 they were frustrated. So Frik did what I’m sure any reasonable person would do in similar circumstances and frustrations – he came and sat on my head.

Which was actually fine. It is pleasant to go to sleep with a heated fur cap on.

And when I finally slept, I dreamed my usual random dreams with their mild ‘plots’ and settings. Only this time, throughout my dreams, I was walking around with a cat on my head.

Another beautiful Fall day

Today was just perfect for another walk in the valley on the rail trail. We ran across a big garden with rows of dahlias blooming in the sun and had to wonder why all those incredible flowers were going to waste in an isolated field. We were happy to enjoy them though.

Fall is falling

We took a fall drive today, back up to Chuckanut Drive and Bellingham. Why is it that fall color is never where it can be captured in The Great Picture? There are always road signs, power poles and wires, garbage cans, or beautiful trees set against lousy backgrounds. We enjoyed the drive, and the views, but that elusive Picture will have to wait until next year!

What's wrong with Happy?

How did Happy Endings get to be so out of style?

Why is it that you can hardly find a movie or TV show that is actually delightful instead of dreadful? Remember how “Six Feet Under” started? It was a riot. And then by the second season it had become a 3rd rate soap opera. Or Battlestar Galactica – reportedly one of the best on TV and, incredibly, still continuing its steep spiral down to the depths of despair. (Not that I can really keep myself from watching it anyway – hope springs eternal? I know - that is their ultimate message, but still...)

Why are modern authors so loathe to give ‘upbeat’ a try, even in popular fiction? Check out the selections from Oprah’s book club sometime if you really want a full course meal of marginal people making stupid decisions and having to live with guilt and anxiety and disease and depression for the rest of their lives. Even the Harry Potter series author is threatening to kill off poor Harry. Why CAN’T Good win out over Evil without there being too-horrible-to-contemplate consequences? It happens in real life. Isn’t that REAL enough?

Project Runway (more Reality TV in the form of a fashion designer's competition, for the uninitiated) didn’t even manage a happy ending and it IS a reality show! And have you seen the commercial for Sonic Drive In’s new ice cream sundae thingies in which a 40s-something couple trades sarcastic comments about how no one reads his blog but his mother – although the mother might be telling her neighbor about it, so there? Do you think that suggests a happy ending? Even ice cream can’t be nice?

Trying to find something lighthearted in any medium is difficult – more so than it should be, I think – particularly if you actually have some literary or performance standards. TV is nearly impossible unless you stick to HGTV and the Food Channel and even then ‘happy ending’ is relative and subject to taste. Mention to someone that you want to watch a ‘romantic comedy’ and you get laughed out of the video store.

Too unsophisticated, I guess. Too trivial. Too trite.

Well, that’s me. Life is hard enough sometimes without wallowing in it. And yes, I manage that enough, however inadvertently, on my own, thank you. But I also manage, almost daily, to create my own happy endings in the things I do, the conversations I have, the commitments I make and the goals I set. Why is that so passé? Isn't that the whole point of Life?

I do so love a Happy Ending.

(And yes, we had our own Happy Ending with our flooring – in case you are wondering. It looks great!)

Desserts

There’s something about fall that makes me crave desserts. Apples are ripe so pie is almost compulsory. But then there are pumpkins all over the place and I love THAT pie too. (Well, there aren’t really very many pies I DON’T love, are there?) And the cooler weather makes me want to bake – cookies, cinnamon buns, brownies. We’ve been eating bananas lately and there are always some that go too long – and banana cupcakes are the logical result. And then there is banana pudding, but don’t even get me started! Baking smells are just so ‘right’ in the fall.

Little Debbie Cakes are also big in the fall. They make a pumpkin-filled soft cookie that Mark can’t resist; and fall is when their orange cakes are available too. Yep, nothing like a Little Debbie Cake.

And then there is Halloween candy. You have to buy it early or there is nothing left in the stores. Of course, when you buy it early, there is a chance that there will be nothing left for the Trick or Treaters then either!

How did I get so hung up on sweets?

PS – the floor didn’t get finished yesterday. My Russians are back this morning. They seemed surprised that I even expected them to be done in one day and patiently explained that THIS kind of floor CAN’T be done that quickly. They had no idea why their company said it COULD be done – in writing on their contract. Oh well. Too bad.

Worrying, fussing and nerve-wracking stuff

We’re having flooring installed today; hardwoods, in the family room and kitchen. It was a nerve-wracking decision in the first place – they aren’t cheap! – and now it is nerve-wracking to have it done. They sent two Russians – neither speaks English well (one of them evidently doesn’t speak it at all!) and we’re having some communication problems. Mostly there is a lot of banging and scraping going on.

The cats are safely locked up in the bedroom but huddled together, nonetheless, under the bed. I wish I could join them.

I don’t know what I am so nervous about. The ‘workers’ are the ones doing the work, not me. All the ‘figuring’ I had to do is done. The decision is made; the bill paid; the scheduling scheduled.

But still, they are banging away in my house and there is always the possibility of damage or things not turning out right. I don’t think I’m really worried about that actually happening, but I sure am nervous, and I don’t know why else I should be. It’s going to be a long day.

Too stupid

I forgot again.

I've fogotten every time for over a month.

The ONLY reason I went to the grocery store today was to get some stuff - ANY stuff would do - so that they would pack it in paper grocery bags that I can take home and use for garbage bags. I desperately need them because a simple garbage can won't fit in my under-the-sink cabinet and I can't stand to have the trash sitting out in the kitchen.

With all that 'desperation' and 'can't stand' business, you'd think I'd remember. But you'd be wrong.

I'm too stupid to live.

Todd called while I was at the store randomly picking up enough stuff to fill enough paper bags. And I got sidetracked. They don't ask if you want 'paper or plastic' anymore. If you don't say, you get plastic. I'm awash in plastic. But now I'll have to reuse the same paper garbage bag.

I forgot again. I'm going to have to go back and get more stuff.

ArghhhhhhhHHHHH!

Did you know…

--- that FDR tried to change Thanksgiving to the 3rd Thursday in November just so there would be more shopping days until Christmas? He had to change it back again two years later.

… that no word in the English language rhymes with ‘month.’

… that on Mt Everest the time is 5 hours and 45 minutes off of Coordinated Universal Time (used to be called Greenwich Mean Time?) For that matter, did you know that Coordinated Universal Time is abbreviated as UTC. Go figure.

Revisiting the pumpkin patch

We had to go back for pictures. The scarecrows alone were worth the trip. See the legs sticking out of the ground on the right? Now THAT'S a pumpkin patch!

Maddie and friends

Just a little picture today - of Maddie and her Raggedy Ann collection, one of which (sorry) is sagging a bit and not showing her best side. That's Maddie's best side though.

No more talk of pumpkins

I miss my pumpkin patch. Last year we had a grand time fussing over our pumpkin-growing project. Pictures, blogging, watering, harvesting, weekly inspections – we got a lot of mileage out of that.

And with our new neighborhood going to the ghosts and goblins with great abandon, we really needed to at least get a pumpkin stash on the porch. So last weekend we went hunting for an authentic pumpkin patch. The Sincere kind. And we found it – in our own little valley. There were pumpkins galore, in all sizes and varieties, along with scarecrows and Indian Corn. They had wheelbarrows and clippers to cut your own pumpkins from the vine, if you were so inclined. A great place.

And I had my camera with me and everything.

Just didn’t have a ‘live’ battery.

But we’ll try again this weekend. At only $14 for a truckload of pumpkins, we can manage to do that again!

And there's always next year. We have a BIG back yard.

(So, Carolyn, did Brandon ever get to try growing pumpkins?)

Government and Trust

An odd thing happened yesterday. I got a notice that a comment was made on my blog (they come through email) but the comment didn't relate to any of my recent postings. So I went back through my archives to see where it fit. I finally found it attached to the October 1, 2005 posting about security at Disney World. I'm not sure how someone found that! That would have been a lot of reading to do... through all those postings... Hopefully it was just an odd 'search' result. (This whole thing continues to amaze me.)

But anyway, the crux of the comment was this:

"I find it interesting that people feel so threatened by a measure of security taken in order to protect their safety and their belongings."

I find it interesting my own self (one of Mark's expressions that has obviously wormed its way into my speech too) that this person can be so trusting of her government, so ignorant of the fact that this government is run by politicians and bureaucrats whose names show up in the news every day in connection with one scandal after another (always related to their exercising of very poor judgement,) so unconcerned when government says "it's for your own protection," so blissfully unaware of any past instances of power corrupting motives or of legislation resulting in unforseen consequences, and so totally focused on her present fears that she can't see ahead to future consequences.

The only thing we really seem to learn from studying History is that we just don't learn from studying History.

As my dad would say, "Good grief."

More curiosities of the Blogosphere

This was actually one of my first topics when I started blogging but I revisit it here, basically because I had a hearty laugh yesterday. That’s a good enough reason.

Blogger – the service that publishes this blog – has an ‘intro’ page that, among other features, includes a link to the Blog-of-the-Day. They’ve selected a particular blog because its content, or format, or theme is interesting, or fun, or noteworthy etc. in some way. Or maybe it is even more random than that – I don’t really know. In any case, these ‘featured’ blogs have been amazingly diverse – from a guy who posted pictures of trains and wrote about how he captured just the right shot, to a Stanford grad student who posted a sentence from her dissertation writing every day, to a guy posting video of himself dancing a dance-a-day in his apartment, to a woman writing about her experiences as she left the urban jungle behind to run a farm in Missouri. Great fun.

Yesterday’s link was to an artist’s blog. Very popular site, evidently, because with each cartoon or drawing posted, there were a couple dozen comments from ‘fans.’ He was very good, and the comments mostly reflected appreciation for his talent and were either posted anonymously or by other bloggers.

So I was reading the 32 comments on one posting – things like ‘great drawing’ and ‘you are so good at this’ and ‘I love this drawing’ and on and on – until I came to comment #29, posted by ‘Anonymous’ which simply read “I have a 12” penis.”

Now I’m not sure how anyone managed to add comment numbers 30, 31, and 32 after that, but whoever did certainly has great powers of concentration. I suppose it’s possible that Anonymous was trying to make Social Commentary on the string of accolades being laid at the artist’s door, so-to-speak. A warning against self-importance feelings, perhaps. But I rather suspect that he was just interjecting the only comment that made any difference to him personally. “Just thought you’d want to know” sort of thing. Keeping up his end of the conversation, sort of thing. Off the subject a bit, but just the ticket for him personally, sort of thing.

Curiosities.

Here’s another one. Curiosity, that is. I do a Google search, every once in a while, for my blog title, just to make sure I’m not creating a problem for myself with my ramblings. Remember the posting about “Jane” that I had a while back? The last paragraph (since deleted, by the way) reported that she had declared herself to be gay. That paragraph, in which I used the ‘L’ word, landed my blog site on a listing of ‘L’ webpage references – not really where I want “Cathy without a plan” to be, since that’s not particularly representative of my typical commentary. Who knew? I deleted it to see if the reference will change, or if not, how many people might have to wander off scratching their heads after reading it.

What was that all about, sort of thing.

Aches and pains

This morning when I woke up, everything hurt. My back, hips, legs, feet, shoulders, thumbs... close to 'everything' at least.

This 'getting old' business is no fun. I remember a conversation with a soon-to-be-retired teacher some years ago about why he got up so early in the morning - he said he had to because it hurt too much to lie in bed. I was astonished. If this was what getting older had in store, I wanted nothing to do with it. For 'bed' not to be comfortable seemed like the ultimate tragedy.

That was then and this is now.

For years Mark has fallen into bed at night saying 'Ah, bed!' Ultimate comfort. Blissful place to be. Relief from the day's stress and strain.

For the relief to be upon getting up instead of lying down, well, I just don't know what to make of that.

Harvest Moon

Grandpa would be proud

I loved Ryan’s comments to my last post. Spot on. Well said. (Although eliminating faux news is harsh, isn’t it? Maybe not.) In any case, Grandpa would be proud.

He’d be proud of them all for their accomplishments over the past 3 years – graduations, engagements, pregnancies. Job successes, remodeling successes, all-kinds-of successes. Brent and Carolyn are moving back to Tucson for a new job; Beth and Lauren and Jill all started new jobs already; Carolyn-the-other-one is graduating from college and getting married all at once in December. Kyle is getting recognized for his know-how, Ty is soon to be a father, Mark-the-younger has launched himself on a career in the family business. And Ryan has taken over Grandpa’s political mind. Oh yes, Grandpa would be proud.

So this is a good time to mention Todd’s next saga too. He is starting his first professional engineering job this month in West Virginia (never mind that he was supposed to be starting it in January in Oregon – long story) and is in the throes of it - moving coordinators, car-shipping coordinators, temporary housing coordinators, permanent housing coordinators… You name it, they are coordinating it for him. Hopefully all that Coordinating will result in him getting settled and started off right in this job that really didn’t ‘start off right.’ After all, if the CEO of a many-billion-dollar company already knows your name and you haven’t even started working there yet, there must be good things to come!

I know Grandpa would be proud of him too – but that doesn’t even match how proud Mark and I are of him!

Jaded

I've been reading bits and pieces, headlines mostly, about the US Senator making inappropriate remarks/advances to a young male Senate page. Each day an informative new 'news' release arrives - first the poor Senator has checked himself into alcohol treatment because he has a 'problem' that is aligned with a medical condition (read: not his fault) and now today we learn that he was abused by a priest as a child (read: really not his fault.) Poor guy, I guess. He is the real victim here. Or something.

Is it just me or is this predictable? Isn't this the accepted formula for rehabilitating a political career: admit it after you can't deny it any more, be the victim yourself, seek 'treatment' for something and jump on any current 'sympathy' bandwagon you can catch. You'll be back in the saddle in no time.

We need across-the-board term limits. It would be a start, at least. One or two states can't impose them effectively, but if we all did, could we begin to do away with the Good Ole Boy Network and maybe, with it, even the whole bizarre way that our legislature has come to function? What could we Be with a government that works on a simpler system that doesn't require being "in" in order to do something? No more 'behind the scenes' legislation and backroom deals. No more pork barrel politics. No more perverts being protected by other perverts. No more cozy relationships with big business. No more attention to the 'war chest' to the exclusion of the issues. No more 'career' politicians. Maybe we'd even get representation of the actual voters, instead of the 'contributors.'

I'm just jaded. I'm sure it wouldn't work. They'd think of some other way. Whoever 'they' are.

One more picture of the valley

We had to get the picture from the road instead of the trail, and from the other side of the valley besides, but here is the pasture land with the 'head cows' and the bridge of 'over the river and through the woods' fame. It sure makes for a pretty drive home.