Happy Halloween

Back again

We're back from our little trip, a little worse for wear but very glad we went. We had a great time, it was just that on our way home we had a little incident that sort of took the 'glow' off. We hit a coyote. Driving at night. (Us, not the coyote. We don't know what he was doing but it was clearly not a good idea, whatever it was.) It was bad for the coyote. It didn't do our brand new car any good either. Very upsetting.

But we had such a nice visit, and were even able to drive into the hill country and to visit to the artisan store we always like. Since we really enjoy the drive across Washington, Montana and Wyoming besides, it was all a success. Except for the coyote business.

I remember commenting, after the last trip in that direction, about the Pine Beetle and the destruction it is wreaking on the forests in the mountains of the Northwest. As we first started to drive east, I thought there wasn't much more evidence of the spread of the problem, but boy was I wrong! Whole mountainsides of evergreens are dying all along the way. Devastating. And it is happening all the way into South Dakota. Nature is certainly taking its course, and I think we will be sorry we let it do so.

I never seem to get really good pictures on pure road trips - mostly because of having to take them while barrelling down the highway at 80 mph and trying to take pictures through car windows with bug splatters on them. We didn't have a lot of opportunity for scenic turnouts. Alas. So we'll have to make do, this time, with the evidence of the pine beetle devastation and documentation that, to the pronghorn antelope in Wyoming at least, it doesn't really matter.

Ummmmm...

I've done it again. Slacked off completely on my blog. This may no longer be my 'thing.' Maybe I just don't have anything else to say?

I've certainly gotten more mentally wrapped up in my job than I intended. So that's occupying a lot of cycles. Losing money at such a phenomenal rate - as the stock market is serving up nothing but anguish lately - is taking up more than a few as well. I gave up on the kitchen counter tops in favor of the new car. (And yes, I bought one, and don't even want to go into the distressing story about that.) The political mess is more than a bit unsettling, goodness knows. But I don't really have anything to say about any of that. It is beyond 'making light' of it. And pointless to add yet another opinion of utter disgust to the fray. Frankly I've been trying to stay away from the Internet and its interminable shouting about how awful and hopeless and far from getting better things are. We just don't need more fear-mongering. And obviously I fall into that all too easily myself!

So, I've been plugging away on the routine stuff of every day. And that is about to get interrupted with a little trip to see Mark's folks next week. We are hoping for good weather - or at least for not getting flooded out of our valley when we want to come back like happened the last time we ventured out of town at this time of year.

So wish us luck - and get out and get pumpkins, or decorate for Halloween, or watch Scrubs reruns, or just take a nap. Slack off, as it were. It seems to be working for me.

Cursed

I'm feeling jinxed. Cursed, as it were.

I finally decided, several weeks ago, that it was time to move ahead on the next home improvement project - replacing the kitchen counter tops. I've been saving up and pondering the options long enough. Time to do it!

I put in a call to the place I wanted to get them from and couldn't get through. Two days went by. Three. I tried their website, using their 'contact us for a quote' feature. No response. OK - not them, then. So I found three other possibilities to visit, and Mark and I set out on a Saturday to shop for new counter tops. The first place was closed - inaccessible - due to road construction. The second place was only open during the work week. The third place was no longer there. Driving by a 4th possibility, we decided to stop. Finding some good options - and bringing some samples home - we were promised an estimate based on our pictures and measurement the following Tuesday. Tuesday came and went; so did Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. We got no response.

So the next week I went to the only-open-during-the-week place and got some more samples and a promise for their project manager to call. Nothing.

I left multiple messages for the first person. A week later she finally called back but didn't seem to remember who we were or what our project was about. With a promise to look back in her files, and get right back to us, we waited for another week. I finally tried to reach the second place's 'project manager' and again got the story that she hadn't gotten the message...

I did finally get a quote from the second place - a week ago - but no follow through on the questions I had about process and timeline. The first person just emailed me today - "sorry, I've been off for a few days - would you like an appointment?"

I'm not actually sure I want to try to do a big project with either of these folks. Unprofessional, uninterested, not able to keep things straight... no follow through. And they don't even have money from us yet!

So, leaving that project as a possibly bad idea, I turn my attention to the problem of replacing my old car that is getting dangerously close to being unreliable. News reports indicate that car dealers are desperate and financing is available at very low interest rates. Maybe this is a good time. And on Sunday we visited a dealership and found a possibility in a new car. All set to take it for a test drive, I gave the salesman my driver's license to make a copy - and he came back without it. And no, it wasn't in the copy machine when he went back for it.

They lost my driver's license! Is it just me?

Well, I did get the license back the next day - it had fallen under something - but was, by then, leery of working with this dealer and his possibly cavalier attitude about protecting private information, especially if I had to give credit information for financing. So today I contacted another dealer via their website. I immediately got an email back promising a phone call 'very soon' about details and assuring me that this would be a hassle-free process. Sounds good to me!

No phone call ever came.

Now is probably not a good time to be spending money anyway, right?

Politics

How many times have we wished our government (which doesn't really seem to be ours anymore) wasn't run by Washington bureaucrats indoctrinated by behind-the-scenes power players? They aren't doing anything that 'we the people' actually want done - or not done, as the case may be. How often have we lamented that no matter the results of a given election, the results of government is always, appallingly, the same? Wouldn't it be nice, we'd say, to have a regular person running for office rather than only the extremely wealthy and "well-backed" insiders who obviously have their own agenda, which isn't ours? Just once we'd like to vote for someone who was running for office because s/he had strong notions - similar to OUR notions - about making things better, instead of just strong personal ambition for power and money. Just once we'd like to actually vote FOR someone instead of against the absolute worst of two miserable candidates, neither of whom we could trust with a dime, or a principle.

(I can just hear Mark, in my head, asking "who's this 'we' you are talking about?" I always see myself as 'regular folk' and assume that everyone else I encounter in my life is 'regular' too but realize that this is really the crux of the problem here. Nevertheless, Mark, I will continue on my rant...)

I had a 'moment' when Gov. Palin burst on the scene. Suddenly there was somebody who wasn't so practiced at speaking with a forked tongue. She seemed like someone who was running for PTA president. Someone I could know (and, of course, that means 'regular.') But boy did our media/celebrity machine fight back. She's been ridiculed, upbraided and set up for failure (as in the different 'setting and style' of interviews for her, as opposed to the Washington insider crowd.) She's been patronized and dismissed. Criticized for not staying home to raise her kids. Blasted for blunders. And if that wasn't bad enough, she seems to have lost herself already. As the 'insiders' rush in to indoctrinate her she is becoming just like them. Already!

But I'm not really interested in specific candidates or issues here. I don't know if I'd vote for her or not - especially since it really isn't HER that we'd be voting for. That really isn't my point.

I'm just wondering if the dream most of us have - of this country getting back to what it should be - is hopeless. I think it might be. The requisite conditions for making that happen would seem to be that we'd have to start electing different people. But really. How could ANY person of intelligence, practicality, principle, compassion, strength, ethics, economic savvy and leadership ability - who is also in their right mind - even consider national public office at this point. If anyone dares to try, it appears that we will just squash them. We are so used to our media darlings telling us how to react, so sure that someone who isn't an 'insider' can't know anything or learn anything or bring anything to the table, so hopeless about making an impact, and so jaded about the possibility of new ideas being of value - or of old values being applicable - that we can't possibly actually elect a 'change' candidate.

I believe in 'experience' too - a big issue in this campaign with two completely inexperienced people involved. But I'm a bit confused about just what type of experience is needed any longer. Or how someone could get it without being someone I wouldn't want to elect. I don't know how a regular person can get foreign policy experience - or monetary policy experience. I don't think anyone can squeeze enough money out of people, in order to win an election, without owing those people something too-big-to-give in return after the election. But I certainly have seen that once someone HAS that experience in our government, they've turned into someone I wouldn't want to elect.

We are in a whole lot of trouble here. Most of us know that this isn't really the time for 'politics as usual.' There's a whole lot of very empty rhetoric out there about 'change.' But all I see is the same old stuff.

And I think I see why.

Applesauce

When we lived in Portland, some years ago, we stumbled upon a farmer's market selling Gravenstein apples - the very best, in my opinion, for applesauce. My grandmother used to can applesauce and hers was the best, but we had to try the gravensteins ourselves - to freeze, not can (I don't have the confidence to be sure of not introducing food poisoning to my beloveds.) And so a tradition started. We've been stocking up on homemade applesauce every year since.

But we missed out this year somehow. Missed the gravensteins altogether. We did find a substitute at the farmer's market though, and so spent much of last weekend cutting up apples and then ricing them up for sauce.

(Now my freezer is full and I just discovered that my husband is one of those people who thinks applesauce can only be eaten with pork. Good grief!)

So applesauce is one of the wonderful things about fall. So are golden leaves, that certain smell and crispness in the air, dramatic clouds, and the opportunity to sleep under a heavy blanket again.

So why don't I LIKE fall? What's not to like? Why do I get all gloomy and backward looking every fall? For that matter, with summer's heat and dryness, why do I like summer so much? Spring is wet and unpredictable but I still love that season. What gives?