A Little Political

Sent Betty a Hillary Clinton bumpersticker from the H.C. website...heh heh heh heh heh

So I guess I'm throwing my support behind Hillary, since she's the next better thing since Bill, and we'll get more Bill, which delights me to no end. Which is why I sent mom the sticker---Betty despises them both. (evil cackle)

Hell, I always knew I'd vote for Hillary, who am I trying to kid, I just wasn't always certain she'd run. When she stayed with Bill, I knew she was at least thinking about it, get her own career back after the White House one way or the other, and she'd have to stay married to run for anything, damn his eyes...she's smart, that's why the ConFunds are so afraid of her. So, I emailed her today, just to suggest that she not sling too much nasty mud with Barack, since he'll be her VP most likely, unless he gets mad and refuses, then Richardson is my guy for the future VP. Not that Hillary has time to answer much these days, but I know she's open to consensus opinions, and does not want to uphold dirty old boy tactics. I'll put her sticker on my car, and try to convince Betty to at least give her sticker to my brother and not toss it in the trash. Unlikely.

My all-time favorite little ditty is the new "Dumb Chicks for Hillary" tactic of the angry-middle-aged-white-guys in the media, or even meaner, "Stupid Broads for Clinton" that I think Dennis Miller threw up on Fox not too long ago while hand-jobbing with Bill O'Riledup (or was it one-note 'El Patron' Lou Dobbs?). So building consensus is an estrogen thing, we've been told this over and over since middle school sex ed class, and violence and competition are testosterone things, and girls don't count, so there! Cheney is such a poster-boy for the AMAWGs, dying of heart disease, high blood pressure, terminal type-A, table thumping, war-mongering, hunting and back-slapping, this pile is mine and I'll shoot you dead, with us or against me, my way is the only way mentality---afraid that at any moment that defib gadget will fire off and keep this Frankenstein animated for a few months longer, the impotent wizard behind the curtain. I crowed like a mad rooster when I heard Trent Lott was the latest rat scampering off the sinking Bush junk---Dennis Hastert, too, both leaving before their term is up and costing their districts hundreds of thousands of dollars to put on mid-term elections a year after losing the House and Senate. I think they should use their remaining campaign funds to help cover the costs of these elections, since they are such poor losers that they take their marbles and go home so soon after being hell-bent on being elected. They should go, if they are going to be that ineffective. But I'm glad they don't represent my district and state, or I'd really be pissed off.

I'll be as glad to see the end of this 8 year dirge as I was to see Reagan hobble off to his ranch.

Not-Shop Friday

The morning after...

My food stupor continues, hopefully improving after I finish this morning pot of coffee. I have russet potato peelings all over my kitchen from yesterday's meal preparations that I left for today to clean up, the sink full of dishes, the pile of tablecloths and other laundry, turkey soup to make, and a trip to the gym to swim off some of that amazing gravy Peg made to drown the whitemeat, potatoes and dressing.

Absolutely delightfully wonderful day yesterday, warm group assembled 'round the two-leafed table, lots of wine, desserts, slides from Bhutan, helpful German Shepherd doing floor scrap duty, sunshine streaming through the house...glorious day.

Thank you.

While I Wait....

This waiting thing is twisting me in half.

Reading other of my favorite blogs, they write about the usual things they always write about, crafting, writing, living with non-creatives, work, family, online life, kids, politics. It's comforting to read and know that these blog-pals are forging ahead, spit to the wind, writing when they can, and knowing why they do what they do.

Talking to my landlady last night, I saw the smiling webshot of the new Brittany dog coming home tonight from the shelter, and it is heart-warming to know the house will have a big lovey dog in it again. I have been doing dog-watching more frequently, and that has eased some of my dog-envy, but it never goes away. My cats love me, I love them (little beasts), but the space in your heart for a dawg is a specific place, like for a mate, a kid, a horse. Nothing else really fits that space, and you make the best of it, and love the hell out of what you do have. My life would have to completely change some more for me to fit a dog into the mix, and I don't know how much more utter change I can handle this year. Hanging tough with what I have started in motion feels like the way to go for now, and focus on school.

And wait some more, send polite emails with a slight edge of urgency, double check my paperwork and deadlines, and wait some more. Oh yeah, Thanksgiving. Sure, happy happy, whatever. Do not tell me the admissions office is taking this week off or I will run screaming down there to lodge a protest. Since when did Thanksgiving become a week off like Christmas?
It's a one day holiday, maybe two if you're lucky, but the whole week? WTF?

I am working through some of the frustration by swimming laps at the gym, with the occasional Mr Torso sightings keeping me motivated. Sometimes it's great to be half-blind in a swimming pool, you just don't care how you look because you can't see them either, so you're invisible. Except for the Mr Torsos, they're all a sodden blur, and I just make another turn in the lane and head out for the other side, odd number out, even number back, 19 out, 20 back, 21 out, 22 back, keep going until 30 then stop counting. Collapse into the steam room, inhale eucalyptus clouds, leave the gym a new woman. Come home, still no letter or email from the admissions office, grind teeth, continue job search. My gym is open the morning of Thanksgiving, so I can go swim off the feast I will eat later, excellent! There's a rhythm to this, and it's working so far, and I look forward to enjoying my first non-retail, non-restaurant business Thanksgiving and Black Friday in over 20 years. I remember working in a family owned deli in 1986 where they closed for the four day weekend...I believe that may have been the last time I was off.

Little things...I checked out of the Multnomah County Library a series of DVDs featuring classic Russian paintings, produced by a brilliant Russian director who won an Oscar in 1996(?) for best foreign language film. His name is Nikita Mikhalkov, and he made this series for Russian television and schools, but the subtitles are poetic and he presents each artist with passion and intelligence. I had never heard of any of these painters, and Mikhalkov delves into their biography, presenting each painting with an audio setting of what the painter may have heard surrounding him while painting and perhaps chatting with the subject of the portrait. The music is haunting, evocative, and pulls you into romantic era of these artists, from early 18th century portraits through early 20th century Impressionists. Delighted to see this DVD set is available on Amazon for @ $50, now I need to find some big Taunton or Rizzoli artbooks with these painters, because unfortunately PSU has no History of Russian Painting classes in the catalog.

This morning, a break from the rain, a splash of sunshine, but the chill is here to stay. Gloves and wristmitts to keep the damp out, and my craft room is too cold to use comfortably. So it's time to move the desktop computer back into the livingroom, rearrange the furniture again, vacuum like a madwoman, toss more stuff into the crawlspace, set up an area to study for school. The cats try to help, but I wind up shutting them in the bedroom for a few hours so I can actually get something done. They always sit just where you were pushing the couch to.
One of my favorite bloggers lives in Australia and is at the "too damn hot to knit anymore" stage of summer. I am building little nests of wool sweater for the beasties to sleep in on sunless days, every old wool store-bought sweater is a potential pet bed to me, and I have the nerve to felt a sweater I didn't knit, cut it up, and make it into something new and wooly-smelling. The beasties approve and don't have to fight over who's bed is who's anymore. It's the little things...

Hot hot hot historic telenovela will be starting after Univision's Gaviota concludes the first week of December. These are great series of Colonial Mexico, with carriages, horses, swords, duels, gowns, haciendas, rancheros, chaperones, nuns and priests, Generalissimos, mysterious spinsters, etc. Should be 9pm, maybe 8pm, depending on whether they overlap it with the finish of the Gaviota novela or not, check your Univision channel. Here in Portland it's Channel 31. What writers' strike?

Dreaded Gray Descending

Updates in no order of importance:

I have to get a mumps & measels shot, $85, to finish my admissions requirements for PSU. I think LBJ was still in office, the last immunization I received.

I may be cleaning houses for money, is that better or worse than---never mind.

We are out of crunchies, and two furry people are getting really crabby about it.

The wind storm was violent and blessedly brief here in Southeast, now I have a good reason to call Comcast to tell them the cable line came loose from the tree again (fourth time this year).

The arctic air mass got as far south as Palm Beach County last week and Betty finally could turn off the AC and open her windows, for the first time since March. (The Gray Ascends now in FLA).

I found another pic for my absurd food collection, perfect for today----

Entering Surrealandia

The first tingling of uncertainty began running down my neck late last night, that feeling that someone left a door open to the cold somewhere in the house and it had found me.

Holy shit, what am I doing? I'm turning my life completely upside down (again) and walking straight into the unlit expanse of a new place I didn't even know I was going to until last week.
Am I crazy? Can this work out? Can I really pull this off? Do I still have it in me to be a student? Will the money come through or will I hit the ground really hard on my face in 8 weeks?

This morning the cold draft is only my back porch door cracked open to the sunrise and it's warming quickly in the sunshine. The creepies from last night are gone, but I should have expected them just about now, after making so much progress in this whole project in so little time. One more poring through the catalog's flagged pages is enough to restore my certainty that it's about damn time I'm doing this, and the biggest regret is that it didn't become this obvious to me earlier in the year. Not sure why, but it didn't, so that is past and start from here.

Everything is sent off now, the ball is beginning to roll, and now I stay busy finding work and getting other projects done (another Etsy sale came in overnight) and actively wait. Work through the self-doubts that are like having a bad hair day, they come and go. Time to start winterizing the garden, restock the booth, ride my bike to the library, sew a few pillows, check into scholarships online, go through craigslist and jobdango 3 or 4 times a day. Maybe Powells to sell a few books, check Belmont and Hawthorne shops for job openings. There's a scholarship contest I found that is judged on a written essay from one of their topics you choose to write about, for $10,000. That's my housing expenses for a year, so a worthwhile time expenditure I think. (waiting waiting)

It's going to be a few weeks at least, so busy is best. Gotta run now....

Regroup Again, With More Feeling!

There was one entire sad day last week when I discovered I didn't get any of the jobs open at the Glorious Stained Glass factory. Not the manager's job, and not even the sales job, and the "thanks but no thanks" letter must have been mailed within 24 hours of that last interview, when they had another four days left until their deadline for making a decision.

Blue blue day, a half hour of stunned silence, then the rest was the swamp of dejected shadowy disappointment.

However, by the end of that day, I had circled the wagons and then set off in an entirely new direction, left the paved roads completely and blazed trails towards ----going back to school.
Started the online part of it, and the next day got the Portland State course catalog and schedule for January 2008, and sent off for transcripts, test scores retrieved from the electronic bowels of the ACT and SAT (skip PSAT) warehouse of students of the 1970s, and felt so much better.

By Friday I had had many of my questions answered by Jane Sproul at the Women's Resource Center Continuing Education Office, and I now have a sensible chronology of what to do when and what's next.

I get so psyched I can't fall asleep the past few nights, until I haul out the course catalog one more time and go over the requirements (Freshman Inquiry??? WTF???) and the tagged pages in the Anthropology and History sections, skimming Business and English/Writing, and what the different Masters' programs look like. Then I doze off thinking of studying and sitting in class again and taking notes....zzzzzzzzz until morning.

This does have a huge impact on the job search, obviously. A high-powered manager's job for only the next two months is not so hot of an idea, unless I can't get admitted until Spring or Summer Term, then that route is the way to go. If I can get admitted in time for the January 7th 2008 start of classes for Winter Term, then that $12/hr temp office thing is the way to go.
Or the mindless holiday cashiering job at any local retailer. If I'm starting school in 8 weeks, I don't care as much who's nametag I'm wearing, suddenly my Sense of Meaning is strung to a very exciting comet of finishing my degree, a solid gold Get Out of Jail Free Card, $200, Pass GO!!

Monday morning (right after Pet walking and feeding) I'm hitting the admissions and financial aid office to sign in for appointments to get more answers, and hopefully by the end of the afternoon have a rounded-out idea of a "YEA" or a "NAY" on a January start. If I have to wait a term or two----not my preferred choice, but at least I'll know and set my teeth on the bigger bone. Head down, make cash happen, stay focused on deferred gratification, still good.
If I can start in January, my neighbors will think I won the Powerball lottery, I'll be running around and screaming until the police arrive.

Winter in School, it's been 25 years since I've done that, but all intuition lights are full on green for it, all reaction by friends and family has been positive, and Jane Sproul was optimistic. I could work in the PSU Bookstore---who there would be more qualified than me?

Late Afternoon Walk in the Neighborhood

These were actually taken last week, between 4 and 5:30pm. They've changed a lot since.

Dia de los Muertos

Day of the Dead, All Saints' Day, cleaning smashed pumpkin off the streets day.

Also my dad's birthday, 68 years ago my grandmother had to slam the door on the trick-or-treating kids in gangster and hobo and witch costumes while my grandfather pulled the car up for the mad dash to the hospital. She always told this story with a snicker, how the bowl of buttered popcorn on her gi-normous belly started moving down and she realized this was it.

One 10lb 6oz baby later...my 5'2" grandmother came home to rotting pumpkins on the front porch, a sink of dirty dishes from the week of bachelor living and couch sleeping my grandfather had been doing, and all that candy still there from October 31st. She dove in to that project first.

It's been fun to see the swing back to door-to-door trick or treating, and last night the adorable bobbing little costumed gnomes started swimming from porch to porch, and all that delayed evening gloaming of daylight's savings time made the usual beer-in-hand of the dads in the street rather un-PC. Too bad, really, because the beer keeps them from eating all the best candy out of the loot bags and plastic pumpkinhead buckets. Maybe it will be moms with Starbucks cups glowing in the twilight instead. My neighbors' son was dressing as a scary tiger, all 2 and a half years of him, to scare the little kids, he said, rawrrr! Too funny, I think his Gran made his costume, which is the absolute best.

I used to have a picture of my dad and me, on Halloween, carving and drawing on a 3-gallon pumpkin. I had on my golden rayon satin tiger jumpsuit, probably about 3, but I'd taken the stiff plastic mask off some time earlier. My dad had my mom's dark brown waxy eyebrow pencil in his hand, and he had just finished drawing some tiger whiskers and eyebrows on my face, with a round dark circle on the end of my nose. I'm looking up at him, and he's leaning over, with his black crewcut and white crewneck t-shirt on, putting the finishing touches on the devil face of the pumpkin, a focused look on his face. It had sharp horns drawn on, and he had cut out the jagged sneer of an evil smile, arched narrow eyes, all menacing. He was good at this, a prelude to his birthday festivities every year. The neighbor middle-school boys would come over for my dad to help with their pumpkins, to be r-e-a-l-l-y scary. Then we'd wash, salt and bake the seeds on cookie trays, crunchy snacks, a great contrast to all the candy.