What's going on.

1.  I still haven't mailed in my absentee ballot. I have even marked it (except for the City Council folks since i don't know them) and just need to get it in the mail otherwise they will start calling me. 


2. I am procrastinating about doing my On Demand 10 Minute Workout. I'm still sore from the day before. Workouts hurt. Running hasn't hurt me for years. That's why i like it better. But it does nothing for my core. I hate worrying about my core. stupid word.


3. Brian's band was great last night. Fun seeing all the Halloween costumes. Probably the best one was an Avatar chick. Then a couple of cavemen. The guy was pretty funny because he had to wear glasses with his costume. (We did not dress up.)


4. I returned my online raincoat and got a better one. Every time i buy a coat it looks like i'm wearing someone else's coat. And that's what happened with this one. Good news is i found a shorter one i like better and it was HALF the cost! 


5. Bought another pair of jeans which i may still end up returning. Or maybe altering. I cannot find a good pair of jeans! 


6. i WAS starting to think i might be wrong about Rick Perry winning the nomination because of his horribly stupid performances in the debates. But then i remembered how Americans voted in Bush and so i'm sticking with my first pick. I still think it will be Rick Perry. I feel like the polls are f*cking around by pretending to pick Cain. 


7. I'm back to reading Dave Eggers What is the What. It's very good and i wonder why i put it down in the first place. (I started it last summer). 


8. I keep thinking i might want a Kindle or a Nook or an iPad. And then i think i'm not sure that i really do. For one thing, if someone wants to steal my copy of What is the What i'm only about $15. I don't like the idea that i have to carry around an e-book worth something every time i go anywhere because i never go anywhere ever without a book. I'm afraid i'll lose it. 


9. My best nephew Brian (Troy's son) , came over Thursday to my office. He wanted to tell me in person that he was going to ask his girlfriend (of 8 years) to marry him. I was very excited for him because they seem to be in a very good place now after some tough times. I got to know before his Dad. (I think once he made up his mind he wanted to tell someone who was close to him and he couldn't find his dad.) He asked his girlfriend the next day and she said yes. 


10. Speaking of politics for a minute, i'm thinking i might not be overly thrilled with our Democrat candidate Jay Inslee. He's cute and looks like the quarterback that he used to be, but sort of seems like he might be an empty suit. HOWEVER, we have to be sure not to let McKenna in or we could be in for what Wisconsin just went through. 


11. I just don't like working for elections solely on wanting to be sure the other guy doesn't get in. I've done it before, but i liked it much better when working for Obama.


12. I haven't given up my thoughts about going to Occupy Tacoma. I just don't want to seem like that Catholic person who only goes to church on Easter and pisses off the regulars (who tend to run late to everything and have to stand in the back) because i get to sit in the pew (because i'm always on time). I need to feel committed to doing something besides showing up once and going out for a beer afterwards. (The photo above came from their Facebook page.) 


OK that's all i got. Not too inspired but it was a week and time to change the blog. 

Nothing Much to Report.

Menu of the Day:


Music playing: Jason Isbell's "Codeine". I recently bought this and LOVE it! Such a great song. 


The new song that i'm wearing out: If you want to hear a really beautiful song, check out Josh Garrels' "Don't Wait for Me". That's my new song.


Book: I'm reading three: still Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet; Suze Orman's Action Plan (about financial planning) and the Lincoln Lawyer book "Reversal".


In my glass: J Lohr Chardonnay. First glass. 


The Best thing that Happened this week: Brian is in a new blues band and i got to see them for the first time. They are really good! And i'm excited for him, because like i said before, I never could get past the female singers in his old band who tried to sound like Janis J. Nobody should try to do that. Especially them. The lead singer in this new band is an older dude but has a great blues voice.




That's all i got for the menu. On with the random stuff .....


**********************


1. Now that the football games are over i should put on the Jillian Michaels On Demand stuff and do the workout that louielouie told me about. But i poured this glass of wine instead.


2. I bought a pair of those "These are Not your Daughter's Jeans". Here's the thing about those jeans: They are not exactly MOM jeans, but almost! Once i got them home and looked in a real mirror instead of the fakey Nordstrom mirrors i realized they had too much room in the butt and made my butt look like a big saggy square after they were worn for awhile and stretched out. Plus they had too much room in the legs. I don't even HAVE a daughter so i have no idea why i bought them. I had them hemmed, wore them once, and returned them for credit. I might be 54 years old but i am not ready for Mom Jeans. Plus the sizes are vanity. You have to buy a size smaller. 


I think that is where the hook is. 


3. The best jeans in the world are Christopher Blue and i have about 10 pairs, but they are wearing out and Nordstrom quit selling them in favor of these stupid Non-Daughter jeans. 


5. The thing is i cannot find a thing i like in Nordstrom these days. I feel like i'm either too young or too old. I hate to think i am ready for Lane Bryant. 


6. I hate to shop but  I have three shopping addictions: shopping for jeans, shopping for books, and finding the perfect foundation. 


7. I am thinking about getting my lazy ass down to the Occupy gatherings but i want to go as a group and i think we union folks should be there. I am loving this movement and want it to continue. I think they should be right outside every Capitol building. But i need to do something besides carry a sign. Only i want someone else to tell me what that need is. Like register voters.  Because i don't assume that protestors actually do vote. Because if they did, maybe we wouldn't be in this mess. 


8. My advice this week: If you have mutual funds, 401Ks, etc. do not open your statements this month. I wish i didn't. And i wish someone told me not to. 


9. I just noticed i have 29 followers now and i for the life of me cannot figure out who the next one is.I click through and don't see any new names.  So welcome Follower #29. Whoever you are and i hope you post. 


10. I am starting to really HATE Facebook. The newsfeed is banal and boring and full of just quotes and shit. And it's kicked my blog ass and i hate that the most. Because i don't give a shit about your sniffles, or your kid's sniffles or where you ate your dinner. I think Facebook is the definition of ironic. 

Velvet Sledgehammer - my new favorite wine. And my new favorite commercial

This has been my favorite commercial for awhile now. I almost wonder if the little girl is really the father's daughter. I know y'all probably know it well. 


1. It's Saturday night and i just poured a shiraz called Velvet Sledgehammer. I bought a bottle of this also for our chief bargainer who is in part responsible for my new retire/rehire status. I thought it was a fitting title for a chief bargainer who had to put up with a lot of shit from our own union members. And he did with a lot of grace and patience. I got a wonderful thank you from him about my support for the bargaining team by trying to stand up to some of those shitheads. It's really very very good. (And velvet in the title is fitting because it is velvet-y.)


2. I have money in my iTunes account but i am finding that sometimes i just need to own the cd in it's commercial packaging. I still play cds on our stereo set up because the sound system is so much better and my iPod hooked up to it has a bit of static. So i play cds. Ryan Adams just put out his new cd and instead of iTunes i bought it from Amazon. I never seem to be able to find the cds i've burned. And like some books that i want to own (The Help, Prayer of Owen Meany, Broken for You, Cutting for Stone) i also need to own the storebought cd and not a download.


3. I also bought a raincoat online. i hope i like it.


4. I should be practicing my speech for Tuesday night. But i don't like to be too rehearsed for these kinds of thing. I know what i want to say so i'll just jot down notes and talk. That's gotten me through some funeral eulogies and retirement speeches okay. (That and a beta blocker!) lol.


5. I got all my paperwork for my retirement yesterday. It turns out to be better than i was expecting and more than the original quote because of how the bargain turned out, so THAT was worth celebrating. I can't believe i'll be done for good in only two years.


6. I probably should buy another bottle of the velvet for the chief bargainer.


7. Last night i bought Paul Simon's Mother and Child Reunion cd. I own it on vinyl and used to play it on my outside patio record player during the summer. But something is wrong with the record player. Probably since we keep it outside on our patio!


8. My husband just got accepted into another band today. A  blues band and so much better than his old band The Disclaimers. Truth is i never liked his old band because i couldn't get past the bad women singers. This new band is much better. As of this writing he is actually in THREE bands, but will be quitting the Disclaimers. He's so excited. And he's constantly studying it and practicing while at home. I think i have mentioned before that both of his cars sit outside the garage to make room for his drums. (He owns two sets).


9. Sometimes i think i need to learn a new hobby. Then i remember how i hate learning new stuff.


10. I didn't really have anything much to say today, but being the numbers goal oriented person that i am i saw that i have 12 more posts to reach my goal of 52 by Dec. 31. So here i am.


I guess i'll go practice my speech. What are y'all up to?

Here's What's on the Menu

Menu of the Day: 


Music: Your Life is Now by Mellencamp


In my glass:  a wine made by a friend called Two Loons. It's an amazing Cab Franc and i just paid $200 to help make it in the future. It's a local thing that they are inviting friends to join them to get involved in the labeling, tasting, bottling. 


What i'm looking forward to: My husband has been doing something late every single night this week for work and/or his band. Tomorrow is our 'date night' with cooking, music and wine. I love our date nights. 


What else is good: Work. It's been so busy for me and i love that. 


What i'm anxious about: I have been taking a public speaking class. I have to give a speech on something i know about at our last class next Tuesday. I'm going to pretend i am talking at a running clinic and my audience is made up of folks who want to know how to start a running program. 


What pisses me off: Obama not being able to get anything done (most recent Jobs Bill) because Congress is playing politics...again... just like with the Debt Ceiling Shit. No wonder he wanted out of the Senate so quickly.  


What i wish: I want Obama to kick ass and get pissed off. I want him to be as mad as Biden was when the vote went down. It's good to be calm and grace under fire. But sometimes i need to see the fire, yano? 


What else i wish: I'll come back to this. I forgot what i was going to add!


What I am procrastinating about: I need to take those iMac classes! They are already paid for!


What i hate about my iMac: i do not like this iMouse. It's scratchy on my desktop surface and it's not much better with a mousepad. ALSO, the biggest thing is sometimes i move it and everything i write disappears. I don't even know what causes it. It's happened on my blog and in email.


What I am starting to not care about: My hair woes. Right now it's too long. And this time of year it's fruitless to try to control hair that has weird waves and curls and bends like mine. Right now it at least long enough to simply put it in a french braid. So i'm good to go. 


What i also don't care about: The Republican debates. Though i have to say Kathleen Parker's column was great today. She is pretty conservative and i don't always agree with her but i liked what she said about the Republicans being too worried about religion since the Mormons are the smartest of the bunch. 


Here's the link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-shameful-bias-against-mormons/2011/10/12/gIQAR5WVfL_story.html
She says: 

"The use and abuse of religion to advance politically is a scourge on any nation, and no witness to Islamist theocracy should doubt it. Less dramatically, it is simply bad form. Americans of a certain age remember when preachers preached and politicians didn’t. Tent revivals took place on the outskirts of small towns, not in mega-coliseums led by presidential contenders. (See Rick Perry.)"

Bad thing i did this week: Actually it was last week. I went to pick up my Dad for his birthday tavern lunch. And as i was leaving i saw that horrible family photo hanging on the wall that was taken in Christmas 1991. It includes my sister's  ex-husband and my brother's ex-wife. (Mine was already literally 'out of the picture' by then.) Dad said he had already hidden it but she found it and put it back up. Mom wasn't home so i took it down and put it in the trunk of my car. (Where it still remains.) I know my sister is high-fiving me if she is watching. 


If i give it back I'm going to have Brian PhotoShop Brad Pitt as my sister's husband. And I'll have to ask Troy which celebrity he might want to be married to. (I already know it's not Angelina). 


So come tell us. Especially...what bad thing you did! And what is pissing you off. The negative stuff is always the juiciest. 

Just your regular random nothings.

1. I love my iPod, iTunes,  and my iMac so I was sorry to hear yesterday that Steve Jobs died. Not even all the money in the world could help heal him. I hadn't realized he was diagnosed quite a few years ago.

2. I got my first iPod from Brian for Christmas. It was the white one that held 5,000 songs. When i opened it up, i did not know what it was, though i had seen the U-2 commercial. I think it was either 2004 or 2005.

3. I learned to use a computer on an Apple II-C in 1985. Louielouie taught me and a few other enthusiastic educators from the junior high where we worked. I was hooked and could not wait to trade in my Correcting Selectric typewriter!

4. Louie actually bought one of those computers! I was so impressed. I think she was the first person in the District outside of the tech people to own one. Later that year, going through simultaneous divorces we started writing our reference book on how to be single. And after too much wine we accidentally erased the whole thing.

5. Later on we found out some dude plagiarized our work. I am not sure how that guy recovered our lost book from louie's computer, but when "He's Just Not That Into You" was published we found out just how close we had come to being wealthy. (If only we hadn't had that third glass of wine.)

6. Speaking of books, I just finished reading the Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly. I am now reading another Lincoln Lawyer book entitled The Reversal. Matt McConnaughy perfected this character in the Lincoln Lawyer movie. It's a pretty good read that reminds me of old Grisham, back around The Firm and Time to Kill books.

5. This has been a very busy week at work and i love it, though not so much two back-tback 12 hour days because i don't get anything done at home. No laundry, no groceries, and no time to dust! (I love dusting!) I am looking forward to doing nothing all weekend. I will probably go buy a bottle of special red wine tomorrow,  purchase some new iTune music, make a fire and lay around and read The Reversal.

5. I love summertime, but i am usually ready for it to be over too. What's great about this time of year is  waking up in the morning when the heat kicks in and i can smell the coffee that Brian is brewing through the vents. It's a wonderful way to start the day.

6. The big thing that i don't like about this time of year (besides know that our gray winter is following) is switching out my summer clothes and going back to my regular (lighter) Lancome foundation. I also don't like that first day of running in long pants. And right now for the first time this season, I am wearing my Sporthill long pants while i procrastinate my workout by updating this blog.

7. Oh yeah, and i don't much care for Halloween either. I stay home and give out candy, but i don't really like it all that much. I think it's the expectant feel of the doorbell which makes it hard to relax.

8. I'm thinking about a Kindle or a Nook (color) or an iPad. Not sure i need all the bells and whistles of an iPad, but i'm uncertain about the best fit for me. I'll have to do research. If any of y'all have an e-reader, i hope you'll weigh in. I need a long battery life. I want color cause i plan to get cooking magazines. And i need to not wear out my eyes.

9. I don't have much to add to this so i'll probably change it up soon with a theme. I saw that iSad image and it inspired me to update my blog.

10. I wonder if i should use some of my retirement money to buy Apple stock???? Did it go back up yet?