Archive | October, 2018

One More Week!

31 Oct

One more week until the official election day, and it can’t come fast enough to suit us. The phone rings constantly with robo-calls, Name Unavailables, or calls from people pretending to be local.

The Squire went to a site called NoMoRoBo and signed us up; it’s free and even if it wasn’t it would be worth getting. The phone rings once and then stops. The others we just don’t answer. To make matters even worse, several months ago we were called by one of the “official” poll takers – Gallup, perhaps. The woman who called asked if anyone in the house was under 65, which neither of us are, and then said she would “mark the records” and hung up. If they don’t care what we old fogies think, why would they care how we vote?

The mailbox is almost as bad. We get four or five mailings every day from various candidates, and we drop those directly into the recycling bin without taking them into the house. One candidate annoys me particularly. The man is a physician, and he voted to allow an increase in the lead in the paint used on children’s toys. I didn’t know they still used lead paint! Vote to ban the stuff, not increase it! The average ten year old knows better than that. He also brags about how much he does for the military, both active and retired, but a quick search of his voting record shows that is not the case. Does he think we are all that stupid?

Yeesh.

C’mon November 6th!

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Every Year The Same Thing

29 Oct

Yesterday morning The Squire and the dog came banging in to prod me out of bed. Scared me half to death; the way they acted, you’d think the house was on fire or something.

However. Once again the clock in our bedroom has taken a mind to fall back to standard time a week early. The thing is guided by some mysterious mechanism in outer space, and seems to have a mind of its own. While I was snugly thinking it was a bit past 7:30, it was a actually pushing 8:45.

Time to rise and shine, girl! Time to rise and shine! For some reason, even though this has happened several years in a row, it always ends up on a Sunday I’m on the altar. Could I not have to serve and just sneak in the back to sit down? Noooo – I have to get robed and get in procession. Yeesh.

 

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Early Voting

27 Oct

The Squire and I went yesterday afternoon to cast our ballots. Rather than go to our regular place we were directed to a Community Center, about 5 miles in the opposite direction. Actually, we were quite pleased at the change. There were about twenty five voting booths, rather than the five they had at our usual polling place, and five or six scanners instead of only one.  The door to the gym was in the center of the hallway but the line stretched from one side of the building to the other, made a U turn and came back to the middle. One lady had brought a book, and stepped forward in line without missing a word. My kind of people.

As we were signing in the man on the other side of me reached for his wallet and asked if he needed to show any ID. The clerk chuckled and shook her head. “This isn’t Georgia, sir.” We gave our name and when the clerk had it on the screen, we had to tell her our birthdate and address, so it was pretty easy to prove who you were.

One of the docents (I love that word!) was a young woman wearing a hijab, who still had an accent. I smiled and told her we were glad to see her here, and she replied she was glad to be able to help. “And I voted yesterday!” At least some people take their civic duty seriously.  As if I had any room to talk. I’ll have to see how I can help next time around.

When we picked up our ballots I asked the woman how it was going. She said they had had 1200 voters on Thursday and it looked as if it would be a lot more than that by the end of the day. If it was this busy at 3:00 or 3:30, it was going to be a mob when the “after work on Friday crowd” showed up.

I simply cannot imagine trying to have everybody vote on one day! Dear Heavens!

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Matthew Shepard

26 Oct

Matthew Shepard was laid to rest today at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC. His ashes were interred in the crypt, twenty years after his death. He is the first of a national figure since Hellen Keller in 1968 to be buried there.

I have never been more proud of my church for their willingness to embrace the outsider and marginalized.  Mr. Shepard was one of that rare breed, a cradle Episcopalian. He served as an acolyte in his home church, and where he found warmth and welcome.  The service was lead by V. Eugene Robinson, our first openly gay bishop. I have to admit Bishop Robinson’s consecration was not met with universal approval (our own rector pitched a most un-Christian fit) but we’ve come a long way, and maybe starting at the top was better than trying to sneak up on this business.

The parish The Squire and I attend refers to itself as “A bridge to the future, anchored in the past”. That might be a good motto for the Episcopal church in general.

 

 

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Donuts?

21 Oct

Yesterday was our church’s second annual Fall Festival, and a good time was had by all. Everything was bigger this year – more vendors, more visitors, and more reenactors.cannon

The festival was opened – and closed – with a BOOM from a pre-Civil War cannon. The reenactors who brought it said that is the oldest known anti-aircraft weapon. It was used to shoot down an observation balloon early in the American Civil  War. Some swell, huh?

To save his poor feet, The Squire did tours/explanations of the artifacts in the narthex and the interior of the church. I walked miles doing the outside, showing the locations of High Street, Low Street, and points in between. I thought I’d wore decent colonial-style shoes, but by the end of the first tour, my toes were aching. One of the Boy Scout mums offered me a pair of tennis shoes to wear and that was a blessing! Not exactly Colonial, but what the heck! They saved my feet!

We came home, scrambled a couple of eggs, watched the most recent showing of Young Sheldon, which The Squire had recorded Thursday night, and fell into bed. I don’t remember saying my prayers, and I woke up in the same position I had when I lay on the bed! Tired? Moi? Nah.

One of the ladies at church had her cellphone out this morning, checking posts to the parish Facebook account.  She was reading one out loud, posted by a gentleman who said the docent was well-versed in Joppatowne history.

Except she read it as donut!

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Of Mice and Men

10 Oct

On one of the blogs I follow http://ajoyfulchaos.blogspot.com/ the writer tells us of the time her brother Mahlon rescued a chipmunk from a barn cat. The chipmunk raced up his pants, over his coat, and perched on his hat!

And that reminded me . . .

The Squire and I are both avid animal lovers, We will feed and/or rescue anything that comes along, from foxes to deer to racoons.  I’ll scoop up spiders and put them out. The Squire swears if I came upon a giraffe in the woods I’d tie a bow around its neck and stand it in the stairwell.

We used to keep our cat food in a large kitchen trash can, and from time to time a mouse would fall in and be unable get back out. Normally we would carry the bin out to the woodpile and tilt it over so the critter could hop out. And then run really fast so we could get back inside before the wee beastie arrived before us.

One morning there was a little fellow in the bin, and because he was so tiny and it was so cold outside, I decide to let him out inside the house. If you try to catch a mouse, they will dash wildly all over the place, but if you put your hand in and wait, they will hop on and let you close your hand over them. So, I did and the mouse did.

But when I moved my hand the silly critter ran – up the inside of my housecoat sleeve and out the collar. He sat on my shoulder and we just stared at each other for a few seconds before he leapt down and ran under the furnace.  It was hard to tell which of us was the most surprised.

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A Beautiful Day

6 Oct

This is a wonderful, one minute clip filmed in Glasgow, Scotland. Full of wisdom, and very brief. It’s not a joke, it’s not religious, it’s not political. It’s just special. I think you’ll agree. It has a meaning for all of us.
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=Hzgzim5m7oU&vq=medium

 

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I’ve Always Been a Good Cook

2 Oct

Well, maybe not exactly always.

I’ve been going through an old recipe box, sorting and tossing, and sometimes wondering why on earth I kept that.  Some of the stuff must have sounded good at the time, but not now, and even if I tried one new recipe a day, it’s take me years to make everything.

I did find one marvelous recipe, though, carefully typed on an index card, and I can’t wait to try it! I wrote this before I was ten, which may explain a lot!

Cinnamon Cake

1 egg

3 cups dough

2 cup cinnamon

1/2 cup raisins

1 tabl e poon of butter                         1 cup water

Cook eggs as do in Yummy Eggs. Melt butter in pan until water. Mix dough and water with cinnamon. Then poor in raisins. And cook at 355.

Yummy Eggs was a recipe we got from the old Jack and Jill magazine. All I remember is that you fixed it in a double boiler – and it was really, really good.

I must have been dreadfully fond of cinnamon!

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Is this a Good Idea?

1 Oct

Big MacThis is why doctors check ten year old children for cholesterol and high blood pressure.

Yeesh.

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