Random Thoughts in No Particular Order

The election official who checked me off the list of registered Paulding County voters today at the Georgia Primary and complained mightily about all this "dadburned technology" that's changing the way we do things probably didn't vote for the same folks I did today. Is there a Luddite party? Or is that redundant in Georgia?

At my age I'm officially "senior," but while voting at the Paulding Senior Center today, it occurred to me that, until today I didn't know it existed except I knew those white minibuses had to be going somewhere. I'd like to last a few more years before I go there to find something to do or someone to talk to.

There was one person of color working at the election site today. Why did she get the work station situated next to where some doofus used the wrong kind of tape to tape down an electrical cord, resulting in her tripping and me having to catch her? I don't want to get all conspiracy theory on y'all, but Georgia has some pretty devious ways of making sure that black folks don't vote. Just say'in, that's all.

The major downfall to spending all day on a virtual call, staring at oneself on a small screen, is the knowledge that I look very different than I want to. Could that possibly be my chins wobbling or is it a flaw in the camera? 

The problem with reading is that it leads to more reading. My friend has been recommending I read "The Thursday Murder Club" forever but I balked at the price to buy it on Kindle. (I have my standards and I never go above $10 for a bunch of zeros and ones.) She was insistent, or should I say, encouraging, and finally convinced me to join a library in a state I never go to (I know, I know) so I could read it. I did and requested either the eBook or the audiobook version. Within a day I had  my electronic version. I'm enjoying this book! It's not "War and Peace" or even Margaret Atwood, but it's pretty darn good. Today I said to her that I was starting to think I should invest in the Kindle version to own it. Then just to prove to myself how virtuously frugal I was, I looked it up on Amazon and it was ... $2.99 temporarily. Of course, I bought it immediately and bought the audio version too. Because if it was fun to read, think how good it will be to listen to it. (And, btw, buying both versions books cost me more than my $10 limit.)

And speaking of reading, yes, I'm one of those people who cheats on books with other books. I always have an audiobook, a Kindle, and a wood-pulp book going at the same time. And a stack of New Yorkers I haven't read yet. At least. Today, it's a police procedural on Audible, TTMC on Kindle, and in paper, it's "Going Back to Bisbee" by Richard Shelton. Being a fan of most things Bisbee, without ever having been there, I should tell you the book by Shelton is heavy on Arizona and light on Bisbee, but probably one of the most beautifully written books I've ever read. And beautifully researched. Which naturally led me to buy one of Shelton's poetry books, "The Last Person To Hear Your Voice." In paperback because when I read poetry I have to hold an actual book. I'm not sure why.

The next Shelton book will be his memoirs of working with the prison population. And then ... well, who knows?

Enough deep thoughts for today.

FOMO?

 Can one person have too much in her life? Too many blessings? Too much to do and not enough time to do it all?

That's me. It's been five years since I've written here. I've been too busy. 

Doing what? I feel like I haven't accomplished anything!

And, no, this isn't another COVID screed. Yes, the past few years have been stressful but, in many ways, they haven't impacted me much.

I still go to work. My precious older daughter is gone. I have lost a husband I loved but, truthfully, he was lost many years ago to Alzheimer's. I've really lost a beloved task, not a companion.

And I'm still writing...sort of. Still knitting...but not finishing much. English paper piecing? Not in months!

Yes, travel has been impacted. My beloved job with Stitches events has trickled down to a once-in-a-great-while event. CARF has stopped sending me interesting places. I still do CARF surveys but they're all (so far) virtual. Satisfying, but yet ....

Last year friend Debra and I flew to Rhinebeck for our "coming out party" from COVID. After all the fuss and worrying and stressing over details (do I even know how to buckle my plane seatbelt after all these years? why isn't there food on the plane? I can't breathe through this mask--I brought the wrong one! can I find my vaccination card?), it was fine. 

Although some venues were stricter than others, and Rhinebeck itself was reduced in size and attendance, it was a wonderful few days. We met old friends, some from many miles and other parts of my life, we ate our favorite Rhinebeck foods old and new (I'm talking to you, Roasted Brussel Sprouts!), even met a few knitting celebrities.

Then in March of this year, we went to Stitches West.  A great show as always, just smaller. I met old friends and made some new ones. I missed some people.  Again, Debra and I drove around the SF area and ate and laughed and talked to people and maybe bought some yarn. I didn't walk in the Pacific but I got close enough to be sprayed by waves.

And family! There's so much to say about family. New babies, grands growing up and marrying and going to school and, and, and. My family is truly my life. There is nothing I like better than snuggling one of my children, from months old to 35.

My job has been more than I could have expected. I've truly found my passion with the kids of Murphy-Harpst. Every day there is more to be done, less time to do it, and more joy than I could ever have imagined. I actually feel that I'm making an impression on young people who need me. This is my jam, for sure.

So why do I feel unfulfilled? Like I'm not living up to my potential. Like not getting done all the things that need to be done. Not writing that novel. Not moving on to my life without a job. Not traveling to all the places on my list. Not finishing that quilt top. Not, not, not. 

I'm a mass of negatives in the middle of so many positives. 

Am I fearing, not death, but not finishing everything in my remaining years? Or am I just an ungrateful, whiny cow?

Well, It Finally Happened!

               I finally lost a friend over the election. The first that I know of. The first to tell me I'm dead to him. In person and not on social media. And I can't even blame him--it was I who lost my temper and said things that shouldn't be said. (You know how emotional we females can get--I blame it all on menopause and drinking too many Diet Pepsis .)

               And I'm the one who said I would respect each person's individual vote. After all, we all have our own issues, prejudices, and hot buttons. And they drive our votes. As for me, I'm a card-carrying bleeding-heart liberal. I don't mind paying more taxes so others can get the services they need, even if they don't always deserve them. I'll fight to the death to have a competent Secretary of Education of our public schools so the children of the trump voters can have a better education.

               But it's tough. My friend called me a poor sport. Like I just lost at marbles. Actually, where important things like the Washington Redskins are concerned, I admit I'm a pretty poor sport.  But, with lots of practice, over the years I've honed my ability to pretend I'm okay with the Dallas Cowboys claiming they are "America's Team" while the Redskins stay home again from the Big Game.

               But I digress. I tried to explain that, more important than being a good sport, I have real concerns about the competence and experience of trump and his cabinet members.  He waved that off as having less importance than that the Republican party had vanquished Hillary and Obama. Oh, good. The black guy and the woman are gone.

               He's also a bottom-line guy who hates the idea that a business, like the one we work for, would be forced to pay for employees to have basic healthcare due to the Affordable Care Act. Or the idea that the federal government would force its opinion or any type of regimen on anyone. God knows we wouldn't want anyone telling us we had to be a Christian or a heterosexual or eschew birth control or guard ourselves from grizzlies in our public schools.

               But I'm pleading temporary insanity. When he told me that (a) there is no evidence that Congress wants to repeal healthcare coverage for under-26's or for those with preexisting conditions and (b) there is no evidence that Russia was involved in the recent debacle, I felt my precarious hold on mental health starting to fail.  I asked where he was getting his news. When he told me "that's Hillary stuff," I heard a snapping sound from inside my head. Something vital had broken loose.

               When our coworker, sitting with us, naively asked what Congress intended to replace the ACA with, since obviously so many people needed it, he told her not to worry about it, that Congress would handle it. At this point, I flew over the edge of the cuckoo's nest.

               This was not going to work. I had gone into a gunfight armed with a spitball. And it didn't end well. The top of my head blew off and blood and brains spewed out. Metaphorically speaking. When he told me I was dead to him, I think I remember telling him to send it to me in a 140-character Tweet so I'd know it was official.

               The important thing here is that it was my fault. I didn't set out to lose a friend I've worked with for 15 years. I had no intention of making an enemy out of a coworker that I work with daily.  And friends, long-time or new, are nothing to scoff at. I value my friends. I take full blame for what happened.

               But the more I think about it, we really weren't friends. We were coworkers who disagreed violently but politely on most aspects of daily life and culture. We were generally cordial as long as we stuck to topics with no possible religious or political significance. Pictures of cute puppies and grumpy kittycats were possible but only if none of the puppies was sitting too close to another puppy of the same sex.

               My friends and I don't always agree on everything but we agree on the important things--the value of other people, the importance of the environment, the need to be able to trust those to whom we've entrusted the leadership of our country. So I guess he and I weren't really friends. Just work acquaintances.  And I guess that's over.

I'm Back--and it took This Guy to get me back

To my conservative friend(s):

               Someone commented to me the other day that I seem to be "really bothered" by This Guy. And I answered that I was "worried," not bothered. That wasn't the truth.

               I'm not "bothered" by him. He is who he is. He has changed his public persona over the years, has claimed a multitude of beliefs and positions, and has been a chameleon depending on who he needed to be, who he was with, what he thought someone wanted to hear. Like the old joke about the snake, we knew he was a snake when we picked him up. The fact is, it's not his fault that he's in a job that he's uniquely unqualified for. It's the fault of the American voters.

               I'm not even bothered by the so-called deplorables (what a crappy word to call someone!), those voters who are uneducated or poorly educated, underemployed or unemployed, who have no hope for their present or future, who are racists or misogynists, or who are still fighting in bars rather than engaging in debates. Nope, I'm bothered by voters like you.

               I know you to be honorable. You're a good person, a patriot, a loyal employee, a loving husband and father. You are someone I've spent hours with, debating  history, football, and politics, always with the underlying idea that, although we fundamentally disagree on many aspects of today's culture, we share basic positions that we both hold dear: love of country, love of family, love of work, respect for the foundations of our country and those who seek to keep us safe, a complex spiritual life, and concern for those among us who have less than we do, either materially, emotionally, or health-wise.

               I'm bothered that you have endorsed This Guy with your vote. We've all met people like him. He's the boss who pinched my butt and tried to touch my breasts in the office (when I was 17 and in my first job), waving a soggy cigar when I pulled away. He's the guy who brags about how much he does for others but you have to dun for the entry fee for the charity golf tournament. He's the guy who stiffs the waitstaff because of some imaginary slight in the service. The guy who sneers behind your back that your (first) wife isn't as hot as his (third or fourth) wife, that your kid went into the military instead of a fancy university because the military is for "losers," that he's too smart to pay taxes when you just made your quarterly payment, that he's too smart to believe in God when you're seeking prayers for your sick child. He's the guy you don't let hold your toddler daughter. Ever. The business owner who overlooks your years of service to give the job you've earned to his nephew who has no experience. The guy who makes rude jokes at others' expense and doesn't understand why his peers aren't laughing.

               So, tell me. Would you hire This Guy? Would you ask him to join you and your wife for dinner? Have a drink with him in the bar? Introduce him to your daughter? Play poker with him? Ask him to mentor your son? Nominate him for an office in your professional organization? Suggest him to lead an important fundraising drive? Ask him to babysit your precious grandchild or dog for a weekend, a day, an hour?

               If the answers are no, he's not fit to be the leader of one of the leaders of the free world. We need a leader with experience, a willingness to learn the complexities of the world we live in, and an ability to work with others. (Harry Truman did it with little or no experience in national politics, but he was a selfless guy with a deep love of his country and a willingness to listen to a bi-partisan group of advisors.) Someone who will be honest with the American people (we all know those coal-country jobs aren't coming back--they don't exist any more and the jobs that do exist require a different set of educational and experiential qualifications--we need to be concentrating on education, not standing around waiting for a miracle). Someone who engenders respect, and maybe trust, from our allies and enemies alike.  Someone who can't be bought or influenced. Someone who puts the country's needs ahead of his own. This Guy isn't it. I'm not certain the other candidate was the best the Democrats could have come up with either, but at least I'm not worried she would get us blown up by North Korea because of an ego trip.

               Finally, my friend said, "hey, we've survived worse than this." Really? Is that now the qualification for president, that he's not the worst? Seriously?

Pax? Really?

Who the heck names a snow event Pax? Note that I'm loathe to call Pax a "snowstorm" since even in the hinterlands of Chez Pug 3-4" over three days isn't exactly a blizzard. Yet, here I am, trapped at home waiting for the streets to be clear enough to go to work. Ice, you see, and even with our fine governator's admittedly better efforts, the highways are still largely impassable.

Also note that the Pax namers, The Weather Channel, also called the last snow/ice event, the one I call Clusterstuck, Leon. I don't know which one is dumber, Pax or Leon.

Oh, well, what do you do when you're at home and shamelessly avoiding all the productive things you could do, like housework? You knit and read and watch movies on Amazon Prime. Sometimes all at once. And in between you go on Facebook to see how your friends and relatives are managing their own personal and weather crises.

And, of course, you surf Ravelry. And you find a new Total Time Suck, Goodreads.

In between, you log into work and actually complete some items on the "to do" list, but don't tell the bosses. They prefer to think you're squandering valuable work opportunities and who are we to disabuse them of this fantasy?

Once in awhile, you even complete something. So, in knitting, one project off the needles: Cameo.

What's On The Needles?

Anyone who know me knows that I am incapable of knitting on one project at a time.

I always have several things going at once, probably accounting for the fact that it takes me forever to complete a project. This really makes sense if you think about it.

My knitting projects are specifically for certain places and situations:

First, I always have a relatively complex project, lace or something that requires close attention to a chart or something filled with seemingly (but not really) random short rows. This is for times that I'm not too tired, completely alone, and have both patience and no other distractions.

Then there's the project that is large and/or just complicated enough that I have to think about it. Maybe a sweater with complex shaping or stitch patterns or cables or some such. Or it has too many balls of yarn hanging off it.

Finally, there's mindless knitting. The shawl above, Cameo by Paulina Popiolek. It's miles of garter stitch in two yarns from my stash, some Miss Babs sock yarn in Frogbelly and some turquoise Araucania fingering. Ellen made this shawl (with a lot more imagination, I might say) and I knew I had to make it. It would be my sitting in the snow that some people in Atlanta are currently calling "Clusterstuck," or watching TV with a dog or two on my lap.

Socks, of course, fall into this category, in the subcategory Purse Knitting. I usually have a sock in my purse for line waiting and always at least one in the car for red lights.

but that's for another day.

Wow...a Year?

If asked, and I have been but chose to ignore the questions, I'd have estimated my last post here was a few months ago, October maybe. A year is sort of shocking. But that's about the time a wheel or two fell off the bus here at Chez Pug--personally and definitely technologically. Basically it's been a tough year but no tougher than anyone else's, so no excuses.

I hope the technology is a little more under control, and the rest of it is what it will be. Anyway, here I am again. 

So, Snow-mageddon 2014. What we would have called in the north "a light dusting" has thus far closed down Atlanta for two and a half days. Before I moved here in 2001 I might have chuckled. Now I know this crap is no joke! This city really isn't prepared for any weather at all. Interesting in a city whose news weather branch is called "Severe Weather Center." Seriously, most of us wake up to Channel 2's intrepid weather woman, Karen Minton, saying, "Here in Atlanta the weather is beautiful, 75 degrees and clear. Stay tuned to Severe Weather Center for updates." Really?

Love ya, Karen, but seriously? But that jacket you were wearing this morning? Killer! And that's apparently all that matters, because the governor and mayor don't listen to you anyway. Just a pretty blonde woman with great clothes.

Anyway, this week "weather" was predicted. "Winter weather," to be exact. All the local and national outlets said it was coming and Severe Weather Center said it was coming at 1 pm. About noon flakes started to fall, delicately and without malice at all. Beautiful. No problem. At work we'd planned for such an eventuality and we were as ready as we could be. Some of my co-workers went home. Others, like myself, gave them time to get off the roads and then left later. 5 pm in my case. Snow count? About an inch or less.

Hours later I was sitting about three miles from the office (only 39 to go!) and I checked my traffic app. Yes, I have a traffic app, put out by the same Severe Weather Center TV station. It's a fabulous app--a lovely graphic map with little camera icons that show you where all the traffic cameras are along the route home, and a glowing blue bubble that represented where my car was at the moment (are you kidding me??) and little accident icons that showed trouble spots. The route is also color-coded--green for "no problem," yellow for "whoa, slow down a little, honey, there's something up ahead," and red for "go back, don't even think about it."

Red everywhere. Shit!

This picture was taken when we still thought it was an anomaly that would be cleared up soon. At this point, I still thought I might get home that night. Not so much.

By midnight the traffic was almost completely stopped. Oh, every so often we moved ahead by a car length. I think that was just the Goddesses teasing us. That movement made me think we were making progress. But every time Mr. Pug called, getting increasingly frantic and angry--not at me, but at Georgia's Governator and the Mayor of Atlanta for not having salted and cindered the roads in a timely fashion--I checked my odometer, and my progress could be measured in tenths of a mile. About 3 am, I pulled over to the side of the road, along with 10 or 15% of my fellow travelers, and tried to sleep. 

Lesson Learned: It's almost impossible to sleep with other cars slipping on the icy roads and skimming past your vehicle space with spinning tires and blowing horns. Okay, that was not going to work.

By 4 am I had extracted myself from my shoulder spot and inched far enough forward to see an upcoming exit where I knew there was a fast food joint. I tried to exit but it was completely clogged with broken down cars. Damn! The next exit was a little more passable and I slunk past the abandoned cars on the ramp and into a McDonald's. Good thing because my bladder was about to burst! (I cannot tell you how many men and women I saw standing and squatting by the side of I-75, relieving themselves. I swear if I hadn't been wearing jeans, it might have been an option. I also saw the guys in the car in front of me pour what was left from a carton of orange juice out onto the pavement. Then I saw it re-emptied again a minute or two later. Well, you gotta do what you gotta do.)

Lesson Learned: Just because the sign says "Open 24 Hours" doesn't mean it is. Everything, including the shopping center across the street, assuming I could have gotten across the street,  was completely clogged with cars. I wedged mine into an illegal spot in the McDonald's lot, locked the door, crossed my legs tightly, and tried to sleep. First I woke Mr. Pug one last time to tell him I was safe and hear more diatribes against Governor Dumbass. Around 6, I fell asleep. At 6:30, the parking lot around me began to wake up.

So, to make a hideously long story even longer, I finally strolled into Chez Pug at 2:30 pm the day after I left the office. And here's what I got from the experience:

1. Thank Dog for knitting. I knit off and on the whole time.
2. Thank Dog twice for mindless knitting projects. Mine had lots of yarn and garter stitch. Doesn't get any more mindless than that. (Cameo Shawl if you're interested.)
3. The snow around the parked cars in the McD's lot was splotched with lots of yellow. Good thing I slept through all of it.
4. My night was pretty tame compared to others. My friend Sandy's car ran off the road and she was (luckily) rescued by a friend of her sister's. Otherwise her story could have been much uglier.
5. When the 24 hour McDonald's opens, at 7:30 am, the only person there will be the manager who mostly doesn't speak English. He does know how to make coffee and is happy to sell it for a dollar a cup. plus tax for the governor.
6. The bathroom will be mostly clean but at that point, who really cares?
7. No other food will be available until a worker shows up an hour later and finally grasps that what the manager is saying is "sausage, please cook the sausage."
8. Apparently when they hired him for his facility with languages, they didn't take into account the fact that someone who speaks Croatian fluently may not be able to communicate with a largely Hispanic staff or customers.
9. But Croatians can apparently make great coffee.
10. Oatmeal doesn't require food, just hot water. I set off a trend by mentioning that to the manager and he fixed me a cup.
11. Hundreds of people who slept in their cars all along the block will be happy to pay a dollar a cup. Most will be friendly and just happy not to be on I-75.
12. The road will still not be clear when you're ready to go home, which is right after drinking your coffee and eating your oatmeal.
13. Which is fine because the guy who's got you blocked in with his car isn't in a hurry to leave anyway.
14. When you get out, around 10 am (more knitting with some news and audiobook listening thrown in), traffic won't be able to get up the hill. It will be full of more 18-wheelers as if we haven't seen enough in the last 12 hours.
15. All the gas stations will be simultaneously raising their prices and running out of gas.
16. The parking lot across the street will have one tiny space left, just big enough for your car. The guy in the car next to you will get out of his car to greet you, saying "Welcome! You must be our new neighbor!"
17. He'll fill you in on the neighborhood gossip: the 24 hour cafe is closed (of course!), the Publix is open but filled with people sheltering in place (big shoutout to Publix!), the Starbucks is open but their restroom is suspiciously "out of order." And I  bet their coffee was more than a dollar.
18. Apparently the big convention in town this week is the National Egg and Poultry show. (Not a joke! You cannot make this stuff up!) This explains the large truck parked about three cars away with hundreds of empty chicken boxes in the back. I don't want to know what happened to the chickens.
19. People are mostly very decent. I did not meet one person who wasn't gracious and friendly and we all chuckled about how we'll be telling these stories for years. No one called the Governator Dumbass, with the possible exception of me.
20. We were about a mile from the Governator's mansion. I'm betting there was no one sheltering in place in his house that night. Again, thanks to all the businesses who let folks hang out for the night.

Postscript: When I finally got to my subdivision, there were cars parked all along the entrance. There were also several people shoveling the street. I stopped to thank them and realized their leader was Mr. Pug. One of the young guys told me that Mr. Pug told them his wife was on her way home and he wanted her to be able to get up and down the hills in the subdivision. They all jumped in to help.

Lesson learned: Gotta love people! They're pretty okay. And Mr. Pug's no slouch either.