Took me two days!

I saw it on Amazon and preordered it. 

It came. 

I dropped all else and just read and read. 

This was so good and was well enjoyed as Father Tim and Cynthia Kav'na visit Ireland with new characters to interact with. Jan Karon calls this book her "dark haired child".  One hopes she will keep writing and writing.   We love the folks from Mitford!  We also love a good cry, along the way.

Well, we voted as well as if we lived in Chicago!

I received a sample ballot in the mail and thoughtfully pre-marked it for T. to use when we went to the polls.  This morning, we got up - not so early as I had planned... but once we were dressed and had everything we needed, we headed out to vote.  Doing our civic duty, don't you know. 

We got to the polling place after 9:00a.m.  We showed our picture and signature identifications and went into the elections office where we both signed the electronic machines and got our receipts.  Stepping to the next window as instructed, we picked up our full size official ballot.  We went to a vacant pair of side-by-side voting booths and opened out our ballots.  T. asked me if we had to mark both sides?  I nodded yes and whispered for him to take out his sample ballot and start voting.  He did so and I got down to marking the little circles with the provided pen on my own ballot.  So far, so good - until T. got to the end of the line on his sample ballot.  It didn't correspond exactly to the official ballot and he'd  lost his place.  I glanced over and found the slot he needed to mark next and pointed to it.  He said he didn't see it.  I touched the space on the ballot.  He couldn't find the same spot on the sample.  I touched that space.  He lined things up and proceeded to mark the next group. 

We continued in this manner until the end of the ballot - I thought surely someone would come over and quietly ask me to stop interfering with the voting.  I was as much up in T.'s voting booth as I was in mine, trying to guide him along.  We still needed to flip the ballot and vote the back side. 

Flip.

T:  "Do we have to mark ALL of these, too?

ME:  (Oh, dear - did anybody hear that?  I'm sure they did.  Pretty soon I expect to be dragged out of here in handcuffs!)

I raised my head and looked over the edge of the booth at T.'s ballot and told him,  "Ok, just mark them the same way the back of your sample ballot shows".    He started down the row, got to the end of the line and looked up at me - I put my finger on the next row and then on the spot on the sample ballot where that vote was cast.  We continued to the end.  There were three columns on the back.  When we were done, T. wanted to know what to do with his sample ballot.  I crumpled it into a ball and then, thinking better of it - I told him to just fold it back up and put it in his pocket.  He smoothed it out and did so. 

We put our official ballots in the  privacy folder and went to the machine to cast our votes.  T.'s ballot rolled into the opening.  The lady gave him his "I VOTED" sticker and turned to me.  I started to ask her for two stickers - but I held my tongue, smiled and took my one  sticker and we exited the polling place.  I felt better for having done my duty as a citizen.  I was also grateful to have escaped censure for disrupting a polling place!  I wonder what the fine would have been.

Bittersweet

Today's date is one I usually mark quietly.  Mother was born 10/10/10.  At least that's the date she always celebrated as having been born.  Then, when she thought she was about to turn 65, she contacted Social Security to find out how to document her age; not having a birth certificate.  They offered the information on the types of proof they would accept, one being pages from a family Bible.  Mom knew who had her family's Bible.  She contacted the cousin and was able to get a  photocopy of the page where her birth date was recorded.  She sent it off to the Social Security folks who came back with the indisputable fact that the date had been written over and what had been Oct. 10, 1910 looked more like Oct. 10, 1908.  She didn't care which date was used, as long as she was still able to draw her benefits.  Until she died, she continued to celebrate the year as 1910. 

Today, she would have turned 100 years.

Just a game?

Football season is upon us.  It is also along-side us, overhead, under foot and blocking the way to the ladies room at work.  You cannot get away from it.  Fans on all sides discussing their team - either the real one or the fantasy one, filling in statistics and reliving the weekend slaughter or gigantic win, depending on which team one favors.  I work with a bunch of Gator fans.  We won't be mentioning the name Alabama or the words Crimson,  Roll or Tide in the same sentence on Monday.  They know I root for the U of M when they play.  Few know I'm a Tide fan.  Gotta be!  Mom being raised around Lanette and that area in 'Bama - right across the border from La Grange in Georgia.  She took me to a game when I was younger.  In the old Orange Bowl.  On a cold night.  The stands were filled with red clad visitors  and rumbled with the chant, Roll Tide - accompanied by the arm roll.  I get chills just recalling the awesome feeling. 

Sorry, guys but when you're moaning about the loss of game on Monday... I will be smiling inside.  Oh, yes.

Passing the stress test....

When we were looking for a place to live after T. was declared 100 percent disabled by his VA doctors, there was a lot of stress.  We were leaving familiar and striking out into the wild blue yonder without a parachute.  Or something very like that, anyway.  Once we decided the location and then  found a house - I decided I needed something to relieve all that stress of moving, leaving family and friends and moving so far away.  I settled on a little keychain  dangler shaped like an elongated egg.  It was white.  There was a small plastic latch that let the top flip up to reveal the scene inside the egg.  It was a farmyard scene with plastic green grass, a small  fence and two black and white cows.  One was large and the other small.  Mother and calf.  Whenever the lid was opened, the larger cow would move slightly back and forth to mimic eating.  Small gears would grind and at last the mother cow would come to a stop and the cycle was complete.  I would close the lid and open it again, time after time.  The little bucolic scene recalled to me the  peaceful country side we would be living in and the slower pace of life we could expect.  I could almost feel the muscles unknotting in my neck and shoulders as I let the little keychain toy unwind.  I played with it a lot.  The clasp finally snapped and I couldn't close the lid any more.  I sealed it with a rubber band so it wouldn't get broken.  When I slipped the band off the egg, the little cows would work their tiny magic and I'd consciously relax and feel less harried with the demands on our lives.

The other day, I was coming up Rough Way and spotted a scene of cows eating near the roadway.  Big cows.  Little ones.  One of the big cows was eating.  That's when I realized - I hadn't played with my little keychain in a while - probably because I have the real thing living just across the road and - for the most part, those neck and shoulder muscles of mine have come unclenched while we were been making this little piece of the state into our home.  I still miss friends and family but I do enjoy watching the squirrels run in the grass and butterflies dancing on the breeze.  I enjoy the slight change of seasons - the trees shed leaves and at night you can see stars through the lacy structure of the underlying limbs.  We might even get snow in our area.  It has happened before and could again.  There have been flurries.  I'm sure I've seen them.  And if there are flurries, isn't that a grand excuse to call out of work?  I never learned how to drive in snow. 

On This Date

On this date in 2001 the towers fell and we watched.  We were pierced through with the magnitude of the event.  Tears streamed down.  How can this happen, we asked.  Nobody had an answer, except Usama.  He said it was our fault.  He lied.

It was in no way our fault that extremists listened to the voices of hate urging them on to do such damage in our country; striking at our our values and our very way of life.  It is not our fault and I refuse to accept that this great land was or is in any way to blame for the extreme hatred that still spews.  We open our doors to legal immigrants and offer help to the tired, the poor...the wretched refuse of those teeming shores.  All others need to go to the back of the  line and wait their turn. 

I recall with pride the sights on television in those days in the aftermath of September 11.  I saw people helping each other out of harms way.  Newsmen reporting on the events with tears in their eyes.  The funeral of a beloved priest who lost his life and all the other funerals that ended with the piper playing taps for a fallen hero - while a city came together to recover the lost and clear the rubble.

One image stands out in my mind from those days; a man standing beside the road with a cardboard sign in his hands, steadfastly holding it up for the passing cars to see.  The sign said simply, Be Brave.  Be Strong.

A message worth remembering.

Be brave. 

Be strong.

Sights and Scenes

T.  and I were on the way into Wally-World to do our Saturday grocery shopping when I glanced up at a sign. Then my eyes travelled on towards the top of the building where the camera array was.  I found myself looking around for Tippi Hedron!

Like a bad Hitchcock movie........