Thanksgiving eve

Thanksgiving eve.
I had to fore go my swim tonight as I had far too much to do to prepare for tomorrow.
For starters, it took 1 1/2 hours go get home from work.
Then, after throwing dinner a the boys, (literally) I made that last (hopefully) trip to Safeway followed by an evening of baking and meal prep.
It's now 11:45 pm and I've finished what I'm going to accomplish tonight.
The sauce for the yams is AMAZING, the pumpkin pies and eggnog cheesecake look to be pretty freakin good.

If all else fails . . . we have a cellar full of wine with which to fool our guests.

bon apetite'
Happy Thanksgiving.

Take a moment to be grateful. Despite temporary setbacks and difficult moments . . . .we are pretty lucky.

Current events and politics

I promise, this is the last time I'm going to discuss politics . . . (haha, did you actually believe that?)

First I wanted to tell you about the Comcast forums and proudly announce I think I have conquered my addiction to them. During the campaign it was fun, profoundly addictive, but fun.
Post campaign it was pretty nice with most folks putting aside partisan politics and deciding to accept the decisions made (except a few poor souls who thought the election was stolen). A week after the election the forum that I frequented was closed and so I wandered over to the "News and current event" section. I was so disturbed to see the number of anti gay threads, folks gloating over the passage of prop 8. Well, you know me, I'm never one to back away from a fight. I discovered quite quickly that homophobs are not going to change their minds, reasonable arguments elude them. These threads were full of bible references (funny how you can pick and chose those) and the authors of the posts became quite nasty.
I suddenly had an epiphany. I am probably arguing with people like Fred Phelps, that crazy guy that goes to funerals of gay people to put up his disgusting signs and protest. Or, maybe I'm trying to reason with some guy who lives in his Moms basement. Clearly, neither is about to change their mind and once I put this into perspective I felt fine walking away from the whole thing. I actually got a very nice note from another person who said she/he enjoyed my posts, my empathy to the gay community and my reasonablness. This same person was also going to walk away from the forums as they were too hateful to participate in. So, until the next election cycle, I'm done!

Now, I have an idea . . .
It seems to me that both the Republican party and Domestic car companies are having a hard time these days. Two suggestions for both. Rebranding, without significant change, isn't going to work. Change must come from the top down. Get rid of the "old way" of doing things, look at your business model (or platform) and decide if it is current. Look at the needs of the majority, not just a small population and align your goals with theirs. Sounds simple to me.
It would be nice to see the domestic car market thrive again, and people working in this industry- perhaps we could even bring Flint Michigan back to it's former glory? As for the Republicans, unless they change soon (and I don't mean to make Sarah Palin their new spokesmodel) they can be sure that they won't have power for a very very long time.

still falling behind

I have great intentions, I really do.
If you could get into my head you would know I'm full of great ideas and plans, it's the damn execution of those that gets in my way.

I have a lot to talk about, but it's a work night and I'm terribly behind in the sleep department.
I was just preparing to head into bed when I took one last look at online sources. Though I'm slowly weaning myself from the forums on comcast (more on that later), I still must look at Huffingtonpost.com and Politico.com before I can call the day done.

In my foray into Huffington I looked at Entertainment news. Two of my favorite shows are being cancelled! Ely Stone and Pushing Daisies are going away! I'm a little bit verklempt right now.
I know the pictures I chose are not terribly reflective of the shows, but in my current state of sleepiness, it's about the best I could muster! I love watching Ely Stone on Tuesdays, one because I think the premise is wonderful and I enjoy the musical interludes- two because Ashley always calls around 10:10-10:20 as she is headed home from Herald night. . . who will keep me company until Ashley calls if Ely is gone?
Pushing Daisies is a show that Kyle and I discovered last year. It's fun, whimsical and looks visually like a Tim Burton production. I think Kyle has a little crush on Kristin Chenowith. I'm safe saying this as I am relatively certain he NEVER reads my blog- if he does- so be it, if I was a guy I'd probably enjoy looking at her too.

so, this is my Thursday night despair.

At least I still have Top Chef to look forward to . . . . .

tomorrow I'll further update you and tell you about my dark adventures into the comcast forums . . . .

modern life . . .

About 2-3 weeks ago my washing machine started misbehaving.
I don't know why, but when the boys would use it, it would overflow. This happened 3-4 times in the past several weeks. Unfortunately, not only is it a pain in the neck, it has caused some damage to the laundry room floor.
As I said, this seemed only to happen to Travis or Kyle.
The machine has a particular thing it does only to me . . it stalls. Midway through the wash it stops, hums and discontinues the cycle. It could quite literally take days to complete one load- waiting to restart and keeping fingers crossed it would finish a cycle once restarted.
I called my favorite repair man last week and he thought he could fix the overflow, but the stalling . . he wasn't too sure. I was looking at about $300 just to fix one problem, who knew if he could trouble shoot the second.
what to do? Should I get a washboard and tub and go to it the old fashioned way? should I go to the river and wash with stone? (no close river so that is out)
On my way home from my hair appointment I decided to stop in to Western Appliance- I found what I hope to be my next favorite appliance! Disregard the image of the dryer (my Kitchenaid is still nicely functional)
This thing spins so hard it woke Randy up last night, he thought there was a helicopter in the laundry room. Okay, it appears I need to figure out all the best settings yet!
Looking forward to washing washing washing this weekend!

I'm Back!

It's over! My self imposed exhile from blogging and into the dark world of politics has finally ended. I can stop looking at Realclearpolitics.com, Politico.com, Huffingtonpost.com and fivethirtyeight.com every 15 minutes. I WILL stop looking at the forum on Comcast, and I will stop trying to change the minds of deeply entrenched wingnuts on the same forum.
I am free at last!

Last night was beautiful. At 8:00 pacific standard time, when the networks all called the election Randy, Kyle and I enjoyed a glass of champagne, a toast to the future and the incredible video from Chicago.
John McCains concession speech was sincere and clear, Barack's acceptance speech was inspiring.

And now, we move forward.

As an aside, if she were still alive, Betsy would be celebrating her 38th birthday today.
Betsy was our poodle mix dog when we were growing up- one of the BEST dogs ever.
Happy Birthday Betsy- say "woof" to Akita for us, will you?