…and I’m sooo not ready! I still don’t have decorations up inside the house and haven’t put up the tree. I’m off work all day tomorrow, so I hope to get everything finished then. Will probably not get the tree decorated tomorrow, but at least I’ll have two days this weekend to get that finished.

Still have to get gifts for Patrick and Veronica–I have no idea when I’m going to go shopping or where–and need to send off a few more from some online sites. Finished all the shopping for Robin, Kevin and Soula last night (thank God for Amazon!) and everything but one item shipped today.

And then there’s the baking. Have 2 kinds of cookies and 2 kinds of fudge to make–thank you Patrick for being demanding this year. Have at least made a list of foods for both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day but still need to make a grocery run. And since I’m working next Monday and Tuesday, I really have to get all this done this weekend. I think I’ll be putting in a few 12-14 hour days.

Meanwhile, it feels very Christmasy outside. It rained for two days earlier in the week and is really cold outside. Thus the snow level in the mountains dropped really low. The foothills up behind my house are covered with beautiful white snow. I can tolerate the cold right now since it’s Christmas, but it had better end right after that! At least we can have a fire on Christmas Eve and not feel foolish.

Kevin called tonight to announce that Robin took his first step today! It won’t be long before he’ll be running all over their house…and then they’ll really be in for it! He knows how to say a few words–doggy, Dante (their dog’s name), daddy, wow, and something that passes for bottle. And he knows the meaning of other words that they say to him, but has not yet begun to verbalize them himself. I won’t even recognize him when I see him again. He’ll be a little toddler boy and no longer the baby that I last saw.

I’m off work sick today, so decided to catch up on what’s been happening.

Went to lunch yesterday with Amanda and met up with Brett and Summer at Rick’s. Had a really greasy burrito and remembered this morning why I quit eating at Rick’s–intense stomach pains and diarrhea that just won’t end. What a ‘crappy’ way to spend a day off from work!

In between trips to the bathroom, I watched OJ plea for sympathy and then get sentenced to 15-33 years in prison. Yay!!! Even if he gets paroled down the road, he’ll still be in for a minimum of 9 years and won’t be free until age 70. And during those 9 years he’ll be treated like every other prisoner–no golf games or eating out at fancy restaurants.

Will be trying to get caught up on paperwork here at home today if I’m able. Seems I have a ton of paper accumulating in my office and suspect most of it can be tossed into the recycling bin. Will also be trying to figure out my Christmas list. I have absolutely no idea what I’m getting for anyone and it’s now less than 3 weeks until the big day. Going to try to do a big chunk of my shopping online since it’s easier and means I don’t have to battle the crowds in the stores. I hate going out shopping at this time of the year!

Next weekend is our neighborhood holiday lightup and I doubt I’ll do much to get started until then. Because of some changes in our accounting deadlines at work, I’ll be working on 12/29 and 12/30, two days that were originally scheduled as vacation days. Since I have to use these days before the end of the year, I’ll be taking off next Friday and the following Friday. That will allow me to use next Friday to start in on the outdoor decorating and the following Friday for baking/wrapping gifts. All in all that will probably work out better than taking the originally scheduled time.

Have been spending way too much time in the evenings playing Animal Crossing on the Wii. Still have to watch a few regular tv shows, but the choice is more often the game rather than some mindless show that I really don’t care all that much about. I totally love this game, and playing it on the Wii is really great. Would like to get some additional Wii games down the road, but right now Animal Crossing is keeping me so busy that I don’t know how I’d fit in playing other games!

Did take some time off from game playing last weekend and put together 2 pieces of furniture (a storage bench and an end table) that I purchased last summer and hadn’t gotten around to assembling. Also washed all my curtains (lots since the family room has three walls with floor to ceiling curtains!) and shampooed the family room carpet. Hope to spend at least one day this weekend cleaning the rest of the house. Hopefully these stomach problems will only last 24 hours.

And then the indoor decorating begins! I’m looking forward to it as well as dreading it at the same time. Every year I say I’m going to cut back, but somehow that never happens since I just can’t make a decision as to what not to put out. Everything is meaningful and it seems Christmas just wouldn’t be the same without all these decorations. I’m sure this year will be no different.

Well, that should do it for awhile. The stacks of paper are still surrounding me and will be there tonight if I don’t start in soon.

The bird is stuffed and in the oven, the pumpkin pies are baked, so I’m taking a short break. Whew! Patrick and Veronica will be over later this afternoon when we will stuff ourselves…and then will most likely crash complaining that we all ate too much!

Hope you all have a great day and a very Happy Thanksgiving!!!

I have six really tall (maybe 50 ft) Italian cypress trees in my backyard. When I planted them about 15-16 years ago they were about 2-3 ft tall. I had no idea at the time that they would grow so tall so quickly. When they reached the top of my neighbor’s fence, I should have cut them back. But I didn’t.

Tonight on the local news they were interviewing someone who had a home in the mobile home park in Sylmar that burned over the weekend. He was talking about the Italian cypress trees that were planted all over the park and how they were an extreme fire hazard. They are a very dry evergreen and just a spark or two will cause them to go up like a torch.

I am going to contract with my gardener to cut down my Italian cypress trees. As close as I live to the mountains, I don’t think it’s a good idea to propagate fire torches in my backyard.

I’ve been trying to find a Wii game system for months and everyone (Amazon, Best Buy, Circuit City, Target) has been sold out. Tonight I decided to check online again, just in case. Best Buy was sold out, so I tried Amazon. OMG, they had them in stock! I immediately bought one and then bought the Animal Crossing City Folk game.

I have no idea how to use the Wii–or even how to hook it up–but I’m sure I’ll figure it out. Or I’ll call Patrick.

This is absolutely not something that I need to be doing right now since I know it will mean countless hours of game playing ’cause Animal Crossing is totally addicting. And I really don’t have lots of free time right now, what with the holidays coming up. So possibly I will hold off on hooking it up until Christmas. Or maybe at least wait until Thanksgiving. I just know what will happen if I start playing now–nothing else will get done!

I feel kind of guilty getting excited about a game system with all the terrible fire news this weekend but, as with everything, life goes on. I’ve spent all weekend watching the fires and feeling sorry for all those who lost homes and possessions. I can’t do anything to change what happened. So I go on and look forward to Wednesday when my Wii arrives.

Whee!!!

The formerly blue sky is now hazy with smoke. The sunlight has an orange glow to it and my car has a thin layer of ash covering it. Just noticed the wind is beginning to blow a bit, so that must be part of the reason for this.

I’m not complaining, though. It could be far, far worse.

It seems there are something like 5 or 6 fires burning in So.Cal. right now. I am losing track. One of the offices for the company where Patrick works was evacuated today ’cause the flames were just across the street. This is the Brea fire. The flames from that fire burned part of a high school just next door to their office. Fortunately this is the office where Patrick used to work before he moved to the downtown LA office. Still he knows lots of the employees there. All of them got out ok and it looks like their office has not been damaged.

None of the fires is even close to containment and the embers are blowing and starting additional fires. It just seems to be a never ending battle. I’ve had the tv on all day, switching from one station to another watching continuous fire coverage. Some have had nothing but fire coverage on since last night at 11 pm.

I just don’t understand how all these fires are starting. Seems very suspicious.

Even though it was very hot today (low 90’s), it didn’t seem all that warm outside since the humidity is so low (5%). So I spent 2-3 hours in the backyard doing some more trimming of bushes. I’ve almost filled the yard waste can so will only be able to do a small amount of trimming tomorrow before I’m out of space to toss stuff. Probably just as well since I have plenty to do inside the house since I just realized it’s less than 2 weeks until Thanksgiving! Kinda hard to get in the mood for the holidays when the temps are up in the 90’s.

Last night it was Santa Barbara/Montecito. Tonight it’s the Angeles National Forest just above Sylmar. And that’s getting closer to us. Still far enough away that it’s not a real worry as far as our neighborhood goes, but it’s scary knowing the fires are that close. The winds seem to be blowing really hard in that area and that doesn’t bode well since hot embers are able to spread quite a distance away from the actual fire. For some reason, there is no wind blowing in our area. Thank God for that.

Houses are burning in the neighborhoods in the foothills, neighborhoods that are just like where I live. That must be really frightening for those people. They just showed a large panoramic view of the fire and it is HUGE! It is now burning right up against UCLA Olive View Medical Center, a large hospital facility. Don’t know if they’re evacuating patients yet.

I’m going to get out in my yard and do more trimming of bushes, shrubs, etc. tomorrow. I don’t want to provide additional fuel for any possible fires around here. I’m almost afraid to go to sleep tonight. They’re describing this as a raging fire out of control. It’s going to be a tough night.

A Catholic priest in South Carolina has told his congregation they cannot receive communion if they voted for Barack Obama. This is due to the fact that Obama is pro-choice, meaning he agrees that abortion is acceptable. This priest said that a vote for Obama is the equivalent of voting for abortion, resulting in sin on the part of the voter. He says these voters must do penance (probably more than 5 Hail Marys) before they are once again able to partake of communion. Whatever happened to the separation of church and state? All that was said at All Saints four years ago was that we disagreed with the war in Iraq and we got lambasted by the IRS and threatened with losing our tax exemption.

Sorry Father, but I don’t agree that you can declare voting for one candidate or another sinful due to a candidates views. When did you become God?! And what about previous Presidents who had views that might have been in conflict with the laws of God–views regarding torture, adultery, lies, theft, etc. Oh, but those guys were okay because they never came out and said how they felt and we didn’t know about lots of this stuff until after the fact when it was too late to declare our votes sinful.

So every Catholic be forewarned: you are going to Hell (or at least for a stint in Purgatory) unless you repent today for your vote last week for Obama! Get off to confession now!!! Don’t take the chance that you might get hit by a car and not have time to do penance for your sinful ways in the voting booth!

Another reason why……forget it. Enough said.

What a great night! I am left without words about how I feel. This is such a spectacular event like nothing I have ever seen before and it’s going to take a while for it all to sink in. I am so happy!

My staunch Republican neighbors down the street have removed their McCain signs from their front yard. Either they’ve given up or their signs fell apart in the storm yesterday…just like their candidate’s campaign has fallen apart.

Finally it happened. I was called tonight and was polled about the election: who was I voting for (Obama), was I voting yes or no on Prop 8 (NO), how did I feel about abortion (pro-choice), and was I voting on Tuesday or had I already voted (voting on Tuesday). This is the first time I’ve ever been polled and it’s kind of exciting knowing that the next CA poll I see on fivethirtyeight.com will include me!

After reading all the political blogs this morning, I finally decided to do something other than watch tv or surf the net. So I started in trimming bushes and plants in the backyard. First, one of my fingers got to close to the clippers and and cut a big slash in the fingertip. Great. Blood was gushing and dripping everywhere. After cleanup and bandaging, I decided to put on gloves and continue the trimming. Then the rains hit. Didn’t last long, so I went back at it after about 1/2 hour. However, before I could pick up the trimmings, the next round of rains hit and were heavy and included thunder. So I gave up on the trimming for the day. At least I still have tomorrow to clean up.

So it was back to the internet, CNN and MSNBC for the rest of the day. Got some cleaning done inside and enjoyed the sound and smell of the first rain of the season pouring outside. And now will start moving back all the clocks. Nice knowing I’ll get an extra hour of sleep tonight, but I know I’ll hate it tomorrow when it starts getting dark around 5 pm. It was good while it lasted.

The NBA season started tonight, so now I have to try to watch the Lakers and all the political shows. Arrgh! Fortunately most of the political stuff will be over soon. Still will be a bit of a balancing act even after the election is over. Glad I’m not hooked on a ton of network tv shows this season…and also glad I don’t care about the World Series since it seems you can’t predict when the Game 5 is going to happen.

Work is good although busy right now. My supervisor is on a sabbatical until the end of the year, so I’ve had to assume a lot of her responsibilities. Some of that is ok, but it still makes for a really busy day. Guess I should be glad that all my days seem to fly by.

Talked with Patrick tonight, and he and Veronica are going to come over Tuesday night to watch the election returns. Should be fun eating Chinese food and watching Obama win!

PS – Good start to the Lakers’ season–they beat Portland 96-76!

…against putting political signs in your yard when you’re not even a citizen of the United States! My crazy Colombian next door neighbor has a big sign in the middle of his front yard urging a yes vote on Proposition 8 (the gay marriage ban). I just want to puke every time I go out to my front yard. I guess I should be glad he can’t vote.

There are some great new political videos out (check Huffington Post for links). Here’s one that I really liked with Ron Howard, Andy Griffith and The Fonz! Check out the video called Ron Howard’s Call to Action.

ron_howard

I got up this morning and did my usual–got a cup of coffee and headed to the computer to check all the political blogs and polls. Except that my computer would not connect to the internet. OMG, how could I make it through the day without the internet? Turned out our whole area was experiencing an outage as I discovered when my neighbors called to see if I had service. Weird, since my tv and phone were both working. Thankfully the problem was corrected in about an hour and I was able to get my daily fix of all things political.

Things keep looking better and better for Obama, and McCain seems more and more desperate. When members of his campaign are already beginning to send out their resumes and talking about what went wrong with the campaign, you know things are bad. I could go on and on, but all of you probably have heard most all of what I would say already.

Spent the afternoon taking a break from politics and watched the Penn State/Ohio State football game. I’m rooting for Penn State this year since I don’t think JoePa is going to be around much longer and I’d like to see him go out with a national championship. So the game ended well with Penn State winning 13-6. Nothing like a college football game to make it seem like fall.

…and it started off early with Colin Powell’s endorsement of Barack Obama. I set my alarm and got up in time to watch Meet the Press and was absolutely thrilled with Powell’s endorsement. If you haven’t listened to what he said, you really should. It made such good sense and I’m hopeful lots of undecided voters will be influenced by his words.

Later in the day I went to lunch at Robin’s with Patrick and Veronica. It’s been many weeks since I’ve seen either of them, so it was really nice to get together. They brought me a great Halloween wreath for the front door with black and red roses and lots of other black Halloweeny accents. It’s very cool.

We headed out to Best Buy mid-afternoon to get a new tv since the one in my bedroom was on it’s last legs. All you can now buy are flat-screen high definition tv’s, so I found the one I wanted (a small Toshiba) and we headed home. After setting it up, Patrick noticed a dead pixel (a small green dot) in the corner of the screen, so we took it back and exchanged it for another. Got it set up and, guess what, this time the dead pixel was in the middle of the screen! Took that one back and decided to get another brand rather than take the chance we would continue to have the same problem. I had to pay $20 more, but the Sharp brand that I got seems fine and the picture looks great. Gone are the days of the HUGE tv taking up the entire top of my dresser. Now I just have to keep my eyes open for the next electronic recycling event.

Talked to Kevin this evening. He finally was able to get his new fence completed this weekend. He had to rebuild an entire portion when it was knocked down by a falling tree during a windstorm earlier this year. He’s been digging postholes and setting posts for the past few weeks and finished up today with the fence slats. I know he’s thrilled to have it finished–and his dog is even happier to be able to run free in the backyard once again! Congratulations Kevin!

So I’m headed off to bed now to watch the news on my new tv with a picture that will be nice and clear and not coated with snow. Thanks Patrick for your help.

So why isn’t this election over with already? I’m ready and I think everyone else is ready, so let’s get a move on it!

Finally got around to giving Murphy a bath and brushing/trimming him. Something always seemed to distract me from doing this and then it would be too late at night to do it. So he’s nice and clean now and looks very puffy after being brushed! I tried to take a picture, but he’s not real keen on smiling for the camera.

Meanwhile, here’s a new book I came across. Enjoy!

The final debate tonight sealed the deal for Barack Obama. The polls before the debate showed him with a double-digit lead in states where that wasn’t supposed to be the case. And the instant polls right after the debate all showed Obama as winning–even Fox!

McCain was extremely angry and combative, attacking Barack at every opportunity. I watched the tail end of the debate again on CNN, looking at McCain’s face on the split screen an watching the “ticker” at the bottom of the screen. It was very obvious the second time around that McCain was losing.

All the political blogs are also saying that Obama won. Fivethirtyeight.com even went so far as to close out their live debate blog with the words “President Obama”! I am so ready.