Spent a good chunk of my afternoon on Friday cleaning out bookcases in my office at work and thought the urge to clean would carry over into the weekend. Unfortunately that was not the case.

I just can’t get motivated to do much of anything once I get home. Whatever time I have available I spend watching CNN or MSNBC or reading political blogs. I’ve seen or read most everything out there at this point so turned on the Dodgers/Phillies playoff game. At least I’ll know what happened tomorrow when the people at work ask if I saw the game.

Decided not to put the trash cans out tonight since I don’t have lots of trash in them and since Santa Ana winds are predicted tonight up to 50 mph. I’d rather wait until next week to put out the cans than have them blow all over the neighborhood ’cause there’s not enough in them to keep them in front of my house. Hopefully my patio furniture won’t be in the pool tomorrow morning. The winds are supposed to continue through Wednesday. Thank God my gardener comes on Thursday.

I did clean up my address book while watching tv this afternoon. Everytime I get someone’s phone number or address I just stuff it in the front of the book. I had more bits of paper and cards in the front of the book than the book could hold. And it was dreadful every time I needed to find a number. So the book is finally updated and I was able to toss lots.

Guess I’ll finish up the evening doing some laundry and loading the dishwasher. How exciting.

Hurried home from work tonight to watch the debate and Keith Olberman’s prologue. Obama did well and McCain…well his reference to “that one” really said it all. Even the republicans are appalled. All the media polls are saying that Obama won and comments from lots of independents are pro Obama. Based on the polls (check out www.fivethirtyeight.com — it’s the best) it looks like McCain has already lost it. I just don’t think all the negativism coming from the campaign trail is going to make a difference.

I spent an hour or so after the debate checking out all kinds of political and news websites while watching both CNN and MSNBC commentaries. I even checked out some of the more conservative sites. And all seemed to give the edge to Obama. In fact, most are saying that McCain just didn’t do enough to change his standings in the polls. It was a must win night for McCain and he didn’t do it.

On other election matters, I have a large “Vote No on Prop 8” sign in the middle of my front yard. Prop 8 is the California proposition that would ban gay marriage. There are lots of propositions on the ballot this year, but I really feel strongly about defeating this one. And I’m very worried that it will pass. The pro side has been running some very strong and deceptive tv ads. It’s hard to say what will happen. No one knows how the expected large voter turnout will impact this proposition.

The jury in Las Vegas just found OJ Simpson guilty on all charges. Finally it seems he’s going to get his due. Sentencing will take place on December 5th with a possible sentence of 15 years to life. Sounds like no more golfing for OJ.

I don’t know where September went. I think part of the reason it seemed to go by so quickly has to do with my being out of town for 1/3 of the month. And then it took another third before I finally got back on California time and back on track at work. And then there’s politics.

I’ve become totally addicted to politics. I watch news shows (NBC, MSNBC, and CNN) for hours and hours every night as well as trying to watch The Daily Show and Colbert Report at least 3-4 nights a week. And while I’m watching tv, I’m checking out numerous political websites. And, of course, I’ve watched the debates.

Sarah Palin certainly did a good job last night…..of memorizing and repeating only what the McCain campaign wanted her to say. And, shucks, wasn’t she cute with all that winking! If anyone reading this is still thinking of voting for McCain, go to the Rolling Stone website and check out their story on John McCain. Kevin recommended this article and I am so glad I read it. I found out things about this asshole that I almost wish I didn’t know. God help us all if McCain should somehow win this election.

Back here at home it’s starting to feel like fall today, especially tonight. The weather has cooled off (finally!) and I no longer have to leave the a/c running during the day even though no one is at home. Can you believe that the temps were over 100 a few days ago?! Tomorrow they’re predicting a bit of rain and high temps in the 60’s. I’m looking forward to that for a change.

Kelly and Sally are both without electricity…and have been since Sunday afternoon. It seems that the front end of Hurricane Ike blew through Ohio with a vengeance and knocked out power to millions in the state. Lots of trees went down and their local utility company (DP&L) had a good portion of their crews down in Texas to help out with the hurricane damage in Houston. So they headed back to Ohio. Unfortunately, not soon enough since lots of folks still don’t have electricity over 4 days later!

They’ve lost all the food in their refrigerators and Sally also had wind damage to the gutters on her roof. Kelly has no hot water since everything in her house (other than her heating system) is powered by electricity. The latest news reports I’ve read on the internet say that some in the area may not have their power returned until next week! I hope they’re not among that group.

Thankfully they are not experiencing the same kind of damage that Houston and Galveston face. It’s amazing though that this hurricane caused such widespread damage. I’ve never heard of any hurricane in the past maintaining such strong winds for such an extended period of time…and such a long distance away from the place it initially hit land.

Not much happening with me. Finally seem to be getting my body back to Pacific time. Seems it takes longer and longer each time I travel back east. Had planned to finally get back to getting things done around the house this weekend until I realized I have two work commitments–a party on Saturday night to welcome former staff members back for the Church’s 125th anniversary and the annual Homecoming event at the Church on Sunday where I have to work from 8:30 to 2:30. Ah well. At least I get a comp day off sometime within the next few weeks. I’m thinking next Friday might be that day.

Haven’t written for what seems like weeks–wait a minute, it has been weeks! Got busy getting ready for my trip back East, watching the Democratic convention, and doing bits and pieces to help Patrick head off to Burning Man. And then Patrick’s server went down while he was gone. So even if I wanted to post, I couldn’t. So here’s a huge post with lots of what’s been going on over the past few weeks.

Democratic Convention

I watched most of the speeches and thought all that I saw were great–especially Barack’s. Hillary did an excellent job as well. So we’ll see what happens. Someone put a McCain sign up in their yard just down the street from my house so I guess I’ll have to stop by the Obama headquarters soon to pick up signs for my yard.

Burning Man

Patrick loaded up his truck and trailer and headed out on Friday, 8/22, for his tenth year at Burning Man. I helped him as usual with his grocery shopping, but didn’t have to do much else. He pretty well has it down at this point with all the packing. I think he’s planning on taking a break next year, taking some other type of vacation with Veronica. I still have quite a bit of BM stuff stacked at the side of the house and in the garage, so we’ll be dealing with all that over the next few weeks. The big thing to get rid of is the trailer in my driveway. Patrick promises that will be removed this weekend.

Trip to Ohio

I left on Sunday, 8/31, for my final vacation trip of the year. The flight back was long, but uneventful and I arrived on time Sunday evening. We went to Mandy’s (Kelly’s daughter) for Labor Day and had a really nice day, visiting with family and eating lots of great food. On Tuesday Sally, Kelly, Mandy and I went to an antique mall in Indiana called Webb’s. I restrained myself and only bought a couple of pieces of carnival glass. That’s what luggage weight restrictions does to you. Plus, I just don’t have tons of room for much more in the way of antiques here at home. On Wednesday we went shopping at some local discount stores. It was fun to look, but I didn’t buy anything. On Thursday we took a break from shopping since Kelly had to go to the hospital for an MRI (more about that later). That night we all went to dinner at Olive Garden and then headed home to pack for our trip the next day to North Carolina.

Republican Convention

Needless to say I didn’t watch much. I did see Sarah Palin’s speech and felt she had a good speechwriter and that she delivered it well. However, many of her (or her speechwriter’s) facts were totally inaccurate. I’m amazed she agreed to say things that can be proven to be untrue. Guess she figured it didn’t matter as long as her words got big applause on national tv. I absolutely disagree with so many of her views and am terrified that she could be “one heartbeat away.” God help our country if that happens.

Mickey’s Wedding

My brother, Mickey, reserved a “rustic” lodge in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina for his wedding weekend. We all stayed there along with his bride Carol’s family. The scenery was beautiful, the company was great, and the lodge was….well, quite rustic. We had lots going on though, so we didn’t really miss lots of amenities. And there was a TON of beer and wine! The wedding turned out great and I’ll have lots of pictures uploaded to this site soon so that you can see for yourself.

Heading Home

I headed back to LA on Monday, 9/8. All seemed to be going well until I noticed the departure board listed my flight as being delayed. The plane was late arriving and we boarded about 1/2 hour late, but still with enough time to make the connection at Chicago O’Hare. Or at least we all thought. There was some sort of mechanical problem so we wound up sitting on the plane for close to an hour. We finally left but didn’t arrive in Chicago until 20 minutes after the flight to LA had left. Fortunately I was able to get on the next flight out, but that meant I wouldn’t get to LAX until around 9:30 pm–too late for Patrick to pick me up and get to work on time that night. My luggage somehow arrived on the same flight I was on and I took a shuttle home, arriving around 11:30 pm. Sent an email to work telling them I’d be in late.

Kelly

She had a cast on one of her legs up to her knee when I arrived. She developed an infection after a podiatrist performed surgery on her foot last March. Without going into all the gory details, she had something pop in her ankle the week before I got there and was told her achilles tendon had burst. She’s seeing a multitude of doctors and now has been told she has an abscess in her foot in addition to the infection that has spread into her bones. The good news is that achilles tendon seems to be okay. She sees the surgeon tomorrow and expects to go to the hospital soon for surgery to remove the abscess and try to cut away part of the bones to remove the infection there.

Back Home Again

I had a really good time getting to see and visit with all my family members, but it’s always good to get home and sleep in your own bed once again. I’m not looking forward to flying anywhere for a good long while so no one should be planning anything that requires me to get on a plane any time soon! The wonderful scent of the night-blooming jasmine greeted me as I walked into my family room Monday night. It’s good to be home.

What a game! Decided to stay up and watch the game live since it started here at 11:30 pm and am I ever glad I did! It was a fabulous game, actually a real nail-biter when Spain got within just a few points a number of times in the game. Per usual, though, Kobe came through in the 4th quarter, scoring 13 of his 20 points.

The awards ceremony was great even though it didn’t happen until almost 2 am. But I couldn’t go to sleep without watching the team get their gold medals! What a fabulous end to the Olympics!!!

…at least this part. So I decided I’d better get busy around here and do something even though it’s extremely hot outside. The backyard needed a major cleanup so I trimmed and cleaned out the flowerbed up against the house and trimmed back the large night-blooming jasmine. I hate to trim the jasmine since it’s just getting reading to bloom again, but it has gotten so big that the pool guy couldn’t get around it when cleaning the pool. I almost filled the yard waste can so I feel I accomplished a good deal. Still have a bit more to do out there, but darkness prevented any more work tonight.

I’ve done very little else since returning from Seattle. Did a few errands helping Patrick get ready for Burning Man, watched a lot of the Olympics and did a bit of housecleaning. Thankfully the Olympics are almost over. Haven’t watched as much as in the past due to the trip to Seattle, but have watched quite a bit since returning. I’m ready for it to end so I don’t feel glued to the tv every night.

Patrick left last night for Burning Man, hauling a loaded down trailer behind his truck. He called me from Reno this morning as he was leaving for the playa so I expect he made it ok since I didn’t hear from him again. This is his 10th year at Burning Man and I think he’ll be taking a break and not going next year. Veronica wants them to take a vacation together and she has no interest in vacationing in the middle of the Nevada desert. I don’t blame her!

Just stepped outside and noticed a faint smell of the night-blooming jasmine. That means I’ll probably get to enjoy it for a few days before leaving for Ohio next weekend. I’m excited to go back and see all the family, but not excited about getting on a plane again. Wish I lived closer to everyone so that every family get-together didn’t involve a long airline flight.

When I went through my mail last night I noticed a Kohl’s catalog with a % off sticker on the front. Since it turned out to be for 30% off, I knew I had to use it. However, as it expired today, I decided to go shopping tonight. I really wanted to find a dress to wear to my brother’s wedding in a few weeks, so headed out knowing I would get more than just a dress. And did I ever!

I wound up getting 2 pairs of shorts, 7 tops, a pair of walking shoes, a pair of sandals, and some flip-flops for myself…oh, and a dress for the wedding. Then, of course, I had to check out the kid’s clothes. I got Robin 4 “onesies”, 2 t-shirts, a pair of shorts, 3 pairs of pants, and 8 pairs of socks. With the 30% off coupon and getting a bunch of the items on clearance, I ended up getting everything for $150!!!

Kohl’s has turned me into a shopaholic! It is so much fun now deciding what to wear to work every day since I have such a huge selection of clothes. If Kohl’s wants my $$$, all they have to do is keep sending me those 30% off coupons.

The photos are loaded to My New Photo Gallery as Robin’s First Birthday. There are lots, so sit back and enjoy this cute little guy!

Had hoped to post an update or two while up visiting Kevin, Soula and Robin, but wound up spending too much time doing other things–especially things that involved Robin! I took lots of pictures and will do my best to get some (if not all) of them posted tomorrow. Just too tired tonight to deal with all that.

Robin is unbelievably cute (as you will see) and is rapidly learning all sorts of little kid stuff. He crawls like a little demon on wheels and you have to keep ‘exits’ blocked if you don’t want him heading to the dogs’ water bowl, the tv with all it’s buttons, or the stairs. I taught him to do “high fives” and to play patticake, among other things. He loves to spit raspberries and jabbers and laughs all the time. I really hated to leave him, especially since I know how much he will have changed by the time I get to see him again.

For Robin’s birthday we took him to Red Robin Restaurant where he had macaroni and cheese and a sundae with whipped cream and chocolate sauce. The waiters sang Happy Birthday to him and gave him a helium balloon which he loved. Then we took him home to open birthday presents and enjoy some birthday cake. He was on a total sugar high for a good part of the night!

Yesterday (Sunday) we took Robin to the Seattle Zoo. They have a large building called the Zoomazium (sp?) devoted solely to kids. One section is for toddlers where you can turn the little ones loose and let them crawl or walk all over the place playing in tunnels, on climbing areas and other interesting playthings. Robin loved being able to crawl all over the place with few obstructions. That was probably the best part of the day. We visited the petting zoo area as well as numerous other wild animal exhibits, but I don’t think Robin could comprehend all of it. It’s a really nice zoo and I’m sure he’ll appreciate all the animals more as time goes by.

The rest of the trip was spent visiting, doing a bedroom makeover for Soula and Kevin, shopping at Pike Place in downtown Seattle and visiting Kevin’s office. I think we did other things as well, but I just can’t remember now what happened every day. It was a good trip and I’m glad to have the rest of this week to rest up before heading back to work.

…and then I’m off work for two weeks! Work has been rough in that I’ve been trying to get everything completed that I would normally do while I’m off. Needless to say I didn’t get everything finished. But I did get the really important stuff (like payroll) done. Seems that no matter how hard I try, I still always have more and more to do. I have a couple of projects that I had hoped to have already started, but that just hasn’t happened. Guess they’ll all have to wait until fall…

On Saturday I leave for Seattle for 10 days. I’m so excited to get there and see Robin! Happy to see Kevin and Soula, too, but Robin is really the reason for the trip. After all, he’s going to be a year old next Tuesday. I ordered bunches of presents from Amazon that will already be there when I arrive, so I don’t have to worry about packing them. Much easier to do it that way than having to haul them on a plane. Still have to pack all my clothes and stuff, but will wait till tomorrow night for that.

I’ll be back home on the 18th and then get to stay home until the 25th when I go back to work. I’m grateful I’ll have time to be at home for awhile before heading back to work…especially since I have tons of stuff to do around the house!

Will update from Seattle as time allows.

The day started with ants…crawling all over the loveseat in my family room. I sprayed the sofa with bug spray before I left for work, but there were still more ants when I got home tonight. So I stripped off the slipcover and threw it into the washer. It was too dark in the room to determine where the ants are coming from tonight, so I’ll have to try to track down their entrance tomorrow morning. I haven’t had any ant problems since I got the new windows/doors installed a few years ago. I suspect it’s probably going to be the tv cable hole or an electrical outlet. Hope I can find it quickly without having to put out some kind of cookie crumb bait.

The City of Pasadena sent me a letter today requiring that I get a business license. Apparently they are going through the income tax records from the State of California and saw where I received 1099 income in the past and have determined I am running a business. While I previously did some accounting work for a small non-profit using my home computer, I stopped doing that in the spring of 2007. I sent them a letter explaining this and am hopeful I don’t have to jump through a bunch of hoops to keep from paying for a business license for a non-existent business.

And then this morning I got an email and a phone call from United Airlines telling me they had once again changed my itinerary for my September trip to Ohio. This is the second time this has happened since June. The thing that’s weird is that some of the flight numbers are the same, but the times are entirely different–some by as much as an hour! Luckily the time differences aren’t going to affect the trip in that I’ll be getting to Dayton an hour earlier than with the first flight plan and will get home only about 1/2 hour later than I had previously planned. My only concern at this point is that one or more of the flights will be oversold due to all these changes, and I really don’t have a lot of leeway for any big changes–like more than a few hours later than planned. I do think I’ll wait until a few days prior to the trip to make my shuttle reservations.

It hit at 11:42 am today. We were all in a meeting room, just finishing up our weekly staff meeting and starting to eat at a lunch party for one of our staff members who was leaving. When it hit everyone just stopped talking, stopped eating, stopped everything. It started with a bit of a rolling movement and then a huge loud booming noise and then the building just shook. The noise was louder than I ever remember hearing during past earthquakes.

We all headed outside and stood around for about 15 min. and then went back in to finish lunch. I had a lot of trouble eating after that. It took a good hour for my body to stop shaking. We went ahead with the meeting even though most of us were having great difficulty concentrating. Meanwhile I knew that Patrick was trying to reach me and would be unable to do so. And he was. And he couldn’t.

I called him as soon as the meeting ended. Since All Saints is an old building (built in the 1920’s) he figured we had been evacuated due to damage. Fortunately that was not the case. Just a meeting that dragged on for way too long…

I’m sure that Murphy and the cats were panicked during the shaking, but all seems well tonight. Loki and Baby are still in hiding. No doubt they’ll eventually come out. And my house is okay with no damage. The doors to the china closet were open, but nothing fell out. And none of my glassware seems to have moved.

So, as they keep saying on tv, we bit the bullet this time. It’s been so long since we had a big shaker that I had almost forgotten about earthquakes. After today, I’m really not looking forward to the next one.

Finally! For the first time since late Sunday my temperature is back to normal. I’m starting to feel somewhat better but still have a cough and am tired. Am taking Mucinex which really helps in clearing up the cough, so am hopeful I’ll be rid of this bug by this weekend. I’m staying home from work again tomorrow at the urging of my supervisor. I’m sure that part of that has to do with her not wanting to get sick herself! I need to go in on Friday to prepare the payroll, but that won’t be too bad since I should be feeling fairly normal by that point. It’s unfortunate that I’ve been off work a total of 4 days and wasn’t able to do anything but lay around the entire time. What a waste of time.

Last week we made arrangements to lease a Toyota Camry Hybrid for the rector (top priest) at work. I went to the dealership after the deal was done to sign the papers. I was there for 1-1/2 hours. Before I went I asked what information I needed to bring with me and took the few things they said they needed. Of course, they didn’t give me the correct information and I had to go back the next day. That wasn’t too bad since I needed to go back anyhow to pick up the car.

A few days later I got a call from the Finance person at the dealership saying they needed to redo the documents because they needed to be shown in the legal name that we have filed with the Secretary of State. While I was frustrated, I agreed to go back and resign everything. She said that would take care of everything.

Today I am off work. I am extremely sick and have been in and out of bed for the past two days. I got a call from our receptionist telling me this woman was calling again and had to talk to me right away. I called this woman and (of course) went to her voicemail. I left a message telling her I was sick and that I was not coming in to do any more signing and that if the paperwork still wasn’t right then it was her problem not mine! I can barely talk at this point, so it had to be obvious when she listened to the message that I was very sick.

Somehow she got my home number (possibly from the receptionist) and called me here at home wanting to bring the paperwork to my house for me to sign. I told her not to call me at home again and that I was extremely sick and not going to deal with any more paperwork from Toyota of Pasadena. She started telling me how sorry she was and how they would come to my house. I cut her off and said “NO.” I said that I wasn’t going to deal with this any further and hung up on her.

This car leasing experience has totally soured me against Toyota of Pasadena. I will NEVER buy or lease a car from them again. I think this woman had made some kind of mistake on some part of the paperwork and was trying to cover her ass. That’s her problem not mine. I have leased cars for the rector from GMAC many times and never had this kind of problem. Can’t wait till they send me their survey regarding the kind of service I received.

Had a bit of a sore throat when I went to bed last night and it got worse as the night went on. Now my entire body aches all over, my throat is killing me and I feel totally exhausted. Where the hell did this come from?!

Not planning to go to work unless I absolutely have to, and I don’t think that will be the case. I hope to be able to just spend the day in bed. Going to try over the counter meds with the hope those do the trick.

I hate being sick.

Although there’s more to be rid of, the curb area in front of my house is just about filled with everything from the old kitchen cabinets that have been in the garage since we bought the house to the old Christmas street decoration from 3 years ago. Patrick single-handedly ripped out the old cabinets this afternoon and both Patrick and Veronica helped me haul all the rest to the curb. I can’t believe how much trash we had!

On top of all this, I’ve been going through more storage boxes from the garage and have completely filled the recycling and regular trash cans once again. Still have at least 50 more boxes and about 20 Rubbermaid bins to sort through. And then there’s all the ‘stuff’ that is sitting around on the workbench, tables and the floor–all of which needs to be sorted. I’ll start in again on all that tomorrow night. I’m just too tired to do any more tonight.

Oh, by the way, someone has already stopped out front to rifle through the trash. Some woman took a Christmas decoration–a lighted archway that was pretty the first year, but a pain to store and put up after that. Plus, half the lights didn’t work any longer. Glad someone else wanted it. Get the word out to anyone you know who might want an old gas grill, a loveseat sofa, or some steel garage shelving.

Now the next big cleanout–the garage sale on August 2nd. That will be easy compared to this.

Oops….too late, some guy in a truck just came by and took the shelving and the grill. Guess you just gotta get here sooner to get the good stuff.

And so Honey died calmly and peacefully this morning. I made the decision finally this morning when I found her in the same position on the kitchen floor that she was in when I went to bed last night. In fact, I really made the decision when I got home last night and found her laying next to the front door where she was when I left for work in the morning.

Even though I know this really was the right thing to do, it was still so difficult. She was probably the sweetest of all the cats and had just started to make her way out of hiding over the past few years to enjoy being petted by visitors. I think Puto loved her the most as she was the only one he would spend time grooming. No doubt he will miss her, too.

I have lots to do around here but haven’t been able to get myself motivated all week. Last week and last weekend I did lots. This week I’ve done nothing. Oh I know I’ll do lots out in the garage this weekend, but the nights this week have been a real bust. I’ve been exhausted every night and just can’t do much more than watch TV and mess around on the computer.

Then there’s work. Part of the week has been good in that I’ve accomplished a lot of the things I had hoped to do. But part has been extremely frustrating…mostly the part that has to do with other people fucking up. I’ve always tried to do the best possible job no matter where I worked. That doesn’t seem to be the case with all workers today. While that’s never good, when it directly impacts your job it just plain sucks! Since I never know who reads this, I won’t go into lots of details other than saying frustration was definitely the word today.

And then there are the cats.

Honey (age 13) still can’t find her way to the litter box, resulting in lots of cleanup every day. And now she’s having problems walking. She seems to have no control over her back legs and spends most of her time just laying in one place. She can no longer jump up or down onto the furniture and I have to pick her up to put her in front of the food and water. She probably only weighs about 6 lbs and seems to be mostly fur and bones. Unfortunately, I think her days are numbered.

Puto (age 18) seems to be having some kind of problem, but I’m not sure exactly what’s going on with him. He howls and moans in front of the water dish if it’s not filled completely to the top with water. It could be just 1″ below the top and he’s not satisfied.

Loki (age 13) has decided to put on weight. He’s so heavy that I can barely pick him up. He must weigh close to 20 lbs! He doesn’t seem to be eating any more cat food than the rest of the cats, so I think he’s catching birds and rats and pigging out on them. He’s left quite a few ‘presents’ on the front porch recently.

Baby (age 16) doesn’t seem to have any big problems right now (knock on wood) other than deciding she must hang out in the bathroom with me every time I shower or bathe. She stands next to the tub and meows nonstop until I convince her to leave. Not a real relaxing soak in the tub.

Older cats are not lots of fun. Thank God Murphy seems to be in good shape…for now.