Blame it on the Common Cold

I’ve had a cold that is outstaying its reluctant welcome. So, give me some slack for not posting much lately. I come home from work, put on a movie, and zone out with a Kleenex up one of my nostrils. Yes, I live the elegant and sexy life (does anyone at Fabulon ever catch the common cold? and if they did, how would they accessorize it?).

The last two nights I watched Wall-E and all the bonus features that came with the 3-disc DVD. The Story of Pixar kept me especially entertained. I didn’t even want to stop watching to make some therapeutic hot tea. Tonight I’m watching Tropic Thunder. Yes, I saw it in the theater, but now I have to watch all the special features AND listen to the audio commentary. What can I say? I’m a geek about these things.

So, back to more Kleenex stuffing.  It’s time to zone out.

A Good Evening

I don’t have anything much to say, so shall do my best to come up with something. Do expect to be bored.

• I love the weather getting colder, but dang it! Do I have to start scraping ice off my windshield already? Yep, I had to this morning.
• Tonight’s dinner was a delicious salmon fillet with a crunchy salad. Lately I’m finding foods like radishes all kinds of delicious.
• I’m about to finish the second season of Babylon 5 and look forward to season three.
• I’m thinking that Janet MacLagan’s book, “Fat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient, With Recipes,” would make a good Christmas present…for me.
• I’ve started knitting my first sweater. We’ll see if I finish it before winter is over, but it’s about time that I stretch my skills beyond basic scarves.

Okay, that’s what I came up with. So, were you bored?

Back to Work, and the Cardinals Win

Tomorrow my vacation ends and it’s back to work. I’ll not complain; I’ll just whine.

I got back from my trip to Phoenix. I went to the Arizona Cardinals game, and can I tell you that watching a team barely win is not good for the heart. The Cardinals kept messing up — it was like they wanted to lose. Luckily they held off the 49ers. I still need to watch some video highlights of the game. I had my eyes closed during the last play when the 49ers only had to run one yard into the end zone for them to win the game. Amazingly, the Cardinals defense stuffed the run and we held on to the lead. Whew.

I enjoyed another surprise when I made it home: a porcupine trundling down my dirt road. I had walked Spencer down to the end of the road when I noticed something big and fluffy slowly walking away from me. Thank gods that Spencer didn’t notice it — he was off the leash and it could have meant a quick vet visit if he saw it before I could put the leash on. Anyway, an interesting animal to see in my neck of the woods.

To wrap up my vacation I’m lodged on the couch, watching Animal House. Don’t ask me why I wanted to see this old comedy. I guess I was thinking of Stephen Furst as Flounder. Furst offers a lot of the fun in Babylon 5 as the character Vir and since I’ve been watching that series I keep remembering Animal House.

Okay, back to the movie. And…sigh…back to work.

Taking it Easy

I’m surviving my week off of work. From volunteering to help with the Democratic Party to enjoying lounging the rest of the week, I’ve not only survived my week off, but am enjoying it immensely.

My mom even came up and stayed Thursday night. We had a good time, and surprisingly, my dog Spencer got along with her dog Lady. Even my cat, Lulu, got along with Lady. Her name fits as she is quite ladylike.

So, I haven’t done much else. I’m fighting off a cold, or what feels like one (yeah, my lack of good sleep early in the week may have messed with my immunity). I still plan a trip to Phoenix. Monday night I’m going to the Arizona Cardinals football game. I originally planned to go down to Phoenix on Sunday, but if I’m still feeling run down I’ll just wait to go down on Monday.

I do like taking time off in a chunk like this.

The Express review

Well, let me put up a review. This is about a young man who overcame great odds to become the first African-American to win a top prize. It fits this day-after-the-election mood. Sure, the movie is about football players, but still, I like the similarity to Obama’s win.

The Express has some good things going for it, especially Rob Brown’s performance as Ernie Davis. It’s not a great sports movie, but it certainly is a decent one. Here’s the review.

Happy Zombie

Ah, there’s nothing like trundling off to bed about 2:30 in the morning. Though I know I dozed a bit on the couch last night. Yes, falling asleep while sitting up with my laptop in my lap. Hey, I had to read everything about Obama’s win last night.

So, sometime after midnight I woke up  enough with a whiplash  effect (sleeping sitting up is just not great for the neck), and instead of going to bed I stayed up a few more hours. Now? I am a zombie.

Yeah, I woke up to read more about election night. I wanted to see how the Al Franken/Norm Coleman race came out — it’s heading for a recount. Plus the Oregon and Alaska senate races weren’t called last night. Today it looks like a convicted felon will hold on to the Alaska senate seat and the Oregon ballets are stil being counted. Even better, the Georgia race still had plenty of early ballots to count and the senate race will go to a runoff in December (Georgia requires at least 50% of the vote).

My zombiehood is a happy one. Obama won decisively, and though he didn’t win Arizona, he won lots of other states. Plus, Ann Kirkpatrick won the Arizona CD-1 congressional seat vacated by Rick Renzi. Yay!

It wasn’t a perfect election (Prop 8 passed in California and so did Prop 102 in Arizona — both anti-gay propositions). Arizona’s legislature will ralso emain too Republican. Still, I’m pretty happy.

Now if only I could stop being a zombie, even if I’m a happy one. I have things to do!

Damn

It’s going to be so great to have a president that can talk in complete sentences. Obama is amazing.

Swinging the Vote

I saw this video at Blog for Arizona, and what can I say? I’m hooked on swing:

The Day Before the Election

This is a vacation week for me. When else is a better time to take vacation days than election week? I volunteered today and will be doing more volunteering for the Democratic party tomorrow.

Today it was more phone-banking. I even got to talk to a woman who wouldn’t vote for Obama because he was…you know…a Muslim. Sheesh. She also swore that she heard Obama say in a speech over the weekend thatMcCain shouldn’t call Obama a “Child of God.” Huh? I actually had read about that speech. It was Obama declaring that McCain had called Obama everything BUT a “Child of God.” I couldn’t make the woman believe that and as Obama is a Muslim (let me roll my eyes here), I stayed pleasant and did urge her to vote for Ann Kirkpatrick for Congress. I think she might, as she seemed to sense my unhappiness about her opinions on Obama.

The real fun today was that Ann Kirkpatrick showed up to do some phone-banking herself. I even got to ask her about her hair. Okay, what a silly thing to ask, but I loved her curly locks, and as a curly girl myself, I felt that she betrayed the honor of curldom by straightening her hair. She did laugh as I asked her and made a good argument when I asked why she got rid of the curls, “When you’ve been campaigning for two years the last thing you want to worry about is your hair. You just try to give a speech outside on a windy day. It helps to have your hair fall back flat and in place.”  Okay, okay, I’ll cut her some slack.

She did make calls for about an hour or so. We weren’t getting too many live bodies when calling, but she did get a few. I’d probably faint if a candidate actually called me to tell me my polling place. At one point it worked out that the rest of us in the room had finished a round of calling and heard Ann on the phone. I know that I was curious to hear how she did and listened. The rest of us did too. She did great. In fact, after she hung up, we all clapped and cheered for her good job. Ann laughed and blushed.

Tomorrow, election day, should prove interesting. Tons of volunteers, but I don’t know what we’ll be doing. We already were on the third round of calling the people on the phone lists.

All I know is that I’m glad that the election is here. I can’t take much more of this.

Wrong Number?

So there I am, making calls from the Coconino County Democratic Party Headquarters. Things are going fine. I’m leaving messages or talking to very nice people. I hang up the phone after finishing a call and the phone rings. I pick it up and guess what? It’s a John McCain robocall!

I’d say they’re calling the wrong number, wouldn’t you?