How many in one day?

I just can't get my brain around it, the number of people who died in one day. Today's CNN article says 116,000 people were killed by the earthquake and tsunamis and that number is growing. I'm having a hard time imagining what that number means so I looked up some statistics to help me put this disaster into perspective.

In 1945, the U.S. dropped bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, resulting in a cumulative death toll of 237,062. Many of the bombing victims did not die instantly.

Between the years 1939 and 1945, approximately 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazi regime and its collaborators in the holocaust.

- Studies indicate that 24,000 individuals die each day of hunger-related causes, according to The Hunger Project.

- An average of 114 people die each day in car crashes in the U.S.

- Some 700 people die smoking-related deaths in Russia each day.

- More than 1.6 million people die from violence every year: more than 4,400 deaths each day.

- Over 2,600 cardiovascular disease-related deaths in the U.S. each day.

- Cancer will kill more than 1,500 Americans each day this year.

- Estimate of the global daily death rate: 146,000.

So this means that IN ONE DAY the global death rate was nearly doubled.

In one day.

I always knew this

It's now official. Envy me.

I am Chocolate Flavored. I am sweet and a little bit naughty. I am one of the few clinically proven aphrodisiacs. Sometimes I can seem a little hard, but show warmth and I soon melt. What Flavor Are You?

Ham is the new turkey

Babycakes wants ham next year. I guess she's tired of eating leftover turkey for four days in a row.

Thanksgiving was wall-to-wall ham, 24-hour-a-day ham, ham-o-rama, a hamfest all day long. Yeah, there was turkey too, but neither of us ate any.

Our relationship began when she was a card-carrying member of the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. And she was vegan. And jewish. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine that she'd eat ham. But she does. It's cute. I haven't told her that ham is the traditional Easter Dinner dish. She only eats peanut butter chocolate eggs at Easter anyway so she wouldn't notice anything that the Christians do.

Remind me to tell you about my brother's funeral. It involves ham and jews and lesbians.

Bah humbug!

Teenagers are absolutely NO FUN on Christmas. They finally woke up around 11 a.m., wandered around in the kitchen where I was cooking the roast beast and then went off to watch TV or get on the computer.

Babycakes and I toasted our Bloody Marys and went back to food preparation. It turns out that not all of the friends who had been invited for the festive meal were able to show up (because of the snow) but we had terrific time anyway, even though it was served earlier in the day than we were used to.

Finally, the kids said, "Let's open presents" so they did. Jack went off immediately to work on wiring issues (tv plus dvd plus cable tv) in his room and Hannah packed up enough leftovers to feed several coworkers at the Baxter Theatres and headed off to sling popcorn for the rest of the day.

Another Bloody Mary anyone?

Snow fantasies

What's more wonderful than waking up to 6-8 inches of fresh snow? The day started with drinking coffee in my duds of cuddle while reading the newspaper (thanks for delivering it in the snow!) and watching the local news report on the weather (It's snowing! Live at 11!).

Babycakes and the children awoke and we all sat down to enjoy our lovely breakfast and to exclaim about the 8-10 inches of snow when the girl-child announced, "If I have to stay inside all day someone WILL BE MURDERED."

"Have some more raspberry jam," I replied.

"I'm going out," she announced, "or I'M NOT KIDDING, someone will die."

"Well, that's nice, dear," I said sweetly, "but you won't be driving a car when you do. In case you haven't noticed, there's 10-12 inches of snow on the ground outside."

She retreated to her room upstairs (the one I haven't stepped foot in for over a year) and didn't come down again for hours. I was relaxing on the couch with Babycakes reading Utne and drinking tea and looking out at the beautiful 12-14 inches of snow when the girl-child entered, fully dressed, carrying a pair of bright orange Doc Marten boots.

"The buses are running," she announced. Then she put on her boots and left.

Bringing back the light

Today is Winter Solstice, the longest night of the year and snow is expected later.

Winter is not my favorite season. I dislike the short, overcast days and cold weather. Solstice reminds me that the light will come back and the days will begin to get longer now (a minute longer each day).

Happy Solstice friends. Light a candle.

Big Apple (bite me!)

I've been in New York for exactly 2 hours and my heart is racing. I LOVE this city. It is my most favoritist city in the world. I can (almost) see the Chrysler Building from my hotel room window and, lucky you, I brought along the digital imaging device so there will be pictures (and words) to post later.

Off to find food and tequila now.

I'm adding to this post ... days later. The NYC trip was delightful, until the last 12 hours. Maybe it was the food and drink the last evening, but I'm telling ya, there ain't nothing worse than throwing up in LaGuardia. I mean it. By the time the cab picked us up to take us to the airport Friday morning I'd been throwing up for hours. And guess what? I got out of the cab and threw up again!

Unexcused

I'm a bad parent. No, really, I'm terrible.

For example, I DID NOT KNOW that when your teenager is sick and stays home from school that GOOD PARENTS not only call the school in the morning to say, "She has a fever and won't be coming in today," but they ALSO dutifully write a HAND-WRITTEN note to the school, sign it, date it (adding some DNA wouldn't hurt) and send it with their child when she's well enough to return to school.

How did I learn this? Because I got a call from the school informing me of all of the UNEXCUSED absences (a total of 3) this semester. "This is a problem," the family resource center coordinator calmly informs me.

No kidding. My kid's mother is STUPID. That's the problem.

Far out

Now that the Christmas tree is up I get to play with my new favorite toy. Thanks Mary, for sending these way cool glasses.



When you look at Christmas lights through them it's like, well, like, the lights get all freaky, man. You remember that acid we dropped at the Grateful Dead concert in 1972, man? Well, it's like that, only this time it happens ONLY WHEN YOU PUT THE GLASSES ON, man.

Mary sent us four pairs so come on over and let's trip.

Potato latkes and Christmas trees

When our clergy friend called yesterday I told her we were putting up the Christmas tree and making potato latkes. She said, "Latkes ... sounds very Minnesotan."

"Er, not quite," I said. "It's Hanukkah so we're having latkes and decorating the tree."

About that time I noticed the cat up on her hind feet licking (yes, licking) a plastic icicle. She kept this up for about a minute. "You won't believe this," I tell the episcopal priest/chaplain on the phone (as if she could provide pastoral counseling on the spot) "The cat is licking a plastic icicle. She can't tell that is isn't real. What could be wrong with her?"

"Hmm, okay ... " says she. "Tell me more about those latkes."

The latke recipe:

Potatoes (grated - I use the Cuisinart to do this)
Onions (ditto)
1 egg (optional - some recipes call for an egg but it's not needed)
Matzo Meal (enough to help the potatoes stick together, a little flour would work as well)
Salt and Pepper (lots! more than you think you need)

Put about a 1/2" of oil in your favorite skillet. Get it very hot.

Drop a forkful of potato into the hot oil (you want a latke to be palm-sized), flip it once, remove when it's golden brown, drain on paper towel (or if you're traditional, a brown paper bag).

Serve immediately with apple sauce and/or sour cream.

Number of years spent mothering: 18

My daughter turned 18 this week. While she is healthy and funny and is a joy to be around (most of the time), these numbers might help tell the whole story.

The number of:

emergency room visits: 30
times dramatically transported to the ER in an ambulance: 2

musical or theatrical performances: 150
rehearsals for those performances: 500
performances in which her "costume" involved push-up bras: 20

times she changed her hair color: 35
hair colors I liked: 1 (the original)

times she climbed out of her second floor bedroom window in the middle of the night: 1 (I think)

times she broke a window because she forgot her key: 2

times she blamed the broken window on "some bad kids" and called the police: 1

times she blew her curfew: 1,000
visits to the police station: 1

things I've learned from her in 18 years: countless

The Dott Comments Guide to Holiday Gift Giving

Welcome to the 2004 edition of the Dott Comments Guide to Holiday Gift Giving. So sorry we couldn't mail out the annual color catalog this year, babycakes has been too busy keeping crazy people off the streets and I've been doing ... well, um ... this.

In our house we try to give "experiences" rather than "stuff," especially now that the children are too old for visits to that store with the stupid giraffe mascot. Food, travel and items that enhance our entertainment are usually high on the list.

This year I've decided to be radical and say MONEY MAKES THE BEST GIFT EVER. No, no, no ... I'm not asking you to give it to me. I want you to give it to one of these cool non-profits or businesses owned or managed by someone I actually know. A small ($5 or $10) donation or gift card would go a long way.

Everything on this list is near and dear to my heart and I promise that I personally know everyone I've listed here. But don't you have your own list?

COOL NON-PROFITS
Appalshop (where I spent my formative years)
Bridgehaven (Arti and Tyler the therapy dog will appreciate your support)
Hospice (ask Clare and Cathy about their "golden coffins")
Just Solutions (for Janet and the best of boards)
Louisville Youth Group (I could list lots of GLBT groups, but Quartez just inspires me)
Kentucky Alliance Against Racism and Political Repression (Anne Braden is my hero)
Kentucky Foundation for Women (for the many days I've spent at Hopscotch House)
Pleiades Theatre Company (Hannah was a lighting intern there)
Wellspring House (where babycakes cut her therapy teeth)
Walden Theatre (Hannah acted there)

BUSINESSES TO SUPPORT
(buy gift certificates)
Baxter Theatres (don't ask Hannah for passes, buy gift cards)
Butterfly Cuisine (Laura, our chef, is wonderful. Try her yourself)
Just Creations (Becky, Mike and Barbara, this one's for you)
Knit Nook (Keep Louisville Weird, ok Dennis?)
Yoga Studio Louisville (Alex and Jessica, I promise I'll come back to class soon)

A person of means finds treasure in rare books emporium ...

William Wallace Cook's 1927 book Plotto, first published in 1928, is back on my bookshelf. It had disappeared during the haze of "I don't give a fuck what you take, just get out of the house" divorce drama. I've talked about it ever since.

Becky, one of my oldest and dearest friends (who has patiently listened to me whine for over 20 years) tracked down Plotto for my birthday. She now apparently owes many favors to a rare book dealer friend of hers but that's okay with me because ... well I'm really grateful and happy.

Plotto is a writer's manual. The author's theory is that "there's nothing new under the sun" and that every story, book or screenplay boils down to this: “Purpose, opposed by Obstacle, yields Conflict.” His book provides a formula for "Master" plots and lists 1,462 conflict situations and 150 character combinations from which to choose.

Let's see ... I think I'll choose "a person influenced by an obligation"+"committing a grievious mistake and seeking in secret to live down its evil results" + "achieves a spiritual victory".

Wanna make a comment? Here's how

Some folks have been confused about how to make comments on this blog. Here's how:

1. Click on the link "comments"
2. The blogger comments window opens
3. Choose "anonymous"
4. Type your comment (sign it please, so I know who you are) and submit

Of course, if you have a blogger.com account of your own you can log in instead of being anonymous.

So go ahead and tell me stuff.

Thanksgiving Part Three: The Weapons

Several tin cans and old license plates were sacrificed for target practice (I don't really know what a carbine rifle is, but my brother apparently owns one). There's a chicken out there somewhere with purple wings (even though we told the kids NOT to point the paintball gun at animals). But who knew that a spoon could be considered a weapon?

It started as a friendly game of cards -- you know the one where there is one less spoon than players and when you get four of a kind you grab for a spoon -- and WHACK, we heard someone get hit. Most adults would just say "ouch" but teenagers strike back. Jack only got a spoon to the head but Hannah got a fist to the nose.

Yep, that's right, my kids got into a fistfight at Thanksgiving.

"I'm gonna get a black eye," Hannah wailed. "I can't go to work like that!"

"Why?" somebody asked.

"Because they hired me because I'm cute and that sells popcorn."

I'm just grateful that the guns were out of reach.

Thanksgiving Part Two: The Cousins

Not everyone was there, of course, because time and travel obstacles got in our way. My oldest brother Kenny proposed this gathering back in the spring, before my middle brother Larry died.

We are a colorful tribe, white, black, brown and tatooed. There were five kids in my generation, eight kids in the next, and now there are eight more. Some of us have been married to one person the whole time, some of us have never married and some of us can't get married (not legally anyway). So the question of who is related to who gets complicated sometimes. I made a chart last summer when many of us were together for Larry's funeral. It was color coded by generation and included spouses and partners, sperm donors and step children, and helped us explain the concept of cousins to the younger ones. It was much too elaborate to try to reproduce here, but I'll try to make a color coded list of the generations:

Kenny > Jennifer (Catelin and Cody) and Jeff
Sherry > Lisa (Justin and Michaela) and Debbie (Emily and Tasheona)
Larry > Tracy (Zachary and Malaysia)
Dianna > Hannah and Jack
Chuck > Natasha

Thanksgiving Part One: The Food

My brother and sister in law really know how to put on a feast -- thanks guys! Here's a list of the food, some of which I never got a chance to sample:

• A turkey (the size of a small country)
• Two hams, a Honeybaked and a country ham my sister brought from Virginia
• Our traditional family fruit salad (the "big kids" helped make it with me)
• Cornbread stuffing
• Casseroles: green bean, broccoli and sweet potato
• Noodles (from Aunt Lou's recipe)
• Mashed potatoes (my nephew from California wowed us with these -- garlic and goat cheese)
• More pies than I could count. I saw pumpkin, peach and pecan
• A birthday cake and ice cream

And that was just for Thanksgiving dinner! We also had eggs and bacon (and more ham) and biscuits and fried apple pies and pumpkin bread ... and can I have more coffee with that?

Shiksa pearls, explained

Eek! has inherited a mink coat (ok, "blonde mink strolling coat") which so outranks the already-dead old furs owned by all of her friends. What to do? I thought we should have a "ladies lunch" to celebrate. Nobody without an old fur coat allowed.

"Wear the shiksa pearls," she says, so now I've got to explain about those.



It was Yom Kippur and babycakes and I went to Temple. Well, I'm NOT Jewish but we had free tickets (yes, tickets were required for the event) and I was thrilled to be able to add this Jewish high holy day to my this-might-make-a-good-screenplay list.

"Dress up," she told me. "People get decked out for the holidays."

I selected a silk dress and a tasteful strand of pearls. There must have been over 400 women there and I slowly noticed that NOT A SINGLE JEWISH WOMAN was wearing pearls. They were wearing jewelry all right. Along with their perfect hair and nails they wore fabulous artist-made gold and silver necklaces and pins, but not a single pearl was in sight.

This, however, was not my only faux pas for the evening. While the authentic jews were greeting each other by saying "good yontiv" I was merrily wishing everyone a "good yentl" which is NOT the same at all.

Obligatory photos of the children

Yeah, it had to happen. Somebody might want to see them.

Not you, I know, for whom seeing pictures of other people's children is incredibly boring (yawn). But those other people, the relatives and the ones who live far, far away, they beg and plead and whine for just tiny pictures, please, so "we can see how much they've grown."


Smiling Jack

Lovely Hannah

Serious Jack

Big smile Hannah

Over the river and through the woods

When I first learned the "Over the river and through the woods, to grandmother's house we go" song I thought it was written just for me. My grandmother ACTUALLY lived over that river and through those woods.

So it's almost Thanksgiving and for the first time in many, many years I will be travelling (over the river and through the woods) back to that house for the weekend. My oldest brother lives there now. He was born in that house.

I can smell the sweet potato casserole already. Yum.

Damnation

GREENSBURG, La. Nov 15, 2004 — Beavers found a bag of bills stolen from a casino, tore it open and wove the money into the sticks and brush of their dam on a creek near Baton Rouge.
[More]

I'm not paranoid, they're out to get me

Here's a conspiracy theory for you.

If you're a child, you can get a flu shot. If you parent small children, you can probably get a flu shot. If you're over 65 you can get a flu shot.

But - and here's the thing - if you're aged 50 to 65 you probably CANNOT get a flu shot.

This means that the baby-boomers had better watch out. If they succeed in infecting us with the flu and we all get sick and die, Social Security is saved and a lot of really good jobs open up.

There you have it: Motive and opportunity.

Watch my back, will you?

Black pants, white shirt

Remember band? Or orchestra, or chorus, or whatever performance group you belonged to in school?

Remember how you always had to have a uniform or a special t-shirt, or the dreaded "black pants and white shirt" ensemble? And remember how it had to be clean (and ironed) and ready for a performance you forgot to tell your mom about that was HAPPENING TOMORROW NIGHT!

Yeah, we all did it. So I guess I shouldn't be surprised that Jack pulled this crap on me less than 24 hours ago.

So, we went shopping. Shopping with Jack is not much fun. He's picky. He has expensive tastes. And he has the attention span of a fruit fly.

"Jack, stop looking at the wallets, the dress pants are over here." (Reply: "Dockers! God Mom, those are so not cool.")

"Jack, this white shirt is $15 cheaper, will it do?" (Reply: "No, that fabric is terrible, just feel it.")

"Jack, come out of the dressing room so I can see if the pants fit." (Reply: "Mom! They fit. Would you please get out of the dressing room!")

After hours of this wrangling, we finally made our purchases and got home in time to fall asleep from exhaustion.

So, should I be surprised that at about 6:45 a.m. this morning, Jack looks at me and says, "Mom, when are you going to iron this shirt? I can't wear it like that!"

Life changes after children

My friend Carrie, who is at home with her newborn son, has given up knitting -- and sleeping, apparently -- for the short term while she adjusts to motherhood.

I hear that the wee one is feeding on demand and demanding to be walked. Parents develop amnesia, thank god, and forget that they had different lives ... before.

Before:

• every piece of clothing you own smells like sour milk
• movies about people with babies were boring
• you used to GO OUT at 10 p.m., not COME HOME at that time

I remember telling a friend about how cool it was that the babysitter (a 15-year-old) loved coming to our house so she could listen to our old (vinyl) records.

"You let her touch your stereo?!" he sputtered.

"Oh right," I answered. "She can touch the BABY, just not the frigging STEREO."

People without kids just don't get it.

On becoming a crone ...

In my circle of women, growing old is honored and celebrated. We've reclaimed the word "crone" to mean wise, older woman and hold rituals known as "Cronings," for women over 50.

I asked women to bring inspirational quotations to share at my croning. Oh what a bounty of wisdom arrived! I am blessed to have poets and writers among my friends who wrote for me ... and singers and musicians who played for me ... and artists and craftswomen who stitched and beaded for me.

The gifts were many, and I can only share them a little at a time.

"Life should not be a journey to the grave

with the intention of arriving safely

in an attractive and well-preserved body ...

but rather to skid in sideways, champagne in one hand,

strawberries in the other,

body thoroughly used up,

totally worn out

and screaming Woo-Hoo - what a ride!"

- author unknown

"Let men save the world? I don't think so!"

- spoken by Helen, from the new animated movie, The Incredibles

The moon is always female

but the sun is female only in lands

where females are let into the sun

to run and climb.

- Marge Piercy, from The Moon is Always Female

Happy Birthday to me

Today is anniversary of the day I was born.

According to family legend I was early. Mom and Dad were BOTH transported to the hospital by ambulance that day, Dad because he was having chest pains (oh no, not another heart attack) and Mom because, well, she was giving birth to me.

The three older sibs were at home with Grandma, waiting. This is why they hate me. The pregnancy had been difficult and Mom had already been in the hospital for months. My grandfather wouldn't speak to her. His comment was, "The doctor told you not to get pregnant again. I'll have nothing to do with this child."

She was home for a weekend (on furlough I guess?) when she woke up Sunday morning bleeding ... this was no "my water broke" episode, she was hemorrhaging bad.

An emergency c-section was all they had time to do. The incision was huge and Mom lost her own navel as a result. Later they added a steel plate in her abdomen to help hold her guts in. She had trouble with metal detectors for the rest of her life.

She took it all in stride and even devised a cruel sort of game to play with the grandchildren that went like this: "Your mommy has a belly button, your daddy has a belly button, your cousin Doofus has a bellybutton, Grandma has a ... oh my God! What the hell happened to Grandma's belly button!"

Anyway, happy birthday to me. I miss you Mom.

The truth about provisional ballots

I now know the truth about provisional ballots. Most of them will NOT count.

We issued only one provisional ballot on election day. Sure, we could have handed them out left and right but if we had done that it might have done more harm than good.

See, most voters don't really know where to go to vote. In our state, if you move and you change the address on your driver's license (which most people don't do until it expires) your registration automatically changes. It's called the Motor-Voter law.

The problem is, most people think their current address dictates their precinct, regardless of what it says on their driver's license. Well, it does, but only if you've changed your registration. If you haven't, you're still registered at your old precinct and you can (and should) go there to vote until you've changed the records.

If you were a voter who was convinced that you were 1) registered and 2) registered in the precinct where you were standing at the time and 3) that fact was verified by a call to the Board of Elections and 4) your name wasn't in the official book, THEN AND ONLY THEN would your provisional ballot ever count. However, I think our state does a pretty good job of keeping track of who's registered and where so I'm pretty damn sure that your name is in a book SOMEWHERE and that's where you need to go to vote. And don't argue with me.

Our provisional ballot went into a special orange pouch to be sent back to the Board of Elections. I presume the pouch would be opened, the voter's status would be verified AGAIN, and the vote would be recorded.

Unless of course, the margin by which the winner is ahead is greater than the total number of provisional ballots ... then I'll bet they don't bother to count them at all.

The turnout was huge on election day

The turnout on election day was big. Really, really big.

I worked at precinct G141 where just over 600 voters were registered. By 10:30 a.m. we had already distributed 280 ballots. By 10:30 IN THE MORNING! If you counted both G141 and G150 we had about 1,500 registered voters.

Voting was steady all day long. Voters kept coming, and coming, and coming. The one (very odd) thing though, no one was in line at 6 p.m. when the polls closed. At the end of the day our AccuVote machine said it had counted 999 ballots. We had planned to do a special dance at 1,000, so we danced anyway.

Voters lined up

Yes, there were people in line to vote at 6 a.m. but since there are just over 1,500 registered voters in precincts G141 and G150 we never experienced the long lines reported in the news media.

We had 8 voting booths where voters go to color in the ovals on the paper ballot but one AccuVote machine.

A voter must sign the roll of voters to receive a ballot. The roll of voters is simply a computer printout of everyone registered to vote in that precinct. It lists the voter's name, social security number, address, birthday, and party affiliation. Our roll was split into two books. I took the list marked "A through L" and another worker, George, had "M through Z."

Voters must show indentification before they are allowed to vote. The I.D. can be a driver's license, other photo I.D. or even a credit card. Or if the voter is a personal acquaintance of the poll worker that counts too. The worker finds the name and marks the type of I.D. in the book, then the voter signs. It's pretty cool because the place where the voter signs is upside down so I didn't even have to move the book. As I gave the voter a ballot, I marked the stub number of the ballot in the book and added my initials.

The stub on the ballot is torn off BEFORE the ballot goes into the AccuVote machine. The stub is placed into a separate locked compartment in the black box under the AV.

My day as a poll worker

I showed up at the Baptist church fellowship hall at 5:15 a.m. as instructed. The polls in my state open at 6 a.m. and close at 6 p.m. It was going to be a long day.

In all there were 8 poll workers assigned to this location, housing 2 precincts. Two of us had never been poll workers before but the others were long-time veterans. The "old-timers" instructed us newbies how to start setting up the voting booths while the others took on other tasks like posting the "vote here" signs and getting the AccuVote machine hooked up.

The machine itself is the size of a small fax machine -- voters slide in paper ballots to be scanned and recorded. But it sits on top of a large box. The ballots go through the machine and fall into the locked compartment below. At the beginning of the day a "zero tape" is run and everyone working at that polling place signs it, certifying that the count started at, well, nothing.

(more later)

Why we hired a personal chef

I know, I know -- it sounds so hoity-toity but we hired a personal chef. She starts a week from today.

Robin is covering for her boss who is on maternity leave meaning that she comes home late and tired. One of my staff is also on maternity leave (what's up with that?) meaning that I come home late, tired and bitchy. Who wants to cook? We're tired of cold cereal.

Here's how it works. You sit down with the chef and talk about what you will eat and what you won't eat. She works up some sample menus for your approval. She shops, she cooks 20 servings (5 menus). Some are fresh, some are refrigerated and some go in the freezer. When you run out of food, you call her and she does it again.

It's more expensive than cooking but much less expensive than eating out (unless we were eating McDonalds or cheap chinese takeout). We actually did this once before, about six or seven years ago and it was fine for a while.

This time we ordered low-fat foods so one of the benefits might be that we'll drop some weight. We'll see.

Leading indicators point to a Kerry win

First, the Red Sox won the World Series. Then yesterday the Washington Redskins lost their last home game of the season. Today, the astrologers all say the planets are unfavorable to W.

Who needs pollsters?

Trick or treat, smell my feet ...

I've been buying Halloween candy since August at the rate of a bag a week. For three years in a row I've had to raid Jack and Hannah's candy stash to satisfy the trick-or-treaters.

Two days ago I panicked and bought the biggest bag of cheap-ass candy I could find. I started the night with that bag, thinking that if I had leftovers I'd prefer Milky Way bars instead of lollipops.

The strategy worked. We have a little bit left over, but it's the good stuff.

We live one street away from the biggest trick-or-treat street in town. Almost all the houses on that street install elaborate (and gory) decorations. They get so many visitors on Halloween night I'm surprised that the police don't allow them to block the street from traffic. It's like Mardi Gras. This year was the first year they didn't allow on-street parking there, so, everyone parked on OUR street.

Great costumes, beautiful weather, fun night.

Jack wore his Kerry t-shirt. When asked, "What are you?" he replied, "A Kerry supporter." One group of 10 year-olds told us we got lots of "cool points" for our Kerry signs.

"... a duel with deadly weapons ... "

I'll be a poll worker next week. Today I picked up the bag containing the Accuvote machine and the roll of voters in my precinct.

When I went to training we were sworn in as official Election Officers. Here's what part the oath says:

"... I will faithfully execute to the best of my ability, the title of Election Officer, according to law; and I do further solemnly swear that since the adoption of the present Constitution, I, being a citizen of this State, have not fought a duel with deadly weapons, within this Steate, nor out of it; nor have I sent or accepted a challenge to fight a duel with deadly weapons, nor have I acted as a second in carrying a challenge, or aided or assisted any person thus offending, so help me God. "

A new (old) photo of my dad

Here's a photo of my dad when he served on the USS Princeton in 1947. My sister tracked it down through another sailor who emailed her a copy (thanks!).

The bigger photo (which I cropped) shows the crew on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier.

Meet the cat

Say hello to Moe, the wonder cat.

Actually, I just wanted to test the photo-adding feature. But isn't she cute anyway?

Squirrels ate my pumpkins!

Our neighborhood squirrels have eating disorders.

We had three small pumpkins waiting to be carved into Jack-O-Lanterns on the porch, and the squirrels ate them all. Now they're starting to eat the large ones.

A few weeks ago I was hearing stories about migrating squirrels and large groups of squirrels crossing 5 lanes of freeway. I think it has to do with a larger-than-normal population this year and that food is hard to find.

Not even pumpkins are safe. Sheesh.


Pumpkin-eating squirrel 

If the Red Sox win, does that mean Kerry will be president?

So I was wondering, if the Red Sox win the World Series, does that mean that John Kerry will win the presidential election?

Updated 10-28-04

Yes, yes, yes!