I have to say, I couldn’t have asked for better get-away weekend weather than this past weekend. PA was beautiful, as was the ride along the 90 into PA. The colors were varied and vibrant - just glorious! The pix below don’t do justice to the actual beauty but they are a small indicator.

This trip was a little unusual in that the lake we stay at is dropped every year by about 2.5 feet around the 1st of November. This year they dropped the lake early so they could conduct some repairs on the dam. It was the first time we’ve been there after the lake was dropped - it was kind of cool. My brother, nonetheless, found a way to get his little sailboat into the lake for his maiden voyage. He was so excited. There wasn’t much wind but he did manage to catch just enough breeze to make it work.

My family members are all pretty avid thrifters so we had to take the obligatory trip into town to hit the thrift stores, and the rinky-dink flee market. I wasn’t too enthusiastic (more interested in hanging out relaxing) but it actually turned out ok for me. I found a shadow box, a 6 qt. pressure cooker, and a Fiesta gravy boat. The first two were very reasonable, the last, not quite as much.

It was hard going back to work today. Should have taken one extra day off to get myself re-settled. Trying to decide if I want to watch the last debate or not - inclined toward not at this point - just plain sick of all the rhetoric and talking heads. With things the way they are right now, it’s hard to imagine anyone actually even wanting the job. Kind of makes you have to wonder a little about anyone who wants it.

Work sucked, the house still needs to be cleaned, laundry to get done, kid bullshit to deal with, retirement account down 16 percent with the finance mess, blah, blah, blah...

I want to go on vacation again!


Our Campfire


The view right out our back door


Lots of geese


My mom and sister digging up rocks to take home for the garden - they're a little strange sometimes - but they got cool rocks


My brother's sail boat


Maiden voyage - he was so happy


My pressure cooker find - good deal


My shadow box - another good deal

OK - I don't want to jinx myself, but the weather for this weekend looks like it's going to be fabulous. I don't think I could wish for any better. My mom has decided she's going to come with me and my sister for the weekend getaway, which is really cool because the lake is near the little town where she grew up in PA. She's not so keen on my brother's lady friend but that's ok, they're in another cottage - we can always escape.

MrMike - I hope your dad has a happy birthday, and thanks for dragging my kid along, I appreciate it.

Enjoy your weekend everyone - I'll post pix of my trip when I get back.

Whenever I’m getting ready for a trip, my dog acts strange. Everywhere I go she’s right on my heels. And she looks at me differently. It’s like she knows I’m going somewhere and she’s afraid I’m going to leave her behind. I find it very odd. She doesn’t act like that in the morning when I’m getting ready to go to work. Freaky little animal. She is really cute though.

I received the below e-mail from one of my (very conservative Republican... or in this case maybe Fascist) uncles today. Normally, I just delete the political crap they (he and my other uncle) send me because it usually burns my ass to read it, and ALMOST makes me love them just a little less. Even just the first (well second) statement “These are NOT taken out of context…” is nonsense. Of course they’re out of context... if they were in context, they would be surrounded by the rest of the book ... duh! Anyway, it is totally this kind of BULLSHIT that perpetuates racism, ignorance, fear, and hate. It makes me want to SCREAM!! The really horrible part is that there are a bunch of whack-jobs out there who will send this CRAP to a bunch of other whack-jobs and it eventually will end up in the hands of the masses, many of whom aren’t really too bright themselves and could possible be influenced by this STUPIDITY! Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh (that’s me screaming)!

[box]Hi, DIRECT QUOTES from Obama from his books. These are NOT taken out of context--but his own words.

From Dreams of My Father: 'I ceased to advertise my mother's race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites.'

From Dreams of My Father: 'I found a solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against my mother's race.'

From Dreams of My Father: 'There was something about him that made me wary, a little too sure of himself, maybe. And white.'

From Dreams of My Father: 'It remained necessary to prove which side you were on, to show your loyalty to the black masses, to strike out and name names.'

From Dreams of My Father: 'I never emulate white men and brown men whose fates didn't speak to my own. It was into my father's image, the black man, son of Africa , that I'd packed all the attributes I sought in myself , the attributes of Martin and Malcolm, DuBois and Mandela.'

And FINALLY the Most Damning one of ALL of them!!!

From Audacity of Hope: 'I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.'

• If you have never forwarded an e-mail, now is the time to Do so!!! We CANNOT have someone with this type of mentality running our GREAT nation!! I don't care whether you are Democrat or a Conservative. We CANNOT turn ourselves over to this type of character in a President. PLEASE help spread the word!!!![/box]

My god, I sometimes can't even fathom how we remotely came out of the same gene pool - WTF!!!!

Ah, a long weekend away at a beautiful little lake in PA... now that's something to look forward to. My sister and I (we share a cottage), and my brother and his clan (they have their own cottage), have been making this trek every year for the past 5 years on Columbus Day weekend. This seems to be perfect timing for Fall foliage, and, so far, we’ve been super lucky in terms of it not being too cold. Here’s a pic. of the view from our back door there. It's very relaxing.



The Lake in the a.m. - great with a cup of coffee!

OK - so my car saga goes on... this is like some weird, bad novel. Ends up my mom's car, that I borrowed because mine broke, needs some stupid window motor and some other regulator thing... Price tag $585. There aren't any after-factory available (old car) but my brother can get dealer cost at, oh, $360ish - PARTS ONLY. Thank god he knows about cars - he's going to go junkyarding and try to find a window motor for less and put in in at home (so I don't have to pay labor at his work) - he's such a great guy.

I'm really hoping the candidates decide to discuss some pertinent issues tonight; but my fear is they're going to engage in a lot more clawing and backbiting than tackling of issues (reminds me of some past relationships I've had - yikes). Maybe we should just throw some gloves on them and shove them into the ring to get it over with and then they can go on to the issues. Guess we’ll see soon enough.

• No boss at work today - somehow that always makes things go a little more smoothly.

• It appears I didn't crack the engine block in my car - just tore up the alternator belt - replaced it about a month ago - will have to have it replaced again. Boy - did it make a stink.

• Bought some of those black & decker plug-in things that are supposed to make some super high frequency pitch sound to keep bugs away - they don't work on fruit flies - sick of those litte bastards.

• Bought some Edy's Espresso Chip ice cream for company last night - it's fabulous! Talk about best of everything - ice cream, espresso, chocolate chips - yum! Next best thing to Andersen's coffee bean ice cream.

• Overall - not a bad day.

Had most of my family over for dinner tonight for my brother's birthday (it was really good too). When dinner was over, I gave my daughter's friend and my niece a ride home. After dropping off the last passanger, my daughter and I were on our way back home and I started to hear this weird noise in the front passsanger side. At first I thought maybe I ran over something and it was stuck and making a flapping noise as I was driving - gross - the thought of this actually made me feel pretty sick. But, thankfully, it wasn't any kind of live thing. Unfortunately, it was some kind of belt in my engine that, after it totally broke and stopped making the dreadful noise, my power steering went, the battery light came on, and the car started blowing smoke like crazy. I managed to drive it home the rest of the way (praying I haven't cracked the block) taking very wide turns and running through a number of red lights. I probably looked like a complete maniac - I know I felt like one. Lucky for me, my mom has two cars and my sister took me over to her house so I could pick one of them up. Tomorrow evening my brother, a Ford Technician, is going to come check the stupid car out. I've loosly been scouting cars for a while now because my hasn't been running great, but I just haven't wanted to take on another monthly payment. I hate cars.

Tomorrow is the first day at my sister’s friend’s new church.
Here is the information I received on the service:

In celebration of the establishment

of his new church...

You are invited to attend the first service at

Spirit of Truth

An interdenominational setting of Christian faith

under the pastoral leadership of

Elder Jerome Livingston (my sister's friend)

Sunday, October 5, 2008 at 10:00 a.m.

2275 Fillmore Avenue, Buffalo, NY 14214

(second floor: unfortunately, no elevator is available)

If anyone's interested in attending, all are welcome.