Category: Daily Life

Maybe tomorrow…

I got to my neighborhood polling location just after 6:00 a.m. and ended up standing in a short line outside the building in the rather chilly weather. My town has a population of about 10,000 and I don’t know how many voting locations there are, but mine had only four voting machines. Still, the line moved fairly quickly. I’d researched all the candidates and issues in advance, so I made it through the ballot in short order.

I’m still not particularly comfortable with the electronic voting machines, but I just have to cross my fingers and hope my votes are counted properly. I’m seriously considering volunteering as a poll worker in the future, partly so I can get a better idea of how the whole thing works.

The Dayquil seems to be helping, so I’ll head into work as usual. I don’t have band practice tonight, which means I can go home and lie down all evening (afternoon?) as needed.

My goal is to ignore the election results until tomorrow morning, but I’m sure I won’t be able to resist paying attention to the news. I guess that’s the curse of living in “interesting times.”

I wanted to make it to the polls as soon as they open, but this is ridiculous,

Yesterday I could tell I was coming down with something. I wasn’t surprised: I always spend the entire fall and winter mired in a series of colds, flu, bronchitis, tonsillitis and sometimes a bonus of pneumonia. This time around it’s a painful sore throat that’s resistant to all of the painkillers I have on hand. I can’t sleep, so here I am watching “Heavy Metal” on cable (my verdict: the animation looks pretty crude by today’s standards but the soundtrack is still good) and wondering if I should try to go back to bed and catch a few Zs before my alarm rings at 5:30.

I’m still planning to vote first thing in the morning, but I’m starting to doubt that I’ll accomplish anything else today. I guess we’ll see what happens once I get some Dayquil in my system.

You know you’re getting old when you need a whole day to rest after every party you attend.

I went to a friend’s house on Friday night to play board games. I didn’t mean to stay until 2:30 a.m., but that’s how long it took nine people to play three different games. We made it through a card game called Palabra (I’d never heard of it before and there’s quite a bit of math involved, but it was fun), a round of Cranium and a round of Frazzle. I won Frazzle, but only because the scoring is completely arbitrary and I think everyone was dying for someone to win so we could all go home.

The next day, I stayed in bed until late morning and didn’t make it to breakfast until after 1:00 p.m. My husband and I went shopping for last-minute Halloween costume accessories and then spent the rest of the day sitting around web surfing and watching TV except for another trip out into the world to get dinner. (We’re boring folks, what can I say?)

By the time I’d gotten myself all dressed in 1980s finery and gelled and scrunched my hair until it was HUGE, my husband had come to the conclusion that he didn’t want to go anywhere that night. I wasn’t about to waste my stylish rubber bracelets, enormous fluffy hair bow and patterned tights, so I went to the party without him.

As usual for this party, there were some good costumes: Carrie, the Ambiguously Gay Duo, Paris Hilton, Donatella Versace, Barney Fife, and The Bride and Go Go Ubari from Kill Bill (Go Go was portrayed by the husband of the woman dressed as The Bride, which made the whole combination that much more entertaining). My costume was well-received, but I’m going to do my best to come up with something more creative next year.

So today I’m tired and I think I might be catching a cold. Was it worth it? Yes, I think so. Still, I believe I’ll spend the next few weekends reading and snuggling with the cats instead of going out on the town. It’s all about balance…

Every year my husband and I are invited to a Halloween party thrown and attended by people who are extremely serious about their costumes. One year, a woman came dressed as Our Lady of Guadalupe, complete with shrine and candles. She was forced to stand in her niche all evening and have people bring her drinks, but everyone was suitably impressed by her commitment to the costume.

The only year my husband and I have ever had a real costume hit was when we attended as Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne. Ever since then, we just can’t compete.

After wracking my brain and examining my empty wallet, this year I’ve decided to recycle my 1980s prom dress and really embrace the era by going in Valley Girl character. (Important note: I was not at the time, nor have I ever been, an actual Valley Girl or facsimile thereof.) My husband, who originally had refused to go in costume at all this year, has decided that he’ll spray his hair dark and apply a mustache and soul patch to go as Frank Zappa.

This means I have all day tomorrow to listen to the song “Valley Girl” and relearn Val-speak before the party. My band has considered doing the song, so it’s possible I’d need to learn it anyway. I’m also trying to decide if I really want to back-comb and scrunch my own hair, or if a wig would be a better way to go.

I’ll be sure to provide a full report on Monday.

My question for the day: why have single-use dishwasher detergent portions suddenly evolved so rapidly?

I was a big fan of Electrasol tablets when they came out. They were little bricks of dry dishwasher powder that dropped into the water at the proper time, dissolved nicely and did a good job of cleaning the dishes. Then the company added a little marble sticking out of the center that was supposedly Jet-Dry, an additional cleaner that fights water spots. That was fine, too. Earlier this year I bought a big box of them from the clearance basket at the grocery store, not realizing it was the last box of them I would ever see at my store.

Now Electrasol comes in the form of little bladders of scented goo. The scent choices are green apple, orange blossom and lemon. Like most Americans, I’m already conditioned to think of lemon as an acceptable cleaning product odor, so I chose that. To me, orange blossom is a perfume scent and green apple is a bubblegum flavor. I don’t care to have my dishes smelling like either one.

As it turns out, I don’t want my dishes to smell like lemon either. The lemon scent is actually rather nice as it wafts out of the dishwasher while the machine is running. Unfortunately, the smell clings to the insides of glasses and particularly to softer plastic items.

A visit to the company’s website reveals that they still make the tablets. That may be my next Obscure Household Product Quest, following on the heels of my last trek across the Internet to find Chore Boy (formerly Chore Girl and referred to by my aunt as Chore Person) Golden Fleece scouring cloths.

Someday, archaeologists will find my secret hoard of Golden Fleece and Electrasol tablets and be very, very puzzled.

One lovely side-effect of my new weekly routine is the amount of time it gives me to cook. This week alone I’ve made pizzas from scratch, meatloaf with mashed potatoes and fresh green beans, and beef stroganoff with steamed rice and green peas.

Last night we got home from band practice at a quarter to eleven with one of the guitarists in tow. My husband wanted something to eat, so I fixed a short-order breakfast of eggs, toast and bacon for the men. While they ate and chatted, I proceeded to bake a batch of cookies that I’ll need for tonight.

I’ve had cookies from a grocery store bakery that contained white chocolate chips and dried cherries, so I thought I’d do a version of those using a fairly standard chocolate chip cookie recipe. I’d bought Nestle white chocolate chips and dried tart cherries, and I soaked the cherries in warm water before chopping them. I started out using the recipe on the bag of chips but discovered that it was leading to the inclusion of cocoa, so I switched to the Better Homes and Gardens recipe midstream. The sugar proportions were a little off and I think that made the baking time longer, but otherwise the cookies were delicious.

I’ve always loved to bake, but I’m confined to “bake and take” situations so as not to tempt my diabetic husband. I enjoy cooking, too, but not quite as much as creating delicately-browned cookies, pies, cakes and breads. Now that it’s getting colder outside, I’ll probably foist more and more baked goods on my co-workers and friends. And let’s not forget Christmas baking and candy making…

The weird thing is that I’m not much of a nurturer/homemaker type otherwise. Baking is one of those things I absorbed from my elder family members, like embroidery and speech peppered with noticeably rounded “o” sounds that make people think I’m from Minnesota even though I’ve never been there. It provides a welcome connection to a past that’s otherwise quickly slipping away.

There are few things in life that I enjoy less than going to a store to shop for myself. It hits my dislike scale somewhere in the neighborhood of dental visits and thorough cat box cleanings. However, sometimes I find I have no garments suitable for an upcoming change of seasons, so it becomes necessary for me to venture forth and face the world of retail.

Last night I had a free evening and a burning need for some shirts, so I headed to a discount clothing store to try my luck. I’d already decided that some casual, lightly-tailored blouses would be a good, versatile look for fall. I gathered a stack of them in my size and tried them on one by one. No, no, no, no, no and no. (Hey clothing manufacturers: try some darts in the BACK of your shirts! There’s nothing attractive about a tailored front and a loose, flappy back on a blouse.) It only takes one unsuccessful trip to the dressing room to discourage me. Although I tried to glance around for more items to try on, I couldn’t commit to the idea so I left.

The next store in line was an Old Navy. I go back and forth on whether or not I like Old Navy. Some seasons, their clothing line seems to give off an aura of: “This is not for you, ya old hag.” At other times, they carry attractive, business casual wear that’s appropriate for anyone. Fortunately for me, this year is one of the latter occasions.

I actually bought some stuff – in size Medium, which I suspect reflects a general enlargement of product in relation to its marked size.

So, that was one task out of the way. Now I just need to come up with a Halloween costume for this weekend…

See what’s written here? It’ll disappear around 7 p.m. tonight and be replaced by something far more thoughtful and interesting, I promise. I’ll resume my regular schedule in the morning.

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Update: Sorry about that. I ended up cooking dinner and going shopping instead. Sometimes real life intrudes…

I’m really pressed for time today, so instead of presenting you with another few paragraphs of whining, here’s something that’s actually entertaining!

For your reading and viewing pleasure, I refer you to James Lileks’ Hell on Ice.