Tuesday, Nov. 30, 2004 - 11:26 a.m.

More Days, mystery solved.

Guess what the mysterious stalker was that followed my prints in the snow? MY BROOM! I was leaning on it instead of my walking stick the day I followed the dog tracks. The only way I discovered the truth was when I went back out to show 800. I almost had him convinced some thing big and scary was out there, until I notice some of the tracks were turned sideways, 6 to 8 inches wide, 4 inches long, and all hairy at the edges, then I realized it was the mark of the worn out broom every 3 or 4 feet!! Did I feel Embarrassed!!! 800 kindly said it was an easy mistake to make, since I usually ride the broom!!!

However, there were some very big dog tracks out there again this morning.

When I continued my Book of Days this morning, I decided to do everything down here on the computer backwards, just to keep my brain limber so I am just now getting to my journal(s).

Usually when I get in from feeding the kitties, I wash the dishes if needed. Sometimes there are so few of them, I just stack and cover them with a towel. If I do wash them, I turn on the little TV/radio to the local talk station and listen to people air their views. Most views are fairly in line with mine at the present time, since this is a conservative state, and conservatives seem to be on the radio alot. The morning guy is a rodeo announcer who also has a short TV show once a week. He is also a Christian, and many of his callers are LDS, so most topics are fairly sedate. Border crossings are a hot topic right now with all the ramifications that come along with illegal immigrants in our area. The other day a local hospital had a Health Fair only for Hispanics, "no ID required". Such an uproar on the radio, and I can see why. Going the other way would definitely not be allowed, and there are quite a number of free programs in the area already. Even the Anglo poor have programs, but pity the not-quite-poor with no insurance, struggling to pay rent instead of living in subsidized housing, eating lots of pasta and hamburger instead of having food stamps, and going with out in order to keep current with obligations. There are alot of us in that boat. It is not so bad for me right now because of the last 10 years in the lab, but there were many lean years with no programs available for those like us. A free Health Fair might have drawn us in, but maybe not.

After the dishes are done, and my blood pressure is fittingly elevated or not, I check for what housework might need done. No more 3 or 4 hour stints everyday just keeping up with necessities. Sometimes a little vacuuming and dusting, a mopping of the kitchen floor, a more thorough bathroom cleaning than just as I pass through, maybe a special task like packing up seasonal clothing or a box of books. Those are soon over and it is downstairs I go with whatever laundry, or homework or paperwork I need to take care of.

Then it is off to cyberland I go, first to England, after I have pulled up the local paper online, then I check the emails, all three of them. Dairyland gets visited, along with Xanga now, then Autumn Leaves gets a cursory inspection. About once or twice a month, I visit everyone, but mostly just a few everyday. A few smiles, a little gnashing of teeth, (and not always at the same place) and I am off to the Campus online places, my Internet classes, campus email, then over to Oregon to visit three forums. That is not near as much fun as it used to be.

A gentle fellow who had a webcam on the ocean died 2 years ago, and the other 2 places are inhabited by varying degrees of crude people who are presently very enraged at the current social and political choices made. I wonder if they realize how close Oregon is to being conservative again, Washington too. I was going to abandon those web sites but I decided not to. Why turn the ocean over to just one collective mind? They will just have to put up with a view from the other side of the street once in a while. Unfortunately, most from the other side of the street have been intimidated from posting there or have just plain left. It used to be a place of poety and short story entries, comments on the area, interspersed with a few 'flames' of disagreement which were usually chided by some of the other visitors, but that balance is almost gone. Hopefully they will get used to having Bush as president, and stop saying such awful things about everything not to their flavor. It takes a certain type of personality to disagree politely, and another type to just spew venom. I've have seen too much of the venomous ones on both sides of the street lately.

I used to watch the John McLaughlin group and enjoyed the interchange, but it is getting pretty venomous lately. The pundit I always enjoyed the most, no matter which side I was one, was William Buckley. He used wit and intelligence to state his case, never resorting to rudeness, and neither did his opponents. sometimes one side was convincing, sometimes the other.

After I have visited the familiar places, done whatever homework needs attending to, I look up whatever subject has caught my attention lately and then it is time to leave down here. Laundry is usually done, so I make a lazyman's load back up the stairs, sometime around mid-day. It is about that time right now and I have class this afternoon along with a trip to the library, so my Book of Days will continue later.

EE's devotional

newAutumn Leaves

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