luscious_purple: women's rights (rights)
I finally got through the last of the election-judge days (primary day itself). My regular precinct was severely understaffed. We had two chief judges, one from each major party, but the Democratic chief judge was dealing with long COVID complications and probably some other health issues -- he huffed and puffed after walking 20 feet. Plus, it was his first time in the role, so he was uncertain about some things. Half the election judges assigned to the precinct failed to show up -- didn't even bother returning the phone calls from the chief judges a week before the primary. What's with that? $200 per day won't make you rich, but it's pretty easy money -- it's hardly picking crops in the field or other hard physical labor. Later in the day we got three fresh trainees -- "fresh" in that they had been trained just that morning, starting at 6 a.m. Somehow we all managed to get through the day.

I tend not to get too attached to candidates before primaries. This year the Democrats had a lot of good gubernatorial hopefuls, and I would have been OK with any of them. Wes Moore ended up winning after enough mail-in ballots were counted. The GOP nominated this fire-breathing Trumpican dude, and I hope his campaign goes down in flames.

I can't believe I have a feature article due on Friday. I feel as if I have so much to do still, and I'm panicking.

Today in history: It's Amelia Earhart's 125th birthday. It's the 53rd anniversary of the splashdown of Apollo 11, completing JFK's goal of "landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth." (My emphasis.) And today David Ortiz was enshrined in Cooperstown. If only the Red Sox could find another good slugger....
luscious_purple: Boston STRONG! (Boston Strong)
OK, any day on which a Red Sox player becomes a first-ballot member of the Baseball Hall of Fame has to be a good day. Congratulations, David Ortiz!!

Still, clouds loom on the horizon. Julia (the cat) has high blood and urine sugar and dilute urine (with a bladder infection), so she is getting (expensive!) antibiotics to treat the last. Once the infection is fixed, she is going back to the vet to have her sugar tested again. I may have another (expensive!) diabetic cat on my hands.

Church work continues apace, as we trustees continue to grapple with the reality of having a smaller congregation and an aging physical plant. We are making slow progress on our two biggest repairs: replacing the deck and improving the HVAC in the Meeting House. (The deck is not a luxury item; it's a raised wooden platform that connects the two buildings and in fact is the only way to get in and out of the Meeting House.) At least we are getting a couple of prezzies from the county government: it will fix our water runoff problem AND pave our packed-gravel parking lot properly. (The water runoff comes from the surrounding neighborhood, but it is digging a big trench on our property. Long story there.)

I really, really need another source of income. I know I've been saying that for years, but it is really obvious now that my lifestyle is not sustainable. Please think positive job thoughts for me!
luscious_purple: Boston STRONG! (Boston Strong)
Both of my favorite Major League Baseball teams had their Opening Day games postponed today -- the Red Sox for rain up in Boston, the Nationals for several covid-19 positive tests. Boston will play tomorrow, but who knows about Washington?

I am still feeling no effects from the first Pfizer jab. However, I have a slight bruise from the blood test at the doctor's office on March 25.

I wish I could get R. to get his vaccine. He is 69 years old and lives in Loudoun County, Virginia. He has been eligible for a while now, and the rest of the Virginia adult populace will become eligible on April 18, so there will be another rush. But R. just complains darkly about how "Fairfax County has been prioritized for vaccinations." I tell him I've heard no such things on the news. Maybe Fairfax County represents all the parts of political liberalism that he hates so much.

Honestly, I have no idea where R. even gets his news these days. He doesn't own a TV set. The radio in his 1993 Honda Accord has been busted for years. He says the internet connection to his apartment is very poor and he can't get online very often, but his ADSL provider cannot fix it because that would require him to let them into his apartment during business hours, but he can't possibly take the time off to do that because he is under so much time pressure at work, yadda yadda yadda. So he is living as if this is still 1993. Except ... it's NOT 1993 anymore.
luscious_purple: Boston STRONG! (Boston Strong)
Where to begin ... ?

I guess I should just start with the personal deets. I'm in good health. After nine and a half years of freelancing, I'm really used to spending a lot of time at home. One of my clients is taking a long time to pay me, though, and since the stock market is doing its ultra-roller-coaster thing, I am extremely nervous about the tiny little sliver that's left of my retirement fund.

I am getting very good at using Zoom for videoconferencing. Heck, it even enables me to attend two different meetings (barony meeting and Toastmasters club officers, or church budget team and Toastmasters club officers) in different towns on the same evening. In the "real world" or "meatspace," I'd have to choose between one or the other.

The boy toy and I are taking turns going out shopping (because that's a recommendation). Yesterday I went to the local food co-op (really, a small supermarket) to get a few things that were 5 percent cheaper on the monthly "patron appreciation day." I couldn't help noticing how bare the paper-products shelves looked.
20200325_120838

Today was *supposed* to be Opening Day for Major League Baseball. Ha ha ha, COVID-19 had other ideas. So MLB came up with the idea of picking a classic game from each team's history -- a winning game, of course -- and streaming it. For the Nationals they picked Game 7 of last year's World Series (of course) and for the Red Sox they picked Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS, which was a lengthy and hard-fought victory when our dear Sox were down 3 games to 0. So, yeah, I actually listened to large chunks of both games.

During disasters, people do things they don't normally do. The boy toy has been baking bread -- he made a very tasty loaf of rosemary bread -- and then he moved on to something non-edible. Since the last round of hair dye we used left our hair feeling drier than usual, he decided to make an all-natural "deep conditioner" out of pumpkin puree and honey. We have lots of frozen pumpkin puree and non-frozen honey. He blended some of each together and this morning we doused our hair with it. His hair, which is quite a bit thicker than mine, came out great, but mine came out ... gritty. I have *not* had a haircut in over a year and the little bits of orange pumpkin pulp got caught in the split ends. Or something. Bleah.

I have been giving the boy toy haircuts for several years now, and after today, he actually volunteered to give me a trim. At least a couple of inches. Another sign of the times. :-)

Finally, something that has not been covered as much as it should have been: Happy 80th Birthday, Nancy Patricia Pelosi! What a nice middle name you have. :-)
luscious_purple: Snagged on LJ (great news)
Some of you may be wondering how I can get so excited about the Nationals in 2019 after cheering for the Red Sox in 2018. Obviously I have deep roots in Massachusetts. My Dad was a huge Red Sox fan (even though the only time the Sox won the World Series during his lifetime was when he was 12 months old), and I went to college a few blocks from Fenway Park. So Boston will always be the American League team of my heart.

But I was happy when Washington ended its baseball drought in 2005 with a National League team. Even with the current trends in interleague play during the season, the Red Sox and the Nationals seldom play each other (and I don't think they have a matchup on their 2020 schedules). And it's downright fun to cheer for the home team.

So I have two favorite teams, one in each league. And now that these two teams have won back-to-back World Series championships, I will be happy to add a 2019 Nationals championship banner to the 2018 Red Sox pennant on my wall.

And I am officially *incredibly* spoiled for future Octobers.....
luscious_purple: Boston STRONG! (Boston Strong)
Got the car. First thing, I broke off the driver's door handle. Another thing to the list of things to be fixed....

Got the article done ON TIME. Despite my computer eating some of my prose. Quite chuffed about that, actually.

Electrical work required by the condo association (replacement of circuit-breaker box) has been completed successfully.

Red Sox win first two games of World Series. YAY!!!!!

Working early voting starting tomorrow. Need to say good night....

Mmmmm....

Oct. 9th, 2017 09:56 pm
luscious_purple: i'm in ur fizx lab, testin ur string therry (string therry)
Tonight Mistress Teleri's little A&S group had a soap-making session. I splashed a little bit of the newly made soap (not straight lye) on my shirt. Now I smell like patchouli and jasmine. Mostly patchouli. :-)

In other news, both my favorite baseball teams lost today. The Red Sox are out of the postseason entirely; the Nationals are hanging on by a thread. *sigh*
luscious_purple: Boston STRONG! (Boston Strong)
Relive it here. And here.

Can't believe it's been 10 years since that fully-eclipsed-moon magical night when the Red Sox finally won the World Series.
luscious_purple: Boston STRONG! (Boston Strong)
So, how 'bout those RED SOX???!!!??? Cut to spare those who are uninterested. )

The other night, I was driving to dance/music practice and I saw that the sign in front of the university's Ritchie Coliseum said something like "WELCOME AORE, WWW.AORE.ORG." I wondered what the heck AORE stands for. American Organization of Renal Endocrinologists? Association of Outstanding Reticulated Entomologists? Obviously I figured it out once I got home, but I think my other ideas are more interesting, don't you?

Anyway ... I'm still getting used to Standard Time and the lack of Major League Baseball games, and I really, really ought to write more about the SCA.
luscious_purple: Boston STRONG! (Boston Strong)
Game 1 of the World Series is in the books and it is a SOX VICTORY!!! Boy, those Cardinals need to learn how to catch a ball. This ain't high school, gentlemen!!

Now, I am just finishing off my second bottle of Sam Adams Octoberfest tonight, but I must say, this is one weird (NSFW) music video about Massachusetts by some Norwegian group. Now, that's NOT Boston City Hall, people don't refer to "the Massachusetts" and "the Suffolk County," and the "perfect harmony" bit certainly glosses over the whole Boston busing crisis. And where the hell did they find Pingryville? Even I had to look that one up!
luscious_purple: Baby blasting milk carton with death-ray vision (death-ray baby)
Yeah, I stayed up last night and watched the historic Red Sox collapse. Aaarrrrrggghhhhh. I have to admit that, for fans of the Orioles, it must have been an utterly fabulous way to end an otherwise undistinguished season.

But for Red Sox Nation? Gaah, what might have been....

Seems as if a lot of people are now calling for the head of manager Terry "Tito" Francona, but I'm not one of them. I still think he's the best manager for the Red Sox. I don't know enough about baseball to assign blame, but I'd say the team HAS to get rid of Lackey, and probably Crawford too. I see Ellsbury, Pedroia, and Youkilis (when Youk gets over his injury) as the core of next year's team.

Baseball is such a funny game. It's like the opposite of football. The NFL has a 16-game season, so it is not that uncommon to have teams finish 15-1 or 1-15. But Major League Baseball is six months and 162 games. The best teams have a record around .600 and the worst teams are around .400. Regression toward the mean or something like that. Even the best teams have "off" nights when no one can hit or catch properly. Even the worst teams have flashes of athletic brilliance.

Funny, but at the end of the game last night, I was thinking about how I tried to make myself root for the Orioles back in the 1990s, when I was a new transplant to Maryland and DC had no prospects of getting an MLB team. After all, the O's still had Cal Ripken Jr., who I still think is an incredible class act. The O's led the AL East for the entire 1997 season, then lost in the playoffs (ALDS, IIRC) and then Peter Angelos fired Davey Johnson and the O's haven't had a winning season since. I can't stand Angelos as a team owner, and I guess this experience is one reason why I think the Sox should keep Francona. (Incidentally, Davey Johnson is now managing the Nationals, which gives me hope for the future of that team. I would really like to have a good NL team in DC.)

Guess I'll wrap this up with a couple of links.

Chad Finn: Red Sox did this to themselves
Nate Silver: Bill Buckner strikes again
luscious_purple: "avoid heralds" (avoid heralds)
I have to start by mentioning that I'm watching the ESPN Sunday night baseball game, Red Sox versus Yanks at Fenway. Bottom of the third and the Sox are threatening to score. Hope they do -- this is the rubber game of the series, and the season has not been kind so far to the 1-7 Sox.

Anyhow ... on Saturday I went to Lochmere's Night on the Town event at the Elks camp in Annapolis. I hadn't pre-registered because the boy toy had been wanting to go to the Cherry Blossom Festival, but when the weather forecast was cloudy and cool and possibly damp, he declined. I didn't get there too early -- indeed, I had to dodge a HUGE traffic backup on the Beltway and take the back roads to U.S. Route 50. So lunch was technically sold out by the time I arrived; I had to wait till mid-afternoon and then snag some leftover food.

Fortunately, I was just planning to have a relax-an-event anyway. While awaiting the opportunity to nosh, I sat in on a medieval-pinwheel-making class taught by Mistress Sigrid, and I made my own lil' pinwheel from wood and parchment paper. (I'll probably give it to Eleanor the Naked Baby or any other small children who come visiting at our Pennsic encampment.) I browsed the baronial yard sale known as "Lochmart," I chatted with some of my fellow heralds, and during evening court I worked on the practice tablet-weaving band that has been sitting around the house for a while now. (Actually, I straightened out the cards so that they were all going the same way, and I practiced just the plain old "two turns forward, two turns back" shtick. But even weaving without a pattern can be tricky if you keep getting distracted as I do/did.)

Of course feast was sold out too, so I just came home and noshed on some satisfying leftovers for supper. I do love to feast, but it's probably just as well I saved $9.

Today was mostly cloudy too, even though previous forecasts had said "sunny." *sigh* So I slept kind of late and missed the service again, and then I dawdled and was late for the Wicca 101 class. So I learned something about grounding and centering, but I missed the part about casting a circle. Darn.

Then the boy toy settled in for some laundry and cleaning, and I was OK until I came across a bag that had a lot of stuff from 1981 in it. I could tell it was from 1981 because of the dates on the letters from my parents. Mom wrote most of the letters and signed them "Mom and Dad," but a couple of times, my father wrote a separate message and slipped it in the envelope, and those notes were signed "Daddy." I didn't cry, but I got all sad and thoughtful. Having two parents ... that was such a long time ago now.

(For those of you who don't already know: my Dad died the year after I graduated from college, and my mother died 14 years ago. So this is not a divorce thing.)

Some homemade chicken soup and a great Josh Beckett pitching performance, though, and I'm doing better now.

Random bits

Sep. 5th, 2010 06:05 pm
luscious_purple: i'm in ur fizx lab, testin ur string therry (string therry)
BU student falls to death at hotel. I guess this is why the screens were riveted onto the window frames at Warren Towers (the huge 18-story dorm there).

UMass-Amherst mired in second-tier status -- this is sad, and there is no excuse for it. I did what I could while I was still a Massachusetts resident.

Dammit, the Red Sox were ahead and they STILL managed to lose their third game in a row to the White Sox. *grumble* We're never going to get back into the wild-card race now....

Well, I guess I should go enjoy what's left of another gorgeous afternoon.

May 2025

S M T W T F S
    123
45678910
1112 1314151617
18192021222324
25262728293031

Syndicate

RSS Atom

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jul. 7th, 2025 12:13 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios