I can’t believe that’s how long it has been since the lake freighter Edmund Fitzgerald sank in Lake Superior. It was a storm of epic proportions and the then teenaged Engineer listened to his multi-band radio long into the night. The crew of the freighter Arthur Anderson was calling the crew of the Fitz. No answer. I’m not going to spend much time talking about this tragedy or quote Gordon Lightfoot song lyrics (although I do like the song). Y’all can google it easily enough if you want to.

We get some good storms up on Gitchee Gumee and that’s yer favo-rite blahgger swimming there in the photoooo. I was probably about six and that storm is nowhere near the size of the one that sunk the Fitzgerald but it looks like a pretty good one. You may be wondering (if you aren’t one of my cuzzints) why the heck anyone would be crazy enough to let their little kids swim in those waves. Our beach is pretty safe. There is a sand bar system and, until after the second sandbar, the water doesn’t get above about, oh, three or four feet at the most. It is a safe place for children to swim and the second sandbar provides an easily identifiable natural boundary. And there is no undertow. Grandroobly used to say that the island in the middle of our bay (not shown in the photo) blocked the formation of an undertow and that explanation makes sense to me.

Also, we didn’t have a lot of rules on that beach growing up but there were a few non-negotiable ones, including DON’T GO SWIMMING WITHOUT AN ADULT WATCHING YOU!!! We did not break that rule. We never felt the need to try. I don’t remember one single time that we couldn’t get somebody’s moom to watch us swim. And we swam *every* day, *all* summer. I can remember The Commander sitting on the beach in a winter jacket watching us swim. When I was a teenager and young adult, before we had comprehensive indoor plumbing in the moomincabin, I used to bathe and wash my hair in the lake every day and even then, if it was stormy enough, I would ask The Commander to come down and keep watch. I can swim but I have a great respect for the power of water.

This photo is from the Sherman Archives and I don’t remember that particular storm but there were plenty of storms like that and we loved swimming on those days. And we still do! Jumping around in the surf, diving into incoming waves, body-surfing toward the shore, feeling the waves break over our heads.

Anyway, it’s been 35 years since the Edmund Fitz sank. I love the simple statement my niece Valdemort (the Engineer’s daughter) posted on FB today: “35 years – Rest in peace, men.” Yes. You too, Engineer. (Even though I suspect you are out raising hell somewhere in some parallel universe!)

So. How do y’all stay informed about the world and who makes it go ’round? I’ve been living under a rock for a few years. It is a beautiful amethyst rock and it was really comfortable under there for a while. But it is submerged under the sand now and I hate feeling all gritty, so I dragged myself outta there and took a look around. Now, I know who the president is. I know that we’ve been fighting a couple of wars. We have a nephew in Afghanistan. I know that a bunch of greedy old bankers and their cronies drove our country to the brink of a depression. And I know that we are still hanging onto the ledge above that abyss. With our fingernails. I have friends and relatives who are unemployed and having a devil of a time finding decent jobs. When does it end? Still. I’ve been under a rock, licking a few little wounds of my own and trying to get my own little life in order navel gazing. Pretty much untouched by all of this mayhem. Er, knock on wood big-time!

All right. I am upright, sorta. I have dusted most of the sand off. I don’t need my wonderful BFF Sam (archaeologist, not dog) to tell me that it’s *Harry* Reid, not *Henry* Reid (I called him Henry in an entry a year ago or so and she very politely corrected me). I *think* I even remember (without Google) that he’s a senator from Nevada and he just won the election against Sharron Angle. A Tea Partier, roight? I’m trying.

And so, I am off on a quest to learn more about politics. In truth never have been terribly interested in that subject. Except (of course) when something has affected me directly. Liiiike the 1995 gov’t shutdown, maybe? But now — suddenly — I am. Interested in politics, that is. Politics. On. But where to start… I am looking on-line. We don’t get a daily local newspaper any more and, although I miss that, I don’t want to subscribe to the NYT or WSJ or whatever. I have decided I’m not interested in killing any more trees. Because one has to start somewhere, I am starting with iPhone apps that aggregate political information and news. (And the NYT and WSJ.) I’ve downloaded eight apps. I am very slowly getting to know them. I haven’t decided which ones will be keepers for me yet. I am *not* interested in anything that panders to any particular political party.

What sources do you use for political news? Either traditional or on-line? Doesn’t have to be an iPhone app. And how do you keep from getting totally overwhelmed? I am an systems analyst by trade but I feel like I am swinging around in the dark right now.

P.S. to NPJane, I have *finally* added The Ann Arbor Chronicle to my RSS feed!

Time, time, time, see what’s become of meeeee… While I looked a-round for my poss-i-bil-i-ties. I was so ha-ard to please.

Did y’all getchyer clocks changed? I still have two clocks from the Jurassic Age that I have to change. My microwave and my bedside alarm clock. I actually use those. All of the other old digital clocks around here have been flashing  12:00  for many years and anything analog is long dead. Well, there are the clocks in my automotive vee-hickles. I have a rather interesting relationship with clocks. I keep my alarm clock set a half hour ahead (or is it 35 minutes?). I keep my microwave clock set five minutes ahead. At the moment, both automotive vee-hickles are pretty close to real time but, for a long time, the Ninja was 14, then 15, then 16 minutes ahead. It seems to gain time a bit. Who knows why. Now that I have a GPS in it, which keeps accurate time (I think), it doesn’t make sense to have the car clock be ahead.

For many, many years, the old blue Island Teal POC’s clock was seven minutes ahead and every adolescent in town knew it. Yes, that means I schlepped a whole pile of kids around. All the time. And with kids in the alternative schools and youth theatre guild, friends were scattered all over the place so, more often than not, I had to drive all the way across town and even into Ypsilanti. And back. People, this is why, in the end, us mooms make the shift from being terrified of our teenagers driving to handing over the keys and getting religion. And it doesn’t end. Mouse left for a rehearsal a few minutes ago and she’s 23 and I told her to be careful. And The Commander always tells me to be careful! “There are deer out there.” “The police are watching!” And then there was that whole engine blowing up thing with Grandroobly but that’s a whole ‘nother story. Kids and everybody, please be careful. I mean that. I am a moom and I will always worry. That’s my job.

Was I talking about clocks? Yeah. I can do all the time shifting I want but my computer(s) and my iPhone (and my car GPS) keep me honest in the end. I’ll be sitting around at my computer lolligagging around reading all y’all’s blahgs over my morning cheerios and I’ll look at the microwave and it’ll say 7:35 or whatever and I’ll think something like, “but that’s fast so I have all kinds of time.” But the computer and the iPhone both say 7:30 and that means something like, “gitchyer butt in gear, kayak woman!” All of this obsession with setting the clocks ahead is pretty stupid because I do not punch a clock at work and nobody much cares *exactly* when I walk in the door. At my work it is not polite to schedule a meeting before 10 AM without asking the attendees if an earlier time is okay with them. It is meeeeee who decides when I want to get to work and I berate myself when I don’t get there “on time”. (I am exaggerating just a wee bit here. Don’t worry about me.)

EDT to EST? Who cares? I don’t really mind when the sun goes down when I leave work. I actually welcome the darker months of the year. I’ve learned that if I spend enough time outside every day, no matter what the weather or the current phase of the diurnal cycle (does that make any sense?), I feel pretty darn good. And happy.

How are y’all doing with the time switch. I know some of y’all are not very happy.

P.S. I crossed out “gray” in the title because the skies are anything but gray here in the Great White North. The sun is blindingly bright and the temperatures are verging on the 60s until the sun goes down. We’ve had Novembers like this before but it’s a bit eerie.

Well, on a day like today, I could’ve clomped around in the swamp all afternoon. What a gorgeous November day in the Great Lake State! I should probably clarify that our swamp is really dry right now. We have not had a lot of rain around here and there were a few rather soft places but those were fairly easily avoided. Still not the easiest walking. There is deadfall absolutely everywhere and did I mention picker bushes? We emerged from the swamp with our clothing *covered* in sticky little seeds. If it had been any other Sunday, I would’ve probably hopped into the Ninja for the three hour drive home in my swamp clothes and that would not have been a good thing because I have a feeling I’d’ve been scratching the entire time.

As it was, after we draaaggggged ourselves outta the swamp, I changed into some rather more presentable articles of clothing! Skirt, tights, tank top, my fave sparkly handmade [by meeeee] jacket, Tweak necklace, scarf, and, er, well, ratty old Chaco hiking sandals. Why all this folderol? Because we were scheduled to attend cDon’s retirement party on the way home. cDon is a longtime colleague and friend of the GG over at the EPA and I interacted with him a lot for many years when I worked for CSC over there.

Siiiigggghhhh. I worked over at the EPA for 15 years, quitting in 1994 or thereabouts. Since the GG is a career employee there, I occasionally attend these retirement parties, especially if the retiree is someone I remember well. Or if it’s someone I regard as a friend, like cDon. (I even rather independently know his *lovely* daughter but that’d be a whole ‘nother story.) Parties can be difficult for a socially introverted person like me and these parties are sometimes harder because I see faces that I know but I can’t always put names to them. A bit like a high school reunion without the name tags.

And then there are the questions (and these are normal questions from wonderful people). “How are your little girls?” Our beautiful 20-something daughters who traversed the EPA with us as babies and young children. “Have they graduated [college] yet? Do you have any grandchildren yet?” Yes and !!!!!!! And then they start in on the GG. “When are you going to retire?” And that’s where it all starts going downhill. The GG *is* thinking about when he can retire, as he should be after working his entire life. Paper boy, gas station attendant (robbed at gunpoint *twice*), automobile factory worker, computer scientist.

Well. Then the finger points to me. Retire? Me? Well. We are a bit out of sync here. Because I am nowhere near ready to retire yet. Retire? Me? After my tenure over at the EPA, I took a 14 year hiatus to be home with the beach urchins and volunteer. I never planned on it being that many years and there were a few years toward the end when I wasn’t sure if I would ever figure out what to do with my life or if anyone would ever want to pay me more than a “stipend” again. I’m still not sure what I want to do with my life but I was wrong that I wasn’t worth anything and I love my job and pretty much the whole works. I have landed in a good place where people value what a person can do over their age or looks or connections or [sometimes worthless] paper credentials. Who knows what the next few years will have in store but I hope I can continue to carve out a career in what I am doing now. It is the first time in my life I have had a job where I have not felt somewhat under-employed. I cannot think about retirement yet. Sorry.

Anyway, Godspeed to cDon and I hope he will find some time to drag the GG out for lunch in between playing with his grandson and pursuing his hobbies.

Even though I take a shower every morning, there are some days that are not complete until I take a second shower in the late afternoon. Unless it’s one of those rare days that I can take a dip in Gitchee Gumee. Today was one of those days. I mean a second shower day, not a dip in Gitchee Gumee day. I’m nowhere near Gitchee Gumee today and it is not warm enough to swim anywhere in the Great Lake State. I know I waste water taking a second shower but one thing we have here in the godforsaken Great Lake State is fresh water, so I guess frequent showers is one of my vices.

I began my morning here at Houghton Lake by walking along the point road toward Orion. Alas, I never quite got to him. I kept walking and walking and he didn’t get any closer. And then he faded away as dawn approached.

The Twinz of Terror put together a bit of a breakfast, then we hopped in to the Ninja and headed north, wending our way toward the hopping little burg of Gaylord. Our missions were multiple. Hike. Eat lunch at the Sugar Bowl. Shop at the Saturn Bookstore. Check out the real estate situation. Yes. Oh, not for us. We are gonna be on The Planet Ann Arbor forever, no matter how much the GG starts to resemble Stormy Kromer. After a long and successful financial-type career down in the Day-twa Megalopolis area, the Uncly Uncle has accepted a wonderful new job offer in Gaylord and he and The Beautiful Gay will be moving there as soon as they find something up to snuff according to TBG’s standards. The UU officially begins work on Monday but has been meeting with people throughout the week and getting his office and computer stuff [email, et al] arranged.

We were only grazing the real estate situation today. We did some drive/walk-bys of places the UU had scouted out but we didn’t talk to any owners or agents. I must admit, I am just a wee little bit envious about living in the Gaylord area. It is less than two hours from the Moominbeach, i.e., the place I call home. And The Commander, of course! Houghton Lake is less than an hour away and Petoskey and Traverse City are easy drives. It’s close to all kinds of hiking and skiing and kayaking and, well, wilderness. But I love the Planet Ann Arbor. It is where my work is (and loverly dog-poopy cube) and it is the place the beach urchins call home. We’ll stay there and bumpity-clunk up and down the I75 SUV Speedway whenever we can. The UU doesn’t have a place yet but it isn’t impossible to commute from here at Houghton Lake, so he’ll be doing that until he finds something closer.

The Sugar Bowl Restaurant. Cocktails. Established 1919. That’s the year that Grandroobly aka the old coot aka my dad was born. During a certain era of my childhood, we would always stop at the Sugar Bowl on our way south to visit my grandparents in Day-twa or cousins on the Planet Ann Arbor. Grandroobly would get out of work a little early on Friday so we could leave when school got out and we’d hit the Sugar Bowl around dinner time. The order would be the same for everyone at the table: steak sandwich medium rare and french fries. Cokes for us kids and probably beers for the adults. It was a great place then and it was wonderful today. Friendly fast service and a greatly expanded menu with my favorite lunch combo, a half-sandwich and cup of soup. Chicken salad with dried cherries and greek lemon-rice soup, thank you very much. And Opa! The UU ordered a bit of saganaki! Manhattans for the twinz and cabernet for me plus MI vs. IL on the bar TV rounded out our stop. Of course, I don’t care much about feetsball, so I was checking twitter/fb/email on my iPhone. We were all happy.

The twinz were both dead tired by that time and they snoozed on the way back to Houghton Lake. Even while I shopped at the Grayling Glen’s grokkery store. When I returned to the Ninja, they were still both crashed out.

And so. End of day. Gotta get off this cute little beastie and start swinging in the kitchen. Miss having The Beautiful Gay here this weekend!!!

Stopped in the schoolyard to watch The Rion at 0-skunk-30 this morning.

Swung around just to check if the dippers were still around.

Those dippers move pretty fast, don’tcha know.

Pulled a sticky leaf off the bottom of my sandal.

Went to pull one of my gloves off with my teeth — like I *usually* do — and stopped in the knick of time when I caught a whiff of dog poop next to my nose.

Clumpity-clumped into the Landfill, kicked off my sandals, and threw my gloves into the laundry.

Rattled around for a while, put my sandals back on and bumpity-clumped back outta the Landfill, into the Dogha, and over to my loverly little cube.

Settled into my loverly little cube for the day.

Sniff, sniff, what the heck is that smell?

Duuuuuhhhhh, that would be the dog poop that is *still* on my sandal. Along with another leaf or two.

Obtained some paper towels from the lunch room for a cleaning operation.

Gag reflex went into full-tilt-boogie defense mode during cleaning operation.

Stashed poopy old sandals in far corner of my cube and shluffed around the office in socks all day.

Northbound I75 SUV Speedway. Traffic light but fast. 180 miles in 2.5 hours.

Saw one cop a few miles south of West Branch.

No, he didn’t stop me.

Dinner at the Spikehorn Barrrrroooom with the Uncly Uncle.

I like Obama all right but I still don’t know what the heck a community organizer is. What the heck is a community organizer?

I think *I* was a community organizer for a while. The pay was terrible.

Oh, don’t worry. I won’t be running for prez or any other office any time soon. Or ever.

I want to hate Sarah but I don’t, exactly. But I don’t understand her. Who is she and what does she stand for? She sure isn’t much like any of the women I know. But the desperate housewives aren’t either.

I wanna be Moosezilla too! I mean I want the name.

I do not think I will watch the movie about the guy who cut his own arm off. No thank you.

It is spitting little bits of snow here at Houghton Lake.

I dunno what happened to the suburban Dee-troit boy I once married. He seems to have turned into Stormy Kromer.

Well, yyyyyyyy not?

I am fried today. It is Thursday and I was humming along working on coding out the bones for a major re-skinning of our product when all of a sudden, I reloaded a page and the text on the navigation buttons changed from a dark gray color to WHITE! How the heck did *that* happen? I hadn’t changed *those*! I spent two hours trying to fix the problem without success, only to find out during the very last nano-second of the day that the problem was in a file I hadn’t even *thought* to look in! A file that I hadn’t touched all day. I can only guess that somebody accidentally overwrote the file with a [much] older copy. For all I know, that person couldda been me… Or maybe Frooggy got in there to muck things up. He has been known to do that. Of course he would’ve changed the color to “frog greeeeen” or “edjee perpel” or something. White is a bit too boring for Frooggy. Such can be the nature of the computer programming-type parts of my job. Computers are only as smart as those who program them. I wasn’t very smart today and I was making enough noise during all of this to provide W0.5 and the long-suffering, cat-herding person with quite some entertainment. My female cube neighbors weren’t laughing very hard but that was only because they were dealing with their own little issues. Anyway, I did get rid of the white text, so hopefully it won’t instigate a bunch of those frenetic processing dreams tonight.

That’s about all I have today. It’s Thursday and I am outta leftovers, so I am making breakfast dinner. Mouse went off to rehearsal with*out* curlers in her hair, thank you very much. And I am not getting enough solo time here at the landfill. Seems like I just get home and get my chores done and, next thing I know, somebody is barreling in the door yelling, “Luuuuuucy, I’m home!”

G’night.
Sleep tight (oh, not really) (well, Frooggy prob’ly will).
Don’t let the bed bugs bite (really).

Debug Woman

So. What. Did. Y’all. Think. About. The. Election? (I’m ducking.)

Me? I haven’t formed a coherent opinion yet. I think I am growing an interest in politics but I won’t start forcing my opinions on y’all any time soon. I am ignorant. Y’all would just clobber me with your informed rhetoric! I have to say, thinking back over my post-election workday, I didn’t hear *anyone* talk about the election. Maniacal laughter about a certain unnamed browser diabolically throwing an *extra* footer bar onto our web pages? Yes. Elections? Not a peep. We are geeks. I am sorry.

That there hallowed hallway in the photoooo is the lower el hallway in the venerable old home of the Haisley Hawks Huskies. Where the beach urchins went to school in the 1990s and my cube neighbor in the early 1960s. It was still the Haisley Hawks when the beach urchins started school. Mrs. Ritsema, who was the principal when my cube neighbor went to Haisley, had a loverly collection of stuffed hawks and owls and things. I mean stuffed by taxidermy, not cute little beanie baby aminals or whatever. Well. Along came General Mann, the principal during the beach urchins’ tenure. General Mann did *not* like those musty old stuffed birds. She unceremoniously stashed them away somewhere under the eaves or wherever and eventually did away with the hawk as the mascot. Chop chop. I believe the students got to propose a new mascot and vote on it. I’m fuzzy on whether that happened while my kids were still there or not. I seem to remember Mouse wanting to name something the “manatees” once but maybe that was just a classroom thing. Anyway. General Mann is now long gone (from the school) and the Haisley mascot is a huskie. I suppose the huskie is a bit more logical for a Great Lake State school mascot than the manatee, but I think the hawk is probably more appropriate than either. We have a lot of hawks around here.

I spent a lot of time in this hallway. Dropping kids off. Picking kids up. Gossiping. Reading with at-risk kids. Helping kids [share] during “computer lab”. Gossiping. Delivering the Haisley Newsletter. Did I mention gossiping? Many a time, a teacher would come out the open door of her classroom, give us mooms a “get a life” look, and pointedly shut the door. On the other hand… The year Mouse was in first grade, her class was overly filled with kids who were — I dunno how to say this in a politically correct manner — not prepared for school, either socially or academically. Her teacher was overwhelmed. My friends and I spent so much time hanging around that classroom that nobody would blink an eye if we barged in there whenever. Stash our stuff on our kid’s coat hook while we went for a walk? No problem.

I [sometimes] miss those days. I [sometimes] miss that school. I [sometimes] miss having little kids who come home at the end of the day and need me to be there. I definitely miss reading to my own little beach urchins in the evening and then tucking them into bed, knowing where they were when I went to sleep and where they would be when I woke up. I can’t just walk into the elementary school any old time any more. I am now a terrorist.

I am a baggy old terrorist who is outta steam. So, how ’bout them thar elections?

P.S. I do not miss the elementary school enough to want to volunteer there. Been there, done that!

Yes, I did vote today. I split my ticket but left out some court and trustee candidates that I had not researched. Note to self to do better on that the next time around. There was a glitch but it did not result in me stumbling home through pouring chads and mud, fighting back tears of frustration and despair.

I took my usual 0-skunk-30 walk and got to my polling place, which is also the elementary school the beach urchins attended, at 6:58 AM, two minutes before the polls opened. That photoooo is the line when I got there. When I got up to the check-in table, the poll workers were panicking just a bit because they couldn’t find voter 14’s application or sticker or whatever. After a bit of kerfluffle, they seemed to have the problem resolved and when it was my turn to get checked in, the volunteer wrote me down as voter #16 and handed me a ballot.

I *carefully* read the instructions for every category and *carefully* filled in the little ovals for my choices. With a bit of trepidation, I walked over and handed my application to the volunteer by the ballot-eater. It was Jackie! A former Haisley moom like me and now a dog-walker on my morning walking route. As she started to tear off the end of my ballot, she exclaimed, “Oh, your ballot number doesn’t match your voter number!” I had ballot #17. I squelched the panic that was starting to rise to my throat as she took my application over to the check-in table. Fortunately, after a quick consultation with the check-in folks, she said, “go ahead and feed your ballot in.” The machine ate my ballot without complaint (whew) and I danced outta there and on down the familiar old lower el hallway toward home.

I can see how they make mistakes like that. Most of our hard working volunteers are bifocal wearers struggling to look up names in a big book with tiny little font sizes. When they find the name, they have to move a tiny little sticker to another book and then write a tiny little number on it. With a pen. They end up having to look back and forth between books several times. The whole process seems to invite errors. And then there is the pressure of the not-so-patient queue of waiting voters…

Everyone here voted and I’m sure the Cali kid did too. I’m sure the Cali kid totally disapproves of her moom’s little break from the polling places. I am an RGB voter and the GG calls himself “politically complex”. And he is, enough so that I can’t even quite figger what his opinions are. Sometimes we cancel each other out. I have no idea if we did this time or not. I didn’t make a final decision on many candidates until I got into the booth.

Overall, it was successful for me. I am a voter again and I always love an opportunity to walk through the hallowed halls of the Haisley Hawks Huskies. And, guess what? annarbor.com has some photoooos of my polling place, featuring none other than the beautiful Jackie with her trademark smile!

I am bad. I am not sure I have voted since the last presidential election. I know that there are folks reading this who will have absolute fits about that. One of them even works as an election supervisor or whatever it’s called. Why have I not voted? Well, first there was this fiasco, at the last midterm election. I found out later that there were a lot of people who had similar problems but that whole scenario was definitely not conducive to get a person with thinly disguised social anxiety to approach the polls.

That little incident began a period of sticking my head in the sand. 2006 was a pretty awful year in general. People were dying left and right. And then shortly after, I crash-landed into a career I wasn’t really looking for, straight from empty-nest-SAHM-studenthood. And this isn’t “oh poor me, I have such an awful life.” Because I don’t. I have a good life (knock on wood). But, for a few years, I was in re-invention mode and my brain was a little busy. It often seems that people who don’t know me very well think I am some sort of radical left-winger but that ain’t true. Exactly. Please y’all, don’t read toooooo much into the socks and sandals. I am an independent voter who doesn’t just pull one lever (so to speak, it’s been a long time since we’ve pulled levers) to vote a straight party ticket. Fiscal conservative, social liberal. It takes a lot of work to vote that way and I was just plain not up to it for a few years.

Okay. Hello. I am a bit more awake now. There is an election tomorrow. I am a day late and about 50 bucks short but I started researching candidates and parties this weekend. And I am so confused now, I don’t know who to vote for. For example. We are electing a new governor here in the Great Lake State this year. Our beautiful peninsulas continue to endure a huge state of flux as we struggle to reduce our dependence on the automotive industry. That struggle has been going on for many years and it will continue for many more. I think that the economy is the largest issue in this state although environment issues and education are right up there and, in my mind, go hand in hand with the economy.

When I [try to] read what the candidates have to say about the usual issues, it’s all gobblety-gook. They talk about what we need to do but they don’t seem to have a plan of action. And to me, it all sounds the same. Whatever the issues, the process my beautiful state is going through is going to take a long time. We need to retool a whole heckuva a lot of people so that they can do something other than work an assembly line or flip burgers or whatever and that’s gonna take more than just adding time to the school year or forcing kids into all-day kindergarten. (I actually don’t personally agree with adding more time to the school year or day although, as a parent, I remember many a time when I wished that my kids were at school more ;-).) We are in the middle of a huge cultural shift away from the days when a kid could graduate from high school and hire on at the GM plant across the street and earn enough to buy a house and a car and a truck and a motorboat to drag “up north”. Those were good times but we are beyond them and our shift into the future is going to take a while. No matter who’s elected, the state government cannot change things overnight.

One of my hot-button issues is choice. I am pro and, although I now see the issue in RGB rather than the black and white view I had before my own children were born, I will probably never change my overall stance. I was a teenager toward the end of the coat hanger days and I don’t want to ever go back there. The choice issue is not in the forefront for this election, at least not in my state, but it is still there and that plus the Christian conservatives who are working hard to usurp the GOP give me great pause to vote for any Republicans, even if I like the candidate. The GOP should take note that by pandering to Christian conservatives, they are alienating a whole heckuva a lot of middle-of-the-road voters. I’m sorry if anyone disagrees with me. We’ll have to agree to disagree.

I am going to try to do some more research tonight and, early tomorrow morning, I am going to hit the polls and do the best I can.

Whoever wins, I’m not expecting a whole lot of change.