Subject: FW: HARLEY.... Any questions ?

Food for thought.

I'm telling you folks, this should be all you need to know to make the right choice.

Palin

Obama

Note:
Her Harley is made in the US and his bike is made in China.....

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Wow! Thanks! All I need to make my decision on election day! You forgot to mention that she can field dress a moose! Another plus!

Catching Up

I'm behind in everything it seems. I want to post but posting causes me as much angst as Hannita choosing a church. I want to keep it simple and my posts digress in my mind and that causes procrastination.

I took a mental laxative so here we go...

One thing I've wanted to tell the world is that after kvetching constantly about the winter weather and spring flooding, the month of August was absolutely SUBLIME. The days were sunny, warm and not overly humid. The nights were cool. Air conditioning was only needed when the kitchen heated up with canning. I had no complaints, so therefore, no weather posts.

On Labor Day I watched a dear man water ski on his 80th birthday. Please click on the picture to actually see the skier.

Labor day ended up being rather warmish -- but still, no complaints about the weather! Ask me, I can find other things to complain about. I took pictures of the sun going down that day. Again, click on the picture to see the sun!

The weather turned colder for a week or so, but OMG, it has been glorious since then. Like August was, only there with the specter of fall looming. I'm loving the weather, but dreading the sudden snap that will probably come.

Yesterday we had thunderstorms. Field work stopped when lightning was in the air and machinery was driven to safety. It rained like hell and left big puddles.

Click This!

Now I am going to retreat back into my hidey-hole until I learn Joomla. If you don't hear from me again, you'll know it killed me.

Gardening

I am not as good at gardening as my mother. I tried to start my own flowers this year. I started really early, thinking it would be a good thing. But spring was late in coming and my plants got very leggy. I transplanted them and nursed them along. I took the leggiest ones which I had labeled "mexican sunflowers" and stuck them in the ground without hardening them off, telling them they were on their own. They got frosted and snowed on and, needless to say, did not survive.

Finally the real spring came and I planted the balsam by the front door. The plan was to have something about 18 inches high, colorful and attractive to butterflies in front of the house. Like this:

When my flowers bloomed I knew something was terribly wrong! They were all orange, not the mixed colored balsam I'd planted. And they bushed out and grew taller and taller and started looking a lot like, well, mexican sunflowers. Finally I realized I need to refine my plant labeling system instead of expressing outrage to a company over mislabeled seeds that cost me a couple of bucks.

I went out yesterday and pruned them back so I could get to the door. I took this pic at my eye level.

At least the butterflies love them!

Response

This is a response, in part, to a comment on my last post about my bowling teammate who was a GW lover.

When the Dems and the Others were running all over Iowa and battling it out to be nominated by their parties, my sister in law who lives in PA wrote me :

Man has Iowa really turned as conservative as the PBS news makes it out to be?

All this talk of ministers scares me....if they threw out the ones commiting all the 'sins' there wouldn't be any left.

I responded to her as such:

I guess it depends on where you are how conservative the people are. I like it when I am surprised by a liberal person. Gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling. And there are plenty of us! Just not so many in the country (there are urban areas in Iowa, really).

I think the majority of Iowa's conservatives are just dumb-ass rednecks that haven't ventured far enough out of their safety zone to realize not everyone thinks like them. (Or is WHITE, or CHRISTIAN) Such a thing is really unimaginable for them. It is so sad.

I learned a lot when I was tending bar and wore my "Dean for President" t shirt. Holy shit. You would have thought my shirt said "I Murder Babies" or "Give Me All Your Money Because I Refuse To Work and You Owe Me".

Before the war in Iraq I got into a heated discussion with a Bush lover who wanted the war. His reasoning: He wanted every child in Iraq to have the opportunities American children have. Which was total bullshit. He went on to say that Americans owned all of the oil in the middle east because Americans were the ones who found it and developed all the wells and refineries. He was serious. I was scared.

And I am still scared.

Bowling Disasters

Bowling started a week ago last Thursday so I've had two nights of the new season under my belt. Bad news: I bowled really well (for me) both nights.

This is bad because I am establishing an average that I cannot hope to maintain. I know how I bowl. I bowl fairly well and never consistently. Many, many nights I am hoping to break 100 so I don't look too stupid.

Night 1 of Bowling:
I got into a political discussion with a teammate about the Iowa legislature. The discussion started out innocently enough but then took a couple of bizarre jumps and then went on a rocket ship to la-la land when teammate professed a dying love and devotion for George W. Bush. It was a gigantic and strange leap that left my jaw on the floor for a full minute.

I told Teamie that we could never, ever, EVER discuss politics again.

I should have learned this lesson long ago. Crab keeps telling me, I keep ignoring him. Lesson: If you are enjoying someone's company, don't spoil it by talking about things which may reveal your friend is on the other end of the spectrum. (Not to mention completely delusional and oh, so WRONG!)

I was bummed out all week by that exchange. I was swimming in a sea of red voters and was about to drown.

Night 2 of Bowling:
In spite of the RNC being in full swing (too bad that a little rain in Florida and the pressure from the liberal media made them miss a day of partying) I went to bowling last night with a determination to enjoy myself and not talk politics.

I had made a nifty pair of bowling shoe covers with non-skid pajama feet bottoms to cover my shoes when traipsing around beyond the lanes. Keep your bowling shoes slick! Sliding is everything!

After the first game I covered my shoes and took a little break. When I got back from break a new game was starting. It was my turn! I took my ball, made my aim, took careful, measured steps while bringing the ball back.... ready.... aim.... step.... step.... step....

And fall over the foul line onto the oiled lanes. The non-skid pajama feet bottoms really work.

A Pictorial Review of My Big Adventure

I spent the greater part of my great escape at H's. This is one of the first sights / sounds I experienced there. I didn't think I'd be able to sleep at night but my brain must have treated the planes overhead like the trains that rumble by our place. They didn't bother me at all.

I spent much of time at H's on her elevated deck, spying on the neighbors and looking into the trees.

And I got to spend time with my grandkitties. In this picture it is my precious Trixie who is being naughty and naughty Bella who is being shy.

On my second night we ventured into St. Paul. H drove, of course. Until we drove by this, I had no idea that the Republican National Convention was being held there. Now that I know where it is being held, I know where I am NOT going to be until the red dust settles.

This had no interest for me either. Star Wars stopped being fun for me after they started making prequels.

We eventually parked and went to Garrison Keillor's book store, Common Good Books. This is a backdrop for some scenes from Chasing Windmills in which Hulles is a star. Follow the Hulles link to find CW.

I loved this part of St. Paul. I want H to make tons and tons of money and buy a mansion here with room for me. H in the city:

One night we took the light rail to to Minneapolis. I wish I would have been braver with my camera and taken pictures of the Viking freaks fans. But alas and alack, I have no pictures of the trains, station, riders, or people waiting to board.

We walked to the heart of Minneapolis. This has to be the heart, because here is Mary Tyler Moore. Only I don't think it looks a thing like her.

As we passed this sculpture in front of a church, a kid whispered to his parents, "They're naked!"

There are other things I wish I would have photographed. Like the swallows nesting in the liquor store sign (for Captain Crab), the brat at the light rail station shoving paper into the credit card slot of the automatic ticket machine, the sign at the station about holding on to your children and keeping them away from the edge of the platform, the same brat hanging her toes over the edge of the platform, and the woman in the liquor store wearing a tube top made from a pair of men's jockey shorts. And to think I was worried about what to wear in the city.

Lovely Veggies

It was sweet corn time this week and I went to my folks to get some corn to freeze. It was not a great year for corn with the sporadic rains not arriving at the best time. Still, I got plenty of corn to freeze.

Every year when I get corn my mom recalls my dad's mom at corn freezing time. Grandma would work away at shucking, silking, cutting and freezing corn and say, "What lovely corn!"

Before I left Mom asked if I wanted green beans. I told her I'd picked some up the day before at the farmer's market in Jeremy Freese's home town. She asked how the beans were and I said, "lovely".

"As lovely as these?" Mom asked as she showed me a 5 gallon bucket of huge green beans.

So compare:

I took some of Mom's beans and the day after I froze corn, I froze beans. Mom also cut a tomato off the vine for me to take home:

I tipped the scales some holding the measuring tape. The tomato weighed just under 3 pounds. But it really was 18 ⅝ inches around.

One of these days I need to make a trip out to my own tomatoes and do something with them. I love the abundance of fresh vegetables. I get tired quickly of putting food by.

I'm Alive!

Holy cow. My last post was July 22? Really? What can I say, I've been busy.

I was involved in a small town celebration (tiny K town) that was held the first Saturday in August. It was our 2nd annual and it was awesome. H came and ran the kid's games. There was softball for bigger "kids". The food was great. Weather wise, it was the best day Iowa has ever seen.

Preparations leading up to K Daze were brutal. And when it was over, I still had stuff to do. Stuff I haven't finished yet because.....

Then it was my birthday! And I did something I haven't done in a long, long time. I ran away from home leaving Captain Crab home alone to take care of the critters. I went to visit H in the big, bad Twin Cities. It was great to hang with her in her environment and spy on her neighbors when she was at work. H, I'm telling you, the nurse across the street IS having an affair with a married man.

We did some touristy stuff (I think it's obligatory) like visit Garrison Keillor's bookstore in downtown St. Paul and ride the light rail to downtown Minneapolis (along with the purple tide of Viking's fans on the way to a pre-season game).

I learned my way around her neighborhood and, most importantly, got over my fear of driving in Minneapolis. It was a wonderful vacation and I am so glad I went. Cities are nice to visit but I'm glad I'm home in the land of not having to drive 70 mph to keep from getting run over.

But now I'm behind in everything, it seems. I have still have work to do for K Daze, a client's website to update and a new client I really, really, REALLY need to make website headway on. And I am without my computer.

I took it in to my geek before I left for the cities to have it tuned up and more RAM installed. (Sorry, Mush, I know you are cringing but I am not that friggin smart!) It would be done by now had I not asked for more RAM, which comes from the RAM store in Timbuktu and is shipped to Iowa by camel.

Crab is gone and so I have access to a computer, but not my programs. I am so jonesing for my machine. It is all I can do to keep from installing Firefox on Crab's computer, installing programs that will suck up his hard drive and configuring it like mine. I am trying to be a good guest and leave things just as I found them, so I will refrain from fucking up his computer.

Storm

One night last week the radar told me a storm was very, very close to me. I went out to see for myself and discovered the radar was right.

I high tailed it back to the house and a few minutes later shot the rain from the shelter of the porch (Captain Crab's swallow nest in the corner).

It rained hard.

Hulles Lives

Once prolific blogger Hulles has been missing in action for some time. I feared for his life. But last Saturday I saw the living, breathing Hulles with my own eyes.

Hulles Lives

He promised to start writing again soon.

Family Jewels

My mother is a ruby and my aunt (her sister) is a pearl. Mom has honed her gardening skills to producing enough fruit and vegetables to feed half the county. Aunt Pearl has taken her little yard and turned it into a showcase of day lilies. Pearl has been sending me pictures of her flowers. Here are some of them. I didn't save all the pictures she sent me because, well, my computer is already filled with pictures.