Oh beans!

 I could not sleep last night. I went to bed at a reasonable time, tossed and turned, got up, went back to bed at midnight. Woke up shortly after 1. Tried to will myself to lay quietly. Woke up at about 3. Wondered if a steaming hot shower would help. Except that I was too tired to get up and take one. I was awake at 6. Back to bed. Got up at 8.

Tim was also awake a great deal of the night. This is his second night of 'wide awake-itis'. He believes that covid has disrupted his sleep patterns. 

I don't know what is disrupting mine. It certainly can't have anything to do with the six dark chocolate expresso beans I had earlier in the afternoon. 

The view outside my office window. That tree was so brilliantly lit. I left the room to grab my phone but the light had begun to fade in just that short time. Still, it's a hint of what I saw for a brief and glorious moment. 

Done

 No more tomato sandwiches for breakfast. At least none with garden tomatoes. They're done for the year.

(I will be brave).

My post cards are done. I bought the last of the stamps today, and affixed them, and sent up a hope that somehow, they will make a difference. They are rubber banded together and ready to be mailed on the 26th. 

I did not listen to the Fox Interview, but from what I read, Harris held her own. In my opinion, it took a lot of guts to do an interview with Bret Baier. DJT couldn't even bring himself to do an interview with 60 Minutes, because he felt that they owed him an apology over something that had not been said. That and the fact that they were fact checking. If you're going to pull out of something because you're going to be fact checked, well, to me that says plainly that you were headed into with every intention of lying your head off. 

Tomatoes are done. Postcards are done. I most fervently hope that tRUMP is done too. 

I received two more mailings urging me to register to vote. I figured it out. These are arriving to 'Debby'. I'm registered under my full name which is 'Deborah'. So Duty to America is wasting money on me, and I'm okay with that. 

I feel the need for a giggle. 

I'm done.

Vote

 I have been hit twice with flyers which come via USPS, and warn me that I am not registered to vote, and that I need to register by October 21st. 

The thing is that I am registered to vote. 

(You can all check your status by going to https://www.nass.org/can-I-vote

You would click on the 'i' for Check on Voter Registration Status

You will be asked to pick your state.

You are given a choice to verify via your name or to enter your driver's license number. Enter the requested information and the very first note is "active" (or I suppose "not active" if action is required.

If you live in Pennsylvania, you are only required to register once, with no need to register again unless you change your address, your name, or your political affiliation.)

I just wanted to make sure everyone knew how to check your status, so forgive the side track. Anyhow, I quickly verified that I was still active, and I was. I verified that Tim was still active. And he is.)

Once that was done, I read the information on the mailers, which was fascinating. Right at the bottom of the cards, it tells your that Duty To America is not affiliated with any government agency. The wording of it made me suspicious, and I discovered that yes, it is a right wing PAC. 

Further discussion leads us to this (by Fox News, no less). 

This is a race that is being run on a huge amount of misinformation, and it is being done with intention. Make sure that you are registered to vote. If you are registered to vote, ignore any texts, mailings or phone messages that try to tell you that you are not. 

You all know how I am voting. I'm not voting for this. 

Stuff.

 Tim and I went over and worked on the Wayne St. house today. Now is not a good time to be buying any new supplies for the new build, between property taxes and insurance and whatnot.  So we changed it up and worked on finishing up some projects at the renovation. We had the materials for that already bought.

Now, we call this house 'the hoarder's house'. We got a lot of the things out of there, but there is still a ton of stuff left. One of the things that I did today was to go through old record albums. They have so much old stuff dating back to the forties. A lot of Broadway musical soundtracks.  Mantovani, Mancini, Glenn Miller, Count Basie and other orchestras that scored old classic movies.  It didn't stop. Chubby Checker. A lot of albums that seemed to be collected under a theme "Girls in Music" which was a album of 50s songs that were titled with girl's names. Just so much stuff. Remember Barry Sadler? The Ballad of the Green Berets? My grandparents had that album and played it a lot. It was quite different from their regular diet of polka music. If you want to read a sad story, read about Barry Sadler. Died at 49, after being shot in the head in Guatemala. A few years earlier, he'd shot a friend between the eyes in a dispute over a woman. He also wrote like 23 popular novels. Who knew? 

Anyways, I keep thinking that these albums would probably be worth something to someone, but I'd have to find that someone. I gave away no less that 200 albums already, and am still finding more, these in an upstairs bedroom that contains three irons. One ironing board. Two rotary phones, 4 hair dryers, the old kind that came with their little cases which held the motor and there was a hose and a bubble cap sort of thing that you would put on your head. We already hauled out 4 sewing machines and two of the newer irons. I mean, this house has a lot of shit. 

I have boxes of mid-century mod decor that was bought and never unboxed. Brand new clocks and dated hanging lights, and clocks and wall sconces. Brand new appliances, still in their boxes. I mean, a trash compactor. Who even hears about them these days? But we have a brand new one, in an unopened box. 

We've got the matching punch bowl too and the short glasses which I discovered are called low ball glasses and used for cocktails. 

Yee haw. 

It's the never ending job, really. We gave the furniture away to someone who flips furniture, and while the house is emptier, it is not yet empty. We found a family member, and were able to ship out two truckloads of family photos and movies, along with the projector to play them on, and a screen. (We've still got another if anyone needs one.) Sometimes I think that house might never be empty. 

But we have found treasure there as well. A suitcase full of photos and tintypes, as well as pictures from Paris after the destruction of WWI, and a souvenir black velvet banner sent home to some soldier's mother. Even a Victorian death photo. But their are no names on the pictures, so we haven't got a clue who these people are. 

We found a set of pearls in a china closet. Old trolley tokens on the fireplace. We haven't had a trolley in town for a hundred years. Silver certificates folded up and stuck under a lamp. Calendars saved that date back to the civil war. They are so pretty. I'd like to save the pictures on some of them. Old magazines from the '30s. 

I like history, but...really. What do you do with all this stuff? After a day in this house, you will whole heartedly buy into the whole Swedish Death Cleaning thing. I guarantee it. 

I did get some things out of the house. I gathered up all the old fashioned wooden hangers and brought them home. Once cleaned up they will be nice for Tim's heavy hunting coats. There is a cast iron clothes rack, a pretty thing. I'm going to paint that black and put it in the garden at the new house to hold a couple hanging pots. 

But. That was today. And tomorrow, we will head over and get back to it. 

I just want to retire. Really. I just want to be done with all this work. I am starting to think it will not happen. 

Last of the Summer Vine

 Oh friends. Sad days. In my fridge, I have one last vine ripened tomato from Albert. Just the one. I'd bought 8 or 9 the last time I stopped in. I can't remember because he was telling me that this was the last of the produce for the summer and that he was closing up shop. I was telling him that I really was grateful for the produce over the summer. I bought A LOT from him, and he was always grateful for the business. I tried to tell him that there was no other place that could match him for price OR quality. I was grateful for him. And while we were thanking each other, he was saying, "Here...you might as well take these and, this one has a blemish..." tossing in apples and tomatoes and onions. 

It's like that when I stop in there. I go for one thing specifically, and walk out of there with a more than I ever intended to buy, but it is all good stuff. 

Anyways, so there it is. Every morning since tomatoes started coming on, I've been having a thick slice of tomato on toast, with a smear of mayonnaise and a hearty sprinkling of fresh ground black pepper. Every morning. 

Now I'm down to the last of it. I can get tomatoes from Aldi's, of course, but it is not the same. They are a whole different texture, not allowed to ripen on the vine. They are not the tomatoes of summer. 

I figure that I've got 3, maybe 4 days out of this tomato, then I'll just have to admit the truth. Summer is over. 

I think that we had a hard frost Thursday morning down at the new house (it was fine in town). But my basil is black. Presto, no pesto.  My morning glories are wilted and shriveled and no longer glorious. Looks like they're done for the season too.

We have three days coming up, with the highs only reaching the 40s and the lows in the 30s. They are rainy days, all of them, and there may be some snow. 

I miss summer already. 

Life's Funny Like That

 Yesterday, Tim and I stopped in to a fast food joint for a quick bite to eat. As we ate, I listened to the music, and realized that I knew none of the songs. None of them.

I continued to eat as I listened, wondering when did that all change. My youngest daughter and I used to listen to music. We had some common tastes. I used to be cool. (Do not ask her, though. She will assure you that I was never cool, and she will laugh herself silly that I ever, for a moment, thought I might be.)

As I ate my sandwich in a thinking sort of way, I remembered the two of us in a car listening to a song about fireflies. I tried to remember that song, but it is hard to conjure up a half remembered song when another song is playing in the background. I gave up. 

When we were done eating, I asked Tim if he would mind if we hit a thrift store on our way out of town, which he agreed to. 

We walked into the store, and I had scarcely begun to look around when I heard a song playing on their intercom. 

I recognized it immediately, and stopped browsing to listen, with a secret smile, remembering. 

I love those little coincidences, those little happy synchronicities. 

Season

A member of my family is dealing with metastatic cancer, stage 4. Chemo had to be halted as she deals with a systemic infection. 

I look at her precarious situation, and somehow it seems shocking because she is someone I know. Because she is a contemporary. Because we're still dealing with the ramifications of Tim's cancer. It's starting to sort out, but it has been a huge jolt in our marriage. Today we came home from the new house. We weren't doing a lot of talking. A lot of thinking though. 

I read Tim a text from my sister. I said, "It's just such a shocking thing." 

Tim said, "I know it. To think you needed to have your gall bladder out and then find out all of this..." 

I said, "Yeah..." 

I said, "Do you ever think about it? I do sometimes. I mean, someone is going to go first." 

He didn't answer. 

It's morbid, I know, and I feel an idiot, but it is where my head is at. 

But we cannot know the future, and I suppose that's a good thing. 

It's cold here today. After a high of 54 degrees, it is now 39. It is definitely fall. I discovered that when we are at the new house, we can hear the wind as it rushes past the house. For whatever reason, we don't hear that sound here in town, but we did when we lived in the woods, and I loved that sound...because it reminded a middle aged mother of being a child, laying snug and warm in my bed and listening to the wind howl during a winter storm. 

The years have flown by. I am a gray haired grandma now. The wind blows just as it always has, and for a moment, I allow myself to go back to a time when I was young enough that dying had not yet occurred to me. 

Goodness, what a state of mind! I shiver, and it is not from the cold. 

I grab the cat food, and the milk from the fridge and head down to the garage to feed the kittens. They are glad to see me and hungry, and dart around excitedly while I mix up their food. I give them an extra can of cat food, grateful to be able to do some small kindness in this cold season. 

This evening, I found another Christmas gift and placed my order. Winter is cold, but it does have its comforts.