Amy’s Gripping Commentary

I gave blood tonight in my hand-me-down Speed Racer shirt (funny how last year’s entry also focused on the outfit), the third time being the charm after failing the iron requirement twice in the last few weeks. I’m at 39% hematocrit now, baby! A couple of vitamins and a couple extra weeks must be the ticket for me. It really was Speed Bleeding because I think I set a personal record with my six-minute pint time. This is much better than the time they kicked me out after half an hour having not produced enough blood in the bag.

Want to save three lives and maybe win a gift card or a resort stay in Florida? You can enter Manic Mommy’s contest too! Just give blood by the 28th and get your picture doing it.

In other scintillating news (would you believe we get to use a variant of that word a lot at work), Casper came home all dopey from the groomer with a bandanna AND a bow.

And, showing off my new haircut and the cool sweater my mom made me (twice), we have this not particularly flattering picture of my apparently thick midsection (I swear it’s not).

It’s the return of Manic Mommy’s Virtual Blog Blood Drive! Click here for details. The basics: donate blood from Jan 1 to Feb 28, 2009, get your picture taken while donating, and send the pic to Manic Mommy to enter the contest! It doesn’t matter where you live, just go to your local blood bank or blood drive and get your picture taken. First prize is a week at a Florida resort, and there are gift cards and stuff too. I won last year though it wasn’t a big enough contest at that point to give away a vacation!

A couple notes for those of you who have been rejected for low iron: I learned that ‘normal’ hematocrit is 35-45% but (at least around here) the blood bank requires at least 38% to be eligible to donate. They test this by a simple finger prick. Your iron level can fluctuate a lot so if you just supplement/focus your diet a bit before you go, or do that if you get rejected and then you can even go back the next day to try again, you may just be eligible after all! I also learned that 75% of people are able to get back to this iron level in the eight weeks required between donations and it’s harder for women than men, so you might need to focus your diet/wait just a bit longer if you have recently donated. Just because you’ve been rejected before does not mean you will be if you try again!

In central Indiana, you can even schedule appointments online, get points and prizes, and track your donations and cholesterol over time. I just signed up last week and the system knew my last 1.5 gallons and cholesterol readings from the last few years. Of course you can do walk-in donations too! Check out DonorPoint.org.

Some other upcoming events I’m considering: Komen Race for the Cure for my friend Dawn’s mom, April 18 (run, walk, or donate), and cycling around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for Tour de Cure for diabetes, June 13. Who’s in?

I’ve had my mouth guard for a little over a year. I’m supposed to sleep in it every night and probably only remember/bother about ten percent of the time. Well, I ate through it already. Check out the cracks all along the molars. I had to get a new set of impressions today to have another one made. The last one was $400…

Told you I needed new teeth for a reason. Plus now I risk cracking the porcelain on all my expensive fake teeth, hence the pricey guard with softer plastic on the inside and hard on the outside. Not hard enough, apparently.

Meanwhile the assistant at the dentist’s office today seemed pretty new. She commented how awful it is to have impressions made. Are you kidding me? Do you know what I’ve had done to my teeth so far? At this point I think root canals are a piece of cake, and impressions are way easier and more comfortable than a routine cleaning. She had to do the upper and lower twice because she messed them up, which I predicted when I felt the trays in the wrong place. Can’t say much with a mouthful of goop though. I’m not sure the end result was correct but we’ll see after the lab tries to make the guard.

Before my appointment I traveled several miles out of my way to go to the post office that serves my old house. I had a postage due note for a mystery letter from Carmel. After driving to BFE, I discovered it was from a realtor trying to woo me away as my home listing had expired. I refused it and you can bet I’ll let them know how I feel about being inconvenienced and asked to PAY for their solicitation.

Walt gets close in the office chair again.

Permed and feathered! Thank goodness that's over

My haircut: part down the middle, cut it off straight around the bottom. I use coupons to take a couple inches off at Fantastic Sam’s and places like that about twice a year to keep it from getting too annoying. The only thing ‘interesting’ about my haircut (it is not advanced enough to be a style) is that I often won’t brush it, so it might get a little messier on a given day.

I wear it in a ponytail or pulled back in a barrette (which makes it a wider, flatter ponytail) 85% of the time and in a messy bun the rest of the time. The only chance you likely have of seeing it down is when it’s not all the way dry from a shower so I haven’t put it up just yet. It’s actually several shades darker when it’s down because I have it pulled back so much that the part usually on top of my head has been sun bleached.

Normal fare:

Down, the triangle:

I wash it every three days–it’s dry enough it doesn’t really need it more than that, and Day 2 is usually its ‘best’ day from a shine/oil/less volume standpoint. I use a pick to comb it then because it’s way too thick and tangled to get a brush through it wet. The following days I might brush it. Or I might not. That’s the entire routine. I think I might have used a blow dryer twice in the last year. I used a curling iron once, maybe. My favorite part about getting a haircut is that I get to pay someone else to comb it out–I hate washing and combing it that much.

It’s very thick overall but with a fine texture, which means it falls out of whatever styling I try (not that it happens often, but you’ll never get it to hold a curl without depleting the ozone layer from spray applications; I had it permed in middle school and the perm fell out the next day). My hair has a wavy section right at the middle of the back of my head but the rest is stick straight. I have identical hair to my mother (other than the color). It’s so thick that people frequently comment on it and wish for it. Should I feel guilty for not appreciating it?

Evidence of the curly stuff underneath:

I’ve pretty much had this cut for ten years. I don’t really mind it. I just don’t care. I guess others care sometimes. Grandma says I shouldn’t cut it shorter (she also says I should brush it). David just wants to see it doing something one of these days (I did pay someone to do it for my brother’s wedding, but that’s it). Nicole encourages me occasionally to get layers. Or somebody did, anyway.

I wish I could chop it pretty short. I just don’t think my head shape is right. I’ve had a short bob before, but then it’s not heavy enough to weigh down that curly part in the back so the bottom edge flips up all wacky and it’s too thick like a helmet anyway. So I keep it long enough to be mostly straight all the way around and I have to be able to pull it back.

The short bob, with Ruth Simmons:

I can’t stand it in my face, especially for sports. I also don’t really see the point of spending any time on it (this applies to my fashion choices as well): if a dude doesn’t have to style his hair or wear makeup or have clothing that varies from oxford/slacks with pockets/sensible shoes, why should I?

Of course all of this makes me look a bit granola or unfeminine or plain or whatever it is, and I still don’t care. But the implication that I should care alternately nonplusses/aggravates/insecures me. The insecurity is infrequent but darn it if I don’t feel hopeful AND angry AND sad when I watch What Not to Wear. I am the person in that show. But why in the world would I wear pointy shoes to work or get up early to use a flat iron?

See, granola wins. But I admit it would be reasonable to try a different haircut. Back in my younger and teen years I did go to the family stylist at JC Penney Salon, had highlights, permed my hair (it took after the initial one fell out). And I feathered it before school each morning and wore mint green eyeshadow. Fortunately that last phase was short lived! I have seen the light and the light shines on not doing my hair!

Hair is such a personal issue (which still stymies me to some degree), but I am willing to try a new cut after ten years. I still require being able to pull it back so I won’t have it in my face at the gym (or probably most times), but I admit the ‘dreaded triangle‘ may not be the most flattering look, just like the pulled-back version leaves something to be desired. I have a recommendation from Nicole to see her stylist (which scares me just because the salon reviews say things like “it’s so fun to go there!” “you get so pampered there!”–wth? This is far from entertaining for me, and I don’t even want to have to live up to this new hairstyle/image later!) and I made an appointment for next week. I don’t feel rich enough to maintain a professional haircut, but maybe they’ll help me find something I can do in this initial splurge. I think what encourages me most is that this woman can apparently thin my hair in addition to layers or whatever and that bodes well for being able to comb it. Does anyone in the thinning/balding category want a DNA sample to clone it? This mop is a thick mofo.

I discovered that Nicole actually has the appointment immediately before mine. I plan to blame her if this all goes poorly!

God help me, I am NOT getting my nails done.

UPDATE: Would you believe my friend Mymsie celebritized my hair? Such effort! For an example, here’s me with Jennifer Hudson hair:

She made a whole bunch of them! I appreciate her efforts because I lack the picture handling skills to post stuff like that.

I wrote this almost a month ago and never finished it:

Note to Amazon: did you REALLY need that much packaging for a kitchen utensil?

And then this week we received:

We actually received an empty computer tower in its own box, which was then packed in this giant box with all that paper, but this approximates the size of the contents. Why can’t Amazon slap a label on the box the product already came in?! There’s no need for a second box big enough to mail my collie. (She wouldn’t pose, btw.)

Then I tried to recycle the giant box. It’s too big to put in our curbside container (95 gallons!) without a lot of boxcutting, so I flattened it and stopped by the public dropoff:

Alas, no room at the inn. At first I was mad at my fellow citizens for leaving all the extra boxes outside the full bins (and note the extra bags in the background at the green glass/plastic/metal recycling bins), causing them to become trash, but then I realized that some people are actually trying to recycle and this stupid city just can’t get its act together to allow us to do it. I can’t tell you how many times I have made multiple trips to this dropoff site because it was full. That’s why I now PAY for curbside recycling.

Back to Amazon. I’ve mentioned this problem before. Not that I expect anyone to read all of these, but if you’re interested, others have my same complaint and similar pictures:

http://www.adamreeve.com/2007/09/14/amazon-packaging-is-nuts/

http://gruntdoc.com/2008/03/great-moments-in-amazon-packaging.html

http://www.goodexperience.com/tib/archives/2007/04/amazon_packagin.html

http://www.amazon.com/gp/forum/cd/discussion.html?ie=UTF8&cdForum=Fx20DX5GEB7TUX8&cdThread=Tx3BW1ZDW8NRT69

http://www.mattazuma.com/2008/11/amazon-packaging-excesses.html

http://blogs.forbes.com/digitaldownload/2008/09/amazon-packagin.html

http://pinstripebindi.wordpress.com/2008/09/23/amazon-packaging-fail/

http://getsatisfaction.com/amazon/topics/why_does_amazon_use_so_much_packaging

http://www.sustainableisgood.com/blog/2008/08/amazon2.html

But wait! Is there hope?
http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/11/20/amazon-debuts-frustration-free-packaging/

I guess our computer case and strainer are not among the 19 whole products that don’t get double-boxed.

I began using a primary email address through a domain called skyenet many years ago, which I think sprang out of Michiana FreeNet (which is no more, and also wasn’t exactly free). After a few years skyenet’s domain was sold to another domain, myVine, which had crappy service, but I maintained it because many people knew that original email address. It was a hassle to get things to work since I had a different domain than most of the rest of their customers, but I became a relative expert at setting up email clients as a result. (Just try not using a Microsoft product and finding help on a tech support page.) Eventually I stopped using myVine’s dialup service and graduated to a real connection through another party, but I was able to maintain the skyenet email address for all these years for five bucks a month through myVine.

Well, around the beginning of October, I got what I thought was junk mail from Earthlink that said “Welcome to Earthlink!” on the glossy envelope. For some reason I opened it, but I thought it was yet another sales pitch with free setup CD to use their ISP (I don’t appreciate junk mail, nor free CDs, because if I wanted your service I’d sign up ONLINE.) No, it was a letter saying my new email account had been set up with them and congratulations! Apparently they bought myVine as well, so now I’m buried under yet another layer of domain sales and complication.

What drives me bonkers is that neither myVine nor Earthlink bothered to send me an email (or I guess myVine could have sent postal mail; at least I knew I was their customer) to announce this transfer of accounts. Then the myVine website disappeared, and my web email portal was also gone, so I couldn’t get email that way. My email client at home was still successfully downloading messages for awhile after that but eventually couldn’t connect to the server. Had I not opened that junk-looking mail, I’d have no idea that my domain was sold and that they didn’t just go out of business and take my money–I had a year of service paid in advance. At least I was able to get my email working again after some tech chat time, but I did lose all the mail that had been on that myVine/skyenet server (despite being assured by Earthlink it would all be there).

I believe Google is going to save the world, and I do have a gmail account now which is handling my other main email address, which is associated with my website, blog, etc. Meanwhile I had accounts for rabbit rescue forwarding to skyenet and accounts for the blog forwarding to gmail. But due to something stupid about the way our sbcglobal DSL works, I have to use just the blog server outgoing mail server, so any mail sent from home (even from skyenet when it worked) looked like it was coming from the other email account, so people hit reply and I couldn’t find their responses. And spam controls on each domain added to the hidden email messes. So, I figured I just needed to make everything go to gmail somehow and I’d be fine forever. Right? I was fine with ending my relationship with this skyenet email address since it would never get better. Just rip off the BandAid.

The problem has been extricating myself from the probably hundreds of online accounts I’ve created over the ten-plus years with the skyenet mailing address. I don’t remember them all. XM? Credit cards? School loans? Banking? Insurance? Gobs of message boards, from bunnies to bikes to diesel Volkswagens? Tons of online retailers? Surveys, blog comments, legal advice, online newspapers, photo accounts, magazine subscriptions, class reunions and alumni sites, tax prep sites, government accounts? I’ll never remember nor find them all. In the meantime I have moved and so anyone who really needed to contact me would no longer have a phone number that worked either. More recent accounts have been updated, but I’m sure there’s some old contact info in various places I’ve forgotten that might actually be important.

This sounds like a good business opportunity: pay someone to update your contact info EVERYWHERE.

I have been updating to my new, more reliable email one by one as I notice the old references, and I had planned to maintain the skyenet address long enough to catch stragglers (I was thinking a year!). But suddenly this week, after two months of it working fine in an Earthlink webmail portal: no incoming skyenet email! What a shocker.

So today I’ve been off work and I chatted with two tech support people online, who could not help me but gave me a bad phone number to call. Then I found the letter Earthlink sent when they took on my poor domain and called the phone number on that. The recording said it was help for former myVine customers! Sounded promising, but after transferring through three more tech support people on the phone, I was put on hold while they contacted a supervisor and a few minutes later the phone disconnected. (Note: using a landline; it disconnected from THEIR end.) I called back and they had no way to get me back to the last person, so I started again, put on hold again so they could consult supervisor, lovely hold music (Brandenburg concerto–I played that in middle school!) for a long time and then the hold music ended. Fifteen minutes later while I was still “connected” but had no life or sound on the line, I hung up. Note that Earthlink does indeed own the skyenet.net domain until mid-2010, but everyone I talked to said there was no record of that domain on my account nor on their lists of acquired domains. One person said I was supposed to just use Earthlink addresses now. HELLO, the point of this was to maintain the original domain to receive email, which this letter from Earthlink clearly states I will be able to do. If they were going to abandon an acquired domain, some notice would have given me an opportunity to do my switching faster.

I do still receive email at the Earthlink-named domain version of my not-requested new email provider (in the same webmail sessions where the old skyenet emails still appear). What do I get? Invoices! Earthlink is great at debiting my old myVine credit every month for the privilege of not getting my email.

I really think no one can figure out what’s going on because they’re just phone answerers, not anyone actually running servers and dealing with domain names. It’s just incredibly frustrating to have no where to turn and no one who can identify, let alone fix, the problem. At this point the diminishing returns are prompting me to just attempt a refund and forget the whole thing.

Total wasted time today: about three hours. Thanks to all the times on hold and a cordless phone, I did have time to take a crap, play with the dogs, buy stuff on eBay, get a package from FedEx, print a card, eat pie, read message boards, and think about what I really should be doing today.

Good thing Earthlink sent me a survey about my experience.

My humble blog, just my diary and a way to keep up with friends and family, occasionally attracts some cranky outsiders. Getting involved with shelters confiscating breeders’ rabbits always pulls the breeding community in for a throwdown. Today I discovered my Tofurky picture, part of my meal last Thanksgiving, was linked in the comments on a conservative syndicated columnist’s blog post about people whining too much about Sarah Palin’s turkey-pardoning-in-front-of-turkey-killing interview. I think her interview was in poor taste (or perhaps super ironic but still poor taste) and I’ll just leave it at that. I’m not surprised that the Fox News-watching crowd thinks my Tofurky looks inedible; this is the guy who made my dinner famous. But I wouldn’t recommend reading his work if you think our president elect is more than his middle name or you actually like gay people.

Re: Fox News: I actually check in now and then to see what’s up. But the conservative columnist mentioned touts her contributions to the channel, so there ya go.

The folks who make Tofurky, who must have a sense of humor about how much ribbing their product gets this time of year, have a contest to win an eGO Electric Cycle. You guess how much grain is saved this year by all the Tofurky eaten instead of turkey. (Don’t worry, there’s a hint.) In 2007, 1.6 million pounds of grain were saved by not feeding them to turkeys first.

And now for something to eat with your Tofurky!

Curried Roasted Vegetables

2 large baking potatoes
3 red potatoes
3 large carrots
1 turnip
1 orange or red bell pepper
1 large red onion
olive oil
salt and pepper

1 T curry powder
1 t chili powder
1 t turmeric
2-3 t grated ginger
3+ cloves garlic, minced
1 can coconut milk
1 can chickpeas (I drained them)
vegetable stock if more fluid needed
cornstarch if thickening needed

Chop all veggies (except chickpeas) into 1″ chunks. Drizzle generously with olive oil, salt, and pepper on baking sheet. Roast at 425 F for about 45 minutes (time will vary based on size/type of veggies), turning veggies with tongs at least once during roasting.

Saute garlic and ginger in oil and add spices, frying to a lovely aroma (couple of minutes). Add coconut milk and chickpeas and cook (med/high heat) for a few more minutes. Add roasted veggies and simmer until chickpeas get that ‘done’ texture. Add vegetable stock and/or cornstarch to make more of a sauce or gravy as needed. Salt to taste. Serve over basmati rice or if it has a good gravy, on its own!

This recipe came together after I had a similar dish at Georgetown Market. I got an ingredient list from them and used tips from KNH and random online recipes to work out amounts. I used the root veggies I had available (and I wanted to finally try a turnip!), so feel free to sub in sweet potatoes or anything else that sounds good. We would like more zing to the dish so we’ll probably use more chili powder and curry next time, but as written, this is a hearty dish with a mild sauce that has a bit of sweetness.

As a diary of sorts, I feel I should be able to rant on discuss any topic of interest to me, but I’m also sensitive to how my opinions (however strongly held) may differ from readers’, and that my opinions do evolve. I’m going to talk briefly about turkeys at Thanksgiving because it’s not something I’ve ever heard about until I went looking for the information, and while this may only be my third Thanksgiving NOT eating turkey flesh, it’s nonetheless important to me and I hope will not be taken as a strictly holier-than-thou entry (which I don’t intend any of them to be, but I’m not sure I’m successful in getting that across sometimes).

This year I decided to adopt a turkey, sort of in an effort to atone for the turkeys that would be purchased to eat at the work and family functions I will attend, and because it makes me feel good to donate to causes that make life better for animals. This is Apollo, who lives at Farm Sanctuary in New York:

Lacking the facilities to physically adopt animals saved from factory farming, I am really just sponsoring him. Maybe someday I will be able to do more, but the foster rabbits will have to do for now. I did get to meet some cool turkeys during a rabbit rescue last year.

While I was at Farm Sanctuary’s website, I found these (all pictures/italicized captions belong to them):

Bred to grow unnaturally quickly, factory-farmed turkeys suffer crippling leg injuries and often die stuck in the excrement that covers the warehouse floor.

Hanging upside down and shackled by their feet, turkeys enter the slaughterhouse.
(The Humane Slaughter Act does not apply to poultry or rabbits, which means they do not have to be rendered unconscious before killing them.)

(Celebration FOR the Turkeys at Farm Sanctuary)

I wish I didn’t feel like I had to apologize for being vegetarian, but an awful lot of people go on the defensive when they find out I am. Or they demand to know if I consume dairy/eggs, somehow looking for a loophole in my sincerity that excuses them from having to think about their own hypocrisy. Nope, I’m not perfect. I still have some leather shoes and I still buy a few eggs (I go out of my way to find free range eggs, but there are plenty of reasons why that’s “not enough”). On the other hand, once I thought about my reasons for eating meat, I decided it wasn’t acceptable for a being to have to die for my lunch. It just didn’t make sense to me. So that’s when I started figuring out where to draw my new line, and it still moves a little as I consider more data (no, it does not move such that I eat any meat or other foods that require someone to die).

Honestly, I haven’t watched the horrible videos that are supposedly out there about slaughterhouses and factory farms. I already know it’s terrible and would make me cry. But I have read enough and seen a few pictures; they make me look for alternatives, whether that’s me eating a fake turkey product at Thanksgiving, or encouraging a meat-eater to find a humanely-raised and slaughtered turkey for themselves. Did you know Californians just passed Proposition 2? It wasn’t just a bunch of vegetarians voting for this:

This law phases out some of the most restrictive confinement systems used by factory farms – gestation crates for breeding pigs, veal crates for calves and battery cages for egg laying hens – affecting 20 million farm animals in the state by simply granting them space to stand up, stretch their limbs, turn around and lie down comfortably

That’s AWESOME. I would like to have an audience that can share in those victories with me, even if we don’t practice the same eating habits. Perhaps they will make small changes in their shopping habits. One step at a time, people… just switching from regular eggs to ones marked “cage free” may not be all fun and games for the hens, but you won’t be supporting battery cage use, and that’s an EASY change at your same grocery store.

On the same day I sponsored Apollo, I also gave to Critter Corral guinea pig rescue, Wheeler Mission (which is uncharacteristically churchy of me, but they are doing great work with the homeless and hungry in our city), and Gleaners Food Bank, which runs nine food banks that distribute food products to 400 central Indiana hunger charities. I tend to identify with animal needs more, perhaps because they really have no voice except the one we provide on their behalf, but I am saddened by my neighbors not having enough to eat. I think I lack the constitution to make myself face the situation in a shelter (though I hope to “evolve” here too), so I choose to donate money instead. The downturn in the economy only means more trouble for those struggling in poverty in the first place.

Give where your heart is this season!

1. Annoying changes at work are not being shared with all impacted areas, and gee, no one thought about all the consequences as a result.

2. Just when I was all excited about great new vegetarian options at my work cafeteria, they decide to cancel the pasta bar (and the tofu along with it) and send the cook who hooks me up with these things, asks me how to make the food choices better, and warns me about unexpected pitfalls like bacon in the guacamole to another site.

3. XM/Sirius finally combined programming yesterday. One of the best parts of XM was the lack of DJ yapping, but suddenly my channels had new DJs and an awful lot of talking. STFU. If I want to know the song name I’ll look at the display. By the way, people don’t like change, so if you smooth it over for a couple weeks ahead of time by saying “hey on Wednesday we’re changing programming!” or sending a freakin’ email about it before the day the programming changes, it’ll go over better. Also, I can’t tell WTH channel I’m on anymore because the channels have different numbers on Sirius vs XM, so now they won’t display the channel number in the artist display between songs anymore nor say it on air, but the display isn’t big enough to simultaneously show actual channel number AND artist AND song, and they changed all the channel names at the same time so calling the music type “Spectrum” doesn’t mean I have any idea that it’s adult contemporary vs a Talking Heads channel.

4. Rained all day yesterday, and when I got in the car after 12 hours at work to go home and do more work, my car rained on me out of the map light buttons.

Hehe

Not sure why this repeats itself. I believe it aired September 24.

The more complete clip is part of the Colbert Report, here from from 1:47 to 3:45ish.

I made Joey and Arliss ride in a laundry basket for several hours yesterday and today while I drove to visit family, and now I’m supervising their time together in a pen at home. So far so good. Some kissing, some humping, no injuries! Bonding bunnies is an art.

Also: If there are two lanes open to the left of me on the interstate, I’m in lane three w/cruise going 60 in a 55, traffic is somewhat congested, and there’s a lane to the right of me, what would you think of a tanker truck flashing his lights behind you, then passing on the right at about 75 mph blowing his horn? Obviously he wanted me to get out of his way. I think he was traveling way too fast given the busy area and his size and flammable load. I thought he wanted me to move out of his way, but it wasn’t like I was being poky nor blocking two available passing lanes (I don’t think he’s restricted from the far left lane in that area). I honked back. Is it smarter to just get out of the way (and he could have been flashing at someone about passing; how should I know?) since he’s big and barrelling through, or do I stand my ground even though I’m in a compact car and would lose the fight?

Home safe anyway. G’night from the Joey and Arliss wedding.

Thanks for the heads up, TMC.

I took that picture several years ago and never had occasion to use it for anything. I think this event has called for it.

As the guy running for my state Senate spot said:

7) Should Indiana’s Constitution be amended to define marriage as a union solely between one man and one woman?
Ken Kern: No. Vice President Chenney was once asked about this issue and responded by saying “Freedom is freedom.” The Constitution should never be amended to restrict freedom but enhance freedom.

His holier-than-thou opponent won here, too.

A meme that’s been making the rounds, including at Chubby Mummy and Must Be Motherhood. I changed the one about things I like about autumn to my list of crap to do because while I like autumn, I really need the accountability more. And I combined the things on the wish list with the things needed/wanted because really, those seem the same, and I just don’t want that much stuff.

8 TV Shows I Love to Watch: (I don’t really love watching TV… but I like it on in the background while I do other stuff or fall asleep on the couch. Consequently I miss the end of at least 25% of what I watch. Thank goodness for TiVo.)
=> Suze Orman Show
=> Daily Show
=> The Office
=> King of the Hill
=> Breaking Bad
=> Battlestar Galactica
=> Living With Ed (has that been canceled?)
=> 30 Days (canceled?)

8 Favorite Places to Eat:
=> Shalimar (Indian)
=> Donatos carryout, especially with the $5-off-a-large online coupon!
=> Mediterrano Cafe (Middle Eastern)
=> The cafeterias at work where the chefs hook me up with hummus, vegetarian soups, tofu on the pasta bar, beans for the burritos, and other good stuff every day
=> Broad Ripple Brewpub, because at least half their stuff is vegetarian
=> Machu Picchu (Peruvian)
=> Yats (Cajun/Creole, always good veggie options)
=> Red Robin or Denny’s for great veggie burgers!

8 Things That Happened Yesterday:
=> Flexed off some work hours to vote and get other stuff done
=> Bought 11 bottles of wine (I love the new boxed options, both for price and environmental/resource concerns)
=> Had Yats for dinner
=> President OBAMA!!
=> Drank too much wine and fell asleep during the acceptance speech
=> Cleaned the guinea pig cage
=> Put the soil back in my pot of mums that some creature dug out
=> Went to two meetings and didn’t get much of anything accomplished in either of them except scheduling more meetings! (Today: SAME THING)

8 Things I Look Forward To:
=> Wearing fall and winter clothes
=> Selling my house
=> Just-planted bulbs blooming in the spring
=> Marking a bunch of items off my to-do list
=> Travel
=> Visiting family
=> Bonded bunnies
=> Peace

8 Things on my To Do List:
=> Replace Jetta glow plug to get the engine light off
=> Repair Jeep flat tire
=> Take bike in for tune-up
=> Organize recipes
=> Rehome all the crap I don’t want anymore
=> Work with investment guy, make a plan
=> Administer fluids to my friends’ cat
=> Finish digging out roots and planting shrubs/bulbs

8 Things on my Wish List/Needs/Wants:
=> New office chair (ideally meeting ergonomic, non-leather, recycled, space demands!)
=> A clean house
=> Yakima racks on the car (purchased, just not yet installed)
=> Co-op membership
=> New pants for work
=> New cell battery
=> Better time mgmt/less procrastination (or just learning to deal with that aspect of myself)
=> More sleep

8 Things I’m Passionate About:
=> Animal welfare
=> Hunger/homelessness
=> GLBT rights
=> Peace
=> Grammar/spelling!
=> Lessening my environmental impact; sustainability
=> Adopting, not breeding, pets
=> Leading by example

8 Words or Phrases I Use Often:
=> What the heck
=> Nice driving, *sshole
=> Are you huuuuuungry?
=> Casper, shut up.
=> Did you just fart?
=> That can be recycled.
=> You can’t do that!
=> Your mom

8 Places I Would Love to Go or See or Visit:
=> Iceland
=> Thailand
=> Vancouver
=> Montreal (or was it Toronto?)
=> The Grand Canyon
=> Farm Sanctuary
=> Best Friends
=> Tropical beach

8 Things I Have Learned From My Past:
=> Don’t mouth off to people in charge
=> Don’t date anyone at work
=> People are generally good
=> Everyone is equal and deserving of respect
=> Eat dinner as a family (and cook it at home)
=> Go to college. It’s worth it for the experience, the pride/sense of accomplishment, and the extra income! Then push yourself to learn more
=> Work really hard. It impresses people and gives you a leg to stand on when you do need a break
=> Listen to your dentist

Took seven minutes to vote this morning. There were two people ahead of me in line, and I was ballot #485 in the machine at 3.5 hours into the day. They gave us clipboards to use to vote if we didn’t care about waiting for the four privacy “booths” set up for our precinct (our county uses paper ballots). The other precinct meeting at the school gym had probably a 45 minute wait. Guess I was lucky! David only took three minutes at his voting location–no one in line. We are very glad we didn’t vote early and wait in line for hours!

I’m excited about Obama. Way more than I was about Hillary, and I landed squarely on her forehead on a political quiz a couple years ago. It’s cool to be An Independent, as if that implies Free Thinking, Not Toeing a Party Line, all those good things you want of smart voters. Except, let’s face it: the Republicans are not likely to nominate a candidate who holds dear the issues I hold dear. The Democrats are way more likely. Frankly, they aren’t liberal enough for me.

Liberal has definitely been tossed as a dirty word around me. I shouldn’t be afraid of it if it describes my politics most days, so I’ve been trying to embrace it more lately. Would I vote not-straight-Democrat? Sure, given a MORE liberal candidate. And for some local elections, I’ve been known to vote for folks who I know I like (their positions, their plans) without knowing their party affiliation. They were probably not Republican, though.

I guess I don’t want “Republican” to be a dirty word, but it tends to be one around my household (and I fight that assumption, looking for the nuggets of truth). I’m glad my best friend calls herself one because it’s taught me a lot about considering the other side’s viewpoint, about trying to be respectful. That hasn’t changed my dread that GWB is a dumbass spiraling our country into the exact opposite of what I believe to be most compelling issues/direction we need to travel, nor that I live in fear of something happening to him because I think Cheney is downright, perhaps, evil. At least GWB doesn’t appear to be smart enough to cause more damage than has already been done, but we do have a few months to test that theory.

Obama is inspiring. He makes sense. I believe in his integrity, something I don’t get from some members of the current administration. Obama is genuine to me, in a way Hillary just didn’t tweak, as much as I liked her.

I want peace, religious freedom (including freedom FROM religion), protection of abortion rights, and an energy policy that frees us from the noose of petroleum and all its accompanying evils (terrorism, political submission, economic slavery, environmental devastation), an immigration policy that make sense and acknowledges the value of–instead of criminalizing–every person who WANTS to be here, a place to live that empowers all within her borders. Is that why people are so excited in this election? I feel like maybe all those folks who never felt represented before finally see something in a presidential candidate that they like and trust and believe. It’s, oh, enfranchisement? Why does that scare so many regular white folks? (And I am not trying to make this about race–I feel represented for the first time too.) It can’t just be about guns and gays and fetuses, can it?

I want leadership through a sagging economy and a crappy real estate market and a loss of American jobs. I want Supreme Court justices who will stand up for each of these issues on MY side because I think they make us a healthier, happier, more JUST place to live. And none of that constitutional amendment crap defining marriage.

Gut instinct on McCain and Palin: He seems doddering. We already have an image problem in this country. I don’t really think that would ever keep me from voting for someone. But as much as the buzz on Palin on Day One was so Wow! It’s A Woman!, when I then read about her I found out she has the exact opposite stance as I do on every one of the political issues I mentioned above. The only thing she might have going for her is integrity, and I base that assumption on Wikipedial references to her challenging Republican ethics and ousting all sorts of folks in charge. Such ousts can also be due to power grabs, of course, but I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt since a fresh start often seems like the only viable governmental choice to me. Meanwhile McCain used to seem promising to me. Until he swapped all his convictions for whatever the GOP told him to be for their campaign. Bzzzzz, try again.

To be honest, most press/media has been rather absent from my life the last couple of months, and I hope that means I’m less influenced by whatever “liberal agenda” they’re supposed to have. Whatever that means.

On Smaller Government, a common refrain I hear from Republicans. Really? Do you really think the party is suggesting Smaller Government? All I have seen are special interests getting a whole lot of money and the rest of my taxes (plus a lot of money not even printed yet) sucked into Iraq. I also see that no American can make a living wage on minimum wage, that being a poor kid going to a poor school makes you no match for what the world hands you. Why doesn’t everyone have health insurance? It seems like the right wants smaller government as it relates to general welfare programs, but then goes and spends it somewhere else anyway. That’s not smaller. Anyone visit the National Priorities Project lately?

Do I think the Democrats have all the answers? No. But for the issues most important to me–and most of those boil down to treating people more like humans–the liberal approach makes more sense to me. I still get pissed at the way both sides fart around in the legislature and argue with each other instead of doing real work. We shouldn’t be sitting here wondering how to fix energy policy… it should be half done by now. The economic scare of the past several weeks did bring out enough oh shit by both parties to make me wonder if we actually could work together on something. But we’ll see.

I’m Amy, and I approve this message. I think I wrote it as much to hash out my own platform as to prove I had one! I hate being assumed to be Queen Democrat. Frankly, a lot of them annoy me, because politics bring out the worst in everyone.

Bottom line: unless Kucinich runs, I probably won’t be truly happy. But Obama has something that I haven’t seen anywhere else in a long time. Let’s hope he has the smarts, compassion, and common sense he’s impressed upon me.

Another regular-Joanne’s take which I found interesting

I am wearing my candy corn socks! But I turned off the automatic porch light because we aren’t giving out candy. I guess that makes us scrooges. That’s not true; we just don’t like kids much.

The weather is nice today so I rode the bike to work, but managed to lose a nut and bolt on part of a pedal (shops guys at work hooked me up) and my bike computer flew off somewhere. Now I don’t know how fast I’m going, what time it is, or how far I’ve gone! I’m also out $55. I have another one but I’m hoping I’ll magically find the lost one on the way home today. I also broke the shower when I got to the locker room.

Something cute I found while clicking around: Tofu for Obama

This ties in nicely because I was reading a Mallard Fillmore comic last night where kids were complaining about trick-or-treating at houses with Obama signs (we have one) because they gave out tofu (ate it for lunch), baby greens (also had it in my lunch), and CFLs (got some of those too). Gotta be able to laugh at yourself. But I wouldn’t give out markers and Dentyne like that too-responsible lady in our neighborhood did when we were kids.

Coming very soon: