small gifts

I get excited over small surprises but I call them gifts. Here are a few of my experiences and gifts that happened to me over the last 24 hours:

When you have waited for over an hour in line for a simple book of stamps at the post office because their automated postal center is out of order. I received a 42 cent book of Bierstadt landscape stamps. A small treat.......

When high schools usually get out at 2pm but today you have a different schedule and students leave at 1:30pm. You get to go too. A big gift!

Fretting over our visas (which included bank statements, $60.00, notarized applications, and not to mention your travel itinerary) to the Philippines that were sent out twice because we mailed them to the wrong embassy the first time and after resending them, our passports returned stamped with the wrong arrival and departure time. We dreaded calling the embassy but later found the passports are in working order. Not a gift, but a huge relief.....

Having Ken call the embassy.........a big help, a gift, a surprise and a treasure.

auras

Golden leaves sprinkled gently on the dark streets as I drove to work this morning. The leaves left littered pieces of light on the ground. Our sunflowers sprouted to tall independent stalks supported by stakes that help erect their majesty. From a distance, these flowers guard our home, like a speckled band from a dotted design.

try this one out..........

http://www.peteyandpetunia.com/VoteHere/VoteHere.htm

on being lucky

I was fortunate to experience a fabulous time with a group of super ladies. We biked thirteen miles to Serenity Falls Cabin, spent the night, gabbed up a storm, ate too much and drank too little. The weather was a picture perfect fall day; you couldn't ask for a better time to bike. I was thanking the gods in and out throughout my journey. There was cool brisk chill to the air. Above, is part of the morning crew having coffee (and of course gabbing about nothing and everything at the same time.)

There were nine of us who spent the night. We slept in these bunk beds and I was number #3, above another camper. I didn't sleep much that night with all the snoring going on. It was very black too; rich darkness adding to the upcoming winter.

This is part of the biker girls just at the entrance of the Eklutna parking lot. The trees had bright yellow foliage. I biked in with a bob loaded with my sleeping bag and other essentials; carrying Karen's odds and ends. I rode right through the puddles and managed to get there easily. The path was relatively flat with some long hills. We made the ride in three hours; stopped and rested, had lunch and perused the scenery.

from a delicate state

There are times when all of a sudden I am struck down; my functioning is at it's lowest, my energy subdued and my confidence shaken. It is almost like I am engulfed in a hole and cannot come out. These periods don't happen often, am not manic and it is usually after a rigorous work out and some perspective, some talk among close friends, that I submerge quickly. I bounce back fast, fortunately.

But I think the world situation added to my gloom these past few days, and while the elections are exciting and exhilarating the possible outcome is scary and threatening. I watched Bush's address to the nation about our financial crisis. It was a serious deal. I remember watching my parents watch the Cuba crisis when I was very young and I could feel the tension; you could cut the atmosphere in half with a knife. It was a serious deal.

I think if Obama gets the presidency, the outside world will applaud us to a certain degree, we would be looked upon not as big babies (which we are often seen as) but as a country entering a new change and progression. Not sure if we are a sophisticated country though to work through our differences and biases to make this choice. I don't think Europe (France or Germany for example) would think twice about making a new leap. We want the same thing and we want the same old funk of comfort. Also, I find it difficult discussing politics with people around me. It has become a taboo subject to bring up and I find this ridiculous and repressive.

a hunting saga

Last week, Ken went hunting with his son Noah. They met up with another couple at Swanson Lake and made camp. On Monday, the three of them stayed together and canoed some of the lakes looking for moose, while Sandra went off on her own with her two dogs searching for grouse. The trio of men got back to camp later in the afternoon while Sandra did not appear, and in fact she wound up being gone for the entire night. Great concern was in the atmosphere, and the next day a rescue team was called (because Ken and Noah canoed like hell back to town to Sterling to get in touch with the authorities.) Sandra was found early afternoon the next day, well shaken up but alive and kicking. She had found a squirrel midden to spend the night and was equipped with her shot gun, two dogs and three dead grouse. Sandra wound up eating the grouse raw.

What would you do if you got lost in the woods and how prepared would you be to spend a night in the deep and scary dark with creatures stirring about? Great stories abound in the Northwest and I was first hand to hear about it.

on the alternative political scene

I was up again late. By my night stand there are always some New Yorker rags handy. The current issue of Sept 15 has an interesting article called, The Lonesome Trail, by Ariel Levy, on Cindy McCain. She is quite an eccentric women; an avid horse rider, race car driver, recently McCain has taken up flying. Their marriage started when she met John McCain at a Navy party, seventeen years her senior. Their liaison led into a relationship of week-ends while she was at home with the four children as he was off to DC during the week. (Cindy became seriously addicted to pain killers for several years.) The article goes on to explain her complex family dynamic, their white lies and deception contrasted to a very prominent family from Phoenix, the Baptist church that she attended to her development into the political arena. Cindy McCain also does the humanitarian route and travels to conflict areas helping children with cleft palates and she later adopted a baby in Bangladesh. You often see McCain holding hands with her seventeen year old daughter on stage during their political rallies.

It brings me to comment that our country is seriously corrupt (and we all know this.) Who really knows what is behind a person and their motives? Is it really important to understand some one's background? And how much to we really know the story about these people in power? We are all tainted and have our faults and past mistakes. It also brings me to exclaim how little we know about anything, how naive and uninformed we are as people.

This is an interesting video that friends sent me. Check it out!

http://tinyurl.com/6d9xqb