Stumbling Around on a Saturday Night

Some random, rambling observations:
1) It is odd that you can be jealous of a friend's good fortune, and yet genuinely happy for them,too.  It DOES happen.  I am jealous that two of my friends got to chat in person with Ron Perlman in Austin last night, but I am very happy for them too!  He was very sweet to them, and it is nice to know that he does remember us. 

Here Mary delivers a smooch from Fiona (and the rest of us #Perlgirls, of course.)

And here he sends one back.

He really does care about us.  Astounding as it seems sometimes. 

2)  Laundry you are waiting for will never get dry, no matter what the autodry setting on your oh-so-smart dryer says. 

3) A properly made Tequila Sunrise will give you a buzz without you realizing it has done so.  They taste SO good, and they sneak right up on ya! 

4) You can instantly identify a movie as being made in the 1980s just by hearing the music, if it is a contemporary setting. 

5) Some silly, cheesy 1980s action/comedies are still fun to watch all these years later. 

6)  Music really does bring back memories.  Listening to a Greatest 80s Hits album today, and remembering college and my first year teaching, and dates Matt and I went on both before and after we got married...

7)  Cold, dreary weather makes me want to hole up in my office and read.  No serious reading, but light mysteries, fan fiction, anything light and fun.  Guess I'm trying to counter the gloom.
This weather, only wetter, is plaguing SXSW in Austin.  South By Soaking Wet is it's new nickname.

8)  Voice practice may go very well.  Then the snot will fall in. And you will sound like a bullfrog, even if you ARE a lyric soprano.

10) Husbands who cook and then do dishes are the sexiest men on the planet.  I mean it.  Wow. 

11) Wearing mostly black tomorrow.  First Sunday in Lent.  Guess black is appropriate. 

12)  I keep finding fellow Episcopalians in odd places.  Found another one on Twitter.  Robert Patrick.  Always fun to find another person who answers "And also with you." when someone in the Star Wars movie says "May the Force be with you." 

13) Watching my husband watch me, and sometimes I can almost hear him thinking "God, I love it when she stretches."  Nice to know I still get to him after all these MANY years! (We met in '83.)

14)  Just because some idiot decided we have to lose an hour tonight, it does not mean my internal clock will willingly reset.  Hence, I am sitting here at what will feel like 00:20 later on, but feels like 23:20 to me! 

Time to shut this down.  I do have to finish a few things and then get ready for bed.  Gotta sleep so I can look at least mostly human  tomorrow. 
Thanks for reading.  Sometimes feel like I'm talking to myself here, but the stats say the pages get hits.  One never knows. 

If It's Not One Thing...

Life seems to be constant only in the number of things that pop up that you weren't expecting.
We have had to deal with major car repairs when we weren't really expecting them. (There goes the "savings")
At least we have the money, though we have to scrape, to pay for it. What happens to people who just don't have it? I will pray for them even as I listen to my whimpering bank account. What with gas prices driving up the prices of everything else, how is most of the Middle Class in America supposed to survive? How about folks like my Mom, on a fixed income?
I don't think much of anyone among our overpaid and overly wealthy government cares. They are also going to have to stick it to us even more to pay for their excesses soon. (They would never tax the higher income people, that would mean THEY would have to pay more taxes!)

On happier subjects, the weather is still Fall like without being too cold. None of my plants have frozen yet, though many need a drink of water, so I guess I better get out there tomorrow and do my watering. The trees are finally starting to turn pretty colors, and , alas, drop leaves. I will have to mow in order to pick up the leaves. The grass hasn't grown, but the lawns are covered in leaves, and I don't know about you, but raking them up just doesn't sound like that much fun.
I am not getting used to the time change very well yet. I feel drowsy too early in the evening, and I wake up before the alarm in the morning. At least I did today. We'll have to see about tomorrow. Usually I enjoy "falling back", but it feels very strange this year. Maybe because it happened so late.
Let us hope Fate is through playing games around here, at least for awhile.

Halloween

For once we actually had a lot of Trick Or Treaters. There are years when we have less than 20, and this year we had 73 kids. Many of them were Bear's pals from the neighborhood school bus stops, and they were very glad to see Bear sitting in the front hall, patiently waiting until he could safely go sit and guard the candy basket again. (Mustn't let the kitty get near the candy!)
It was a nice day for Halloween today. Sunny, but turned cool and cloudy by afternoon. The North wind was nippy as the little goblins made their rounds.
We had the usual assortment of cute little bees, monkeys, and teddy bears. We also had the requisite witches, vampires, pirates, princesses, at least one bride, and lots of hockey mask wearing scary guys. (Who were really too short to be very scary, but I didn't tell them that.)
I had one very polite little man in a Batman mask who asked if he could "have a Butterfinger bar, please." Of course I gave him one, though his mother was aghast that he had asked for a specific thing instead of being happy with what he got. He did say thank you, and he asked so very politely for the Butterfinger. I think such civility in a child (who was five at the most) should be reinforced and rewarded.
I am sending the small amount of leftover candy off to fatten up Matt's coworkers. We don't need the temptation of all those extra calories around here. (I really shouldn't have made the free form apple pie this evening, but it was a whole wheat pastry and generally less unhealthy than my usual apple pie. We will have pie for two days at least.)
Now I have to change all the calendars in the house. (There are quite a few, I like time keeping devices) The time change this weekend will be time consuming. I really like clocks, you see. We also have to change the batteries in all the smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors. (We are also paranoid about safety, so there are several of those devices, as well.)
There really isn't a whole lot to write about at the moment, or at least there isn't much that wants to be written. Too many other things want to be done right now.