Hatin' the Late Paycheck!

My husband's federal paycheck (for which he works hard, thank you very much) usually hits on Saturday mornings.  Pay runs on Thursday, it hits on Saturday.  Unless there's a federal holiday or a weather disaster (Rita and Katrina wreaked havoc on the pay schedule).  But for some reason beyond us, the check didn't hit on Saturday.  Now, see, here's the catch--it doesn't HAVE to hit on Saturday.  In fact, it's not considered late unless it doesn't hit by the following THURSDAY.  So here we are, with seventy bucks cash and two grocery shopping checks floating around out there, hoping the check hits on Tuesday.  If not?

Scary, sad stuff.  Now, understand, the check has never not come by the following work day (this time a Tuesday because of the holiday), so I'm not TOO worried, but still. I'd rather the thing hit on time.

Still sick.  Voice is better (not great, but better), but I'm still a fountain of phlegm.  Sleeping a LOT (probably the Emerald Death I've been swigging before sleep time), but still waking up glued shut and waiting for the mess to loosen up so I can chug it out.

Once things start moving, though, it comes out pretty smoothly.  That's something.

It's inauguration day.  A very happy/scary thing for me.  We are a country possessed of so many utter crazies that I always fear for our President.  Proud of him, though.  Proud of us, too, that we managed to keep Romney out and bring Obama back.  I'm planning to watch, and that will make it only the second I've watched live.

Going to finally make some candles--hubby got me a candle making kit, with some wax, oils, forms, and a thermometer and pitcher.  I used to make candles all the time, have long wanted to get back into it.  I'm looking forward to it.  Thinking maybe I should start a line of solidly un-mystical candles which have not been prayed over, blessed, infused with holy anything, or in any other way made woo-woo.  Hey, maybe they'd sell, right?

Was grumbling through our old home's local newspaper today, found an obit for Stan Liptrot.  He lived down the street from me for decades.  Really nice guy, great neighbor.  Made it to 90 years old.  Good job, Stan.  You deserved every one of those years, and likely should have had even more.  

Like I said, solidly good guy.  Missed him from the moment he moved away, and not just because of the slobs who moved in after him.  Missed him because he was a great guy to have in the neighborhood.

All sorts of changes going on at Epinions.  New ways of figuring IS, new layout for review lists, etc.  Everyone's crying like the sky is falling, a lot of folks complaining that their IS has crashed, but as someone whose IS has been abysmal for a decade, it's looking like it might just be a marked improvement for me.  Let's hope.  

Dreamed my Mom kept falling down, and every suggestion I gave my sister she shot down.  I was suggesting a rope or chain-type fence (think theater barriers) to act as a guide, or having the sidewalk and driveway repaved to fix the raised cracks and uneven spots, but my sister was having none of it.  Being 2,300 miles away, there wasn't anything I could really do.  Very frustrating.  

Rewatching Justified on Blu-ray because our boy has forgotten a lot of it.  I do love that show.  Haven't gotten to the wonderful, "Now, Arlo, use your words" line, but it's a favorite.  If you think Timothy Olyphant is amazing in Justified, just imagine what he could do in Stephen King's Dark Tower series as Roland.  Hubby is near bursting with frustration over that casting every time we see Olyphant striding purposefully down the blacktop.  He is so obviously Roland, yet it's going to Javier Bardem.  A good actor, certainly, but not Roland.  Not by a long shot.  

And that's all.  Happy Inauguration and hey, here's some Inauguration Day GOOD paneling!  That's right, there's actually some paneling out there I like!  This style I've seen called "Judge's Paneling," and, while I don't have the house to pull it off, I sure do like it in some other homes!

Oh, remind me tomorrow to write about my sister's ex-roommate's gay bathhouse/tubs business.  It's gonna be a rant.

Four More Years!

Oh, my heart!  Waiting for hours, watching as the tide seemed to be against our President!  Being so sure that Tim Kaine wasn't going to make it!  We took an hour's break to watch an episode of Deadwood, and when we came back, George Allen was conceding to Tim!  What happened?

WE happened!

Prince William County/NOVA really came through for Mr. Kaine (and for our President!).  I can't begin to describe how incredibly exciting that is for me--after years in Utah, where, let's face it, my vote in national races was nothing more than a way of earning my "bitching rights," suddenly my vote MEANS something.  It is influential, it counts.  It's amazing, it's heady. 

The lines here in Northern Virginia were so long they wound up having to extend voting past 11 pm.  When we went out to get our celebratory/sadness foods (we didn't know which it would be), the line at the local polling place was even longer than it had been at 6 am (an hour-and-a-half), 3 pm (closer to two hours), and 6 pm (around three hours).  Amazing.  I am so proud to live here, so amazed by the turnout.

Oh, and the food?  Well, let's just say I was up sick for most of the night--too many Popeye's fries, a Whopper with cheese, and wowser brownies with Ghirardelli chocolate chips (but we forgot the walnuts!).  That was enough to have my gut in total rebellion all night.  Well, all morning--didn't even go to bed until almost four.  And that wasn't ALL the food!  I was too full to eat any jalapeno poppers or chocolate satin (Satan, lol) pie.  Guess we'll have those tonight!

I am not overjoyed by the results of this election.  See, we still have the same obstructionist, petty house to deal with--the same guys who made it their lives' work to impede in any way they could.  My hope is that, since there's now no vow to "make Obama a one-term president," perhaps they'll hang up that hateful crap and do something constructive for Americans instead of serving their corporate bosses and acting on their mean, racist agenda.  Hopefully, their spitefulness won't lead them to intentionally trigger those idiotic budget cuts.  Just because we got our President and retained our Senate doesn't mean that the idiocy of the past two years won't continue.  I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried.

Yes, that was very political of me.  I've had to swallow four years of their "impede at every opportunity, then blame the President for not making progress" garbage.  The racist innuendo, the flat-out lies.  I'm tired, and I don't want to listen to that garbage anymore.

Speaking of garbage, I have, for the past year-plus, been hiding my posts from a large number (over 150) of my Facebook "friends" in order to shield their delicate sensibilities from my political speech.  I have also refrained from arguing with anyone whose wall posts (posts to THEIR wall) come across my news feed.  It just seems right to me that my wall is for me, your wall is for you.  This was a one-way street, as people were happy to jump in and argue with me on my wall.  Well, last night, I broke my self-imposed limitation--some dimwitted asshat had posted a picture of our President in black face with watermelon and fried chicken, with the White House in the background and some awful, racially stereotypical words along the bottom.  I lost it--I called him a racist and I dropped him.  It felt good.

Really good.

So good, that the nasty woman (a mutual friend) who commented with something about our "future being much DARKER now" is also off my friends list.  And that felt so good that I realize it's time to be done.  Done with the selectively hiding things from this person or that so they don't get offended.  You know what, all my Facebook "friends" know I'm an atheist, but they don't hesitate to smear my news feed with their religion.  They know I'm very liberal, but they spray their wing-nutty, teabag crap all over my news feed.  And I LET them, without challenge or argument, because it's their wall, they get to do that.  But dammit, so do *I*.  So I think it's time to do some major housecleaning.  Knock, oh, 150+ people off my friends list. 

I think it's going to feel incredible.

My sister called last night, after Ohio was projected, but before Virginia was called.  She made some crack about how Virginia had sold out the President, and I was so afraid that was, in fact, the case.  But we didn't.  No, as the numbers came in through the night, it became clear that WE gave our President the great state of Virginia.  Yeah.  We BUILT that!

Totally off topic, I tore out the tomatoes today and unhooked the hoses.  Yeah, a little late after the hard freeze, but no harm done.  It's almost winter.  I hope we get some real snow this year.