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Miss Bit is convinced that as soon as she goes to bed, the magic happens. Magically at 8:45 after we have tucked her into bed, the dancing clowns come out, Patrick and I dish ourselves big bowls of chocolate fudge mint chip ice cream, and have a dance party until dawn. All without her.

I told her we would have a special day or two before school began next week. One day would be little dairy day where we would watch movies all day, and the second would be a night where she can stay up all night long.

So we stayed up. We started with watching Madagascar, then a break, then her bedtime story, just in case daddy fell asleep before she did. She was going to stay up all night. We decided that at midnight we were going to make cookies. Because she was going to stay up all night.

At 9:30 she looks at me and says “Its soooo late! I’ve never been up this late before, is it midnight?” “No, not yet”
We settled into watching Madeline which wrapped up at 11:30. I could see her curled up into the couch, clutching her teddy bear.

“I’m just going to rest my eyes”
At midnight when I went to ask her to come with me to make cookies, all I got was a snore. I moved her to bed, and tomorrow will make cookies with her since she missed it tonight.

Someday she’ll realize the magic that happens after bedtime is simply Patrick and I falling into bed together for some adult conversation, and sleep.

Want to be more organized with your meal planning and grocery shopping? Do you need some motivation to plan your meals out regularly? Do you need to stretch your grocery budget just a little further?

Then join me at 6:30 on September 25th at The Seattle Public Library Broadview Branch
Branch . I’ll be leading a class on Meal planning and grocery shopping.

Can’t make it on the 25th? I’ll be teaching the meal planning component at Sustainable Ballard on Sunday the 28th. More information about that session will come later.

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Ongoing projects.
I’m working on the kitchen book project. I’ve decided what recipes I need to include, both family standards and a few basics that I want to have on hand. My basics include Chicken Bacon Tacos, Meatballs, Pancakes and so on. To augment my standards I’m adding in a few things that I dont have go to recipes for. For example, cup cakes. What are your standard recipes? Anything I should add into my kitchen book of doom?

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New Projects
The new projects on my plate include getting the kids ready for school, getting ready for school myself, and now wedding planning. Lots going on, lots to keep me busy.

When I’m hot and heavy in a study period for school I find that I like mindless TV on when I work. Well maybe not mindless, but TV that I’ve seen before and that watching it won’t take too much of my attention. I can just look up occasionally and enjoy what is going on on screen.

With the end of this recent quarter and the ensuing break, I’ve increased my television consumption significantly. We don’t have cable, and I’m only a little self righteous about that in public. “You don’t watch much tv? Well we don’t have cable so nyeh!”**

But I’m watching a ton of television these days. Movies and TV series to be exact. In the recent weeks I’ve watched:

Babylon 5
Star Trek TNG Season 1
Star Trek TNG Season 2 (Except Holodrek episodes)
Star Trek Voyager Season 1
Star Trek Voyager Season 3
Must Love Dogs
The Lake House
Failure to Launch
My Big Fat Greek Wedding
Trans America
Corpse Bride
Broadway Hits of 1940
Who Killed the Electric Car?
Two discs of a later season of Psych
Along Came Polly

Most of these come from the library. I stop by the DVD rack every time I drop off or pick up books. Sometimes there is nothing. Most of the time there is a disc or two that I don’t mind taking home and giving a watch. Its nice to have the entertainment.
I’m feeling rich in my entertainment options and am enjoying what I watch. (Though I do wish that the Star Trek Series had a “play all” option. They clearly didn’t think that folks would sit down and watch a whole disc of episodes at once. )

** I was worse when I didnt have a TV. For a good 3-4 years , when i lived in Chicago, I didnt have a TV. I didn’t need a TV, I never felt like I was missing out on anything, and this was even before I had a computer of my very own.

I worked as a polling book judge today for King County Elections. Because of my help 34 people were able to place their votes. The funny thing?

I don’t vote.

No Seriously, I don’t vote.

Even in an election year as important as this I won’t cast a ballot. I am registered to vote and do receive a ballot each election.Each ballot is cast off unused.

Don’t worry, I won’t complain about politics, who wins who loses, referendums etc. I’ve been quoted that line before “If you don’t vote you can’t complain.” Whens the last time you saw me discuss politics?

The reason for me not voting the way i do is personal. lt is my exercising my rights as a voter to abstain if I so wish. I’ve also heard the line “I dont care how you vote, just vote. ” A flawed statement, with the speaker of course trying to share the wisdom of voting their way. Would you say the same thing if I just opted to turn in a blank ballot? After all that too is voting.

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So what was it like as a poll worker who doesnt vote? Well first off i was might surprised by the turnout. Not just that it was lacking but that it was concentrated. The busiest precinct table? The one that encompassed the polling location. Its obvious an ease of use / out of site out of mind issue.

I was amused by the mom who brought her children in to watch the process. This was capped off by a 4 year old having a screaming tantrum in the middle of the polling place as she was trying to vote. “Isnt it great that he can observe the process”

I was also amused by the woman with the puppy in hand that she held the entire time in the polling place. From signing in through voting all the way to turning in the paperwork. He whined as she was selecting her choices. Wonder if that helped?

There is also a lot of confusion in King County about whats happening with voting. I was told the accessible voting unit is horrible and should be gotten rid of. (Sure why would people want large print or audio ballots? Electronics are EVIL) Of the confused people, Half the people thought we were going to electronic polling exclusively and wanted to tell us how horrible it was. Those that knew what was going on (All absentee ballots) told us how horrible that was.

We also had voters ask us to tell people to “Vote Wisely” There were a few other distracting coversations that weren’t political, but were politicalish enough to make me uncomfortable.

I was thanked for being there. I finished a sock, and read half of my book. I got paid for doing it all. All in all, not a bad day.

I was meeting someone new for my trip to Bainbridge today. I’ve seen pictures of her online, and she’s seen pictures of me, but I was anxious that I might miss her. So when i saw someone who looked like she was waiting for someone, and looked like “my type” I double checked even though I was fairly certain it wasn’t her. (The person was alone, and didnt really look like my friend. )

Anyway, as I wandered around Bainbridge, I kept running into this other girl and the friend she had met. Two or three times when I popped into a store, they were already there. From my stop at the yarn store to the lunch spot we picked. I hope she doesnt think i was stalking her, she just had good taste in places to go. (Do you know someone in Seattle who went to Bainbridge today? perhaps thats who i met)

Anyway, it has me reflecting on the people that I identify with. Sometimes Its what they wear, it’s what they are doing, or how they act. Sometimes its men in kilts, women in geeky t-shirts, sci fi novel readers, laptop users playing wow in the waiting room. And thats just a taste of it. Sometimes its the person who stares at me at the library, not because they are oggling my breasts, but because they are reading my t-shirt. And laugh, not because they like coffee but because they know the quote comes from Dune.

When i see someone that I think I should know, i smile wider and give a nod. Perhaps we’ll never really meet but its nice to know that someone else out there is like me.

Summer 2008 is now done officially. I’ve turned all of my work in and now just wait for the grades. I’m apprehensive about Econ, but am fairly comfortable with my fate for History and Creative Writing.

I start at the University of Washington in the fall, a little over 1 month away.
To that end, I’m looking at my time wasters. Things that take my attention and distract me that have no purpose.

I’ve posted about this before, the excess of stimuli in my life. Two years have gone by and the lay of the land is a little different from what it was then. I have accounts at the following places

• Facebook
• MySpace
• Friendster
• Multiply
• Orkut
• LiveJournal
• Blogger
• Classmates
• Tribe.net
• PolyMatchMaker
• OkCupid
• WordPress blogs (maintained on my host)
• Bakespace
• 43Things

Of these accounts I consider the following items actually active and regularly maintain them.

• LiveJournal (only two of the , random number, I have are active, not counting communities)
• Classmates (login every 6 months or so)
• Meetup. (I’m a member of 5 meetups now? I don’t usually go to the meetings though)
• WordPress blogs. Seattlejo.com and Fatandcrafty.com being the active ones.

The others I log in some more regularly then others, but if their servers blew up and never came back I wouldn’t be sad.

Then there is all the email static. I check my email each morning to find a fresh new 30-40 messages, the majority of the marketing newsletters trying to sell me something or other. Amazon’s new book recommendation, Overstock.com having a big sale, or one of a million other things that I got signed up for when I made a purchase. It’s not their fault completely, I likely didn’t opt out when I made my purchase. Usually I just click the delete button and ignore it. I’m taking a stand now, I’m stepping up and actively removing myself from these lists, hoping that less static in my inbox will lead to a little more productivity.

What do you do to boost productivity?

I found an old friend yesterday. At least I think I did. Every time I see a pirate movie, I think of him. You see he was into pirates before pirates were big. He was involved in roleplay online with me in the late 90′s. As usual, I googled around a bit, and this time came up with a match. Not only did I come up with a match, but I also came up with his myspace.

The internet has made the world a smaller place. It has connected me with people from far away. Friends in Canada, Israel, further corners of the US. Heck, when Patrick and I met he was in Doha, Qatar. The message boards, chatrooms,MMORPG’s, blogs and journals have a way of bringing people together in a way to communicate that we don’t in person. Perhaps its the ability to hyper focus on that one are of common interest and let the rest of our lives fall away. Or perhaps its just that we don’t have as much baggage.

The thing is, times change, circumstances change, message boards go away, and MMORPGs falll out of favor, I’m also not who i was in the late 90′s. (Though I am lucky to have a small handful of folks who have stuck with me since that era)

I hesitated before pushing the button to friend him on myspace. I don’t use myspace often at
all. I have what is mainly a placeholder entry, something with a
picture so folks can see that it is me, something so I can read my
friend Dan’s blog posts. I’ve realized I can’t bring back the circumstances under which this old friend and I were close. Perhaps it’s silly, but it can’t hurt too much to try. Even if I get no response, I know that i did the right thing for me.

I grew up camping. Car camping. Well, not even car camping, more like trailer camping where the trailer doesnt go anywhere and you go to visit it. (We never did anything like my friend Pixysticks just did where she hiked parts of the Pacific Crest Trail. ) Anyway, I’ve got very fond memories of “camping” with both of my parents.

My Dad had a trailer, parked at a campground a couple of hours outside of our suburban home in the burbs of Chicago. Things that I remember of the times with my Dad

• The first campground we went to had a huge hill we had to drive up to reach our site. I remember urging the truck on with “I think I can”
• Thats also the same campground I slid down the hill scraping up my knees.
• I remember the camp site next to us had huge bonfires, and they were led by a guy named Tiny.
• A rainy day we stayed in and played go fish. I remember having the most fun then, though I’m sure we were bouncing off the walls driving Dad nuts.
• Dad cooking a whole onion in the fire for me, wrapped in foil. That made me so impressed!
• The first campground made our site/area “adults only” so we moved to a new campground (I dont remember the name) and it had a creek!
• i remember riding around on bikes and big wheels, playing with whatever kids were around.
• Lots of swimming, and playing at the playground.

Mom and Al didn’t really camp, they were members of a sportsmans club where my uncle Egor kept his trailer, we’d go down for day trips and I’d stay with him a week or two a summer. From that time I remember

• Fishing and catching bluegills, I loved fishing!
• Canoeing occasionally
• Al and Uncle Chris waxing the brand new canoe and taking out out in February. The canoe tipped taking the new “disc” camera and everything else in the canoe down into the depths of the water.
• Watching Bambi at the club, then eating venison for the first time that night at my Uncles. “Deb you know you are eating Bambi right?” “MMM Bambi is good”
• Going to girlscout camp at the club next door to “our club”
• The rooster that crowed in the morning. He lived at the farm next to “the club”
• A bet between my cousin to see who would eat pickled jalapenos. She ate it, I sucked the juice. I fared worse then she did.

So yeah that was camping for me. I still love it now, though my ideas of camping have changed a bit. From SCA camping where I know how to build a good encampment, to car camping where I insist on a little less luxury, its all starts in the roots of my growing up.

Our street closed last night and gave us a chance to  mingle with our neighbors over food and drink. It was a nice chance to get to know the folks in the area, and  meet some of the local dogs. (That was a real treat for me!)  The kids ran wild enjoying the luxury of a closed street and the ability to run and bike and scoot without looking for cars. The adults enjoyed the chance to mingle. There was some discussion of how long folks had been in the neighborhood for. That made me feel a little be temporary , as being in a rental we can only guarantee to live here as long as the house is for rent, and as long as it meets our needs.  i did also find out that the landlord tried to sell the house  a couple of years ago when the market was better, but nothing came of it clearly.

We had to use a very very specific format this week and I swear this was the equivalent of a DUI test where you balance on one foot hopping, touching your nose and singing the star spangled banner.

Brown Battered Suitcase, Rolling Behind

Brown battered suitcase, rolling behind.
Bulging full of memories
The train always arrives on time.

Step up to the station, step up in line.
Mind swiming full of apologies.
Brown battered suitcase rolling behind.

Emotional baggage carefully confined
Sanity bears no warranties.
The train always arrives on time.

Emotional blackmail, pay in kind
Celebrate the victories.
Brown battered suitcase rolling behind.

Past and future lay entwined
drowning in familiarities.
The train always arrives on time.

To stay here, simply disinclined
Of to explore tomorrow’s mysteries.
Brown battered suitcase rolling behind.
The train always arrives on time.