The week that was!

What a week it has been.

Monday, the anticipation was so great that I
had a difficult time concentrating on anything.
I took Julie to have a colonoscopy early Monday
morning. That diverted me for a while.

I worked at our precinct polling station in the
afternoon. It was pretty quiet because so many
had voted early. In the evening Robert and I
watched the returns and finally the good news
came through and John McCain acknowledged his
defeat. Obama's speech had me in tears, of
joy, relief and just all around emotion. It
had seemed so unlikely that he could actually
win, but that he should. I suppose it was
our Caucus that had convinced me that we
needed him. Having 80 people show up for a
caucus that usually had fewer than 10!

Now with the unemployment up to 6.5% and the
DOW having lost 10% in two days it is clear
that we are in a recession. I've felt we
were for some time, but the powers that be
have refused to admit that.

Thursday noon Patrick Hanford showed up for
lunch and to spend the night. He has just
returned from Iraq where he was the head of
the division that was training Iraqis to
become pilots. He had quite a bit of inter
action with Iraqis and said that many of
the troops were voting for Obama because they
were tired of seeing the Iraqi government
doing nothing, just letting the US spend
our resources while being cozened by the
Iraq. We had some good discussions and I
learned quite a bit about that part of the
world.

In the evening Viki, Keegan and Ed came for
dinner. That was fun, too. We had more
discussions and it was also a celebration
for all the work Viki had done as well as
I toward getting Obama elected.

Today Robert and I did a little more mundane
activity. We cleaned out the garden shed
which has been accumulating "junk" for more
than 20 years. It had gotten to the point
where we couldn't find anything and really
had no idea of what was in there. Most of
what was in there is now headed for the
dump. I'm keeping all the clay and ceramic
pots. There were three metal garbage
cans which we can put to use for storage.
I probably don't need all the clay pots, but
perhaps Viki or Martha will find them of use.

YAHOO!!! and I don't mean the website.

I spent yesterday afternoon at our precinct polling place as
a watcher. It was very quiet because so many people (>70%)
had voted early.

We watched the Returns last night and I admit I wept during
Obama's acceptance speech. I can breath again. I feel like
I have been running a marathon, but we won! All three of
"my" guys won; a first for me. I have saved my yard signs.
I'll use Jared's in two years, Obama's in 4 and Udall's in 6.

I know it'll be a long haul for Obama. He can't fix the mess
we are in overnight, but I do feel that he'll be able to start
the process, at least. I watch with anticipation as he chooses
his Cabinet. Where will Hillary go, Cabinet, Supreme Court,
when/if he gets a chance to choose a new justice? Time will
tell.

In the meantime, I'm happy. I'm putting away my lists and
notebooks. My office is a disaster of piles of lists and markers.

Two more days!

Only two more days and I'm going nuts! Boulder
is doing well with getting out the vote. 70% of
registered Democrats have already voted! That's
awesome!

This week has not been a momentous one. I have
kept up with the Polling and calling.

I Wednesday I was headed for a routine check-up
with my Rheumatologist at 8 AM. I started the
Prius and the control panel did not light up.
This happened once before and I drove with it
that way, but it is disconcerting. I got
Robert to take it to the Toyota Dealer while
I took the Saturn and went for my appointment.
I later met him at the dealer's. They did the
3000 mile check-up, but couldn't figure out
what had gone wrong with the car since it
had straightened itself out by the time Robert
got the car to them. We left it overnight
hoping that in the morning when it had sat
a while it would act up again. It didn't.
We have it home and every time we start it
we wonder...It's hard to fix something that
is so erratic.

Friday evening we went to Murphy's Grill
with the NCAR bunch for a Halloween Jazz
fest. Dave Fulker who, at one time, was
my boss is the lead of the group. He
was playing the fluegelhorn. The group
was fun although we were sitting only
a couple of feet away from them, so a bit
too loud.

During a break Harriet Barker who used to
be Harriet Hunter back when I worked at
HAO came by to say hello. She, too, has
retired now. I think she is quite a bit
younger than I. She started out as
Walt Robert's assistant and has had quite
a career at NCAR. She went all the way
up to the top, almost, in administration.
She was Harriet Crowe for a while and now
after retirement she has taken her original
name back. She commented she was too
non-maiden to say she'd taken back her
maiden name. We hope to see her again and
I think we will. She just sold her house
on Shannahan Ridge after dropping the price
$250,000.00. It was on the market for
two years. She's bought a condo at the
corner of 17th and Walnut which is being
built.

She is headed off for Santa Barbara to
visit her son's ex and her granddaughter.
The son's ex is John Edwards ex-mistress.
She says it is a drag because wherever
she goes so goes the Secret Service!
That seems strange. Who would bother
an ex-mistress?

Yesterday we went to Longmont for a
Landlord Symposium put on by the
Longmont Housing Authority. The first
speaker went way over her time and
was a very poor speaker. The next one
was some what better and the third
was the best. She was discussing
Civil Rights Issues and gave us a quiz
which asked what we would do in certain
situations. It was very interesting.
Clearly, each case is and has it's own
problems. They were real cases and she
said that each had finally been decided
by a judge and so she told us what the
judge had decided. Some of the ideas
these landlords came up with were better
than the solutions the judges came up
with though.

After our meeting which went from 8:30 -
11:00 and one speaker had cancelled, we
drove by the Shavano house. I'd hired
a crew to clean the brush and trim the
front hedge. Sadly, the front hedge
is an evergreen (juniper-like) and had
been left too long. It was almost
blocking the sidewalk so we felt it had
to be trimmed, but it looks awful. I
think if it doesn't green up in the
next year we'll have it taken out.

I spent the morning going through
Health Insurance Policies on-line. What
a chore. Open season is from 11/10-12/10
and our Blue Cross/Blue Shield has
gone up and the benefits gone down so
I decided to see what other options
were available. We get BCBS through
the Federal Retirement program and
they pay 2/3 of the monthly rate. I
think we'll switch because I found
one that is available to us through
the Feds and the monthly cost is lower
and everything else looks better, too.
I've checked to make sure that all our
doctors and hospital, etc are in the
network. The one I have picked is the
National Letter Carriers Asso. with
Cigna and we are eligible. We've had
BCBS forever and it has always seemed
easier to just leave it, but this
year I decided to check. The prices
just seemed unreasonable and they
are getting fussier about covering
prescriptions, too. I'll have my fingers
crossed to see what the catch is.