I finally figured out how to make a good turkey pot pie after Canadian Thanksgiving.
It’s been a while since I actually wrote anything. Life is quiet and peaceful and so not very interesting. Today, outside my window, is cool foggy weather with the forecast calling for a cold fall rain during the day turning to snow overnight. We’ve already had snow a few times but the ground and daytime temperatures are still warm enough it has always melted. The garden has had several deep freezes and is dormant. We haven’t had to mow our lawn in weeks. The trees are mostly bare.
The geese, the last of the migratory birds to head south, are mostly gone. A few stragglers normally stick around until the water freezes and they are still here so it’s not full winter yet. Our yard is now busy with juncos and chickadees and blue jays. They spend winters here, coming south out of their summer home in the boreal forest. The gentle peeps of juncos and chirps and calls of chickadees are a welcome sound. The sun is not up these days until about 8:30am. We have stopped taking evening walks as it is now dark by 6:30pm and we often hear coyotes just outside of town. We have switched our walking to afternoons.
After all the effort involved in getting the book out, I spent a few weeks just doing almost nothing at all. I was soon busy again with several projects. Gulf Specimen Marine Lab, our favourite charity, suffered real damage during Hurricane Hermine and I am very proud of my small part in the fundraising that has paid for repairs.
My other favourite charity is
This charity provides a supportive environment in two virtual worlds and in real life for people with a wide variety of disabilities. Last year I was involved in a study with them, called Mrs. A and Mr. B as an interviewer in Second Life and it was very rewarding and interesting. I am currently helping out with a prospect that could lead to a contract for them that would be profitable for all concerned and provide “in world” employment for a lot of people who otherwise don’t get a lot of chances to work. This is good. I like being retired so I can do these things.
My “working” avatar in the foreground with a Ms White in a teaching place. I do have lots of professional looking outfits and I can even put on a lab coat if required. Since this place is an undergraduate university setting, jeans are de rigueur.
We have also been busy bees in our local community. My hubby dearest has become a local volunteer fire fighter. He’s second from left in the back row. I took the picture for them and it was published in the local newspaper. We also help out at local bingos and the do some stuff for the Alonsa Historical Society and the Alonsa Community Centre.
I like to just play in Second Life myself too, not just work. Part of recovering from getting the book out has been more play than usual. It’s “Shocktober” in Raglan Shire which has been a blast.
Here’s me (right) with my buddy Skippy at the Shocktober Ride of Horrors and Dark Carnival in the Raglan Shire. The death guy in the picture is actually another beaver like me in his Shocktober costume.
My little Second Life home where I hang out with my pets, a strawberry body bunny and my hummingbird.
Normally, we would already be on our way south by now. This year we are holding back and don’t plan on leaving until December 1st. We have many reasons for the delay. We will save about $600 in travel insurance by waiting and that will help compensate for how the American dollar has skyrocketed next to our poor sinking loonie. We will have a year of being in the USA only 104 days total for 2016 and that will be far below the time one is permitted so I can avoid having to file the “stronger connections” with the IRS. I am very much bothered by the power the IRS now has to mess up my life if they decide to, even if I am completely innocent of anything, which I am. Our government has given the IRS full access to everything including our bank accounts so they can swoop in now and we have to appeal after the fact if they do. It makes sense to not draw attention to yourself and if that means staying in the USA for under 120 days a year, so be it. I’m not sure why harassing law abiding Canadian retirees who bring their own money to spend in the USA just trying to escape bitter winters while spending a lot of US taxpayer money on supporting illegal immigrants from elsewhere who arrive penniless and are squatting year round makes sense, but to someone in the US government, it apparently does.
The other thing we have become concerned about is the whole way the country just “feels” sitting up in Canada looking south. The sight of beige people being stopped in their vehicles trapped by brown and beige people on an interstate in New Orleans and dragged from their vehicles and beaten on for having beige coloured skin during a George Soros sponsored, Council on American Islamic Relations assisted Black Lives Matter protest is scary as h*ll. Their rioting (excuse me, peaceful protesting) has struck many major American cities. Other election related organized violence, which we now know (thanks to Wikileaks) was paid for by the Democratic campaign at various Trump rallies, have also spooked us. Seeing Hilary get off for what other people go to jail for, makes me worry the country has become a corrupt banana republic. Now I do realize these were all isolated incidents and confined to large city centres and the legal double standards appear to apply strictly to Clintons and their minions. (After all, they sent Dinesh D’Sousa to jail for election fraud so some people are having the laws applied to them.) I also know we would get some warning because it takes time for these thugs (Oh excuse me ‘thugs’ is racist and a sure sign of my White privilege. I should have said ‘activists’) to organize. If we are in a city and we hear of a brown coloured person being shot by a blue coloured person, we have about 24 hours to ‘get out of Dodge’ before the riots peaceful protests start. We also normally avoid cities anyway, but it is a worry. If Trump gets elected what are these thugs activists going to do to my White Privilege? Now maybe they will do nothing at all because the Democratic Party unrelated SuperPAC will have turned off the thug activist money tap once the election is over. That’s what I am hoping.
The Trump followers seem mostly sane and respectful, (in spite of the near continuous ‘loves to grab pussy’ coverage in the Clinton run media) but there is a nasty streak of far far right self righteous “We, The People Need a Second Revolution” going on down there. What if they decide a Hilary win was due to election rigging and decide to start one? What if they mistake me for a member of the Clinton run media? What if we are driving on an interstate and we get stopped by thugs protesters from either side and we get dragged out and beaten on and our possessions damaged? What if our dog Fred, not understanding the need for peaceful protesting or revolution, bites an activist? Our dog is black, white and brown so deciding who he’s racist against when directing his bite could get really tricky. Our insurance policy also very specifically says if we are involved in any kind of riot, protest, civil unrest or insurrection, they don’t pay. That is the way it is even if we joined the riot peaceful protest involuntarily. “No justice, no pay” they say. Our little town here is very peaceful already so giving the Americans a few weeks to sort themselves out after this utterly insane election seems prudent.
Last time someone tried to start a revolution in Canada and put a bomb in a Canada Post mailbox, we called out the military, suspended all civil-rights and arrested anyone remotely involved and vanished them for six months. We Canadians are much bigger on “Peace, Order and Good Government” than we are on “Life, Liberty and The Pursuit of Happiness”. We don’t tolerate American style peaceful protesting well either. We had a big drunken post hockey game riot (we call it rioting up here) in Vancouver a few years ago and the Mounties got all their men and women of all colours by spending hours scouring social media and arresting everyone who gleefully shared their pictures of misbehaving. Two years later, the Mounties were still arresting people. They don’t seem to do that in the USA. Let them peacefully protest and we’ll clean up afterward strikes me as a puzzling response. What do I know? I’m not an American. My American husband just laughs at me and says you Canadians say thank you to bank machines. How could you possibly understand us? He’s right. I don’t. Besides we just elected Justin Trudeau as our Prime Minster so who am I to judge?
I have now updated where we are at. Our trailer is sitting outside, winterized and bearings lubed and stuff all checked and ready to travel. Over the next month I will have to start planning and, assuming all h*ll does not break out after November 8th, and Putin does not stop the election by lobbing nukes instead of leaks, we will be heading south in a month. The cold and the quiet is giving me itches. It feels overdue to be crossing the line. I started southern pulled chicken for dinner tonight to get into the mood.
If you are an American, please make sure you get out and vote. I don’t care who you vote for. You don’t seem to have any really good choices anyway. Just do it. (If you vote on an electronic machine double check what you click before you finalize your vote. Some machines are apparently set to default automatically to Democrat.) And if you have the time, volunteer to oversee the election to ensure it is fair and people get their real choice, whatever that choice is. Good luck. I think you’re going to need it.
Tumbleweeds Tumbling 