It’s odd to vote and not get the sticker.
(And that guy? Who sued because the sticker ruined his suede jacket? Not only is he a local – the drama unfolded at my very own polling place. And with that, you’ve fulfilled your quota of Patty trivia for the day).
Hands down, these bushes are my favorite part of our yard in the fall.
Nearly at their peak of color, the leaves will be almost gone when I return next week.
More after the jump. But first, take a moment to commend me. It took chutzpah to name a blog post firebush.
Hey, I know it ain’t Cannes, but I like this picture. If you look closely enough, I bet you can see the debris falling from Trump.
This is a call to my Stamford peeps. Who gets your three votes for the Board of Education?
I’m ready to mail in my absentee ballot, but I am still struggling a bit on this final topic. I make no secret of how much I despise the current Board, and of the two incumbents I can only imagine voting for Julia Wade. But she frankly hasn’t earned my vote yet, and I think it’s time for three new members on the board. Incumbents be gone.
I didn’t make it to any of the candidate forums. I still harbor a lot of resentment about the current Board’s obsession (thwarted! HA!) with closing my kids’ elementary school. After last year’s endless parade of pointless meetings, I couldn’t quite muster the enthusiasm to attend a candidate forum when I could much better spend those hours polishing my bitterness in the comfort of my own home.
With The Advocate’s spotty reporting and The Stamford Times’ limited (but good) articles on the topic, I feel a bit underinformed. The wasteland of Topix only sheds limited light on the subject. Voting by party is out of the question here, because the Democrat / Republican divide is irrelevant to me on this issue. In fact it’s my own party’s candidates who have disappointed me the most on the Board.
Maybe if I put my hatred aside for a while, you can tell me which three candidates will get your vote this year, and why. I want to mail my ballot in the next few days and I would really welcome any and all opinions. Especially the bitter-but-informed ones.
If you’d rather not publicly state your opinion, please email me. wing dang doo (all one word) at g mail dot you-know-where.
I’ll be away next week.
I absolutely adore Cannes and I count myself lucky for traveling there on business every year or so. But the prospect of being out of the country for the presidential election is making me increasingly anxious.
I’ll be sending in my ballot this week. I’m not anxious about making my choices, I’m not anxious about change. I think it comes down to a twinge of sadness. We’re on the cusp of the most important election of my life and I won’t be here to celebrate.
Because our kitchen is far too small, our dining room is the center of our home. We first painted it a sage green, which was OK but grew old quickly (especially because we used the exact same shade in our old house, too). I wanted to make the room as vibrant and bright as the people who hang out in it, so a few years back I covered the green with squash yellow paint, and then finished it with a glaze named Burnt Sienna. I used everything from a damp paint roller to cheesecloth to a sea sponge to apply the glaze. In some places, the effect is a bit like aged leather.
It’s not a large room (maybe 16 x 12), but it took me something like 40 hours to do all of the work. It’s a good thing I like it, because I’ll die with this color on my dining room walls.
I’m limiting myself to just five, because otherwise I’d stay here writing for the next seven hours and my children, who have been banned from the house until further notice, may well freeze to death.
Come to think of it, i think I learned that move from my mom.
In no particular order:
1. How to drive stick shift (mom and dad)
2. If you have two or three people outside of your immediate family who you can trust – as in, you need help moving the body in the middle of the night trust - consider yourself lucky and hold onto them no matter what (dad)
3. How to get from Stamford to Manhattan by car, either for free or paying a minimum of tolls (dad)
4. The fine art of burping and soothing a screaming baby (mom) (and oh my god, how this came in handy in the middle of the night 24 hours after giving birth the first time!)
5. How and why to show respect to coaches, teachers and other grownups so you don’t get tossed from the team, stuck in detention, uninvited from the next sleepover (mom)
How they reared four of us, I’ll never fully grasp. These two boys of mine are quite a challenge. Something tells me they’ll have their own lists to compile and stories to tell some decades down the line. Maybe starting with “Hey, remember that time Mom locked us out of the house for three hours because we were wrestling in the living room?”
What a day. Soccer, pumpkins and costume shopping… Later.
So here’s the thing: staying at a resort hotel while traveling on business blows. Especially when it’s a resort that’s located in The Happiest Place on Earth.
Most people who stay at hotels where business travelers hang out completely understand the rules of the road. Walk to the right. No surprise movements. And sweet Moses on roller skates: NO MEANDERING. Here, it’s a totally different ball of wax. I might think I’m the bee’s knees in my suit and heels, but the tank top and flip flops crowd look at me like I am an alien before they get in my way when I’m trying to get from point A to point B without colliding with a stroller.
Thanks to great ventilation, I’ve been able to chase the stink of the bug spray out of my room. But I can’t do anything about the painting on the wall. It’s a faux late-1800s merry-go-round scene, featuring people in their straw hats and bustles enjoying the ride and the beautiful evening. And, oh, wait, what’s that in the background? Why, yes. Of course. Cinderella’s castle.
It’s almost enough to convince me that this place has been here forever, and that it’s not built on top of a swamp / Indian burial ground.
Almost.
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