Election Day...or Something

This is history in the making! As many of you already know, yesterday was Election Day here in Oregon. After endless months of inane commercials and mind-numbing television coverage, the votes are finally in and counted. I suppose the results were a foregone conclusion; what with everyone talking about voting for change, for shaking up the establishment. It’s probably no wonder that things went they way they did. Yep, after millions and millions of votes, Kristi Yamaguchi won Dancing with the Stars.

Okay, seriously, I cannot help but wonder if this last season of Dancing with the Stars is more interesting and important to the future of the nation than the current political pig-wrestling contest. When our choices are limited to Left, Lefter, and Leftest, I feel as though it hardly matters whose chad I dimple this November.

So where have all the conservatives gone? I’m still here, dying for some representation. Why is it that the politicians are worried about disenfranchising every voter but me? Call me crazy, but I doubt I’m the only one feeling this way. Hosts of conservatives are crying out for someone to stand up and fight for what we believe in. But wait, didn’t Mitt Romney do just that? He did, and we told him to take a flying leap. And now we are left with Mr. McCain, a man who had his conservative gland surgically removed two decades ago. Now conservatives complain that McCain isn’t conservative enough. Well, why should he be? We’ve known for years that he was a playmate of the Democrats, wrapped in the now-faded shroud of Reaganism. Arizona has had opportunities aplenty to rid themselves of his pseudo-conservatism, and passed on every chance. (Lefties often use the term “Neo-con” to denigrate conservatives, though none seem to know what the phrase means. I’m happy to have coined the, I hope, soon to be famous moniker “Pseudo-con”. It fits McCain better than anything else I’ve heard.) We’ve shown that we won’t support an actual Reaganite, so in my opinion, we have brought this pestilent curse upon ourselves and when the political locusts devour our crop of national prosperity, we will only have ourselves to blame for shooing away the seagulls of conservatism.

Now that you know how I feel about our presumptive nominee, let me get one more thing off my chest. Just because I belong to the Republican Party (for now, at least), and just because I abhor the thought of a Clinton or Obama presidency, I am not duty-bound to vote for McCain! I am obligated to vote for the person who represents my values, my goals, my morals. I would much rather people thought that I sold out the Republican Party by not voting for McCain than feel that I had sold out everything I hold precious for the sake of a political party that now seems to mock those very principles. If I am told by one more person that it is my responsibility as a Republican to vote for John McCain, then the time will have come for the Republican Party and me to go our separate ways. “Republican Party,” I will say in a kind but firm voice, “we’ve been through a lot together, and had some good times. But I’m not happy anymore. You aren’t the Party I joined ten years ago, and it’s like I don’t even know you anymore. I want a divorce. But you can keep the furniture.”

Although we have several months before the national elections roll around and make us wish those darned Greeks had given up on democracy altogether, I have little hope for what’s in store for our nation. In four years, I expect our once magnificent country will little resemble its current condition. We may all be speaking Spanish. Or Chinese. Or the good ole’ U.S. of A. may have been reduced to a smoking crater. Whatever happens, don’t blame me; I voted for Kristi Yamaguchi.

This was supposed to be about our garage shelves!

Carlene is actually the person that got me motivated to start a blog, and I’ve had to turn to her for ideas on what to put in it. I’m sure it will show through in what I write. Today, for instance. As most of you already know, we bought our first house in March. It has essentially become the only thing we think about. So I guess it’s only natural that I say a little bit about it.

I was pretty worried about getting a house, because I never thought that we would be able to afford one. Luckily, I married someone much wiser than myself, and she realized that it was not only likely, but that we would be silly not to. And besides that, we were fed up with apartment living. So we found a house, and everything worked out perfectly.

The strange thing was, to me, it didn’t really feel like our house at first. I’m sure everyone who has gone through the home buying process is smiling and nodding their heads. My brain told me that it was ours, and I even had (still have, actually) an extensive list of home improvement projects I would like to do, but it really felt like we were only visiting. One of the things on my list was to put an American flag up on our front porch. Carlene and I didn’t see eye to eye on that originally, but after I put it up, I think she changed her mind (I hope). It wasn’t until I got the flag up and flying that it finally stopped feeling like we were staying in a fancy hotel and more like we were supposed to be here.

Now the one thing that is consuming all of my feeble mental powers is how to keep the neighborhood cats from using our front yard bark dust as a latrine. I’m sure that everyone I know is tired of me discussing this ad nauseum. I first tried a cat repellant recipe from a book I got at the library. It consisted of water, crushed garlic, cayenne pepper, and liquid dish soap. Sounds stinky and passably logical. Especially the former. But be ye warned! If someone tells you to put those ingredients in a blender and puree the life out of them, he either has some sort of mental defect, or he has a sick, olfactory-driven sense of humor. The resulting foamy, reeking catastrophe will have you wishing that the author of said recipe was near at hand, and not for pleasant conversation, either.

Anyway, eventually the repelling repellant finally made it onto our bark dust, making our front yard stink like the losing entry to a Texas chili cook-off. Well, maybe cats are fond of badly made chili, because within the hour they were pawing around in our bark dust, and the next morning it had already been pooped in. I’m now trying straight, non-foaming cayenne pepper. If this doesn’t work, I’ve got a lot more ideas, many of them disturbingly unkind.

Let the Blogging Begin!

I wanted to come up with something witty and memorable to put in my first blogging attempt, but I've been sick (again), and my brain is not currently up to the task of generating mermorable wittiness.

When once I was asked to mention something interesting about myself, I responded that I was the most boring person I know. That got some chuckles, but I feel that really sums me up quite nicely. A lot of people have fascinating jobs or hobbies. Me? Not so much. Now, I am sure everyone reading this has already bookmarked this blog in order to keep up on the current happenings in my (dull) life. If that is the case, you will eventually get to see - or at least read my silly descriptions of - my work, my hobbies, and my life in general.

For friends and family members who are reading this, I'm sorry I do such a poor job of keeping in touch. I hope this helps you keep better tabs on me. For those who just stumbled upon my little blog and decided to read it... shame on you. What would your mother think?