Go-bama!!

I will just say briefly that it was very exciting to experience last night's election. I was amazed that it was over so quickly - Neil and I were settled in for a long night of election returns and nail-biting and lo and behold, they called the election at 8:30. Crazy. I'm sure the tv stations were not pleased with that...

I have to admit a deep dark secret that I haven't voted in a long time. In fact, I don't think I was ever even registered to vote in Oregon. Well, I have mended my voting ways and walked up the block yesterday morning to cast my vote in someone's garage. It was an interesting polling place.

Things have been fairly quiet here. The ants did mount a two-pronged counter-attack on Sunday. They appeared in the living room and through a tiny crack in the kitchen window. I merely applied the secret weapon again, and viola! no ants again. I think I'm finally starting to break them. There were a few coming up out of the bathroom sink drain this morning, so they must be really desperate and disoriented.

Halloween was interesting - in San Francisco it appears to be an adult holiday, not a kids one. I saw very few kids dressed up and no trick-or-treating. However, our neighborhood was filled with adults in costume. Having no such parallel holiday in Portland, Neil and I were caught completely unprepared, and uncostumed. Someone explained to me there is a lot of crazy people in San Francisco who love to pretend to be someone or something else for a day. They will take any opportunity to put on a costume. Sounds like a psychological problem to me.

Our neighborhood also tends to be filled with younger, fraternity/sorority types and so the most popular costume that we saw on Friday on Chestnut St. was some version of "slutty". I saw slutty nurse, slutty devil, slutty witch, and just plain slutty everywhere. In fact, it was almost strange to see a girl in a costume that did not involve a tiny skirt and a lot of cleavage. Apparently, halloween in our neighborhood is a chance for girls to be hookers for night - try that on for size, weigh their money-making options? I swear I actually saw the costume below on someone - this is slutty nurse...

We went to a Halloween party on Saturday night at my co-worker's house. It was a costume optional party, which meant that everyone came in costume but Neil and I. :) We actually saw some very interesting costumes there - very few sluts. I haven't been to a party in so long, it was like a weird flashback to being in college again, with the keg and people outside smoking. Neil and I enjoyed getting to be out and about on a Saturday night, but were over it pretty fast and headed home. Parties have never appealed to me that much, anyways. Everyone is so loud and it's not like you can have a conversation with anyone. I am reminded why we grow up and move on from that stage in life.

Friday I had an awesome day. My co-worker, Linnea, came home with me after work on Friday and we went on a long run together - the last one in the light of day. With the clocks going back, I will now be running in the dark. :( I've been running with her once a week and it has been really great! It's so much easier to run when you have someone to talk to - makes the time fly by! We saw a blue heron flying by at the end of the run. After the run, we went out to dinner at a little place on Chestnut St. called Pacific Catch. They have the best barbeque salmon sandwich EVER! And they serve sweet potato fries instead of regular fries, so you feel like you're eating better - even though they're still deep-fried. The restaurant is tiny, with just a few tables and then a long bar, overlooking the cooking area. So we sat at the bar, and it was very nice a cozy and we got to watch them cook our stuff. We had a nice time, with good conversation. Afterwards, we rode the bus to meet Neil and his art friends Lauren and Rochelle at Lauren's house. We sat around and chatted and shared a bottle of wine. It was just a very pleasant evening spent with new friends.

Saturday was the best day of all, though. I'm sure you are all tired of all the whining I've been doing about it not being cool and cloudy enough down here. Well, the weatherman more than made up for that Saturday. It poured all day long! It was fabulous. We had our heat dish on and were warm and cozy and lazy all day long! Neil stayed home from the studio and we hibernated all day, with a 2 hour nap in the afternoon. I couldn't have asked for better weather. And the really cool thing about the rain down here is that it feels like a Spring rain because it is still so warm. I noticed temps in the low 50's in Portland and it's still in the mid-60's up here. Nice and mild.

I feel a little tickle in my throat and am afraid that the fall bug is going to get me. It always right around the change in seasons that I get one of my two yearly colds. This might be it... So, I'm off to overdose on vitamin C. Hope all is well with everyone!