MYSTERY FLOWERS AND HAPPY HALLOWEEN.

It is a lazy, wet Saturday and I didn't open up my front drapes until about 9:30. There, on my door mat was a beautiful bouquet of flowers. The card said, Too The Best Mom, with a rather unintelligible message. But the address was to a house I haven't lived in for 18 years. I thought, who calls me Mom but doesn't know where I live? Hmmm!

And, it is Halloween time and this bouquet is in a beautiful glass pumpkin. But, Halloween is a time for tricks and treats and maybe there is a bit of trickery going on here. I decide to call the company that delivered the flowers. She told me, "Our truck broke down on Pennsylvania Gulch Rd. in the middle of the road. A couple came walking by as the tow truck was hooking onto our truck and the driver, with bouquet in hand, asked the couple if they knew me?  No, they didn't but they walk by the Hanging Tree Rd. address and they offered to deliver the flowers for him. Hmmm!
I call the folks who live at the Hanging Tree Rd. address and they said no one had delivered flowers to them. Aha! The Plot thickens. The people who claimed they didn't know me obviously knew where I lived. I've called the neighbors and no one will own up to delivering me this beautiful Halloween Pumpkin filled with flowers. I'll eventually find out who sent them and I'll enjoy them in the meantime. But, since I love a good mystery, double thanks to whoever you are.
And, since I haven't blogged in quite some time, I will play catch up.  I had a surprise visit from my friend Maril:

We like the Firewood Restaurant in Murphys. Maril loves their fish tacos.

I'm a button collector, and Maril and I tooled around town and acted like tourists, which I love to do now and then. We came across this button festooned jacket collar, but I have too many clothes. I wouldn't buy it.  I might try decorating a similar jacket.

Calaveras Community Television has purchased the property under the Paul Moeller Studio. (Paul is our founder and it was so named by the County to honor Paul.)  Pam Quyle and I walked the property and found the boundaries that encompass a gold mine.  We have a heritage tree above it also. Just look at those roots.

It's kind of fun to have a goldmine on your property. But, this one panned out long ago and has no gold. We've arranged to have it "fenced" off with wrought iron stakes, (rebar) every four inches apart so no living creature can ever get caught in it. Yet, it allows water to flow through to the creek below.
And, CCTV will be changing hands with a group, under our name, who will have many hands to do fund-raising and support the studio. The only constant is change.

I saw this kid, zooming through a clothing department and stopped to see what he was wearing?

He calls them "Wheelies". It reminds me of that movie, Back To The Future, as in what will they think of next? Truth to tell, I love it. innovation, surprises, life is good! Happy Halloween.

PRIDE OF BEING AMERICAN.

My friend Domenic Torchia says:

“We must undo the damage done by the hateful rhetoric from the teapublicans and bring back civility and respect for all Americans and American institutions. Opinions will differ (hate is not an opinion) but in the end we all must be Americans.”

Americans build together, have faith in each others goals, no matter what party. Americans believe that differences of opinion are healthy; working together with opposing views brings out our strengths. That was once upon a time… Things have changed dramatically.

 (Image by Getty)

Here is how the Miami Herald assessed the hypocrisy of this election:

Bill Clinton cheats on his wife. Impeach him. Trump proudly brags about sexual assault (and has cheated on his wives). Elect him. Hillary oversaw the department of state while 4 people died in an embassy attack. Put her in jail. 2 Republicans were in office while over 200 people died in embassy attacks. No problem. Immigrants don’t pay taxes. Round them up and kick them out. Trump doesn’t pay taxes. He’s a business genius. Hillary’s foundation only spent 87% of their donations helping people. She’s a crook. Trumps foundation paid off his debts, bought sculptures of him, and made political donations to avoid investigations while using less than 5% of funds for charity (and he got shut down by NY State). So savvy... Put him in the white house. Trump made 4 billion dollars in 40 years, when an index fund started at the same time with the same “small loans” he received would be worth $12 billion today… without a trail of bankruptcies, thousands of lawsuits and burned small business owners. He’s a real business whiz. Hillary took a loss of $700k. She’s a criminal. Trump is the first candidate in the modern era not to release his tax returns, and took a billion dollar  loss in 1 year. Genius. Hillary takes responsibility for private email servers and apologizes. Not credible. Trump denies saying things (on the record) he actually said (on the record), he’s just telling it like it is.

Your arguments are thin. Your ignorance of reality is shocking. Your double-standards are offensive, and your willingness to blindly support him and recycle the rhetoric is absurd. Your opinion is not fact. Your memes are not news articles. And your hypocrisy is not a platform.

Alex Schiller

I thought it was worth repeating. Thank you Alex Schiller.

PREPARING FOR WINTER IN OREGON.

I spent a week in Oregon to get ready for winter. A storage building matches the house my son, Doug, built for me. It was full of leftover building materials, necessary tools and "stuff". It is small but useful except it was boiling hot at the end of the day and freezing in the morning. You couldn't work in it with any comfort.  First, I had a trench dug from the house to the building for electricity and water. Over that a new driveway put in.

Paisley, helped her grandfather rake out the gravel. Grandfather Frank is driving the equipment in the background.

The rake is a bit heavy, but helping grandpa is important.

Frank emptied everything out of the shed and with a special machine, hoisted the sheet rock up to the ceiling with a helper.

Everything inside got put outside.

I brought home stuff no longer needed to donate to Habitat for Humanity. Then the rains came, a day earlier than predicted. We were able to quickly get things under plastic and protected.  I didn't get a picture.

We put some stuff back in the building. It is still raining, and no more work has been done on the storage building.  My next project is a car port for my van. Then, I'll be finished with my place in Oregon. I mapped out the spot to put the car port, but I'm told I have to be there. Another trip is set for the last week of October-early November. Then I'll snuggle in and work on my genealogy and quilts during the cold months of winter.

I know my storage building is pretty boring stuff, but from Oregon I hope to do some road traveling in my van if I ever get my projects in Murphys completed.
Ciao

THE POLITICS OF FEAR.

 (A Getty Image.)

I have a tough time understanding why people, especially women, and African-Americans will vote for Trump.
People want to believe what they want to believe and it has been fear that moves that train along.

In the 1960's, The John Birch Society used a former black Communist Party member to convince the masses that Moscow intended to turn America's Southern states into a black colony of the Soviets.  Those were the cold war years of fearing Russian aggression.

Ronald Reagan coveted a Republican National Committee loyalist, Dr. Gloria Toote, who made the case for him that the Negro will be delivered to a "Federal plantation"  if the opposition wins.

Trump has  black Reverend Mark Burns who preaches,  "Our enemy is Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party." Then, at Trump's convention, was David Clarke Jr., a black version of Arizona's Joe Arpaio, making the case that Black Lives Matter is a "hate group."

In the case of women, when one of his supporters at a Trump rally, punched a woman in the face and knocked her down, he gave a thumbs up and said, "It's always more fun at a Trump rally."
The rape case of a 13-year-old girl filed against Trump and Jeffery Epstein, a convicted pedophile, was refiled in New York this week.  Trump says of Epstien, "Jeff is a fun guy to party with". Fun, indeed.

He made references to killing Hillary by pointing a gun at her head in a picture. On his website, the kill messages from his followers was frightening. He went overboard when his entourage rode into Indiana with an effigy of Clinton being hanged. People were horrified.

Now, he is suggesting that in Philadelphia and in other Pennsylvania districts, they should intimidate voters and do anything to challenge voters, as has been done in the past. Voter patrols wandering around in black neighborhoods with guns,  telling people they can be arrested if they don't have the proper identification.  Trump believes it is okay to do this kind of stuff; to do anything to win.

And, of course, the Republican Party has vilified Hillary for years. She has an irrefutable record of dedicated public service but if you call someone a liar long enough and often enough, people begin to believe it.
Calling Trump a bully is too kind. He harbors criminal intent in his campaign. He should be investigated for bribery, fraud and hate crimes, but there is a double standard for the rich and influential people of the world.
Billionaire Warren Buffet has often said, "My secretary pays more taxes than I do." He thinks it is unfair.  And, it is. And if you vote for Trump and he wins, you will be poorer.

And, America, the greatest country in the world, will also be poorer in the eyes of the world.