I'm dreaming...

Christmas is coming, and I'm trying to get ready for it.   It's a time of year that I used to love, but now I have mixed feelings.  Family traditions have changed or fallen by the wayside, victims of the relentless march of time...kids grow up, people move, people die.  I miss the excitement of the whole family getting together, cooking a big meal to share, even decorating the tree. Maybe I'm just getting old, but I'm really not much liking what modern lifestyles have evolved into.

Speaking of evolving, I continue to observe and communicate with the occupy movement as it takes two steps forward and one backward, growing, turning on itself, pulling itself together, changing, adapting, growing some more, etc. It's thrilling to see people at long last reaching the end of their tolerance for the corruption that has bought their government out from under them, but it will probably take a painfully long time for them to throw off the binary brainwashing that divides them so they can begin seeing themselves without the divisive labels and the assumptions that go with them, as people of equal worth and members of the human family.



As for our the status of our little home, the construction is done. Sort of. We have a still unfinished --but insulated and heated!-- second story, with temporary access by aluminum ladder (kind of like life in a submarine, if you can imagine). The cat has taught himself to climb up and down the ladder, and we can hear claws scrabbling on metal in the middle of the night.  He has new windows on the world up there.  He especially seems to enjoy sitting at the top of the ladder and looking down on the dog. Eventually, we'll have finished rooms and real stairs.  But for now, it is quiet here again. The invading workers and their muddy boots have retreated.  We're battening down the hatches. Bring on winter.

Just checking in

Thanksgiving has come and gone. We spent Black Friday enjoying the company of family, and we did not buy a thing.

Now it's December and time to kick it up a notch and finish those gifts I started making.

I've been lending support to Occupy Erie, while occupying my house and thinking about what occupiers might eventually do here in Jamestown. I am working with the social justice committee at church to organize a film and discussion series that will be open to the community. It's disappointing that most people get their information from television. They know all about child molesting coaches and Michael Jackson's doctor, but have no idea how their jobs, healthcare, pensions, and homes are being stolen out from under them. They really ought to know.

Still waiting for The Invasion of the Contractors to end. Went a whole afternoon this week without electricity (the candlelight when it started getting dark -- which it does very early these days-- was rather nice actually)--and overnight without internet -- while the electricians came in and did the big upgrade. We're almost finished now. Weather has made this a long, drawn out process, but the gutters are supposed to be hung tomorrow... and that should just about do it for now.