Weekend Drivel and How I lost the election for Kerry

How's this for a shocker!? I'm updating on a Monday! What is the world coming to?

I had an interesting, if lame, weekend. Friday was semi-productive as I got to the post office and mailed off the baby blanket to my friend Rebecca's almost one year old son. Yeah, it took me a while to get it in gear, but once I got started, I cranked on it. I hope Clay likes it. After the post office I went to Belle Tire for a front-end alignment. I had 65 minutes before I was meeting Malcolm for lunch and since it was supposed to take an hour I was set. I had my knitting with me, so while they fixed my completely fucked up alignment (my right front was at –13 which is really bad when you know the range is 13-32) I worked on one of my sister's Christmas presents which I ended up finishing that night. No, don't ask, I have no clue what those numbers mean, but I do know that having a negative # when the range is completely positive is a bad thing.

They called my name at five minutes to noon, so I got to La Pita right on time and in fact passed Malcolm pulling in as I walked through the parking lot. I love perfect timing! It had been AGES since we had seen each other so we spent the hour eating yummy Arabic food and catching up. I was the picture of grace as I dribbled cracked lentil soup down my favorite Chico's shirt. *sigh* Turns out his wife knits too, so I feel like I should invite her to join us for knitting nights when it's not official Twisted Sisters Knitting Club night as Elaine's house is just not that large.

Next stop after lunch (it was an errand running day) was campus to drop off Martina's Body Shop purchases. She met me at the circular drive so I didn't have to park the car a mile away. Very helpful. From there I went to PetSmart to get kitty litter, and of course, to play with the kitties waiting to be adopted. I was so tempted by two of them. Both females who were so sweet and just starved for attention. One was a calico with some great markings and the other was a grey and white medium hair little girl. It was so hard to leave them. If I didn't already have two cats, I'd be sorely tempted to give them a home. The only thing that keeps me from doing it is that I think two cats is feasible, three is pushing the Crazy Cat Lady label. It's so hard though thinking of those little darlings w/o homes.

I had a massage scheduled for 3:00, but had little over an hour until then so I went home and worked on the afghan I'm making for my Mom for Christmas. She pouts every time I give one to somebody else, and it's getting quite annoying. It's not like she doesn't have two afghans already, but "you didn't make those." *sigh* Whatever!

The massage was given by Nick the Truck. I'm telling you, there's the good feeling the next day where you feel like you got hit by a Mack Truck and then there's the way I've been feeling for the past three days. I'm telling you, I'm one big fucking bruise. I'm sure he got some of the knots out, because he beat them into submission. I swear my ass is still bruised. I thought I could handle a really hard massage, but I was wrong. I'm a wuss. And I declare it proudly.

On the way home I stopped at Grant's for a custard blizzard with peanut butter cups and Heath bar. Yummy!!!! The woman was all flustered from the Osama bin Laden report which had broken into Oprah, so I got vanilla custard instead of chocolate custard, but it wasn't a big deal, so I didn't say anything. That was dinner for the night. Probably not very healthy, but very tasty!

I could have gone out to see Ray with the group that night but I was being completely lame, so I stayed home and crocheted. I probably watched some TV, but for the life of me I can't remember what I watched.

Saturday was Laundry Day, and I got it all done! It's always nice to feel like you accomplished something. Okay, I should clarify that it's all washed, but it's not all folded and put away. That's just the worst part. It's sitting on my bed just begging to be folded. I'm planning on doing it today after work before I head over to my brother's house to watch the rugrats while SIL goes to a homeschool meeting.

Saturday was, besides being Laundry Day, another Alfred Hitchcock Extravaganza at my house. I started with Frenzy which I must say was NOT my favorite ever. It was a lot more violent and graphic than I expect from Hitchcock films. After Frenzy, I watched Jamaica Inn which I would say is not one of his best. It was done in 1939 and it shows. It was Maureen O'Hara's first movie, apparently. It was good but it wasn't fabulous. And then it was time for Marnie which is very well done and even though I had seen it before I wanted to see it again within the context of all the other Hitchcock films I've been watching. I definitely liked it the best of the day. And after I finished watching that, I found the end of Spellbound on Turner Movie Classics. I'm so glad Ted Turner got over that whole colorization thing!

I did have a Halloween party to which I had been invited, but since I hate costumes and this one was supposed to be a political theme and I had had someone turn their nose up at my idea of a costume, I decided just to stay home. I didn't feel like venturing out of my house or putting make-up on or my contacts in, so I just didn't go. See, told you I was lame.

Sunday was Mass followed by a Town Hall meeting where we were informed that once again the Archdiocese of Detroit is threatening to close churches again due to the priest shortage. Man, that pisses me off. Look, dumbasses in charge! There's been a shortage of priests for a while now (10-15 years), and it's not going to change. So, let's make some changes to the whole celibacy issue, let priests marry or married men be priests and think seriously about letting women be priests. Other religions have done it. Doesn't it make more sense to do that, than to close parishes and piss members off. Because if the Archdiocese thinks for one moment that if they close my church (and trust me, it's a very good possibility), they won't find me at another church. That's it, I'm done. I like my small church and have no desire to go to a church with a thousand families. I like the personal feeling of MY church. So, I told Joi that I'd join the committee to try to come up with a viable plan to save my church. I love my church and my church family and it'd make me sad to have to give it up.

After the Town Hall Meeting, I headed to the Kerry Campaign Headquarters because I had volunteered to help. What a complete waste of time that was, to say nothing of being completely discouraging. I have no idea how Mark Maynard does it continually. I had to quit after an hour and a half because I was disheartened at the end of it. I had one man hang up on me in mid-sentence. I had a number of people (I was only supposedly calling people who had told the campaign previously that they were planning on voting for Kerry) tell me that "Bush is my man." (actual quote which really scared me) WTF!? I had a number of people tell me not to call back and I told them that I would note it on my sheets. And these last two were the end of my volunteering. One guy told me that his polling place was right next door and he was going to roll out of bed and go vote. I then said, as I was supposed to, "I'm hoping we can still count on your support for Senator Kerry," and he said, "Well, you just lost my vote right there." HUH? "I'm very sorry to hear that." "I'm sure you are," was his response, "but I said that whoever called me I was going to vote for the other guy." Well, that's a really valid way to make up your mind, fuckhead. And the last guy (which was my indication to give up the ghost and go home and watch mindless comedy to get over this horrible day) said, "Who's Kerry?" when I asked if we could still count on his support for Senator Kerry. Actually, I think he asked "Who's Kerry?" after my first sentence which was, "Hi, I'm Kathleen and I'm a volunteer with the Kerry Campaign calling to remind you to vote on Tuesday." After his shithead comment, I said, "Senator Kerry." "I've never heard of him." I decided not to take the bait this jackass was offering and I simply said, "Thank you very much. Have a nice day." And then I hung up the phone and turned in my pages and went home, but first stopping at Merchant's to pick up some Guinness and chocolate.

Once home, I threw Major League in the DVD player because I needed to get my mind off the complete assholes there are in this world. Nothing quite like volunteering for a political campaign to make you realise that people do suck ass. I hate people. After Major League, I watched Eddie Izzard, Dressed to Kill, but I'm afraid it didn't do the trick, as when I got into bed, I just laid there thinking about how I lost Senator Kerry a vote that day. Now I realise that if it hadn't been me, it would have been one of the other volunteers, but for a first time volunteer it was incredibly depressing.

And if we lose tomorrow, I'm going to need to be heavily sedated on Wednesday.