Moving Toward the Election!

I forgot to tell you about our conversation on the way home from the GOP protest shown in my last entry. David and I road together and on the way home, David said he was going to have to decompress when he got home. Needless to say, I agreed, and simultaneously we both said…..and take a hot shower!! After walking Rosie, that is just what I did. And I took an OTC sleeping med to be sure I would sleep. It took a while to get all of that hatefulness out of my head.

I wanted to tell you about a new gadget. My Fitbit (don’t laugh!) died and I was looking at a Samsung watch that would sync with my phone ($150+) which price-wise was comparable to the Fitbit that only lasted a year. Anyway, I got on Amazon and found one that sounded good. I bought it and set it up and it’s great. In addition to having an easily readable face (except in bright sun and I don’t think there are any that show up well), it counts steps/ mileage/calories burned, it tracks sleep, and it records heartbeat. It also notifies me of incoming cell calls and texts, as well as reminding me of tasks on my calendar. If I have been sitting too long, it will remind me to move my body – sometimes I listen, other times I don’t! It is also easy and fast to charge and holds the charge for a week. I love it…..and it costs $25!! It s such a fun product and seems to do everything a Fitbit or Apple watch would do….and I wondered how their sales were doing. It is not a famous brand name and it is amazing how we are so influenced by brand names.

On Saturday (10/3), I volunteered to "speed canvass” an area of Bluffton. Needless to say, we were not knocking on doors and talking to people due to COVID. We had a very nice door hanger and we just split up into teams of 2 and covered a community (The Farm). There were six of us and I was the oldest by far, with the others literally being 1/3 my age. Even so, they were very welcoming and helpful. Justin drew the short straw (joking) and became my partner and he was great. I had met him at the infamous protest we did when Lindsey Graham didn’t show up at the opening of the GOP headquarters, so we did have that connection. Each team covered about 150 homes in about a little over an hour. On that day I did 13,000+ steps, and very few of them were made once I got home! It is definitely something I will do again, probably next Saturday!

On that note, I have to say that our newly formed Bluffton Democratic Club and county groups have done a great job of getting out the word/vote. No one wants to make phone calls (and people don’t answer anyway!), but we have done lots of postcards, door hangers, texting, etc. I actually think it may be more effective than phone calls when all is said and done. I hope all of our hard work pays off!! On Sunday I did about 115 postcards to send to likely Dems in the Crescent. Lynn and Chris did some GOTV postcards for people who have not voted in some time. We are all doing our bit!

Politics aside for a moment, we have lots of new dogs (9) on our street – if Rhonda T were still here, she would never get any work done!! The new neighbors directly across the street have Felix, a totally adorable and friendly rescue. He has a black body with a real white mane and a white tip on his tail. Up from him is Enzo, some type of bulldog and cute as a button. One new family has four dogs and I had not met them because one is aggressive and whenever she (the mom) sees another dog approaching, she crosses the street. On Sunday I was taking Rosie for her walk by their house and 6 people come out the front door. Well, Rosie is pulling at the leash, whining, wagging her whole back end, etc. to cross the street and say hello – and she won’t move along with her walk. The new neighbor sees her and walks across the yard to see her. I loosen the leash and Rosie runs to her….as Rosie does, and before I know it, Rosie is surrounded by 6 adults cooing over her! This is life with Rosie. The next time we passed, the couple was working in the yard and called to her by name! She is the most spoiled dog in the neighborhood and it isn’t all my fault!!

Speaking of Rosie, she had gone quite some time without a shivery episode, but she has had two fairly recently. The second one was at 6 AM so there was no immediate activity involved. She was against my back and I thought I felt her shivering and when I checked, she was. Needless to say, it is unsettling to both of us and I hope they do not become more frequent.

Last Wednesday (9/30), I don’t remember what politically horrendous thing had happened (another day, another drama!), but I received a phone message from David about it and decided to take Rosie to Drinking Liberally to cheer David. When I arrived, I told them I had the therapy dog! Normally, that would be fertile ground for Rosie with everyone sitting around to pet her. Well, we meet on the porch of a community building and the porch was raised. It was unsettling for her and she didn’t want to walk around and work the crowd as she usually does, so she wound up sitting in my lap or in David’s. A few people succumbed to her cuteness and came over and petted her. Even so, I left early and gave her a good walk around the park before coming home.

As you know, Lynn, Tom, and I are organizing/informing the Dems in the Crescent and we have passed along via email any Democrat events that are happening in the county. Yesterday was the Blue Bash, which was an assembly at Eagles Field followed by a car parade through Bluffton. I had participated in one earlier and it was lots of fun. Well, yesterday was dark and rainy, which discourage a lot of people......but my partner in crime/Resista Sista Tippy attended with me.  Joe Cunningham, our Congressman, was there as were most of our local candidates. When it was time for the car parade, the sun came out, we put the top down on Tippy's car, and I held a huge Biden/Harris flag as we drove through old town Bluffton. We were really encouraged by the honks of support we received along the way. We aren't easily identifiable in any of these photos, but you can get a feel for it here:

 https://www.facebook.com/BlufftonDC/photos/pcb.381993223178018/381991556511518/

Okay! Just to prove that I'm not always politics all the time, I'm going to share our daily walk in our neighborhood. I don't often take my phone on our morning walk, but I wanted to get this photo of my neighbor's Halloween decorations. To me, the sign was the perfect touch! This was her third machination of her two human and two canine skeletons! The first time they were fishing. The second time they were bicycling! This time they look like they are just having a keg party! At this point, I'm expecting something new tomorrow!

Can you see this tiny, baby squirrel? The first day that I took my phone to take a photo of the revolving Halloween scene, Rosie decided not to go that way! So, we walked up the street across from me. As Rosie is sniffing everything, I noticed this tiny squirrel on the pavement. I touched it and it was alive, but it wasn't moving much. Not knowing what to do and not wanting to draw Rosie's attention to it, I just left it there. In the meantime, as we finished our walk, two cars passed by and I'm fearing it will be run over! Finally, we get back to it and it had not been run over. So, I picked it up and placeed it near a tree where we had seen an adult squirrel. I have read that they often take in orphan squirrels, and I hope that is the case. When we came by the second time, he had unfurled his tail and he responded to touch, but I couldn't figure out what happened. He was not under a tree, so if he fell out of a tree, he was moving in unsafe territory....and maybe the road, the cars, etc. had stunned him. In any case, I hope he is okay. I have a history with squirrels. My father ran a rural general store. There was always a lot of logging going on and sometime the loggers would bring baby squirrels to the store and we would raise them, feeding them with baby-doll bottles! My father even made a cage on our porch for them. One of the times I got into big trouble was when I opened the cage, let them out on the porch, and they chewed up our wooden porch furniture!!! Mama and Daddy were not happy with me!! That baby squirrel brought back heartwarming memories and I hope he survives.