clickmom

no roller coaster

I will not watch or read about the results until they're all in.

I will not watch or read about the results until they're all in.

I will not watch or read about the results until they're all in.

I will not watch or read about the results until they're all in.

I will not watch or read about the results until they're all in.

I will not watch or read about the results until they're all in.

I will not watch or read about the results until they're all in.

I will not watch or read about the results until they're all in.

I am nauseated recalling the feeling of going to sleep election day 2016 hearing the the dump had taken the lead and would likely be nominated by the corrupt electoral college. I would like to reopen the argument that the electoral college is supposed to protect this nation against the exact kind of person the dump turned out to be (and by "turned out to be" I mean "was before" and "continues to be" while residing in the white house) 

Over a week ago I ordered a weighted blanket from the big box store and it was supposed to be here today. But it has not arrived. The purpose of a weighted blanket is to help those of us with anxiety get a good night's sleep. If the big box store knew how bad I needed something to reduce my own personal level of anxiety they would have had someone drive it directly to my house. Not kidding.

Speaking of anxiety... I did go to see Pal, after his husband died and he said all of the things you would imagine someone saying. I mean, Pal's husband has been battling for many years, so there were no surprises. Pal has no regrets about the nursing home or hospice he chose. He talks about the strangeness of being alone, and how he never thought he'd have a husband at all, and now that he had found someone he can't picture himself finding that again... All completely standard issue for someone grieving a spouse. Except this part. Pal tells me how he thought he was handling things so well and how he thought he had a handle on his stress levels but as soon as his husband passed he felt immediate relief and can only now see the sheer mountain of stress he felt each and every day.

I am relating to the whole stress thing. I'm at the point where I don't know where the stress leaves off and where I begin again. I don't know if what I am feeling is physical or if it's emotional. To be quite honest, I don't even if know if I am ok or not. I can honestly say I do the bare minimum every day just to make it through. And I can't even do it with a nice heavy weighted blanket because it won't show up! I'm so disappointed.  It was such a splurge, and if I am going to buy something I want it and I want in Amazon Prime time! You know? I totally feel like in the wonderful world where just about anything can be on my doorstep 48 hours later, people have got to get it together and rise up! I know shipping is the least of their problems. Unless you tell me this blanket is being shipped directly from the third world sweat shop where it was inevitably sewn together there is no excuse for making me wait over a week. I don't know relief yet. I was thinking the blanket could show me some.

crashing

I can't describe the feeling I have over everything coming crashing in all at once.

The good/bad news is that there are two people bidding for utopia. The good news is that utopia has become a noose around my neck and I'd like to kiss it goodbye. The bad news is that they are both bidding tragically low and we are going to lose a ridiculous amount of money on this adventure. 

It wasn't worth it.

It will forever be one of those things that I will struggle to let go of resentment for with the husband. We had a budget, I left him in charge because that was when both of my parents were dying and living with us and I was taking care of my grandma and he spent triple the budget building his fucking dream house (not mine) and now we are practically giving it away. Also, if he had kept to the original budget the house would be paid for and we could probably keep it. Which, I couldn't care less about the house, its the place, the land I love so much. I'd be there every summer in a tent if there was only a tent. Whatever. I'm trying to let the place go, the anger go, the dream go. 

I feel like the US is closing in on me. I do not want to be a part of a country where the hate and violence flows so freely. I can't believe the disaster this has all become. I knew it was going to be bad, knew 45 was a festering crotch boil of a crook, but didn't fully realize how corrupt the rest of the gop was willing to be. If I didn't have children I'd pack up and leave. If my kids were willing to leave, I'd gather them all up and get out of dodge.

I still don't feel well. I don't know what is wrong with me. I am so unbelievably tired. I literally have one dog walk in me per day. After that I could sit on the couch for the rest of the day. Granted, today I was in the park with sweet pea for almost 4 hours, but still, I got back to the house and could barely keep my eyes open. Well, I didn't keep my eyes open, I snoozed on the couch and then was so dazed for a couple of hours I just sat there wasting my time watching insipid television. That is not who I want to be. 

So, the health crisis. Don't know for sure if I have parasites or not. I cannot see that test result on my computer. I also can not see the lab result for the bacterial/fungal urine testing. My money says fungus over bacteria if anything at all shows up. I do plan on seeing the chiropractor this week and I will be asking him if he can test me for a million things which might be making me tired. I just need to know if this is in my head or not. Because if it is in my head I can work my way out of it. However, I don't think it's in my head. I think there is some kind of infection or something somewhere after having the chills for most of the afternoon. I suspect I am having a low grade fever on and off- just low enough for me not to register it.

I ordered a weighted blanket and it is supposed to show up tomorrow. I am under the impression it will help with anxiety and who doesn't have anxiety in 2018? Not me. I'm fantasizing that Tuesday I will wake up smiling, refreshed, and anxiety free.  hahahaha. I already decided that Tuesday I will not allow any television news to be on and I will not obsessively check my phone for updates and I will wait until Wednesday morning to see if there really was a blue wave or not. I mean, the truth is we still have an entirely corrupt and criminal administration, so blue wave or not the problem is around for 2 more years. 

Today, again I was driving down the street and an oncoming car veered over the double yellow line into my lane and then self corrected just in the nick of time. I saw the woman looking down as if she was holding a phone real low in her right hand. I don't know why this keeps happening to me. Maybe it is happening to everyone. But I'm wondering if maybe there is a warning in there for me somewhere. Stay off the road, maybe? I wish I could. I wish I could move back to the city and stay there all safe and protected from the big bad world. I don't know why I'd feel safe back in the city. maybe because it will always feel like my one true home? Maybe because it is easy to be anonymous there? Or maybe because when I lived in the city almost everyone thought I was one of them. People thought I was greek, or latina, or whatever they were and that made me feel good. I like having this kind of face, a face that people can see being part of their culture. (With exceptions, obviously- I'm not passing for Asian....) interestingly enough, no one ever assumes I'm jewish. Whatever.

 

barely

So, poor sweet pea gets stung just about every other time we go to the woods these days. It's super pathetic too because every time she runs up me, tail between her legs, butt all turned down and she sits on my foot. Then, I run my hands over her body to make sure the little fracker isn't in her fur anymore, and if there seems to be an area she is poking her nose into I will give a good rub to make the hurt go away and then we continue to walk.  I was hoping that the temperatures in the 30's the last 2 nights would put an end to the bee situation, but she got stung again today.

Also, I came back from the woods felt a tickling on my thumb and looked down to see a deer tick crawling up my finger. I jumped up to flush it and it fell off.  There was a bit of a panic as I ran for the vacuum and then ran it over the general area 12 or 50 times in hopes of sucking up the (expletive) little thing. Then I showered in boiling water just in case it had a friend in my hair or some thing.

In health news, did I tell you that the chiro thinks I have anaplasmosis? I tried to go to a doc to get blood work backup and he was not a think outside of the box doc. He used a lab that has a 90% false negative rate, so no surprise, negative.  In the mean time, I pooped out something that belongs in a movie, like maybe Alien, so I am quite sure I have some kind of worm. I am going to a different doctor on Friday because I decided to find myself a GP, so I put the alien in a chinese food soup container with alcohol and will bring the Alien with me and hopefully get a prescription for some anti parasitic drug.  I'm so physically and emotionally exhausted I can barely function. 

I am not sure if I ever told you about the first time I met Pal. We were both transfer students who went to find housing with our mothers on the same summer day before school. Back in the pre computer day, a student had to physically go to the campus housing office, leaf through books of housing ads and then drive around in hopes of finding a place.  Wherever my mom and me went Pal and his mom were there. At the end of the first unproductive day my mom and I decided to take a walk after dinner. Just as we said "I wonder if that guy found something" Pal and his mom rounded the corner. We burst out laughing and greeted them, telling them we knew they were doing the same thing as we were and wondering if they had had any luck. They had not. My mom and I had been in the housing office at the end of the day when a call came in and we were going to see a 4 bedroom place the next morning and invited Pal to come along. The place was perfect, and we each signed a lease for one of the bedrooms on the spot. Standing outside the house Pal took my hands in his and said he was so excited and that he knew we were going to have a great time- or something along that line. It was waaaaaay too friendly for me, and I went home thinking I was about to live in the same house as some kind of weird stalker guy. Then in the first week I happened to share with Pal that I was huge I Love Lucy fan as a kid, and if asked I would have told you I wanted to be Lucille Ball when I grew up, because I did, except I knew you couldn't actually be another person, so I never told anyone that.  The next day Pal slips a card under my door. He was a big note under the door slipping kind of guy. It had a picture of Lucy on it and in the card he tells me how happy he is we met. I loved him from that moment on.

Pal's husband died last night. He had been suffering from Parkinson's for about a decade. It was awful. In the beginning there were a lot of medicines to try, and he could still do things, and slowly he lost all that ability. It was incredibly sad when he would call me to chat because he had thought of something he wanted to tell me but if I didn't answer with what he was expecting me to say he couldn't follow the conversation and it would be so awkward and lonely-even though we were on the phone with each other.  I feel really guilty because with everything going on in my own life, I just could not bring myself to go see him and be his friend through to the end of his tragedy because I am living my own tragedy here and I just didn't have it in me. I just didn't have enough strength for his sadness and mine. And now Pal is in this weird alone place. We spoke for a super long time this morning and he said it was a very strange feeling to think of himself as single person. His life had been so consumed with his husband's care for so long. You know how that is, right? You get so busy with the stuff that you aren't thinking forward- just for the day.  They had been a couple for about Josh's whole life- so almost 18 years. I'm so glad I got to be at their charming little wedding. They had a tiny ceremony- each one inviting only 5 people so that there were 12 of us around a giant table for a catered dinner under a nice tent in their back yard and then in the end all sorts of friends showed up for cocktails and desserts. It was really lovely. 

sweet pea

So, on Saturday I brought sweet pea to the woods. I have to park on a side street there days because the woods isn't located in my town and I don't have a parking pass for that town. I know the woman who used to live at the cul de sac where I've been parking and she has two dogs. She moved out last spring because she had divorced her husband and now the dogs are sometimes wandering the cul de sac when I pull in. On Saturday the German Shepherd, let's call him Hannes, (because I know a German guy named named Hannes) greeted me as I got out of the car and joined me and sweet pea on our hike. Hannes does that sometimes and I really don't mind at all because I love this dog. I have a thing for shepherds and their strong silent demeanor. 

Fast forward a couple of hours in and I'm happily strolling with sweet pea and Hannes when we hear heart wrenching sounds of dogs in distress moving through the brushy are to our left. The panic screams of more than one dog is coming towards and my mind imagined two dogs being chased by a rabid coyote or blood thirsty bear. The two dogs came crashing out of the brush stood and considered us for a moment before continuing to run in the same direction. Sweet pea and Hannes took off after them.

I stood frozen alone on the path wondering if I should get into a defense position and grab my bear mace or hunting knife. But I didn't hear anything else thrashing around in the brush. It didn't appear that those dogs were being chased after all. How strange it was.

When the dogs didn't immediately return I began to call for them. First Hannes came back, doing some kind of strange high step with his front paws. He high stepped right into a puddle, splashed around for a second jumped out of the puddle and then dropped to the ground and began to roll.  The sweet pea emerged from the brush covered in bees!! There were about 6 bees caught in the thick fur around her neck and shoulder area. I picked up a stick to try to scrape them out of her but she was too frantic util here were only 2 left and she let me scrape those two away. Luckily the bees didn't then turn on me.

But, after that ordeal, I decided it was time to head back to the car, we had been walking over 2 hours anyways. Before I made it to the car I saw that one side of sweet pea's face had started to swell. It was swelling right around the eye area and turning her into a one sided pitt bull looking dog. I told Hannes' owner he had been stung too, brought Hannes home, and zipped off to my own house where I knew there was a box of benadryl sitting on the kitchen counter. I always have a box around in case I have an allergic reaction to something. I ran into the house, grabbed the box only to discover it was expired by 2 years! I grabbed a chunk of cream cheese, got in the car with sweet pea and headed for the pharmacy. She spent the rest of the afternoon in a tragic position with her eyes half open and half falling off the big chair she normally curls up on. 

 

 

 

Then, I took her back to the woods on Sunday, thinking I'd stay clear of that particular area of the woods and she ended up getting bitten again! Both times she ran to me for help and sat down on my toes. It was so tragic, since I could only scrape the little demons off her and not undo their venom. This time she got it on the top of her head and on her rear haunch. I brought her home, dosed her up again and today we walked in a nice open space. It was rainy anyway, but still... I didn't want to go three for three.

frozen

I am really struggling with this grant application for the one and only reason that it requires me to toot my own horn, a practice which was mocked and ridiculed by my family. We were so trained to not feel confident and reassured in our selves that I can clearly recall my grandmother saying to me "I'd tell you how much I love you but I wouldn't want you to get a swelled head." Of course, I totally understood that what she meant was that she loved me very much but I also understood that she was also very definitely telling me not too get too comfortable in that reassuring love because ... I don't know why I shouldn't have basked in that feeling of love. Because it could be taken away? Maybe, but more like something more accurately along the lines of.....  Because then I might stop trying so hard to be lovable and no longer lovable.

That is messed up.

You have to know that by the time I was 3 I was a professional brown noser, sweetly doing any and every thing I could possibly do to win the heart of all adults in my little world. And I was a fantastic brown noser, which wasn't so tough to do back in the day of extra credit projects. I was always teacher's pet. And now I'm 53 years old and choking on the thought of writing down why I should be eligible for a grant because even though I managed to grow up and be truly confident in my own skill and ability. The thought of having to sell my self, outloud, for everyone to hear (or read in the case of this grant proposal) leaves me down right paralyzed.

Poopies.

don't lie

In a world where we are all surrounded by liars (might need a break from politics) I find it amusing when I am stopped dead in my tracks by a lie.I mean, but now I should just expect every word out of certain people's mouths to be a lie. Fool me once! Or more accurately YOU HAVEN'T FOOLED ME YET! WHY KEEP TRYING?  This latest incident happened when my niece, the daughter of the husband's sister, called me the other day. In an effort to plant a motivating seed in her brain I wondered out loud to her if she and her sister might be the first in their direct line to graduate from college.  I know the husband told me early on that his sister did not graduate from college but I was unsure of their father's status. I thought perhaps he had not finished college to go into the family business, but I wondered if I might be mixing him up with my own sister's husband. 

Then my niece told me her mom did graduate from college.

And that stopped me dead in my tracks. 

Either, the husband did not know that his sister attended and graduated from college or she's lying. 

So, I went online and checked the website of the college she claims to have graduated from. I checked the year she should have graduated and also the following year and she isn't in the yearbook. Now, I had a blast scrolling through those old yearbooks, reliving the days of crazy fashion, big hair and hairspray, but aside from my rather pleasant trip down memory lane, why lie???  We all know how I feel about liars, no time for that shit, and now I look like the awful mean vindictive aunt for blowing her lie when I was trying to be the kind and encouraging aunt. MF. I can not win.

Also, what does it mean when someone rewrites their past like that? It's a bad sign, isn't it? I'm guessing a healthy person would tell her kid, You know what? I didn't graduate from college, I always wished I did, and I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure you get to. Right?? Isn't that how it should go?

I'm so tired of crazy lying people.

I'm so tired of a lot of things. Like rape-y nominees for the supreme court. Seriously? We are getting a likely alcoholic/most definitely sexual offender for a supreme court justice? Where are the morals? Have we really sunk this low? Does no GOP member wonder what history will have to say about their actions?

Living with someone who has lost the ability to care is wearing on me. I try to instruct the husband to just say things like "Yeah" or "Good point" or even "I hear you" when I'm off on a rage rant over whatever the hell thing trump and the other russian agents are doing to undermine this country and the husband just cannot summon any emotion to care, or even respond as if he does. He was never good at following directions, hard to believe he had a brief stint as a highly functioning adult. Those were the days, though I am starting to question just how highly functioning he was back then. I may have overestimated him. 

I did watch the testimony of Dr. Ford and Brett The (attempted) Rapist the other day. I totally totally get why so many people are feeling triggered by it and am so incredibly thankful to this day and every day for the rest of my life for the wonderful care I got from my Dad's old man friend freudian therapist who helped me to not be in a place where the assaults on me from my youth would affect me by crippling me as an adult. I truly don't feel as if I carry trauma around with me every day. I do have the memories and do acknowledge that every event makes an impression on a person. But I don't walk around from day to day with fears, anger or guilt or even shame and for that I owe a lot to that old man shrink, who did right by an 18 year old girl in distress. 

 

 

Be Kind

 

This fence is right near the high school in new town. It’s that hideous plastic stuff that’s supposed to be low maintenance. For some reason this particular fence is either very dirty or very mildewed. On either case, someone came along one day and wiped out a message in the dirt. In big 4 foot letters they wrote BE KIND. 

Have I told you about this before? 

Every day I’d look over at the message and smile to myself, thinking how we really have to have faith in each other, and how lovely and human it might be if every one was driving with such awareness that not only would they spy the message but respond to it by.... Being Kind. 

On morning, months after the message had been wiped into the mildew, I saw the message had been rubbed away. But every time I see the erased fence these days I remind myself how seeing the message makes me want to go forward in a gentle way with love and respect and you know, kindness. And how maybe, there are other folks thinking the same thing, feeling the same way. I hope. 

instinct

 Today I met my friend from school in the city. I had to walk a long block when I got off the train and a homeless man was stumbling down the block saw me and started to walk towards me. I’m not kidding you when I say that the expression on his face looked like he was amusing himself with plans of how he was going to mess with me.   Without planning this out or even a moments of thought to what I was about to do I stared him down as he approached me and since that didn’t stop him as soon as he got within ear shot I said  “I’ll fuck you up” and the man turned the other way. As soon as I was a safe distance away from the guy I cracked up. I have no idea where that came from or the tough girl accent that it came out with but it was definitely effective in the situation 

shackle

So. My creative process. Not that anyone cares.... yet. Some day. Oh my gosh, some day, someone will connect his blog to the famous photographer and there will be so much to pour through. Or will there? You guys know I don't put the worst things down here. I don't whine and complain here nearly as much as I do in my own head. (And only in my own head for fear of driving the entire world away from me if I do it out loud) and also, for the sake of the privacy of the family members. I mean, adorable kid stories are one thing, but at some point they stopped being kids and now they're almost adults. (25,21, and 17) (Yes, even 25 does not appear to me to be a fully evolved adult, it's like an actor playing a fully evolved adult but still faking it in some areas)  This transition into adulthood takes longer than I realized, however, that being said, it does help me understand some of my own transitional period.

Here is an example. When I was in college I had to live off campus because as a transfer student I was not eligible for campus housing. I lucked out and got a room in a place that had the best location (and also met Pal that way) because it was right downtown and right on the bus line. As a matter of fact, the bus passed our little house on its way to school and we always knew when classes would be cancelled as soon as there was enough snow for the bus to slide backwards down the hill. We would sit in front of the big picture window in Pal's room (which was originally the living room to the house) and cross our fingers and wait.

Everything would have been just fine if I had not been a photography major who needed to spend late nights in the darkroom on campus. Sometimes I'd just miss that 11PM bus back down the hill and have two choices. I could wait an entire hour for the next bus or walk the mile or so down hill and hope none ran me over, abducted, or raped me. I usually hitch hiked or walked because I wasn't quite as fearful back then as I am now. But I didn't like hitching or walking in the middle of the night so I told my folks I had been saving money from all of my off campus jobs to buy a car. My dad said "Good Luck!" and I just assumed that meant he wasn't going to help me, so I searched the paper for used car ads and ended up buying the worst car which broke down completely on my way home from the sellers house. Long story short, it worked off and on for the next two years, I pretty much worked a million campus jobs to pay for the repairs and when I got out of school I gave it to little sis. She was very happy to have a car, but asked me if I had ever cleaned it. Cleaned it? It had never even occurred to me to clean it. 

Fast forward to current time and I asked Matt to give up the car we bought in 2009 because learning to drive on my tank size truck proved too stressful. Matt's in Philly where they are relentless about giving tickets and Matt is not relentless about paying tickets, so we get letters with insane fines on them and it makes me homicidal. Josh really wants a car to have his high school senior kid freedom in so I gently suggested that maybe Matt would like to see what it was like to not have the responsibility of having a car for a while and that's why Josh and I drove to philly to pick it up.

On the way back to new town, each of us in our separate cars now, Josh said he thought that maybe there was a jug of water in the car that he couldn't see because overtime he turned or stopped he could hear a sloshing noise. The day after bringing Matt's car home, I'm gonna name it shackle, which is short for ramshackle, I drove over to the car wash so Josh and I could vacuum it out. Something was all over the floors and I had hoped it was that cancer causing shredded rubber they put in the artificial turf fields which is killing young soccer goalies, but it turned out to be mouse poop. And the sloshing, well... to start with the entire bottom of the car was wet. Anywhere your feet might go- wet. The car mats? Slimy on the bottoms. I threw them in the trash. We vacuum sucked out all of the mouse poop.  We brought it back to the house, put it in the garage because Mat said there was a leak in the corner of the front windshield and watched as little puddles of water formed by both rear doors.  We opened those doors. slosh slosh. We found the water but had no idea how to get it out from inside of the  rear doors. We sprayed organic surface cleaner all over anything that could be sprayed and scraped 9 years of accumulated goo off the cup holders, window interiors, steering wheel, etc... 

The next day I brought it to the mechanic. He was awestruck by level of mouse infestation they had to do clean the entire engine. Anyways, I didn't know there were gutters inside the roof and around the sun roof which could be clogged with pine needles so old they composted into dirt which clog the gutters and cause leaks, but now there is no leaking in the car or car doors. Monday I am taking it to be detailed on the interior. On the one hand I don't want them to charge me extra, but on the other hand I kind of want to ask if they have has-mat suits and can use some anti-bacterial disinfectant with their wet vacs. You know?

If I could go back in time, or if I thought I get an honest read from lil sis, I'd love to be able to compare the level of ruin in Matt's car (I honestly wondered if it was indicative of a mental breakdown) and my own filthy money sucking vehicle of years gone by. 

Oh yeah, this is how that story ended... once my dad got a look the not even close to road worthy thing I had been tooling around in (off and on depending on it's repair schedule) for two years he brought lil sis to a car dealer and bought her a car that was not only reliable but a hot little silver sporty thing. We gave my car to a metal recycler. Hello?

Anyway, back to my creative process. Ah, forget it. I'll write about that tomorrow.

 

why

There is a couple of things that have me on my knees right now screaming WHY? WHY? to the heavens. The big one is that one of sweet pea's buddies from the dog park is having a rare complication of lyme disease called Lyme Nephritis. It's simply lyme disease causing kidney failure. It's almost always fatal and I just don't want to believe that this kind of unfairness is happening right now. This pup is 3 years old with big brown eyes that could melt diamonds. If you were making a toy dog you could use this girl's eyes as a demonstration. Seriously, she looks up at me and it's everything I can do not to scoop out every treat in my treat bag and give them all to her. She is lovely sweet adorable dog, and also one of sweet peas favorites. I call them "The Mischief Sisters" because whenever I'm walking with her owner the dogs disappear for a while and when we call them back the two return, striding side by side with the guiltiest sweet faces. I want to hug her and yell DON'T DIE! DON'T DIE!  But you know, it's not about me. Which is something I often find myself saying when I am sad over someone else's loss. I have been trained by my childhood to deflect attention away from myself. Children should be seen and not heard. Fly under the radar. I'd do anything in my power to save this dog's life.

The other WHY? WHY? WHY? thing is my own thing. I've been struggling the whole summer with terrible heel pain. I finally went to the chiro past week for relief. He didn't help it. I mean, basically, no relief. I went back this week and I said I thought maybe I had a torn achilles tendon and he said he was afraid of that too. I gotta see someone. It's bad. It's undeniably bad and the pain is that horrible burning pain, which I am not used to feeling in any of my other pain experiences- except maybe that c-section I endured without the benefit of anesthesia, but that burn of being sliced open was the thinnest searing hot sensation and this one is broader and comes on with pulsating waves which stay for longer. Now here is the issue: I will have to see an MD doctor to get properly diagnosed and also probably have to have an MRI (according to the chiro). I don't particularly want to do either of these things. We all know I have trust issues when it comes to western medicine. And I just don't want to lie on an MRI machine. I really don't. Also, the first thing they're going to do to me if they think I have a tear is stick my foot in one of those crazy boots and tell me to stay off my feet. Seriously? It's finally going to be less than hotter than hell outside and all I have been dreaming about this hot wet summer is cool fall days of photographing before the trees are bare and now I'm going to have to spend them in a boot? Off of my feet? Lord, give me the strength. Yesterday I was literally bawling my eyes out while driving back from the chiropractor. I'm not the stay off your feet and wear a boot type.

Speaking of crying.... I saw the movie BlacKKKlansman and also cried my eyes out over that. I wasn't alone. There was another woman bawling so hard she couldn't even stand up when the movie was over. Eventually the sadness turned to anger and the next day I volunteered at the local democratic phone bank to call people and remind them to vote in the mid terms. I'm going to do that every Tuesday until election day. I don't want to be one of the kind of person who complains and does nothing.