Life

Election Day 2020

November 3, 2020
kim with an i voted sticker on her nose
Me and my sticker.

It’s all come down to this day.

I wrote and sent hundreds of postcards for downballot Democrats across the country.

I donated money to political campaigns that I believed in.

I texted with Victory 2020. The last wave of initial texting is finished, but we’ll be picking up replies until polls close. I was both prayed for and called trash by Trump supporters. I was scolded and thanked by Biden supporters. And I was wooed by a Kanye supporter.

And although my favored candidate (Warren) didn’t make it into the general election, I voted for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris today without reservation, because I voted according to my core beliefs that everybody deserves to be safe, loved, and warm.

There are many out there who are being coy on social media, preaching that we should all be kind to each other no matter what. For the sake of the children (?!) we should be respectful and not mean. But if we’re couching this strictly according to respectfulness versus meanness, I don’t know if I want to continue to be friendly with someone who voted for an actual, literal, mean human being. How can you claim to be friends with people despite your political differences, but then vote for somebody who would disenfranchise those very friends based on their race, religion, sexual orientation, or preexisting medical conditions?

I guess we’ll see how that shakes out over the next few weeks.

Today I was formally voted onto the board of a professional association that I’m a member of.

Today WM was voted onto his school’s leadership committee.

And today I hope Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are voted into the White House and that we can restore decency, logic, and kindness to our country.

Either way, in January, if we’re not all dead from the virus that the Trump administration has failed to contain/control, the work begins anew.

Raise a glass to freedom…

Home and Family, Life

Halloween 2020

November 2, 2020

This year our town decided to go ahead with trick or treating, with caveats. They encouraged everyone to wear a mask, that trick or treating groups be limited to households, and that candy be given away at a decent distance. The hours were 3pm-7pm, which is what they are every year.

Jersey driving!

I was fine with this. While the cases here are on the rise again, trick or treating is an outdoor activity and even scaredy-Kim here felt fine with it.

Rather than go overboard with chutes or catapults, we decided to leave individual bags of candy on a card table. At the beginning of the month I bought some tablecovers, bat balloons, stickers, and drawstring bags from Oriental Trading Company. On Friday night we stuffed 2 stickers and 2-3 pieces of candy into each bag. At 2:55pm, we set up the table at the end of the driveway and printed a sign telling the kids to take a bag. I think it turned out pretty cute.

our candy table

Because of our GRAND MALAISE this year we didn’t decorate the outside for Halloween this year. WM remediated that decision by sticking some graves and bones around the candy table, and improvising an amazing dead Indiana Jones display.

Then we set up our chairs waaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyy back on the lawn and waited. Eventually the kids arrived.

WAY back.

Me to group of kids: Hi! Happy Halloween! Take 2 bags each!
Ringleader kid: Let’s all get 3.
WM, in his teacher voice: We. Can. HEAR. You.

It was COLD so we bundled up more as the day went on.

It’s supposed to be a spike from a trap, not a penis joke.

Nephews A (John Cena) and B (Woody from Toy story) arrived later on and I got to escort A to a few houses on my street. He gave me a Reese’s Cup. He is my favorite 6 year old.

When darkness fell and I stopped being able to feel my toes, we pulled the table up closer to the porch, turned the light on, and went inside. We drank coffee, I ate Laffy Taffy (no regrets), and we watched Disney’s animated The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, a Halloween tradition of ours.

So don’t stop to figure out a plan
You can’t reason with a headless man…

All told we had about 50-60 kids, which is about 1/3 to 1/2 what we usually get. We have A LOT of candy left over.

I’m glad we had a chance to have Halloween. I feel like we all banded together to give the kids a touch of normalcy. I wonder: when these kids get older, will they realize the weird hoops the adults in the neighborhood went through in order to make sure they had a good day? Or will it just blend in with the rest of the Halloweens?

Either way, the community and warmth we experienced on Halloween is something I hope we can carry with us as we’re plunged back into darkness for a while.

Happy Halloween from Lyotta and Spike!

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Life

October Extras 2020

October 30, 2020

Photos and thoughts from October that were a little thin for their own post.

I ordered a letter board a few months back and although it is the pinnacle of late twenty-teens white lady decorating, I enjoy changing it at the beginning of each month.

We have two fish tanks here — a larger one upstairs and a 5-gallon one downstairs. And if someone had told me two years ago how poorly I would take it when our fish die I’d have vetoed the entire project.

This Keanu impersonator made me happy for the 20 minutes his Instagram account was active before it was deleted for not being Keanu.

Yeah hi I’m not stalking this wedding! I was legitimately invited but I’m going to stand back here if that’s okay. I have lorgnettes! No, that’s not a disease, that means fancy binoculars. I read a lot and … no please don’t call security.

Mom and I went to an outdoor wedding. We stayed waaaaaaaayyyyyyyy back until the ceremony, then we dragged two chairs from the last row wayyyyyyyyyyyy back. We didn’t stay for dinner, although we were welcomed to. We wore our masks the entire time, was near nobody, and I hope by the time this post is published (this paragraph was written on the 18th) we’ll be two weeks past it and in the clear.

I tweeted that I earned a camera by selling personalized Christmas cards door to door as a kid. When I look at that memory within the framing of 2020, It feels like I had said something as quaint and archaic as “Laura and Mary carried their slates to school.”

screenshot of crossword puzzle clue referencing the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Ugh.

A very 2020 sentence spoken by WM: “I tried to get Kirstie Alley to block me last night.”

This last week, both Murphy AND Ollie have been in a state that I can only refer to as “hype.” Both of them have been running around. Both of them have been playfighting. Usually Murphy is solo in his shenanigans but seeing Ollie join in is delightful.

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