It's mid-October already!!

Not much going on up here, other than watching our investment and retirement accounts hemorhage money with each day that the stock market crashes. Many of our clients are wiped out financially. Then we find out that a yacht/boat maker in Everett is closing it's doors, letting over 800 people go. That city is depressed enough and really cannot absorb 800 more people out of work. "And so it goes, but where it's goin', no one knows...."

So to keep my mind off the situation as much as possible, I've been egg hunting on Facebook, which is by far one of the most addictive games. Over 400,000 people have the application. Not everyone actively plays, but tens of thousands do. I've met the nicest people on that game. We help each other to collect the special editions. So far, there are 35 of them. It's fun. 6 Halloween eggs were released on October 1 and it's been a mad dash to find them.

Brian had an interview the other day, so PLEASE keep your fingers and toes crossed that he gets called back for round 2. He has worked w/ a bunch of people that are at this particular place, so I'm hoping that the person he talked to will go around and talk to the other employees. Workers Comp Claims is a fairly small community and it's not at all unusual to work with the same group of people, but at different places. It doesn't seem like they are doing "cattle call" interviews, so we're hoping that will give him more of a chance of getting called. The job is a little further north than where he worked in Federal Way; it's near SeaTac Airport. Not near as bad as going to South Center or Seattle so that's a good thing.

The weather's finally turned quite chilly, which is fine w/ me. The warm September weather was getting more than a little bit old. The snow level has dropped below pass level. Woke up to the first frost today. Everything was all sparkly. When I was a kid, I used to love to go exploring in the woods on clear, cool fall days like this. Most of the time Diane was spending the weekend w/ me so we'd both go as deep as we could till we either reached the edge of the salt marsh to the east, or the railroad tracks to the west. We'd be out for hours and hours and my mom never worried because there never was a need to worry. We'd come across really old, low rock walls, in New England they are called "settler's walls". We assume they were put there by the first settlers of East Sandwich, before the trees and scrubby brush grew and obscured them.

I will never forget the late fall afternoon when Diane and I were toiling to get up a very steep hill. We were in our early teens. When we got to the top, it dropped off into this perfect circular depression, and growing from the center was a HUGE, old tree still covered with bright yellow leaves. The wind couldn't get to most of the leaves b/c of the sides of the pit, so it was the only tree in the woods w/ leaves, much less foliage. I remember us both going, "WOW!!!!" and tearing down the side of that pit to check out the tree.

Unfortunately nearly all of those woods have been torn down into developments. It breaks my heart. And nowadays with all the wack jobs, I wouldn't want to venture into the woods, even as an adult and not unless I was armed.
Has anyone, besides Bryde, been watching "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles"? We LOVE that show. It's really good. Of course Fox is making noises about canceling it. They always cancel the good shows in favor of the garbage t&a crap, and why they resurrected "90210" is beyond me. T:SCC is great; if you can, check it out b/f it gets canceled.

Anyone have any plans for Halloween? We don't. I haven't even decorated. I'm just not in the mood to drag all the crap out of the closet under the stairs. I have to first pull all my craft stuff out first then haul the tub of decorations out....I'm just too tired. We usually go all out with seasonal decorations, starting at the end of September, through December 26. But things are so bad this year. I saw a statistic that said 80% of Americans are under crushing stress. I just find the need to want to just come home and hang out, play on line, and let my brain go to mush.

The past few years we have only had a couple of kids come to the door. No matter what we did to try to entice kids to come up to our door, we were unsuccessful. We would change out the porch lights to black lights. I carved pumpkins and put them in the window upstairs, on either side of a large black Halloween tree with purple & orange lights. We hung purple bat lights in the windows. Covered the downstairs family room in candles. No one wants to hike up our dark, steep driveway. When I was a kid I would have climbed Mt. Everest to get candy, but I guess kids today are less discriminating. Brian did scare the bejesus out of a little girl a couple of years ago...I blogged about it, and it can be found in the November, 2006 archives, dated November 1, 2006. It was a very funny story.

Of course we can't be caught without candy, so I will be getting the Reese's variety bag, Smarties and the Nestle's Crunch/Kit Kat variety bag. It is, of course, strictly a coincedance that those happen to be our fave candies. And if we get no kids, oh well.....can't let all that candy go to waist. I mean waste.

I want to wish our neighbors to the north a very Happy Thanksgiving, as Canada celebrates it this Monday, which is our Columbus Day unless, of course, you live in the Bay Area, where it's "Indiginous People's Day".

There's something wrong with Sagan's right leg. He's been limping a lot. We had the vet check him out on Wednesday when he went to day care, but the vet found nothing wrong. Yet, he's limping all over the place. He runs and jumps normally and seemingly w/o pain, he races around the yard like a maniac w/ Pepper. We've both gently palpated all up and down his leg and paw, and he never pulls away or winces. Did the same to his shoulder and neck and he seemed fine. Yet when he walks away, he limps and when he stands still, he lifts his paw off the floor. I hope this is something simple however I have a feeling this may take some costly diagnostic tests to figure out, but we can't bear to look at him limping around.

Well, I'm gonna go colour a picture in my Seasonal Mandala Colouring Book. I also have over a month's worth of stuff to catch up on, in my journal. Last time I wrote it was Labor Day. Brian's making us a delicious dinner of meatloaf, baked potatoes and corn. We have college football on, the dogs are snoozing. The only thing missing is the old "ABC's Wide World of Sports."