It was very, very foggy here this morning. Autumn often brings foggy mornings and I confess, I love them.
I swear, more trees have turned color overnight. It’s a little unnerving, how quickly it all changes. I’m not ready to leave summer behind but I guess I have no choice in the matter. Fall brings its own beauty, but it also brings a bit of melancholy. I have to fight that this every year but especially this year, because I can’t let myself plunge into despair. I refuse to cede my power. I know I’m preaching to the choir here, but make sure you have your plan to vote, if you haven’t already voted. If you’re filling out an absentee ballot, make sure you follow all the instructions to the letter. If you can, drop it off at a ballot box. If you’re going in person to vote, as we are later next month, be prepared. The wait may be a long one. I’ve already thought about what we’ll need to bring.
I know some of you might be shocked, but one of my favorite words is the “F” word. As a voice/speech coach, I work with the power of vowels and consonants and that word starts with a fricative (F) then goes on to one vowel (uh) and ends with a plosive (k). You can linger on the frictative, almost hissing it, and then you can pop the plosive. It’s a powerful and satisfying expletive.
Anyway, that particular word, which I won’t spell out here in case you find it offensive, is what I’m going to use now: FFF him and his evil minions! We will triumph. He’s losing and he knows it and he’s panicking. He already knows the only way he can “win” is by cheating. We know it, too. And we’re going to turn out in numbers too big to manipulate. If need be, he will be dragged out of the Oval Office in cuffs, his carefully coifed hair a mess, orange makeup/bronzer dripping down his face, overly long red tie practically strangling him. Next stop: prison.
I’m energized. Tomorrow morning, I have my training session for phone banking. As an introvert, this is not at all something I am comfortable doing, but I’m going to do it, nonetheless.
All hands on deck.
We played the video of Orange Man being booed over and over again. Music to our ears! And his comment that he couldn’t understand what they were saying was BS. You’ve only to look at his eyes to know he heard every word. Every word.
Okay. I have no idea what I’m going to do today. The usual, I guess. The sun has come out and it’s quite beautiful out there, with that golden light that only comes in Autumn.
Happy Birthday to my best friend, Laural. We’ve been friends for 56 years.
Stay safe.
Happy Friday.
Woody has been texting for about a month now and you don’t have to be concerned about being an introvert. It really is interesting to see the different responses. It is all set up in a positive and respectful way and he loves doing it. It is amazing to see how many people are reached daily. You’ll love it.
Eileen
That’s good to know, Eileen! I wonder if it will be the same way talking to someone on the phone?
Stay safe, cousin!
I have replayed the “boos” over and over. So very satisfying to hear – there are more of us out there who absolutely cannot believe that he exists and has any power at all.
I also am an introvert – I applaud your phone banking. I’ve been writing letters via Vote Forward, much easier for me, but I still feel like I’m contributing to removing his evil from our country.
And… if there was ever a time for using the “f” word, this is it.
Good for you! Writing letters is a great idea.
Thanks so much.
Stay safe!
I love the pictures of the beautiful tree in the fog. A little misshapen, but standing strong.
I also share your like of the F word. Sometimes you just need the worst word you can think of to totally express your thoughts.
I also learned a new word. I looked up fricative☺, and after reading the definition I said the word noting placement of my tongue. I also found it interesting reading about how it applies in other languages, and thought about you being a dialect coach.
Thanks for a blog covering many topics. Also, I must confess I was delighted with the booing video 👏👏👏I imagined myself in the crowd, and how absolutely satisfying it would have felt. Boo, long and drawn out, it feels good! Not while you are on the phone though.😏
I so wish I’d been there to join in on the boos!
Thanks, Jan.
Stay safe!
👏👍👏👍👏👍
Words are not coming easily to me right now and anxiety is high.
hej, shanna …
there’s a lot of tough things going on now, but things will get better. don’t know when (right now would be nice), but they will.
hope you have all you need so you can avoid the stores and have no chores at the moment so you can do things you enjoy (painting, etc).
praying you have peace and a safe, easy day and weekend ahead.
kathy in iowa
Thanks, Kathy. You are always so compassionate. I just need to breathe.
thanks, shanna.
hope today’s been spent doing only the things you want(ed) to do. praying for you to have ease and relaxation.
please take care of you and your kind heart.
kathy in iowa
Take a deep breath, walk by the lake, take a ride in the boat.
It will help.
Stay safe, Shanna.
Thanks, Claudia. Breathing now. 💕
Oh, Shanna, I think millions of us feel that way as well. Please know I am not trying to diminish your angst, just noting how many of us say those same words every day. This is a good spot to land every day and where I get my daily boost. Just getting through a day with worries about the virus, then adding the horror show this idiot treats us to daily, not to mention every-day things going on in our “regular” lives, it is more than too much. We will survive. We must survive. ♡
True words, thanks Chris. We will survive.
We are having Democracy in the Park, this Saturday, and next. We can drop off our absentee ballots, and for those who need a witness, poll workers will fill that function, too. I think it’s great. I hope many will take advantage of that here in the city.
While I personally don’t say F….I think it all the time. I can’t help it…OM has brought out the worst in me. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry? We just have to vote him out!!!
I wish you luck on the phone banking. I can’t believe how fast the leaves are changing around here either. Almost overnight. Stay safe…enjoy the fog! ;)
What a great idea, Donna! Love that.
Stay safe!
Hello,
Your post was music to my ears. I have been using the f word at an ever increasing pace since “it” took office. I use it in my home and car.
The booing and chants yesterday made me so HAPPY and just warmed my heart.
Have a wonderful day and stay safe,
Kaye
Park City, UT
Me too!
It reminds me of the march Don and I took part in the Saturday after the election in 2016. We stood, en masse, right outside Trump Tower and booed for hours.
But this one was even more satisfying, I imagine.
Stay safe, Kaye.
as an introverted person myself, i applaud you for getting out of your comfort zone (especially during this awful pandemic) and i offer many thanks to you and don for helping the cause of making pino a one-term pino.
i watched that video a couple times, too. while i hate that it happened at a somber time, clearly pino heard the booing and chanting to “vote him out”. maybe it’s that he wore his mask so high (right under his eyes) or more likely it’s all the vindictiveness he’s shown, but, to me, it looked like pino’s eyes narrowed when he heard the crowd, like he was mad. well, to pino i could say “join the club”, but i don’t want to talk to him and i don’t him in a club. i just want that club to be big enough to vote him out by a super-large, no-doubt-about-it margin.
those foggy photos are beautiful. can’t even see the house across the street! while not liking the dangers that come with certain conditions (ice, tornadoes, etc), i have always loved weather … learning about it, watching it and being out in it … especially rain.
absentee ballots get mailed out in iowa on october 05. that’s how everyone in my family is voting. confirmed we are registered to vote and requested absentee ballots weeks ago. when ready, i will deliver ballots straight to the county election office.
hope you have a good day. stay safe! and happy birthday to your friend laural.
kathy in iowa
He definitely heard them.
I wish we could vote now, but New York’s early voting starts around October 25th. We’ll be there.
Stay safe, Kathy!
Beautiful photos! I share your love of foggy mornings. I have chosen to take part in postcard writings over phone calling. In the past (many years) I did door to door and phoning and now it is simply a hand written message.EVERYONE I know is doing something.Let us hope. xo
So glad to hear that, Annette! Same here. A lot of people I know are doing some sort of volunteer work.
Stay safe.
I’m with you. Glad you can put it in words. I find it terribly difficult! FFFF! So anyway I have always had trouble with watching T because of his hands. He does the same thing every time. I figured it out this morning. It looks like he is doing a cat’s cradle. Drives me more nuts than the hairdo, and that is saying something.
His hands drive me crazy, too.
And they’re small.
Stay safe, Tana.
When he does that with his hands I can’t help thinking of a thing I saw somewhere (probably facebook) where they faked in an old-fashined squeezebox accordian…and he plays that squeezebox a lot!! About the only OM thing that can make me smile.
I saw a YouTube video that talked about what he often does I with his hands while talking about women. He has to indicate the shape of women which is the only way he views them. I also have made the F word my favorite word. POS is probably my favorite phrase. I won’t say the other thing I say every day according to my husband, but I can hopefully quit saying that at some point soon. I donated for the first time in my life in 2016 and canvassed for the first time in 2018. Anything you do will help with the stress and may encourage someone to vote. You have already helped my stress level with those photos.
Oh, yes! POS is one of my favorites, as well!
So glad the photos helped a bit, Beverly!
Stay safe.
YES, Shanna!!! I think of the accordian every time I see him doing that creepy thing he does. Well, everything he does is totally creepy. Has anyone else noticed how he starts wheezing through his nose when he gets challenged in any way?? Hoping on Tuesday night he hyperventilates a few times and is in a heap on the floor.
FFF is a great mantra. And the Boo-ing yesterday did my heart so much good! I, too, watched it several times. Did you hear him got on about Antifa and that “they” buy tuna in cans and canned soup to throw at the police when they riot????? WHERE does he get this crap?? We bought one of those 6 or 8 packs of tuna at Costco a few weeks ago, so now we are waiting for the FBI to show up. Such an idiot.
Did you watch any of the services at the Capital this morning? The last song was absolutely beautiful. I sat here and cried and cried. Mitch was “busy”….FFF.
It is a beautiful day here, as well. Son, DIL & wee-one are going to Democracy in the Park in their little park in their neighborhood tomorrow to vote like Donnamae spoke about. None too soon for her to experience the procedure, as crazy as it all is this year!!
Can we throw the tuna at him?
I didn’t watch the ceremony. I’ll try to catch it on video.
Living in a very red state (Florida panhandle),I have had many opportunities to use the F word. It’s the only words for the present administration !
Sherry
Agree.
Stay safe, Sherry!
Those foggy pictures are so beautiful. With the warm fall days I find I can totally block out the political noise and just sit in quietness. I read, I stitch, or do absolutely nothing. It’s quieter now because a lot of the birds have taken off for warmer climates. And the neighborhood children who ran in packs all summer are either in the house for virtual school or down the street at the elementary school. I like the sunlight this time of year too. It’s more golden, more sparkly on the walls inside the house. The older I get, the more I appreciate autumn.
We came back from our nightly walk to find a doe standing in the driveway and another one at the bird feeder by the front windows. It wasn’t even 7 p.m. I can’t believe how bold they’ve gotten but, as new developments nearby have encroached on their habitats, they’ve learned to instead troll backyards for food.
Good luck with your phone training.
Kay
Yes, I miss the birdsong, though there’s still some song here and there. It’s cloudy out today, but the trees are turning so quickly that the colors are quite vivid.
Love that you encountered the does. Our deer are much more bold than they used to be.
Stay safe, Kay.
As always, Claudia, you’re preaching to the choir! The only thing we can do is to VOTE. Imagine the awful thoughts he was thinking as people were booing him! We were loving here too!!
I SO miss my New England Falls. I was raised in Framingham, Mass & Concord, NH. This time of the year always makes me want to move back but hubby says absolutely no! So, for me, give an extra minute of leaf peeping, will ya??!!
Hi Priscilla….another fellow New Englander here :-) Raised in South Boston (Southie) and am currently in Plymouth, MA. Fall has always been my favorite time of year…..love the colors and sweater weather! Outside of New England, one of my favorite places to experience this time of year is driving across 84 and down 81. As you pass thru Scranton, PA and are looking down over the valleys…….breathtaking! Hope you are enjoying the fall wherever you live now.
~Donna
There’s nothing like a New England fall, I must admit. I grew up in the Michigan and those were pretty spectacular as well.
I’ll take more photos for you, Priscilla!
Stay safe.
Live in San Diego by the beach. Nice but hardly any seasons here but hubby would never return to New England☹️
I cannot stand to watch OM on tv in any form. He always says something that is incredibly stupid. And now he talks as if he is allowed to be a dictator like Hitler just because he got ‘elected’ once. Yet he spent the whole 8 years of Obama yelling about how he was not born in the US. Low IQ or some other kind of stupidity?
Me either. Except when he’s being booed and he has to stay silent, which he did, as he was right next to RBG’s casket.
Stay safe, Jan!
Loved, loved, loved the foggy photos. Doesn’t fog create atmosphere? No wonder they have fog machines on stage in musicals and plays…….
Interested in your discussion on words and sounds. Most of my first degree was in linguistics – and in my final year I studied acoustic phonetics amongst many other linguistic and language difficulties courses. My undergraduate knowledge was so useful in helping English as a second language learners with their pronunciations. I also worked with many students who had speaking difficulties and was given one on one time to help improve their speaking as it impinged on their business ability, with many business owners paying for their lessons because they were good employees. Enjoyed it all. However my greatest love was my academic work. Thanks for the reminders.
Also a few days ago you mentioned Paris, and I had been watching the day they rode into Paris on the final day of the Tour de France. There were so many memories as I saw places and buildings we had visited being ridden past by the cyclists. I think the greatest pleasure I had was watching the skyline turn that gorgeous pink which happens in Paris at the end of the day. This was occurring as they recognised the various winners of the Tour on the dais in the middle of the Champs and of course there were shots of the skyline taken with cameras high up in the atmosphere. O, Paris, how magical are you?
I love fog!
Interesting to hear you studied linguistics, which I use a bit in my work and, if I had had the time, would have studied. I often coached foreign-born business people as well. They often had high-powered careers and needed to be able to communicate more effectively.
Oh, Paris. I love it. We are coming up on the month – October – in which we made both of our visits and I find myself longing to be there.
Stay safe, Robyn!
The F word is extremely satisfying to say and now I know why! Thank you. I will use it with the relish it deserves, and I will use FFF Trump, too. I’ve decided that I have to try to turn my negative energy around, it’s not doing any good and it’s taken a toll on my health, raising my blood sugar levels up 3 points!! I know it’s the stress of anger, because nothing else in my habits has changed. So I am now going to visualize this image and use a mantra: Biden and Harris Win!! I can see the headline in my mind and just saying it makes me feel encouraged.My nagging fear is election contamination that the idiot has already proudly proclaimed he is working on, even to extent of admitting wants to load the Supreme Court in case the election should fall into their hands. But I hope that my mantra, when joined with many others who share our concerns, can give me hope. BTW, living in San Diego as you did, you must be familiar with California off the ocean fog. I loved the foggy mornings which would burn off into brilliant sunny days, and creep back over night to soak the grass and cool things off. I did not enjoy driving home at night at 9-10 p.m. after college classes in the thick pea soup even tho the route was absolutely familiar to me, but the mornings were soft. Your photo is lovely, capturing that mood of a gentle start to the day. Thank you and Don for taking action outside of your comfort zone to help this country. Stay safe!
PS: I found the Aga!! I will just re-address both packages and get them off to you sometime next week.
Sh*t is much the same, for the same reasons. I’m going to visualize that headline as well. Over and over and over.
I drove in the fog many nights after late-night rehearsals and performances. I well remember that.
Thanks, Nora.
Stay safe.
First Claudia thank you for being one of my “touchstone” blogs that I read every day to keep me half way sane. That and knitting (and family) has been what’s saved me these last four years. I didn’t use the F word much until the POS took over. Now, we’ll now it’s an every day thing. Everyone I know and love is voting. My 80 year old sister who I am sad to say hasn’t voted in 60 years is sending her mail in ballot this year. There are more of us than them. We are just quiet in our determination. But we will be loud in November. Take care of you and Don. Bless you both.
Bravo to your sister! At least she’s finally taking action and voting. That’s wonderful!
Thank you for your kind words, Melissa.
Stay safe!