​I mentioned in my initial blurb earlier in the month that October is my favorite month. The leaves are changing colors, the pumpkins are in full force in the neighborhood, the kids are talking about their costumes, I’m preparing my own costume, my son’s birthday is happening, we go applepicking, there is usually a one day retreat, comic store activities, the return of The Walking Dead, my parish’s anointing mass, the Living Rosary, and a host of other motivations and inspirations for writing and centering.

This year, however…

Ugh.

It is 15 days before the midterm elections. Most years I vote, but I don’t pay that much attention. I trusted President Obama and even President Bush, who I did not vote for, to keep the country steady. I trusted Congress, even in its usual disfunction to keep a check and a balance on the President, although the Republican Congress during the Obama years went a little crazy on the obstructionism. I trusted the Supreme Court to follow the law. Even Scalia, who I didn’t like and disagreed with on almost everything, had a moral compass.

But this year….Good Lord. The hyperbole is strong – this may be our last free and fair election. Vote now, you may not get another chance. This is the most important election of our lifetimes.

And you know what?

It is all of those things.

In early 2017, I re-read 1984, and i was kind of amazed at how much of it I had forgotten, and also amazed, and petrified at how much of it seemed to be coming true with the new Trump Administration. I hesitate to call it a Republican administration, but the Republicans in  Congress seem to have forgotten their function in favor of…I don’t know what it’s in favor of.

So, yeah, long story short, tl;dr, yell, scream, run, don’t walk to your nearest polling place, and VOTE!

We also were not able to go applepicking this year. This is the first year since we’ve had kids that we haven’t gone. Even when my son was nine days old, we still went applepicking. I’m so torn about this.

My oldest child is moving out.

I know; it’s time. He’s ready. I’m not, but I probably would never be, but he’s ready. He also has two jobs, a car, and has been feeding himself for mostly a year now. He’s ready. I need to keep telling myself that.

I was late to my doctor’s appointment this  morning, and I would have only been less than five minutes late. Except for the speeding ticket. I can’t even.

I was going to go as a Hufflepuff professor for Halloween. I just needed a witch’s hat, and then Jamal Khashoggi was brutally assassinated in Istanbul. In 2016, I went as a journalist because of all the attacks on the media by the Trump campaign. Back then, I had no idea how bad it would get for the journalists and their colleagues. I would have never expected any President of the United States calling our free press an enemy of the people. I even less expected that after the murder of a US Permanent Resident, writer for the Washington Post, that any President would take the side of the murderers and make excuses akin to covering up that murder. So I’m recycling my journalist costume, both in honor of the free press and in memory of Jamal Khashoggi.

Let me try and think of three positive things before I go.

My brother may come for a visit for a few days. The kids are excited and it would be nice to see him. We’ll have to come up with something interesting to do. We’re a boring group, but I think we can fake it. We’ll need to start cleaning now. Like right now.

I’m planning on doing Nanowrimo this year. I loved how last year it gave me focus and motivation. I need that again, and am very much looking forward to it. It begins in ten days!

I got hearing aids this week. I’m still getting used to them. Some things are a little too loud, but the amount of times I say “what” and cup my hand over my ear has gone down by about 99%, so that’s a bonus. I’ve noticed a real difference in church, hearing the kids talking to me from the backseat of the car, talking to a waiter or waitress in a restaurant, and I’m more disturbed by the rattling that I can now hear my car making.