It’s November.

My husband and I have been putting up Christmas decorations. Like my father, I will not allow the lights to be lit up until after Thanksgiving. Since we are traveling to the Northeast for 10 days at the beginning of December, Earl wants to get the decorations up early so things are nice and festive for the rest of the family here at home and for when we return to the beautiful weather of the Sonoran Desert.

The photo above was taken just as I started this blog entry. I am sitting on our back patio enjoying the weather; it is 21ºC (approximately 68ºF) and quite lovely. I’ve been seeing photos of Buffalo being buried in snow. The warmer Great Lakes at this time of year, when brushed by cold air masses from Canada, make for some really great snow making events. My hometown in the Lake Ontario Snowbelt is also seeing some snow, though not as much as is coming off Lake Erie farther to the west. Lake Erie is the shallowest of the Great Lakes and has a habit of turning colder and possibly freezing earlier in the season. The Lake Ontario snow belt will get theirs soon enough.

It probably wasn’t as cordial as I could have been by mentioning on Facebook the warm weather down here in Tucson. I do miss snow events like they’re seeing back East, but maybe a day of it per winter season.

Otherwise I’m quite happy writing a blog entry from the back patio while wearing shorts in mid November.

Caturday.

Truman watching his morning “television”. He has a very specific ritual that must be adhered to else he’ll rattle our bedroom door, make loud demands, and rattle the door again. At sunrise.

The routine is: daddy gets up, makes a cup of coffee, checks the water dish, moves the existing food in the bowl around, cleans the litter boxes, and then dispenses five treats while Truman stands on his cat tree. After this is complete the human may return to bed as Truman jumps all the way up on his perch and watches his morning television of birds and javelinas in the back yard.

Nope.

I had my latest COVID-19 booster and yearly flu vaccination on Tuesday. I haven’t felt right since. In fact, I’ve felt awful. Better yet, I’ve felt the worst I’ve felt in several decades.

I am never getting two vaccine shots at the same time ever again.

Politics.

Photo from AP News.

The people Arizona showed a spark of sanity in the recent elections and have elected Katie Hobbs as our next governor. The margin of victory is less than 1% and has been right down to the wire with vote tabulations. Of course her opponent, Kari Lake, an ardent Trump supporter who denies anything that makes sense and is obviously vying to be Trump’s running mate, is having a hissy fit of ridiculous proportions and screaming about fraud and cheating and the like.

I’m really, really tired of sore losers.

The election was way too close for comfort and it’s disconcerting knowing that probably half the people you encounter on the street supported a candidate who feels Arizona should secede from the United States, basically stripping folks of their social security, Medicare, and countless other perks of being part of the Union, as well as getting rid of the six military bases here in the desert. Her approach sounds so patriotic. Yet, nearly half of the votes went to that nut job.

I’m interested to see what Katie Hobbs does as governor. I’ve been shying away from politics in general because the whole affair is incredibly depressing and disillusioning, but at least with Katie Hobbs at the helm of Arizona I feel a little bit of comfort.

From The Vault.

I’ve always been a big fan of The Human League, and while it didn’t get the attention it deserved in 1990, “Heart Like A Wheel” has always been one of my favorites from the group. When I was in radio in the 1990s and early 2000s we had this in “gold rotation” on our dance leaning Top 40 Rhythmic Station. I always thought the 12-inch single extended mix had much more punch than the original radio edit, so I did some slicing of reel-to-reel tape to create a radio friendly length of the extended mix. This is what it sounded like.

Inspired!

They’re shooting these videos on an iPhone!!

Here’s an Hindley Street Country Club (adjacent?) recording of “Love Is A Battlefield”. What? I know!

Fun fact, when I was in college (the first time), we covered this song in our little informal band. The leads were sang by a woman named Barbara (I called her “Rainbow Brite” because of her hair choices) and I was left to sang backups. Honestly, back then I could sing out the high descant parts in my falsetto and easily stay in key. I tried the part again in the car with Earl about a decade ago and we were all startled when I couldn’t and what actually came out of my mouth. My husband said, “please don’t do that again”.

Constant Craving.

I continue to be blown away by The Hindley Street Country Club, an Australian-based cover band. The musical ability of every member of the band is off the charts. Amazing. Absolutely amazing.

Here’s their cover of k.d. lang’s “Constant Craving”.

Caturday.

I posted a picture of Truman out on the roof a couple of weeks ago. He’s decided that he likes moonlit skies better and has insisted on spending some time surveying the property every night this past week. As the nights get chillier he doesn’t really spend as much time out there, but I like to think he’s spending quality time under the moonlight.

I do stay with him while he’s out on the roof because once in a while he’ll decide he might want to hop off the roof and we don’t allow that sort of thing.