My first and last comment on the 2008 presidential campaigns

I've been following the campaigns obsessively for the past few weeks. Before that, I was cowering under the bed, as I usually do when I have to face other people's bad news.

Yes, I have a lifelong allergy to bad news. It's gotten so I rarely read the papers and insist my husband wears headphones when he watches the news.

But I gotta say: my husband had the headphones off a few nights ago when Obama was explaining why we need some kind of economic rescue bill ASAP; in calm, measured tones, and in detail. And I realized I was able to relax when Obama was talking about our troubles.

• When McCain talks, I hear an old white man demanding my vote.
• When Obama talks, I hear a wise man explaining how everything's going to be all right.
  

I'm just sayin'.

The Merry Old Land of ... Willits

... not "Oz."

Well, we have arrived, and spent the past weekend unpacking things. I almost miss having a produce store and drugstore across the street, but it's more than balanced by friendly neighbors, attentive (in a good way) landlords, and an actual piece of forest on the property. We have a view of farmland from our bedroom window. We have space to put a dining room table – something we haven't had for years!

When we landed in Willits on Friday night, our son and daughter-in-law hosted us to a magnificent dinner: we pulled our propane grill out of the moving van and they adorned it with a buffalo tri-tip, of all things – so by guess and by gee, we cooked it just right, somehow. We got to crash at their place, after spending a few hours cleaning up after the previous owner of our new place. We smudged the house repeatedly.

The previous owner left a lot of nice things behind, so we left messages on her cel phone to make sure whether or not she was coming back to get them. No reply, until I asked my daughter, the only tobacco-smoker in our family, to do a little old hoodoo trick: write her name on the next cigarette she smoked.

We got hold of the lady within half an hour.

So, yeah, I'm gloating today, and will be for a long time to come.

I'll be able to take calls tomorrow, or maybe even this evening. The phone number is here; scroll down to "Miss Michaele." I'll be keeping the 510 phone number for a while so as not to confuse everybody; the listing went up just before I moved. The Hoodoo Foundry Phone is a VoIP line, so I can have any area code I want and use that line no matter where I'm living, as long as I have Internet access.

Moving Day

Well, we found a little mobile home in Tie Dye Town Willits, CA, where my son and his family live. They've been nudging us for years to move up there where they could help us with connections and labor and things. This month, we finally got the chance. The money has changed hands, the papers have been signed, and we'll be planning our garden and shopping for seeds and tie dye next week. And waiting to sweeten your luck, of course.

This is the place.
Here's the official Willits website.

Big doings at the little coffeehouse

I only got to do one reading at Café Sorriso today -- the new manager! Pentacles came up -- one reversed, one upright -- so we got into a conversation about market research!

It was extremely quiet after that -- I myself was about one third of the "Sunday lunch rush." But when I went up to the counter to get my sandwich, the new owner, Tracy, was excited about new plans: "Next week," she told me, "we're going to put up a sign, 'Under New Management,' and we're going to have Vietnamese chicken noodle soup, noodle dishes, eggrolls, Thai iced tea, and bubble tea! And we're going to make everything fresh!"

Now, this little place has changed hands about four times in the past dozen years, and this is the first time I've heard about anybody paying serious attention to the quality of the food -- and I really think that is the one thing that will make this place take off!

The weekend Tarot readings will continue, of course. I'm shifting my schedule again, hopefully for the last time: noon to 2 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays.

"Now we can do Big Things for love"

Preach it, Brother Geek!



... with thanks to Rev. Jack at the Pirates of the Unitarians blog.

Bad news?

Well, a couple of days ago, the Corazon Brothers (see below) lost their balance: the top stone fell right off onto the glass plate that supports them.

I didn't do any cleansing or protective work; I just thought, "Well, you know ... gravity..."

The next day when I left the BART station on my way home from work, I discovered that my brand new bike had been stolen. I may have left it unlocked, but maybe not.

So anyway, by the end of the following day – yesterday – my darling husband had bought me a shiny new Raleigh bike, for about three times the cost of the old one. So, yeah, big financial hit.

But a much better bike!

A spot of pronoia

So I was thinking about the alleged extinction of the honeybee today -- a topic that's been frightening me for weeks now -- and somehow or other, my mind wandered onto the topic of Al Gore -- you know, the man who lost the last presidential election.

Do you remember (those of you who didn't vote for George Bush) how crushed you felt when the wrong party won? Do you remember how permanently lost it all seemed? I am far from a political expert, so I will simply gloss over the slow-motion train wreck of the past four years, and remind you of this:

Al Gore went on to accomplish something else he has been trying to do for the past 30 years: revolutionize the political will on the subject of global warming. I wouldn't be surprised if he has already accomplished much more out of the White House that he ever could in it. This is just the latest example of the principle: sometimes the Universe knows better than you do.

Working the practical side: a place to research

Here's a little post to help you work the practical side.

I'm in the midst of starting a (not-conjure) business, thanks to Women's Initiative for Self-Employment, as described before. A classmate of mine, Dream Doula, turned me on to a website that is a mine of information:

"City-Data.com"

There you can find out all kinds of surprising things about any town you might want to work in: where are the richest neighborhoods? How many gay households are in your town? How much money does city government spend on services? How clean is the air? What is the racial makeup? Is the economy growing or shrinking, and why?

You can advertise your business, too.