Recently I heard a speaker at my quilt guild (Simi Valley Quilt Guild) make a comment that we don't make anything anymore... as it turns out she was trying out her humorous insert which she used despite my less than encouraging reaction... she continued that we don't even make our beds.

Now this really has nothing to do with this hub's subject other than it was the thought stimulator that led me down a garden path of running into an larger than usually number of totally inept people doing their worst as if it was a full moon unaware. (did not consult the calendar, just feels like it is still high tide in folks brains to me.)

Another way to look at it is from the way of the Tao, where perhaps I can view today as a test of my accepting the way of things and letting go. The day started out extremely late for my household since somehow we all managed to stay up til 1 am or longer when we usually are 10 or 11pm at the latest sorts of folks. (yeah I know it sounds boring, but I really like my pillow and sleep works for me.

I should have known what kind of a day it would be when I discovered not only was I out of bacon ( oh gee... now is my confession of being an omnivore. Oh well it would have come out sooner or later I suppose.) but I also had been told the day before I was out and had not understood the offer of running to the store for me to be of such urgent re-stocking of the staples.

There is just enough survivalist in me that my household could manage for at least a week, maybe two should disaster hit and make us unable to go for supplies/ help/ water. I think far too few homes are prepared for disaster, and it is those who are who have a better chance of surviving the majority of natural disasters.

But I digress. Mother did not have her usual breakfast, but seemed satisfied with heading out to see my Dad in the nursing home. (we go every day unless there is good reason to not go). There were the typical drivers failing to maintain lane integrity, not looking before barreling in front of your bumper .... all of which were safely navigated through.

There is a caution yellow tape across the entry we usually use, it is election day and the home is housing two precincts in their dining room, so the parking is non existent. I turn around and stop near the wheelchair ramp and unload the wheelchair and Mom and head up to get her inside out of the heat before moving my vehicle to the street to park. Well, at the top of the ramp is another caution tape that appears to be directing us back towards the other entry but on the patio, so I grumble a bit and head that way. It is not too long before a worker at the other end yells at me, and sure enough it is about that time I start to feel my shoes sticking to what I am walking on.

My reply was to ask how one was supposed to get inside with a wheelchair. I swear the guy said, "I don't know, ask somebody inside" ... I did not come back with something like and how pray tell can I ask someone inside if I am outside and can't get the wheelchair in?" No, I turned muttering under my breath in the repressive heat of the afternoon, tore down the tape barrier that had blocked us from entering that way just as a young man who was obviously the co-worker of the one I was muttering about came out that way and saw me rip down said tape and get Mom inside.

By the time I had moved the car to park on the street, they had moved the tape so it did not restrict access to the nursing home, and therefore the polling place. (which had signs saying they were handicap accessible, which they had not been prior to my arrival.) Mother had already called the director of the home to complain (too bad on that one, I was wanting to be the one to tell him what I thought about the lack of planning to have the patios and walkways painted the same day as the election.)

Having served as a poll worker, and several times as an inspector, I went into this polling place and asked to speak to the inspector.. turned out there were two of them and when I mentioned that walking the pathway to insure there were not impediments to the polling place did not appear to have been done and that there had not been handicap accessibility to their polling place. Amazingly I got the response, oh we fought them on that one but we lost.

Now, I did not lose, I took down the tape, and had I been the inspector for that polling place I would have had the director of the facility and not waited for some grumpy woman pushing a wheelchair in the heat to lose it and tear down their tape.

After our visit with Dad, we drove up to the closest JoAnn's, we will skip that episode entirely. It was almost enough to keep me home but that we never make anything anymore had been tumbling round my mind and I knew there were a couple of tools that I had broken and needed to replace, some groceries to pick up so we would not be in rationing mode... the adventure lasted a couple of hours from there, it sort of reads like a Rube Goldberg cartoon which I somehow glided through unscathed.

Searching for the trigger to this trying day, I thought back to the morning when I found out about the bacon, and that I had been told about the bacon being finished... and my girlfriend telling me to have a bad day without her or something like that.

While I am a believer that there is energy in thoughts and in words, I would prefer to believe myself capable of not following such an instruction. I also am a believer that we create our own world and our own experience of life each and every moment.

My personal philosophy is to enjoy the ride. Mostly, I am enjoying the ride. Oh, and I am making things, quilts mostly.  I have this excavation in my front lawn where I am extracting a stump in a large enough chunk that I might be able to get a modest sculpture out of it.