Yes, we can...

...and it makes me proud to be an American...

Americans voting...

I went to work early so I could come home at a decent hour to watch the returns. I don't remember this much excitement about an election, EVER. I stopped and picked up a really bad pizza and I've had a couple of cokes, and I'm back and forth between the net and cable.

Surfing the net, I came across all of these pics at The Huffington Post. I got completely choked up looking at them, and so I've posted some of them here, so you can get choked up too. If anyone asks, what does it mean to be an American? These pictures tell it all. Look at the variety of people voting, and the variety of circumstances under which people vote...these pics DEFINE us. It's enough to make your heart burst.


















LaMadera, NM


















Rabbit Hash, KY


















Brooklyn, NY


















Greenville, SC (that's a 105 year old woman, getting a little help voting)


















Intercourse, PA


















Dearborn, MI


















Venice, CA


















Smut Eye, AL


















Dearborn, MI


















Ruby, NE

Today's the day...

Today's the day. If you haven't already done so, get out there and VOTE.

Ellipsis - Monday Photo Shoot #10 - Feet

EMPS #10: Feet.
Feet. They take us here and there, and to and fro. Let's share our hardworking feet this week. If you are a ballerina, you dance on the tippy-toes of your feet. If you are scared, you might say, "feet don't fail me now!" If you are running away from a big bully, it is your feet that will whisk you to safety. You use your feet for pedaling your bike, and for driving your car. If your toes are webbed, you are probably a decent swimmer, or a duck, which means you are still probably a decent swimmer. It is your feet that encourages you to purchase high fashion shoes, and fuzzy wuzzy slippers. You can photograph your own feet or someone else's feet, just be sure to get permission first! Just show me feet with shoes or without!

If you want to play too, click HERE.
























I'm not sure why, but I've always taken better care of my feet than I do of my hands. And here's evidence: these are my feet, wearing my favorite color of polish, in my favorite, sexy shoes.

Patrick's Sunday Seven #167

Here is this week’s “Sunday Seven” question: Name the last seven entrees you had for dinner or lunch. If you want to play too, click HERE.

1. Today I had a late lunch with Katharina at a Salvadoran restaurant, Gloria’s, where I had Spinach Quesadillas and ice tea.
2. Saturday afternoon I sat outside at Blue Mesa where I read a couple of chapters of Eric Garcia's Hot and Sweaty Rex, and had a late lunch/early dinner consisting of a frozen margarita, an ice tea, and the Southwest Sampler (caramelized onion-basil quesadillas, new mesa nachos - think black beans and cheddar, and chicken taquitos. I followed it up with a cup of coffee with a little cinnamon.
   
3. Friday night, after handing out candy to the trick or treaters, I had deep dish pizza and a beer as I watched a BBC version of Dracula on PBS.
4. Thursday night Christo came over and we finished up the beef carbonnade I'd made last Sunday night, which was excellent with a little gnocchi on the side.
5. Wednesday for lunch I had a tuna sandwich and an ice tea.
6. Wednesday I worked late and had a big tossed salad for dinner.
7. Tuesday for lunch a group of us went out to La Playa Maya, where I had the beef fajitas and ice tea.
   

What I Did This Weekend...

1. I schlepped 16 bags of jungle trimmings from the back yard to the curb, as this is the week for Bulky Trash Pickup. I'd trimmed, raked, and bagged that cache a couple of weekends ago.
2. I potted some more pansies out front and out back. Pansies were a summer flower in my childhood, but they're winter flowers here in Texas.
3. I framed in the extension to the cabinet in the guest bathroom, where I'm raising the countertop by almost 4".























4. I repotted my banana leaf plant, a formidable task as it's in a 20 gallon pot, but this was absolutely necessary as Ike, the cat I've been fostering, had decided he preferred to...ahem...relieve himself in the jungle, as it were, rather than use the pristine litter box with which he'd previously been quite content. He's also climbed up inside the fireplace a few times. A new home is in his future, for sure.
5. I had lunch with Katharine at a Salvadoran restaurant we both like.
6. Kath stopped by with Xander, and we did a swap: I gave Xander my leftover Halloween candy, and he gave me some yoga lessons (he's SIX!).

Patrick's Saturday Six #238

Here are this week’s “Saturday Six” questions. Either answer the questions in a comment here, or put the answers in an entry on your journal…but either way, leave a link to your journal so that everyone else can visit! To be counted as “first to play,” you must be the first player to either answer the questions in a comment or to provide a complete link to the specific entry in your journal in which you answer the questions. A link to your journal in general cannot count. Enjoy! If you want to play too, click HERE.

1. In your own blog, are you more likely to discuss personal relationships, religion or politics? Personal relationships, for sure, although this year, with this election, I've done my share of discussing politics, a topic I'd not generally blog about.

2. If you needed a “tagline” or sub-title for your blog, what would you use to describe your blog? Well, I do have a tagline: "Random observations about life, love, and the pursuit of happiness, with an occasional flash of insight, from Emmapeeldallas"

3. You notice that a close “blog buddy” of yours has suddenly removed the link to your blog from his or her website. Do you contact that person to ask why you’re no longer linked, or ignore it? I'd ignore it.

4. Take the quiz: What Kind of Blogger Are You?

You Are a Life Blogger!

Your blog is the story of your life - a living diary. If it happens, you blog it. And you make it as entertaining as possible. You may be guilty of over-sharing a bit on your blog, but you can't help it. Your life is truly an open book. Or in this case, an open blog!

5. If there was no such thing as feed readers, the sites that allow you keep up with multiple blogs at once, and the only way for you to actually keep up with your blogging friends was to actually go to their own individual blog every time, how many blogs do you think you would seriously read regularly? I don't use feed readers. That's why I have links in my sidebar; I just check my favorites pretty much every day.

6. If you learned that each of the following people had been secretly reading your blog for a while now, which one would make you want to look back through your content to see if any apologies might be necessary: your parents, your children, your best friend, your pastor, your boss, or your worst enemy? If I've made the decision to write about a topic publicly, I'll stand behind what I've written, no matter who reads it and takes issue with it.