If We Were Having Coffee on the 24th of October, 2020

40 Replies

Hello and Welcome. Come on over and sit down and I’ll get you a large mug of very strong dark roast, a cuppa tea or other beverage. It is surprisingly warm for this part of the world in late October. It is a bit damp out, but it should be drying out today (I hope). Where are we? Some may recognize that photo at the top as being from New Hampshire.

It was a pretty week. I think we hit peak color last weekend, but during the week most of the green went away as the color spread. Yes, more bare branches and less of the brilliant reds and bright oranges, but the yellows came out, as did the darker oranges. It is now starting to head more into the browns, but at the early stage, and still beautiful.

It was also a warm week. I think I wore a long sleeve shirt two days, then back to short sleeve and no jacket in the afternoon. It was pretty wet – in the last two weeks we’ve had three big rains and two days that were just damp, but not really raining. This is good because we were technically in a severe drought, so any moister helps.

They are doing construction almost across the street from me. The “excitement” for the week was on Wednesday evening, just after everyone left the construction site. I was cleaning up for dinner and the water pressure went to almost nothing. I went around the house looking to make sure there were no big leaks or anything, checking all plumbing. After a frustrating time I checked the official FaceBook site for the town. Sure enough, a few people were asking about water. Trucks pulled up to the construction site and my water went off. This was a little after 6 PM. I could hear them working literally all night, being at their loudest at about 4 or 5 AM, but by 5:40, when I got up, there was water! The faucets hissed and sputtered, scaring all of the animals, but the water was back after about 11 hours!

I had to bring my car in for work. Usually easy – I drop it off on the way into work and have a co-worker bring me in. We are now both working from home full time, even without Covid-19. I brought it in Wednesday afternoon (I got home shortly before the water outage ;) ) and picked it up Thursday afternoon. Unfortunately, I have to run back in (over a half an hour drive each way) today.

On Tuesday our Lions Club sponsored a “Candidates’ Night” for the local people running for state level positions.” I feel that for these people it is important for their voices to be heard so people know them from more than just a sign on people’s lawns. In the past, we had many candidates from a certain party who refused to come and then called us biased because we still held it when their party wasn’t represented. A high muckity muck in their party threatened them if they attended – some ignored him, and now he has far less influence, if any. Interesting, they have swung fully to the other side and this year it was obvious that they collaborated – several of them used the exact same talking points, using the exact same words. Anyway, it was a Zoom meeting, and there were perhaps only about a dozen people who were not candidates or Lions Club members on the call. Of course, we didn’t do a great job getting the word out this year, and a big chunk of our town has already voted.

I voted over a week ago.

Besides that, I had massage (Tuesday instead of normal Wednesday), walked and played with the dogs, did my photo-shoot on Sunday (see results here), ran (not as much as usual – odd week! – exercised, including using my new pull-up bar, and worked. It was an ultra-busy work week! Ugh, I hate when it is that busy, but that’s why it is called “work” and not “paid play” ;)

That is about it. I hope it dries enough for me to run today. If not, I will tomorrow in the cooler weather. I have to run down Ford to get my recall completed. I need to be outside a lot, with and without the dogs, after spending so much time inside this week because of weather and work. I need to rake – a lot of leaves on the ground!

Anyway, with that, I will be off.

Thanks for stopping by! f you have a coffee share, I will try to stop in and say hi.

Have a great weekend.

The coffee share is hosted over on Eclectic Alli.  The link to join is here.

40 thoughts on “If We Were Having Coffee on the 24th of October, 2020”

  1. Sagittarius Viking

    Sorry I am a bit late, but I really enjoyed having coffee with you. Great that you didn’t go without water for too long. My neighbour actually warned me today about our water company doing some work in the neighbourhood tomorrow and that we should make sure to have some extra water on hand,.,.just in case they mess up with the digging. Who knows? I believe it’s relatively safe, and that they know what they are doing, but better safe than sorry right?

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    1. trentpmcd Post author

      It is better to be safe than sorry – if I had know, I would have made sure I had plenty available. I was very happy, though, that we had it in the morning! That would have been tough. I hope you are having a good week :) Thanks for stopping in for the coffee.

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  2. Prior...

    Hi Trent – glad the pull up bar is already part of your routine ;)
    I am still using ours but took a few days off from it – I miss in person yoga classes so much !
    And hope the recall stuff is all set now – also that lead photo at the end was really beautiful
    So unique compared to a lot of leaf photos and for the coffee share content mood ☕️☕️😊

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    1. trentpmcd Post author

      Thanks, Y! It is funny, I had literally just ordered the pull up bar when I read your comment about using one. I played around with it for a couple of days, and have now incorporated it into my routine. I’ll admit that the first day was pretty grim, but they are getting the hang of it it (no pun intended ;) ). Unlike that pushup challenge, after the first few days, I am now only using it every other day to give rest between.
      Thanks, re the leaf photo. I took a few, and liked the feel of this one. I posted another one on the “fall photo gallery” post I did.
      I hope you are having a good week :)

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  3. Antoinette Truglio Martin

    As always, your picture are wonderful. Autumn is especially beautiful. I think this year the foliage is brilliant, at least to me. Thanks for the pause and coffee.

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    1. trentpmcd Post author

      I agree that the colors do seem to be better this year. We had a slow start, but once they started to turn, it was brilliant. Thanks for joining me for coffee. I hope you have a good week.

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    1. trentpmcd Post author

      Thanks! Yes, Grace Kelly takes after her namesake and is a beauty. It has been a busy week, which is good in a ways and, well, perhaps there was too much this week ;) We are now into the tail end of the foliage – I hope you are getting it down there!

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  6. dprastka

    Thank you for the coffee, your kitty is so beautiful! He or she looks like she’s staring right at me!! ❤️ And the fall colors, oh my, that deep red leaf is amazing. We get a little bit of Fall color but it’s such a muted yellowish brown, probably because we just don’t get cold enough here. Hope you have a great weekend!! 😀

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    1. trentpmcd Post author

      We have three cats and I posted two on Thursday, but there is something about Grace that is very photogenic – she takes after her namesake, Grace Kelly, I guess ;) The colors here were gorgeous this year. Hope your weekend is going well!

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  7. Southern Patches

    Hello from East Tennessee. Our colors here are changing but slower this year because it has been so warm and dry. If I had coffee with you I feel that we would be discussing our fur babies. Your cat that you have pictured looks adorable. I would also love to talk to you about your photography. It is amazing. I never get tired of seeing fall color. It is my favorite time of year. Very much enjoying your blog.

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    1. trentpmcd Post author

      East Tennessee – are you in or close to the mountains? I’m sure the mountains are beautiful this time of year! You are pretty far south, so a couple of weeks behind us – it is possible you’ll still get some color. We had a very dry year, but the foliage ended up being great. Thanks. I’m sure we would talk about my fur-babies – I have 3 cats and 2 dogs! I hope you are having good weekend. Thanks for stopping by :)

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      1. Southern Patches

        I am actually at the foothills of the smoky mountains so there is much more color there. In just the last couple of days we have had a bit of rain and changed some of the colors. Yes who knows what a couple of more weeks might bring.

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    1. trentpmcd Post author

      I wish I knew more,but… We do have election day, the first Tuesday in November for national elections. Election rules are up to the state, though through history there have been national laws to make elections fairer. Most states have an “absentee” ballet system for people who will not be able to vote in person on election day (i.e., if they were going to be in Portugal). This year, many states, including mine, are allowing absentee ballets for people who, because of Covid-19, do not want to stand in line in a crowded building. I chose to vote early using an absentee ballet and saying I didn’t want to vote on November 3 because of Covid. In stead of mailing it, I gave it to the town clerk (sort of – it is a tamper proof box that she watches in real time. Also a camera). Some states do have true early voting. I’m not sure which states have it or their rational. One thing, hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of people get blocked out of voting because the can’t get to polling stations or polling stations are closed or other similar reasons. I think states that have straight up early voting do it to try to ensure everyone gets a chance to vote. No matter how it is done, votes are not counted until the end of voting day, this year Nov. 3. When you vote in person, your name is check as you enter the polling station and again when you leave. You can’t vote twice. When you vote by mail or drop box, the check to make sure you didn’t vote in person, and check off your name so you can’t vote twice that way. Despite what a few people say, it is very secure and there have been very few cases of cheating or anything else like that. Anyway, I think ever state should make voting easy with many polling stations that are open for many days, but some purposefully make it hard for poorer voters.

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  9. Gary A Wilson

    Ha – we should be glad when the water pressure drops and we’re NOT caught all sudeds-up in the shower. About the voting, our family in mass are going to walk our mail in ballots into the voting office the day of. Our area is known for voting irregularities. . . I can’t imagine that adding days of piles of ballots moving around the post office and whatever office has been stood up to receive them would do anything to clean up the mess we live in.

    I’ll bet which ever house you’re at these days, they are beautiful with fall colors.

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    1. trentpmcd Post author

      I dropped my ballet off at the town office – they have a special ballet box that is only out when someone can watch it. That way I don’t have to rely on the post office. Also, the day of seems dangerous – if somehow they don’t post mark it until Wednesday, yuck: every vote needs to count, no matter who people vote for. I was lucky about the water, but it was still a pain. After they started to work on it, if you turned on a faucet, it sucked air instead of spewed water…. I love autumn in New England, and Cape Cod is gorgeous, but the fall foliage is much better in New Hampshire (some parts of Mass are great, but the Cape is just OK).

      Hope your weekend is going well and that you have a great week ahead.

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    2. Lizl Bennefeld

      Loving the fall photos. (And the cat!) Our foliage was covered by huge piles of snow, taking the form of a canopy on one of our cotoneaster trees. Not sure I will be able to clean up the garden, this year, before winter. We do have two weeks of early voting: three polling sites the first week, in this county of N.D., and six the following week. I was happier with going in the first day of early voting rather than mailing my ballot, which I did for the primaries, this year.

      The massage and the exercise both sound wonderful. ::sigh::

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      1. trentpmcd Post author

        Early snow sounds awful – a few years ago we had an October blizzard with over 3 feet of wet, heavy snow. I never saw as many trees down – the leaves were still on the trees, so the heavy snow stuck, and just toppled quite a few. We don’t have “early voting”, but, due to Covid-19, they allowed everyone to cast absentee ballets, no questions asked. Our town had a tamper proof box set up under the supervision of the town clerk, so I dropped my ballet in that box instead of mailing it.

        I hope your weekend is going well and that you have a great week ahead!

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        1. Lizl Bennefeld

          Sounds like a good setup for the ballot collection. As to the early snow, I can remember a number of recent winters where trees were downed. Not many locally, but farther south and into Minnesota. Unnerving! Stay well!

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  10. bearmkwa

    We voted first week of October. I’ll be sooo glad when this election is over and I can watch my programs in peace again. Today would be a lovely day for a walk… I’d probably get yelled at if I tried, though. Good luck with FORD. Have a great week.

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    1. trentpmcd Post author

      I’ll be glad when election season is over. Hopefully at least part of our lives will be able to return to normal, if not our entire lives. It was a very nice day for walking here, especially after the the wetter air moved out (it wasn’t raining, but just supper damp). Ford had to order something when I was there earlier in the week,but it was just a quick stop in, so no issues – just a long drive. Hope your weekend is going well and that you have a great week :)

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      1. bearmkwa

        I’d go out for a walk to the post box but it’s raining again. I did manage to walk from car to McD’s without cane this morning. A good thing. By next week, I hope to have foot back in a real shoe. Yeha! :)

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  11. aFrankAngle

    We’ve also voted already. Unfortunately, we still have to watch countless TV ads. Even worse, most of them are for candidates outside my area. Scream! Love the closeup of the cat. The past week a big one for me with the launch of my new blog. (Thanks for visiting.) It’s the time of year of temperature swings, so that’s what it is.

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    1. trentpmcd Post author

      I try to avoid the TV as much as possible in the election season (actually, I always try to avoid it..). I still get tons of calls, even though I did break down to answer one to tell them that I voted, so leave me alone. Thanks for stopping by for some coffee!

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