BIG TIME THRIFTY THANKS!

This year, I'm giving thanks...

For my family and friends

For all my internet friends (that's you!)

For people who leave nice and/or weird comments on this blog (you again!!)

For still having a home (see last post)

For websites like this

For the time and energy to still be able to haul my butt to the thrift stores (while I should be doing my real work)

and finally, for bizzaralicious objects like the lasso-wielding kitty cowboy!!!

What are y'all thankful for?

TEA FIRE LAUNDROMAT

So, as I was driving home on Thursday night I noticed that the hillside near my part of town was on fire.

As I drove down the freeway, carefully rubbernecking with the other motorists, I began to realize the fire was in the hills directly behind our place.

With flames visibly leaping a hundred feet in the air, the sounds of electrical transformers and eucalyptus trees exploding in the distance, and the air chocking with smoke, my mind rapidly filled with a host of anecdotes about people not evacuating when they should.

So after spending a tense hour or so rifling in my piles of junk for my great grandfather's World War One mementos and some family pictures, we loaded the pets in the car and bugged out for a friend's place and then a Motel 6 a town over.

[FILE PHOTO]

Because our dog was nervous and in a new place he naturally decided to urinate on our hotel room bed... twice.

So that is how, on the second night of the Tea Fire I ended up in the laundromat on the edge of forever.

Except for a few people who wandered in and out, the place was deserted.

The decor could best be described as mid-70s gentrified, one of my favorite decorating styles, I'll admit.




Adding to to the strangeness of the scene was the piped-in local radio station broadcast that interspersed reports about the raging fires in between classic rock tunes.

Of course, the paintings of faceless children...

and psychedelic cityscapes were a bit unsettling too.

Of course, there were some nice recent acquisitions as well. Call them post-rinse cycle surreal.


Some elements were less artistic and more pithy commentary on the decline of American school standards. "My School Suck" indeed.

All in all it was a welcome break, if a little weird, from worrying whether our home had been destroyed by conflagration.

We unlike some, were lucky though, and today were able go back home. Other than the overpowering smell of burnt beef jerky or smoked cheese, everything was fine.

But becuase that smell has permeated all our clothes, I see an ancient laundromat in my near future.

POST-HALLOWEEN PRE-THANKSGIVING CANDY DTs

So am I the only one who's been grazing on left over fun size candy bars for the last week? Got to justify buying that 2 lb bag at Costco, you know. $20 sounded like such a deal.

I'm sure I could cut back and spread the treats out over time -- everyone knows that junk's so pumped up with preservatives that it'll last a week into the next ice age.

I was therefore actually kind of sad that the above ancient (28 years young) package of Sweetarts that I found in an old hunting jacket at an Oxnard thrift had long been devoured.

Sure, a Carter/Reagan-era Snickers might be deadly by now -- and I have an unpleasant memory of eating a mini Hershey's bar I found languishing under my friend's bed back in the 70s. But I seriously think I would have popped these antique Sweetarts into my mouth without a second thought. I have a funny feeling that Sweetarts will be the primary foodstuff of the post World War Three crowd, what with all the zombies and radiated cans of corn making grocery shopping difficult. If it's good enough for the old man in the cave, then it's good enough for me.

Plus, the potential psychedelic effects of finely aged pre-post-punk high fructose corn syrup would be a nice bonus, no?

Maybe I'm just loopy from all the chocolate.

!!SMILE!!

Why? Well, for one, this endless election is almost over!

That means no more Joe the Plumber!


Maybe we'll finally end the endless war too...

Is it too much to wish that someone will fix our broken economy?

Here's hoping the new boss has some better ideas...


...that is unless we get mired in another 2000 recount headache (gulp!)

Okay, I guess it's true -- we're just exchanging one set of clowns for another.

In fact, I can't even remember the last president that I respected...

Heck, most presidents just kind of blur together, get all swirly, until you can't tell one from another. Who the heck are these guys supposed to be anyway?

One thing I know, if we get too complacent, we've got nobody to blame but ourselves.

So get out there and VOTE! ... and then go thrift store shopping. :)