The aesthetic of her books - and the Prairie books and the Anne books and any number of others - probably contribute to the wistfulness I always feel this time of year for fall and seasonal changes. Here the change of seasons is marked by resetting clocks for an earlier sunset.
Even as I dream of someday settling east of the Mississippi in a little Cape Cod in a small country town with a picket fence and an English garden, my children declare their love for California, and my college son admits to being homesick for surfing and his toddler sister. I offered to buy him a ticket home for Thanksgiving, even though he has a standing invitation at his grandparents' house only 3 hours from school. He said he could tough it out until Christmas break, but he wants to surf every day he is home. And my high school daughter is thrilled we aren't moving next summer. She wants to live in California always, she says. Woe to me!
Maybe when we do finally move away - although we could just get moved up the coast next - I will feel more love in my heart for California. I should have read more Steinbeck and Stegner. Maybe if we move off of our busy street to a place with a small yard, I will be more content, I think. But the reality is a spiritual weakness, I fear: an unwillingness to feel at home because of that selfishness that prefers something other. It is difficult to discern what is a weakness of will and what is a wound that needs healing.
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In other news, we have caught two rats and wounded, mortally, I hope, a third. He set off the trap and left a trail of blood. I couldn't find his corpse. More rodents may be in residence, based on the teeth marks in our little pumpkin on the counter, but our traps haven't been sprung in the past few days, nor have I discovered any more droppings since the pumpkin was gnawed before Halloween. That was when I finally set out poison, something I was reluctant to do because I didn't want to smell the dead bodies before I found them. I have emailed our landlord but haven't really pushed for anything because I feel some what responsible, since we leave out crumbs and candy packages and crusts of sandwiches in abandoned lunches. Since the rodent alert was raised, food is prohibited from leaving the kitchen/dining area, but this rule is difficult to enforce on the toddler and preteen who slip snacks into their pockets and bags. At least the toddler is now aware that we can't have food in her room because we have "mice," as she told the neighbor the other day.
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Tomorrow is voting day. A historic moment for our country - was there ever an election when the candidates were more disliked by their own parties? I feel nothing about this election. I can't believe our country is where it is in terms of candidates. It's a farce of the darker kind. The options are so preposterous, so undesirable, so unbelievable, that I can't really get worked up about who wins on Tuesday. I wasn't going to participate in the election as a conscientious objector, but in the end, because my husband filled out the ballot request online, I did go ahead a vote for a write-in, just to exercise my civic duty.
As a wonderful distraction, the Cubs won the world series! I haven't watched a baseball game in years, but Illinois is our state of record, so I watched the last two innings of that last game, as did the kids. That last hit was a more uplifting historic moment.
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It seems like most people I know are doing the mail-in votes this year. Is this because most people I know are military who are registered to vote somewhere else or are California voters, who mail in their votes because they have so many ballot measures to decide yes or no that it takes a week to read the ballot booklet?
The mayoral vote is pretty exciting here, as is the school board contest. I'm trying to read up on the local politics and ignore what is happening on the federal platform, even though I can't vote locally.
It will be interesting to wake up Wednesday morning and read the news.
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