Thank GOD!  The election is finally over!!! There just aren’t words to express how happy I am.  I had just about had it with the news and the newspapers and the gossip floating around the people I see on a regular basis.

There was a while where I just didn’t feel like voting.  My voice, my vote, has never, ever seemed all that important in the grand scheme of things.  Also, I always feel so very uneducated about who is running.  There are so many half truths and absolute lies out there that you cannot be sure who to believe.  They really should make a law that says anything less than 100% true, concerning the candidates, can’t be written or talked about – at least in the mainstream media – all the news outlets and newspapers.  That way, everyone hears the same thing – not just the bits and pieces of what they want you to hear.  I think that would make life so much easier.

I did vote, even though I wasn’t entirely sure who I wanted to cast my vote for.  I thought about voting for myself, or the tree on Elm Street, but I thought that would be a complete waste, more so than my actual vote, so I didn’t.  Other than voting because it is my constitutional right to vote, I voted so that I could bitch.  You can’t complain about who is in office and what he/she does while he/she is there unless you partake, right?  All of you non-voters – I don’t want to hear a peep out of you!!!

Am I happy about the results?  It is hard to say.  I want Obama to do well.  But had McCain won instead, I think I would still feel the same way, because in the end I didn’t trust either of them to do the job that America needs done.  I know that change, and I hating using that word, won’t come any time soon, nothing of any importance ever does, but I hope that the seed is planted so that the roots may start to grow.  I really hope that Obama watches that seed grow and takes care of it like he says he will.  I would hate to see it wither and die like my garden in my backyard.  I’ll keep my fingers crossed and hold my breath for the next four years.

Good luck, America.

What do you think it means when I dream Phil is a vampire and he is trying to blow my house up with C4?

I think it means I have been reading too much of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series.  I’m on book four now.  When I am done, I won’t know what to do with myself.  Any suggestions on what I should read next?

I don't why, but I found this humorous.

Phil and I made sure that we had plenty of candy to share with the many kids who live in his apartment complex, but would you believe that only four kids showed up at our door?  And only one of them actually had a costume on!  I’m guessing that either A) the parent’s of the other kids took them to bigger subdivisions or B) all of the “Halloween is the Devil” people are living here and refuse to participate – which I hope is not the case.  I feel bad for kids who don’t get to dress up as some exotic person or creature and run around collecting candy one night a year.

Today at work though, I saw the cutest mother and son costume.  The mother was the Chiquita Bannana woman, and her son was a organic Chiquita Bannana.  The woman totally looked liked the Chiquita lady – basket on her head and all.  I wish I had my camera on me!

She looked almost exactly like this picture.

I think Morgan was Basement Cat. Perhaps she went back to Hell to make sure all the other hell cats were behaving themselves.

I’ve finally decided what to be for Halloween.  The Purple Queen!  You’ll understand when I take some pictures and upload them later. And I didn’t have to spend a dime.  Horray!  Everything came free of charge out of my wardrobe.  Can’t beat that.

Reasons I haven’t been posting about anything lately:

1.  Nothing interesting has happened in my life worth noting.

2.  Haven’t been on any picture escapades – although, I have more than enough memory for my camera now, thanks to Phil.  He got me a 16 GB memory card for my birthday.  Yeah, 16 GBs!! That’s almost 5000 pictures or 121 minutes of video on my highest setting!

3.  I’ve been engulfed by Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight Series. I’m already on book three and I just started reading a week ago.  It’s pretty decent, although at times cheesy and repetitive.  One thing is for sure, I know what I am going to wish for when I blow out all 27 candles this Sunday.  I wish Phil was a vampire. 🙂  He practically already is – he’s strong, pale, and comes alive at night.  Maybe I should ask him if he is one before I waste my wish!

4.  Pen pals.  I’m communicating with three girls.  One in Italy, one in Germany, and the other in Spain.

5.  I’m lazy.

Last night Phil and I went to Wal-Mart to just walk around.  We do that sometimes, if we have nothing else better to do.  Yeah, we live such exciting lives.  🙂  Well, when we got there, I had to run to the bathroom.  I had just had like 6 glasses of sweet tea at Pho Viet, a Vietnamese restaurant.

I hate public bathrooms.  More often than not, they are pretty dirty because no one ever bothers to clean them on any sort of semi basis, but when you have to go, you have to go.  Stall one was occupied, stall two wasn’t the prettiest, stall three was a disaster, and stall four was occupied, as well. I decided to go back to stall two, it seemed like the safest bet.  Everything about stall two was normal except for one thing.  Sitting on top of the sanitary napkin trash can was an EPT pregnancy test.  I let out a good laugh. I am sure the people in stall one and four thought I had just lost my mind.

I could visualize some oversexed teenager walking into Wal-Mart, buying the test hoping she didn’t run into anyone who may recognize her, taking her purchased good into the bathroom and hoping for the absolute best.  I’m sure the test was in there somewhere, but I wasn’t about to go looking around for it.  I hope the results are what she wanted.  I can’t imagine that she came to the Wal-Mart bathroom hoping that the symbol on the stick said positive, but who knows, we live in a strange world.

A part of my soul hopes I will never ever have to use one of these things.

Okay, we all know that I am a bumbling idiot, so what is new you ask?  Well, nothing much really, except I need to much a correction.  A few days ago I posted a little story about how Holy, a friend who we had met in Fuyang, China, had come to visit us during his fall break. In that post I said that his name was pronounced like Holly.  While he was here though, and after I had made that post, I found out it, after nearly two years of knowing Holy, that is name is indeed pronounced Holy – as in holy shit, your kidding me! 🙂

You can imagine how stupid I felt.  I then tried to figure out how the confusion started.  Some point when he Holy met Phil, he told him his name and showed Phil how to spell it.  I am pretty sure Phil double checked and made sure it was what he meant, but I guess our English minds wanted to hear Holly, and so that is what we called him.  I asked Holy why he never corrected us and he said he didn’t know.   Perhaps it is was the same reason I never made the scores of Chinese people say my name correctly.  I knew calling me Gabrielle would be difficult, so I opted for Gabe.  To most people in China that year, I was known as Gabe-a.  I should have simplified it even more and gone by G.

I told Holy how hard it was going to be to retrain myself to actually say his name correctly.  The last few days he was here, I had to catch myself mid-name so many times.  Hopefully, it won’t take too long to learn.

On Saturday, Phil, Holy, and I went to the South Carolina State Fair.  Holy had never been to one, so we thought he may enjoy it, especially the food.  Fair food is the most fattening food in the world, but it tastes so good!  The food is the main reason why I go the fair every year, even though a foot long corn dog costs $6.00.  Yep, 6 buckoroos for a stick, a hot dog, and a light coating of fried bread.  I understand its the fair and all, but geeze, 6 bucks?  Anyway, when I was younger, though, I went mostly for the rides.  I can’t count the times I got sick riding them.  I remember riding Starship 2000, now called Starship 4000( year 2000 came and went, baby), until the world felt like it was spinning 10 minutes after I had gotten off the ride.  Ah, good times.

It was a little bit cold on Saturday, which is a bit unusual for October in South Carolina.  The wind was kicking and the skies threatened us with dark clouds all day, but thankfully never gave us a shower.  Our fall is usually more pleasant than that.  I’m just glad the day wasn’t a bust.  I would have been sad had Holy not had the oppurtunity to go to the State Fair.

Here are some pics and videos.  Enjoy.

I found this in the art building. It appears to be a bird made out of paint brushes. Strange.

I've been to the fair only about a half a dozen times, and I have never seen this sign. It made me laugh.

I just love this picture. It didn't take long for Holy to decide what food he wanted to try at the fair.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DR6fXfhY3-w[/youtube]

My favorite part of the fair, besides the food, is the animals. Once the chicken eggs hatch, they put them on display. The food is put almost out of their reach, so when they go to stretch, they lose their footing and fall down into the stream of water.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqXngXKdzJs[/youtube]

I don’t know what to say about this other than I think it is creepy.  The kid screaming in the background makes the video ten times cooler.  🙂

I’ve heard a lot of strange names in my life, but I think this story tops them all.

At work the other day, I had to call and see if an applicant would be interested in applying to a position similar to one she had applied to before.  The name was normal enough – Tiffany.  I called the number and let it ring a few times.  A moment later, a man with a rather deep voice answered the phone.

“Hello?”

“Hi, may I speak to Tiffany?”

“This is he.”

I nearly fell out of my chair.  Never in all my life have I met a male Tiffany.  I’m still trying to figure out if it his parent’s hated him, or if he changed his name as he got older.  Either way, it’s weird.  Very weird.

Another thing that I never imagined happening occurred this week.  Holy(pronounced Holly), who attened the high school that Phil taught at in Fuyang, China, decided to take his fall break and visit us for the week.  He is attending Troy University in Alabama this semester.  Well, instead of taking the bus to get to us, like we would have in China, he actually drove.   Holy bought himself a car and passed the Alabama driver’s license test.  I must say, it was very strange to be driven around my city, by a guy I met in China and who has only lived in the States for 9 months.  I guess it would be like me moving to China, buying a car, and driving Holy around where he grew up.  I dunno, I guess i just find it weird – and a bit funny.