louise on the left (coast)

A little tribute to "Halloween," the way I like to remember it:   Halloween:  Hot cider.  Homemade costumes.  Little old ladies offering fresh, juicy Vermont caramel apples and homemade popcorn balls at the front door. Just some retro, random kids I might have grown up with. Days when all things "scary" were limited to ghosts and goblins, and not bloody, plastic props that look like they fell out of the evening news. This is saying a lot, actually, since I grew up in the Vietnam War era.  Every night the evening news brought to our living rooms relentlessly graphic footage of the war as well the violent protests against it going on here at home.   "Halloween," had not figured out how to market our fears back as well as they do today.   I suppose for some reason they felt it would be in bad taste to show bloody body parts in our front yards with a war going on.  Imagine that?   In any case, thank God that "back in the olden days&

I was so relieved that Bush had a press conference a few days ago to set us straight on the economy. Until he told me otherwise, I could have sworn this was a recession. Give us a break. We go to the market. We go to the gas stations, we pay our bills. We all see the "for sale" signs littering the front lawns of all our neighborhoods. I think we have a bit of a clue that things are "not good" and certainly we know there is far less money available to us these days. In our bank accounts, that is. The truth is, I never thought that things could get this tight for everyone, but it seems none of us have quite as much money as we used to. It ain't easy making ends meet. Which requires if not "thinking outside the box" certainly encourages me to " shop outside the box." But, I just have to comment again on the press conference Bush thing. So, it's live, on every channel, first thing in the morning he's calling press conference to cal