I don’t know why, but I always expect a lot more mature behavior and attention to the issued from politicians than they are ever willing to give.
A couple of nights ago, I turned on the television and settled in to watch a little of the Republican debate. It’s always interesting to hear what the politicians who could soon be leading our country have to say.

While I was hoping for some brilliant responses that would give me hope for the future, instead, all I heard was a lot of finger pointing and bickering. Immigration, plans for Iraq and the pro-life-pro-choice question were all topics that the candidates used to point their finger at someone else on the stage and place blame for something.

The democratic debates haven’t been any better, with some candidates blasting others for their stance on the war in Iraq, or their support or absence of support on any possible issue.

I know that this is really what politics is all about. For years and years and years, politicians have tried to gain a foot hold by bad mouthing their competition. The future rulers of our country insult and name call more than snotty teenage girls. Instead of inspiring me to want to vote for one candidate more than another, it mostly makes me so disgusted that I end up trying to pick the lesser of the evils.

We’ve still got time, since campaign season is just warming up, but let’s hope that before this thing is over, one of the candidates takes a stand and actually sticks to the issues instead of bashing the front runner in order to bring him or her down a peg.

• I was getting gas the other day and of course I came across some more scary cause they’re so bad signs at the gas station. (Just to refresh your memory, I’ve also complained about the “Pumkins” sign, the “We love are business” sign and signs everywhere with misplaced  apostrophes.) The newest sign on my you suck list says “We no longer except checks.” Now I know that everyone makes mistakes, but come on!

• There’s an all white deer in the woods behind my house. It’s the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. It’s just a little tiny baby, but I heard a couple of years ago some hunters shot one in a neighboring town because they thought it would look cool on the wall. Now, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with hunting (as long as you only shoot the big, ugly looking animals), but I hope no one shoots the cute, little deer.

• As a quick tip to anyone out there planning any form of home improvement: make sure you know where all important lines and wires are before beginning. This is of course, just a random tip and has nothing to do with any real events, but hypothetically it would suck if you were talking on the phone and it suddenly cut out because someone accidentally hit the phone line with a fence post.

I’ve always been a kid at heart. I guess that’s pretty obvious. I wanted to stay a kid forever. I was terrified about becoming an adult and missing out on all the fun that goes along with having few responsibilities, but it was unavoidable.

One of the biggest things I missed was the fun of Halloween. As a child, Halloween was one of the best holidays. After the big parade and party at the school, we would go home and wait (not so patiently) until dinner was over and we could finally go trick-or-treating.

Well, on Wednesday night, all that fun and excitement came rushing back. My husband and I both hurried home from work, made a quick and easy dinner and got our little boy all dressed up in his Halloween finest. The poor little guy had no idea what was going on or why he was in a chicken costume, but the minute he saw himself in the mirror he began waddling around the living room making quacking noises. (I know ducks quack, not chickens, but he’s only 18 months old, so I think that was pretty impressive.)

We walked up to the first house, and although my little chicken had no idea why we were going to random houses, knocking on the door and then leaving, once he realized they were doling out candy, he was running from house to house and saying “treeeat” as soon as a face appeared in the door.

Of course after about one block, he was done and just wanted to dig in, but our 15 minutes of fun was enough to put a big smile on my face, and the little chicken was pretty happy too.

Every family has there own brand of special traditions. In my family, the tradition is to be as spacey and forgetful as possible.

I don’t want to imply that we’re careless. It’s not that so much as the fact that there are always a million things going on, and you’re bound to forget one or two. Generally speaking, I like to think I do this less than the rest of our family, but every now and then I slip and realize I might just be the worst of all.

On Friday, I laughed as I recounted a story about the time my mom went 3,000 miles past when she was due for an oil change and found out when she dropped the car off that her car was due for an inspection six months ago, not good for another six months as she had thought.

I giggled and snickered as I thought of how silly it was to let these types of things get so out of hand.

Until Saturday morning that is. Saturday, I took my car in for an oil change. I’m not going to tell you how far over I was, because if my husband saw this he would cry himself to sleep, but I will say it wasn’t good. When I returned to pick my car up, I was informed not only that my inspection had expired, but also that the car would never pass inspection without new tires, because I was basically driving on the belts. (I have no idea what that means, but it sounds pretty bad.)

I guess from now on I should try to  refrain from picking on my family about the crazy things they do, because it’s probably only a matter of time before I inherit another family tradition.

Ahh… It’s autumn in Chenango County. What a magical time of year, but after spending some time traveling from one end of the county to the other, there are a few things, I can’t help but wonder about.

1. Everywhere I look, I see pumpkins. I love pumpkins. In fact carving them is one of the most fun activities of the year, but I swear here and now, I will never buy a pumpkin from someone who can’t spell the word pumpkin. It’s only Oct. 11 and already I’ve gone by countless signs advertising the sale of “pumkins” or “pumpkens.” This is one of my biggest pet peeves. I know it might seem harsh, but if you are currently one of the many people selling “pumkins” I hope your house gets egged on Halloween!

2. I know it’s fall and the time has come for many area farmer’s to mow their corn and harvest their crops. I accept that, but can anyone tell me why the farmer who planted corn all around my house has to wait until 10 p.m. before he starts mowing. If there is some agricultural explanation for this, I’ll stop complaining, but at the moment it seems he was sent by some evil demon to make sure that every time my sick and grumpy baby falls asleep, he will be woken up the the loud roar and bright lights of a tractor.

3. Why is it if you give someone a deadline, they will wait until the last possible minute and become extremely unpleasant with you, if they miss said deadline. Personally, I do this all the time, because I am a horrible procrastinator, but apparently I am not alone. In the last few weeks, I have been increasingly worried about the lack of scary story submissions I had received for The Evening Sun’s Ghastly Ghost Stories competition. However, apparently I worried for no reason, because the day of the deadline, and in the days since, I have received more stories than I did in all of the weeks leading up to the deadline combined. (Thanks to everyone who participated, and look forward to seeing the finalists’ stories on the web site soon.)

So we all know volunteering is a nice thing to do, but with so many different activities taking up our precious free time, it’s hard to give up the few free moments you have.

Like a lot of people, I find it difficult to even complete my own chores, and nearly impossible to set aside a chunk of time to give to someone else, but that’s exactly what I did this weekend. On Saturday, members of The Evening Sun staff, along with other community members including my husband and 18 month old son, joined the group of United Way volunteers for “A Day of Caring.”

Having no idea what to expect, we traveled along a couple back roads and deep into the woods of Greene. Our group was assigned to go to the Children’s Home Residential Treatment Facility. The kids who live at the home helped us to plant a memorial flower garden, weed the vegetable garden and stain a bench, among other things.

Despite the fact that I had a million projects of my own that I knew I had to complete, the day went even better than I expected. It felt great to help out an organization dedicated to helping children, and in addition, we got to spend the day with some really nice kids and get a better understanding of an organization we were relatively unfamiliar with. I think the United Way struck gold with this new campaign kick-off event. Hopefully even more people will join us next year to become better acquainted with some great community organizations.

An amazing thing happened last night. I went to a public meeting, and the public was actually there.

I know it doesn’t sound that impressive, but after more than a year’s worth of meetings that were made up of local officials, me and one or two residents who actively attend every meeting, you kind of forget that there are thousands of people in town who are being effected by the decisions that are being made.

Last night was different. The City of Norwich held a public meeting and discussed opportunities to revitalize Norwich. The city court room was full of people who stayed for the entire hour long presentation and actually discussed their ideas and hopes for the future. It amazed me to see so many people turned out. I know that’s the way local government should work, but far too often, that isn’t the case.

People presented some interesting and well thought out ideas for ways to get Norwich on the right path. (My favorite was Giff Foster’s discussion of alternative energy facilities. It’s about time we started taking some proactive steps to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and reduced our carbon emissions.)

The next meeting will hopefully take place within the month, and hopefully it will get the same amount of community involvement as the first, if not more. Oh and if you missed the meeting, they are working to get all the information on the Norwich City web site at www.norwichnewyork.net. (It might take a few days though.)

A couple weeks ago, I wrote a column about the medical profession, complained a bit about some issues and got reamed out by an angry reader. I wasn’t really shocked by that. I was kind of expecting someone to get fired up, although many others agreed with my opinion, so I wasn’t terribly surprised.

I was surprised when I came to the office today and found an angry e-mail in my in-box from someone who was upset because I took a couple shots at Tom Cruise. The same Tom Cruise who professes to know more about the medical profession than any doctor or psychiatrist on the planet, because he’s read a lot of  books. The same Tom Cruise who is an expert on postpartum depression, and the same Tom Cruise who criticized Matt Lauer for basically questioning his medical credentials on the air.

Let me make one thing clear, as an actor, I think Tom Cruise is pretty decent. I like “Top Gun,” and I used to watch “Far and Away” every chance I could get. I might even own a copy of “Jerry Maguire.” I take offense with any celebrity, or for that matter anyone at all, who tries to shove their religion down your throat. (Especially if their religion was created by the guy who brought us Battlefield Earth.)

In the last few days, I’ve seen some strange sights in the beautiful Norwich area, and I have to wonder, is it me, or are these things as strange as they seem.

Monday on my way home from work,  I saw a little boy (probably around 5-years-old) sitting in a shopping cart that had been discarded on a curb blocks away from the nearest grocery store. Since there were no adults in view, I wondered if this boy had hitched a ride down town via shopping cart, or if he simply wanted to meet Mike McGuire’s shopping cart companion Barry.

For months, we’ve known about the Rite Aid chains plan to acquire Eckerd stores. Now the deal is complete, I was sure the two stores would merge into one building, but so far that has not happened. Instead, Rite Aid has spent who knows how much money placing Rite Aid signs on the old Eckerd store, which is located approximately 10 feet away from the other Rite Aid store. I’m not a great business person, but doesn’t that doesn’t seem to make a whole lot of sense. After calling Rite Aid’s public relations department, I was informed that business at both stores will continue as usual until further notice.

Also, this week, I saw the new playground equipment at the school, which could never be as cool as that awesome wooden castle thing they had. I never went to school in Norwich, but on the occassional weekend, we would come down to play on the coolest playground around. I’m sure the new stuff is fun, but nothing could beat that.

Keep your eyes open. You never know what crazy thing you might see next.

I don’t care who you are or what type of music you listen to, everyone knows what it’s like when that one song comes on the radio, and you have to blast the volume and sing at the top of your lungs. For me, there are a lot of songs that make me do that, and the list is growing every day. When people see you driving down the road rocking out to your favorite tunes, they might think you’re crazy, but when you do it at a rock show, you’re just like everyone else.

After months of careful preparation, which all fell apart at the last minute, I planned to attend a rock show at the Landmark Theater last night. My baby-sitter canceled, we had to leave late and all of the people who were supposed to ride with me had to switch their plans around, but we made it.

With feelings of guilt weighing heavy on my heart for leaving my one year old for the first time for a non-work related reason, I wasn’t sure I was going to enjoy the show, despite my love of music.

We arrived fifteen minutes after the concert had actually begun, but managed to only miss the opening act. We waited patiently for the band to take the stage, passing the time by remembering the last concert we attended and how mom nearly got into a brawl with a huge biker who kept sloshing beer on us. (In the end, he ran away, because moms, even the ones who are only 5’1”,  are scary.)

Finally, the lights dimmed, the crowd fell silent, and the band burst on to stage.  For a couple of hours, I sang at the top of my lungs, screamed really loud and enjoyed every ear splitting note. I also managed to keep my little sister out of trouble after she “accidentally” poured ice water down the backs of the insanely irritating girls in front of us, and almost got into a brawl of her own, but that’s another story.