Voting despite the PO, last flowers

Yesterday the mail was mixed. Most important, my mail in ballot for the midterm elections finally arrived 

This was some sort of record, mailed from about fifteen miles away, the County Board of Elections, on September 21, arrived October 6. Good thing they send early. I'll fill it out and return promptly.  Not by mail, but in the local dropbox. It's emptied daily by the officials and the ballots taken to the BOE.  

The less welcome mail was a bill for $1,000 that is not a typo, from the HOA for work the fencing company claims to have done on my deck in order to put in the fence.

I wrote back instantly to tell them I had the work done by a contractor, weeks before the fencing company were on site,  and notified him, too. 

What I didn't mention was that their bill was three times the size of his. Anyway I asked the manager to rescind the bill. Clearly they've got their house numbers mixed because they did do work on other decks.

But I have pictures of Michael in action in the deck and you are my witnesses! Anyway I was very upset and still am.  The fence project is the gift that keeps on giving.

Meanwhile flowers are still happening, the last ones of the year before we get a frost

And the current jigsaw puzzle may have pieces missing. Or maybe I'm inept. Anyway it's become a small meditative project, little spark of excitement when I actually get a piece to fit. I may need an assistant

I am pretty good at knocking pieces to the floor even without a tiger in the house, I have to say.

Answer to the puzzle, you'll kick yourself if you didn't get it, is in the comments to yesterday's post. Word puzzles are like that, totally impenetrable until you suddenly get it, if you get it.

Happy day everyone, fight on, refuse to pay bills you didn't incur. That works in a lot of contexts!

Today writing a little something about my sister, and knitting group. This week I really need my knitting group. 

Spring Handwear for the Mature Fashionista

The weather looks bright and sunny and the wind is sweeping down from the Arctic.

So here's the handwarmer gear I had to use to get the mail, do the recycle, all that, needing free fingers.

 it's Tunisian crochet I was doing a while ago. These are simply designed, work fine. It's Tunisian Simple Stitch. I mean, that's the name of it. I realized I should explain that when a knitter I showed them to, when I said it was simple stitch, retorted that's easy for you to say!

It's a cross between knitting and crochet, invented sometime in the nineteenth century and given an exotic name. As far as I know, Tunisia doesn't enter into it, but I'm open to correction if anyone knows better.

Meanwhile back on the deck, Mike the contractor/artist friend came and assessed what's needed. For him, pretty simple. He'll do it in the next few days.

He lives across the street and has been occupied keeping his two little dogs safe while his fence was gone, they being used to play freely on the patio, and now not at all happy about collars and leashes. 

His new gate is now in place, high enough that the dogs can easily figure out how to get under it. So he's designing something to avoid that. He's about as happy as I am about the tackiness and clumsy design of the new fences. He's a craftsman and he's in pain over it. They're flimsy, ss he showed me, easily bowing the side wall by rocking it.  He said it would not tolerate the weight of planters hung from it, don't try it.

However we might get together later to design some freestanding wood supports to grow plants on.  We'll see.

And here's the Pair in Progress aka PIP

Looks as if Biden wants to apply the seized oligarch assets to help finance the war in Ukraine. That would be very satisfying. I hope Congress agrees. Except for the inevitable ones who won't, that is.