Happy Together

A Season of Change

Nothing brings Tiger Lily and Little Spike--who normally don't really like each other--together better than cold weather. Greg snapped this funny picture last night when I was sitting on the couch reading with the space heater blowing on me. First Little Spike, drawn to the heater, came and sat on my lap, then Lily followed. Usually Little would not like Lily sitting on top of him, but he didn't seem to mind last night--probably because she was keeping him warm. It is indeed getting colder here! It has been quite chilly out, and the temps even dropped to freezing on Saturday night.

With the colder weather comes a change in uniform for me. Here I am sporting the official National Park Service winter look. I like the uniform because it is very warm. As you can see, the winter uniform includes a tie. The other day when I was getting ready, I realized that I don't know how to tie a tie. So I asked Greg for some help, and he tried tying it on himself, but it was smaller than what he's used to, so he couldn't get it quite right. Finally he said, "Okay, lie down on the bed." I was confused, but then I realized that whenever Greg ties ties on other people, they are in a casket! :-) He did a great job tying my tie.

Unfortunately the weather isn't the only thing changing around here--we just found out at work last week that a bunch of people will lose their ranger jobs in December. Out of six term rangers (hired for one or four year terms), I am the only one they are keeping at the Lincoln Home. That isn't fair!! Everyone is very upset. It turns out that our superintendent got a little too excited about all of the extra Bicentennial funds the Lincoln Home received, and he spent three times too much money. So everyone is very sad and disheartened at the Lincoln Home. With most of the staff leaving on December 5, I am worried about this winter--I don't know how we're going to have enough people to do everything. My supervisor Laura told me that I will need to take on the jobs of the five other term rangers who are leaving. But I don't even have enough time to do my own jobs!! We'll see how that goes.

Today Congressman Aaron Schock came for a tour of the Lincoln Home. He is a Republican Congressman from Illinois who is currently the youngest member of the U. S. House of Representatives. He is a really cool guy, but all of the Democrats around here completely hate him. They can't stand that he is a young, smart, handsome REPUBLICAN!! I was really shocked and disappointed to hear reactions from some of the rangers today during lunch. They were disgusted that he came to the Lincoln Home, and they felt like it was a burden to have to show him around. Not cool. Congressman Schock's office is located in downtown Springfield. You might have heard about this on the news, but a few weeks ago a crazy guy tried to blow up the federal building in downtown Springfield (but the people who sold the guy his "explosives" were undercover FBI agents). The crazy guy's secondary target was Aaron Schock's office. As soon as people found out that the crazy guy was a Muslim and that a Republican was one of his targets, all of a sudden the news stations stopped covering the story! Grrrrrrrr. Anyway, I think Aaron Schock is cool.

Switching subjects, the poor St. Louis Cardinals blew their season on Saturday night when they lost to the Dodgers. Greg and I were especially upset because we had tickets to Game 4 of the playoffs--but since the Cards were swept in three games, there was not a Game 4!!!! :-( We were very sad--especially since the Cardinals SHOULD HAVE won their game on Thursday night. It was the bottom of the ninth inning, and the Cardinals were up 2-1. There were two outs, and the Dodgers guy hit it right to Matt Holliday in the outfield. Greg and I started to cheer--because the win would mean that there would for sure be a Game 4--and then . . . the ball hit Holliday in the chest, he dropped it, and then he fell over. Greg and I could do nothing but just stare blankly at the TV as we watched the Cardinals fall apart and lose the game. We couldn't believe it! We were really sad on Saturday night, but I think we're over it now. We are looking forward to celebrating our big ONE YEAR anniversary this weekend!!! I can't believe it's already been a year!