Eerie and Frustrating

This is a picture daughter Pat took out of her car window on her road trip in Alaska. It looks like a person sitting by a lake admiring the view but it is a stump of some kind with raindrops on the window pane and rutted roads to travel on. It reminded me of my mood this morning, dark and tense after a weekend of what I term harassing telephone calls. I had two calls on Saturday and three on Sunday all from the same telephone number which is in Kentucky and the calls are from the Census Bureau. Now I find this hard to believe and figured it had to be a scam of some kind. I asked my son John to follow up the number to see what he could find and gave him the 'case number' I was given and he was told the case number did not match our address and they asked questions which he did not answer. He was going to report it to the FBI as it seemed like a scam. Meanwhile I looked up the Census Bureau on the computer and found my way to a question area and submitted a question. This morning I received an answer and it tells me that this Kentucky number is a legitmate Census Bureau telephone number and that they are conducting a coverage to check that no person is left out of the census, or counted in more than one place. "You are part of a sample of households randomly chosen to help us determine that The Coverage Follow up Operation clarifies responses that were collected previously in order to ensure that we have a complete and accurate 2010 Census. Results form this survey will help us improve future censuses and ensure that we obtain an accurate account. The telephone Coverage Follow up interview should take approximately 6 to 7 minutes. Census employees will not ask for your social security number, and account number, credit card number, or citizenship status."
First a post card saying we are going to get our census form to fill out. Second a letter saying much the same thing. Third the forms arrive. They are filled and returned only to get a Fourth letter asking you to fill your form out and now phone calls to check the forms they did get and they have a team in Kentucky checking out Oregon residents . . . sounds like we are on an airplane ride around the country trying to get from point A to B. Needless to say I am furious to think that such incompetence is surrounding us. The Census is once every ten years . . . a good thing or they would never find us and God forbid they ever get an accurate account. I don't know about you but I am writing my representatives today. I want to know if they know what is going on in their back yard.


So today, forgive my mood, but be aware that there stranger than fiction things going on in our government . . . and they wonder why they have such a reputation . . . oh dear, I'm off before I start another paragraph. Light a candle for me today, I need one. Hugs to All.

AND A BIG P.S. Daughter Pat was over this evening to join me for some lemon chicken and she corrected my assumption about the picture. Eerie allright but it was taken on the train going down to Denali and she was bored with the very long ride so took out her camera and looked for pictures to take. The picture was of a person sitting on the train and she just happened to catch it just the right way to make the eerie picture . . . so, my bump on a log was just a dream. I'd apologize to the 'person' but neither of us know him. Just some good looking 'dude' enjoying the train ride on a rainy day. I have to admit it is a terrific shot though.