My 2020 Vo-TED Talk
Oct. 30th, 2020 03:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogWay back on Sunday, we queued up to exercise our franchise for our 34th time in 33-plus years married. I had a near-perfect Election Day record before 1987, all the way back to my first vote, on the day before my 18th birthday in 1977 (legally- you "attain" your age the day before your birthday). My only miss was 1979 in Ithaca, but that was because a townie elections board refused to re-register me the one year I moved from off-campus back into a dorm. Since then, I've voted in churches and schools, city halls and community centers; early and absentee; at 6 in the morning and 8 at night; and in snow and rain and heat and gloom of night....
but never in a line like this:
That's the line snaking into the Amherst Senior Center, the only early voting venue in the whole town; I'm not complaining, though, as we could have gone to any of the 37 of them countywide, whereas adjoining Niagara County only had two for its entire population. This was Sunday around 1:30 in the afternoon, the second day of early voting. I figured that, since the Bills were playing at that hour, nobody would be there. Apparently, several hundred other people had the same brilliant idea. That woman in the red cap, at the end of the queue when we joined it, was herself joined by another about her age, likely a sister or roommate, and they spent most of the time in line bitching and moaning to each other about what their dinner plans were and whether they needed to do more shopping and so. Whatever- the more young folks voting, the better it is for everyone:)
It was chilly but it moved reasonably well. About halfway to the door, we passed the just-unveiled statue of Mohandas Gandhi outside the Senior Center:
It sure looks like Mahatma approves of democracy:
It took about 45 minutes to get inside, and, once we passed the Department of Contradictions No It's Not-
- they processed us quickly and efficiently. Even though New York doesn't require photo IDs or the registration confirmation cards they send out before elections, we had both, and it helped speed things up; the barcodes on the cards brought us right up in the digital poll books, and since you sign in with a stylus on an electronic pad, the signature is harder to match to the on-file one, particularly when your paws have been outside freezing for 45 minutes, so they checked the one on my license and it was off to the privacy booth.
Spoiler alert: I voted the bastard out.
Obligatory selfie:
And, while political views were kept in check on the line and in the poll itself, it wasn't without a little bit of gallows humor. Somebody noticed that the line was strictly one-way:
“We see people going in, but nobody coming out.”
Me: “Wasn’t that a Star Trek episode?”
Poll worker: “No, Soylent Green!”
Guy behind me: “Twilight Zone! To Serve Man!”
Me: “To DEFEAT Man is more like it!”
Our new lawn sign came last week. With all the kittens running about, we haven't put it out yet. Meanwhile, Loud Annoying Neighbor planted a CHEETO 2020 flag on the gate of his bigass work truck. He was out there next to it the other night when, fittingly, I was taking our garbage totes out of the garage, and saw him talking with some friend or neighbor, likely about his new exterior decoration. I just smiled at them: if he wants to waste his efforts on pimping a candidate who has exactly as much chance as Kanye or Mickey Mouse of scoring a single electoral vote in this state, he can spend all his time and money as far as I'm concerned. And if he has thoughts of joining a parade somewhere like Pennsylvania where it might actually matter, he'll have to quarantine for two weeks when he gets back from it. I then noticed the next morning that he takes it off the truck overnight. Probably doesn’t want it to get stolen. More likely, doesn’t want a bunch of random dogs coming up to the truck and pissing on it. It’s also perfect MAGA idiocy that when he placed the flag on the back of his truck, it covered up a sign advertising his own business.
Over-under on that flag winding up in their tote: the night after the election.
----
The Bills won that football game Sunday, and are favored this coming Sunday over mortal enemy New England for the first time in anybody's memory. A few nights later, the Dodgers overcame their weekend Bucknerrors and won their first World Series since the year after we got married. And we've added a new show to our binge list called Woke, based on the cartoons and life of one Keith Knight, whose stuff we've followed for ages. In Rochester on Tuesday, I was reminded of some lines from Borat 2 when I came up to this sign at Popeye's:
Perhaps you substitute for saline, with, potatoes!
----
But fine, we know. You're just here for the kitties:
Zoey's becoming more tolerant of the two little lumps, even deigning to hang out with one or the other of them. We've seen playing and grooming. Granted, police suspect catnip was involved in some of these encounters, but that shit's cheap.
Eleanor made them a bed, which after a day or so they actually took to:) As opposed to the boatload of toys that have either come in to the house in the past week or have been inherited by them; they much prefer playing hockey with the homegrown pleasure of a pen:
Pepper's getting along with them for the most part. She also got taken for her first grooming since June earlier in the week. Nothing remarkable to report from that, other than seeing what's become of the joint next door:
but never in a line like this:
That's the line snaking into the Amherst Senior Center, the only early voting venue in the whole town; I'm not complaining, though, as we could have gone to any of the 37 of them countywide, whereas adjoining Niagara County only had two for its entire population. This was Sunday around 1:30 in the afternoon, the second day of early voting. I figured that, since the Bills were playing at that hour, nobody would be there. Apparently, several hundred other people had the same brilliant idea. That woman in the red cap, at the end of the queue when we joined it, was herself joined by another about her age, likely a sister or roommate, and they spent most of the time in line bitching and moaning to each other about what their dinner plans were and whether they needed to do more shopping and so. Whatever- the more young folks voting, the better it is for everyone:)
It was chilly but it moved reasonably well. About halfway to the door, we passed the just-unveiled statue of Mohandas Gandhi outside the Senior Center:
It sure looks like Mahatma approves of democracy:
It took about 45 minutes to get inside, and, once we passed the Department of Contradictions No It's Not-
- they processed us quickly and efficiently. Even though New York doesn't require photo IDs or the registration confirmation cards they send out before elections, we had both, and it helped speed things up; the barcodes on the cards brought us right up in the digital poll books, and since you sign in with a stylus on an electronic pad, the signature is harder to match to the on-file one, particularly when your paws have been outside freezing for 45 minutes, so they checked the one on my license and it was off to the privacy booth.
Spoiler alert: I voted the bastard out.
Obligatory selfie:
And, while political views were kept in check on the line and in the poll itself, it wasn't without a little bit of gallows humor. Somebody noticed that the line was strictly one-way:
“We see people going in, but nobody coming out.”
Me: “Wasn’t that a Star Trek episode?”
Poll worker: “No, Soylent Green!”
Guy behind me: “Twilight Zone! To Serve Man!”
Me: “To DEFEAT Man is more like it!”
Our new lawn sign came last week. With all the kittens running about, we haven't put it out yet. Meanwhile, Loud Annoying Neighbor planted a CHEETO 2020 flag on the gate of his bigass work truck. He was out there next to it the other night when, fittingly, I was taking our garbage totes out of the garage, and saw him talking with some friend or neighbor, likely about his new exterior decoration. I just smiled at them: if he wants to waste his efforts on pimping a candidate who has exactly as much chance as Kanye or Mickey Mouse of scoring a single electoral vote in this state, he can spend all his time and money as far as I'm concerned. And if he has thoughts of joining a parade somewhere like Pennsylvania where it might actually matter, he'll have to quarantine for two weeks when he gets back from it. I then noticed the next morning that he takes it off the truck overnight. Probably doesn’t want it to get stolen. More likely, doesn’t want a bunch of random dogs coming up to the truck and pissing on it. It’s also perfect MAGA idiocy that when he placed the flag on the back of his truck, it covered up a sign advertising his own business.
Over-under on that flag winding up in their tote: the night after the election.
----
The Bills won that football game Sunday, and are favored this coming Sunday over mortal enemy New England for the first time in anybody's memory. A few nights later, the Dodgers overcame their weekend Bucknerrors and won their first World Series since the year after we got married. And we've added a new show to our binge list called Woke, based on the cartoons and life of one Keith Knight, whose stuff we've followed for ages. In Rochester on Tuesday, I was reminded of some lines from Borat 2 when I came up to this sign at Popeye's:
Perhaps you substitute for saline, with, potatoes!
----
But fine, we know. You're just here for the kitties:
Zoey's becoming more tolerant of the two little lumps, even deigning to hang out with one or the other of them. We've seen playing and grooming. Granted, police suspect catnip was involved in some of these encounters, but that shit's cheap.
Eleanor made them a bed, which after a day or so they actually took to:) As opposed to the boatload of toys that have either come in to the house in the past week or have been inherited by them; they much prefer playing hockey with the homegrown pleasure of a pen:
Pepper's getting along with them for the most part. She also got taken for her first grooming since June earlier in the week. Nothing remarkable to report from that, other than seeing what's become of the joint next door:
Talk about having your whole business plan ruined by COVID-19. I mean, who wants to go into such a place without the allure of the salad bar shovels and sneeze guards? And WHICH Old Country are we left with? Pottsylvania? Remulak? Grand Fenwick?
Maybe they could turn it into an extra early voting location to bring out the fogey vote. It wouldn't even have to be noon to nine- just Early Bird Special hours;)
Maybe they could turn it into an extra early voting location to bring out the fogey vote. It wouldn't even have to be noon to nine- just Early Bird Special hours;)