Political

Yesterday was writing blog day, so I didn't come over here to weigh in on the election. Everyone is sick to death of it now, but I do want to throw out a few notes, for my future self, if nothing else.

Voting: I heard of some lines -- only half an hour from me, even -- that were hours and hours long. There were polls that didn't close until two in the morning, for pity's sake.

I, on the other hand, picked exactly the right time to go, apparently, around 8:30 in the morning. The before-work voters had all either done their thing or decided they didn't have time and left, and the people who weren't working that day were mostly all still in bed, I guess. Penny and I stood in line for all of about ten minutes, and I expect the longest part of the whole process was the time it took me to read through the two proposed state referendums, which took longer than even their thick legalese would warrant because Penny kept interrupting me with questions.

When it was done, I wanted a picture of Penny and I for DFTVA, and a fellow voter, overhearing me explaining this to Penny, volunteered, with the caveat that I would then take a picture of her with her two sons, the elder of whom had just cast his very first vote ever. (I am enough of a patriot and dork that even now, two days later, typing that gives me chills and chokes me up just a little.)

Rest of the Day: I'd promised Penny that she and I could spend the rest of the day together, just the two of us, so that's what we did. We went and got pedicures, then went to the used bookstore and used up some of my massive pile of credit there. After lunch, we went to see Hotel Transylvania, which I thought was cute, if a bit twee, but Penny guffawed all the way through it, so it was totally worth the price of admission. (Also, note for the future: kid's combo snack was perfect, just about 35 carbs with a diet soda, which is a big snack but not unreasonably so, and Penny didn't have to share.) After that, we wandered New Town for a little window shopping, and I bought some gourmet mini-cupcakes to save for dessert.

Election Watching: After I got the kids to bed, I settled in to watch the results roll in. That's a slow process, though. I thought at first I'd be on a YouTube hangout with the Green brothers, but that didn't pan out. So instead, I loaded up CNN's auto-updating results page and watched a couple of Doctor Who episodes while I watched results pop up.

It was insane how close the results were. Even in states which weren't hotly contested, quite a few states came in with less than 5% difference. I intended to stay up until Virginia was called, but I didn't make it; I went to bed around 11:30, not long after the race had been declared for Obama. (The other VA races had been projected by this point, so there was nothing left to bite my nails over.)

Results: So if you know me at all, you know I'm a fiscal moderate and a social extreme liberal, so I'm ridiculously happy with the results this year. Obama's return, an increase in the numbers of women in Congress (though the ratio is still pretty horrible), multiple strides forward for gay rights. I don't have a personal stake in the recreational marijuana thing (and how crazy is it that I didn't even hear about those issues until election night?!) but I'm glad they passed, too. Puerto Rico as a state isn't going to happen any time soon, but it's kind of exciting to watch that water swirl anyway.