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Sined, seeled, delivered
If you know what movie I'm thinking of right now, there will be a gold star on your report. :D
The state of the weekend was...good. Saturday was pretty much a wash; we spent the day raking and bagging leaves, mostly. I think I broke my little toe on Sebastian's step-stool. If I didn't, I surely did a lot of damage to the nail bed.
Sunday was better. We went to celebrate my brother's 40th birthday. It was a surprise party. Teri had to leave early, because she had a mandatory Sunday night meeting at work (!). We talked about it, and rather than us leaving early with her, she borrowed her mother's car.
You know, ever since I moved to Rhode Island I've almost always had to leave family get-togethers early. I hate that. The problem is the drive home, of course; we're all early risers and early sleepers by Hobson's choice, so a late-night drive home (and by "late", I mean as early as 8PM) can be difficult.
But this time Sebastian and I stayed late. And I'm really glad we did. We helped my nephew with Zelda: The Legend of the Wind Waker, and then we went downstairs, where he played drums and jammed with my brother and his friends. They're real musicians, if you were wondering, and they sounded really good.
But loud. Sebastian had me put a pair of earplugs in his ears, and made me use a pair myself. Then we went to the basement, and it was like a Rathskeller - it really was. Sebastian flailed his arms around and danced in a totally uncoordinated way, shouting "ROCK AND ROLL!!!". A part of me was simultaneously shocked and amused. Did I ever mention that I was brought up to be a classical music snob? And I still have some of that deep in my soul. Even now, I want to make a note to play more classical music for Sebastian, so he'll know the great music of the western world.
We headed for home when Sebastian got tired, and he was asleep within twenty minutes. Got home safely, and put him to bed.
On My Way Home
I swear, this afternoon it felt as if something was trying to keep me from getting home. I lost track of the time, and ran for the elevator at 4:01.28 PM; since I need to catch the 4:05, and I was on the sixth floor, I was really cutting it close.
Fortunately an elevator came after only twenty seconds or so. It was empty, so I ran inside and pressed the lobby button.
It lurched and went UP instead! In fact, it went to the top floor. A bunch of people poured in, and then it went down one floor to admit still MORE people. We were packed in quite tightly, and at lower floors people couldn't squeeze in at all. It was like Arisia at check-out time!
Finally we made it down. I ran like a bastard, and caught the shuttle just before it left. It was...jammed full of people. I ended up literally sitting half on air, for what turned out to be a wild ride. There were some near-misses that made my heart skip a beat, and that's not just poetic exaggeration.
But I made it home, obviously.
Politics
I fear that the Republicans will keep the House and Senate...hell, I fear that they'll actually make GAINS in both bodies. I'm way too stressed about politics right now, and I just want it to end.
We got eight political calls tonight. All but two were recorded calls. Most were from the Democrats, one was from a group supporting the rights of parolees and probationers to vote, and another was, well, sort of funny:
"Hi, I'm Matthew Thomas, Chief of the Narragansett Tribe. I'm asking you to vote "yes" on Question 1..." at which point I hung up. I'm voting against that casino, although I think that Teri's voting for it, so the issue is a wash in our house. As a matter of fact, it's the only issue on which Teri and I disagree.
One of the recorded calls asked us to attend an event with Sheldon Whitehouse and Bill Clinton at 9PM. It wasn't possible, of course, although I suppose it would have been interesting. The odd thing is, about an hour later we got another phone call; this one was from a real person, asking us to come to that Clinton/Whitehouse event.
But he was reading the exact same script as the recorded call, and when I responded as if to have a conversation - I interrupted early on and said "We're Democrats, we're a solid Democratic vote here - can't attend the event, but we'll definitely vote the Party line - well, the guy actually kind of plowed over me and kept going with the script.
To me that says one of two things: Either this was a guy paid by "calls completed", just trying to make it through the script, or else he was a very badly trained (or scared) volunteer. But I really think he was just a paid flunky, because any half-way intelligent volunteer would know that a little human interaction is worth a hell of a lot more than robotically reading from a script. I don't think this guy actually cared about the election; he was there to collect his paycheck. And I fear that he was doing piecework, paid by the call.
If so, that's unfortunate. It shows that in some ways, the Democratic Party still doesn't get it.
Okay, time for me to get some sleep!
The state of the weekend was...good. Saturday was pretty much a wash; we spent the day raking and bagging leaves, mostly. I think I broke my little toe on Sebastian's step-stool. If I didn't, I surely did a lot of damage to the nail bed.
Sunday was better. We went to celebrate my brother's 40th birthday. It was a surprise party. Teri had to leave early, because she had a mandatory Sunday night meeting at work (!). We talked about it, and rather than us leaving early with her, she borrowed her mother's car.
You know, ever since I moved to Rhode Island I've almost always had to leave family get-togethers early. I hate that. The problem is the drive home, of course; we're all early risers and early sleepers by Hobson's choice, so a late-night drive home (and by "late", I mean as early as 8PM) can be difficult.
But this time Sebastian and I stayed late. And I'm really glad we did. We helped my nephew with Zelda: The Legend of the Wind Waker, and then we went downstairs, where he played drums and jammed with my brother and his friends. They're real musicians, if you were wondering, and they sounded really good.
But loud. Sebastian had me put a pair of earplugs in his ears, and made me use a pair myself. Then we went to the basement, and it was like a Rathskeller - it really was. Sebastian flailed his arms around and danced in a totally uncoordinated way, shouting "ROCK AND ROLL!!!". A part of me was simultaneously shocked and amused. Did I ever mention that I was brought up to be a classical music snob? And I still have some of that deep in my soul. Even now, I want to make a note to play more classical music for Sebastian, so he'll know the great music of the western world.
We headed for home when Sebastian got tired, and he was asleep within twenty minutes. Got home safely, and put him to bed.
On My Way Home
I swear, this afternoon it felt as if something was trying to keep me from getting home. I lost track of the time, and ran for the elevator at 4:01.28 PM; since I need to catch the 4:05, and I was on the sixth floor, I was really cutting it close.
Fortunately an elevator came after only twenty seconds or so. It was empty, so I ran inside and pressed the lobby button.
It lurched and went UP instead! In fact, it went to the top floor. A bunch of people poured in, and then it went down one floor to admit still MORE people. We were packed in quite tightly, and at lower floors people couldn't squeeze in at all. It was like Arisia at check-out time!
Finally we made it down. I ran like a bastard, and caught the shuttle just before it left. It was...jammed full of people. I ended up literally sitting half on air, for what turned out to be a wild ride. There were some near-misses that made my heart skip a beat, and that's not just poetic exaggeration.
But I made it home, obviously.
Politics
I fear that the Republicans will keep the House and Senate...hell, I fear that they'll actually make GAINS in both bodies. I'm way too stressed about politics right now, and I just want it to end.
We got eight political calls tonight. All but two were recorded calls. Most were from the Democrats, one was from a group supporting the rights of parolees and probationers to vote, and another was, well, sort of funny:
"Hi, I'm Matthew Thomas, Chief of the Narragansett Tribe. I'm asking you to vote "yes" on Question 1..." at which point I hung up. I'm voting against that casino, although I think that Teri's voting for it, so the issue is a wash in our house. As a matter of fact, it's the only issue on which Teri and I disagree.
One of the recorded calls asked us to attend an event with Sheldon Whitehouse and Bill Clinton at 9PM. It wasn't possible, of course, although I suppose it would have been interesting. The odd thing is, about an hour later we got another phone call; this one was from a real person, asking us to come to that Clinton/Whitehouse event.
But he was reading the exact same script as the recorded call, and when I responded as if to have a conversation - I interrupted early on and said "We're Democrats, we're a solid Democratic vote here - can't attend the event, but we'll definitely vote the Party line - well, the guy actually kind of plowed over me and kept going with the script.
To me that says one of two things: Either this was a guy paid by "calls completed", just trying to make it through the script, or else he was a very badly trained (or scared) volunteer. But I really think he was just a paid flunky, because any half-way intelligent volunteer would know that a little human interaction is worth a hell of a lot more than robotically reading from a script. I don't think this guy actually cared about the election; he was there to collect his paycheck. And I fear that he was doing piecework, paid by the call.
If so, that's unfortunate. It shows that in some ways, the Democratic Party still doesn't get it.
Okay, time for me to get some sleep!