Well before I know the horror show the day was to turn into …. John & I had a little talk about car troubles, but generally life was simpler than.
I’ve been working as an election official since 2008, and this election is my first as a chief inspector. The city clerk assigned me to work the killer 6:00 AM till the polls close shift, but fortunately the polling place I was at had three chiefs – another first-timer like me, and an experienced one, plus lots of staff. The other firstie and I worked the morning and then when the experienced chief arrived we decided that I could go home and just come back to close at 8:00.
We all held off from political talk inside the polls as we are supposed to, but as soon as we got outside, everyone started expressing their shock and horror. At our polling place in Madison WI, Trump got 287 votes to Clinton’s 1910; Russ Feingold 1888 to Ron Johnson’s 451. I went home and took a shower and made a hot toddy with honey and lemon and brandy – no bourbon in the house, how did that happen!? I was by myself since Mark & Belana were in Chicago. I watched episode 3 of The Crown – I am definitely hooked – and tried to stay off my phone for updates, but checked occasionally. I went to bed at about 12:30, and again tried to stay off the phone to check the time when I woke up, so that I could pretend I didn’t know the outcome. I gave in at about 6:00 and along with all the Trump won Pennsylvania and WI (we in WI put him over the top …) headlines was “World Financial Markets slump after Trump victory”, athough the NYT now (early afternoon Weds.) says it’s smoothed out a bit.
I blame deep entrenched sexism and racism in the U.S. – 8 years of a black man in the White House followed by a smart woman candidate riled up incredible backlash – and the Cubs. With apologies to Bill Murray and Steve Goodman, love both of you, and I know the Cubbies are your boys – but they upset the balance of the universe by winning the World series.
The weekend was pie and pie, again more innocent times – thousands of pumpkin pies for the community center to give away in Thanksgiving baskets, and leek quiche with fresh mozzarella for Sunday brunch.
2016-11-06 14.16.32 from Debra Shapiro on Vimeo.
