Gotterdamerung - Election Day 2004

Today's the day! I'm so excited!

Events started early. Last night, about 2 a.m., Sparky and I took our evening stroll past the polling place, the Sierra Two Center in the Curtis Park neighborhood of Sacramento (not last year's polling place, the more-appropriate "Society for the Blind" across the street). On a telephone pole outside the 100 foot exclusion zone, a big poster warned, "Be a Baby Killer!! Vote Kerry." Made me feel good to rip that down.

Got called into work early (the ungodly hour of 10 a.m.), so I didn't get to the polling place until lunchtime (2:30 p.m). Sparky was happy: not only did he get Mexican food leftovers from "Jim-Boy's", he got a bonus afternoon walk, as we strolled to the polling place.

I liked the two "fill-in-the-oval" voting forms I received (nice big print, and I need new glasses). The only danger was the possibility of not filling in BOTH sides of BOTH forms. They fed the forms into a ballot-reading machine before I left (first time I've seen that). I was voter 140 at poll B (there is also a poll A) in my precinct. Unlike 2003, Sparky remained quiet while I was out of sight, voting.

Most of the choices were fairly straightforward: yes to children's hospitals and a tax on the rich to support mental health care; no on stem cells. The incumbent school board members, part of Mayor Joe Serna's posthumous legacy to Sacramento, but lately afflicted by a pension scandal, posed a problem. I didn't want to vote for all the incumbents, but whom should I cast aside? I voted for one new candidate because she came recently from Tucson, and I once lived there. Some of the other choices were also similarly ill-informed. Buy, hey, I'm the voter and it's my perogative.

My next-door neighbor, Arthur, came up, gestured towards the door, and said he knew he had seen that dog before. I shook his hand and offered to tell him who to vote for, but he smiled, quickly retreated, and waved me off, mumbling something about having to go to work.

Then, a nice stroll back to the house, in the hazy autumn sunshine.

Wonder what mysteries tonight will hold?