So Much Weather, All at Once

Amazing storm blew in out of Texas Monday. (Damn you Texas!) The forecast had called for rain, but when I stepped outside at around 10 a.m. it was so dark I had to turn on the porch light. Across the river, Tori was in her classroom and saw the sky turn green. The school told them there were tornado warnings, so keep the kids away from the windows. The kids, of course, immediately freaked out, and every time there was a flash of lightning and a clap of thunder they all screamed.

There was a LOT of lightning and thunder, and the wind swept in with a fury. This is how strong it was – the wind blew a train off a trestle! I'm not kidding, check out the video here. I would have bet that wasn't possible, but looking at the video, I get it. All those box cars made a big sail for the wind barreling down the river, and as they went over, they took the locomotive with them.

That's the train trestle that's part of the Huey P. Long Bridge over the Mississippi, the same bridge Tori crosses twice a day to and from work. When she headed home, the four-lane roadway was reduced to one lane because of all the emergency vehicles.

In our neighborhood, we got a lot of wind and rain, but the power stayed on, at least here. But it wasn't all sweetness and light. Right around the corner a power pole blew completely over. A swath of houses and stores a couple of blocks wide and almost a mile long were blacked out south of the downed line. This is why I'm glad I'm a northerner. We were fine. When I drove by the morning to take the kids to school, the pole was still lying across the road.

See, this is what happens when you build a housing development on what used to be a swamp. Sure, you can put in a bunch of fill, and you can put in a drainage system, but when you get that much rain that fast, some of the stuff you stuck in the ground doesn't stay.

We've been waiting for more today, but apparently it's mostly move on east. (Sorry Florida.)

But boy, it can change fast, can't it? It's not that we have different weather than we had back in Oregon. It's just that we've got so much weather. Often all at once.

'Suck the Heads, Eat the Tails"

Suck the head ...

We recently attended our first crawfish boil – a Louisiana tradition heartily embraced by our neighbor Eddie. This winter Eddie moved into the house next door, a house that had been vacant for two years. He's a great guy, one of those guys who is always working on a project, always has a story. And he loves holding crawfish boils. In fact, next month is his annual competition – at which a half dozen people compete for the title.

... and eat the tail.

This first one was a test run, his first crawfish boil in his new home. And it was great. Eddie has a custom-designed table, stainless steel with an opening in the middle for the trash. He boiled 70 pounds of crawfish which he poured around the table and everyone dug in.

If you've never eaten crawfish, here's how you do it, if you've never eaten crawfish. Grab the crawfish at the base of the tail and break it in half. Suck the head. That's what I said. Suck the head, because apparently that's where a lot of the flavor is. I'm not sure about that, but it's what you do. Then you peel the shell off the tail and eat the meat inside. 

It's good. No question about that. Eddie prides himself on his culinary ability, and rightly so. He cooked in two batches and the second was a lot spicier than the first. He also made jambalaya. It goes without saying that his jambalaya was WAY better than the pot I had put together a few months ago. Although I've gotta say, mine wasn't completely out of line, and eating Eddie's was educational, almost a revelation. I learned a lot, and my next will be better.

On the one hand, even the bigger crawfish are kind of small, and the whole process of eating one is a lot of effort for a small bite. In that sense they're sort of the artichokes of the seafood world. But that misses the point. They are delicious, and more importantly, it's a whole social thing. We met a lot of people, stood around talking, learned more of the culture. It was a lot of fun.

Eddie's guests gather 'round his crawfish table, where mounds
of the seafood awat. Eddie is the guy in the white T-shirt

A Week, a Coincidence, A Deal and a Visit

Good week, with an amazing deal and a visit and some good work. But before I get to that, file this one under karma, or at least under Interesting Coincidences.

Last week I wrote about getting more organized in my work – and I've been doing pretty well, except for the last few days, about which more later – and about how it's fine to have a dream, but you need to plan for how you're going to achieve that dream.

And then I got this in a fortune cookie.

"Acting on a good idea is better than just having a good idea."

A coincidence, sure. But still, the kind that makes you go, "Hmmmmm."

Spent a few hours Saturday at an estate sale in Old Metairie. The house belong to a guy who recently turned 100. His wife had died years ago and his family was moving him up to where they could help him out. It was a big house

Anyway, there was decades and decades of "things." The owner and his wife had obviously traveled everywhere, he appeared to have been a sailor, he had been active in several carnival groups. As a fellow reporter once said after coming back from an interview with a little old lady who had been collecting for decades, "The Knick knack shelves where chockablock with bric a brac."

We picked up some interesting items, including a small Chinese vase that might be worth exactly what we paid for it – $15 – or around $250. Doesn't matter. We got it because we liked it. Same with the Scandinavian pitcher. A couple of vases. And we got a tuxedo that almost fits Max – whole thing, jacket, ruffled shirt, cummerbund, bow tie and pants. Well, the pants will never fit him. The previous owner was a tall man. But Max will grow into the jacket soon and the shirt already fits. Ten bucks for the whole outfit.

But the big thing was a set of Noritake China. There was a big stack of dinner plates – 14 I think – small plates, saucers, a tea ... there were a LOT of pieces. The only thing missing was most of the cups. There were only three left. Cups break, ya know.

And they were asking $65.

I don't know a lot about China, but I know that's not a much for that much dinnerware. Hell, that much Melmac plastic would have cost more than that. I looked the pattern up online. It''s a discontinued design, but it's by no means worthless. Plates were going for $10 a piece. The creamer was listed at about $35. The sugar bowl was listed at $15. And on and on.

They wanted cash, so I had to run to a nearby bank ATM. When I got back Tori was wrapping it in paper and packing it into a plastic bin, with a bemused look on her face. She had approached the women running the sale and said she wanted to buy the China. One of the woman said, "Great. How about $40?" Tori said, "Sure." They even threw in the plastic bin and paper.

As a writer I don't do a lot of bargaining and haggling, but it seems that's backwards. When you're negotiating a sale, you don't lower the price after you've made the sale, do you? We were prepared to pay the listed price. Tori said we were going to buy it. I would have thought that was a done deal. I guess they just like bargaining.

Anyway, we've got several hundred dollars (at least) worth of China. Not sure what we're going to do with it. Maybe give it to one of the kids, maybe sell it online. But even if we just use it to replace the department store stuff we use now, we're way ahead of the game.

Also last week, we had a visit from Robyn, one of Tori's closest friends and of all our Oregon friends the one she's known longest. We hadn't seen her in two and a half years, when she came out to New Orleans to help us through the firstAlex birthday since she died. Before that, while we were in the V.I. she was in Australia. Then she moved to L.A., which she hated, and now she and Daniel have moved to Knoxville, Tenn. (Long story not to be repeated here.)

Robyn had loaded up their stuff and was driving across country in a Ford pickup with a 4-cylinder engine, so progress was slow. But she got here earlier than expected. We expected her late Thursday, but after a short stop at an extremely noisy motel on the Texas/Louisiana border, she decided to hit the road and arrived in our driveway at 3 a.m. Instead of knocking on the door or window, she and her cat Owen slept in the front seat. So when I got up at 6, there they were. I knocked on the driver's side window and she jumped about as far as you can jump in the cab of a pickup.

So she and Tori had a good day together, then she had a "bonus day" when she slept in until almost 11 a.m. – which she never does. The road had taken its toll and she needed the extra day. She and Tori got extra time together, and Robyn made it to Tennessee on Saturday after a grand motor tour of the deep South – Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee.

Why Must He Be So Reasonable?

Had my follow up visit with the doctor Thursday. It went fine, but it would probably have been more helpful if he hadn't kept being all reasonable.

We went over the results of all the tests and it was all pretty much what I'd told him six weeks ago – high cholesterol, a little too much weight. Turns out I don't have gout, just a sore toe. And my heart is fine, that's always good news.

So I'll be going back to see him in six months – and in the meantime I'll have lost some weight and lowered my cholesterol. I'll do the latter in part through a statin drug he's prescribed – which means no more grapefruit juice for me! Damn! I love grapefruit juice. There's half a bottle in the refrigerator. Ah well. The things we do simply to live longer.

As to the former, lose weight. Well, there ain't no secrets or surprises there. Eat less, and eat smarter, and exercise more. The plan is, I'll take the statin and restructure my eating and workout habits. Then at the end of the six months we'll check the cholesterol level again. If it's down enough (and by "enough" I mean roughly in half) then I'll go off the statins and see if the new, smart-eating me can keep it down.

I've already dropped six pounds since my first meeting with the doc Feb. 2, so I'm on my way but have a ways to go. It is a not inconsequential percentage of my current body mass. Biggest thing I've done is stop drinking milk. I was raised with milk, to me it doesn't feel like a meal without a glass of milk, or two. But milk, of course, is a liquid devised by mother nature to turn calves into 500 pound steers quickly and efficiently. So now my only milk comes on my morning Cheerios.

The doctor gave me – not a diet, but a sheet on how to eat more sensibly. First, do most of your own cooking. People who prepare their own meals tend to be healthier and have less weight problems than people who eat out a lot. Check. Already do that. I probably do 70 percent of the cooking in the house. Second, do the bulk of your shopping on the periphery of the supermarket – shop the outer walls first. That's where the produce, meat, seafood departments tend to be. As the doc said, "Buy food that looks like food." As much as possible, refrain from stuff in boxes or cans.

(Of course, the bakery often also is on the store's periphery, but I didn't point that out. It'll be our little secret.)  

Again - check. I already buy very little of the processed foods. I don't understand why, for instance, a person would buy a jar of spaghetti sauce loaded with sugar, dyes and preservatives, when it's so easy to make, and tastes so much better.

So as we talked about healthy choices (At dinner the contents of plate should be half plant – salad, vegetables, fruit, that kind of thing.) Starch – rice or potatoes – should be the smallest portion.

And this is where his reasonableness became a problem. I'd heave a sigh and say something like, "Goodbye red meat," and he'd say, "Oh no, a little red meat is fine, in fact ..." and he'd reel off several reasons why a little beef – grass fed, not corn fed – would be just fine. Or how I have to have a regular "cheat day" when I'm allowed to break the rules. We even had a spirited discussion about the awesomeness of bacon! How is that supposed to help me?

That's not what I need. I need a task master. I need someone to get all in my face and shout, "No more white rice! Step away from the cookies! Eat this quinoa, then drop and give me 10!"

No, I've gotta be the grownup here. Any yelling at me will have to be done by me. The grown up.

Speaking of quinoa, I have now tried it and don't plan to again. When we were at the Whole Foods a couple of weeks ago we picked some up. As the girl at the register rang us up we mentioned we didn't know how to cook it yet. She gave us some tips.

"So you eat it?"

"Yeah."

"Is it any good?"

"Oh no," she said without hesitation. "But I eat it."

Well, good for her. We tried it. It's supposed to be very good for you, but cooking it made kind of a mess and it tasted sort of vile. In fairness maybe if we were better at cooking it, it might not have been completely vile. But I don't care.

It's no longer on our diet. I don't eat quinoa. You may quote me.

And I don't think that's being unreasonable.

Our Biggest Challenge Yet on the Kitten Front

We have a new kitten in the house, and this one will be a challenge.

We have fostered three kittens (here and here about halfway down) for the Spaymart, kittens that have undergone some kind of trauma and had trouble learning to socialize. And in each case we've been able to help them calm down and get adopted into homes where they're now loved and loving members of the family.

Kitten in the Closet

The new one is about eight weeks, but that's a guess. She was part of a litter of four found int he wild and brought to the Spaymart. Two were adopted. This one and the third got sick and were at a vet's office that – well, let's say care for the animals seemed to be secondary to the vet's convenience. The third died. And the one with us now was pretty badly traumatized.

We were told going in that, if we can't make any headway with her, they have a feral cat colony, so no pressure. That's not a great image to start with. And she sure showed no sign of wanting to be part of a family. She's scared.

Tori opened the cat carrier and she dashed behind the couch, where she spent most of her first day. We knew she used the cat box – which was kind of a miracle since it's in the laundry room and we never had a chance to show it to her – but we never saw her. Shame too, she's a very pretty cat.

Unlike the other three kittens we've fostered, this one didn't even have a name. She does now, but she had to earn it.

The second day she ran into our bedroom, burrowed into the closet, and spent the next two days there. We'd peek in, pushing aside the hanging clothes, talking to her the whole time and never reaching for her. All we could see was her eyes staring out. She didn't hiss, didn't strike out. Just stared.

Tori has spent hours, sitting outside the closet just talking and waving cat toys at her, the kind on the long flexible rod with a bunch of stuff fluttering around. And the cat started responding, tracking the beguiling objects and batting at them.

It's just a matter of patience. Lots and lots of that. We can't force anything. We haven't even tried to touch her yet. Just keep talking to her, keep playing with her, keep letting her know we're here and aren't going to hurt her. No sudden movements.

Ellen the Explorer

She mostly stayed in our closet for two days. We never saw her leave, but she did because the cat box was being used and the food disappearing.

She finally came out yesterday. And that's how she earned her name. We call her Ellen, because she came out of the closet.

She's spending most of her time behind the furniture in the living room. Right now I see she's very tentatively slipped around the corner, alert for any movement, ready to run. She's been at the food and water bowls, which are kind of out int he open, for about ten minutes. She's aware we're here, Tori at the kitchen table, me at my work station in the living room, and she's very cautious. Now she's exploring the living room. She's keeping her distance, but she's out.

Time. It's just a matter of time, I guess.

ROAD TRIP!

Tori and John on their hotel balcony. Happy.

Pirates, penguins, porpoises and more. What a great, serendipitous road trip we had.

Tori and I were talking about going to Fort Walton Beach, Fla., this June for the Billy Bowlegs Pirate Festival. It's an easy drive from here, it's supposed to be a really good festival, and our friend Tom Mason is the featured performer.

Tori on the road.

But we don't know the town. The only time either Tori or I have been in Florida was stopovers on flights from the states to the islands. We were having trouble figuring out where would be a good place to stay so we could enjoy the festival and do as little driving as possible during the event.

Finally, Tori said, "What the hell! Let's go!" Thursday we jumped in the car with our toothbrushes and a change of underwear each and four hours later we were in Fort Walton Beach. (Whoever told us it was two hours to Pensacola lied – or drove about 130 miles an hour. But that's OK, it was a nice drive. Who knew Mobile has such a great skyline?) We felt right at home. It's a beachside town, and there's something similar about them, whether in Florida, Southern Cal or Oregon. A certain sandy funkiness that we recognized instantly.

Gulf of Mexico sundown.

Pirate and pirate

Unlike our last attempt to enjoy the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, this was a really nice place. I could stay there a while.

We found the waterfront park where the festival takes place, and found a resort approximately a hundred yards away. That would be perfect. We spent the night there, liked it, and the next morning we reserved the last room they had available for the early June festival weekend, a room big enough for us and Kate and Max.

While we were packing up to check out, the phone rang. It was my doctor, who wanted to talk over the results of my blood test. Nothing to worry about, in fact he said it was pretty much exactly what I had told him when I first walked into his office. The only thing to be concerned about is high cholesterol, which I had told him. I've got a cardiac stress test Thursday and assuming all goes well (or at least well-ish) we'll talk about how to get the cholesterol down.

That having been said, a big, greasy road trip breakfast was off the schedule. Tori insisted. For some reason, she wants to keep me around.

We asked at the desk for a good local spot for breakfast would be and they directed us to an out-of-the-way, not at all touristy restaurant called the Neighborhood Cafe. Well named, because that's what it is. It's a neighborhood place that tourists wouldn't even find, let along want to go to. But it was really good. I had an omelet made with egg whites only. It was delicious, and the best part was the hash browns. I'd swear they were cooked in bacon grease. Maybe not the best thing for my heart, but delicious!

But here's the thing –

The cafe was full up – Friday, I guess, the local clientele comes in for their chicken fried steak or biscuits and gravy. And except for the table of guys from the nearby Air Force Base and one other table, we were the youngest customers there – by far! I'm not kidding, I can't think of the last time I saw so many walkers and canes. It's not often these days that I walk into a place and lower the average age of the room.

After breakfast we stopped in at the chamber of commerce, which has a sign boasting "the Billy Bowlegs Museum," which turns out to be their conference room with a bunch of pictures on the wall. We introduced ourselves, Tori mentioned TLAPDay, and the next thing I know the chamber director is out there signing me up to do some radio spots announcing this year's festival.

Tori chats with Cranberry.

Tori and Cranberry

In the afternoon we went to the local aquarium, the Gulfarium. I'm sure during the tourist season it's a terrific place. In February, it was cold, cloudy, there was hardly anyone there, and half the exhibits were closed for the season. But it was a fun afternoon with a dolphin show, at the end of which, Tori got to feed a penguin. She and a girl, about 12 or so, were given instructions and told to sit cross legged. The little penguin, a South African penguin called Cranberry, wasn't interested in eating. Instead, she jumped right into Tori's lap!

It was, all in all, a terrific road trip, two days of just me and Tori. The weather was cold, the sky was  cloudy, and we had a great time together. And this the same week that we celebrated Mardi Gras.

      Sometimes life is too good.

Turns Out I'm OK. Not Great, but OK

I passed my blood test today. At least, they stuck a needle in my arm and blood came out. Sounds like a win in my book.

I went to the doctor Monday for the first time in eight years. I haven't had insurance, and I've been feeling fine. But now I have insurance (thank you President Obama) and Tori thought it would be a good idea to actually – you know – see the doctor.

I was fine with that. I was less comfortable with the idea of him seeing me.

I feel OK, but you know, I'm about to turn 60 and I've had a few "issues," as would anyone my age who just doesn't pay much attention to health.

Tori came with me, partly to make sure I went through the door, and partly because she thought there was a chance they'd be rushing me into surgery or calling a priest, or at least calling in the other staff at the clinic to "get a load of this!"

But no, I'm "OK." Not great, but I'm OK. I'm not gonna die today, and I probably won't tomorrow, and really, considering the way the word is, who can honestly say more?

I had an EKG and the doctor said it looked good. He actually sounded a little surprised when he said it. Today's blood test was another part of the battery. He said he's gathering data. It's like he knows there must be something wrong, and he's gonna find it.

The doctor – who seemed so painfully young that I kept wondering when the field trip would be over and he'd get on the bus to go back to school – agreed with what I had said when I first walked into his office. If I lose a little weight, most of those issues will go away. 

Sigh. So long, doughnuts (except on TLAPDay.) Goodbye red meat. Been good knowing you, ice cream. And barbecued pork ribs (again, except on the holiday.) Hello whole grains and leafy greens.

Good thing the Super Bowl was Sunday, It was hard enough watching that game. Watching it without my pulled pork sandwich and a bottle of Shiner's "Birthday Beer," (a chocolate bock that literally tastes like a piece of chocolate cake, yet is unmistakeably beer) would have been too much to ask of a Seahawk fan (It was in the bag man! There was no WAY we could lose!) Can you imagine watching that with nothing to support me but rice cakes and room temperature spring water?

Anyway, that ties into something else. I'm getting ready to move this blog  to Word Press and was thinking of categories for the different parts of my life. Family Life. Pirate Life. Now I can have another category, related to my health.

The categories will be: Family Life. Writing Life. Pirate Life. and – wait for it –

Clinging to Life.

I won't be moving right away, and I'll mention it before I do it. But it's in the works.

Bad History, Teeth, Cats, Idiots

Bad History

I watched the first two episodes of "Sons of Liberty" on the History Channel. I might watch the final episode tonight, but it's hard. It makes good TV I guess, but it's lousy history.

I don't know why I'm surprised. Despite its name, there's an awful lot of non-historical crap on the History Channel.

Through the first two hours of the show I kept throwing up my hands, and a couple of times had to leave the room. It's like that Heath Ledger movie, "A Knight's Tale," which supposedly is about jousting knights and treats them like rock stars – literally, considering some of the music was by Queen. There's a 21st century mindset or attitude that I guess is supposed to help us "get" the issues. But what it really does is hide what's real about those times and those people under a simplistic veneer.

And in the movie, they were fictional characters in a fictional setting. In "Sons of Liberty," these are real people. They really existed and really did things that created this country. And the History Channel's effort gives lip service to some of it, short cuts, truncates and oversimplifies most of it, and then just makes stuff up because it makes good TV.

I forget who said "History is a great story that just happened to have really taken place," but there's a lot to that. I just wish the History Channel had bothered to tell the story that really happened.

Teeth

Went to the dentist last week. That's not particularly noteworthy, except it was the first time in six and a half years. The last time I went to the dentist it was about a couple of teeth towards the back that were breaking off, chip at a time. Necrotic (dead.) Not painful, just kind of annoying. That dentist told me how we'd take care of it over the next few months if treatment. I pointed out that I was moving to St. Croix in three days, and that was that.

So now that I'm covered on Tori's dental and optical insurance, she insisted I go to the dentist. It wasn't bad. Not painful. Yet. Now I have a treatment plan that the insurance will cover about half of. And some of it – scraping and planing and removing the roots of those two missing teeth – does not not sound painless.

But I'm a grownup, and I recognize that if I don't do something, I'll probably lose most of them. So I'll do it.

But first I've got a doctor's appointment next week. Haven't been to a doctor in eight years, since I didn't have insurance. Now I do thanks to the Affordable Care Act (thank you, President Obama.) I could have signed on to Tori's health insurance at work, but adding me would have been so expensive there'd almost be no point in her working.

I feel fine. Not great. I will turn 60 this year and there's plenty of little things. But mostly I feel fine. I've got a list of little nagging things that will make him sit up and keep him busy for a while, running tests and whatnot.

And with new glasses – that's also on the agenda – I'll soon be a new man.

I just hope I'm still funny.

Cats

We are down to zero cats – we're 3 of 3.

In November, Tori brought a kitten home from the Spaymart adoption center for us to foster. She was sick, couldn't be with the other cats. We fed Jane (Tori had named her Jane Austen) and fattened her up, took her in for her shots and neutering, played with her, shared the computer with her, cleared up her ear mites, and took her back so that someone could adopt her. She was a Christmas present for two young kids and is now a pampered and beloved member of that family. They brought photos by the Spaymart the other day.

While we were fostering Jane, Tori brought home Lucy. We were told she needed some discipline, she was unruly, attacked and bit and was unsociable. Sounded fun. She had been found on a boat. Young, probably not more than six weeks old, she was still a little feral and HATED being in the cage at Spaymart. Hissed, growled, bit. It took her a day to get comfortable in our house, but playing with Jane, she got used to us.

In fact, she quickly showed her true colors. She was a little love. She still played kind of wildly. Every morning for about an hour she'd be sort of manic, so much so that we thought maybe Lucy was short for Lucifer, but all of a sudden she'd leap – absolutely leap – into my lap while I was trying to work. She'd scrambled up my leg, up my chest (I still have a few scratches from that) and perch on or near my shoulder, purring. It's hard to type one handed. If you sat in the recliner, any time of the day or night, you were almost certain to wind up with a cat purring on your chest, vigorously rubbing the top of her head into your chin.

But every time Tori brought her back to the Spaymart she went berserk. It was all Tori could do to hold on to her, but no one else could touch her. So she'd come back here.

We tried bringing another cat home to help Lucy socialize. but she was more standoffish than Lucy ever was. Lucy actually helped her socialize, rather than the other way around.

After a couple of weeks, we took the third cat (who had been given the unfortunate name Sweetie Pie. Max temporarily renamed her Bon Quee Quee) back to Spaymart, and she was finally adopted last weekend. back to Spaymart in the hope she'd get adopted.

Which left us with Lucy, and I was getting worried that she'd never get adopted. But Tori put ads on Facebook and Craigslist, and we got a call from a couple that were looking for a cat and thought she was the one. They came by and, instead of hissing and running away like I'd expected, Lucy played with the woman. And the guy has a beard, which Tori is convinced was an important part of the cat's imprinting on me. So she's adopted and I heard today from her new family that she's settled in, happy and loved.

We got them when they were kittens, and got to help them find families. And now they're out, and we don't have to deal with cats. Mission accomplished.

Until Tori brings the next one home.

Idiots

Tori has been having lots of fun with her Galaxy pad, my Christmas present to her. She just found (on Hulu) and binge watched a show that makes "America's Next Top Model" look like Shakespeare. It's called (ironically, I think/hope) "America's Most Smartest Model."

It pits models, male and female, in both modeling competition and quizzes by none other than that asshole Ben Stein. And those parts are hilarious.

My favorite was the blonde (had to be, right?) who somehow managed to last five episodes even though it was obvious she would not stand out intellectually in a vat of toothpaste. Asked the last name of Napoleon, she "thought" – if that's what you want to call it – for almost a minute and then blurted out, "Pierre?" Kudos to her for trying French (though Napoleon was Corsican, which would have blown her tiny mind.)

Even better was when asked "Who assassinated John F. Kennedy?" You could practically hear the hamsters in her head spinning the wheel as she thought and thought, and finally, desperately, said, "Brad?" I'm laughing just typing it.

There were others even stupider than her, but somehow not as flamboyantly stupid. When she finally got eliminated, her last words on camera were a whine, then "Oh no! I really AM dumb!"

And in the final salute to inanity, "America's Most Smartest Model" was won by a Russian. Go figure.

A Good Week: The Game, The Movie and Home Work

What a game!

We are Seahawks fans. I have been since '78, and Tori became a fan after she moved to the Northwest in the '80s. There has been little enough for fans to cheer about for decades, so their success of the last couple of years is all the sweeter. Seattle fans aren't bandwagon jumpers or fair weather friends. We've earned the right to crow a little.

And that was never more true than Sunday's game, sort of a microcosm of the whole long-term fan's experience.

Those who were watching Sunday's NFC championship game against the Packers know how it went. The game started great, with Richard Sherman intercepting a pass in the end zone. It was going to be easy.

But it wasn't. The Seahawk offense was awful that day. Awful. QB Russell Wilson couldn't hit anyone, and when he did they tipped it up and it was picked off. The running game wasn't moving. It was hard to watch. But the defense kept coming after the Packers, giving up yards but forcing field goals instead of allowing touchdowns. So we were still in it, but time was running out.

Tori was glum, and I was nervous. I literally cannot recall them ever playing that badly, not just in their recent successful years, but even back during the bad days when the owner seemed to be intentionally making the team bad so local fans wouldn't object when he moved them to Los Angeles. Tori kept asking, "Can they do it?" and I kept saying, "Yes," but I was getting a bad feeling that this wasn't going to be a happy day. But we stayed with it, rooting for the impossible.

Because that's what fans do. You root for your team no matter what. You stand by them in the darkest hours. It's your job. I know something about being a long-term fan of a hopeless team. I was born a Cubs fan, son of a Cubs fan who was the son of a Cubs fan. My grandfather, who I never met, was the last in the line of Baurs to actually see the Cubs win the World Series, back in 1908. It's been 106 years since then. One of my earliest sports memories is the '69 Cubs. Enough said.

So on Sunday we waited, and kept hoping against hope. I'm not going to do a whole play by play. If you care, you already know, if you don't – well, you don't. But it was the most magnificent, amazing, impossible and exhilarating finale I've ever seen. We were on our feet shouting. And when Kearse rolled into the end zone with the overtime touchdown pass that won the game, we literally screamed. It was the most amazing high I've ever felt.

I dare say if the team hadn't been misfiring so badly all day, if they'd battled the Packers without trying to gift wrap the game for them, if they'd just gone out and won, I'd have been very happy. But that would have been nothing compared to the giddy dancing feeling of that impossible win. If we hadn't been so downcast, hadn't been staring into the face of certain defeat, we couldn't have been thrown into the heights the way we were by the performance of 53 men – who we'll never meet – playing a game 1,500 miles or so away.

You've got to accept the possibility of heartache to get the chance for total exhilaration.

Go 'Hawks!

Movie

Tori and I saw "The Imitation Game" Friday. Really good movie and Benedict Cumberbatch was as brilliant as I'd been told to expect. It was a story I was familiar with. I'd first heard of Alan Turing and Ultra when I read "Bodyguard of Lies," Alan Cave Brown's 1975 history of Britain's secret war against the Third Reich, and had read it many more times since, most recently in "Cryptonomicon," a novel about many, many things including code breaking and Turing and Ultra and computers and Greek gods and the ultimate way to eat Cap'n Crunch cereal.

So we enjoyed a compelling movie about both the ultimate coup against the Nazis and the enigmatic genius who pulled it off and the tragedy of his life. A very layered, brilliant performance by Cumberbatch.

But as good as it was, it mostly just reminded me of how much greater "Birdman" is. We saw that on Christmas week, and my god, it's an amazing movie that works on so many different levels. Michael Keaton is phenomenal, best performance I've seen in years, certainly the best he's ever given. It's an actor's movie, an astonish tour de force for a great cast. The direction and the cinematography are incredible. It's not the kind of movie that wins a lot of awards, but I cannot remember a better, more compelling movie, ever.

Home work

Spent Thursday up to my elbows in the dryer. Of course, no one wants any appliance to go wrong, but if anything does, you want it to be the dryer.

A dryer does only two things – it blows hot air on a turning drum. That's it. For all the fancy stuff they add, the computer chips and the filters and the lights and buzzers, all it really does is blow hot air on a turning drum. And there's only four major parts to make that happen – the drum, a belt, the motor and the heating unit. So it's pretty easy to diagnose a problem. If the drum isn't turning, it's the motor, belt or drum. If the air it blows isn't hot, it's the heating element. That's it. Except ...

But this time the air was still hot, and the drum turned. But last week when the drum turned, it sounded like a cement mixer, like it was about to shake itself apart. So Thursday I started taking it apart, piece by piece.

I went slow, because I wasn't absolutely certain what I was doing. That's what made it so fun. I had the front and back off and couldn't see anything wrong. Nothing stuck in there that should have been, no loose belt (Tori, by the way, first put in that belt two and a half years ago when we moved in here) or spring hanging down that obviously should have been connected to something else.

I peered inside with a flashlight, everything looked OK, but clearly wasn't. It still rumbled away like a bulldozer every time I turned the motor over.

I paused between each step, consulting various youtube DIY videos and thinking very hard between each step. What should I do next and was I capable of doing it?

I finally pulled the drum and everything looked OK until I reached all the way back and spun the drum rollers, the two little wheels on axles bolted to the back that support the drum as it revolves. One of them was obviously broken, the hub broken out.

A quick trip to the appliance store (no, not Sears) and I was back with a replacement part. It took about another hour to pull the whole thing back together. When Tori got home, she didn't even realize the dryer was running.

The one frustrating thing – and boy was it frustrating – was that as I took the front and back off, etc., I dropped the screws in my pocket. There were twelve half-inch screws with 5/16 inch machine heads and two screws with Phillips heads. And almost every time I reached into my pocket for a machine-head screw, almost every single time, I pulled out one of the two Phillips heads. And of course, those were the last two I would need.

So yeah, I felt pretty good. It had taken me hours longer than it would have someone who knows what they're doing and does it often. But like the man said, to the man who owns a wrench and knows how to use it, it's just a puzzle. I own a wrench – a lot of them, actually, way more than I need, but that's a different story – and solving the puzzle took a lot longer.

But the dryer works. Not sure it means much, but it felt good to do, and was part of a very good week.

The Greeks Have a Word for It

And that word is "hubris." Go ahead, look it up. I'll wait. "Overweening or excessive pride."

OK, to begin with, I happen to make very good fried chicken. I am not saying I make the "best" fried chicken in the world. I'm just saying I've never had better. And Thursday I was going to make fried chicken for dinner, and I boasted of my prowess, to which Tori and Max and Kate all agreed. Mashed potatoes, zucchini, and fried chicken. One might call it one of my specialties. I certainly did.

So naturally, I blew it. It was not dreadful, but it wasn't very good. A little burnt on the outside, a little raw in the middle – still not sure how I managed that – and over spiced. Not so much so that it was inedible, but it was definitely not up to the standard I'd been bragging about. The worst fried chicken I've ever made, and probably the worst thing I've cooked in months.

The potatoes were good. How can you screw up mashed potatoes? And the zucchini was damn near perfect. But the chicken? Not so good. It was still better than KFC or most other chains. But karma had definitely put me in my place.

Lesson learned. You can't serve your reputation for dinner.

An Old School Yule

I'm old school, a crotchety old holdover. This comes as no surprise to anyone who knows me well, certainly not to my kids. Sure, I work online, and whatever share of international notoriety I've garnered wouldn't have happened without the Internet. But in a lot of ways I'm not that different from the classic TV dads of the '50s – Jim Anderson or Ward Cleaver.

On the afternoon of Christmas day, I looked up and saw Kate deeply entrenched in her new Game Boy thing. Max was working on his new computer. And Tori was learning all the things her Galaxy Tab can do.

And I was reading a book. John Cleese's memoir, "So, Anyway ..." My other major gifts were a cast-iron skillet, the kind that fits over two of the stove top burners, a pair of eight-pound dumbbells, and a really cool hat.

I'm not sure what style the hat is, it has the crown of a fedora and the rolled-up brim of a pork pie. I suppose I could snap the brim down to a point in front, but no. It's not as wide as a fedora brim, more like a trilby.

Besides, I like it the way it is. I'm a crotchety old fart, but I admit it, I'd like to think I'm still a little cool.

BOOK – "So, Anyway ..." is a really a good book. I've finished it by now, of course.

It's funny, of course, as you'd expect from a book by John Cleese. Surprisingly, it contains very little of his years with Monty Python and almost nothing directly about "A Fish Called Wanda." It stops right about the time Monty Python was taking to the airwaves and it's only the last couple of chapters that have much about the legendary comedy group. (There's a very funny bit about the origin of the justly famous cheese shop sketch, which includes a bout of real-life projectile vomiting.)

The book follows his growing up and into the kind of person who would end up as a Python. Great book.

The biggest thing that came across is how serious comedy is. As zany and wild as Monty Python was (and is on DVD and online) it was built by guys who took their comedy very seriously. Interestingly, they all saw themselves more as writers than performers, which was part of why they worked so well together. It was always about the joke, not about being a star.

But here's a question. Why do Englishmen, when telling you about their lives, ALWAYS start by telling you about their schools and the name of every master and teacher they had? There were two salient points to Cleese's school stories, maybe three – that he was a coward, that his mother was crazy, and maybe the fact that the teacher who seemed to be one of his greatest influences (but not for the reasons you think) had turned himself into the perfect Edwardian gentleman. And the schools days take about the first half of the book.

Then, almost 100 pages later, while he's talking about being a writer for David Frost, he mentions almost as a throwaway how as a boy he had loved comedy albums, collected them, studied them, tried to memorize and reproduce them. I think that's a lot more interesting, a lot more significant, coming from John Cleese than any number of rugby coaches and the headmaster who could get anyone to do what he wanted, except his wife.

It just goes to show, I suppose, how we don't always understand our own journeys. Makes me wonder what I'm missing, or fail to understand, about my own life.

Pie Day, Politics and a Lesson

Pie Day: For years at the Baur House, the day before Thanksgiving has been Pie Day. About 20 years ago we and our friends at Albany Civic Theater in Oregon held the theater orphan Thanksgiving party. We actually hosted it about five years in a row.

We made two turkeys and an ocean of mashed potatoes, and everyone brought whatever it was that it wouldn't be Thanksgiving without it. You'd be surprised at what some people thought was necessary.

We had as many as 30 people show up. It was an amazing time.

And the day before Thanksgiving, Tori made pies. Lots of 'em. One year she made 18 pies. Pumpkin. Apple. Pecan (several of those three.) Chocolate. Cherry (my favorite) mince pie (her mother's favorite.) Lots and lots of pie.

A lot of it got eaten that day. A lot more got eaten in the next few days. There may be better breakfasts than leftover cherry or apple pie, but not many.

We still make the pies every year, but not nearly so many of course. Tonight on the counter there are pumpkin, apple, and cherry pies, with the pecan yet to be made. Of course, there's not 30 people coming over. There's the four of us, plus our friend Alan, and maybe Cam and his girlfriend. We haven't heard back from them yet.

So even with the reduced numbers, there's plenty of pie to go around. There's also cupcakes for tonight, because we still celebrate Alex's birthday.

Thanksgiving. It's all about friends and family. And pie. Lots of pie.

–––

I was canvassing for the senate runoff last weekend. They don't just send you out knocking doors. They give you a list of names and addresses in a given neighborhood, the names of people likely to vote for your candidate. The idea is to get out your vote and hope the other side stays home.

I approached a house where a small boy and his father were bouncing a basketball back and forth in the driveway. The man had short hair and a scowl. His neck was actually red. He saw me approach and asked who I was.

"I'm John, I'm a volunteer with the Louisiana Democratic Party and ..."

"We're all Republicans here. You keep on walkin'," he said. Really, it was as menacing as it sounds.

I glanced at my list, which showed a woman lived there, who was listed as the same age as this redneck appeared to be, and she was clearly listed as a Democrat. She had apparently registered Democrat and not let her husband know she had done so. I considered raising the issue, just to show I had the right house, then thought better of it. Her voter registration was her business, and I saw no point in spilling the beans and creating what I was sure would be an ugly squabble.

"OK," I said, "have a nice day."

"We never vote for no Democrats," he added, possibly for his son's sake, as I walked on.

–––

Lesson Learned: Never buy your coffee beans at a clothing store. You wouldn't think that would be necessary to mention, but every now and then ...

Creepy Service at Rooms to Go

I haven't worked in retail in almost 40 years, but if I remember anything, it's that the customer is always right. In other words, take care of the customer, make them feel welcome, make them want to spend

Or at the very least, "Don't creep the customer out."

We are looking for a new sofa. We thought we found just about the right one at the first place we looked, but you hate buying the first thing you see, right? So we tried another store, a nationally advertised chain – Rooms to Go.

Well, they have rooms, and they made me want to go.

It started when we walked into the door and took maybe three steps and a young woman leaped out from behind a cabinet. As she started talking to us, telling us her name and how she'd help and wondering what we were looking for, I looked over her shoulder. There was a whole line of sales people – at least four – lined up behind that cabinet, each waiting his or her turn to pounce on the next potential customer.

It looked a little like the ambush scene in "The Lone Ranger" (not the 2013 version that was roundly panned, but the 1981 version, which was also roundly panned) where the Texas rangers ride into the canyon ringed by Butch Cavendich's gunmen. And the effect was about the same, since it pretty much killed our desire to shop there.

Anyway, we told her we were just looking but if we had any questions ... And she repeated her name and told us she'd be happy to help.

Here's where it gets creepy. She stalked us. She was never too close, but always right there. We strolled through the story, sitting on virtually every sofa in the place, and I'll give them this, they have a lot of sofas. But every time I looked up, there she was, maybe 15 to 20 feet away, pretending not to know we were there, busy with the little pile of advertising flyers in her hand, never actually staring at us, but obviously waiting for us to decide we needed her help.

Obviously Rooms to Go pays its sales staff on commission.

Anyway, we worked our way through the store, sofa by sofa, with our silent companion tagging along.

I turned to Tori and asked, "What happens if we try to leave without buying anything? Will she jump us if we head for the door? Will I have to gnaw my arm off like a coyote?"

A couple of minutes later Tori looked over my shoulder and saw the woman about 20 feet away,talking with an older guy with some kind of ID tag around his neck, probably her sales manager wondering why she hadn't sold us a sofa yet.

"Quick!" Tori said. "She's distracted." We took a sharp left past the dining room sets and made it to the far corner of the showroom. We'd lost her! We carefully circled around, keeping an eye out, until we made it to the exit. There was still a ravening pack of salesmen there, but they were on the lookout for people coming in, not fleeing, and they didn't pay attention as we slipped out the door.

Back at the car, we looked back at the entrance. A family was walking up the steps, and a salesman, not content to let them come to him, had actually come out on the porch to waylay them.

What was next? Would they set up a roadblock on the street outside? Anything seemed possible.

We will be going back to the first store this weekend and getting a couch. It had a good selection of furniture, and better prices.

AND NOBODY FOLLOWED US AROUND.

Well, That was a Lot of Fun

Got a phone call two nights ago from one of those right-wing groups spending a gazillion dollars in Louisiana to win the Senate runoff election.

The woman at the other end asked if I had time to answer a three-question survey. "Sure!" I said, licking my chops.

The first question was something along the lines of "Do you think Mary Landrieu is part of the problem in Washington, or is she helping to keep government spending within its limits?" Implying of course that the problem is government spending. So I said I couldn't answer that.

"So should I put you down as 'no opinion?"

"No," I said. I have an opinion. But this question isn't fair, it presupposes the problem and assumes one of these two answers are the only possible answer. No way I can answer that."

She took a moment and started to ask the second question, which was about the Affordable Care Act. Now, conservatives hate the ACA, which they call Obamacare and say in the same tone that they'd say Ebola. If you ask them why they hate it, they have trouble answering. They just know they hate it, because they've been told it's the worst thing to ever happen to this country.

So I stopped her halfway through the question and said, "Did you know that because of the Affordable Care Act, more than 100,000 Louisianans have health insurance now who didn't a year ago? Is that a bad thing? More than 100,000. And I'm one of them. It's the first time I've had health insurance in 10 years. Thank you, President Obama, and if Mary Landrieu helped make that happen, thanks to her, too."

She paused, then said, "I don't."

I asked if she had gone to the ACA website and tried to see if she could get it. She said again, "I can't afford it," then said she isn't covered because she only works 28 hours a week. When the act took effect, her hours were reduced from so that her employer wouldn't have to provide health insurance.

"So you don't have insurance because of your employer," I pointed out.

"I can't afford it," she repeated.

"Because of your employer. But if you went to the website ..."

"I can't afford it."

The last question was who I would support in the runoff, as if it wasn't already obvious. Would I support Mary Landrieu?

"Oh hell yes I'll vote for Mary!" I said. I think she was surprised. If the script had gone as written, I'd have been backed into a corner and have to say I'd support the stuttering idiot running against her. (And don't be mistaken. If the polls are correct, that stuttering idiot is about to become a U.S. senator. I know that.)

But the script hadn't gone as planned, because I know more than they want me to. The right wing money machine relies on people believing what they're told to believe and not actually knowing facts and stuff.

So that was fun.

A Visitor Lends a Hand – But Isn't Very Helpful

I knew this would happen. It was almost inevitable. No. Strike the "almost." It was inevitable.

Max takes guitar lessons at the Guitar Center. Tori takes him most weeks, because I usually work the copy editing shift Wednesday night.

While she waits for him, she volunteer at the nearby pet adoption center, spending an hour cleaning cat boxes and playing with the kittens. (I just heard the "click" where you put two and two together and came up with "kitten.")

Tori and Max came home Saturday with a tiny kitten, maybe six ounces of orange fluff and dryer lint.

"She's not staying," Tori said solemnly. "We're fostering her. She's sick and can't be with the other kittens. It was either bring her home, or the four healthy ones." Although Tori immediately named her, Jane Austen, so we'll see how long "temporary" is.

She had an eye infection. (Jane Austen, not Tori, although Tori coincidentally does have an ear infection, completely unrelated but there you go.) The center gave Tori an antibiotic to give the cat and it's working. Tori says we have to get Jane Austen's weight up to two pounds before she can be adopted. Just guessing, I'd say she's five, maybe six weeks old at most.

Apparently she was found alone on a path in the swamp. Either mom was feral and had a litter in the outdoors, and this one got separated, or someone just dumped her.

Saturday, her first day with us, she was kind of terrified. Spent most of the day and all night under the reclining chair. (Which was a bummer, since we were afraid to sit on it. It rocks, and we didn't want to squish her.)

By Sunday she was feeling more comfortable and roaming around the house. She has now taken to sleeping in the middle of the couch. In fact, she already sort of owns the couch. She's nine inches long at most and manages to take up the entire thing. She's got the run of the place now.

During the weekdays, I'm the only one up and about during the school/work hours, so she focuses all her attention on me.

Look, I'm not a cat person, but I won't pretend she's not cute. I can spend an hour just tossing crumpled up paper wads and watching her bat them around the floor. And she follows me around from the desk to the kitchen to the laundry room and back all day long.

But she's not very helpful. I know, I'm asking a lot for an animal that young to actually be helpful, but still. Starting Monday, she was a) confident enough to go anywhere and b) comfortable enough with me to want my attention. So as I tried to work at the computer, she kept climbing from the couch to the end table to my lap, then up onto the keyboard.

I know there's nothing new about that. The Internet is littered (see what I did there?) with pictures and video of cats on keyboards. It's a first for me. Our last cat, the only one we had in the family for any length of time, wasn't a cuddler. Roger Cow (the kids named him) had a very clear delineation of duties. He was king of the neighborhood, in charge of keeping other cats, dogs, raccoons and other critters out of our yard. I was in charge of everything else.

But Jane Austen has spent the last three mornings climbing up onto the keyboard. She either types, throwing all kinds of windows and dialogue boxes up on the screen as she strolls across the keys, or sits in the middle and grooms herself, as if to say, "I'm taking care of business. You can enjoy looking at me while I work."

Needless to say, it cuts my productivity down.

She's asleep right now, stretching out and somehow filling the couch with her tiny body, so I can actually type something. But I don't have much time and I've got a lot of work to do, so I'll cut this short.

I'll leave the last words to her. Below is what she typed yesterday while I was trying to finish the last work on "Scurvy Dogs." I think I'll call it "Scurvy Kitten."

k-7= ∫˙vxcccccccv222xzv bfh4reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee3rtut r7w7zzsssssssssssssssssssssssssss7ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss75e7su7e7eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeessssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssseeseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeseessssssssssssssseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeezz7zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz77737eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeewwxq8 88ccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccdcd8juuuuudd8ccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc mb;;;;;;;;nnnnmjd 34mq tuidkeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeedm kg, 50

,EWTE RU6 YW3FR000R0V5000YYYYYYGGGGGYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYP8B,,IPI7;][;]IPHccccc ddcddcccccccccccccccccdddd8ccuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu6zxhfsbvcv6u2aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaccccvh

Election Day

What a Day

It's 8 p.m. and we're done. For better or worse, we've done everything we can do.  The phone bankers were still making calls at 7:45, until I pointed out that the only way it could help is if they happened to get someone who lived right across the street from a polling place and had forgotten there was an election going on.

Now we wait for the results. If Mary Landrieu wins 50 percent plus 1 tonight, it's over. If not, we've got a runoff, and that could be ugly. The Republican money and attack ads will pour into this state. So I really hope we won it today, and there's at least reason for cautious optimism.

But if there's a runoff, so be it. We've all worked too long and too hard to let it get away now. We know Mary, and we don't care what lies Karl Rove and the Koch brothers toss. We're going to do everything in our power to win this thing.

What a great memory

9:45 a.m. I'm stuck in the campaign office, coordinating canvassers and the phone bank. Just had a walk-in who wants to canvass, but he's got his sons – age 6 and 8 – with him. Is that OK? "Sure, I said. They're your kids.  Found him a precinct without too many doors. The kids were very excited. What a great memory for them, helping their dad get out the vote in an important election. Or as the 8 year old told me, he's very excited for the chance "to tell people how to vote."


Early morning reverie

Got up very early to go down and open the local campaign office for our Democratic candidate for Senate – Mary Landrieu – then stood out in the parking lot for a few minutes to watch the sun come up. Spectacular color show of pinks and blue and golds.

Thought about past elections, some that were very disappointing, some that were surprisingly positive. It feels a little like Christmas. We've been working so hard. Now it's time to see what Santa – in the guise of the voters – brings us. Present? Or a lump of coal. Depends entirely on how well we get the vote out today.

Time to get to work. Let's go win this thing.