Musings

The week has been busy, meaningful, hectic, and even tumultuous.

Monday began with Rocky reorganizing the studio space following his Saturday art show. This involves repacking and stacking ceramic inventory in the garage, putting away exhibit equipment, and putting away folding tables. This allows the car to park indoors don’t you know!

But wait! Monday night I helped the polling place judges set up the polling place for the election scheduled the next day. Then I dashed to City Hall for the council meeting so I could write an article for this week’s newspaper.

Then early to bed so I could arise at 4 am on Election Day and finish the polling site set up and be able to open the polls at 6 am. We arrived a little after 5 am and managed to barely open the doors for voters at 6:04 am. The electronics were a little balky and time consuming but we made it happen.

Home that night before 10 pm after dropping off the election results at the County Election Commission office. But I was too wound up to go to bed. Watched election news until 11 pm but still watched TV from bed until Obama’s televised victory speech. Turned off the TV at 1:30 am. A 21-hour day was over the top!

Wednesday dawned slowly and late, but the newspaper still had finishing touches to be made and final layout and proofing. That usually takes the whole day. An important board meeting for the Arts Council that evening topped out the day. Rocky, meanwhile, used the garage (the car still was parked outdoors!) while he organized the sorting tables and postal bins by route for the paper once we returned with it from the printer early Thursday morning.

Thursday emerged cloudy and dim which meant no sunny glare and faster traffic during rush hour! We arose at 5 am and trekked out to DeKalb to pick up the paper at the printer, loaded 1000 pounds into the van and brought it back to the garage for unloading and packing into postal bins. Then off to the Warrenville post office where we unloaded the paper (again!), paid the postage and submitted the forms. Off to two drop-off deliveries and then breakfast at the local pancake house. Nine more drop offs then home for a quick nap.

Off to Aurora for another paper pick up at a printer prep center and loading 500 pounds of more paper so we could deliver that to the Winfield Post Office. Following that we dropped deliveries at another 20 locations in Winfield and West Chicago and finally called it a day near 2 pm.

My final duty was physical therapy for the spine condition and supper. Then sleepy TV viewing for the evening. Early to bed, late to rise. And thus the late publishing of this blog!

Today is an easy day. I have only physical therapy this afternoon. So writing this blog, balancing the check book and maybe packing some stuff so we can continue decluttering the house. Looking back the week was exhausting but carried with it a lot of reward. Along the way Rocky and I discovered ourselves making lots of mental miscalculations. We forgot newspaper delivery routes and had to run extra miles and blocks to correct for the errors. We backtracked to include a skipped delivery or an undercount of papers dropped off. We forgot my daughter’s birthday. We forgot to pick up our own mail. We forgot to turn on the dishwasher. I forgot to buy more coffee. I’m sure we failed to return all phone messages and emails, but there you have the aftermath of a very busy week. And for a couple nearing 70!

But you know what? The candidate of our choice won the presidential election. So did several congressmen and senate candidates we were interested in. Equality of marriage won everywhere it was on the ballot in the nation. The nation appeared to be edging back towards the center spectrum of ideology. And reason.

And finally – the van was able to park in the garage Thursday evening! Yes. It was a good week. One that has a future for us all. One people.

November 9, 2012