Wait and Worry

We've got a big election coming up on Tuesday. There are two candidates for State Supreme Court, and then there are school board candidates and referenda. Typically, in an off election (spring, not "major" offices), the turnouts are low.

Rumors around here have it that so many people have voted ahead (which is totally legal here) that "they" have had to get more ballots printed.

Some of my friends are celebrating that, because folks have been working really hard to get out the vote.

BUT, I always thought that most of the early voters tended to vote conservative (for a variety of reasons, including that the Republican party got an early start encouraging people to vote early). I sure hope I'm wrong this time. (I thought about voting early, but I'm planning on going on Tuesday.)

If the stuff about the bill being voted on in violation of the open meetings act goes to the Supreme Court, then the court member voted in on Tuesday will likely be an important voice on the court. The stakes are high for us. (And even if it's not this case, the stakes are high.)


There are a bunch of recall efforts being made in the state. Of the efforts being made against the Republicans who pushed through the mini-bill, one has just been filed with folks who do the official parts of such things. They needed just over 15,000 signatures, but the site says they turned in an estimated 30,000. That's one that seems likely to make it through the signature testing/challenge period and go to election, and then it's a matter of people voting differently than they did before. They filed the petitions 30 days into the 60 day period of time they had to file. Someone's been out there doing some work, eh?

But there are a lot of recall efforts right now, including against the Fab Fourteen. You can see who filed papers and such if you look at the Government Accountability Board site.

Check out how many of the efforts have been filed by the American Recall Coalition, a grassroots group of Wisconsinites an organization out of Utah.

These things are weirdly fascinating to read. The one I just linked, part of the effort to recall Fred Risser (a State Senator from the Madison area) has a letter to the American Recall Coalition giving the dates and such for their required reporting and when they have to turn in their petitions. They have until April 25th to file their signatures and they need about 19,800 signatures. I hope the ink in their pens runs dry. (And that's not a metaphor. No, really.)


My department is waiting on an important decision right now. We won't know for at least a week, so we're sort of holding our fingers crossed and hoping for the best.


My Friday was full of meetings. I will be so glad to not be on one of these committees again next year. SO GLAD.

I was in a horrible mood by the time I got home last evening, and finally, I got the energy to get on my bike (indoor trainer) and I rode the trainer for an hour while watching The Hurt Locker. I would be so horribly bad at being in a war zone that I'd be dead about seven minutes in (max). (Even if my role were to hide in the camp, I'd just manage to get hit by something.) The good news, I suppose, is that I'm up to riding an hour solid on the trainer, and so long as I'm adequately entertained, it's okay. BUT my blood pressure was higher than usual when I went to give blood this past week, and that's not good. (It wasn't alarmingly high or anything.) And I'm more gaining than losing weight, and that's not good.


I'm reading some YA books by Rick Riordan now, about Percy Jackson. I'm enjoying them a lot because the basic premise is so creative and, well, fun. But basically, they're a lot like a lot of YA books (not that I've read a lot, actually, and my bias may totally reflect the suggestions my niece and nephew have made for me, because they're running my reading list these days): male protagonist about junior high age, has special powers and is in a special school of some sort because he's just so special (but there's always a hint that other kids might also be special and not yet know it), must save the world because adults are so utterly inept (or worse).


In conclusion: you know how at the end of most books you have the sense that the protagonist is going to have a rest now (or is dead, perhaps)? And sometimes you tell yourself that once X is done, you'll have less stress? Well, I don't see myself having less stress. I used to tell myself that, but I was wrong.