The Stewart Blog

This article stuck in my mind because it reflects my current feeling about buying things. The author writes about deciding not to buy a coffee maker and the larger ramifications.

“But ultimately even the bargain didn’t seduce me. My mind followed an unfamiliar path. I thought of all the coffee makers we already have, and how each of them had let us down. I thought about another clock to reset twice a year or face its accusatory blinking in the kitchen dark. I asked myself whether attempting to master another set of instructions written in English as a Second Language was really the best use of a month of my time.”

For me this feeling of not needing stuff started almost a year ago. I’ve never been a big shopper but it just started to seem like the stuff coming into the house wasn’t really necessary and the energy needed to deal with it was outweighing the satisfaction and value of the purchase. Some purchases cause no doubt, like the new pants I bought for John the other day since his old ones show several inches of ankle. But things like books which I love reading became less fun to buy since I always seemed to be culling the bookshelves to get rid of the excess. So I’ve rediscovered the library and solved that problem.

This isn’t so much as a frugality thing as an “I have plenty of stuff already” thing. Reading this article makes me realize I’m not the only one feeling this way. Which means consumer buying won’t get us out of this recession.

On the other hand I have been thinking that our family could really use a new laptop (neither one of ours does well with wireless) so maybe there is hope for the economy after all.

Parent-teacher conferences at the high school level are quick two minute affairs held in the gym. The teachers sit in alphabetical order at tables lining the walls of the cafeteria and face long lines of parents. Or short lines if you have a teacher who talks quickly or has students with uninterested parents.

If you are lucky your place in line is near a friend and you can get in a good conversation while waiting. Or, for your 45 minute wait in your last line of the day you could be like me and end up near no one you know, but still have an interesting conversation with several of the other parents waiting. I learned lots about the debate and forensics coach since he is Caitlin’s English teacher and was a slow talker.

Fortunately most of Caitlin’s teachers were quick talkers. Plus all her teachers were full of praise for her. The worst comment I heard was, “Once I caught her doing her science homework when she should have been working on her math!”

But the best line of the day was, “Oh Caitlin. Yes, she sits up front with Laura Reynolds. She is really bright.” (He meant Laura; Caitlin says she is his favorite.)

Much as I loved yesterday’s results I think even I have had enough of the election. But things I liked looking at or reading today are (and yes, they tend to be from the media elite):

The New York Times bubble map. Use the left hand menu to view the Bubble Map and the County Leaders map and click on the individual states. I love this level of detail.

The Washington Post List of In and Out: Fist bumps, audacity, and Amtrak are in; chest thumping, tenacity, and the bridge to nowhere are out.

The review of free things you could get with your “I voted” sticker. Caitlin agreed that it was rather like trick-or-treating.

Judy’s paper ran an all day blog of Election Day notes which was fun to peruse.

Finally, while Obama’s speech was great, I think it is McCain’s concession speech that will be looked back on as setting a standard.

Pennsylvania is making me feel better. But Virginia is too close to call so I feel worse again. I’m hoping around of poll closings at 9:00 will help. Obama’s been stuck at 103 electoral votes for awhile now. Having every major news website open on my computer screen doesn’t actually make the news faster.

Caitlin says that staring at the TV will not change the outcome and I should just go to bed.

I’m too busy trying to calculate in my head that if 21% of the voters in Virginia were black and 95% of them voted for Obama and 58% of white voters voted for McCain, can Obama still win? And how much should I worry that with .721% of the precincts reporting McCain leads with 61% of the vote?

Okay, I won’t go to sleep but I will take a shower and hope for better things when I am done.

The girls and John have returned and TV has gotten interesting.

They had a good time on their free food for voting stickers run. Krispy Kreme had run out of the special election doughnuts so they got their free choice of doughnuts for having voted. Then it was on to Ben and Jerry’s where they got their choice of ice cream at Ben and Jerry’s. However, they asked Caitlin to turn in her voting sticker. We aren’t sure if that is because she looked older than Caroline or just the redhead attracting attention. Caitlin has another sticker somewhere, but wasn’t pleased to lose the one she was wearing. John continues to wear all three of his.

As for the TV they have started talking about exit polls and in my mind things are looking good for Obama. It looks like the economy didn’t just dominate the election is banished every other issue. CNN’s poll had 62% of respondents saying the economy was important to just 10% for Iraq and 9% for terrorism. Polls before Election Day showed the population trusting Obama by wide margins over McCain on the economy.

Dare I say, “Landslide”? I dare!

The worst time to watch TV is now. Nothing new is being said. Everyone is just waiting around for 7:00. I’d watch Comedy Central because it is rerunning The Daily Show, but I’ve seen most of them.

The internet is even dull because I’ve already clicked on the election maps way too many times and until some real data comes in they aren’t going to get any more interesting. All the comments on various blogs say basically the same things over and over and over. And I’ve looked at all the nice pictures of voters.

I have bookmarked the page which will show Virginia voting at the precinct level. I have also bookmarked the page that will show election results for sister Katherine Cassidy who is running for House of Representatives in Maine.

Scotty is currently handing out sample ballots at our polling place - the same place I was this morning. He says there are about as many people handing out stuff as people coming in to vote, but things are starting to heat up. He reports that our precinct captain calculates about 81% of our precinct has already voted (1,900 as of 5:00 and 900 absentee.)

Most of my afternoon went to getting haircuts with the girls. Plus Caitlin and I got pedicures. We are all looking and feeling much better. The girls took advantage of the nearby Starbucks to go and claim their free coffee for showing their “I voted” stickers. (I love how EVERYONE wears these.)

(We’ve decided Caitlin shouldn’t drink coffee - she’s a lot of fun right now, but we aren’t looking forward to the crash.)

The kids are now all off in search of more freebies - doughnuts from Krispy Kreme and ice cream from Ben and Jerry’s. Perhaps John will get three of each since he has three stickers splashed across his chest. As he put it, “I ACORNed.”

His original joke. He really does know about ACORN. After the last scout meeting one the dads helping to run things had emailed me telling me how impressed he was with John’s knowledge about it. The things you learn from the evening news and Jon Stewart!

I have voted. I voted for the change we need. I voted to choose policies that invest in our middle-class, create new jobs, and grow this economy so that everyone has a chance to succeed. I voted to live in not a Red State or Blue State, but to live in the United States of America. I voted not just to win this election, but to change this country and to change the world.

Or rather Caitlin voted. At least she was the one to push the button while John and I watched. We worked out she would do my voting and John would do Scotty’s. We used the voting machine but Scotty and John chose the paper ballots. We are fans of the paper ballot. For one thing there were seats for 10 people to work on paper ballots at a time which helps shorten the wait for everyone. There were four voting machines, mostly standing unused because the lines were moving along so well.

Caitlin, John, and I had no wait, and John and Scotty who voted an hour and a half later had a short wait because the P - Z line had several people. Based on the numbers assigned to each of us over 1,100 people in our precinct have already voted and since the initial rush has died down about 200 people an hour are voting.

I just watched important breaking news on TV: “Barack Obama casts his vote.” It took him forever because Illinois has long paper ballots with apparently lots to fill out. But the camera stayed right on him the entire time. And when he was finally done, Joe Biden walked into his polling place holding his mommy’s hand with his daughter by his side.

Obama voted with Michelle and his two girls. I’m a big believer in voting with your kids because I think Dad’s bringing me to vote with him and his watching debates and speeches on TVs has ensured that I always vote too.