Yesterday, the recall of Governor Walker failed. I am disappointed but philosophical.
I've been voting since I was 21, which works out to 47 years of elections. In all, I've only missed five, and those were school board elections when I was moving and felt I should have no say; town elections where everyone ran unopposed so what was the point; and minor elections held when I was out of the country. Back then absentee ballots weren't as easy as they are now.
More often (much more often) than not, I wound up voting for the loser. Since I am always an informed voter, it can be dismaying when the electorate votes for the worst candidate.
After a while, you get used to it. The advantage then is that when someone complains about a politician I calmly say I didn't vote for him or her. I didn't vote for Nixon, didn't vote for either Bush, didn't vote for Carter either. Every so often I voted for a third party candidate when I couldn't abide either of the mainstream party offerings.
In this case, the governor wasn't recalled, but he is being investigated for election fraud and bid rigging, so it is likely he won't fill out a complete term anyhow. As a headline in the Huffington Post asked before the election, would it be a pink slip or an orange jumpsuit? It wasn't a pink slip, so now I look forward to the jumpsuit. Time will tell.
I didn't watch the news all day yesterday or last night. Instead, I worked on the garden. A year ago, the city forced me to remove the flowers I had tenderly planted on the terrace strip. What was left after friends and neighbors helped me dig up the area was a terrible mess. This spring, many of the plants came back to haunt me.
Three weeks ago, I set to work, spading, grading, and planting. Today, I finished the job.
Along the edge of the curb, I put old bricks taken from the city dump. Eventually, these will be replaced by the red tiles we used farther down, but for the moment, I just needed something to keep weeds down. The plastic fencing will come down once the plants are firmly established. Most of them are vines that will grow thicker and thicker as the years pass.
Gary has gotten into the spirit of the thing. He wants to get rid of all the grass on the other side of the sidewalk, replacing it with lilies, shrubs, and more red tiles.
Now that I've finished this section, the front of the house is complete. The rest of my property needs so much work. Tomorrow, I join Gary at the campground at Lost Lake for a few days. When I return, I figure on spending at least one week on the south side of the house, two weeks on the north side, and the rest of the summer on the back yard.
It is good to get my hands dirty. It's cleaner than politics.
I've been voting since I was 21, which works out to 47 years of elections. In all, I've only missed five, and those were school board elections when I was moving and felt I should have no say; town elections where everyone ran unopposed so what was the point; and minor elections held when I was out of the country. Back then absentee ballots weren't as easy as they are now.
More often (much more often) than not, I wound up voting for the loser. Since I am always an informed voter, it can be dismaying when the electorate votes for the worst candidate.
After a while, you get used to it. The advantage then is that when someone complains about a politician I calmly say I didn't vote for him or her. I didn't vote for Nixon, didn't vote for either Bush, didn't vote for Carter either. Every so often I voted for a third party candidate when I couldn't abide either of the mainstream party offerings.
In this case, the governor wasn't recalled, but he is being investigated for election fraud and bid rigging, so it is likely he won't fill out a complete term anyhow. As a headline in the Huffington Post asked before the election, would it be a pink slip or an orange jumpsuit? It wasn't a pink slip, so now I look forward to the jumpsuit. Time will tell.
I didn't watch the news all day yesterday or last night. Instead, I worked on the garden. A year ago, the city forced me to remove the flowers I had tenderly planted on the terrace strip. What was left after friends and neighbors helped me dig up the area was a terrible mess. This spring, many of the plants came back to haunt me.
Three weeks ago, I set to work, spading, grading, and planting. Today, I finished the job.
Along the edge of the curb, I put old bricks taken from the city dump. Eventually, these will be replaced by the red tiles we used farther down, but for the moment, I just needed something to keep weeds down. The plastic fencing will come down once the plants are firmly established. Most of them are vines that will grow thicker and thicker as the years pass.
Gary has gotten into the spirit of the thing. He wants to get rid of all the grass on the other side of the sidewalk, replacing it with lilies, shrubs, and more red tiles.
Now that I've finished this section, the front of the house is complete. The rest of my property needs so much work. Tomorrow, I join Gary at the campground at Lost Lake for a few days. When I return, I figure on spending at least one week on the south side of the house, two weeks on the north side, and the rest of the summer on the back yard.
It is good to get my hands dirty. It's cleaner than politics.
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