If you ever thought your vote didn’t count…

California voters signed a petition several years back which became a ballot proposition which became law: the two top vote getters in the primaries would go on to the general regardless of party affiliation. The idea was that if the politicians had to appeal to everyone from the get-go, we would have fewer extremists running and better representations of the people–and it has pretty much worked out that way. Darrell Issa the alleged car thief in San Diego who made his millions selling anti-car-theft devices notwithstanding.

The guy who wanted to make it illegal to produce any government document or anything in anything but English, to not provide any translation for health emergencies nor in schools for those struggling to integrate nor for voting materials nor warnings at street level or anything, has at long last vanished from our politisphere. Good.

So.

They’re still counting ballots from Super Tuesday. They are going to the doors of voters whose signatures were wonky: those who mailed their ballots in but forgot to sign the outer envelope or signed it in the wrong place (there’s a line for the voter dropping it off themselves and one for the person dropping it off for them if that happens.) Is this indeed your ballot or not. They have till Tuesday.

Because, in the race for that second place for the House of Representatives, Evan Low, 40, was ahead.

Then Joe Simitian, 71, was ahead.

Then Evan Low was ahead.

Then good old Joe again, termed out from just about everything else after all these years.

Joe gradually went from city to county to state assembly, where he sponsored a contest: There Ought To Be a Law. Once a–week, I think it was, (month?) he would announce the winner whose idea he’d picked and he would submit it as a bill to the Assembly. And that is why you now legally have to turn on your lights in California if your windshield wipers are on.

His contest got his name in the paper, it was a teaching moment for school kids re representative government, and it did some good in this state of ours. Now go turn on those lights so others can see you coming.

The distance has been eight votes, four votes, one single solitary vote, eight again nope it’s four now and if I check again in a few minutes it’ll be something different.

Joe’s and Evan’s totals combined come to about 33%, the guy they’re trying to catch up to won the primary with 21.1%. There were a LOT of people gunning for the seat of the retiring woman who’d been our Rep since our youngest was a baby.

So all of us who want Liccardo to win (sorry Joe) need to remember that his opponent will be in that race by possibly one single vote and ours is going to matter that much, too.

Always.

(Insert side chatter of what a relief it is that Evan, Joe, Sam, they’re all decent people trying to do the right thing. It’s the other race that–yeah. Vote!)

Best part of the day: calling our youngest for his birthday.

Next best part of the day: watching President Biden making the speech of my lifetime. Quick on his feet, ad-libbing perfect comebacks to hecklers, making Lindsey Graham laugh so hard his moussed hair shook like quills on an ambling porcupine.

Justice Alito had written in Dobbs that “women are not without electoral or political power.”

Biden told the Justices, and all of us, “With all due respect, Justices, women are not without electoral or political power. You’re about to realize just how much.”

I loved his recognition of the woman who had marched on the Edmund Pettus Bridge 50 years ago today as he called out for the John Lewis Voting Rights Act to be passed.

He was on fire!

He thanked Republican Senator Jim Lankford for his work on the bipartisan border bill that the Republicans had then tossed aside after Trump told them not to fix it before the election. Lankford’s un-microphoned mouth in response, as he nodded affirmation: “It’s true.”

The convicted fraudster rapist mobster criminal who stated that he’ll be a dictator on day one or the wise, loving, empathetic, grandfather figure who knows his way around the world stage and knows how to get people to do the right thing and to see the long game.

Hey, America: you’ve got this. You’ve totally got this.

I walked up to the tall drop box at the library as an older woman was coming up from the other direction. I got there first, read the instructions plastered on the thing, figured out where/how you open it–and then couldn’t quite tell for sure if my ballot and Richard’s had gone all the way down inside there and out of retrievable reach or not. That thing is designed not to let anything in that shouldn’t be in there but a few years ago I did encounter one so overstuffed (even though it was emptied every hour) that there were edges of a few envelopes poking out.

So I was hunching down to see below its protective overhang while tapping with my fingers in that very tight space to make sure they’d actually fallen. Go on, git!

At that point the other woman arrived. She chuckled as she watched me.

We had ourselves a small celebration as our eyes met that we were there together making our voices heard. It didn’t matter what each other’s ballots said, it was the fact that we got to say it and we got to witness our fellow American speaking up alongside us and the power of that shared humanity and the power of having our say was so joyful.

Smiles, a sentence or two, and then having made instant friends on the spot we nodded a happy good day to each other and headed back out to the rest of our unknowable lives.

Wow. Linda Greenhouse nailed it.

When a woman wants an abortion, for medical reasons or social no matter how dire, it’s her fault and her problem.

When a couple is denied in vitro while trying to have a baby, there is a man being denied what he wants–and that is why Republicans in Alabama and the like are scrambling to affirm and reinstate in vitro in spite of their Supreme Court judge’s invocation of anti-Constitutional theocracy re zygotes.

I will say it again, the Mormon Church’s official stance on abortion is that it is between a woman, her doctor, and her God. Nobody else’s opinion should rule re pregnancy but the one who has to live it.

I wanted to see the moment that number hit 21, sealing the Virginia Senate for the Democrats. My yarn was red, my hopes were blue.

I glanced down at the next stitch, quickly back up, and in that amount of time there it was.

Their Senate and House both have a one-vote margin on the Democrat side as I turn in for the night and I have 6.5″ of a new cowl to show for it.

He checked the date: Nov 1 last year, Nov 1 today. Aargh.

I was supposed to come in tomorrow, I told him, but the front desk called me to cancel and said they could move me up a day.

? -Oh that’s right there’s a seminar tomorrow (leaving me thinking, Which you really don’t want to go to.) He explained why that reschedule was a goof: it doesn’t matter that it’s a year apart–the insurance company requires that eye checkups be a year *and a day*, even if they don’t tell you that, or they won’t cover it.

I said, Why don’t we just have a national medical system and get it over with?

He, having recently returned from several weeks in Germany, thoroughly agreed. He said, It’s not a perfect system over there. But it’s a whole lot better than ours.

And so I have a new appointment in about six weeks.

All the more waiting-room knitting time, right? And he did manage to get me a badly-needed new glasses prescription as long as I was there, because, he said, They don’t cover that part anyway.

President Biden is en route to Israel as I type.

I can only pray that his statement of unwavering support after the Hamas attacks and his compassion for the innocents, so rightly spoken, will continue to resonate there as he makes a plea for other innocents: the children. Learn from America’s failures after 9/11–for the love, literally, of all things holy, don’t repeat them.

Also: Gym Jordan, accused by the Jan. 6th committee of helping mastermind the attack on the Capitol, lost his first try at getting elected Speaker of the House. I can only pray that that gives courage they didn’t have today to those Representatives who are still looking for a way not to vote for a man who actively worked to overthrow our democracy.

C’mon, people, do the right thing. Make your time in power something your descendants are proud of. This granddaughter of a Republican Senator who voted for the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act can tell you, it’s just not that hard to do something you will feel great about for the rest of your life. They will, too.

Scene: New Hampshire. We were at a party at a friend’s house. Our first child was old enough to walk but not old enough yet to talk.

Music greeted the guests on entering, and soon Larry was taking a bunch of us to the living room to show off his very nice new stereo system while talking about how powerful it was. He was very happy with it.

Then it was on to some other topic and we all moved into the next room for a moment.

Which is when Sam decided she wasn’t done exploring what she’d just seen and toddled straight towards the enticing knobs and buttons the moment our eyes were off her. They were right at her height.

It felt like a physical wall of sound. Everybody else was just standing there gobsmacked at the sudden volume and what had just happened and not wanting to get any closer, so it wasn’t hard to be the first one to get to it to try to turn it down.

Finding the volume button when you’re in a bit of a panic takes longer and it was impossible to shout over that to ask.

The universal shoulder slump of relief at my success!

Gotta hand it to you, Larry, you’re right, we’ve never heard a sound system like that.

(Conversation just now: Did Larry have one of the very first CD players? Or did they come out the next year? Him: I don’t remember. But it would have been if they were, because, Larry. Me, Googling: First sold in the US in early 1983. Yeah, it probably was.)

That all was brought back to mind by the best political line of the day: “If you turn your base up too high you’ll blow out your Speaker.”

Actually, the good ones hold up to just about anything.

It’s been a long wait. Go Fani Willis!! It was a thrill to watch her giving her press conference, reminding a questioner that this is about following the law, not politics, the same as all her other thousands of cases.

Governor Brian Kemp of Georgia had been under a lot of pressure to fire her, and at one point he actually said he was going to–he just never said when, and it just somehow never happened, while she simply continued doing her job.

I’m sure he knew the Watergate phrase “Saturday night massacre” as well as anybody, when public servant after public servant resigned rather than fire that era’s Special Prosecutor. The guy who said sure, he would? Robert Bork, whom Reagan later failed at nominating to the Supreme Court. But I digress.

Had Kemp done so, the next Fulton County Attorney General could well have added his name to the list of co-conspirators, and why would he agree to be one more fall guy abused by the former president? He was on to him.

So. Nineteen co-conspirators. RICO charges. T*** instantly erupting in rage at a Black woman daring to hold him accountable, while trying to profit off that rage.

As one meme queries, Why is a billionaire asking you to give him your money?

A hundred sixty-one criminal acts.

Justice for election workers Ruby Freeman and her daughter, who fled their homes at peril of their lives for telling the truth and refusing to cave.

By people who couldn’t bear that people who were Black had integrity when they themselves did not.

Go get’em, Fani. And thank you.

A couple of quotes I’ve stumbled across that I wanted to tuck away where I can find them later.

John F. Kennedy: Washington, DC is a city with Northern charm and Southern efficiency.

Harry S Truman: If you want to live like a Republican, you’ve got to vote for a Democrat.

And the old DC favorite whose origin I don’t know: The definition of a diplomat is someone who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that you look forward to the trip.

Anyone got a favorite?

I thought this was brilliant so I wanted to pass it on. Conversation sparked by E. Jean Carroll’s success at holding her attacker accountable in a court of law.

The primary election season is coming up faster than we’d rather. So–and this is coming from a young and female point of view in a discussion that began for her with some friends in college–consider the candidates.

You’re on an elevator. It has no security cameras inside nor out. Someone else comes on. Do you instantly get off that elevator and wait for another one, or do you feel fine because there’s no need to have there be anyone else seeing much less recording what this guy’s going to do while you’re alone in a space together where nobody can intervene for you? Where nobody knows?

Now, if you’d want off that elevator car because you can’t trust that person with your personal space and body, why would you think he would have more empathy for the public at large than what you knew he didn’t have for the actual human being right in front of him? What kinds of choices would he make after being elected? After gaining the power he’d sought?

And then we talked about some of the political candidates we wouldn’t vote for but wouldn’t cry if they did get elected because we know they’re decent human beings with good intent.

Trustworthy.

It has been in the news that a far-right Federalist Society judge was asked to speak at Stanford and was shouted down by the crowd. Many, including me, are disappointed in those students and think they could have handled it better.

So it was interesting to read these two comments in the NY Times, with #1 providing context I’ve seen nowhere else and #2 being exactly what I think they should have done. (Hey! The Mighty Moo! WJ was built next to one of the last dairy farms in Montgomery County, Maryland, sold ice cream to the kids during lunch break, but later became the new headquarters of Marriott International while the cow mascot lived on. The resident alumna can brag all day about what a great high school it is.)

Quote 1: “I’m a Stanford law student and feel it’s important to share some missing context here. Judge Duncan did not enter the room with the intention to give a lecture. He taunted people. He recorded a video as he walked in of the people in the room, his phone inches from students’ faces, seemingly to force a reaction to escalate the situation. When students engaged peacefully, such as by asking him pointed questions, he mocked them. (Two examples: one student prefaced a question by sharing that it was a personal question to her, as a survivor of sexual assault, to which Judge Duncan told her “nice story”, and moved on. Another student asked about another one of his decisions that also impacted minority rights and, rather than respond to the question, Judge Duncan told them to read his judicial opinion and moved on.) He called students “appalling idiots”, among other names. Meanwhile, trucks paid for by some unidentified groups have been circulating around campus with students’ names and alleged quotes from the event printed on the side. These trucks were even driven outside the homes of parents of four separate students. Not to mention the threats they’ve been getting. Many many students engaged much more civilly with Judge Duncan than he engaged with them. And yet they’re the ones being targeted.”

(Me: Yeah, I’d like to hear a lot more reporting on that aspect, if it was as described here. I believe doxxing is illegal in California and threatening certainly is.)

Quote 2: “In 1969 I was a student at Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda, Maryland. Members of the American Nazi Party were allowed to visit the school and present their point of view that the Holocaust had not happened. The event was held after school in the cafeteria, and expectations for students who chose to attend were made absolutely clear to us by the principal. We were to be respectful at all times; we were not to interrupt the speakers; anything we had to say could be said in the Q & A afterwards. Those of us who attended prepared ourselves extremely well and did as we had been directed. During the presentation we took notes, sat on our hands, kept our mouths shut, and did not interrupt the speakers in any way. Then afterwards in the Q & A we absolutely shredded them. When they left, they knew they had been soundly trounced by a bunch of high school history geeks. It was a very valuable experience to me, and a lesson that ideas, no matter how vile, should be argued, defended, and defeated in public.”

Now: just imagine if those Stanford students had kept their silence and instead simply recorded what Duncan did and how he treated them and had waited for the Q&A afterward to speak up. Who then would be being excoriated nationwide?

He wouldn’t have been able to twist a thing.

One of the companies affected by the bank failure: Etsy. 95 million buyers, 7.5 million sellers, per the Washington Post. The Feds have declared that tomorrow all depositors are to have access to their funds after all, at no cost to taxpayers. Such a relief.

And to change the subject: the one peach that needs a pollinator is going to do just fine this year, rain willing. I love how similar and yet how different the flowers are. The Indian Free, with the darker pink interior, produces peaches with a dark red center.

Colourmart.com’s silk ribbon leaped onto my needles.

A quick glance across the initial articles and even the pictures in the Washington Post after Biden’s State of the Union speech were–man, it was something. Did they watch the same thing I did? All the times he smiled: he was on top of his game, he totally knew it, the crowd knew it, and he was relishing the moment.

That State of the Union was a speech for the ages. Delivered with perfect timing, again and again. He had Kevin McCarthy of all people joining in giving him a standing ovation, not at first but as he got into it it happened again and again.

Marjory Taylor Greene, bless her heart (hah!), heckled him, following the example of Joe Wilson, who promptly got voted out after his shout of, “You lie!” at a President for telling the truth.

Biden stopped right there and shot back, I didn’t say bill I said proposal. You know that was the proposal from the Republicans, to sunset Medicare and Social Security. Alright (he grins.) Are you saying you’re FOR Social Security and Medicare? (He sweeps his arm around the room, inviting the camera to follow.) Everybody who’s for keeping Social Security and Medicare permanently, stand!

And nearly the whole room stood as one, clapping wildly, with the camera lingering on the crowd. The usual MAGAts were giving the stink eye like Cancun Cruz, but honey don’t you pay him no never mind.

Biden introduced the parents of Tyre Nichols and grieved with them.

Then he talked about the people in law enforcement with integrity, and that’s most of them, he said, with honor, who protect the public and whose families just want them to be able to come home to them at the end of the day.

He paused.

And so does everybody else. We need to reform policing to better serve all of us.

McCarthy stood up for that one.

Again and again he called out members of Congress from both sides and thanked them for bills passed and described the good that has happened because they did. He thanked them for their bipartisanship and invited them to do more.

He said, We’re the only country in the world founded on an IDEA.

Democracy is what keeps us together! Democracy is not a partisan issue, it’s an AMERICAN issue.

And then to the best of my memory it was, G_d bless the United States of America, thank you, and G_d bless all of us. Good night!

Pescadero is a bit south of there. Want to watch a road go, Nope, I’m out of here, guys, ‘bye, in 59 seconds? I believe that’s highway 84 in the backdrop, looking just like it did the last time I drove it.

Foggy, cool, quiet, farmland… Like the much-missed Phipps Bean Ranch there, where they grew every unusual type of bean you ever or never heard of, including what looked like a lima bean to fit in your palm rather than between your fingers.

That family lost their farm to the long drought and they were renters; our rains that took Stage Road in the video link came years too late. The little farm-animal petting zoo my kids liked is gone. Last I saw, their land had simply returned to nature.

Up Highway 1, the next town is San Gregorio, then Half Moon Bay, and friends of ours decided to brave the commute and build their dream house there with views of the ocean. Beautiful spot. Not crowded. Buy your fish straight off the boat from the captain, come for the famous pumpkin weigh-off in October. The flower farms. The nurseries.

The little yarn store in the little downtown that had Holz and Stein rosewood knitting needles when nobody else did anymore. The manufacturer’s discontinuance was for good reason, I found out later: some varieties of rosewood were on the CITES list and sellers had to be able to show provenance of the wood. Now all varieties are simply banned.

The road home again. The commute goes through open space and redwoods as it goes over the hills, and those woods alternately run dark and deep mid-day to blinding you with sudden patches of sun above the road and it has a high rate of crossover accidents. Our friends bought a Volvo as life insurance along with that house.

My heart went straight to them at this afternoon’s news–and of course to everyone there no matter who they are. They’ll all know someone who knew someone who had a gun suddenly aimed at them today, it’s a small town.

The updates suggest it was all fellow farmworkers.

Which just means that those with the least means to deal with the fallout are the ones who will most have to.

Why we aren’t doing better by all of us, I can’t for the life of me understand.