Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Tired (The Day After...)

I went to bed early Monday night. I'm not really a morning person. The idea of getting up at 4am so I could be at a polling place at 5am didn't really add to the excitement of Election Day...

Monday evening I picked up the voting machines for my polling place. As polling chief for my precinct it was my responsibility to getting them to the voting site. I left them in my Explorer overnight to avoid loading and unloading the car in the dark. But I worried about being on CNN if my vehicle got broken into over night and I woke up and checked on it twice that night.

I've worked at my precinct a couple of times now. I've never seen this kind of turnout before. A little over 80% of our registered voters turned out. In my county, 33% of the votes went to Obama, 65% to McCain. IN my precinct it was a little better - 37% Obama to 61% McCain. (Remember there were several independents on the ballot.)

The US Senate race was about the opposite. Just over 57% of the votes from Tazewell County in that race when to Mark Warner. Gilmore pulled just over 41%. Warner pulled almost 66% of the vote in my precinct.

When the day was over I drove my voting machines back to the county courthouse. I listened on the radio as NPR called Pennsylvania for Obama. I knew enough to know that just that probably meant Obama had won the election.

On my way home I stopped in town at the Obama Campaign Headquarters. I wanted to see what it felt like there, to breathe the air. It was a room mostly full of tired people anxious about the results in Virginia, where McCain was leading at the time. I spent ten minutes, maybe, and went home.

I wasn’t supposed to eat or drink anything but water after 8pm in preparation for a blood test today. I drank tap water from a champagne flute with golden filigree on the lip while I watched the news.




Today I took a day off work and I went to see my doctor. Routine stuff I've been putting off. My good cholesterol is up three points (and is among the highest he's ever seen, which he says is good). Today or tomorrow his office will call and tell me the results of my liver enzyme test. I take a medicine that can stress my liver, and I've been on it a long time. My bad cholesterol is down a point. My triglycerides are 41, and I'm suppose to keep them below 50.

I left his office and when to Big Daddy's restaurant for a late breakfast: scrambled eggs, buttered toast, fried potatoes, and country ham.

Update: My doctor called and said my liver is fine...

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