See you in May...(2nd edition, with links)

...we all said to one another, as we closed up the polls. The race we were all watching closely, Mayor of Pittsburgh, was a close one in our two polls (our polling location houses two polls.) [The incumbent won. But the "new guy on the block" gave him a run for his money.]

When I was in high school, I loved the quarterly croissant sales. For a week, you sat at a table, every day at lunch and the buzz you got off selling that many croissants for the greater good of the literary magazine--that is the kind of buzz I get off helping people vote.

"What's your name? What street do you live on? He's voter number 144. Here, hold onto this, Sheila will take you over to a machine. Have you used the machines before?" And after they've voted, "Did the machine thank you?" People cracking jokes, "The machine was very polite."

Reading material: Tuesday's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. : All you need to know: the Steelers won, the Pens won (Monday night, both were blowouts.) (38-7, 5-0); The Promise (the book about the woman who was a real estate broker who sent a class of first graders to college) (Tina finished it by the end of the day); A Julie Garwood book (Liz was at the end of the table, so I don't know which one, except that she liked it and can't really get into Nora Roberts' books.); Eat Cake in the early part of the day (me, for the umpteenth time, it's my 'crisis book'*); Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict (me, which I brought back after my evening break, and finished. It was a time travel that really needed a little more explanation, like an envelope at the end.); yesterday's Trib Extra, a free afternoon paper put out by the Tribune Review. Sheila tried to show me how to do a Soduku. Oh, and Sheila is a Silpada dealer,** so we all pawed through the latest catalog. I promised to have a party in January.

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*Crisis book: a book that comforts me in a time of overwhelmedness, generally b/c the hero or heroine is going through more crap than I am at the moment, and suceeding at making lemonade out of lemons.

**Silpada: silver jewelery, very gorgeous.