Eat the vote

J & I caught up with each other around dinner time yesterday and headed to our old neighborhood to vote, then eat. There's a soft spot in my heart for the election judges & polling places as my Mom was an election judge for most of my adolescence and I thought it was a modest, but very cool thing to do. As an adult, I've most recently lived in a pretty mellow neighborhood. Usually, J and I arrive, along with one or two neighbors, to an empty-except-for-the-election-judges polling place. I'm pre-disposed to like the voting process as it is, due to my cool mom & when we walked in to vote last night and saw our usual polling place crammed to the gills with voters, literally everywhere with their voting ballots -- it felt very good to join in the throng.

In the end, we couldn't tell whether it was crowded because, good news, everyone was ready to vote -- or because other voting places were closed & now more folks were arriving at the same place. We left after finishing our votes (still paper in Seattle) and slipping them into a sort of R2D2 machine that sucked in the paper ballott in with a wishshshsh sound.

Being hungry, we headed into Ballard, settling on the Hi-Life for dinner. We met up with a friend and his family while still in line for our table. They asked if we were here for the PUTTING “ASSES” IN SEATS ON ELECTION NIGHT special that the restaurant was promoting. We had no idea. They let us know that if we were in our seats at 8pm, we would each get a free entre. What could be better?

Well, the night was a hoot - people in the bar hollered every time a state went blue and that hollering went throughout the restaurant. I hesitated in joining, not seeing the tv & not ready to assume I was surrounded by folks who share my concern for the direction of leadership in this country. But it was clear that it was a pretty lefty group after all.

We didn't sit with my friend & his family, but we got the next best thing, I think. His daughter came over to our table a half dozen times, to take our order, bring us our macaroni & cheese (a charming bouquet of placemat confetti, colored yellow), our bill (the actual bill, with help from the waitress) - it was all good fun. We turned down dessert at the restaurant because we had chocolate cake at home. Who could ask for anything more?

I have to say, I'm really glad about the election results.