The Queen's Rambles

I voted. Of course. You all probably have figured out I’m about as liberal as you can get (unless I was European), so you know who I voted for. I am on pins and needles, just waiting to hear what will happen to our country. Honestly, if Mitt wins it hopefully won’t be the disaster that was the Bush administration. At least Mitt is intelligent, even if he wants to throw women back to the 1950s. Or maybe that is even scarier? I must admit I am still shocked that a Mormon won the approval of the Christian Right. I haven’t been a part of a church for over a decadate so I guess I don’t know the current thoughts about Mormonism. When I was heavily involved in the church, Bible based Christians considered the LDS a cult. I remember one of our professors got in trouble when he said he didn’t think Mormons would automatically go to hell–they might just be able to make it to heaven if they had a good heart. So glad I am no longer a part of any organization that wants to condemn people to eternal burning and torture.

Here’s a moral quandary for you: the local LDS church is having a huge clothing drive for hurricane Sandy victims. I have a huge box of clothes that I want to get to the victims, but everything I’m reading says don’t send clothes. The relief organizations have different priorities and sorting clothes will just slow them down.

So. . . . do I take the easy road and take this giant box to the Mormons and hope they make it to people who won’t have to listen to a sermon to get help? Or do I keep searching for a better way to send these clothes? I am adamantly opposed to all forms of charity that involve the recipients listening to any kind of message. However, in this case I feel like the people are in so much need that I just need to get the clothes to them and forget about my principles.

Back to the election. Maryland had a really hot ballot this year. I was thrilled to be able to vote for gay marriage! I am hoping this one passes by a landslide. We also had to decide if undocumented immigrants who graduate from a Maryland HS can receive in-state college tuition.

The biggest campaign had to do with gambling. Some people want to put in a new casino near DC and have spent millions to try to make it happen. The casino owners in neighboring states have spent millions opposing the bill. Supposedly the casino would help fund schools. We get a gazillion phone calls a day from both sides. I voted no. Fundamentally, I don’t think increasing gambling is a good thing and I don’t believe the schools will see a penny from it. There’s a giant loophole in the law. Schools would get money from the casinos, but the state could take other money out of the education fund and put it elsewhere. It’s not one I really care about either way, but I had to pick a side.

The kids went to the polling place with me. There was a high school bake sale, so my kids got sugared up on a chocolate cupcake while we waited about 20 minutes. At least is kept them quiet. Elsa is pretty content in the stroller and Erik was totally excited to see what the election was all about. He came home from school last week saying we had to go vote for Obama because Romney wanted to take away PBS. I am hoping he heard that from other students, not from the teachers. Surely a teacher would not say something like that. He really, really wanted the election official to walk up to him and say “Hello young man, you look smart so you get to vote too!” He had a whole scenario planned out and went over the script in excruciating detail. If I wouldn’t have had Elsa with us, I would have let him cast the vote for Obama. But if he got to touch the screen, she would have wanted to touch the screen and the whole thing would have become a nightmare.

Speaking of Erik, he is starting to enjoy more imaginative play. I guess you would call it that. He likes to imagine a scenario and tell you exactly what will happen in the scenario, play by play. Last night he had to tell us every little thing he was going to do when he’s on Chopped. I think his retelling took longer than a regular episode. He’ll be making tacos in the first round, oatmeal in the second round, and dessert scrambled eggs in the last round. I’m glad he’s starting to do more pretend play. For so long he was only interested in running that I thought he was going to skip anything that involved imagining.

It will be interesting to hear what his teacher has to say at his conference next week. I know his weak point: he doesn’t like to write. It’s not so much the ideas, it’s the physical act of writing. Plus, the child can not sit still. I have been in his classroom a couple of times and he is by far the most wiggly, jiggly child in the room. I think some of the other kids are comatose. I guess I just got lucky to have a kid with a little “extra” as my friend puts it. Ha! I really do hope we can have a good discussion and I can get some idea about how he is doing in class.