VOTE
early and often

In an email from grandson Andrew, he said he was going out to practice democracy. I hope you all did. My ballot was sent in over two weeks ago with a visitor returning to the US. This is one I did not want to miss. We were in France in 2004 and our absentee ballots never caught up with us so I missed the chance to vote against GWB, again. But this time I will be counted. I did go back and forth ~ but finally decided that Hillary made the most sense. In this mornings NYTimes, David Brooks has a hit piece on her. Why he waited so long I don't know, and besides that, it's all old news. I will try to stay awake until 10 PM tonight (our time) to see what happens in CA. But if not, tomorrow is soon enough.

I would love to see an old fashioned Democratic convention with floor fights, credential challenges (as in 1964 and the famous Fannie Lou Hamer speech) casting votes state by state ("The great State of California, home of the Golden Gate Bridge, proud producer of the country's largest prune crop, and the place where Hollywood makes dreams come true, casts it's 120 votes for . . ."), balloon drops and last minute surprises. Remember those old contests? I don't even remember the last time we had one. Was it JFK and Averill Harriman in 1960? Now it's all neatly tied up and is completely pro forma and we'll know the outcome by, well, probably tonight.

After yester morning tiangues shopping, where I bought the first mangoes of the season, followed by bean tacos and beer at La Jacaranda, I started to pack up the house. What a chore. We do this in May when we leave. I don't like having to do it twice. Plus it makes me think we are leaving soon. All the pillows have been bagged up, except the few we will take to liven up the apartment at Jack's. Next will be the couch cushions. Books have been boxed up., pictures taken down, doo-dads stored in the book shelves. We'll take the CD player with us plus a tasteful selection of dinner music. The furniture will be left where it is. It's Jaime's job to figure out where to move it and how to work around it. We can't just shove everything into a guest bedroom since that room also has furniture which must be moved somewhere else.

Today is Constitution Day so the town is full of long-week-enders. In Mexico they have what are called puentes or bridge days. If a holiday is on a Tuesday (as is this particular one), then Monday is a holiday, the "bridge" day. If it falls on a Friday, then Thursday is also a holiday. Lots of day-trippers. The beaches are crowded, the puestos busy. Good for the local economy. And the weather is cooperating beautifully; sunny, warm, breezy.