Politics & Kleenex

I am so annoyed this morning! I am coming down with a cold. I've got the fever, chills, nose-drip, sneezes, sore throat--the whole kit and kaboodle. I take eleventy-billion vitamins everyday and I hardly ever go anywhere. How can I be getting sick?

The only thing I can come up with is that the carpet cleaning released some long-dormant virus that found its way up my nose. OOOOOOH! I could just kick something (if I didn't feel so weak and crappy).

In the meantime, Lowes called with bad news about my impending refrigerator and freezer delivery. The freezer arrived damaged, but that is moot--it didn't feature a left-hand door, the only reason I purchased it, and they don't make that model anymore. So, it's back to Morristown on Wednesday to start all over again, shopping for the right combo!

The only good news is that my pick for McCain's VP became reality yesterday! While the press was running around asking "who is she?" I am feeling mighty smug about deciding back in May that Sarah Palin was exactly what the Republicans needed to re-brand themselves. I love being right. I had an argument with my brother two weeks ago, asserting that she should be the VP candidate. He said "no way." Now I wish I had bet him some real money on it. Whatever your political bent, the election this year continues to fascinate, horrify and break rules. It's the wackiest political free-for-all I've ever seen.

I was a reporter at the 1980 Democratic Convention, back in the days before wireless, internet, laptops and other taken-for-granted technologies today. The basement of Madison Square Garden was full of tables of typewriters, where you could go and pound out your written stories. I carried a portable cassette recorder (which weighed about 5 pounds) to tape delegates' comments, and when the cassettes were full, I'd blast uptown on the subway to our dumpy hotel room, where a group of about 7 of us had a honking-big TEAC reel-to-reel tape deck to splice our pre-recorded interviews together. We'd then unscrew the room's phone mouthpiece to hook up a wire patch from the TEAC, for feeds to radio stations back in California. Now I just marvel at the instantaneous flow of information, so effortless, so portable. And no subway travel required. Amazing!

In 2000, I was completely glued to the couch, watching in horrified fascination as the drama of Florida's hanging chads unfolded. Sometime in early December, I realized that Christmas was 3 weeks away and I hadn't been anywhere or done anything in more than a month. So, I guess I'm somewhat of a politics-watching junkie every four years. The rest of the time, I just let things slide and ignore most of it. But what a spectacle this year!

I guess it's back to the couch for me for the next few days with this obnoxious cold coming on. At least there will be some interesting TV to watch while I work my way through it.