Motormouth: Oh, I love it when I wake up in the morning and Barack Obama is still our president.

4-year-old BK: Phew!

Well, I tried to vote early but the lines were prohibitively long w/ little boys in tow, so I awoke at 6:15 this morning and hightailed it to my polling place. I was expecting some blowback because my election-day address is not the same as my ID address, but sharing my ID and my Social Security Card took care of it. I received ballot #13, stood in line, marked all six pages, fed it into the hoping-this-records-my-ballot machine, and skipped out of the gym into the early morning sunlight. Another woman my age was leaving at the same time and we looked at each other.

“Now’s when I start getting nervous for the rest of the day,” I said.

“Me too,” she said.

“I just hope that it turns out that our nation’s voters are… sensible,” I said. She laughed.

Here’s hoping. Shit, I’m unemployed. Mitt Romney has already written me off. He doesn’t want to be my president? Here’s hoping he never has the chance.

This conversation happened last night on my sofa, so I wrote it up as a play.

Monstro & Motormouth sit on the sofa, watching a political ad starring Michelle Obama.

Monstro: How do people not like her?
Motormouth: Everybody likes her. Who doesn’t like her?
Monstro: Your mom doesn’t like her.
Motormouth: My mom has dementia. Who else?
Monstro: (crickets chirping in the background)

I worked hard to get this produced this year in three different states, but to no avail. Nevertheless, I think it’s the funniest sketch I’ve ever written and it deserves to be read!

Click here to read “You Have a Choice”

These are the topics that were discussed immediately prior to and during tonight’s family dinner. I know, with a 6- and 4-year old that we’re not going to be discussing the use of epiphany in Joyce, but is it too much to ask that when we sit down to eat a dinner I’ve spent the past hour preparing (“You cook every night?” my neighbor asked me when we had her over for cocktails a few weeks ago. “I don’t know ANYONE who cooks every night.”) a delicious chicken casserole with every leftover in my fridge that hadn’t gone over to the dark side (sorry rice, sorry red cabbage — only 4 Tbsp of each but into the garbage they went), that we discuss something other than the death of my first-grader’s teacher’s dog?

Maybe I’m just being bitchy. Regardless, we’re praying for the teacher –and Chase, departed to doggie heaven– tonight. And then I’ll have a second helping, once the children are abed.

Yeah, I’m probably being bitchy. Most likely because Lex started the conversation with, “I think Nana’s going to die soon,” and I told him, “I don’t think so” and did not say what first came to mind: “I hope so.”

The first Friday of November = Lex’s class birthday party. He is the only child in his class born this month so I got to supply all the goodies. I baked red-velvet cupcakes, brought some pretty napkins, and Dixie cups of water served on an elegant-if-tarnished silver tray. I also surprised the class by opening two packs of Pokemon cards. Each child took one card and all were wildly excited. It was very sweet when the children sang “Happy Birthday” to Lex. And it was nice to get away from the political telemarketing calls we’re getting in our Ohio household every 23 minutes. Win-win, people. Win-fricking-win.

Today is the first day of the National Bloggolalia Month, or something like that. I’m supposed to blog every day. I’ll probably blog for the first three days and then feel guilty for shirking.

I just finished closing out all of MFM’s accounts so she’ll be eligible for Medicaid. It is the most soul-sucking thing I’ve ever done. God help us.

She fell out of her wheelchair at the nursing home on Monday and has a couple of terrible bruises on her face. It makes my heart ache to think of the whole situation.

Maybe tomorrow’s post will be happier. xo

MFM, two days after her most recent fall.

Today I posted it on my blog for your listening pleasure. No, I’m not this depressed. Yes, it’s just a song. Check it out!

We are still getting the runaround from Huntington Bank. Last I heard, the underwriters might want to look at the papers for MFM’s trust. Ridiculous. If they’d used this much discretion reviewing 2.7 billion of home loans 6 years ago, we wouldn’t have had to bail them out with our tax dollars. Now they won’t loan any money at all.

Anyway, when I was Facebooking about it, I used the @ sign prior to Huntington Bank. I didn’t at the time realize that this meant my posts and its comments would appear on the “Related Posts” page you could reach from the front of HB’s FB property.

So that happened, and it was there for weeks. Then about 10 days ago, I visited Huntington’s Facebook page. There’s no longer a tab or page there for “Related Posts.” It’s gone. They deleted it.

So, ye downtrodden: never let it be said that one person can’t make a difference.