Last Nice Day in MN for the Year...

Finally, the elections and negative ads are done. OK, well, Virginia is still deciding and what I learned when I was out there, neither candidate is a good choice, but oh well. The rest is over and we can go back to normal programming. What were the results…well, the House was won back by the Democrats. The Senate, we don’t know yet….this is a good thing. Let me just preface saying that I’m neither Republican nor Democrat, I was independent but then they came up with an Independent party, so I’ll just call myself a “fence sitter” (which most Democrats are fine with and which Republicans I’ve talked to get on my case about, what’s wrong with wanting to make an informed choice based on the values and promises and/or hopes that the candidate is expressing in their campaign instead of just voting for a person because they belong to the Donkeys or the Elephants??), but I digress. I’m really a moderate. Very much in the middle. I believe and like things in both parties and have liked people from both parties, as long as they aren’t either extreme. With all that said, with the Democrats getting the House, at least it puts some balance back in Washington. As it was, Bush was getting about anything he wanted, and no matter who the president is (and I will just say I’m in the majority and think he’s doing a very poor job) I think there needs to be at least one of the other branches of government in control of the opposing party to get some checks and balances. In MN, our governor still presides, I don’t believe he did a good job, in his ads he comes across as likeable, he has really messed up a lot of things though, including funding for freeways that were in need of repair that he couldn’t find, raising “fees” instead of taxes, tuition at colleges more than doubling in the time he’s been in office, a bus strike that caused bus drivers to lose about 3 weeks of time that he didn’t step in and help resolve yet a week after it was resolved, he was on the job making sure the Twins were going to be broadcast so all in the state could see them cause it was terrible that they were not going to be broadcast, oh and that little stadium issue where he “wasn’t going ot lose the Twins on his watch” so without being able to vote, the Hennepin County sales tax is going up to fund it (even though this happened before and a law was uput into effect that tax payers would get to vote on that raise and then they overrode that and we didn’t get to vote on it…nice huh?)…Anyway, that’s not all him, he can’t do it on his own, he now has a Democratic house and senate to fight, so we’ll see what happens there. My reasons for not caring for him though?? It’s really a good one…

In 2004 I volunteered at the Twin Cities Marathon. I was handing out medallions, a very prestigious job cause you get to welcome the runners home, you are the most loved cause that is what they were all about. I had so many sweaty hugs and thank you’s and appreciation from the runners that it was just so incredible and I can’t wait to do it again. The one dark cloud on the otherwise beautiful day is that our esteemed governor was running the marathon. He hadn’t trained well, but was running it nonetheless, my dislike of him in play, I said I didn’t want to hand him his medal from the get go, but the way that I don’t pay attention to politics much, I didn’t really recognize him (or pay attention to his name being announced or the fact that there was a TV camera there) and was going to put the medal around his neck, and his trainer, aid or whoever was there to take it from me and he didn’t even acknowledge that I had given it to him, instead he was blathering on to the camera “if I can run a marathon, anyone can run a marathon”…yeah, thanks Tim…most people are very thankful to the volunteers. If not for them the races wouldn’t be there or wouldn’t be as enjoyable to the runners as they can be.

OK, I had intended to start and type this as a running related, or running frustrated post. I went to run today. It would be my last run outside in shorts of the year as it is supposed to hit 70 today and it felt nice enough for sure that shorts would’ve been appropriate. Unfortunately by the time I get home it’s pretty much dark and my roommate and I are going to walk her dog and my sister’s boyfriend’s dog who I am dogsitting for, around Lake Calhoun and enjoy the weather at dark…Anyway, the run didn’t happen cause I got down to the locker room to change and discovered I had no sports bra…sigh…I couldn’t skip the sports bra. It just hurts to much without and I wasn’t running the bra I’m wearing!!