Get a Sugar Buzz and Vote

November....time to be sure the winter utensils are handy, because it's a-comin'. The weather may still be fairly decent, but it's a rearguard action. Best get the grill into the shed before it gets buried in snow.

We didn't get a single non-family trick-or-treater this Halloween, which means I get to finish off the leftover candy. I know what you're thinking, and I did actually have the porch light on to signal availability. (Hmmm....something about that seems a bit off-color.) Our court just doesn't have many kids, and it's so easy to load up at the various sugarfests put on by local organizations. (Including churches, which intrigues me. I know that the original meaning of Halloween has dissolved, but the idea of churches joining in somehow doesn't seem right.) Add in the every one's-a-potential-molester paranoia all too prevalent these days, and the old door-to-door tradition seems doomed.

I noticed that Wal-Mart this year had far more candy types and bag sizes than ever before, as well as a greater variety of Halloween-themed items. Lights and display items in particular have grown massively over the last few years, ever since someone who makes Christmas lights figured out that putting a plastic pumpkin or skull over the bulbs opened up a new market. At least it seemed to keep the Christmas displays in the back rooms a little longer, which gets kudos from me.

Now to the next event, the one hyped longer and louder than Christmas and the passing of which is greeted with even greater relief by most people....Election Day. It says a lot about this state that the incumbent Republican Senator is running unopposed and the Democratic incumbent House member is in a tight race with someone I had never heard of before she ran for office. The Republican Lt. Governor also seems to be cruising to the Governor's office, continuing a tradition since 1978.

There also a number of interesting propositions on the ballot, such as the legalization of medical marijuana (not happening, according to what I've seen. It's a sign of the relative ease with which something can get put to a public vote here that this is even on the ballot.) and expansion of the ban on smoking (apparently going to pass).

I'll be picking up the daughter after work and going to vote. As Jon Carroll says....

If you stay home and mutter that the Democrats and the Republicans are the same and they're all crooks paid off by special interests and things are so bad they can't get any worse, don't worry: They can get worse.

Maybe if you vote, they'll get less worse.