Love Keith Olbermann.

Me, too. And last night he totally name checked my (soon to be ex) journal! The bit about the health effects of 9/11, where he showed a graphic of an article with "EHP Environmental Health Perspectives" across the top? Mine, folks! You can see the article here: [link]

A bunch of folks far smarter and better educated than I did the research and wrote it up. But I put that puppy online and hooted like a howler monkey when I saw it splashed all over Keith Olberman's Countdown last night.

We publish that kinda stuff. So naturally our budget has been repeatedly slashed, and will be cut by about half next year. Hence my new job.

But damn, I'm going out on a high note.

I learned the news from Narrator. Online. The school had scheduled a Kindergarten Tea Party, for all the kindergarten students, parents, and younger siblings at 11:00am. I'd just finished giving the then-babies (Julia wouldn't be three for a couple of months, and Chris was one and a half) breakfast and their baths, and getting their clothes ready, so we could get there in a not-crazy-rushed sort of way. I sat down with a cup of coffee, and loaded up the message board where a bunch of ex-pat Bronzers were licking our wounds in exile, expecting to find the same silliness I'd seen (among our Brits) early-early in the morning.

I was in my old office in a different building. I got in early and had my little tv on to keep me company. I had the Today show on and watched in shock as the story started to come in. MSNBC re-ran that Today show yesterday. It was strange to reaccess the memories of exactly what we saw and heard in "real time" -- the confusion over whether it was a small plane that hit the first tower, the pictures of the second plane striking the second tower and with it the realization that this was no accident, the reports of the Pentagon under attack, the reports of bombs in other federal buildings (not true), the towers falling. I remembered how grateful I was for the ex-pat Bronzers board(s) and the folks who were there, including you.

Happy Birthdays, P-C and Herah!

P-C, how are things going with the family?

(Edited to fix typo.)

If you are thinking about voting for Giuliani for President, please remember: The very last thing you want to do is to give this person more power. Seriously. Trust us on this one.

Seriously.

That's exciting, Calli!

Whoops, shrift, sorry about the no-job-yet. But soon!

In annoying news, today is the second day in a row I've been wicked late for work thanks to a train going out of service. I would have been semi-late all by myself, but the fucking trains are killing me.

At least my new boots are hot.

I had a slow start because I put the warm comforter on my bed and it was just too comfy. So I have to vote after work. I usually go in the morning and it is relatively uncrowded then. Don't know what evenings are like.

I've been wicked late

I guess it's true what they say, you can take the girl out of Massachusetts, but you can't take the Massachusetts out of the girl.

If you are thinking about voting for Giuliani for President, please remember: The very last thing you want to do is to give this person more power. Seriously. Trust us on this one.

Hells yeah.

I had a funny voting experience this morning, which I will shortly be sending to OINY. I usually go first thing in the morning when there's no line, but today I had to wait because there was a man voting in my district ahead of me, and he was having trouble working the levers. (I *heart* our old-fashioned lever machines. Ka-CHUNK! Vote!) Anyway, the people running things kept trying to explain to him how the levers worked, but he still said they wouldn't turn, etc etc etc.

After a few minutes of this, he goes back into the booth, pops his head back out and says "Wait, I think I know what the problem is -- I'm a Republican!"

(There are maybe 3 Republicans in my district, if that, and they'd forgotten to switch the knob over to that side, so he wasn't able to turn any of the GOP levers. Oops!)

Ha! Once many years ago, my father was a poll worker in Chicago, and the other long-time workers literally threw away a Republica ballot when they came across one, because they figured it had to be a mistake.

I guess it's true what they say, you can take the girl out of Massachusetts, but you can't take the Massachusetts out of the girl.

True fact. I actually busted a guy over the weekend who grew up in Mass but hasn't lived there in years. He has hardly any accent, but he kept having to say "Charles," (he was performing Charles's wedding) and I could hear the Mass in his voice.

HA!

My plan to get allmy work done so I can take a personal day this week is being twarted. The application I use is being Slllllllloooooooowwwwww.

Like still processing a button click since before I started this post slow.

Maryland is supposed to have those squirrelly, hackable electronic machines but as of last election, my district didn't. We don't have the kathunkers, we have a light up board covered by the ballot , but I don't know what tabulates the vote. Had the same machines in NC a decade ago. When you are done, it goes bweedledeebweep!