2001-11-12 - 8:18 p.m.

On the internal soundtrack: "All The Pretty Little Horses", some creepy lullaby

OK, I need to get caught up. First I have to talk about voting.

Poindexter and I walked, since it wasn't far, and stopped at the store to get me a filbert ring while we were at it. I was cussing a blue streak ("Stupid fucking paranoid mumble mumble fucking ... shit") on the way because they had fenced up most of the border between my neighborhood and the shopping center (it's half a mile to go around). But they did actually leave one small space, maybe 25 feet, open, so we slipped through there.

At the polling place, Poindexter bantered with the old ladies checking names and got them all a-twitter. Then we went to vote, and he finished before I did, and stood a few feet away saying, "Aren't you DONE yet?!" and making me laugh. Such model citizens, we.

The best part was when I was finished, and got my "I Voted" sticker from the little old lady. I had glanced over at Poindexter, and saw that his sticker was planted solidly in the center of his chest, which wasn't where I would've expected him to put it. I soon discovered why.

The little old lady, looking patriotic in her flag scarf, peeled the sticker off and starting coming at me with it. I put my hand up to take it from her, but she feinted to her left and went around my hand and put the sticker at the bottom of the v-neck (not a low one, thankfully) on my sweater and then ran her finger over it a couple of times to make sure it stuck. Nearly put a bruise on my chest. Good lord. I should sue her for sexual harrassment.

On Wednesday we got our flu shots. I got there a little before Poindexter, which was a good thing because there were already 20+ people in line and more arrived afterward. Thankfully there were two lines, one for Medicare folks and one (with two shot-givers) for the rest of us.

In lines like this, it's just too boring to stand there, so I either bring a book (I saw another woman who did this) or chat. Since I was waiting for Poindexter, I chatted. The woman behind me in line was from Guatemala, and she was wearing her "I Voted" sticker. Apparently she met her husband when he was working at the American Embassy in her capital city. Pretty nifty. When Poindexter arrived, after I told him he looked so handsome in his leather jacket, she said she thought we were really cute, and that it seemed like we hadn't been married long. I hope we still give that impression ten years from now. If we don't have any children making us haggard, I think it's quite likely we might.

Poindexter spent the whole time cracking jokes and making the guy in front of us laugh. I was fussing a little about the nightmare I'd had the night before about flu shots. In the dream, it hurt a hell of a lot, far more than it actually does. The guy in front of us heard it, I guess, because he got his shot just before me, and as he was leaving, he looked at me and grabbed his arm and said, "Ow! Ow, that hurt!" The shot-giver, who wasn't in on the joke, said, "I don't know why he said that to you; he just told me he didn't even feel it." So I explained.

I asked for a Snoopy bandaid afterwards, like I used to get at the pediatricians after a shot, but he didn't have any. Rats.

Also on Wednesday, Michelle came over for dinner. I picked her up in the VW at the metro station closest to my office and we drove with the top down all the way home since it was so warm out.

That morning I had gotten myself all dirty trying to hook up the heater on the passenger side. It's not connected to the lever inside the car -- you have to get under the car and physically pull the lever to the "on" position and hold it in place with thick wire. This is a pain, so I do it once in the late fall and then loosen the wire in the spring. I suppose I should have this officially fixed, but it's sort of charming in a weird way so I haven't bothered. Turns out it was all for naught, since it was up near 80 that day.

We sauteed garlic in olive oil and served it with balsamic vinegar for dipping bread, and it was just so, so good and we ate so much we had hardly any room for dinner. It's good to eat garlic with a fellow garlic freak.

After dinner, Michelle showed me a bunch of ballet stuff. The five positions, plies, "bras bas", stuff like that. It's hard work! And it hurts! Every time I try a new physical activity I discover muscles I didn't know I had.

What was really interesting was that when she was demonstrating and explaining things to me, I began to understand some stuff I've seen when I watch ballet dancers on TV. I was recognizing a lot of what she was describing, even though I'd never known what it was called. I just thought that was kind of nifty. Ballet in general seems really nifty.

When I was taking her back to the Metro, the top was back up but the windows were down (the heat is either roasting or off in the VW, and the heat was on now, so...). At a traffic light, I was listening to Michelle and over her shoulder saw a man in an SUV staring at the car. He kept staring, and there were pauses where he could have said something, but he didn't. Finally, at long last, he said, "You should have the top down." I said, "You're right, we should." He had nothing else to say, just that little piece of advice.

On Friday, I was a little sniffly and so was Poindexter -- probably a reaction to the flu shots -- so when I finished with the crisis around 2pm or so, I decided to go home for a nap.

Is there ANYTHING nicer than coming home and dragging your handsome househusband upstairs for a snuggly warm nap on a sunny late fall day?

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