1. Yes, when I lived in Oregon, I enjoyed the convenience of voting by mail. But, I remember when Oregon first instituted this practice, I felt some melancholy. I'd always enjoyed joining fellow citizens in a march to the place where I cast my ballot.
In 2016, I voted early in Maryland. I drove about seven miles to a Senior Activity Center north of Greenbelt and joined a mob of voters. I relished that experience. I genuinely felt like I was a part of an enterprise much bigger than me, involving an uplifting mix of people of various ages and different racial and ethnic identities -- and, again, so many of us turned out.
I looked back at my blog entry for that day and now I remember how impressed I was with how the polling place was so well staffed and how they were able to move people efficiently in and out.
This is all to say that I enjoyed blasting up to the Elks today to cast my votes in person and to do so in the company of other community members. It stood in line for about 5-10 minutes, got to have a quick conversation with Candy as she efficiently logged me into the voting system, and before long I had marked my ballot and returned home.
2. Debbie has a very modest amount of money invested in a private retirement account that required some attention. She had a form to fill out and submit related to decisions about that account. Today, I decided to use the Apple Preview app and teach myself how to fill information in the PDF file/form using my laptop's keyboard so that I could attach the filled out form to an email and send it to our financial pro.
It took some patience, but I think I succeeded. I attached the filled out PDF file and a photo of a cancelled check to an email, using the company's secure email program, and hope to hear from the pro on Wednesday that I did everything correctly.
This learning, my trials and my errors, I suppose should have stressed me out.
But, I came out from my work area to see Debbie in the living room as I was wrapping up this small project and said, "I'm really having fun with this."
3. As I read more deeply into the book Underground and read more of the stories about people who survived the sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway system in March of 1995, I'm struck how determined, for better or worse, gassed individuals were to get to their workplace, despite being in terrible shape and being driven by a deep sense of duty. These injured people, upon arriving at work, were eventually sent by their supervisors to a hospital.
On the one hand, it's an admirable work ethic.
On the other hand, many of these victims later questioned why they put getting to work ahead of the medical peril they were suffering and questioned what they came to see as a cultural materialism that put money and earning money ahead of looking out for one's own health. Many also questioned how the urgency of getting to work, for some, was more pressing and important than helping others who were incapacitated by the sarin gas.
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