It's been a disagreeable week or so here at the home office. For starters, our anniversary dinner (which included that rare feature, babysitting) was interrupted by a fever which waited until after the entrees were on their way before moving from theoretical to hey-that's-a-lot-of-shivering undeniably real. (A sushi doggie bag, by the way, is a deeply hilarious item to confront twelve hours later).

This was followed several days later, by the arrival of a separate illness, which seemed to be the flu, in sufficient strength to knock me out of work for two days. It took the appearance of red dots on my hands to begin the process of discovering that I was playing host to something a bit different than the usual influenza virus, and would involve a whole extra round of weird and uncomfortable symptoms which, while minor, made me feel as if I had been given a leper costume for this year's Halloween parade. And which may or may not show up in Helena next.

Oh, and the Health Department inspected the day care center we send our daughter to. And told them they had too many children under 2 years of age for their licence. Guess which part-time attendee got notified that she'll have to leave? Now guess how many available slots there are within other day care facilities within reasonable reach of our house? If you guessed "Helena" and "Zero," then you are either a good guesser or are good at understanding heavy-handed, quasi-humorous, whining riddles.*

All this is of course more than bearable, though you wouldn't know if from the way we grumped through the weekend around here. Daylight savings time ended -- which has just seemed to give us a bonus hour of bad karma. I'd like to go to bed to put the blank on it all, but the upstairs neighbors have decided to put on the bedroom TV and rearrange the position of the wardrobe.

Is there a point to sharing this litany of gripes? Not really -- except perhaps to note that I've been so immersed in the sundries of Kleenex, Tylenol and local family day care homes that the upcoming election day has almost receded into the background. The feeling of disconnection is disturbing but palpable. Not that I have ceased to care: but my caring about the outcome no longer threatens to tear me to pieces with anxiety everytime I click on the Slate
Election Scorecard.

But I do care enough to notice when others are doing what I can't. I've been sidelined by microbes and the complexities of my own life, but from this little world of crap I send this packet of messages: if you're gearing up to travel to an electoral melee-zone for Nov. 2 (or are already there: Hi Josh!); if you're going to work as a poll watcher (or poll watcher-watcher) on Tuesday in one of those swingin' states; if you've been working the phones from home or in some union hall -- thanks. Thanks. Thanks.

*For the Aussies reading: "whingeing riddles."