Thank goodness – it's finally come to an end

Last week, we took the really easy way out. We used lots of pictures. . .about 4,000 words worth of pictures. This week, no such luck. . .

. . .instead, I think we'll kind of wander around and visit a couple of fascinating topics which flashed through my simple little mind during the past week. . .

. . .for example: aren't you glad it's finally over? And you know what I'm talking about.

Yup, the 2012 election campaign, which began in 1976, finally came to an end. I suppose there are all sorts of ways to look back on the election, like:

Did your candidate win?

I don't seem to have a lot of luck picking winners. Before I went to vote on Tuesday, I told The Other Half that I needed to take a coin with me that I could flip in the polling place as a way to decide who to vote for.

Even voting yes or no wasn't all that easy this time around. There was one issue on the ballot which involved a yes or no vote. However, if you voted no, you might have been voting yes. And if you didn't vote at all, you might have been voting no. Made sense to me. I called "heads," which meant that I voted. . .nah. . .

Something else about the election just kind of made me want to go hmmmm. . .

. . .seems like I heard that three billion dollars were spent, just on the presidential campaign. That's a 3 followed by something like 89 zeroes. I think. That's just silly.

One more thing made me want to go hmmmm. . .all of the folks who were running for office who said they weren't politicians, but they wanted to get rid of the guy, who is a politician, or, even worse, a "career politician," or, even worse than that, a "liberal career politician." I know I am pretty simple, but in order to run for office, don't you have to become a politician? Makes no sense.

And then there were all of the phone calls we were getting at home: some from folks who wanted to take "surveys" and others who were calling on behalf of one candidate to tell us how bad the other guy, or gal, was.  

Monday night, we got one of those calls. We just started punching numbers on the phone. Not long after that came another phone call from somebody that our caller ID couldn't ID. Turned out to be a very nice person who had dialed the wrong number. Honestly, I never thought I'd reach a point when answering a wrong number call would be a pleasant experience.

Fortunately, the journey through life during the past week included a couple of experiences which were about as far as could be from all of the election stuff.

Last Friday afternoon, the journey took me through the Trail of Tears State Forest. For the second day in November, the day was absolutely great. Lots of sunshine. Nice and warm. Who could have asked for anything more?

Sunday afternoon was more of the same. On the fourth day of November, I could sit out on the front porch with a good book and a cup of coffee and just enjoy the moment.

Reality interfered Monday morning. And the change from saving time to standard time made it dark way too early. At least a new episode of "Hawaii Five-O" was on the tube Monday night. Complete with more election commercials. I can't wait for the next election. . .