T'was the Night Before...

the election, and here is what I did:

• I made an effigy.

I hadn't planned to. After all, I figured I had shot my creative wad when I first floated the "Bring Your Own Effigy" idea - but I was disabused of that notion by my blog mate. No way was I going to be able to show up and swizzle beer and get rowdy if I didn't have an effigy in tow.

Initially it looked like ET

So I got down to it and whipped up a passing likeness of a certain District incumbent. It wasn't until it was completed that I realized that, like most politicians, it was spineless and flip-flopped any which way. Too late to put some backbone (or a pole) in it, so it's propped up in chair, the target of an occasional curious sniff from one of the pooches.

• I drank a peartini and snarfed a scotch egg, fries and hot wings.

Just as I was attaching the head and putting on the finishing touches, I got a call from my blog mate. She had been out doing her civic duty by waving candidate signs on a cold corner while I was home cozily ensconced before the fire hacking up a pillow case and gluing on cotton fuzz eyebrows & goatee. It took no arm twisting to lure me out for a pre-election nip. Those peartinis never fail to knock me right off my pins - faster and more thoroughly than anything I imbibed during my (in)famous Nome bar crawl this past summer.

• I listened to reports that 9,000 election observers will be mobilized to Indian reservations,

and internalized the bitter truth that the Banana Republicans have succeeded. It's a sad day when any place at all in our country needs to have protection to ensure fair voting. And even sadder when I consider that whereas 10 years ago I believed our elections to be fair, open and honest, I don't hold that opinion any longer. Rigged elections? Sure, why not? It happened in 2000, it can happen again.

It's late, and although I am jittery from too much coffee and the arrival of E-day, it's time for this blogger to head off to bed. Need to be well rested for tomorrow: at worst it could be the end of the free world as we know it - at best, a hell of a shindig.