~Tuesday~ I was up quite early this morning and caught the 7:00 #9 Greek Village bus from the Food Lion Park & Ride on Avent Ferry Road. The bus was waiting when I pulled up. I boarded, and it left a minute or so later. Good timing.
I was the first one into our suite of offices, which is pretty unheard of. My officemate is an early bird and I rarely get to work before her. When our colleague who sits in the office next to ours came in, he said, “Good morning, Rhonda,” since the light was on, but he can’t see us.
“Good morning,” I responded, and he was as surprised to find me there instead of Rhonda as I was to find myself there that early.
I had a day of more meetings than I care to have in a day. Of course, two is more than I care to have in a day.
- 9:00-10:00 Staff Meeting – weekly meeting; me, my officemate and our manager; manager shares news from her staff meeting, and we each talk about what we’re currently working on
- 10:45-11:45 Postini Meeting – scheduled-as-needed meeting; working on the communication surrounding the imminent roll out of antivirus, anti-spam, and archiving & retention services for university employees
- 12:15-1:00 iPad Lunch & Learn – a look at the new Apple iPad and its functionality and capabilities
- 1:00-2:00 First Month Check-in with Kaitlin – project/task/feedback/learning review with our intern
My plan was to leave work by 4:00, but that didn’t happen. I was sitting on the #9 Greek Village bus in front of Scott Hall, when the #1 Avent Ferry bus pulled in. I switched to it for two reasons:
- A lady was on her cell phone speaking at a volume that made the whole bus privy to her conversation, which consisted of snippets like these, “Yes, girl. I told her. He got out the jail, then went back in. Now she say she don’t know. He back out again and she say she don’t know. I know. No. Kick him to the curb. But no, she thinking about going back with him.” and “Look, I’m pregnant. I can’t do all that. Put my baby at risk. No.”
- The Avent Ferry bus has a more direct route to the Food Lion Park & Ride than the Greek Village one does.
I’d like to think I mostly made the decision because of item #2, but I’m not so sure.
Once in my car, I drove by the mailboxes in front of the post office and dropped off a piece of mail that I wanted to get out by 5:00, but by then it was about 5:30. Oh well.
From there, I drove over to the Method Road Community Center to vote in the state primary. A man stood on the sidewalk just this side of the “No Campaigning Beyond this Point” demarcation line, and he held out a flier for me. “No thanks,” I said smiling while passing on his offer.
Inside, I was one of three people there to vote, and as chance would have it all three of us had names funneling us to the “Last Names Starting with H-O” line. And the person handling that queue was a lady who used to work with us, Sjan Morrow, who retired last year.
When Sjan finished with the first person in line, she asked the next person what their last name was, and as it turned out, it was in a different book from the Martins, so she gave the Martins book to the lady staffing the empty A-G line, who then called me up. After peeling a label with my name and address on it from the book and sticking it on a form, I took the form over to the ballot table. A lady there recorded my intention to vote, and a handsome and hunky man sitting next to her handed me my ballot, after scanning the paperwork with a hand-held scanner not unlike those used at grocery stores to do inventory of items on the shelves.
I was the 122nd to vote at that polling place, which is kind of pathetic, albeit not unexpected. I had my handy sheet of recommendations from ENC on LGBT-friendly candidates, and it together with a discussion I’d had with my boss earlier in the day about the candidates running for the U.S. Senate from N.C., enabled me to cast my ballot for all but one office. There were three candidates running for “District 10,” none of whom I knew, and none of whom were endorsed by ENC, so I just didn’t vote in that race.
Although I was the 122nd person to receive my ballot, I was the 123rd person to vote, as evidently, the person getting her ballot after me finished casting her ballot before me.
I received my kudos for voting:
Earlier in the day, I’d seen a breaking news headline that there’d been a shooting in Durham at the Duke’s North Duke Street Clinic. I immediately thought of Robert as that’s the area near where he works, and a few minutes later, I was relieved to read the updated headline, “Woman shot, killed at Duke clinic.”
At home, while having an instant message conversation and playing online Scrabble with Robert, he found out that that woman was someone he worked with, having met and become friends with her over the last 3 years. He described her as a “sweet” lady, as did the news stories later in the day as the story had unfolded, and he’d talked to her just this morning. Sad. I’m sorry for your loss, my sweet man.
I waffled—too many times and for too long—about going to the gym tonight, and in the end opted for a two-hour nap, from 8:30-10:30 instead. Slug.
When I woke up, I thought about going down to Flex, just because I could—not having any homework and a work day with no meetings tomorrow—but then I thought, “I don’t need to spend the money, and I don’t need the calories,” so in the end stayed in.