Saturday, April 6, 2013

Sunday Oct 28 Not so lazy

1. I entered the contributions for the campaign finance report.

2. Primo and I spent three hours doing doors. It was cold. Nobody answered because kids were trick or treating and it wasn't the neighborhood T or T. People don't want to give candy to kids from other neighborhoods, especially when they feel they are being taken advantage of. Entire vanloads of kids are disbursed on the block and they run through like locusts. Actually, the little kids are cute and they're innocent. But when there are teenagers involved and they don't even have costumes and their first question - and yes, I heard this from someone I think might have been old enough to vote - is "You got candy?" you have to think that perhaps the spirit of the event is being lost.

3. I am  baking a double batch of chocolate chocolate chip cookies for Thursday's phone bank.

4. Primo and I are negotiating how household chores will be done starting after the election. He is willing to share them equally, except for the things that he doesn't care about, i.e., washing the windows. I have informed him that it doesn't work like that. You don't get to say, "I want a clean house but only if someone else does the crummy stuff" and you don't get to abdicate part of housecleaning by saying you don't care if the windows are clean. Although there is no way I can make him do windows, I suppose. I could stage my own private Lysistrata maybe.

I said that he has to do all the leaf raking. I have done it for the past three years when I was unemployed. It's his turn. He has agreed.

5. I talked to a guy doing doors whose first question was, "Which party?"

Me: Polka Dots.

Voter [extends hand]: OK. I will never vote for a Stripe.

Me: Well, thanks for your vote. [Even though I am in principle opposed to voting straight party line. Shouldn't you still know about the people you're voting for?] Would you like a yard sign? [He's on a corner lot, which is a good spot.]

Voter: Sure! [Reaches for his wallet.] How much?

Me: Oh! Well, they're free.

Voter: Then how about if I give you something for the campaign?

Me: That would be great.

Voter: Here. [Hands me a $20.]

Me: I don't have any envelopes. If you'll give me a piece of paper, I'll write you a receipt.

Voter [shrugs]: Why would I need that? It's not like I can put it on my taxes.

Me: Oh. Yeah. Well, thanks!

Sunday Oct 28 Lazy Sunday

Primo has already been out doing doors. He had to stop at noon because of the football game. We'll go out once the game is over.

Now we are doing the campaign finance report that is due tomorrow night.

"Should I call my mom and dad?" he asked. "They'll be expecting the call."

"Nope," I said. "They can't send you to jail. The state can. We have to do this report."

Besides, I am tired of Sly and Doris. I feel bad for Doris - she emailed to Primo that "despair and misery are wrapped all around [her]," which is so, so sad, but dang, Primo can't fix her life for her.

"I'm her only happiness," he said. "Shouldn't I visit them over Thanksgiving? Shouldn't I spend all my time with them?"

Nope. Nope nope nope.

"You have been working your butt off since I met you," I said. "This Thanksgiving is your chance to relax. If you win the election, you'll still need to relax because you're going back to work [at his engineering job] the Monday after Thanksgiving. If you lose, you'll really need to relax."

"But you might have to go to Beijing for work over that weekend," he protested.

Really. Who organizes a conference in which they want Americans to attend over Thanksgiving weekend? For dumb.

"So you can have the house all to yourself," I shrugged. "I think you'd be nuts to waste that time visiting them."

******

I am keying in the campaign donation data from the online contribution service. They didn't do it right. Primo downloaded the data to a spreadsheet and one person's zip code came across as 1701, which I think we all know is not correct for the United States. So I had to look up the zip code for that town. Apparently, the program has zip codes labeled as numeric and not as alpha characters, so leading zeros don't show up.

*****

Primo saw his half brother Jack last night. He didn't really want to. He was tired and he is annoyed - no, really upset with Jack because he blames Jack for much of Sly and Doris' financial problems, although I say how could the smartest man in the world, Sly, have invested $250,000 in a business without doing his due diligence? I hold Sly and Doris just as responsible, even more, actually, because it was their money! And their idea! If you decide to invest a QUARTER OF A MILLION DOLLARS - the bulk of your hard-earned lifetime savings - in something, don't you consult experts and do a ton of research to make sure you are making the right decision?

Anyhow. They went out for a drink. "What did Jack have to say?" I asked.

"He doesn't talk much," Primo said. "I did most of the talking. But we agreed that my parents alienate people with their constant criticism." Which of course is true.

**************

More Samantha and her other candidate. Ralph and Potsie came by to show us a draft of the last campaign piece. We got into Samantha, who, if you remember, was fired by another candidate, Michelle.

Samantha has refused to call godaddy.com to turn over the account to Michelle. Michelle has asked several times. When Samantha set the account up (for Michelle's campaign website), she used Michelle's credit card but put the account in her name, that is, in Samantha's name.

Now, despite Michelle's repeated attempts, Samantha won't turn the account over.

Instead, she sent Michelle an email with an invoice for $3,000 and a note saying that she couldn't guarantee that the site would be maintained unless she was (were?) paid.

Now. We all know this is extortion. However, a good moral to this story is to HAVE A DARN CONTRACT! Michelle and Samantha did not have a contract. What was the agreement? What would Samantha do? How would they measure whether it had been done or not? Bad, bad business. You need to outline the roles and responsibilities and milestones.

Still. Extortion is extortion. So Michelle wrote back to Samantha and suggested that Samantha contact Michelle's attorney - information provided - to discuss the possible consequences of not converting the godaddy.com account. Then Michelle said that if Samantha could not reach the first attorney, there were six more she could talk to.

Let's see if Samantha moves now.




Friday, April 5, 2013

Sunday October 28 Halloween campaigning summary

That was a big waste of time. The doorbell rang only about 20 times in two hours and the parents stayed in the background. We decided this was about as successful as going to the senior center, maybe less.

We paid ten dollars to join the neighborhood association so we could do this.

Oh, don't even get me started on controlled trick or treating that doesn't even happen on Halloween. Suffice it to say that if a kid wants to trick or treat in this area, he has to play by the neighborhood association's rules.

We pay the money. They give us the candy. The good news is that we have leftover candy. The bad news is that most of it is crap. Because if you have to give candy for your kids to trick or treat,  but it's not the candy you'll be giving out, why bother to get the good stuff? People buy the crappy stuff because they're not going to get any credit for giving out the good stuff. Your friendly fascist neighborhood redistributors.

Thursday, April 4, 2013

Saturday Oct 27 Halloween campaigning

Primo: I still have a lot of my campaign t-shirts left.

Me: What are you going to do with them?

Primo: Maybe I can give them out tonight.

Me: To trick or treaters? [Our neighborhood does trick or treating tonight - the Saturday before Halloween. I think it's nuts. Why can't kids trick or treat on Halloween? AND there are only certain streets where the kids go. Ours is one of them.]

Primo: To their parents.

Me: You'd wait for them to ask first, right?

Primo: If the parents ask about my campaign, yes.

Me: If they ask about you, you can also offer them a yard sign.

Saturday Oct 27 Primo cancels the thingy with the head of the state PD party

We went out to dinner last night. We had a groupon that was about to expire. So even though we are both exhausted and have had no time to relax for weeks, we drove 20 minutes to get to the restaurant to save ten dollars.

Fortunately, the food was excellent. It was a small Mexican place run by actual Mexicans who definitely know what they're doing in the kitchen.

Other customers included major hipster dudes who were wearing their wool caps and their baseball cap that declared "Shit happens," even though they were indoors. I suppose that if you're not going to bother to wash your hair or comb it, you might as well leave your hat on.

On the way there, Primo announced that he had cancelled the thing with the head of the state PDs. "It was too disorganized," he said. "Plus Potsie and I decided that associating with him would not help us with the people in the middle. It would play well to the base, but we already have the base."

"I told you so," I said.

I love being able to say that.

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Thursday October 25 People start calling Primo back after they miss the call from the phone bank

I had never done a phone bank before. Here's how it works.

1. There is a script that appears on a computer screen with yes and no options of what to say.

2. Some machine dials voters on the list until someone answers the phone. When a person answers, the name associated with that phone number appears on the screen so you can say, "May I please speak to Jimmy Carter?"

3. Then the person slams the phone down or says, "He's not here," or, "You have the wrong number." You also might get a sweet old man who says, "She's in the bathroom," and then, when he finds out who you are, spends 12 minutes on the phone with you, even though you keep trying and trying to end the call. "Where does Primo stand on social security?" he asks.

You say, "Sir, that is a federal issue and not part of what he would be doing."

He says, "I want to know what he thinks about old people issues!" and he has a point.

4. It might take a minute or two to get a number where someone answers the phone. Which means there are a lot of calls that are made but not answered.

5. It looks to the voter like the phone call is coming from Primo's phone, because that's how they programmed it at the phone bank.

6. Some people, when they look at their call log and see a phone call that they did not answer, will call that number. Even if the caller did not leave a message. Even if they do not recognize the number.

I do not understand this! If you don't recognize the number and there is no message, then why are you calling? When people have done this to me, I have told them, "I called the wrong number." Except I don't usually bother to answer calls from numbers I don't recognize.

Chill, people! The world will not end if you don't know who called you!

So for 15 minutes, we were all calling. Lots of numbers that didn't answer. Primo finally arrived.

"My phone keeps ringing from numbers I don't know!" he said.

The young woman running the call center, Tiffany, came over. She looked at his phone. "I think it might be the people we didn't reach here."

His phone rang again. And again.

He called Ralph to ask what was going on. Ralph was supposed to have been at the phone bank but - wasn't.

[The next night, on the way to dinner, Primo said that he and Ralph had gotten over their fight about the mailer and were back together.

"You're not broken up any more?" I asked. "You're over your lovers' tiff?"

Primo laughed. "Yes, we're not broken up any more!]

Ralph said that he'd told the call center to make it look like the calls were coming from Primo's phone.

Tiffany suggested changing the outgoing number to all zeros. Which she did. Which solved the problem. But people continued to call all evening. The next day, I asked Primo if he'd listened to any of the messages or returned any of the calls.

He sighed and shook his head. "It was just too many," he said. "We didn't do it right."


Thursday Oct 25 We do a phone bank and a guy is a total jerk to me

The place was not easy to find. I had given everyone the address, but I had not been there before myself, so I could not explain that the building was set very far back from the street, that the suite we wanted was not listed on the building directory, and that it was important to take the back elevator and not the front elevator to get to the fourth floor. The front elevator only goes to the third and fifth floors, even though it has buttons for the second and fourth floors. You press "4" and nothing happens. You wonder if you need a card key. You get confused.

Then you finally figure out - because you finally understand what the large "3" and "5" painted on the wall next to the elevator mean - that this is not the fourth-floor elevator.

I found where we were supposed to be. Neither Ralph nor Potsie were there, even though one of them was supposed to be. There was a young woman - Tiffany - working. Only one of my friends was there. I worried that nobody would be able to find the room easily, so I went back downstairs to wait outside and direct people.

The volunteers trickled in. I thought, "We're supposed to start at 5:30!" Yet what do you say when it's a workday and people are volunteering? They're doing you a favor. You take what you can get.

Almost everyone was there by 5:45. Tiffany was getting people started, explaining how the system works. At 6:00, Primo and Kristy showed up, soaking wet. He and Kristy had been doing doors and they had gotten caught in the rain. He ran out to put his yard sign in front of the proper elevator. Our neighbors arrived shortly after. Maybe the sign helped.

I put out the polenta cake. I did everything I could to avoid calling. I hate this kind of thing.

Christina sat next to me. She made a call. The person was mean to her. She took off her headset, took a deep breath, closed her eyes. Made another call. Same thing. Mean person. "This is hard," she whispered.

I decided if I was going to ask her to do this, I better do it, too.

First call. Hangup.

Second call. "Not interested at this time, thank you."

Third call. "We're eating supper." Well, then why did you answer the phone?

Fourth call. I actually got a chance to talk. "I am calling on behalf of my husband, Primo, who is running for the state house. He's an engineer who has never run for office before and he did not warn me about this before we got married." That usually gets a laugh.

Fifth call. "Is he a PD or a Stripe?"

Me: He's running as a PD.

long pause

Me: He is married to a Stripe. We're a mixed marriage.

Voter [laughs]: Voter: Yes, I have that in my family.

Me: And do you hate each other because of your politics? No. You love each other and find a way to work together despite the differences. If we can do that in our homes, why can't we do that in the capitol?

Voter: Exactly!

Christina and I persevered. I told her I would never ask her to do this again.

Eight o'clock arrived. We stopped calling. Primo thanked everyone and gave out "Primo for State House" t-shirts. We have a ton of them. We ate cake.

Amazingly, everyone agreed to return next Thursday. I think they're nuts, but I'm glad they're willing to do it. I wish I didn't have to.

Thursday Oct 25 The jerk at the phone bank‏

Not everyone was thrilled to get a political phone call, but most of them were polite - "Thank you, I'm not interested right now" - or just hung up, which I thought was offensive until I realized that they were under no obligation to talk to me whatsoever and I would rather have a hangup than this guy.

Here's how our conversation went.

Me: Hello. May I speak to the Jerk du Jour?

Jerk du Jour: This is Jerk.

Me: Good evening, Mr du Jour. My name is Gold Digger and I am calling on behalf of my husband, Primo, who is running for the state house in our district.

JJ: What party?

Me: He's running as a Polka Dot.

[Long pause, which I take as a sign that JJ is not a fan of Polka Dots, so I throw in some more information.]

Me: He's married to a Stripe.

JJ: Can he afford to divorce her?

Me (laughing): No sir, he cannot.

JJ: He'll have to beat his wife into submission. 

Me (confused): I would rather he not beat me, but we would appreciate your considering voting for him. [Sometimes, I don't get mad enough and react way too nicely to awful things.]

JJ: I'm a Polka Dot, but -- No! He's obviously not a Polka Dot! He must be a Stripe plant! I'm not voting for him! [Slams phone down.]

Me (to dead phone line): Oh right. Like you're going to vote for his Stripes opponent?

Thursday Oct 25 More with the canvass with the state PD guy

Primo: I thought that [the head of the state PD party] was supposed to bring volunteers with him, but Potsie found out that all we have is time on his calendar.

Me: What do you mean?

Primo: I mean he has nothing! I thought he was bringing people, I thought he had a venue. But he has nothing. He'll show up where we tell him to be, but that's it. We have to get the venue. We have to get the volunteers.

Me: What a pain in the neck. I thought the party was actually doing something for you.

Primo: Yeah, me too.

Me: It's a little late to get volunteers.

Primo: I know.

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Wednesday Oct 24 The doorbell keeps ringing and I don't know how to answer questions

The phone bank is tomorrow night. I have found volunteers to work. Two are people Primo has recruited, one is our friend Christina, aka The Nighttime Wife, and four are my recruits: my book club friend, two neighbors, and a woman Primo and I met doing doors.

I emailed them on Monday. Called them all today to remind them. This is a case for redundant systems. It's too late when nobody shows up to call and email reminders. You need to overprepare because you never know what's going to happen.

I was preparing snacks for the volunteers. I was baking our friend Julie's great polenta cake, which has cornmeal and almond paste. It's not too sweet, it's super moist, and it has a very nice, interesting combination of flavors. Who thinks of putting cornmeal and almonds together? Not me.

So I had come home from work, changed into my PJs, which consist of red and white-striped jersey elastic-waist jersey pants that I got at the Lands End outlet and Primo's long-sleeved, yellow beer-bike t-shirt from college. I put my pink John Deere sweatshirt on over that, pulled on the fluffy socks, and stepped into my orange topsiders. Then I got baking.

In the middle of separating the eggs, the doorbell rang.

I answered, even though I am not usually in the habit of answering the door after dark. I hardly do it when it's light. Nobody comes to the front door except people asking for money in one form or another.

But I answered - I opened to a man I didn't even know.

Dumb, I know.

"Can I get a yard sign?" he asked.

What?

I looked confused.

"Is this where Primo lives?"

Yes, I told him.

"I got his piece in the mail today. I looked him up online. I like him. Can I have a yard sign for my yard?"

Well yes you may!

I asked him his address. We want to keep track of the signs so we can collect them after the election. They're not cheap and if Primo ever runs for office again, we can re-use them.

"It's the house with all the [PD presidential candidate] signs in the yard," he announced.

Crap. That's not exactly what we're going for. The piece the guy got in the mail shows Primo standing between two people. One is wearing a t-shirt for the Polka Dot Senate candidate, the other is wearing a shirt for the Stripes candidate.

"They're just friends of the photographer," Primo said, "but I have met people who are voting for the Stripes guy who have said they would vote for me."

We really want Primo to stand on his own - for voters to evaluate him as a person, not as part of a party. But what can you do?

I gave him a sign. He left. I returned to my cake making. Put the batter in the pan. Put it in the oven. Started cleaning up.

The doorbell rang again. Now what?

I opened - it was our neighbors down the street who had agreed to work at the phone bank. We'll call them Mork and Mindy, which are obviously not their real names and not intended to be insulting at all - they are very nice people - but these are easy names to remember. I lose track of which name I've given to which person. I do have a list, but you know. Still better to have memorable names.

They were concerned about working at the call center. What if they gave wrong information? They assured me that as strong Polka Dots, he had their support, but they wanted to be able to answer questions that voters might ask.

I was impressed that they thought people might actually be interested enough in the race to ask questions instead of hanging up.

Then I got stressed out because they started asking questions I could not answer. What does he think about the fracking bill? What about the wolf hunt? The union contracts?

I don't know, I don't know, I don't know! I felt like I was about to explode. I hate it when someone asks me something I can't answer but I feel like I should know the answer. The pressure. The pressure!

I kept trying to suggest that they email him or call him or I could have him call them. But they wanted to know!

The timer went off for the cake.

I gasped. "I have to get that," I said. "Just come into the kitchen with me."

No, they really didn't have anything else. They would email him. But wait! One more question!

The timer went off again. "I have to get that!" I insisted. "It will burn!" I ran into the kitchen. They followed. I worried that the toilet might not be flushed. (Just yellow, OK? Water is a precious resource that we should not waste.)

I pulled the cake out of the oven.

Primo walked in the door.

I breathed a sigh of relief.

They all went into the living room. He answered their questions. They went home. The end.











Wednesday Oct 24 Another fundraiser, another dollar‏

Or not. Primo and I are very bad fundraisers. It is hard for us to ask for money. We have both been self-sufficient since college. I am reading a novel - The Red Book - about a Harvard class reunion. One character and her husband have a trust fund each. Their parents bought their New York apartment and their parents pay for their children's private school. The husband is a writer who has not written a book in ten years and the wife is an artist who doesn't do anything. They are horrified at the idea of having to earn a living. 

I am horrified at the idea of adults who rely on their parents. My gosh. You went to Harvard and you can't get a darn job? How pathetic is that?

Primo and I take care of ourselves. Asking for money from other people is Not What We Do. 

So we are very bad fundraisers.

A woman in the district held a fundraiser for Primo last night at her home. We drove through the fog to get there and identified her house because of the five "Primo for State House" signs in the yard and the two glowing orange pumpkins at the edge of the driveway. 

She had a little table set up just inside the front door with nametags, a sign-in sheet, and donation envelopes. The same envelopes that you hand to the guests and say, "I'm sure you'll want one of these!"

There was food: bacon-wrapped steak, artichoke dip, cream puffs, cake. 

"Oh, it's just from Costco," she said dismissively, but I was not swayed. She still had to go to the store and spend her own money. 

I know I have complained about Costco platters at fundraisers, but that was at fundraisers where we were expected to donate. It's different when someone is nice enough to host one for Primo. I'm just so grateful that someone is willing to do the work. Plus, this was good Costco stuff, not unripe cantaloupe. 

She also had wine and cider and beer. So, so nice.

We waited. And waited. And waited.

I ate. I was starving. I had gotten home from work, fed the cats, put stamps on 70 postcards, entered the data from two walk sheets, gotten my clothes ready for today, scooped the cat box, washed my lunch dishes, and  - well, I don't remember what else. But I hadn't eaten so I was hungry.

I ate and ate and still nobody.

Finally, a little old lady knocked on the door. The hostess' neighbor. 


She came in. Sat on the sofa. We made polite conversation. She had lived in the area her entire life.She had been a teacher for seven years, then quit. 

"Elementary, right?" I asked.

She nodded. The hostess asked, "How did you know?"

I nodded toward the old lady, who was wearing a pink sweater with kittens embroidered on the front. "Her sweater. Elementary school teachers always wear happy clothes like that."

Dang, I'm good.

One daughter. Husband dead three years. 

I asked how she had met her husband.

"At his wedding to my cousin," she said.

"What happened to the cousin?" I asked, which you have to admit is the perfectly logical next question.

Dead silence. No answer. Had she not heard me? Or did she not want to answer? I didn't dare ask again but you can be darn sure I want to know.

Fifteen minutes later, a friend of the hostess showed up. She got a beer and sat down. The five of us chatted lightly.

Nobody else showed up. The conversation got more political. It became pretty clear that the older lady and Primo did not agree on politics. 

Then we discovered that the friend lived out of the district.

We didn't raise a penny.

But we did have a nice evening with good food, much of which the hostess sent home with us.




Monday, April 1, 2013

Wednesday Oct 24 My hairdresser's husband is a politician, too

Me: I don't know if we'll survive until the election.

Hairdresser: I know what you mean. The first time my husband ran [he is the president of the bricklayers' union], it was right after we got married. I thought, "If it's going to be like this all the time, I'm going to have to divorce him." He was cranky and snappish.

Me: Did it end when the election was over?

Hairdresser: Oh yes. He was fine after that. So now I know [he is about to run in his fourth election] just to wait it out.


Tuesday Oct 23 In a snit

Primo: I spent most of the day sulking. Which didn't punish anyone but me.

Me: If I had been home, it would have punished me.

Primo: I guess I shouldn't do that.

Tuesday Oct 23 Crankiness abounds‏

I am cranky because I am not getting enough sleep and because Primo and I have been fighting about how much sleep I get or should get. He said that I complain about my peers from school being more successful in their careers than I am in mine but that I am not willing to sacrifice sleep for success. 

I tell him shut up, I have worked 13 hour days and it got me nowhere and besides, what's the point of professional success if you feel like crap all the time? I am on my second caffeinated beverage for the day, even though I no longer drink caffeine, because I do not get enough sleep, thanks to him. I swear, that is the main reason not to get married: so you can get as much sleep as you want.

Primo is cranky because 1. his big mailing did not go out until yesterday, even though it was supposed to go out Friday for Saturday delivery before yesterday's early voting started. He wanted the piece to be in the hands of voters who might be going to the polls yesterday. There are 20,000 households in our district. He has knocked on the doors of 5,000 of them. We have done no radio, no TV, no print because we are not wealthy people. So far, it's all been knocking on doors supplemented with some robo-calls. This mailing was supposed to get his name in front of another 10,000 households or so. Whatever you get for $5,000. Which is coming from our bank account. Ouch. 

The mailing didn't go out because the post office wouldn't take a credit card for the postage. So Primo gave the printer/bulk mail service a check from his campaign account. The check did not have our address on it. The PO doesn't want to take a check without an address.

He didn't find this out until yesterday.

He wrote and delivered the check to the printer last Wednesday.

They didn't bother to tell him this at the time, nor did they notify him when the PO turned the check down. 

"I would have gotten a cashier's check," he seethed. 

Now there are people who have voted who have never heard who Primo is and probably have not done any research on him. 

(I know not everyone is like me. I look at the sample ballot, then google each candidate. This is not necessary for national races, of course, but for local races, you have to hunt for the information.)

What's worse is that Potsie and Ralph just shrugged it off. "These things happen," they said.

Unfortunately, they go to head Primo's "Take it in stride!" speech, the one where he gets angry and quotes how Sly, who is not a good example of someone who lets things roll off his back, always told him to "Take it in stride!" Primo's speech includes the quotation along with the reasons that he should not take it in stride. 

I am bored with the speech. Whatever. I have no idea what Ralph and Potsie thought. Much of the impact of the speech is diminished if you've never met Sly.

But I do have to agree with Primo that they should have been on top of this and taking it a bit more seriously.

Primo is also cranky because 2. the script is not done for the call center Thursday night. I have found volunteers to work at the call center. Ralph is supposed to write the script. This event has been scheduled for weeks.

The script isn't ready and last night, at 10 p.m., the woman from the call center emailed Ralph that she needed the script today instead of tomorrow because she's not going to be there tomorrow.

Which is its own management issue, but what are you going to do? That's why you don't leave things until the last minute! If you know three weeks in advance that you have to write a script and you're not waiting for new information, then write the darn script!

Primo is ticked because Ralph said he will have the script done in time, but Primo won't be able to review it first.

Primo is a first-class detailed control freak. In many things, like auto repair or computer repair or software design, it's a good quality. You want someone who oversees every minute step of the process, because mistakes are too costly. 

And when you are paying someone $3,000 to manage your communications strategy and to write you a script, you expect the person to do the job and to give you the materials for your approval. 

"He makes grammar mistakes," Primo said. "I know I don't like the way he writes. I need to be able to review the script."

Primo is a control freak detail person who is also a procrastinator. The important lesson we have learned here is that control freak detail person procrastinators should not hire big picture, not detail person procrastinators.

If Primo and I survive this, it will be a miracle.

Tuesday Oct 23 Planning Saturday with the state chair of the PD party

Primo: The chair of the state PDs is going to kick off a canvass for me on Saturday!

Me: I guess that's cool, although I'm not so sure you want to be associated with that guy.

Primo: But he's the chair.

Me: And my side thinks he's a complete moron and jerk.


Sunday, March 31, 2013

Monday Oct 22 Other stuff

1. We have a new volunteer who did doors this weekend. He's willing to work at the phone bank (where they call to ask people who have already indicated a liking for Primo if they will commit to vote for him or something like that - all I know is I have to bake some brownies before Thursday), but only if there is no tie-in between Primo's campaign and the Polka Dot presidential candidate campaign. This guy is a PD, but he wants nothing to do with the PD presidential candidate.

We have that in common.

2. Two of our neighbors who had said they would take yard signs are now saying no. They are two elderly couples and in each case, the wife has taken ill and the husband doesn't want a sign because I don't know why. Sweet, sweet guys. When I was still a golddigger, I used to cut the grass and shovel the sidewalk for one of them. Then I found out their kids live a few blocks away and I got ticked off. Shouldn't their kids be doing that for their dad with a heart condition and mother who can barely walk?

So Guy #1 said he doesn't want a sign because he doesn't want people knocking on the door and asking him questions about the candidate. Which I don't know if has ever happened in the history of the world but what do you say?

Guy #2 says wife is in the hospital so he can't have a sign. How do you argue with that?

3. Our neighbors down the street have a PD presidential candidate sign in their yard. Primo and I walked past their house when they were outside working. I asked if they would take a yard sign for Primo.

They told me they couldn't because they "are very committed to [PD presidential candidate]."

I guess there isn't room for more than one yard sign. Go figure.