Susanna J. Sturgis   Martha's Vineyard writer and editor
writer editor born-again horse girl

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Election Night

November 04, 2008

7:45 p.m. EST

Got Linguiça?

Before I moved to Martha's Vineyard, I'd never heard of linguiça. I still remember going to Louis' for pizza with the high-school-student lighting tech of a theater production I was working on. "What's linguica?" I asked, reading the menu board and pronouncing the "c" like a "k." The kid looked at me in disbelief and said, "Linguiça," with a soft "c." Linguiça is a Portuguese sausage. I couldn't live without it.

Having decided that even if the worst happens, I'll still want to eat, I am making a quiche. The cheese is very sharp cheddar, the sauté is onions, mushrooms, and linguiça, and I pestled a bunch of herbs in my mortar to throw into the custard.

I just logged on to AlterNet to see what returns were in (not many), and what people were saying. There's ebullience, there's cautious optimism, there's gloom-and-doom certainty that Obama is in the pay of Wall Street. Gloom-and-doom is easy. Hope is hard. But hope is like linguiça: life is boring without it.

 

9:05 p.m.

Open All Night!

Springsteen is the soundtrack for the evening -- the Seeger Sessions, of course. Currently playing is Live in Dublin.

Where the way is dark and the night is cold
I'll meet you further on up the road

Where the night is dark and the seed is sowed
Where the gun is cocked and the bullets cold
Where the miles are marked in blood and gold
I'll meet you further on up the road

* * *

How can a poor man stand such times and live?

* * *

Keep your eyes on the prize -- hold on!

* * *

Nothing like a few songs to remind you that we've been climbing Jacob's ladder for a long, long time. Got music?

 

9:30 p.m.

Pharaoh's Army Got Drownded?

Fox calls Ohio for Obama, NBC calls Pennsylvania for Obama -- Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and New York for Obama; Rhode Island for Obama; Delaware, New Jersey, and Maryland for Obama . . . Yeah, McCain's got some states too: Wyoming, Kansas, North Dakota, South Carolina . . .

Dixville Notch, New Hampshire, went for Obama. First time the place has gone for a Democrat since Hubert Humphrey.

 

5:45 a.m., November 5

Schrödinger's Election

So this morning I was lying awake as the skylight above my head just began to think of turning gray, working up the nerve to boot up Morgana V and find out what happened after I conked out. If I didn't know it, it hadn't happened, right? Or at least it hadn't happened yet.

When it was light enough to distinguish Travvy's white face from his gray cap, I got up, turned on the computer, fed Trav, and went downstairs to brush my teeth and put my contact lens in. I came back up, sat down, loaded Outlook Express, downloaded e-mail, and went to the FEM-SF folder. The first new e-mail was from a list member in Québec. The subject line said "Yes, you can." The next subject line said "Yes, we did." It was from a list member in Vermont who is now a duly elected member of the Electoral College and looking forward to casting her vote for Obama-Biden on December 15.

The cat is alive! Posted another USian: It's "one of those rare moments when we are better than we might have imagined ourselves to be." And from a subscriber in Australia: "Congratulations!"


 

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