I had this great idea to wait until late last week to acquire an Arizona voter registration form, wait until the last day (today) to mail it, and then wait until 5pm to leave the house to go drop it off at the post office. Oh yeah, I also had the great idea to run there instead of drive.
Sounds foolproof, doesn't it? Well, here's what almost got in between me and my civic duty.
First, Magdalena was awake. You may recall all the conditions that have to be met in order for me to be able to go running, and her being awake is not acceptable if I want to leave her at home. Which I did, because Miriam really wanted to be the one to come with me in the jogging stroller. So I took them both outside to see if I could fit them in the single jogging stroller side by side. It kind of worked, but also kind of didn't because I wouldn't be able to strap them in.
I had thought that Magdalena was still to small to fit in our double bike trailer/jogging stroller, but I took a closer look and decided to at least try. Meanwhile, the clock was ticking - time was running out if I wanted to get to the post office in time to mail my registration form.
I enlisted Jeremy's help to get Magdalena situated in the double jogger. It took some - well, a lot of - work, but we finally got her strapped in well enough that it didn't look too terribly uncomfortable. Miriam was good to go and so we were off! It was just about 5 o'clock, and the last mailbox pickup was at 5.15. I knew I'd have to run pretty briskly with no unscheduled stops to get to the post office in time.
About two minutes down the road, Miriam asked for a drink. I love how she thinks I have a magical stash of drinks and snacks with me wherever we go. When I told her I didn't have one, she asked if we could turn around, go home, and get one. The answer was no.
Then Magdalena started crying. I checked on her (while still running) and she looked OK, just angry for some reason. So I kept running. Civic duty vs. maternal instinct, and civic duty won, this time. I told Miriam to hold Magdalena's hand and eventually she stopped crying, but not before I got a few "bad mom" looks from other joggers, walkers, and bikers passing by.
Finally, we got close enough to the post office that I could see the big blue mailbox. I made sure I didn't see any mail trucks pulling away even as my pace slowed down since the drop box is up a medium-sized hill. I slogged my way up the hill as fast as I could and dropped the pale beige form in the box.
At last, my voter registration form was safely in the mail, to be postmarked October 6th. The rest of the run was very uneventful, and I think I went a bit slower to compensate for sprinting the first half.
Now that I've gone through all that trouble to register, I guess I just have to decide who I'm going to vote for. At the moment, I'm thinking of writing in Tina Fey. What do you think?
Sounds foolproof, doesn't it? Well, here's what almost got in between me and my civic duty.
First, Magdalena was awake. You may recall all the conditions that have to be met in order for me to be able to go running, and her being awake is not acceptable if I want to leave her at home. Which I did, because Miriam really wanted to be the one to come with me in the jogging stroller. So I took them both outside to see if I could fit them in the single jogging stroller side by side. It kind of worked, but also kind of didn't because I wouldn't be able to strap them in.
I had thought that Magdalena was still to small to fit in our double bike trailer/jogging stroller, but I took a closer look and decided to at least try. Meanwhile, the clock was ticking - time was running out if I wanted to get to the post office in time to mail my registration form.
I enlisted Jeremy's help to get Magdalena situated in the double jogger. It took some - well, a lot of - work, but we finally got her strapped in well enough that it didn't look too terribly uncomfortable. Miriam was good to go and so we were off! It was just about 5 o'clock, and the last mailbox pickup was at 5.15. I knew I'd have to run pretty briskly with no unscheduled stops to get to the post office in time.
About two minutes down the road, Miriam asked for a drink. I love how she thinks I have a magical stash of drinks and snacks with me wherever we go. When I told her I didn't have one, she asked if we could turn around, go home, and get one. The answer was no.
Then Magdalena started crying. I checked on her (while still running) and she looked OK, just angry for some reason. So I kept running. Civic duty vs. maternal instinct, and civic duty won, this time. I told Miriam to hold Magdalena's hand and eventually she stopped crying, but not before I got a few "bad mom" looks from other joggers, walkers, and bikers passing by.
Finally, we got close enough to the post office that I could see the big blue mailbox. I made sure I didn't see any mail trucks pulling away even as my pace slowed down since the drop box is up a medium-sized hill. I slogged my way up the hill as fast as I could and dropped the pale beige form in the box.
At last, my voter registration form was safely in the mail, to be postmarked October 6th. The rest of the run was very uneventful, and I think I went a bit slower to compensate for sprinting the first half.
Now that I've gone through all that trouble to register, I guess I just have to decide who I'm going to vote for. At the moment, I'm thinking of writing in Tina Fey. What do you think?