Adventures in Suffrage

Being good citizens, Pepper and I registered to vote in Arkansas at the same time we got our new drivers' licenses last summer.

A month or so ago we received Address Confirmation Cards from the Orleans Parish Voter Registrar that had been forwarded from our old address at Moogie's Mansion in New Orleans.

We also received Address Confirmation Cards for Elder Daughter and Younger Daughter, using their maiden names. Daughters haven't lived in Louisiana since 2004, but Younger Daughter has been summoned to Jury Duty several times since she moved. Each time she has contacted the Registrar (as well as the summoning court) to tell them that she doesn't live and vote in New Orleans anymore so she won't be showing up for Jury Duty any time soon, thank you very much.

Anyway, Pepper and I decided to help out Registrar Sandra Wilson, PH.D., (her credentials, as noted on the form, in capital letters) by returning the Confirmation Cards, noting our new address, and writing in large letters, "Moved to Arkansas." In block letters, not even cursive. We assumed she would remove us from the Voter Registration Roster, posthaste.

Nope.

Today, all four of us received another Address Confirmation Card from Ms. Wilson, Ph.D, requesting that we verify our address. The address we were asked to confirm inside the mailing was the old Moogie's Mansion address. The address on the outside of the mailing was our current address in Arkansas at the Manor.

*sigh*

In her epistle, Ms. Wilson, Ph.D., notes that, if we fail to return the card by December 10, 2016, we "may be removed from the voter registration list." MAY be removed. In 2016. After the next presidential election.

Theoretically, Moogie could vote for the next President both in Arkansas and Louisiana. Louisiana requires voters to show a government-issued photo ID before one may cast a ballot. (Arkansas' voter ID law has recently been declared unconstitutional and is under appeal at present.) Even though we now have Arkansas drivers' licenses, this requirement would not pose an impediment to voting in Louisiana for Moogie and Pepper as we both have retired military IDs bearing our smiling faces and no address.

Of course, we all know that Moogie and Pepper are beyond ethical, so we would never do something like that. I can't say that would hold true for every other "displaced" Louisiana voter, however. (There are special instructions for "involuntarily displaced" voters.)

I'd say that Ms. Wilson, Ph.D, might want to do a little training for her data entry folks.

*sigh*

Being "Thankful For My Family" Doesn't Begin to Describe How I'm Feeling Right About Now

 The funeral was yesterday.  My heart broke for those parents whom Fate had led to sit in front of an open casket, draped with both a folded American flag and an Arkansas Razorback flag, bearing the body of their 24 year-old son. My heart broke for his siblings.  My heart broke for the love of his life and mother of his child. For his son and extended family. For his brothers and sisters in arms. For his church family. For every parent in that room.

The slide show celebrating his life brought both tears and laughter. The three different preachers got their message of salvation across. The music was both iconic and touching, ranging from "Amazing Grace" to Kenny Chesney to Christian rap, among others. I must admit, I've never heard Christian rap before. It was interesting.

The whole service exhausted me. And it terrified me, as you will see, with good cause.

SIL#2 and Younger Daughter sat beside #2's mother in the front row.

The evening before, Wednesday evening, my precious young family was on I-30, on its way to the visitation, in stop-and-go rush hour traffic.  #2 was driving their 6 day-old Toyota Venza while YD sat in back with 10 month-old Grandbaby#5, without wearing her seatbelt so she could more easily tend to #5. (The car was their second brand-new car in less than a month, by the way, because the first one turned out to be a genuine, irreparable, dangerous lemon. This one was much better.)

SIL#2 had come to a safe stop, along with the flow of traffic, and (fortunately) within a reasonable distance from the car ahead of him, when YD saw him coming. She flung herself over the baby the split second before she felt the impact.

Daughter was slammed around the back seat; SIL#2 smacked his head on the windshield, even though he was wearing his seat belt. No air bags deployed. Thank God for a strong car seat -- a little fear was the worst that the Grandbaby suffered. The new car was, of course, rendered not drivable, but SIL managed to get it limpingly to the shoulder anyway, and without being driven into the car in front of them..

The unlicensed, non-English-speaking driver, with no insurance, who plowed into them at 50 mph in stop and go traffic told the State Trooper, before he was taken away on a stretcher to be treated at a hospital at taxpayer expense, that he had just consumed "solamente tres cervezas." (Only three beers.) And, we all know that "solamente tres cervezas" probably means several mas cervezas than tres.

Is my rage showing?

Pepper pulled into the driveway from running with Grandbaby#1 just as I was pulling out, so he hopped in the car with me and we got to the kids, during rush hour, in record time. I took #2 an ice pack. I'm not sure it helped him, but it helped me to be able to do something.

Today, the day after that sad, sad funeral, just remembering that phone call from Younger Daughter and its aftermath has opened the spigot on my teary faucet. I have sent up countless prayers thanking my good God for sheltering my family and preventing what might have been. My Facebook post thanked God and Toyota for their safety. The kids went to the ER later Wednesday evening with #2's father and his wife and checked out fine, but for the whiplash. They took a goofy photo there that showed them trussed up in neck braces, grinning and flashing thumbs up. YD texted the pic to me and Elder Daughter, captioning it as this year's Christmas card photo. I think the good drugs had kicked in by then.

They were stiff and sore yesterday, and SIL#2 still has a pretty impressive goose egg on his forehead, but they could have been so, so much more worse off. I can't imagine the panic that SIL#2's mother must have felt when she got that call from #2 explaining why they couldn't make it to the visitation.

The stress level at Moogie's Manor is running pretty high right about now, and we can't really put all of this behind us until Tuesday. We will bury that young man in the VA Cemetery on Tuesday -- the first day available for a burial. Pepper worked his contacts to smooth the process for the parents. Thirty-five years of military service pay off in the most unusual ways sometimes.

So. I need to turn my thoughts to happier places in my mind. How about more Spring flower pictures?

This is the bed in the side yard.  We put in the geraniums and croton earlier in the week. The pop of color makes us happy.

This is another view of the bed. The Son and his family gave me that Bottle Tree for Christmas. I really like it. Annnnd, I've added a couple of bottles to it since Christmas!  ;-)

I love the white azaleas beneath the Japanese maple at the top of the driveway.

This is the white dogwood and its companion Japanese maple beside the front door as seen from the dining room windows. I took this pic yesterday because gazing at this natural beauty reveling in the filtered sunlight gave me such a sense of peace.

Tell your loved ones how much they are loved. We are not promised tomorrow.

I hope this is the end of that Case of the Creeps I posted about in March. I think I'll go play in the dirt some more.

Mysteries of Life: Livin' in Louisiana

This one just blows me away.

When you renew your driver's license in Louisiana, you don't trot down to the Parish O.M.V. (OFFICE of Motor Vehicles, not Division. What do expect from a state that calls counties "parishes!") to stand in line, watch as only the people who admit to faulty vision have their eyes tested, and pose for an inevitably awful photograph. Oh, no, indeedy!

You get a notice in the mail and you return it, along with a check for $23.00, to the State O.M.B.. And in a few weeks, the State mails you a brand new -- sticker!! You place the sticker in the space allotted for stickers on the back of your license and you're good to go for the next four years! Sweet!!

I'm not saying I dislike the system -- it's pretty easy on us taxpaying drivers. I am saying, however, that it's a good idea to take an alternate government-issued I.D. when flying. It's not an easy task to convince T.S.A. folks that your driver's license expiration date really isn't the one printed on the front with all the other information -- it's the one on the back. On the sticker.