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Shobhit got his primary election ballot in the mail on Friday, and mine didn't arrive until yesterday. I found this very weird; I'm not sure it's ever happened before where we received them on different days. I mean, shit, we do live at the same address.
And then, when we were at the candidate forum at Taste of the Caribbean on Sunday, one of the hosts actually told everyone, "If you don't have your ballot yet, something is wrong!" and then she told everyone to go to the website where you can either track your ballot or double check your voter registration.
I had a very minor feeling of panic, and immediately went to the website on my phone to track my ballot. The status was "out for delivery" and expected to arrive on Monday—which, indeed, it did. Whew!
There were only three things to vote for on the ballot. Besides the eight-person race for Seattle City Council District 3 (in which Shobhit is running), there was the Port of Seattle Commissioner Position No. 5, with three people running; and a "Veterans, Seniors and Human Services levy," which we both voted to approve.
But, the Port of Seattle race? We had been so focused on the City Council race, this was the first time either of us had even thought about it. My first instinct was to see who
The Stranger endorsed, and Shobhit immediately rejected that idea—because they have completely ignored him (in fact he's one of only two candidates they didn't even mention in their endorsements piece). He even emailed Hannah Krieg about it some time ago, and she enver got back to him.
He told me last night that she's the only person doing any of their writing for their endorsements, which is
not quite accurate. Admittedly, I also think it's fair for him to be a bit bitter about
The Stranger. They could have at least acknowledged him, let alone actually spoken to him.
The irony is that we wound up voting for the person
The Stranger endorsed anyway. We based our decision on his list of endorsements in the voter pamphlet, which included the mayor, the county executive, the King County Democrats, and many others whose opinions we would at least lean toward trusting. Shobhit had suggested we look at the
Seattle Times endorsements instead, and I was more tepid on that idea—but guess what? They also endorsed the same guy! I think we're good. He's also the incumbent.
And as for Shobhit's race, it was really, really cool to be able to vote officially for him in a local race—of course I
posted a photo. We voted together, and the ballots went out in the mail today. We'll find out on August 1, the day I fly to the Twin Cities, where everyone stands.
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There's other news as well, which I consider pretty huge for Shobhit: he got his first official endorsement! It's too bad it didn't happen early enough for him to be able to note it on the voter pamphlet, but whatever.
The endorsement comes from an organization called
3.14 Action, whose mission is "to recruit, train, and elect scientists and other Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) leaders to public office." At first I was a little bit confused, because they often turn this into a bit of shorthand and say they intend to elect scientists, which Shobhit is not—but! He does have an engineering degree, and god knows none of the other candidates are "scientists" either. They must feel that Shobhit's platform is more science-based than any of the others.
Besides, this may be an unusual sort of endorsement, but it could also be used as a differentiator, especially considering Shobhit's long-term planning that is really absent from any of the other platforms. (Granted, one of them is very rooted in long-range
thinking, but with a focus on immediate action, particularly regarding climate change. But Shobhit is the only one consistently talking about infrastructure planning, which I feel is actually desperately needed.) He's also pragmatic and realistic about what can be done and what is actually within the Seattle City Council's power to do.
In any case, I am thrilled that he's actually got an endorsement. He had a scheduled virtual meeting to speak with someone at the organization this morning, and presumably soon he will be promoting the endorsement whenever and wherever he can.
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Besides all this campaign news, the highlight of the evening last night was going shopping at Costco. I had nearly $200 in my budget balance but after this it was down to less than $20. Thankfully I get paid on Friday and I have no plans to spend money before then anyway. I'd have loved to put a bit of that into my travel savings, but what are you gonna do.
Oh, wait. I almost forgot! I got wild news from three different friends yesterday, which aggregated to a very "circle of life" theme: a funeral, a death, a pregnancy. Gabriel texted to the group chat about being at a military funeral for his paternal grandparents, neither of which even died all that recently—his grandfather in 2020, his grandmother "several months" ago. I am still mystified as to why it took this long for them to be interred.
Karen had to email me that she needed to cancel our Zoom lunch on Friday because she'll be in Massachusetts for the week: her dad died on Friday last week. He was quite elderly, but, losing a parent is difficult no matter how old they are.
I'll be a bit cagey about the pregnancy news because it's too early and hasn't been shared with more than a few people, except to say that I got a text from a friend with a photo of an ultrasound, and the message,
If this smudge of cells is viable I'll have a baby in my life. What! This phrasing was clearly meant to fuck with me, and make me think maybe one of my friends was going to be having a new baby
very late in life—which I suspected was not actually the case, but, still. In the end it was one of said friend's kids who is expecting. Apparently this probable-parent-to-be is very excited about it. We all have our opinions but ultimately it's also not any of our business. My friend, who I spoke with on the phone soon after receiving the text, very much had that attitude. The prospective parent is of legal age and is within their rights to do whatever they want.
Still. Big news. Lots of big news yesterday, actually.
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[posted 12:31 pm]
