. . . in the New Orleans Times-Picayune. Referring, of course, to the college football national championship LSU ran away with last night. Even though I knew today would be a get-up-early day, I watched the game till the end. So who needs sleep? And I'm sure I read somewhere that as you get older you need less of it.

Anyway, today was an interesting day at work. I'd finished up a collection last week, so I didn't have anything to do until Susan came up with another one. So, (as I told the librarian) I decided I would become a temporary Visiting Scholar and read more of the Shlain book. This book is giving me interesting perspectives as to how gender hierarchy may have developed.

I may have dozed off while reading (I was on the couch in the sitting area) but I came alive when I saw Stephanie pushing a book cart with a couple of cartons on it.

As best I can tell from my preliminary look-see this is all about a young woman's high school year in Bolivia. She was part of a student exchange thing back in the 70s. I can't read much about what she did and thought, because almost all her correspondence is in Spanish, and my Spanish consists of "no habla espanol." Period. End of discussion.

I have met this person--she's something like head of the Alumnae Office for Newcomb. I feel almost like a Peeping Tom because of that.

Once again I plead with y'all to PUT THE YEAR IN A DATE!!



I'm sure I'm a terrible citizen but I am already SO tired of the electioneering. And in another month Louisiana will be having a presidential primary. It will also be having an election to fill the House seat vacated by the about-to-be new governor.

The Mayor of Slidell is running for that seat. I do not live within Slidell city limits, so he's not my mayor. That didn't stop him from sending out Christmas cards to everyone with a Slidell address, even though a substantial number are not under his jurisdiction. Okay, I thought--until I read the "newsletter" enclosed. It was his official announcement that he was running for Congress. (And I've already had one of those horrible machine-generated dialed calls.)

Bottom line is that we'll be going to the polls about once a month until November, especially if Morris (the mayor) wins. Because then there will have to be elections to select his successor. And don't get me going on what happens if the current (elected) Chief of Police runs for Mayor - and is elected!

Well, politics is practically a religion here - (as is football.)

The first election after my husband passed I jokingly asked someone how I would go about voting the dead. You know the saying--such a good citizen he continued to vote after he died.

Sad to say, electronics had taken care of that. When his passing was entered into the parish statistics, his name was automatically erased from the voter rolls. These new-fangled things are really messing up old traditions!