CC has been sleeping on the papsan for a week or so, and evidently decided it was her spot.

Fabian has practically lived on it for a much longer time, and this evening he has reclained it. CC was not too happy--even though there is ample room for two cats--and just stomped out of the room.

Emma came inside again today for a short time--just long enough to have a couple of bites at the perpetual cat food dispenser. She and Lady guarded the outside of the house while I was gone this afternoon. So far, I haven't seen any of the boyfriends.

I actually remembered to vote today! It's the first primary for the House seat vacated by our new governor. And a lot of people were confused because you can vote only for the party candidates that match your registration designation.

In the past--and still the case for state and local elections--unless a candidate got 50% of the vote plus one, there would be a runoff between the two top vote-getters. This dates back to the time when many of the Southern states were effectively one-party states.

The 6 PM news reported that turnout is sort of low. (Why am I not surprised?)

The Saturday elections come from Huey Long's time. He was a Populist--for the people--and said that the regular working person was much more likely to vote if elections were held on Saturdays. And the polls are open from 6 AM to 8 PM.

There were a couple of times when we lived in Florida--where the polls were open only 7 AM - 7 PM--that my husband wasn't able to vote--he needed to be at work early (Apollo program) and frequently worked 12 - 14 hour days. I'm not sure what the absentee voting rules were, but it was difficult to know in advance whether one would need to vote absentee.

In Louisiana you can vote absentee--especially in person before the election--if you don't expect to be in town election day, or if voting early just happens to be more convenient. When I had the Girl Scouts we often ended up having campouts on an election weekend, and my co-leader and I would go together to the parish office and vote in advance.

At the moment I am not quite sure where the eastern Parish offices are--the building they were in took a beating from Katrina. I have seen the address and suspect that they are now on Levee Board property, probably in trailers, just like all of Slidell's city offices. Still.

This morning I drowned about two weeks' worth of newspapers, startling two good-sized turtles (10 - 12 inches long) when I got near the pool. Then I hauled a couple of good-sized branches back there and tossed them in too.

CC has evidently decided not make an issue of who gets to use the papasan. His Monstrosity is now looking exceedingly comfortable and smugly asleep.