Another week of voter registration

We've gotten through another week of voter registration. I'm getting into the groove of it, and even busted out the courage to try some Spanish. I'm sure I'm murdering the language, but nobody seems to mind at all. It's funny - I can understand 90% of what is being said in Spanish, but replying back is a whole different ball game. The phrases I was able to say where completely parroted from having heard them so often. It's a beginning.

There continued to be a lot of volunteers showing up to help. By 5:30, the room is pretty packed and everyone is very eager to get going. Of course, that eagerness translates into lots of jostling and pushing into the line, so no matter what time I get there, I end up being pushed to the back. No big deal really - it just feels like a shoe sale at Macy's.

On Friday I was paired up with a nice man who leaves near Mayor Stack. As with most of the other volunteers, he's known him for some time and has been a supporter all along. We went with another pair of volunteers down to 14th/Palisades. We split up with Jose (I think that was his name) and I doing 14th between Palisades and New York Ave, and Franklin and his partner doing 15th St. I don't go down to that section very often, and I was glad to see that it was mostly houses and only one apartment building. We'd made plans to meet back at the car in 45 minutes, so we were hoping to move as efficiently as possible. It was pretty cold out which is always a motivating factor.

We were lucky to register a pair of voters in the first house we went to. People seem to be pleased to see us, and for the most part, a lot of the people were already registered to vote. Many others, like myself, are residents but not citizens so those were pretty quick as well.

We were pretty close to meeting time by the time we got to the apartment building, so we kept an eye on the corner in case we had to run outside and ask Franklin for more time. What took the longest was actually getting in the building - I tried calling the Super, but he was not at home and told me to just keep buzzing. A nice lady on the ground floor let us in, and we were able to cover all three floors pretty quickly. One lady who answered her door was holding the cutest baby in the world. A little boy, probably around six months old. He was such a happy smiley baby and his mom was pretty happy too. I think we caught her in the middle of making dinner and whatever she was making smelled delicious. I was looking forward to getting home and making my own dinner.

We finished the apartment building and went out to the corner to wait for Franklin. We ended up waiting a bit out in the freezing cold. At least I thought it was freezing cold but some kid skateboarding on the corner didn't think so, he wasn't even wearing a jacket. Ah, youth.

I hope this week continues to go well. The weather this morning is awful. We had heavy winds last night, and lots of rain. If it continues like this all day, I'm sure the turnout tonight will be smaller. Maybe I can keep my place in line this time!