A brief note before retiring for the night

I went to the County Office Building to clean out my file cabinet today. I met up with one of the outgoing GOP legislators so that we could turn it into a party of sorts. We had a few laughs, and we heard the lamentations of the clerk and the secretaries, who are sad to see us go. It is a point of pride knowing that those who saw us most closely appreciated our work the most and respected us deeply for our efforts.

Even the clerk, who will likely be replaced (it's a political appointment), is pledging to stick around to finish the journals before leaving - she says that she wants to do it as a tribute to "our team" - and will be doing this without pay. That's really moving, particularly when you realize the state of disrepair that the administrative offices had fallen into when she assumed the title two years ago. She first had to finish several years' journals from the prior (Democratic) reign, which lasted 8 or so years. She is now going to get things done through 2005 despite being short-staffed. She's a special lady - so much so, in fact, that there has been talk of a couple of Democrats splitting with their party in order to support the 8 Republicans in reappointing her. But she says that she couldn't work for any group other than "our team", and is discouraging such a vote. I hope that they vote that way, just so she can say no!

Anyway, I wore a shirt with a message today, a gift from Dom for Christmas. He and I (and Emmy) got into "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" a couple of years ago, and we have accumulated movie-related trinkets over time, including a holy hand grenade and a killer rabbit plush toy. Well, he scored a real winner with a great message that captured my mood as I walked into that building for the last time as a county legislator. It is a lithograph of John Cleese dressed as the French taunting soldier, surrounded by large letters reading: "I fart in your general direction".

PS: It was amusing hearing how awful the legislature-elect is performing - lots of moaning and griping about their infighting and lack of vision. The really ironic thing is that one of the lamenters was a double agent who feigned friendship with us only to support the Democrats (secretly) during the campaign. Somehow, I can't muster a lot of sympathy for those losers.