Rigged? I don’t think so.

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I have lived in and voted in numerous states. I thought it was very odd when big electric voting machines were set up in my neighbor’s garage for elections in one state. When their electricity went off briefly, it was chaos. I have lived in Oregon for 30 years. For 20 years, we have voted by mail. Couldn’t be more efficient! When someone complained that he had to buy a stamp, pre-paid return envelopes were introduced. “Oregon’s election system is secure and impressive,” according to the League of Women Voters. Non-citizens are already restricted from voting. Strict penalties are issued for any non-citizen or citizen, attempting to cast a prohibited ballot or tampering with the process. Luckily, this is not a significant problem. According to the Oregon Legislative Fiscal Office report of the vote-by-mail system across 20 years of voting, and with approximately 61 million ballots cast, the voter fraud rate in Oregon was 0.00006%. I believe this is a ratio equivalent to one drop to more than 22 gallons of water. Rigged. Naw. Vote-by-mail does not favor one party over another or one candidate over another. What’s more: the Oregon vote counting system is impervious to potential hackers by the simple measure that they are not connected to the internet at all!

So I Took it to Court

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On January 30, at exactly 2:28 p.m., I used my credit card to buy 1 hour and 10 minutes of parking time for $1.50 at a kiosk in downtown Salem. I budget very carefully and usually park in one of the free parkades around there. However, it was pouring down rain, and I spotted a spot right in front of the shop I needed to visit for one item  Okay, it was See’s Candy Shop.   I bought the gift but will admit to eating the free sample.  A milk-chocolate Bordeaux.  I charged the gift on the same credit card at 2:41 and immediately walked back out to my card to see a bright yellow envelope on my windshield.  I had foolishly declined the option of having the kiosk spit out a paper receipt.  Big mistake!
This is the photograph Officer Foster took.  It was presented to me then I got to court.  It is time-stamped 01/30/2026 02:42: 37.  That would be 4-1/2 minutes after I paid. And that’s the kiosk. You can see the yellow ticket envelope and the kiosk thingy.  $30. Nope.
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Now, I have been the recipient of several tickets in the 68 years I have been behind the wheel of a good number of vehicles.  The first vehicle was  a green Dodge stick-shift pickup truck, learning to drive on dirt roads in Oklahoma.  And no.  I didn’t yet have a license.
Generally speaking, the tickets have been for speeding. My most recent one  was in the red Subaru with two red kayaks strapped on top. Clearly, I was a sitting duck when I left the 80 mph speed limit across southern Idaho and failed to reduce my speed adequately when I crossed into the 55 mph limit on Hwy 22 in eastern Oregon.  Maybe you know the feeling when you see the flashing red and blue lights in your rear-view mirror.  I was guilty so I paid up.
This time, I was innocent and I wasn’t having it.  I presented myself at the Municipal Courthouse, which is temporarily located in Keizer during the retrofitting of the downtown building.
The congenial clerk there said I could plead guilty and have the fine reduced to $15.  I declined and was presented with option #2:  Take it to court.  I ticked box #2.  I was offered  a court date of March 30, two months out.  I asked whether I would have to pay court costs or an increased fine should I be found guilty. No.
The temporary courtroom is a big room with temporary everything. Several of us offenders were present as were the respective officers.  Officer Foster was charming young woman who stated her case first.  Then, It was my turn.  I presented her and his honor, a fine-looking man in my age group, with several pages of documentation.  Not guilty.
I had several questions.
First, how did this happen?  The probable reason was that I had made a typo when I tapped my license-plate number into the keypad on the kiosk keyboard.
So I asked whether I would have been able to see this had I opted for a printed receipt.  “Yes.”  Lesson learned.
But I also wanted to know what my next step should have been had I printed a receipt and noticed a typo. Answer:  Start over and pay again!
It was a congenial gathering. All the officers present, his honor, and I chatted about this. Clearly, none of us liked the present system for parking downtown.
I guess the money for fixing the pot holes has to come from somewhere.  As does the money to pay the parking officers.

Defenestrated

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I always advised students to choose a simple word rather than an impressive one they found in a thesaurus. (This was before Googling.) Nevertheless, I laughed at this one in the NY Times this morning: “the defenestrated secretary of homeland security.” I took a couple of years of Spanish in high school and I remembered that fenestra means window. So, she got thrown out the window. Perfect.

Unsheltered

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I think about our unsheltered neighbors.  Maybe not a lot. But every time I’m out in my car and see an encampment or someone whose entire life is piled into a shopping cart.
I can’t even imagine what it must be like not to have dry socks or clean underwear. To be wet and cold or hot and dirty.  Not to have one spot on the face of the earth where you can legally lie down and rest.  I don’t know where my unsheltered neighbor fell short, took a wrong turn, lost her mind. I do know, one poor decision, and I could be there too.
No one knows what the answers are.  Some people are compassionate.  Some are offended. Some seek to understand.  Some blame the victims.  Sometimes we all avert our eyes.
At Capital Manor we do small things.  We contribute to Marion/Polk Share. We give things from our thrift shop that we can’t sell to the Union Gospel Mission.  We knit warm caps in the fiber arts studio. There’s a little free pantry in my church’s parking lot.  I leave things there. Sometimes I think all these gestures achieve it to make me feel a little better.
No one knows what the answers are.

2026

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Must cook black-eyed peas for good luck on New Year’s Day. I have this much left over from last year, so I’ll use another cup this year. I’ll make my version of “Hoppin’ John,” because I think plain, black-eyed peas are pretty awful.

I should use andouille sausage, but I use Polish sausage instead. (Kielbasa. Remember my mother-in-law’s maiden name was Osinski!) Onions. Garlic. The sausage. And some kind of greens. Collards would be authentic. You’re supposed to rinse the peas and soak them overnight. Some places you can buy them in a can or frozen. The winter I lived in Buffalo, I couldn’t get them in any form at all. Florence Osinski Urbanski thought I was a weird girl from “The South.” True.

I’m delivering some to Susan who is from Georgia.  Being Susan, she researched the story and symbolism in Hoppin’ John.  She readily admits, much of it may be a folk tale. I’ll also deliver some to Barb who planned to come over and have supper with me but has a bad cold. I can’t help but think about how neither of them will be in my life if I live into my 90’s. Auld lang Syne.

Make some cornbread to go with. Good luck and Happy New Year.