Rain Date

The plan for Saturday night was to have a date. Shani was getting back from Boston. I made a big pot of minestrone soup. We were going to open a bottle of wine, put our phones away, and hang out.

But Shani came in like a hurricane.

“So many people are texting me that they want campaign signs!”

“Me too, but I thought…”

“I wanna make a list.”

So instead of a quiet evening, we put together a spreadsheet of addresses and names.

Then Sunday (yesterday) we zig-zagged all over town in the rain, sticking signs in yards. We quickly got into a rhythm.

1. Shani pulls over at a house.
2. I run to the back of the car.
3. I yell “Get off your phone and open the back! It’s pouring!”
4. I go put in the sign and Shani would take a photo (she thought it was hysterical)
5. I run back to the car to find the passenger window open and the passenger door locked. (“Unlock the door! I’m getting soaked!”)
6. I dive in and we’d laugh like crazy.

And this is gonna sound nuts, but it was genuinely romantic. We had Lucinda Williams cranking, we were getting all kinds of texts from other teams delivering signs, social media was on fire. Here I was with the woman I’ve loved for 25 years with whom I’ve built this wonderful life. Here we were working together as a team like we’ve done a million times. Here she was laughing out loud at how awful and bedraggled I looked.

God, it was fun.

So maybe not the date we’d planned, but a pretty unforgettable date nonetheless. And boy did that minestrone soup hit the spot when we finally got home. 

And to every single person who agreed to put a sign in their yard: I do not take the gesture lightly. Each one touches me deeply. It is my honor to have my name placed in front of your home.

Here are some shots of the other teams who were out there. (For the record, we put up 100+ signs in under 3 hours.)

Here is a whole series of photos of me in the rain.