Mahjong Tournaments and Presidential Election Mailings

Can you feel the excitement building? I'm not talking about the election two weeks and a day off. That's more scary than exciting. I'm talking about my baby that is due October 30^th.  The 'baby' being a mahjong tournament that I've single-handedly orchestrated between our Continuum Care Campus and our sister campus. Gutsy of me, isn't it, considering I've never been to a mahjong tournament and don’t have a clue how they work except for what I've been able to glean off the internet. The only saving grace I have in all this is the fact that none of the twenty players taking part in the tournament has ever been to one either. 

Since I learned how to play about two and a half years ago I've been lusting after attending one of the big city tournaments that attracts hundreds of players, some lasting two days long. Or maybe playing in one of the cruise ship tournaments where thousands of people from all over the world can find a game to play any time of the day or night when they aren't sightseeing the Caribbean Islands.

Can you believe it, my tiny tournament has generated twenty documents for the day. Everything from custom score cards to name tags to the list of prizes I've accumulated to award to the winners---Ten in all plus satin ribbons. Some of those prizes will end up as random drawing prizes but I wanted to be prepared for ties. Our group wasn't keeping score of our games before I came up with the tournament idea and I've been surprised by how often we have ties at the end of an afternoon of games. We've also had to unlearn a few House Rules and learn a few National Mahjong League rules. But the other campus has had to do the same. My point-person at the other campus said she's been trying to get her ladies to play by League Rules for a couple of years and she loves that this tournament is giving her an excuse to teach them. People going down to Florida in the winter can come back with crazy House Rules and they get adopted to the point that players often don't know the difference. It's common, if you can believe the "chatter" I see on the four mahjong Facebook groups I belong to. Getting us all on both campuses to play by the same set of rules was the very first step I took on this tournament odyssey.

The Life Enrichment Directors at both campus are as excited as I am. Ours is providing water bottles, cookies, ink pens and two of the prizes and their campus is providing free transportation. My biggest challenge has been figuring out the table rotations so that most of the players get to play with most of the other players but making sure that with each game players plays with at least one person from their own campus. I'd be ashamed to admit the number of hours I spent trying to come up with an algorithm that works for these table rotations. Finally, I enlisted the help of a statics and math major/college grad student who works here as a waitress when she's not in classes. She said she loved the challenge and the funny part is we both came up with the same algorithm! But it took me two weeks and her one weekend. And I wasn't trying to re-invent the wheel. I did try to find an algorithm for table rotations already worked out online but I discovered that my tournament is too small for that to be available. 

Okay, enough about that. How about a report on our get-out-the-vote effort here? The twelve (known) democrats on campus and I have been writing letters and postcards two and three times a week. So far we've written over 500 letters and 100+ postcards. The day this blog post goes live will be the last day we'll do them and we're aiming for 600. The letters are sponsored by the Sierra Club and the postcards were for the DNC. We address the letters by hand and add to a pre-printed paragraph that tells the recipients where and when to vote. It's interesting that they have us write five non-partisan letters for every five letters we write supporting Kamala for president. The non-partisan ones go something like this: "Voting is easy. I find that if I make a plan to vote I'm more apt to get to the polls. I believe voting is important. Every vote cast is a voice heard and every voice heard helps shape our country. Please use the immense power of your voice and vote to help protect our country." 

The partisan letters---at least the one I chose to copy---goes like this: "I believe the state of our democracy is at stake. I am voting for Kamala Harris because she has a strong track record for protecting our environment. I also want a president who prioritizes decency, honesty, freedom and respect. I hope you will go to the polls this year and help protect our country and the planet with your vote."  

These letters are going out to just Pennsylvania and Michigan voters who are registered but don't always use their voting privileges and who are also present or past members of the Sierra Club. I don't know if they have any real influence on those who get the letters but it feels good to be doing something---anything---to help get Kamala elected. We can't elect a man who recently said that the January 6th Insurrection at the capital was a "day of love." We can't elect a man who literally tried to over-throw our constitution that day and has no respect for the Rule of Law. I've also seen a lot of people spiraling down into dementia and Trump's is on full display at each of his rallies. If his fans are honest with themselves, they see it too. Or maybe they listened to him a few days ago when he publicly admired the size of a pro-golfer's dick and they said to themselves: "Yes, this is the kind of man who should be the leader of the free world---a disgusting, vile and dangerous pot stirrer who prioritizes himself above all others." I hope not. I hope fence sitting Republicans will put country before party and put a stop to the drama that Trump churns out day after day.

I truly do want a president who prioritizes decency, honesty, freedom and respect and Kamala Harris is more qualified than any man who has ever run for the office in the past, having serviced in all three branches of the federal government---the legislative as a U.S. Senator, in the executive branch as Vice President and in the judicial branch as Attorney General of California. There are 29 countries where women are their heads of state. It's about time we added to that statistic.

This concludes my unpaid political announcement. ©