A day of ups and downs

Well, we finally went to the fair. And it was quite a day. Fiber content after story. There are pictures down there, too, if you make it that far.

First we took our new (to us) car, which is very comfortable and lovely. But it ran out of gas on the freeway. Discovered I did not, in fact, have roadside assistance attached to my newish cell phones. But the guy who drives around on the freeways to help people in this situation found us and got us to a gas station. Crisis averted by him (thank you!) and a McDonalds in the gas station (no hungry kids in back seat).

We arrived and bought our unlimited ride wristbands. There are no lines for anything. DH announces "I'm never coming on a Friday again." Ribs, giant turkey lets, cheeseburgers, onion rings are consumed. Toys are purchased, baby animals are petted, photos are taken. A lovely day.

At 9:30 or so we finally arrived back at the gate to get our annual snowglobe with our picture in it and go home. Kids picked out final toys to take home. I walked off to the ATM machine and when I returned, DS HAD DISAPPEARED. [Insert screaming, running about, crying DD, police officers and the worst 7 minutes of my ENTIRE LIFE.]

Thank god, someone brought him back. I'm still in recovery. You know when you've had those terrible panic chemicals in your body? And you feel like you've had the flu? That's me. I hope I'll be better today, but I'm still having flashbacks at the moment.

On to the fun fiber content!

Spinning challenges have stalled a bit, in that I have gotten distracted by my fiber collection. But today is the last day before the contest, so I will focus.

First, the first Crown Mountain Farms superwash skein, in Hang on Sloopy:



Had to get that off the bobbin, right? Next fun with plying.


I spun some singles of BFL that was part of a dyeing experiment for "Pilgrim" but wasn't the combination that I chose. Then I plied it with some old orphaned singles out of my spinning basket. It's odd and goes red for a bit every once in a while, but it will make it into some crazy socks someday, I'm sure.


Blogger is not letting me post any more photos right now. I'll continue this later.

I expect I will soon do more fun with plying as I have only had one empty bobbin for a while now and should really get finished one way or another with the other bobbins (or buy some more...hmmm...)

Have a lovely!

Blogger is freaking out

And publishing my morning post three times. Sorry!!!

And Now for Something Completely Different

h/t to Mom for sending me this gem, which I copy here:

"I'm the Decider"*

by Roddy McCorley

Well, it took me awhile, but I finally realized what "I'm the
decider," reminds me of. It sounds like something a character in a
Dr Seuss book might say. So with apologies to the late Mr. Geisel,
here is some idle speculation as to what else such a character might
say:

I'm the decider.
I pick and I choose.
I pick among whats.
And choose among whos.

And as I decide
Each particular day,
The things I decide on
All turn out that way.

I decided on Freedom
For all of Iraq.
And now that they have it,
I'm not looking back.

I decided on tax cuts
That just help the wealthy.
And Medicare changes
That are not really healthy.

And parklands and wetlands
Who needs all that stuff?
I decided that none
Would be more than enough!

I decided that schools
All in all are the best.
The less that they teach
And the more that they test.

I decided those wages
You need to get by,
Are much better spent
On some CEO guy.

I decided your Wade
Which was versing your Roe,
Is terribly awful
And just has to go.

I decided that levees
Are not really needed.
Now when hurricanes come
They can come unimpeded.

That old Constitution?
Well, I have decided-
As "just Goddamn paper"
It should be derided.

I've decided gay marriage
Is icky and weird.
Above all other things,
It's the one to be feared.

And Cheney and Rummy
And Condi all know
That I'm the Decider -
They tell me it's so.

I'm the Decider
So watch what you say,
Or I may decide
To just whisk you away.

I'll tap all your phones.
Your e-mails I'll read.
`cause I'm the Decider
Like Jesus decreed.

Hey, and just think, this is about his reading level!

More fiber content later.

Today's Challenges

Today I first spun a two-ply, DK weight yarn out of some carded batts of wool and mohair.












Next, I handcarded some mohair locks and spun them into a laceweight singles yarn. This was more difficult as there were some lumps and the fibers were incredibly long. I will probably try this challenge again.



Those two challenges were done with a stopwatch so that I knew when my time ran out (it didn't). I can definitely spin the singles of a two ply for 9 1/2 minutes of the 15 and singles for about 12. I also ran out of fiber for the locks since I had only made one rolag. Next time, two.



The next thing I did was get out a faux cashmere sample and practice some long draw. This went pretty well and I find long draw to be rather magical. I like the resulting yarn very much.











The last challenge for today was worsted weight 2-ply from Alpaca top. My friend Michelle gave me this as a gift a year or so ago and I haven't touched it (want it dyed first) but I thought it might offer a challenge since I also haven't spun alpaca before.



I REALLY love this yarn. It's very soft, very smooth, very even. I will have to decide on some lovely warm colors for it and make my 8 oz. into something or other. Makes me wish I didn't live in a warm climate! It's just crying out to be a scarf.

That's it for today. I'm still soliciting challenges (not dryer lint, hair brushings or cat hair, though, although thanks, Joy for the horrors!!). Anybody want to see what I come up with?

Have a lovely!

All spinning, all the time

This week, in an attempt to 1) not be terribly depressed about the state of our nation; 2) not be overwhelmed by other things going on; and 3) to win the Intermediate Class at the L.A. County Fair Spinning Contest, I will be...

SPINNING FOR AT LEAST AN HOUR EVERY DAY!! WOO-HOO!!

I will also be setting myself challenges. Last year's contest challenges were:

Spin a laceweight mohair singles yarn from unprepared locks (they let us card before the timer started)

Spin a sportweight 2-ply from Soysilk top

Spin a worsted weight 2-ply from a carded batt

As you might have noticed, I won the Novice Class last year, so this year I must compete as an Intermediate. Cool! But I must do better.

Last year my practice was all about the time. How long can you spin and still have time to ply and skein before the 10 minutes runs out? (It turned out to be fifteen minutes, but it still worked.) Any guesses? 6.5 minutes. And I had a stopwatch going the whole time. For fifteen minutes, I spun for ten. I will be doing this again this year, but I need new challenges.

So my request is: Please put any spinning challenge that can be completed in 15 minutes in the comments. I will try anything that I have the supplies for. I have raw fleece, top, roving, batts, mohair, angora locks, silk top and hankies, wool, alpaca, mohair locks, cotton top, cotton clouds, cotton balls, blends. Give me a hard one! And I will post the results.

Please help me win the contest!! And if you happen to be a competitor, last year the Intermediate winner and I helped each other and it really worked out well, as you can see. This year she has to compete as an Expert, so we're not really competing against each other.

[I am not a tremendously competitive person in terms of stepping on others. I would rather win something on my own merits and be as helpful as possible. I like to make friends!]

Have a great day and Keep on Spinning!

Better writer than I am

What Digby said. Please read. Then cry?

Don't say anything you don't want the KGB to hear. Oh, sorry, the NSA.

Roving P*rn Ahead!

I could marry this roving.



And here are the singles so far. It's blending a lot (I'm spinning from the fold, which is my usual thing for superwash). I am going to lurve this yarn!!




And here is Rogue at what is called Row 57 of the chart, but since some of the rows were repeated it's actually Row 75 of the knitting. Terrible picture. I think I'll like the sweater, though.





I have completely forgotten about my Cul De Sac vest which I was so excited about last spring. Maybe I'll work on it after Rogue is done. I don't know. I've got so much going on in my head about these Noro-esque yarns I want to spin and knit into a cardigan, I probably will do that as soon as I have a minute free.

Kids in school.

Demand a paper ballot!!

And have a nice day!

If we do not do this DEMOCRACY IS DEAD

This post is copied from Bradblog, which covers voting machine issues. Go there!

THE LET AMERICA VOTE ACT!
CALL ON CONGRESS TO PASS 'EMERGENCY PAPER BALLOT LEGISLATION' NOW!
Every Registered American Voter Must Be Allowed to Vote This November!


Given this year's primary election meltdowns and train wrecks that we've been reporting since March 7th of this year, in which electronic voting machines have failed to start up and thousands of American voters have been turned away from the polls when they came to vote, but couldn't…

Given the fact that one such meltdown occurred last Tuesday in Maryland, where many of the DC media and politicos live…

Given VelvetRevolution's new Princeton Diebold Virus Hack report demonstrating conclusively that electronic voting machines may be hacked in a minute's time resulting in flipped elections without a trace left behind…

Giving that American democracy and the right to vote in that democracy ought to be a beacon to the world…

It is NOW time for Emergency Paper Ballot Legislation to be brought and passed immediately by both houses of the U.S. Congress, in order to at least mitigate the coming train wreck this November 7th.

Call it the Let America Vote Act (LAVA) of 2006…Let democracy flow!

The legislation can, and should be, as short as a single paragraph so that it can be read and passed quickly by every U.S. Congress member. It can apply only to this November's general election, if that is needed to get it passed and signed quickly.

It should read something like this…


LET AMERICA VOTE ACT
(EMERGENCY PAPER BALLOT MANDATE OF 2006)


Emergency paper ballots shall be made available at every voting jurisdiction in the United States during the November 7th, 2006 General Election. These paper ballots shall be available in sufficient numbers for optional use by voters who prefer to use them, and by all voters in the event of voting machine failure or unavailability. These paper ballots are not to be provisional ballots, but regular paper ballots that shall be counted immediately upon the close of polls on election night along with all other votes cast by properly registered voters.


Note: At this point, I don't give a damn how the Emergency Paper Ballots will be counted; by hand, by optical scanner, whatever. So long as voters are not disenfranchised by the millions — as thousands have already been so far in this year's primary elections across the country — by showing up to the polling place only to be told they can't vote at all, or by being told they must vote provisionally (provisional ballots are not counted on election night, and frequently not at all) because the new voting machines are broken or otherwise unavailable.

States such as Texas, Arkansas and other have already had to do this this year when Secretaries of State put out emergency notices to Elections Administrators to create such Emergency Paper Ballots after the voting machine companies failed to provide programmed ballots or working machines.

All states are already required by the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) to have such paper ballots available at every polling place as Provisional Ballots, so those can be copied NOW if need be for use as Emergency Paper Ballots (which is better than the scraps of paper some counties reportedly have tried to use in emergency situations so far this year!)

BOTTOM LINE: With the passage of this Emergency Legislation, at least properly registered American citizens will be able to cast a vote on Election Day if they choose to!

Feel free to call it the "Hail Mary Emergency Election Protection Act" if you want. I don't much care, so long as it's passed by Congress in time to ensure that voters can actually vote this November!

I've spoken with a number of people on the Hill and within the Election Integrity movement…scientists, activists, politicians, in DC and around the country, and they have all been in favor of this legislation and have pledged their support.

I am attemping to find sponsorship for this bill in Congress, and I'm calling on all Election Integrity organizations and concerned citizens who may have better connections than I to help find such Congressional sponsorship immediately.

I am calling on these same people to then call on Congress to pass this legislation immediately!

I am hoping to have an official version/wording of the bill posted shortly. It will, of course, be available as a new item here at The BRAD BLOG no later than tomorrow. It will spell out, in official "bill-like" language, precisely what I've posted above.

Democracy is at stake. After at least two years of reporting in exhaustive details on these matters here, and at this late stage of the game, I believe the above "reform" is, unfortunately, the most we can likely hope for in time to have any real impact in mitigating a full-on train wreck during this November's crucial excercise of the rite of democracy.

Please forward this item to everybody you know, cross-post it or link to it as you see fit (this is the URL: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=3495 )…And please contact your Congress person and ask them to support and/or sponsor this initiative today!

URL: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=3495

---
Brad Friedman
THE BRAD BLOG - The uprising continues...
http://www.BradBlog.com
VELVET REVOLUTION - The revolution begins...
http://www.VelvetRevolution.us

MAKE SURE YOU USE A PAPER BALLOT IN 2006!!!!

Silliness

It's Talk Like a Pirate Day! Aarrgghh!

Your Pirate Name Is...

Cannibal Flirty Fran

What's Your Pirate Name?

Fair and Fiber UPDATED

Star has let us know that all three of the entrants to the spinning competition at the Fair got third place. This must be due to the new judging rules. But it's nice that we all did well. Yay, us!!

UPDATE: Reposting the picture of red ribbon socks, since Star thinks they might have been the high scorers, even if they didn't get a blue. I am unduly proud of them!













Perhaps this also bodes well for my Second Place socks, as there may not be a First Place...well, a girl can dream, can't she?

Fiber-wise, I received my Superwash roving in Hang on Sloopy from Crown Mountain Farms today (it was sent on Thursday, great service!) and it is even more luscious in person. Thanks, Teyani!! I have my next colorway all picked out...

Camera is still in D.C., though, so pix will have to wait. Not much knitting going on as I have been going gangbusters on my freelance transcribing job which will (eventually) allow me to stop worrying about the next couple of months of income. I love freelancing, cousins, writers, country music and liberals today!! (only one of those is unusual for me...)

As soon as I get the Spunky Eclectic singles plied, it's all Sloopy all the time for a while. Until I start practicing for the spinning contest. Man, that's a week from Sunday!!! I had better call to check on the tickets.

Hope all is well with you!

We won another award!!

Our short film Ignotus won Best Italian Short at the Sorrento Film Festival!! Congratulations, MaXaM Productions and the boys!!

Waiting for the results of the Washington, D.C. Festival, where they screened on Friday...

In fiber news, nothing really to report. Spinning the South African Fine from Spunky Eclectic (almost done with singles). Knitting Rogue.

However, I am having a terrible time NOT casting on the new Bavarian Twist socks at Eunny's site as they are totally rocking my world. I have had the photo up on my monitor for two days as eye candy. So lovely!

This week kids start their divided opening schedule, so I can pick them both up at the same time, yay!! I have done nothing but complain about four different trips to the same school so I'm sure everyone I know is as happy as I am, at least that I will STFU!

Hope you're having a great weekend!

Here we go!!

I've joined a swap, I can't believe it! But it sounds so fun! It's the Spin-to-Knit swap at Interweave. I will send and receive handspun yarns and blog about them, fun, fun, fun!!

I also joined Socktoberfest and am planning to do Margene's Twisted Sisters Spinalong/Knitalong thing when she gets going. Hope I can do all that and still finish FIL's sweater in time...Socktoberfest is the only one that has to be done before Christmas, though. Should be a good motivator.

I got my Fall Spin-Off yesterday and it's okay. They have a plan for making yarns like Noro yarns with long color repeats by machine knitting blanks, dyeing them and unraveling for handknitting. It sounds okay, but, of course, no knitting machine.

I have my own plan for spinning Noro type yarns. More will be coming about this, as I think a sweater out of said yarns will be my fair project for next year. But this is what I think about when I'm falling asleep at night. 13 colors, 10 skeins, 2 pounds of wool, Cornelia Tuttle pattern all picked out.

Still no word on the yarns from the fair. And I'm not going till the 27th.

And although our film didn't win in L.A. (we didn't think it would) it did win in Sorrento!!! Woo-hoo!!!

What?!?!?

So they want to change the Geneva Convention (too old, too quaint, too vague) from a prohibition against ''outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment," to behavior that "shocks the conscience."

Well, I see why they would like this wording. They have no "conscience" to shock. They know this about themselves. Therefore, justification managed, thank you very much.

A**holes.

(quoting Dahlia Lithwick, h/t Daily Kos)

A Promising Day

Our production company, Maxam Productions had its first American screening of our short film Ignotus this afternoon at the L.A. Shorts Fest. And I think it held up well against the other films. If you're interested in finding out about us, please go to the link. DH and I are on the Board, along with DH's business partner, Max Bartoli, and others, and are writing screenplays and such for production, it is very exciting!

On Friday, the film will be screened at the Washington, D.C. Film Festival, before it moves on to many more. It has already won awards (Best Short, Best Lead Actor, Best Costumes and Sets) at the Festival del Cinema Libero in Rome.

We are very proud of our little movie and hope that it will lead to bigger and better things very soon for all of us!!

Knitting wise, I finished the Seasilk Camisole in time, woo-hoo!!





And wore it to the screening today. It is a bit hot (mohair and silk) but was a good mix for a cool movie theater. I think it's lovely. I'm not sure that Alexandra intended it to be striped, but I was happy with the colors.

Here's a picture of the finished Fibonacci socks. I still have to weave in most of the ends (interminable) but it's too hot to wear them anyway.



Still plugging along at Rogue until I can buy the yarn for my FIL sweater. Next week should do it, as I am doing a nice freelance transcribing job this week (thanks, Treya!!!!)

Hope you're having a lovely day!

I promise this is the last one on this topic

But as I was sitting up late last night, I realized one thing that has changed every single day for me since 9/11.

When DH goes out, I still say "I love you." But on September 11th I said, "Be careful." And I have said that every single time since.

Back to knitting and spinning and short films and fairs later!

Be careful, all!

Five Years Later

September 11th will be for my generation a day like the one on which JFK was shot. A day we will ask each other every year, “Where were you when…?” . I was home with my five-week-old son and 2 ½ year old daughter, still getting my feet back under me after giving birth. When I got up at about 7:30 a.m., my husband told me, “A plane hit the World Trade Center. I heard it on Howard Stern.”

That week we all ran the gamut of emotions. Shock. Fear. Great grief. Relief that there weren’t more people killed. Unity. Pride. On Friday we had a church service and I sang “Let there be Peace On Earth.” I can’t sing it anymore without crying. Friday night, we all went out on the corner of our street and waved flags at the honking cars going by. We were Americans. We were hit, we were down, but we were not out.

It’s hard to believe that our own government has made us relinquish everything we were proud of that day. Our freedoms, our values, our unity. It’s hard to believe that we let them. Why couldn’t they tell us, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself?” Why did they have to make us fear more and more? Fear our neighbors and strangers and airplanes flying overhead and loud noises. I know I held onto my fear of airplanes in the sky for quite a while.

There are a lot of things to rail against about our current government. And I rail about them all the time. But the thing that makes me saddest is that we are no longer the America that we were. We are no longer the America that we could have been. We seem to have given it up in this orgasm of fear. Released our very essence into the void, creating what? Perhaps we can harvest the stem cells of this particular blastocyst to some constructive end. But only if we can destroy the embryo in the process. And this embryo must go, this new America, this tyranny. Somehow implant the new healing cells into the old body and kill the cancer that grows there.

I wish I could feel that warm unifying pride that we felt that week. I wish I could hug my dear neighbor who went to her last church service that Friday with us and soon after passed away. I wish that they would stop telling me how scared I should be and do something about the things that should scare them: port security, uninspected containers, unsecured power plants, dependence on foreign oil and Chinese credit. I wish we could go back, but we must instead go forward and grow into a new America that we can be proud of.

And remember.

Watch this

With a big caveat. First, get some kleenex.

This film was made in the days following 9/11/2001. At the time, we thought that Giuliani had performed well. And he did on the day. There have been many missteps since. He had also made many decisions previous to this that are regrettable but we did not know it then. We only knew we were all Americans.

There is also a big thank you to Bush at the end of this film. Bush has proved to be empty of the compassion and resolve that we hoped he had. I cannot endorse the text at the end of this. But the photos and music are incredibly moving. So here goes.

Watch this.

My thoughts on this day later.

Et tu, Mickey?

I don't quite know what to say about this. That 5 hours of propaganda will be broadcast not only in the United States but all over the world. That the administration that allowed almost 3000 people to die when they had ample warning has the temerity to blame the people who came before them. That the administration that has killed more Americans (in Iraq and by lying about the air quality at Ground Zero) than the terrorists themselves can make shit up, bill it as history, show it to our children and tarnish the memories of the victims and the brave people who tried to save them.

Disney is dead to me. I will no longer watch "Lost." I am blocking The Disney Channel and Toon Disney from my cable box. Nobody here watches ESPN.

The only act which could even remotely redeem this shameful broadcast would be to air an equal amount of time, commercial free, of documentary on 9-11. From people who were there. That's it. Not an apology, not a disclaimer, not a billion dollars to charity.

Tomorrow I will post about the terrorist attacks. Today I post once again about the Fall of the United States. Wish I didn't have to.

Someone I know has been to the Fair

And sent this lovely picture:



Thanks, Evelyn!!

Having claimed that I will be happy with anything, I refuse to complain that I only got a second place. Last year I got First with much less complicated socks and the year before I got Second with baby socks of no particular beauty as far as I can tell.

I was much more ambitious this year and they changed the judging rules (to Danish rules). They weren't even going to award ribbons in a class if there was nothing good enough. And I hope that there was more competition this year, as that would extend the life of the category.

Anyway, yay for the Red Ribbon! I will have to wait for the results on the yarn.

Competing in fairs is really fun and gets me very excited in the planning and making of the projecs. It gets me out of a rut and learning new things. This year it got me learning all sorts of things about fairisle and spinning and Norwegian purling and persistence.

Next year I'm thinking of doing something larger, but at a larger gauge, too, so not so bad. There's a Noro sweater I'd like to do a really complicated dye run for, 10 balls of 13 colors, 10 yards each. I have the colors planned out already, but I don't have quite enough roving (I'll dye 3 pounds). I'll immersion dye the roving and then split it into equal pieces and spin it in order. My only concern is that I want to have the colors bleed into each other so I might spin from the fold so that I can have the transitions be rather long. This is what I think about when I'm trying to fall asleep at night...

Anyway, in a week or so I will have more time to dye. My biggest problem right now is I need to start the FIL sweater but I can't afford the yarn. And it's not even very expensive. Just a bad month. Ho hum.

Meanwhile, I've been knitting a Seaweed Silk Camisole by Alexandra at Artisokka Workshop. It's a very nice pattern and I've knit it in a discontinued Noro yarn called Sarubia (70% silk, 30% kid mohair). It's lovely yarn and I really like the camisole so far. Button shopping tomorrow and then sewing and button loops. Should be done by Tuesday for the...SCREENING OF OUR FILM!!! More later...

The Fair Opens Today!!!! UPDATED

But first, Scholastic Press has pulled their original study materials, yay! And ABC is purportedly thinking of pulling the movie, double yay!!!

However, clearly the most important thing today, September 8, 2006 is that the Los Angeles County Fair opens this morning. Will they post the ribbons in the Tapestry of Tradition competitions? Or will they, like last year, torment me by waiting two weeks!??!? The judging was on August 1. You'd think they've had enough time to type up the chart, yes?

Stay tuned!!

UPDATE: Okay, I called them to see when the results will be posted and their answer (brilliant, don't you agree) was: "Sometime after the Fair opens." The Fair opened this morning!!! I know I'm crazy, but you love me anyway, right?

My Letter to Scholastic Press

I am the mother of two elementary school children, one in kindergarten and the other in second grade. I patronize our Scholastic Book Fairs and I purchase books through the ordering process monthly, as I like my children to have something new to read that is high quality and affordable.

However, if you persist in supporting the propaganda put forth by Disney and ABC, not to mention our lawbreaking and unashamed administration in the mini-series "Path to 9/11" by supplying "educational materials" which depict utterly untrue and fictional stories about this watershed event in America's history, I will NEVER buy another product associated with your company. And I will explain to my children, their teachers, our school administrators and other parents in their school exactly why I will not.

I am sure that I am not the only parent by a long shot who feels this way. The more of us who make this decision and talk about it publicly, the less business Scholastic will do. Please be responsible and do not let this fiction be billed as "education."

Thank you for your time.

I hope this does some good. Join in if you feel the urge!! They should not be allowed to tell our children that this is history. Or make them study propaganda unless it's as an example of what bad governments do.

I am absolutely incensed about this mini-series. And they have been so blatantly partisan about it, not allowing Clinton administration officials who happen to be portrayed in the film even a screening copy. Allowing Rush Limbaugh to screen it before final ediing. Unbelievable!! Disney/ABC/Scholastic will receive none of my hard-earned money if this airs. I will not even watch "Lost" any more. Makes me wish we were a Neilsen family!!

Keep your eye on the news today!

Summer Vacation Post #3

I think we get back to real time after this one. I hope so, anyway! I'm brimming with prose these days and the production company project is very exciting right now.

While mom and I were having grown up day in New York, kids were at the Boardwalk with DGpa who babysat for EIGHT HOURS!! Congratulations!! I hardly ever make it that long without losing my mind!!



It turned out to be wristband day at the Boardwalk so they got all the rides they wanted, yay! DD got in a bit of trouble by hopping on a ride while DGpa was waiting for DS to get off the first one and he couldn't find her for a minute, but they worked it out. It's quite an adrenaline rush, though, isn't it?

After all of our adventures, we began to wind down. One more day at the spray park, one more time to the beach. One more meal at Richard's (every Friday night) and home again, home again, jiggity jig! We had a lovely time and it was over too soon. I just hope next time we get more time with my mom!

Two days after we arrived home, it was the first day of school and all was back to normal, well, normal for us. Busy, busy, busy. Second grade has a lot more homework (the first day!). DS got the same kindergarten teacher as DD had, wonderful! And DD loves her teacher, too. More on that later.

Hope you had a great time this summer, too!

Our Trip to The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

So after a week of playing, going to the beach, the movies, shopping, having fun and eating out, my mom and I headed in to hot NYC to see the taping of The Daily Show. If you're wondering what day it was, we were there for the "Desperate Soundbites" segment that people have been posting clips of ever since.

Thanks to my friend S, we were in the VIP line, not the regular line, which was great. We were the first ones there at about 4:00 so we decided to go buy a Sharpie in case of autograph oppportunities and came back. It was really hot.

We got back into line and were promptly joined by others. The staff graciously let people in and out to go to the bathroom, which I thought was extremely nice for New York. Restrooms are always hard to come by!



This is Mom holding our line numbers. We're really going in!!

While we were waiting, the guys behind us wanted a high five for Bush. I refused, of course, and a conversation ensured. Meanwhile, my mom was so incensed she didn't participate. Afraid she would boil over. I understand. And they were drunk. Oh, yes, they were drunk. But I will engage people in debate about these things as long as they don't engage in personal attacks (keep reading!).



They turned out to be police officers from South Jersey. I don't really know why they were there. At first one of them claimed to be a cousin of Jon, but I don't think so. He tried to convince me of totally unbelievable things quite a few times and I think that was the first instance.

I won't transcribe our conversation. I believe that government exists to serve the people, to help the people when they are in trouble, to protect the people from harm. They believed that Republicans think that people should work for what they get, not get handed anything. That was pretty much it. For them, it was all about the money. For me, it is all about the people. They didn't have any arguments against me.

I stopped talking to them when they accused me of being a communist. Typical.

But I promised them that I wouldn't call them a**holes in my blog and so I won't.

By the time we got in, I was just hoping that we wouldn't have to sit together so they couldn't ruin our fun. And it worked out perfectly. Unfortunately, no photography in the studio!

We had a great time. Jon is just like he seems on TV, as far as we could tell. Quite serious about preparing between segments. All in all, it was an amazing experience that I would love to repeat! Or Colbert...Ooh, that just gives me goosebumps...I spent the entire show staring at Jon. I had to lean over and say to my mother, "I wonder if he knows I would have sex with him." TO MY MOTHER!!

So thanks again, S! It was unforgettable!