Vote for Bell

If you are one of my legions of readers, and you were contemplating voting for Kinky, please read this.

And if you'd like some information about Chris Bell, who I plan to support, please email me. I feel strongly that he is the guy to get behind to rid our state of Rick Perry.

I had this letter published in the Statesman today responding to their endorsement of Rick Perry for Governor....

I can't believe how soon the Statesman is willing to forgive and forget.

Tom DeLay didn't force redistricting on Austin without the local help of Rick Perry. Many of us attended numerous hearings at the Capitol, trying to protect our city's right to a locally based representative in Washington. My democratic rights, and those of the citizens of Austin were trampled by the DeLay/Perry assault, when Austin and Travis County were drawn and quartered into four gerrymandered districts stretching across the state.

Chris Bell, the Democratic candidate to replace Rick Perry as Governor, started the ball rolling with an ethics complaint, which eventually led to the downfall of Tom DeLay. As an Austinite who would like once again to have one D.C. Representative based squarely in Austin, I'm doing everything I can think of to help Chris Bell replace the other half of the dastardly duo.

Dicewars

....is a very addictive game

Sunday: The Pumpkin Patch

This year's pumpkin patch photo.

Max and his friend Uma at the pumpkin patch 

Saturday: Company Picnic

David's office is very cool. Actually they are just a bunch of big kids, so their company picnic is pretty fun. The had a bouncy house, kegs, bar-b-que, two luscious cakes from Whole Foods, a homemade train ride, and all the body painting you can handle. Oh yea, horse shoes too.

The perfect weather was just a bonus.

One of Max's classmates, Sadie, also has a parent who works for the company, so he had extra fun.

Emma and her friend Kiki show off their tatoos. 

My green/blue monkey tatoo 

Kids on the train. The man who owns this party ranch built the train out of barrels, and the opening of the barrels have garden hose lining the edges. The ingenious locomotion system is a series of hand trucks sort of bolted end to end. The whole thing is pulled with a yard tractor.... oh yeah, the seats in the barrel are boat seats. Any ideas Grandad?

Joey gets a paint tatoo (fire breathing dragon) 

Women Organizing to Revive Democracy!

The main reason I haven't added anything new to this blog in a week is that I'VE BEEN BUSY! What a week, I had a meeting at church on Tuesday, I hosted the PTA's teachers' lunch on Wednesday, my scout troop met Thursday and our first ever W.O.R.D. (see the title above) met last night. And what a meeting it was!

After Ann Richard's memorial service, I really felt charged up, but since it was a funeral, no one really seized the power of thousands of pretty politically interested mourners and told us to do anything.

I have wanted Rick Perry gone since redistricting. Ever since Austin was split into four parts, and my representative lived west of Houston, I've been pretty pissed off. I mean, you expect some dirty politics, but when my district was so badly drawn that no Democrat even entered the race, my voice in national politics was basically taken away. That is serious and wrong. So all these years, I've hoped Tom DeLay and Rick Perry would get what they were due.

One down, one to go.

Anyway, cut to last month's memorial for Ann. A couple of days afterwards, I saw a mom-friend at the grocery store. We were both feeling antsy. She told me she had decided to "drink the Kool Aid" and work on getting Chris Bell elected. I made the decision right there, that instead of only trying to get Rick Perry out, I wanted to get my guy in. Chris Bell does not want to build a useless wall along the Mexican border, he does want us to stop coming in 50 among the states with regard to getting kids health insurance coverage. He wants to stop putting so much emphasis on testing in public schools (Hallelulia!) And I want it all.

So within a two week span, we started a little email revolution, planned a party, and held it last night. And it was a success. We had a couple hundred people show up. They had fun. We cheered, we laughed, and we inadvertantly raised over $2000. We didn't even appeal for money, but at the last minute thought we'd better bring something to put donations in. So one girl slapped a Bell sticker on a coffee can and brought it along.

We might do more in the future, but for now we are basking in our success.

Our Crowd!  

Our team of 6 WORD girls. 

Donna Howard a fantastic state representative for most of us. Due to a suspiciously timed resignation by the Republican who held her seat previously, she's had to run for this office three times in about 6 months. 

Genevieve Van Cleve, Slam poetry queen, gets the crowd fired up. 

Gretchen, our musical entertainment 

The Big Democratic Sandwich and Corinne and Edie, Gretchen in the background onstage 

Spike cuts the big Democratic Sandwich with the sword of justice 

Young Sandwich server 

Robbin's gift to me was this wonderful photo of my assistant sales manager, Max. Love you buddy. 

Just got home from the Fall Festival at our church. I sold my pillows, greeting cards, and Elisa's purses and accessories. Lots of browsers, and visiting and conversation. Not so much by way of sales, but I was next door to my buddy Robbin, and I had a whole day of just sitting in a chair, avoiding all my chores. So that was worth it.