Friday: Dealing with Management, Cutting Manes, Fattening Foods, Purple Children

( Dealing with managers )

Later, I went and got my hair cut. All of it. About nine inches gone. I've got short hair for the first time since puberty. Dunno why; I just decided that it was time to get it cut. I'm too old to have a mullet.

My barista liked it. She noticed it and said it looked really good. Well, that's one vote.

I got home to find Omaha busy in the kitchen and Kouryou-chan asleep on the couch. We think she's had a bit of a bug because she's been complaining of a sour tummy and sleeping fitfully. fallenpegasus showed up for an offer of home-cooked dinner: home-made vegetarian burgers and potato chips. I used our deepest pot and deep-fried slices of potato, yam, and daikon. The daikon didn't come out-- too soggy, perhaps not cooked enough-- but the yam chips were delicious.

The kids ate very little. We ended up giving them leftover pasta dinners we had in the fridge. They didn't even like the potato chips. What's up with that?

After dinner, I find Kouryou-chan in her bedroom and her hands are purple. Yamaarashi-chan had an inking pad for stamps, and Kouryou-chan found it and thought it was funny how it made her hands purple. She's covered in ink and it doesn't come off. She freaks out when she realizes she might be blue for days.

Omaha had had enough. I tell her and Pegasus to get lost, go out somewhere and have fun. Dinner made a disaster of the kitchen; it takes me an hour to clean it up, while I also bathed the kids, washing their hair, and get them ready for bed. The ink turns out to be water-soluble and Kouryou-chan turned her natural color. I read to them more Hamtaro books, then finished up in the kitchen.

I installed WineX on my desktop. It doesn't work. If I can't get it to run this weekend, I may cancel my subscription immediately. The new version of gThumb, though, is very very nice.

Hmm, Gatekeepers 21, Chobits, or Wolf's Rain before I head to bed?

None of the above. I'm just going to bed.

Wait a minute, I'm a Democratic Delegate now???

So, since it was just up the street and I'm committed to electing ABB (anyone but Bush), Omaha and I went to the Democratic Caucus, the girls in tow. It was held at the King County regional law enforcement training center, in the lobby, which was a space that epitomizes routine lobby-and-auditorium architecture from 1985-200 or so-- granite and steel, quarter-face construction. The weather was cold and overcast.

Omaha and I went in and announced that, at least for the purposes of this event, we were Democrats. (I don't think either Republican or Democrat is the right label these days; now, the battle is between libertarians and communitarians.) We found our table and discovered that we were with a party of ten people from our precinct.

Then we discovered that there were six delegates in our precinct. Which meant that out of the party of ten, six of us would have to agree to go to the legislative caucus in May. The people around the table were a mix-- retirees, union workers, veterans, the local fire district commissioner, and one painfully earnest "vote my conscience, not my pragmatism" man. We joked about our local sewer district, so riddled with corruption that it seems like the keystone cops meets the mafia some days, and the Des Moines city council, which is just batshit insane.

Most of the people there were older. We were pretty young ourselves, Omaha and I, compared to a room full of The Democratic Faithful. We had compliments from others about how well-behaved Kouryou-chan and Yamaarashi-chan were.

The girls took a quiet corner and played in the coloring books. They were pretty good as we went through the process of picking candidates. I initially voted for Dean, but ultimately switched to Edwards, convincing another along the way until we had as many votes as Kerry. We were split-- two delegates for Kerry, two for Edwards, one for Dean, and one "uncommitted."

And it looks like Omaha and I will both be going to the Legislative Caucus as delegates. I'm going for Edwards (although I can change my vote for any reason at any time), and Omaha is going as the power bloc known as "uncommitted." From a quick survey about the room, Dean was not doing well. Again and again, it was the "electibility" issue.

It takes a strong personality to go through that. Because it is not a secret process, the quieter folks got steamrolled by those of us with an opinion.

Which is why I had a harder time during the "Resolutions" phase, in which the precinct captain read off a list of proposed resolutions that, depending upon how wide a topic they addressed, could be adopted by county, state, or national Democratic platforms. I had trouble with the language on many of them, especially the universal health care issues, and like most platforms they left completely unaddressed the issues of how their resolutions would be paid for, implemented or regulated.

I've never been anything but an Independent voter, but if being "a Democrat" is what it takes to restore the balance of power, then that's what I'll be until November.