Playing Hookie

California legislative staffers don't work on Lincoln's birthday, but just about everyone else does. So I'm trying to enjoy the Monday of a three-day weekend, but it's hard because no one else has the day off. I feel like I'm ditching work, which I can't stand and never, ever do.

Damn protestant work ethic. I can't even relax on the day that I'm supposed to take off. How appropriate to be obsessive in the memory of Lincoln.

Uh, happy birthday to a fellow aquarian and a far more obsessive, worried guy whose oddness drove him to greatness.

So sad

The Sacramento library is great, and a total life-saver until I have home internet access again.

The trip here was not so great. I watched two women scream and cuss, across a busy intersection, about who was going to get custody of a baby. I'm guessing: loser of a mother, 19 tops, vs. a protective older sister or even grandma with nothing else in her life. They had this vicious, public fight while one of them WAS HOLDING THE BABY.

Poor baby. Talk about getting dealt an unfair hand in life.

A Time To Run

I just finished Senator Barbara Boxer's first novel, A Time To Run. The beginning was slow and the writing was a little awkward, but everything smoothed out as the story picked up. Overall, its an impressive product considering fiction is not Boxer's day job. The plot was a little steamy and the book was filled with details only experienced by a true insider, like the heroine's hands aching after too many firm hand-shakes.

A Time To Run was clearly Boxer's opportunity capture the personal, private side of politics and share them with her readers without revealing too much about her own life.

A fun, easy read.

State of the Union Democratic Response??

Tim Kaine:

Are you asking me if we can do better, or are you telling me? Seriously, I have better public speaking skills. If your speaking skills are all that it takes to be elected governor in Virginia, I'm headed out there to run next.

Commentators are criticizing the content of his response as too passive. I say it was all in the delivery. Try, "America can do better!!" on for size.

P.S., loving my second quiet morning in this hotel...and the opportunity it affords me to dump my opinions out for the three people who read this blog.