Do I REALLY Have to Go Home????

I just received an email from a close friend asking me if I'd read this month's issue of Harper's. No, I hadn't. Well, he said, any blogger worth her salt, any PAC chair needs to read this.....I told him that sitting in Oak Bluffs, looking out over the water, riding my new bicycle, and reading a Jonathan Kellerman mystery all seemed like lot better ways to spend my time than worrying about the state of the nation.

HERESY!!!!!

But I have learned a couple of things this weekend.

I am now an OFFICIAL MA BLOGGER!!! Lynne from "LeftinLowell.com" included me on her distribution list. This means I have arrived and I will have to find a way of suitably celebrating it. And when I put my URL into an MSN website, some of my postings came up on the search engine. OH MY GAWD!!! I mean, it's one thing to find yourself on the web under "Ware takes job at Elder Services." It's another to have your blog posts pop up. All this "finding yourself at 55 " stuff is getting pretty exciting.

I have also learned that even my old LWV friend Polly, who is now only part time in MA, and the rest of the year in NH hasn't heard of Deval Patrick. Nor had the people I'm staying with, or the other couple who's visiting. We have our work cut out for us people. I DID see a minivan with a big "DevalPatrick.com" bumpersticker and an old Kerry-Edwards sticker in the parking head at the Gay Head cliffs, so we're not totally unknown. But it's an uphill battle.

Also Oak Bluffs should be DP country. What an interesting town. It's the summer hangout of the black upper middle class. Sort of like Washington DC on an island. BUT NO ONE IS TALKING ABOUT POLITICS. White or black. It's more about where are you going to get your ice cream and do you need a reservation for dinner and who took the sunblock down to the beach. I'm not much of an "you have to get on a boat to get there" person but I have to say I like this town. Once you figure out what ferry you need to get on (not as easy as it sounds; two departure points, two arrival points, can't get there from here, etc. etc.) you can ride your bike off and we happen to be within walking/biking distance of the ferry. It's heaven. And yet the house seems very much in the country. And a view of the water. DOES IT GET ANY BETTER THAN THIS?

I am not spending much time philosphizing on why I get to spend the weekend here and others are struggling for healthcare. I do that every day and work hard at it. This weekend is about taking care of myself to gird myself for the hard work ahead this summer making sure 30,000 Medicare beneficiaries know what's happening to them. I need to have my karma together in order to get the job done.

The other wonderful thing has been being with old and dear friends. We are having conversations we haven't had in years, and laughing and singing 60's music and camp songs and Broadway songs and hymns and drinking and walking and eating and chilling out. It is Nirvana. We held hands tonight at dinner and sang grace.

We haven't sung this song, but it sums up this glorious weekend. I know Karl Rove is an asshole and that the election was stolen in Ohio and that people are starving in Africa and my daughter's house hasn't sold, but.....

OH THE LORD IS GOOD TO ME
AND SO I THANK THE LORD
FOR GIVING ME THE THINGS I NEED
THE SUN AND THE RAIN AND THE APPLESEED
THE LORD IS GOOD TO ME.

Peace. Keep fighting. But take care of yourselves. We need to be in shape for the work ahead.