RABBIT, RABBIT

One of the advantages of waking up at 4:30 a.m. is that you can remember to say "Rabbit, Rabbit" as your first spoken words of the month because no one is up at that awful hour to talk to! (Or I suppose I could have called my daughter in LA and see if I could wake her up.....)

And I just realized it's also APRIL FOOLS DAY! I'm not sure that I'm up for either playing any tricks or having any played on me. Life is currently playing enough tricks to last a lifetime. On Friday March 17, when we all heard that our current State Senator, Andrea Nuciforo, Jr., wasn't running for office again, one comment was "It's St. Patrick's Day. Not April Fool's Day. I'm not kidding."

I'm currently off the campaign trail at the moment, playing mom. Hopefully my minions are out collecting signatures at a rapid rate so that when I return, I can simply put my feet up, and smile for the camera and pontificate. HA!

And speaking of cameras, for someone who hates having her picture taken, this will be AGONY. I've already been asked by two media outlets if I have a picture I can email. I do not keep pictures of myself, nor do I send them out. I've been married 35 years. One doesn't need to have a picture posted! But now I'll have to have lots and so my friend Duncan in DC took some pictures yesterday and hopefully ONE of them will come out (you have to take about 100 -- which he did -- the wonders of digital photography -- to get one good one of me....) and I can send it to whoever wants it. But then you have to do the whole brochure thing with probably MORE than one picture. Since our kids are grown and living elsewhere, I suggested to my husband that we have a picture with our two dogs. To show that we're a nukular family. The dogs are underwhelmed by the idea. It means standing still and that's not part of their skill set.

So we "moms" are off to Orange VA today with the bride and groom - to- be to taste food at the Willow Grove Inn and check out B & B's. Hey, it's a job! As I keep telling people. Thank goodness I'm not the mother of the bride. I don't think brides would think it was very funny for your mom to start running for State Senate in the middle of wedding preparations. As it is, my son and future daughter-in-law are being VERY GOOD SPORTS.

Maybe I can get another hour's sleep before we head off. Sleep is an issue these days. I wake up writing speeches, making "call lists" and generally trying to use every moment. But then the body says STOP! and I have to fall asleep. Which I did at 9PM last night. But it means I'm the perfect houseguest. So there are advantages.

All the other candidates have dropped out of the State Senate race because they've seen that there's no possible way to beat me. APRIL FOOLS!