Paging Dr Fry

Raise your hand if you want Stephen Fry to be the next Doctor Who. Okay, it probably won't happen, but I was thrilled to see him on this list over at the Guardian, along with Joanna Lumley, who I wouldn't say no to either. So, dear readers, who's your pick for Who?

ACORN

As most of you know, Jason and I worked for ACORN for several years back in the 90's. It was a chaotic experience that had its ups and downs. Some of you have been wondering what we think about all the allegations about ACORN from the McCain campaign. In short, we are appalled. We both worked voter registration at various times during our employment and can assure you we never saw ACORN promoting Voter Registration Fraud (something quite different from Voter Fraud, which has more to do with getting false people to vote or to vote twice). In Arkansas, as in many states, you are required to turn in every single voter registration card, even if you think it might be a fake registration. Sometimes people who you hire for campaigns like this are more interested in getting paid than in registering people to vote, so they fill out forms falsely. Those folks were fired, when they were discovered. Sometimes, people think it's funny to give blatantly false names on the card, and some people wanted to disrupt the process, so they did this on purpose. In any case, where we could identify forms that looked suspicious, we would set them aside and turn them in with a note to the county that we thought that they were false. Contrary to popular belief, not everyone knows the starting line-up of the Dallas Cowboys, so I'm sure there were some that got past us. It was not in our interest to register non-existent people - the purpose was to register real people, to encourage them to become involved in our civic process and to turn them out on election day - which is what the McCain campaign is really worried about it. The rich and elite in this country have benefited from low voter turn-out and suppressed civic engagement. If we really wanted these things and if they were really concerned about false registrations, they would make registration mandatory and automatic for citizens like many other countries do. Here's a nice video done by ACORN to set the record straight, it's only a few minutes long so check it out:



BTW, I'm proud to say that because of ACORN training, myself and several other women have been working over the past year to promote civic engagement in adult ed classrooms in the metro area - and we registered some folks to vote too. We've passed the deadline for registration in this state, but if you are registered, please make sure to go and vote. It's important.

Unproductive

I've been a very unproductive blogger in the last couple of weeks, which is sad since I was really on a roll in September. I'm still making Nora's lunch (although Jason did it last Friday) and I do usually photograph it, but of course I never have the camera when I feel like blogging, so there's not pictures for this post.

I've been cooking quite a bit lately. Last week I tested several of the Veganomican recipes, with success. The caramel apple cupcakes with penuche icing were a big hit at a potluck that I brought them to (and Nora and Jason liked them as well). I discovered penuche is indeed like fudge and it hardens up very quickly so I needed to re-melt it midway through icing the cakes. That same evening I made the Inside-out Samosas (samosa filled twice baked potatoes). I'll be making them again for Jason and I, but Nora opted out - she has a thing about potatoes. Ditto on the vegan "scalloped" potatoes. Jason and I liked them quite a bit, although I think I was too heavy handed with the nutritional yeast. Nora wouldn't touch them, but she did eat about a 1/2 a cup of sauerkraut. She is probably the only 2 year old in the world who won't touch mashed potatoes but will eat sauerkraut. She also like the roasted carrots and Polish sausage that rounded out that meal. All that was missing was a green salad, and we would have had a Sunday dinner, but I hate making salad. And I finally got around to trying Sarah E-Y's wheat bread recipe the week before last. I will definitely be making it again, it was terrific! I passed it on to Mom and she made it into some wonderful buns with raisins in them with Nora. So Sarah, if you are reading, thanks! and you might try adding raisins to a batch if you haven't already.

The weekend before last, we drove the Great River Road on the search for apples. It was a beautiful day, and we made a stop in Grafton at the Rotten Apple so that Jason could check out their fabled beer selection. The beer was good, the cider was good and the food was good. I'm sure we'll be back. Then we stopped at Pere Marquette and Nora played with the giant chess board while Jason attempted to coach her toward Chess Greatness. We should have hiked about some and looked for wildlife, but the heat and our heavy lunch kept us inside. Nora enjoyed the chainsaw sculpture of Illinois wildlife (eagles, raccoons, squirrel, and rabbits) and re-arranged the fuzzy rabbits in the deer diorama inside the lodge, so we sort of saw some animals. Then we headed up toward Hardin and I detoured off toward Jerseyville to stop at Ringhausen Orchards. Unfortunately Nora fell asleep, so there are no glorious pictures of her among pumpkins, atop hay bales, or holding shiny red apples, and actually the Ringhausen Orchard we went to (there are several) wasn't really that type of place. But the apples were great, I got Crispins, Jonathan's, and Honey Crisps. I ate the last one today for lunch, so I'm hoping Mom and Dad pick up some on their trip this weekend. On the way back to the main road, I saw a snake slither into the cornfield, so that sort of met our "see wildlife" goal of the trip.

This weekend we weren't much better about getting out into nature. Fortunately, the Grand Marshall takes Nora out to Powder Valley quite a bit, or else I'd worry that she is danger of developing a nature deficit disorder. Jason and I are lacking in our intake of fresh air, and I'm hoping we'll make it happen this weekend.

Anniversary

Yesterday was our 13th anniversary. It seems like both a long and short time. This was the first year we didn't have any special plans. I did take off work, Jason wasn't teaching, and Nora went to daycare as scheduled, so we did spend the day together. We had a big breakfast at Chris' pancake house after we dropped of Nora and then we spent the rest of the day catching up on our Netflix and Toddflix (all the shows Todd tapes for us - thanks Todd!). We're still wayyyyyy behind, but it was fun to spend the rainy day on the couch, just the two of us. It was also nice to pick up and drop off Nora together. I think we finally manged to do all of our check in and check out parental duties (sign in, fill out daily form, make sure she has her lunch box, backpack & Meowy, pay, etc.). Then we ordered dinner from the King and I, tried to get Nora to run all of her excess energy off inside, and then we shuffled off to bed. We're such an old married couple. It's nice.