You call this a process?

Our democratic process is truly in jeopardy when getting more delegates to a convention is more important than fairly representing the people.

I attended the democratic caucus yesterday from noon to midnight. It was a debacle of missing paperwork and lack of understanding of caucus rules. But when the caucus began to degrade into personal attacks I was truly appalled.

We need one primary on the same day throughout the country. And one popular vote. No more caucus’. No more electoral colleges. The time for those is past. It is the only fair way to get everyone’s voice accounted for.

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Rejected by Stamps.com

Wow. I really have hit the big time. I submitted yet another in my series of Petey stamps. It was rejected as offensive. You be the judge. Is this composite image offensive? I think not. This is a picture of Petey being frustrated with my lack of attention and crawling under a blanket. And me observing the humor in it all… is that offensive? What has happened to stamps.com? Are we entering a new McCarthy era?

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Huisache Spring

This is the first year the huisache has bloomed fully. What a delight. And the Mexican Plum fragrance is sublime. It just doesn’t last long enough. And aside from raining mud the only water plants and trees are getting comes from the end of a hose.

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Taiwan

… last words… for now… thanks to Wendy’s aunt I have a lovely commemorative hanging on my wall. It is red and has a mouse (cuter than the year of the rat normal rattedness) and the most gorgeous knot and tassle. I wish I had time to get lessons on creating a knot — this one is spectacular! And the NY Times decided that Taiwan is a gem of a place for a get-a-way. I agree. I could go back and see, do, eat much, much more.

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I thought it was a bad day

Then I came home and found blood splattered around, and a dead cat’s body in my dining room, and the back door open a bit. It was a really bad day. I called the Strongs to see if they were missing a cat. Thank goodness it wasn’t a most precious cat. But, as I cleaned it up I thought again about the downside of adopting a pet. You never know what you get or how they were brought up or trained (not). And I keep thinking some day I will “know” Petey, but the truth is that he is beyond my ability to comprehend.

After cleaning up the blood and body I tended to all of the scratches and blood on the dog. I try really hard not to be angry and hate him. But the truth is that this part of his behavior I really do hate.

I worry that if something happens to me, no one will have understanding about the cat killing. Well, I don’t have understanding either. It is that unconditional love thing that we all need to keep working on.

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What a mess

By far and away, last night was the worst political experience of my life. Things here in Texas are still unbelievably archaic. At 7 p.m. when the polls closed I arrived at my caucus location. The line of people waiting to vote was at least 150 feet long (2 hours). Our temporary chair for the caucus encouraged us to sign in early. The sign in sheet included your voter ID and the candidate you wanted to vote for (this is the two-step part of Texas voting). We were three precincts in one location, and about 300 strong. We had to wait outside the polling place and it was cool. Okay, cold for us Texans (40s). There were no lights and no seats. Even when the last person had voted they would not let us in the building. We had to stand outside and it was cold. The fire trucks pulled up with some spotlights so we had some light.

It was determined that the early sign-in was illegal. So the folks that came, signed in and left were disenfranchised. That was about a third of the crowd.

By 9:30 we started signing in again. There was an amorphous crowd — lining up was not happening. And priority was not given to those who brought proof of having voted. With one lookup book for voter IDs this process lasted waaaaay too long. And more people went home. We were supposed to have nine delegates voted on from my precinct. I have zero confidence that 9 were left to be chosen and that they will vote the appropriate percentage. I feel strongly that Obama is dramatically over represented in super delegates due to my own experience in my own precinct.

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End of this week, definitely Spring

No pictures of the flowers and trees that are blooming. The temperatures have been teasing with the 80s off and on for the past two weeks. It is the time of year when I have a love/hate relationship with Texas. I love seeing all of the things I have planted, nurtured and grown older with come to fruition. But I really hate the first promise of heat. Couldn’t it stay in the 60s-70s for a month or two?

The laurels, mexican plum, peach tree, verbena, gaura and primrose (yellow) are all at it. The mexican plum has the most pleasant scent. Not overwhelmingly perfumy, just sweet. And you have to get close to the tree to smell it.

The red bud near the back door has vertical splits in the trunk. It looks like a very bad sign. I grew this tree from a seedling I found in Mom and Dad’s lawn. If it is dying I may plant a mexican red bud in its place. They seem much more hardy. Although I like the larger leaves of the Eastern Redbud.

It will be in the low 30s Tuesday night. I think that will be winter’s last cough. Then I can start the tomato seedlings!

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