According to a fundraising letter I got today from Mrs. Mark Kennedy, wife of the Republican candidate for Minnesota’s US Senate Seat, there are only a little more than 100 days to campaign. I won’t be doing much of that for the next six days that I’m playing host to my father-in-law. I also will take two weeks out of early September for a vacation that has been a year in the planning. If I can’t win this election without mucking up my family I’d rather not get elected at all.
Our legislatures and the halls of Congress are full of pols who shucked off their spouses for their political ambitions. Besides, my wife’s constant irritation with politics helps remind me about what’s really important in life.
Today Claudia and I took Dad to pick blueberries. As so often happens I got carried away and we ended up picking twelve pounds of them when I decided I had to have lots of blueberry jam. Then while we were driving home I though of the bountiful chokecherries I’d seen a couple blocks down from our house.
After a long productive afternoon in the kitchen we now have about 12 cups of blueberry jam and 8 cups of chokecherry jelly. I love PBJ sandwhiches. It will be a very good year. We also have five fat freezer bags full of blueberries in the freezer. I’ll have more antioxidents coursing through my veins than you can shake a stick at for the rest of the campaign. Blueberries are much better than spinach and I’m sure will help me prevail over the two Blutos that everybody else expects to win this race.
Between blueberries and chokecherries we saw a marvelous old movie from 1942 with Claudete Colbert, Robert Stack, and Jack Benny. To be or not to be was remade ten or so years ago by Mel Brooks. I never saw the Brooks movie but I remember Siskle and Ebert saying what a wonderful movie the original was. It was a hoot and had a million times more bite than Chaplin’s The Great Dictator. Even my father-in-law whose not much of a movie watcher got a kick out of it.
Oh and one more thing, when I checked my email late tonight I discovered that the Unity Party is not at all put out about my flirtation with the Independence Party…..We can be a regular political menage a trois.
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