Day 1 from Chicago

Today has been mostly a social day. I’ve greeted all my C&J friends who are here so far. However, I was exhausted. I got to the room after 1:30am. My roommate arrived around 2:00 and stayed and talked for a bit, but was still in party mode and left again after 3:00am which was when I finally went to sleep. I really wanted to be up early for an 8:00 session, but that was not to be! Consequently I am not terribly coherent right now. I did come up for a nap for about 30 mins which helped me get through the night.

The afternoon MotherTalkers caucus was awesome. Not that many so we could sit with the chairs in a circle and just respond to Elisa as she threw out topics. Since we were already really familiar with each other the discussion went smoothly and many great points were made. How mother’s issues are really everyone’s issues. Elisa made the point about how the Family Leave act is thought of as JUST for maternity leave, but really is supposed to be used also to care for a sick parent for instance. It is NOT isolated just to people with children. And that is a shame because as issues are framed one way or the other, then voters tune out thinking it “doesn’t apply to them.”

The evening key note speaker was DNC chair Howard Dean. Ah, that man can SPEAK! Fired us right up and had us standing several times for him. This was followed by a Pub Quiz. Several teams had been formed in advance for this event and I wanted to attend just to learn something and see how these blogging/political geeks did 😉 I was there with my roommate Patti and our friend John and we soon noticed that these people were not as serious as we had first feared. In fact, in between rounds they were throwing paper missiles at each other! So, we started making rather immature and snarky comments out loud and cracking ourselves and nearby tables up. Oh, but did my ribs hurt at one point from laughing! Really though, it was amazing how much these people knew. I followed that up with some time outside with the smokers – always the best crowd I swear! I ended up meeting two people for the first time and having this great conversation about So Cal republicans and the dem presidential candidates and …well..just the coolest political stuff that I really eat up right now. For whatever reason I am almost as passionate about my political involvement as I am with sports stuff :->

Anyhow, many of them are still down there at the bar or out on the patio, but I had to come up to sleep. There are two more full days of increasingly great meetings to attend and I want to be rested.