Hobnobbing and Politicking

Last night I hosted a political function. I am not quite sure how this happened as I have made it a point to be politically low profile about who I think should be elected and I am not registered in any party. But I teach Marilyn Lloyd, our former Congresswoman(Dem) of 20 years pilates. She is still around, just as astute as ever and such a sweet kind lady. I would do anything she asked.

She started to talk one day about a function she was having at her house and I thought she was inviting me to attend and I enthusiastically said yes. But I discovered I was agreeing to co-host it! Yikes! How did that happen? The invitations were sent out and along with leading areas Democrats, there my name, actually third on the list. I am now branded!

I did invite, to fulfill my hosting duties, a few of my friends and family, but none attended. How can I blame them? The invitations was sent with a suggested ticket price of $500? When I actually got the invitation I immediately called Marilyn. "Marilyn, uhh, I might be naive about these things, I knew it was a fundraiser, but me and my friends? We are little people. We don't contribute $500 to ANYBODY no matter how much we believe in them. And nobody has even heard of this person yet." As gracious as ever, Marilyn told me to have everyone come anyway just for the party. None of my friends, I guess, felt comfortable doing so, so Q and I were the lone "little" people at this function.

Just briefly, I will say the person that this function was for was Paula Flowers, the woman from Oak Ridge running for the congress position that Zac Wamp is vacating for his bid for governor. And I was highly impressed with her. She is smart, she has worked in government, she has worked in insurance, and she calls herself the rational candidate (hopefully
Paula Flowers and Marilyn Lloyd 
Tennessee will be worn out by all the screeching, hysterical candidates and leaders by then). One thing that I found most impressive was that she has actually read the whole 1000 page health reform bill and understands it all! And she believes she has a good grasp of what is good and what is bad about it. Good for her! Watch for her in the next year. She might be just what we need to restore balance and sense into the government.

But enough about that. This isn't a political blog but a biking blog. Q and I road our bikes out to Marilyn's house by the lake.        Marilyn and me              We started out on Amnicola to save time, but as it was rush hour Friday afternoon, we abandoned Amnicola for the Riverwalk, and only reentered the highway when it was time for us to cross over Hwy 153. Then we got on Kings Road and weaved our way around (and UUUPPP and DDOOOWWWNN) to Marilyn's house on the lake. If you are unafraid of hills, a rider can go all the way out to Booker T Washington State Park and beyond without ever going on Highway 58.

                                                                                    We wore our regular clothes and arrived, after riding almost an hour in heat and humidity, only a little worse for wear. Q was a bit sweatier then me, regretting his choice of wearing corduroys but he soon dried out and looked his usual wonderful self. He always looks good! He was coming from his construction job he has been working on, didn't even shave and I would say he was the best looking man there. Aren't I lucky?

I believe at every Democratic function there should at least be a token of alternative transportation represented. As there so seldom is, that drives home for me what I know about how the system is so pervasive about leading us to believe that we either don't have a choice or the choices are too impractical to even think about how we are to get around. And the fact that the Democrats, who are the biggest proponents of health care, energy conservation, clean air and other such things, don't even recognize how they are blindly following the pervasive system that contribute so negatively to these issues without even questioning it for themselves. And if they don't question it, how can they change it? If this group had a habit of truly thinking about it, there should have been a mix of different methods. Q and I were the only alternative to cars there, and neither one of us are die hard Democrats. Though I tend to be concerned on the same topics Democrats are, their blindness to truly seeing solutions frustrate me. I am hoping to actually sit down with Paula Flowers and see if she has better visionary powers then most.

Again, enough about politics, Q and I had a wonderful time. It turns out Q is a natural networker-who knew?. He had all these people who we did not know before hand (only, since I have lived in Chattanooga all my life there were familiar faces and names-such as the city council member I went to high school with and the man who's sister that my brother dated over thirty years ago. This is after all a small town) eagerly carrying on long lengthy conversations with him. I attribute it to Q's ability to have that air of listening to every word you are saying. People love to talk about themselves and their ideas. Goodness knows, I have always fallen for this quality of his and that is why I love him. I get to talk and talk and talk about myself and my thoughts and he always acts as though he is listening and welcoming of it. And sometimes he actually is!

By the time it was time to go home it was dark. We had a most enjoyable ride, once we got off the roller coasters of King's Road, back home on the Riverwalk. The Riverwalk at night is a different experience, peaceful, quiet and otherworldly. That is until we were rudely slapped unexpectedly in the face by an aggressive water sprinkler! That brought us back to this world! But even that only added giggles to our ride.

A stop at the Great Ice Cream Show at the southside of the Walnut Street Bridge for ice cream and live music, sitting outside on a beautiful evening, greeting familiar faces ended our wonderful evening of hobnobbing and making a political statement with our bikes.

I love my life!