Dinner with the elected official was great. He was very nice, as was his family and it was a blast to have little kids in our house for the first time. They found the toys within thirty seconds of walking in the door, even though the toys were in a bucket behind the couch. Amazing. It was like they could smell them or sense them on some other level... sonar perhaps?

Neil cooked and set the table and bought flowers and everything looked beautiful and the chicken was delicious. He was very cute during his Martha Stewart stint. It is great to know that my husband can put on a dinner party on his own.

The rest of the weekend went by quickly. Saturday was nice because Neil and I saw our new favorite Western band, Syd Masters & The Swing Riders, play at Barnes and Noble and then we looked through Annie's book, America 24/7 (Annie is on the staff of the group that put the whole thing together) and then we went to sushi and to see Elf, which was actually a really cute movie. I really enjoyed our date evening. We haven't had a ton of those in recent months.

I just read on CNN that Al Gore is rumored to have made the decision to endorse my man, Howard Dean. It is solid proof that I am a political dork/junkie that I got really excited when I read that and wanted to call everyone I knew. Wow. After at least a year of being a Dean supporter, I still find myself energized and psyched about his campaign. He makes mistakes sometimes and isn't always the best speaker, but he is so real and so charismatic. I think he will make a terrific president. If he doesn't win and none of the other democratic candidates win and we have to face four more years of the lunacy of Bush, I will have to seriously consider a move to someplace else... if other countries will still accept U.S. citizens at that point.

Recently I have been very much in need of serious intellectual stimulation. I think it has been too long since the glorious residencies in Bennington for graduate school. Those two weeks where I was so over-stimulated that I got my fill of talking to incredibly intelligent people about things I am passionate about (writing) for at least six months. Lately, other than long talks about the tax-exempt status of credit unions, I don't have tons of intellectual conversations. Not sure what the solution for this is. I would suggest going back to school... but I think I need to do something more amazing than that. I'll see what I can come up with.