Big Sister

Happy Halloween

Pick out the pumpkin!
Originally uploaded by Big Sister.

I went to San Diego to visit my temporarily displaced brother, SIL, and niece a couple of weeks ago. We took a trip to the pumpkin patch, drove around, crawled in the mud, and ate HUGE breakfasts. San Diego might just be the king of breakfast towns.

My niece is pretty awesome. She does a lot of vocalizing. Things that tonally sound like "What is that?" come out more like "Aaaaaaa eeeee at?" And "give me your camera" sounds like, "SHRIEK!!!!!" She sings a wordless version of "Ring around the Rosies" and make the motorboat sound with her mouth quite proficiently. And, I just heard that she is up to taking six steps a time.

More pictures here.

The Greatest San Franciscan Hero

photo by Steve Rhodes
Some rights reserved

Some weeks ago, John and I went to a fundraiser for his work. Where he works doesn't matter, what the fundraiser was doesn't matter, what did matter was that there were a lot of older people at this event. Now I used to work with the elderly, so for me old doesn't even start until 70. So to be older, we're talking 80. 85. What also matters is that where John works is in District 5, home district of Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi.

For those of you not familiar with San Francisco politics, Ross Mirkarimi came to District 5 after Matt "the mayor of my heart" Gonzalez left politics. I was suspect of him at first because his campaign seemed to have something to do with pot clubs, which to me is a political irritant. Legalize it or don't, people, aren't we too grown-up for these kinds of squabbles? Plus, I live in District 11 so even if I cared about the District 5 Supervisor race, I couldn't do a damned thing about it.

As it turned out, Ross is a pretty decent supervisor. If nothing else he sponsored the no bag left behind measure. Plus, he's cute, just ask Emily. However, there is more to our loyal public servant than politics and intermittent facial hair. It turns out that whenever there's trouble, he's there on the double.

That night, at the fundraiser was no different. During the opening comments, the chair of the event was introducing the evening and working her way up to introducing the honorary chair of the event, Ross Mirkarimi, when I noticed an older man suddenly slump over in his chair. My first thought was, "Oh my god, that guy just died!" Two people on either side of him, maybe a son and/or daughter, tried to lift him so he was sitting up in the chair, but he kept slipping. Then, out of the shadows of the back of the room, leapt Supervisor/hero Mirkarimi! He stabilized the man in his chair, confidently instructed the other two people on how to lift the chair and they wisked the man out of the room!

Later, when Ross took the stage, he assured us that the man had merely fainted and that he was under his doctor's care. No thanks necessary.

Mild-mannered city super-visor or super-hero? You decide.

Dear readers of this blog,

I am sorry I have not written in so long. There's this 88-page albatross hanging around my neck at the moment that lets me go to work, eat, and occasionally knit. Somehow it is hard to write here when I know I should be revising there.

But, that is not what I came here for today. My knitting-romance-writing friend Rachael wrote a book that is in a contest that will get her manuscript seen by some big wig publishing types. While I am not a reader of romance novels, I have read these chapters and found them quite enjoyable. More importantly, I believe that good things should happen to good people. Rachael is good people. If you also believe this, read her message below, read her chapters and go give her second chapter a 10 (they only count 10s in this contest). You will have done a good deed!

Here's Rachael:

**************

Hi there.

Please forgive me for hijacking this blog (ed. I changed her text to say that--sorry, Rachael!) -- I have a favor to ask.

I'm in a competition you may have already heard about. I wrote a book, a romance, full of yarn and alpacas and sheep and hot knitter-on-shepherd action (no, really). I entered it in Gather.com's First Romance Competition. I posted the first chapter, and it garnered enough votes to move on to the second round (in the top 25 of more than 300), so I'm thrilled to say that I'm a finalist, with people now voting on the second chapter. It's kind of an American Idol type of thing, if you can imagine, and this second round is still vote-driven, and the the most important thing to know is that if I end up in the top three, with the most votes, I move on to the last round where THE WHOLE NOVEL IS READ BY SIMON & SCHUSTER and their favorite is published. Oh, my god. I would like that. I would love that.

So I need your vote. I *really* need your vote. I'm in the top four right now, and the three people ahead of me have LOTS of friends. I need to be in the top three to move on, and you will make ALL the difference.

Here's what you do: Read chapter one, but don't vote on it. That one is nice and content and voted on as it is. Please ignore the typos. They hurt my soul, but they're there.

Then read chapter two and please DO vote. If you like the chapter at all, please give it a 10, as they only count 10s (they throw out all votes of 1-9). The chapters with the most 10-votes win.

Even though I know you want to, don't vote more than once, since they're watching for IP fraud. And you DO have to register with their site in order to vote, but they won't spam you, and they don't share or sell email addresses. They will send you a daily email which you can easily opt out of.Oh, please, please? And will you forward this note on if you like the chapter? To all YOUR email contacts?

Thanks so much. Here you go:

Don't vote on chapter one:

http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977094360

DO VOTE on chapter two:

http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977126255

All my thanks. Really, ALL my thanks. It means so much. Whoo-hooo!

xo
Rachael