I'm Back!!

I'm back from my annual trip to the Americans United for Separation of Church and State meeting in DC. It was great to see many of my old blog buddies, including Fran of There Will Be Bread , Doctor Z, Beth of Yikes!, Tim of Jesus General (where, if you look closely, you can see a picture of me...) and especially my friend Alicia Morgan of Last Left Turn Before Hooterville, who was this year's recipient of the annual -- and prestigious -- AU "Postie" Award for the best blog against theocracy.

So Alicia -- you go, girlfriend!. Now my goal for this year is to be next recipient of the award, but as a cursory examination of any of the Bloggers Against Theocracy blogs in the right column will show, it's a tough field to compete in.

I even had the opportunity to do some lobbying with my two senators, Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, over the issue of school vouchers in the DC school system. Not with the senators themselves, of course, but with their staff. And I learned that senators can't pick their neighbors -- directly across the hall from Patty Murray's office was the office of Tom Coburn (R-Idiot).

Anyway, after a lo-o-o-o-ong cross-country flight from Washington DC to Seattle by way of Charlotte NC(!) sitting directly in front of a screaming baby who squalled for three of the five+ hours we were in the air (he even got around my iPod's in-the-ear headphones with the volume turned all the way up; I was listening to opera, on the theory that if I had to listen to screaming, at least it would be set to music...) I got home about midnight Tuesday, only to have to turn around and go back to the airport the next day to pick up my son who flew in from Alaska.

So I'm still in recovery, but I'll be back full time in a few days.

As always, thanks for reading.