Veering off the Campaign Trail

Hello, friends, family, comrades, fellow members of the DIP!

I apologize that I wound up not campaigning yesterday, or today. There were internal affairs to attend to, and the outcome has been both difficult and yet very positive.

I think the best way to explain it is to say that my bride of thirty-seven years, seven months and nine days, who is my partner in all things. has quit her job to be my campaign director. There is a pay cut involved, but the alternative was proving way too costly in other parts of her -- read that, OUR -- life. Money is not everything. Neither is winning.

And yet, we have won a great victory. Choosing to retire is always a difficult decision. It was time to step away from life as a veternary technician and embrace the new life ahead.

As First Lady.

After all, who in their right minds would not want two near-poverty retirees running the country? We understand! We get it! We know what the real world is like and we will never lose touch with it, no matter how high a salary the President of the United States makes.

Then, of course, there is our grandson Xander, who is a full time job for all of us -- his parents and both sets of grandparents. It takes a village, and we are that, the six of us, plus aunts and uncles and cousins. Diane will have the joys of being able to focus all her energies and her considerable talents on Xander, helping him learn and grow and interact according to his parents' wishes, helping to provide the young man with a strong foundation and to promote the caring heart that already beats within him.

As Xander prepares for school, and as the world around him begins to expand,his Oma will be there for him.

Once upon a time, Diane told me that the woes that befell us two years ago in Salinas, when I lost my job through an act of hubris, it turned out to be the best worst thing that could have happened to us. It brought us here. Leaving her employment can only enhance that new reality.

Electing me President wouldn't hurt, either. Or maybe it would, but I already have the gray hair.