Well...

Well, spring is finally here.  On May 6 I left home for 2 days - drove 90 miles south to Portland to attend the Maine State Democratic Convention - and when I got home, the tulips were lifting red and yellow heads in our back yard, and trees throughout the city had pushed out those lovely new pale fragile green leaves.  Two weeks later the new leaves are unfurling into darker green.

The convention was ... interesting.  I think back to being a child, my mother watching the political convention(s) on TV, all those people sitting in their state delegations, holding up signs with their candidates' names, cheering, clapping.  So fast forward to 2016, instead of state delegations, envision county delegations.  There were about 4,000 delegates, about 65% Bernie, 35% Clinton.  I heard later that 900 alternates for Bernie showed up.  (Alternates become delegates at the convention if a certified delegate doesn't show up.)  Ironically, in my view, the liveliest part of the convention were the debates on (1) a rules amendment proposed by Bernie supporters (to eliminate "super delegates" in 2020 and "strongly urge" current "super delegates" to vote in accordance with the popular vote in other words, for 3 of the 5 super delegates to support Bernie), and (2) proposed amendments to the Maine Democratic Party Platform that failed to pass the Platform Committee.  You get it?  The debate was on failed amendments.  To give you a flavor of the latter, we spent a "good" 30 minutes debating whether the party's platform position on extending Medicare "to all" should be qualified by the additional statement "starting with ages 0 to 25 and 55 to 65".

And then there were the speeches... speeches... and more speeches.  Barney Frank spoke in support of Clinton.  He was heckled by quite a number of Bernie supporters.  I personally thought he handled the heckling well, with irony and quite a bit of humor.  Which is more than I can say for the hecklers. The best speeches were Troy Jackson, former state legislator and state senator who is going to be a Maine representative to the Democratic National Party (and is a "super delegate" and very strong Bernie supporter), Chellie Pingree (my representative to Congress, also a "super delegate" and Clinton supporter) and Emily Cain, running for Congress in the 2nd district.  Here's the only photo from the convention - Troy Jackson's speech, not a great photo, but you get a sense of the "atmosphere" with 2 huge screens, bright lights, etc. etc. etc.

Interestingly, the biggest take-away for me from the experience was driving home to me the critical importance of LOCAL politics, wrenching control of the Maine state senate from Republicans and keeping and extending control of the legislature to enable override of the governor's predictable vetoes.  This year the legislature was able to override 2/3 of his vetoes, but that's not enough.  For one thing, he again (6th time?) vetoed expansion of Medicaid in connection with Obamacare.  This leaves something like 200,000 Mainers without health insurance - not poor enough for Mainecare, not enough income to buy Obamacare - but now subject to Obamacare tax/penalty.  Great system. ...

In other news...  my wonderful grandson, Cello, turned five.  For his birthday he received a telescope that is actually as tall as he is (he is an avid astronomy buff - has been for a whole year at least!) and his first bicycle:

With spring finally here, David made me a compost sifter and I began tackling the big job of sifting compost in one of our compost bins.  A morning's work earned me a wheelbarrow (see my beautiful new wheelbarrow!) full of compost:

Last weekend David wa\is off to Acadia National Park with 3 other guys.  The Park was shut down to car traffic on Saturday morning.  They drove up on Friday afternoon so they could start riding early Saturday to enjoy the Park car-free.

Finally, here is my beautiful new red kayak (skin-on-frame - actually, ballistic nylon, dyed and coated with polyurethane - Aleutian-style, on wood frame lashed together with synthetic sinew) made by my wonderful partner, David - on the shore, and  with me, paddling it.

I joined Instagram, although I can't say I understand it, but I joined to be able to see some photos that a friend only posts there.  It has motivated me to take photos of ... oddities ... and even make short videos ... to post there.  For those who haven't bowed down to the tech pressure and don't "enjoy" Instagram's world, here is an example of a photo and a short video:

Boat Bow

May the sun shine, the wind blow, the sea's tides come and go and may there be peace, peace, far and near.