I can't sleep and it's all Obama's fault... and no, I'm not a concern troll or suffering from insomnia.
I can't sleep because I had a very busy week and I am way behind on finishing up some very important work that I've got to have finished by 9:00am tomorrow morning.
I know you're probably wondering what could possibly be so important that it would keep me up until 5:00am when I've got to be up so early the next day and how could it possibly in any way have anything to do with Senator Obama?
The answer is simple:
Parades.
As I mentioned earlier, I was busy this week and as a result preparations that I typically do earlier in the week have been put off until today.
I am on my county party's parade committee and I take my commitments to my party seriously. I'm sure those of you that have never been in charge of organizing for your local party's parade entry are probably wondering what could possibly be that hard about preparing for a parade?
The truth is, it's really not that hard to prepare for a parade... Well it's not that difficult IF you don't wait until the last minute to do everything, like I did this week.
If you do wait until the day before the parade to get ready, then you'll find yourself up until 5:00am desperately trying to get everything ready for the next morning and let me tell you... It's not fun.
So now that I've told you why I'm up this late, I figured I'd also give you a brief overview of what it is I'm doing in the wee hours of the day.
The most important reason I can't sleep is freeze-pops.
Yes, you heard me... Freeze-pops.
For those of you that don't know, freeze-pops take awhile to freeze and if you put them in your freezer early enough their long freeze time isn't much of a problem... but if you wait until the afternoon before you need your freeze-pops to be frozen, then you're going to find yourself checking your freezer every hour and a half to rotate your freeze-pops around putting the frozen pops on the bottom of the pile and moving the unfrozen pops in the center to the top of the pile.
You get to keep doing this all day long and all night, until all your freeze-pops are frozen... and if you're lucky (like I am) and you have extremely cool parents and siblings, you'll be able to send 600 or so freeze-pops to your brother's and parent's house and get them to help you with your last minute freeze-pop rotation schedule. :-)
If you've ever wondered what 1000 freeze-pops stuffed into a freezer all at once looks like... Well, it looks a lot like this...
(I actually have my icemaker turned off, dumped all of the ice out of it and have it stuffed with freeze-pops! Let no one tell you that I don't go the extra mile for my party!)
I know, I know... Why don't I just buy candy to pass out at the parade?
Because everybody passes out candy and I like the fact that the Democrats are the only ones passing out the totally awesome popsicles on a blazing hot day and therefor we are the favorites of everyone in the crowd. Plus... people talk and if you're giving out crappy candy or heaven forbid not giving out any candy at all (like the local republican party)... Then word spreads up and down the parade route about the dickheads that either gave crappy treats or no treats at all.
You're in the parade for one reason and one reason only and that is to garner good P.R. for your party among your community... Blending in with the crowd by passing out the same thing as every other parade entry doesn't get you noticed, not passing out anything does get you noticed alright, but noticed for being the asshole that didn't pass out any treats and if you're the only entry passing out freeze-pops on a hot muggy day... That automatically makes you the coolest people in the entire parade!
Another reason I am still up is because I had to make 12 t-shirts for the 12 munchkins that will be helping to carry our banners and pass out all those freeze-pops.
Sure the shirts aren't really necessary, but they're awfully damned cute and always get rave reviews.
Here's a few pictures of the shirts and some of the kiddos that wear them...
In this pic the kids are wearing their customized Dan Scripps t-shirts and carrying our county party's banner. Dan is running for State Rep in Michigan's 101st State House District and is a fantastic guy. I can't wait until he's my State Rep!
(Isn't our county logo great? Little known fact... Dkos' very OPOL made it for me. A few years back when I was still a lurker on daily kos and was designing my county party's website I wanted a really cool banner with our county's most famous landmark on it. The only problem was I hadn't figured out how to use photoshop yet and had no clue how to transform my idea into a reality... I had always admired OPOL's artwork and got the impression that he was a really cool guy from his posts on dkos and figured I'd just send him an email and ask him if he could help me, which he did and I sent him some Michigan fudge in return. He didn't know me from Adam and took time out of his life to help out a local Democratic Party in a county he'd likely never visit. He's just the best... So anyway, that's the story of how the Manistee County Democratic Party got it's extremely cool party logo.)
This is the shirts from the back... They're our official parade staff!
This one's a close-up of my niece Cecelia in her Dan Scripps shirt... Isn't she adorable?
This one is of the front of the Obama shirts I just made for the kids to wear tomorrow.
And here's the back of the Obama shirts.
See... I told you they were pretty damned cute shirts and well worth all the hassle!
And now I'll throw in a gratuitous pictures of my ever-lovin' hubby wearing the Obama t-shirt I bought for him at the Obama/Edwards Rally just because it's my diary and I can add whatever the hell I want to... :-)
So there you go folks, now you know why I'm still up at 4:00am and why it's at least partially Obama's fault, because if he weren't such a great candidate, I wouldn't have to stay up all hours to make sure we put on a good showing for him while we're out in our community representing him.
If any of you happen to have a few extra bucks and are feeling generous, the Manistee County Democratic Party accepts donations through PayPal and we are always extremely grateful for any support we receive... Freeze-pops and t-shirts aren't cheap you know!