Posting for Obama, meeting cute animals, w/pics

Explanation of this picture and many others below.

I'm starting to grow weary of the constant refrain from people who say that we all need to give up fighting for our preferred candidate in the primaries because it is "distracting" us from doing other good things. I'd like to argue that it is possible to walk and chew gum at the same time.

I have a full-time job. In addition, I run a part-time screenprinting business out of my garage. So I'm starting out with about 55 hours a week spoken for. Plus I have a great GF who also gets a big chunk of my time. So I'll hear none of that "liberal slacker in pajamas" BS, thanks.

Disclaimer: I am not asking anyone for a pat on the back here. I am merely trying to demonstrate that working hard to get Obama elected doesn't interfere with the rest of one's life. I'm sure 10,0000 other people here can post similar stories about what they've been doing with the rest of their time (and please feel free to do so, I'd love to read them)

On Saturday, I posted a diary entry, basically asserting that the reason big-name Dems like Gore or Edwards can't come out to endorse Obama (whether they would or not is another issue) is that it would further alienate those women who are supporting HIllary because they really believe she embodies their own hopes and dreams. Of course, like every candidate diary, people found ways to be offended by it. I did have time, however, to post plenty of replies.

Given that my state (VA) has already voted, and I hate phone banking, I knew if  I wanted to do something real to help out I was going to have to do some driving. So last Sunday (the 23rd), I drove up to Springfield, PA to help out with voter registration in advance of the March 24th deadline. I got up at 8am. Normally Sunday morning is when I catch up on sleep so the first stop was Starbucks.

The trip around the DC beltway, up 95 past Baltimore, through Delaware and into southern PA went by rather quickly. Probably it was the average speed of traffic at the time:

(this picture is strictly for illustration purposes and if anyone asks, it certainly wasn't the speed I was going in my car, or anything...but people were passing me anyway).

Finally, I arrived at the Springfield, PA Obama office:

Since I knew the basics, it was a quick lesson in specific PA voter registration issues (such as, in Delaware County PA, for many years if you were not registered Republican, people would openly deny you employment, even try to keep 911 from responding quickly to your house. Supposedly, the local population contains one of the highest percentages of African-American "Republicans" in the country. But to vote in the primary, people had to switch their registration), then I was off to my voter registration outpost--the Sav-a-Lot store:

It being Easter Sunday, few people were coming in until close to 2pm. There were two other people sent from another office, but still I did manage to register 7 people (3 new, 3 party switch, one change of address) in an hour. After a while I decided that I should go look for a location that wasn't already covered by other people, and tried a K-Mart down the street, but they asked me to leave pretty quickly. Back at the office, I then spent some time doing the most exciting thing in the world--data entry. (I had a photo here but I realised it wasn't as blurry as I thought and you could read the info on the screen).

It was getting dark and I had a long drive home, so around 7 I hit the road back to VA.
Total time driving: 5 hours
Total time volunteering: 7 hours
Was it worth it? Hell yes.
(I later got an email saying that Delaware County registered 6,500 new Democratic voters just that Saturday and Sunday, which was amazing considering it was Easter weekend)

BUT WAIT

So, some would have us believe that spending all my time posting for Obama or volunteering for his campaign means that I don't have time to do anything else worthwhile, right?

Tuesday morning, when I was pulling out of my driveway, I saw a dead squirrel lying in the road. It didn't look like it had been hit by a car, there were no signs of...being run over. It looked as if perhaps it had just fallen out of a tree from a sufficient height to actually not make it. I love squirrels, and this struck me as extremely sad, but rushing to work left little time to ponder the mystery further.

When I got home that evening, though, there was an entire squirrel nest lying in my driveway. I could only guess that this, too, had been blown there out of the tall tree in my yard. I wondered if there had been any babies inside, so I kind of rolled it over with my foot. And, lo, the bottom of the nest fell apart, and there on the ground was...

I looked around and saw no sign that any adult squirrels or other nests were around. Knowing that my neighbors cats are rather aggressive hunters, I figured I really should get him inside, since his eyes were only starting to open.

I grew up on a horse farm, so I know something about baby animals, but wild creatures are different, and this young I figured I needed to find someone who knew what they were doing to take him asap, even though he was terribly cute.

In the mean time, though, I put part of his nest and a heating pad into a box to keep him safe and warm.

It turned out that the local wild animal rescue people don't answer their hotline after 6pm in the winter months, so I had to keep him overnight and find something to feed him. The first night it took a long time to get him to drink from a bottle, but the second night, he was quite eager to help me mix the formula.


(powdered goats-milk Esbilac mixed with cream and water)

By the time I dropped him off later that night with a nice woman named Grace who does full time squirrel rehab, both of his eyes were fully opened, and he was super frisky.

As a closing note, I'd mention that I did only read a few diaries here, and only manged to post 2 comments while I had the baby squirrel at my house, but CAN YOU BLAME ME??? LOOK AT THAT CUTE FACE!!!

More pictures of the squirrel are on my multiply page