WeirdOWriMo

So, last night a group of us from NaNoWriMo met up at a Camille's in Central Park here in Fredericksburg. I picked it since last year we went to Panera, and Panera was packed, and I've never seen that many people in Camille's. I knew it would be quiet.

So we are sitting around and a woman from the paper is there snapping pictures of men in suits. A man comes around and hands us pamphlets detailing the Principles of Freedom.

Go figure, didn't we stumble into the Republican post-election returns watching party?!

Me, of all people.

And we were just sitting there, discussing writing, but since Camille's was "CLOSED FOR PRIVATE EVENT", they all assumed we belonged there.

Our congresswoman recently passed away from cancer, so the Republican candidates were swarming around us, asking us to become delegates to the convention to decide which Republican will run for her seat. Now, I almost considered it, seriously it would be interesting to get in on somethng like that, but a) I am not a Republican [nor am I a Democrat either, for those of you wondering, I'm a registered independent] and b) I would feel as if I sold my soul to Satan.

So, apparently last night was a very bad night for Republicans in the state of Virginia. I don't know much about state politics--shame on me, I work for the government!--but they were all hugging and "this is just a temporary setback" and "sorry man, we did the best we could" and "we lost the Senate", which one guy optimistically took to mean that they had only lost the seat locally, but in fact apparently meant that the majority on the State Senate is now democratic.

Then I had to sit there and deal with these slick types coming up to the table, asking for our vote and one guy actually wanted us to know that he'd been working with both Presidents Bush. I was thinking, "Boy, Johnny, you are really barking up the wrong tree with that one" until I leaned over to my fellow NaNo and made a comment about Bush being the AntiChrist and she informed me that Bush was OK, it was Cheney who was so bad. Ummmm, OK. I don't disagree about Cheney being the grand puppetmaster, but Bush is probably the worst pres...well, let's not get started down that road.

What was particularly rich was when one candidate came to inform us that his party was the party that liked Americans to keep their own money in their own pockets. I didn't have a chance to get a word in edgewise, but had I been, I would have said, "Mister, I don't know a politician yet who's going to give me anything without raising my taxes or increasing the deficit. How do you propose to give me something for nothing? Because I want to get on board that gravy train."

Anyway, courtesy of the Republican Party we were offered free food and I stuck it out as long as I could--10pm, which I thought was damned good. Hopefully next week when we meet up, we won't have the Right to Life Party knocking down the doors over there. On the plus side, Camille's stayed open nice and late, so we got to stay later to discuss writing.