Where the Candidates Stand

You guys are asking great questions about our next president and vice president!! I love engaged voters! I will answer them later in the post.

First, a Halloween ditty, and later, a little message to the bikers of Austin. Stay tuned.

Okay - I first saw these A Muse Halloween images on Julie HRR's blog and just adored them! Luckily a local stamp store had them in stock. I think I'll be making some of these for Maker Faire.

I colored them with Copics, including the shadows. I punched out a circle with my 1" punch from Whisper White for the moon and made a shadow on it with my Copic Cool Grey #1. I faux stitched around the top note with my white gel pen. Very simple and quick card, and MAN are those trick-or-treaters cute!!! Look at the little devils - adorable!!! They look like they walked out of Where the Wild Things Are..

Okay - let's talk about the Prez & VP. First of all, the little INSOMNIBEESTS got me up at 3 AM!! So the whole 3 AM phone call scenario where the red phone goes off and we need someone who can find it and answer the call - NO PROBLEM FOR MADDIE & SPLOTCHY - THEY'RE ALREADY UP BATTING THE PHONE AROUND AND DOING EXTREME WRESTLING AND AERIAL ACROBATICS. That is the kind of readiness we need in the White House. A wing of the White House that is preferably sound proofed and features some sort of cat airlock that keeps them from escaping and being noisy elsewhere.

The issues you are concerned about are lined up as follows:

Birds - against.
Naps - for.
Vacuum cleaners - against, but not because they're scared of them. (grr...)
Solution for the economy - sell America's dogs on Ebay to the highest bidders.
Mean bikers - against.
Catnip - legalized at last!

The town hall meeting for the Maddie/Splotchy team is now open - feel free to ask the candidates anything you want. Cats Across America tour begins in a week as soon as we can find a bus big enough for all their toys.

Now - a word or two to Austin's biking community. Austin loves their bikers. We are a bike friendly city, to say the least, although there is a group of people who are mean to bikers for whatever reason, which is really awful. And I'm talking about bicycles, not motorcycles.

However, there is an issue that makes me mad every weekend, so here's my open letter to the bicyclists.

I walk about 30 miles every weekend to train for my 60 mile walk in November. I leave at 6 AM and get home at about 11. I'm lucky enough to live in an area which has striped off bike/walk lanes in the street so the streets are pretty wide. When you walk 5 hours in one day, you understand the difference between walking on a concrete sidewalk and walking on asphalt with every bone, tendon and muscle in your body. I walk facing traffic for my safety and also so that I can hop on the curb when a biker comes.

HOWEVER, despite the fact that I get up onto the grass when I am within 20 yards of an oncoming biker, some bikers with really bad attitudes sometimes yell obscenities at me, or give me dirty looks or, like the guy yesterday, glare AND spit!!

For whatever reason, this militant contingent of bikers is completely offended that anyone who is not a biker has occupied the road they are riding on - EVER. Now, they can travel in packs of 40 bikers that take up all the bike lane and most of the regular traffic lane and that's no problem, but if there is evidence that someone has WALKED over the ground they will be riding in five minutes from now, it requires extreme rudeness and hatred.

Now of course they're not all like this - lots of the regular people I see say Good morning, or wave, or comment on the length of my walk, etc. and are my little biker friends. But there are these few buttheads that really need a lesson in etiquette. So to the butthead bikers, I say - get over yourselves. If you think that people don't like you because you're a biker, you're wrong. We love our bikers. People don't like you because you're an....

Be nice.

That's Maddie & Splotchy's campaign slogan.

Well, that and WILL YOU PLEASE WAKE UP RIGHT NOW AND FIND MY MOUSE THAT I BATTED UNDER THE COUCH.

Have a great Sunday! Thanksgiving cards up later today!