our first visit to Mackee Auditorium

OK, forgive me the tardiness.  We've been busy!  What can I say?!!  What's been going on?  Well, we had a visit from my parents (thank you for coming!)... and loads of other stuff.  Did I take any pictures of us with my parents?  Of course not....
Tom and I had our first visit to CU's Mackee Auditorium.  It's GORGEOUS.  I would love to go back... for any number of concert activities -- there really isn't a bad seat in the house.

Now, it just so happens that we went to see the Indigo Girls -- playing with the CU orchestra.  It was awesome!  Tom really liked the orchestral score, and (of course) I like any venue for seeing the Indigo Girls....

Easter in Phoenix

We just got back from a very nice trip to Phoenix.  We enjoyed seeing Tom's family for Easter -- including our great-nephew, Maverick.

Of course, he didn't hunt for Easter "eggs;" he hunted for little plastic storm-trooper and Darth Vader heads that you can pop open (and therefore will hold candy), which he placed into his Minion "basket."  Isn't Disney amazing??

The good news is that it was a very warm, pleasant day -- which was very pleasant for sitting by the pool.  Did I take any pictures of the adults?  Of course not!

blizzard 2016

Last night when we went to bed, the weather report was that we should expect 3-5" of snow.  When I woke up this morning, I knew they were REALLY off!  The highways closed today... as did the airport.  (Don't worry; everything is already re-opened -- in plenty of time for our trip to Phoenix in 2 more days....)

Ultimately, I think we got something between 18"-24".  Here's our backyard shed.  Pretty cool, huh?

Last week, it had been 70 degrees -- so Tom made sure to put the cushions back out on the patio furniture.  Good thing!  Of course, tomorrow it's supposed to be 50 degrees & sunny....

first eggs of the season!

When we were at our neighborhood caucus, we ran in to Mark & Robin -- who are the ones who sell us eggs.  Typically, we don't expect to be able to buy eggs until after Easter (the chickens stop laying in the winter).  We were glad they mentioned to us that they've got plenty of eggs already:

Aren't they gorgeous?  I had sunny-side-up eggs today for lunch.  YUM.

spring snow

We've been enjoying sunny & 70 degree weather.... until a blast of spring snow!  It's pretty wet (typical for March); I think we got ~8".

Before shoveling, Tom got one ride down the driveway....

And then we had a nice walk in the neighborhood.

democracy in progress

Tom and I recently learned that Colorado is a caucus state (not a primary election state).  How could I have lived here nearly 10 years and not known that?  Well, among other things -- it changes from time to time.... because holding primaries is expensive.  So when states want to cut their budgets, they go to caucuses.
Although I have always voted in every general election, thanks to Donald Drumpf, this is the first time I have ever felt compelled to try to be remotely "more involved."  Yes, The Donald scares the bejeezus out of me.

So our neighbor walked with us to our local middle school -- where we were assigned to caucus.  The first part is what you would expect: get in line... sign in...

And then we all went into the gym/multipurpose room to get started.  Now, at this point, I have no idea why they had us sit by our precincts.  And also at this point I was thinking this was going to be grim.... as the microphone/PA wasn't working, and most people couldn't hear a darn thing.

Fortunately, that didn't matter too much -- because the "main event" wasn't really occurring at this point.  This part was simply the first stage of reading "the rules," etc., and "representative from each candidate" came up to speak (or in this case, shout as loud as they could, as I'd guess there were close to 1,000 people in the room).  Each "representative" had, I think, a 3 minute limit.  The guy speaking for Bernie was all about "revolution" and "passion." The woman speaking for Hillary was all about "experience" and "accomplishment."

After this, we all adjourned into our precinct-assigned middle-school classrooms.  I guess the cool thing was that it was standing room only (there was 71 eligible voters plus one grade-school child plus one "observer"); it's nice to know that people actually care!

After reading some more rules, the speaking began.  Anyone in the room had a chance to say anything they wanted about their candidate of choice.  Overall, I was quite impressed.

First of all, everyone pretty much stuck to the one-minute time limit.  Second, the conversation was, dare I say, civilized?  People actually talked about what was important to them, and why they thought one candidate vs the other would be more likely to be able to deliver on whatever "promise" they were talking about.  People talked about social security, environmental issues, big banks, Monsanto, education, gender equality, basic candidate honesty.... it ran the gamut.  I mostly agreed with just about everything everyone said: Bernie "had their hearts," but the cynics among us felt that Hillary was flat-out the more qualified candidate, and was also "more electable," despite the feeling in the room that she wasn't exactly someone to be proud of.
We then voted by "show of hands."  There was one undecided voter, so people got to speak again -- and, again -- I was impressed.  People didn't just repeat things or rant; for the most part -- different people felt "compelled" to speak.
We then voted a second time.  It was 38% Hillary vs 62% Bernie.  By our state's caucus rules, that meant that our precinct's two delegates would be assigned one to each candidate (I don't know what the threshold would have been for Bernie to actually be assigned both of our delegates).
Then we had to elect volunteers who will actually be our delegates -- who will go to the county and then the state meetings and "represent."  Interestingly, there is nothing that says that either of our two elected volunteers HAS to stick with their nominee -- they are just pledging that they most likely will.  I am quite confident that the Bernie representative will cast his delegate-vote for Bernie.  I'm pretty sure the Hillary delegate will stick with her...  I liked that particular volunteer-delegate a lot (he appeared seasoned, level-headed, and cynical... a good combination).
The whole process was just under 2 hours.  Then we walked home.