The Slow Return to Normality

See, I’m enough of a linguistic purist that I won’t even use the more common “normalcy,” largely because that word came into usage as the result of a malapropism: Warren G. Harding used it — and was appropriately ridiculed — instead of the correct “normality” in his campaign for the 1920 presidency, and somehow it just stuck. Next thing you know, we’ll start using “strategery.” In other breaking news, I can be a stubborn S.O.B.

Well, we ended up spending the whole weekend cleaning up after the hurricane. Not a lot of fun when you’re still battling head congestion — a condition I was able to pass along to Pam as well. Oh joy. No major damage, mostly just a big mess, though the kids did lose their tree-swinging branch. Power, water, and phone are all back; and now that the water-boiling mandate has been lifted, we’re pretty much back to pre-Isabel conditions. Alas, my folks were dismayed to learn that their Lake Anna house was more seriously hit — they lost a good section of their deck, the hot tub is probably kaput, and the “level” alarm (the house is elevated, on a steep incline) won’t stop going off. Makes me feel a lot better about our own situation.

So now it’s back to work, trying to make up for lost time. I’ll write some more after I catch up a bit, but in the meantime, there’s a pretty good article in the Post about the Dean campaign’s mobilization of a grassroots campaign via the ’net. Worth a read.

And if anyone else is interested, as part of its “September to Remember” push, the campaign’s really trying to generate $5 million before the fast-approaching FEC filing deadline. So if you can contribute anything, it would be greatly appreciated. Hey, I’ll even make it easier for you (okay, I don’t know how this is necessarily easier, but go with me here). I’ve signed up as a Dean Team Leader, and I’ve set up a quick Contributions tab on the left-hand side there. Just click on the link — at any time — to go directly to my personalized Howard Dean campaign fund-raising page. I’ve got a goal and everything. Not that I’m counting on a whole lot here (and remember, I don’t receive anything personally for this), but your contributions can truly help reduce the embarrassment factor at having little George represent our nation to the world.

Not wanting to end on a note of solicitation, I’ll mention that K Street is still kicking ass — who’d have figured that they could incorporate Wesley Clark’s entry into the presidential race and Isabel into this week’s episode. When do they have time to edit this thing? I must say that I’ll be very sorry when its nine-episode run is over...