Thursday evening, June 21st, was the monthly core team meeting for NYDoP at our usual location. The Core Team warmly welcomed a new member [ie: Charlene H] to our group, who learned about Dept of Peace via Marianne Williamson and Neal Donald Walsh. We had a lot on our agenda [ie: ListServe, Sept Peace Event, fundraisers, conferences] and we got cracking on being productive; as well as have a fun, sociable two hours. As I’ve said in the past, it’s an honor and joy working with such terrific individuals.
Friday, June 22nd, I did volunteer work for City Harvest at Union Square farmers market.
On Saturday, June 23rd, I invited Jackie over for movie night. We noshed chicken, salad, wine and ice cream while watching “The Pianist” and “Memoirs of a Geisha”. It was my first time seeing the latter film and I enjoyed it very much. I’d read the book about a year ago and found it fascinating. Recently Jackie started doing volunteer work at an animal shelter in Manhattan and is enjoying the work. She filled me in on what it’s like working in a shelter that specifically helps cats. She adores cats and has two at her apartment. Sounds like alot of work, but one which Jackie is enjoying very much and I'm happy for her.
On Monday evening, June 25th, I attended an event at the Iguana Bar & Grill. Democrat presidential candidate, Congressman Kucinich & his wife Elizabeth were to speak. The group DLC21 was hosting it and I learned about event the week before via Rob Jereski, plus I shared the info with my NYC friends and Kucinich meetup team. Ran into some familiar faces at the event … Jessica, Paul, Cielito, Grace, BC, Dan J and a few others whose names I don’t recall. Good turnout of people from DLC21. We were all socializing, drinking and eating nachos while waiting for the congressman to show up. He finally showed up [20+ minutes late] walking through the crowd shaking hands and making small talk. His wife Elizabeth followed behind and it was my first time seeing her in person. She is about 6 feet tall with lovely, long red hair and is an attractive English woman. Up on the small stage with a microphone the congressman spoke on several important issues for 10 minutes and then 10 minutes of a Q&A. Elizabeth also spoke briefly and with feeling about 9/11. Then they left to head off to another event. It was great to see the congressman and he looked energized. About 20 minutes later, after an interesting conversation with Jessica and Paul, I started to head out of the bar. I stopped briefly to converse with the DLC21 organizers and mentioned that I’m organizer with NYC Kucinich meetup. They were pleased to meet me and wondered if I take the left over campaign materials. Absolutely! We can definitely utilize at our meetups and for future tabling during DJKs campaign. To learn more about the Kucinich presidential campaign, go to: http://kucinich.us/
Wednesday, June 27th, I had lunch with fellow Kucitizen [Stephanie] regarding meetup and campaign organizing for DJK. Her comments and advice were most helpful. Plus, she mentioned I get in touch with her husband about the 2004 NYC Kucinich volunteer listing. We definitely need help from volunteers this fall when we do petitioning to get the congressman on the ballot. The NY State primary is in early February 2008.
From June 30th through July 3rd I spent the long, relaxing holiday weekend with my parents in upstate NY. Some of the things Mom and I did were go to a few garage sales, visit Yaddo Gardens in Saratoga Springs, visit the gardens of Hildene estate in VT [photos below], have lunch in Manchester or just relax on the back porch. My parents also have cable TV and I viewed some of my fav channels/networks. I also purchased beads at Over the Moon and visited a hair salon.
[Duchess at the Yaddo Gardens in Saratoga Springs, NY]
[Lovely view of Hildene estate in Manchester, VT]
During evening of July 3rd and July 4th I had a “Gilmore Girls” season one DVD marathon. The weather was overcast, cool and abit wet on the 4th, so doing anything outdoors wasn’t appealing.
Thursday evening, July 5th, was the monthly NYC Kucinich presidential campaign meetup at Bonobo’s. This was my second meetup as organizer and the responsibility is weighty. The turnout was small, but all were very enthusiastic and ready to get working on the campaign. Main topics of discussion [after I handed out campaign materials] were NY primary, delegates, Democrat convention, Scooter Libby, impeach Cheney, media, Iraq and DJKs MySpace. Also, one of the team members [Ben] is working on wallet size postcards with DJK info to hand out to New Yorkers. Overall a good meeting and I hope going forward the momentum picks up.
On Wednesday, July 11th, I attended the DFNYC meetup in Greenwich Village with another Kucitizen [Lane], as we were working on spreading the word on Kucinich’s campaign. [We handed out buttons and flyers.] Usually I go to the DFNYC meetups in Park Slope, but felt it was important to branch out. This particular meetup is held at Kettle of Fish bar and it’s a really cool place. I liked the atmosphere immediately and “thank you Lane” for the glass of wine. This DFNYC meetup had a good turnout of 10+ people and it’s hosted by Abhishek. One of the main topics of discussion, and it was a heated one, revolved around whether Cheney should be impeached or not. Abhishek took a poll and half of us were for impeachment, while the others were for staying the course. I’m 100% for impeaching Darth Cheney, as he’s one of the main causes of all the insanity going on since January 2001. One of the attendees passed around a survey and asked us to fill out who we want as presidential candidate out of the Democrats. Put down our first and second choices. Most of us choose either Kucinich or Al Gore.
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