Liberals

Well, we finally met some other liberals in Ridgecrest. There's a group that meets once a month (sometimes they take the summer months off) for a potluck and socializing and discussion of some topic of interest. Rocket Boy heard about them through the local Democrats group and we finally managed to get ourselves invited to the January meeting, this past Friday.

I was so looking forward to it. Got a babysitter lined up, made a pan of brownies. Of course something had to go wrong and it did: I came down with a cold. I really shouldn't have gone, I was so sick. But I wanted to, so much. I just really really really wanted to spend time with some people who didn't vote for George W. Bush (either time) and who didn't belong to some fanatical Christian church and who maybe didn't even think it was so great to shop at Wal-Mart. So we went.

After such a build-up in my mind, I suppose it was inevitable that it was a little disappointing. I didn't find a soulmate. I didn't actually talk to very many people because I was trying to keep from spreading my germs.

Off-the-cuff observations: I heard several European accents. Of course. Of course a liberals group would be full of Europeans. The food struck me as very liberal: there were interesting salads with unusual ingredients, there was a bowl of brussels sprouts, there was a fish dish, there were many bottles of wine. (I tried to imagine what a conservative potluck would be like: meat and potatoes, potato chips, beer.) The house we were in was obviously inhabited by a Buddhist: prayer flags strung across the kitchen doorway, books about Buddhism on the coffee table, pictures on the walls, etc. The women, though nicely dressed, did not appear to be wearing a lot of makeup or hairspray.

Disappointments: almost everyone was old. We might have been the youngest people there, or nearly. Everyone I did talk to seemed to like it here. I had so been hoping to meet someone who doesn't like Ridgecrest either. The discussion wasn't very stimulating. They were talking about a solar energy project that is planned for an area of the desert where there are a lot of desert tortoises and other animals. I was glad to learn about the problem and do plan to write a letter to the relevant authorities, etc., etc., but there wasn't much scope for argument, if you see what I mean. They were preaching to the choir.

But it was nice to be a member of the choir, for once, in Ridgecrest.

And there's always next month.