No more posts (lame or otherwise) until my new four-legged houseguest starts behaving. She's a bit of a distractation, to say the least. Naughty, naughty kitty.

Pennsylvania's primary election is May 17. Here's what Montgomery County has to look forward to. If you're on the East side of the Delaware River, your primary's on June 7. Big-ticket decisions have to be made both in PA and NJ. Please, please -- especially if you're Republican and have a little bit of grey matter to toss around -- get involved and get out and vote. The general election will be tough enough: We need the best possible candidates standing for us, and good people willing to back them up.

I recently described this Web log to a friend (I rarely speak of it at all) as a housewife-type blog. That is emphatically not an insult to housewives, by the way. This was to someone who seems to perennially expect great things -- or at least something substantial -- from me. I described it as I did because I didn't want this person coming here expecting up-to-the minute news analysis, investigative reporting or, frankly, any real pot-stirring or muckraking. Blogs are an inherently personal medium, and reading them is still a chancy enterprise. There are bloggers who intentionally put out nastiness and bloggers who put out what purports to be news with a much, much more obvious bias than the mainstream media has ever shown my still relatively tender eyes and ears. I do not intend to be either nasty or invisibly biased. I certainly have a point of view, but, in truth, I'm writing something akin to a journal with the awareness that others could chance upon it. Now that this person has dragged out of me the fact that I still occasionally write, I suppose a few people may occasionally read me on purpose. And that's fine, but this darned thing is still just a place to catch my impressions and string together a few thoughts. If you like it, too, well ... great. Now I'm just going to settle back down into this mercifully peaceful Central Pennsylvania household, and prepare for a good, long day of touring the commonwealth to celebrate the mothers in my family.

Bla, bla, blog! Well, I did find some time away from work this week: for a quasipolitical event. The Montgomery County (Pa.) Young Republicans has moved its meeting night to one that's possible for me to attend. And thus, to celebrate the event and ensure I could be there without fail, I left my job a bit early. [cue the celestial music ... ] But the great leisure of time away from work being what it is, I ended up picking up some free wood by the side of the road (and having a great Terry Schiavo chat with the chap who was offloading it) and expanding other tasks to more than fill my so-called free time. I was [gasp!] slightly late for the meeting. Nonetheless, it was outstanding. The scheduled speaker, a congressman who will want some grassroots help in his reelection efforts for his third term, sent his community outreach fellow in his stead. But, God willing, he'll still get the help he needs. And many of the same old gang are there. Plus, the new GOP crop looks promising: The key is to give them something to do and keep them busy. And keep them coming in. It doesn't hurt if they have a beer or a Pepsi in their hand, and somebody standing next to them who has something interesting to say, either. That's what kept me going to meetings even when the speakers were occasionally quite dry. On an entirely unrelated and absolutely personal note, I have been given a cat. I never said I wanted a cat. I did say I would take this one, but I honestly never expressed a desire for one. I do, however, think that both my dog and I will make it through this difficult transitional period with grace and style. Vaughn and I will keep her. She's a calico: white, ginger and black. Her name is O'Neill for (Are you sitting down?) both Paul O'Neills, Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill, Jr. and Neal Peart. And Patricia Neal, too, I guess. But she's becoming known as Neala, and I think she likes it as well as any creature likes a name. Incidentally, Vaughn, my Dalmatian, was named for Sarah and Stevie Ray. And sometimes I fib and say he was also named for Mo. I'll post photos of the beasts if I ever stop being too lazy to look into photo hosting.