Westmoreland Asays

I enjoyed being in election limelight for the week--a good thing, because we Oregonians probably won't see this for another 40 years or so. I found it interesting that Obama won the urban areas so easily--except Salem, where it was neck-in-neck--so my vote was in a sense even more important (at least in my mind). During this last week, I received probably 10 phone calls from the Democrats asking for whom I was voting (and one in-person visit); most were from the Obama camp, but one representative from the other group insulted my intelligence and tried to shame me for my choice--I could totally feel the love. I really hope Obama doesn't pick her as his running mate . . . I see no way that WarMonger II wins Oregon in November (save all Portlanders die in an apocalyptic firestorm)--he'll probably lose by double digits--so this was probably the last attention we'll get. But it was a fun ride while the fervor lasted.

At least, that's what the boys would say--hey, it's one of the few scriptures I've memorized, so I like to quote it whenever I can. My friend Brent (and his boy, a friend and peer of Aaron) picked up WeThreeBoys after work on Friday, and we drove to Fishermens Bend, about 30 miles east of Salem, for a father-and-son campout. Even though temperatures were hovering in the 90's for most of the day, it felt refreshing to spend so much time in the open air (although it was noticeably cooler away from the valley, especially near the Santiam River). The boys showed off their personalities like I would have expected: Aaron immediately found friends to play with and was literally running around playing games until about 11:00 p.m. At one point he found me at the tent and told me he was having trouble breathing, but he was fine after taking his asthma medication. Most of the kids were strangers to him and probably a few years older, but that has never stopped Aaron from socializi

With the mistress still out of town, I wanted to have some long-overdue fun with the boys--especially after having to dump them off at a friend's house three full days this week so I could work. We dumped the kids off at someone's house last Saturday so we could go to the temple, and that family was going to take Aaron to one of their son's baseball games. Because of some problems, he wasn't able to go--and it really disappointed him. So I thought to make it up to him with an even better brand of baseball: Saxon (who are first in league and top 10 in state). I picked up the boys at their friends' house around 4:00 p.m. (where they were both reported to be rather sad for much of the day; even though they haven't mentioned their mother at any point during her absence--not even a "When's Mom coming home?"--I think they long for her return). We were all so hungry, we ate at Arby's (well, we got take out anyway). The baseball game had just started w