The Teal Party and Pantheacon

Recuperating from Pantheacon and my birthday dinner (with many thanks to my daughter-in-law Elisabeth for a yummy caramel cake and Lorrie for selecting, planning and serving while simultaneously performing arcane operations on all our computers). We had salmon, green long beans with mushrooms, wild rice, carrots and celery heart roasted with chicken and of course ice creram and cake. I should point out that the beans, mushrooms, rice, and celery and chicken were grown within a hundred miles. The salmon was wild-caught from Alaska.

Shanta and Erynn are still here (Elisheva left this morning to get home for the birthday of her husband, which is also today), so the Pantheacon party continues. It was a great event once more, with the largest attendance ever (2700), so all the presentations were well-attended. Our seidh session went smoothly, and I enjoyed doing a workshop on “Runic Dyads” (not tree spirits – Runic dryads) but a look at the way rune meanings shift depending on what other runes they are paired with.

Weiser Books and Llewellyn both sent editors, and Fields books sponsored book signings, so the pagan publications end of things was much more in evidence than usual– this caused me some confusion, as I am accustomed to talking about writing at SF conventions while wearing my writer hat, not my priestess cord. I handed out lots of “Welcome to Westria” and “Burn Rome” (in honor of Ravens of Avalon) ribbons, and collected a lot. I ended up with a string of 30, and am thinking of making them into a vest. By Bay-con I want to have some that say, “The Teal Party Wants You” or some such, as well.

According to the lot casting Elie did, I am supposed to lead more boldly, so I’d like to draw your attention to a SF Chronicle article sent me by a friend. According to the Chron,

“Wednesday, February 14, 2007 (SF Chronicle)
Ex-Iowa Gov. Vilsack offers plan to cut greenhouse gases
Carla Marinucci, Chronicle Political Writer

Former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack — staking his ground in the Democratic
presidential race on what he called “the single most important issue
facing America today” — proposed a sweeping national energy policy
Tuesday that calls for reducing greenhouse gases 75 percent by 2050,
dramatically cutting American dependence on fossil fuels and creating
hundreds of thousands of jobs in renewable energy.
Vilsack, during a speech in San Francisco at the Commonwealth Club of
California, offered the most wide-ranging and detailed energy policy of
any of almost two dozen 2008 presidential hopefuls, Democratic or
Republican.”

I agree, and my vote will go to whoever comes out most strongly and sensibly in this area.

I’ll be following the Vilsack campaign with great interest.