Dear Cousin Justin

Thank you so much for spending your hard-earned paid time off from sourcing Canada with raw fuels to come and visit us here in our little pocket of Eastern Tennessee sweetness. We hope you are recovered from early morning sounds of our children caterwauling in the kitchen as well as the oft-repeated chorus of whining for more mini-marshmallows.

I have a sneaking suspicion you discovered some crumbs from "super hard bread" in your pants pockets, or at least an errant steam engine trinket in your luggage. The kids are still quite dazzled with your abilities to guzzle so many liters of sweet tea and not have to pee every 3.5 seconds as they do all day.

By the way, I hope you still managed to see the majority of Rock City in spite of the fact that a makeshift port-o-potty was erected by my two children every five paces. Good grief. Ain't nobody got time for that.

Maybe in the coming weeks, a little part of you will long for veggie turkey loaf or a nutter fluffer sandwich or that pickled okra you left in our fridge.

In those times of longing, just think of us and say a prayer for us as we will for you and dream of the time when we can drive our hoopty Canyonero up to your hinterland of a province and experience all the delights that you and your love Angie adore in Calgary. We can't wait. We probably will all be able to hold our fluids better then, and maybe we won't watch as much "Busytown," but we'll still be your American FamiLee, raggedy crazed party of four.

Love you lots, Favorite Cousin!

- The FamiLee in Tennessee

Fall

The kids have been getting back to serious play. You know, flipping your bike upside down to make ice cream. Sitting on the rock in the flower bed and using it as your cash register in your flower shop. Serious business, this imaginative play. I've been a more than willing participant, because if the kids need play, then I am a wilting flower wanting for the water and sunlight of being outside with sidewalk chalk. I think the oven temperatures of summer, complete with the ticks, mosquitoes, and other pestilences are on the wane ::knocks on wood:: The hot summer can really hamper children's play is what I have learned. We don't even have cable but the mediated life has a way of eclipsing the active imaginative life that it sort of atrophies. Shameful, really.

So I am welcoming the cooler temperatures (even though it is still hot enough to sweat whilst walking at mid-day here) and I am welcoming afternoons that are still sunlit.

Looking forward to this fall: - Going to Gatlinburg with six other families - Soup Swap - Chattanooga Market and all the harvesty produce and merch therein - My sister and her beaufriend visiting and watching my sister ace a half-mar in October - Running a 5k in early November - Cousin Justin from Canadia coming for Turksgiving - Going back to Fork & Pie for pumpkin pie

*** Some snaps from our outing to Rock City which is totally awesome and you all have to come to #CHA and experience!

Obama 2012

My name is Kendra.I live in the belt buckle of the Bible Belt. I am an evangelical Christian mother of two. I am voting to reelect President Obama on November 6, 2012.

*** This is not a post about my reasons for voting on the Democratic ticket. This is about my cherished freedom as a woman to exercise my voting right. This is about my love of a country where my second generation parents have succeeded and my immigrant in-laws came to operate their own business while still observing sabbath. This is about my excitement as a campaign volunteer.

Today I phonebanked for the Obama campaign. It was inspiring. There were just a few volunteers at Tennessee headquarters. I used my Google Voice phone to call battleground state voters and I had some pleasant exchanges with my fellow Americans--many of whom were not planning to vote for Obama.

The other night I watched the DNC Convention from the same place. There were black faces, white faces, old, young, middle-aged. There were students and professors and professionals and nurse anesthetists :) We whooped and clapped and some people invoked the name of Divinity in response to the high notes of speeches delivered live from Charlotte, NC.

My experience as a volunteer for a highly divisive campaign has been heartwarming. It has reflected the best of what I believe a two-party system can achieve on its best days. I was inspired to think warmly today about a country that I already love. Sometimes I don't like America, but I will always love this great nation.

Whomever you are planning to support in this election, I hope you are registered to vote and will get involved in the campaign. I expect you will not regret it!

*** And she did not just caption that "Call Me, Maybe."