Tonight I am cheering and shouting and waving my arms in the air, feeling the universe correct the errors of last year in a wave of sweeping victories for progressive politics, sensible laws, and a respect for science.

1. Maine has restored same-day voter registration, 61% to 39%.
2. Ohio has overturned a union-busting law very similar to Walker’s anti-union legislation here in WI, 62% to 38%.
3. Mississippi has rejected the ignorant and misogynistic idea that a fertilized egg is a person, 57% to 43%.
4. Jill Billings has won WI’s Assembly District 95, recently vacated by Jen Schilling as she won a Senate seat in the recall elections in August, 72% to 27%.

I feel the tide turning, the momentum building and the people speaking.  In one week we begin to recall Scott Walker and Rebecca Kleefisch.  With numbers like those in today’s races, I feel optimistic for the first time in a long time that reason and vision and care have reentered the political arena.

Ironically, all the hideousness of 2011 has awoken a sleeping giant, and engaged people in politics in a way that I haven’t seen in, well, ever.  The overreach and mean-spiritedness of the GOP in stomping on the 99% has turned to bite them in the butt.  Chomp!!

Egon’s pumpkin:

He insists that playing violent video games does not affect him.

In Wisconsin, as opposed to most of the western states, we have a law that states that the waters of Wisconsin belong collectively to the people of Wisconsin.  You may own river frontage, or a lake lot, but you do not own the water.  Nor can you own the land underlying the water – that’s state land.

This law is so deeply imbedded in our way of life, our way of looking at the natural resources of our state, that not even the Fitzwalkers would dare try and undo it.  They are taking a sideways route – allowing for any kind of activity in riparian and littoral zones regardless of their potential or actual impact to the health of the waterbody.  With this bill they would create a presumption of approval for any permit application – and the DNR would have only 30 days to respond.  Oh, and public input via hearings or public information sessions is shut down.

And as if this is not bad enough, the real intent here is to make it super duper easy for a certain mining company to come in and create an open pit mine to extract taconite ore.  In the Penokees.  Draining into the Bad River watershed, the Kakagon Sloughs, the largest wild rice bed on the Great Lakes, Chequamegon Bay and Lake Superior.

In one of the more amusing moments in today’s 8-hour session of the Joint Committee on Natural Resources, it was pointed out to the DNR administration staff (read: Fitzwalker shills) that the only impediment allowed to be raised to the construction of a pier on a waterbody in Wisconsin is if that pier causes a neighbor’s pier to be blocked or otherwise made more difficult to access.  The DEPARTMENT of NATURAL RESOURCES would only put the kibosh on the dredging for, installation and/or building of a pier if it made a neighbor unable to moor his party boat easily.  Never mind the damage to the shoreline, the destruction of fish spawning habitat, the muddying of the lake in question.

I won’t go into the horrid details here (like the fact that the DNR is currently operating with about 25% of its approved positions vacant and has 2/3 the number of total staff positions it had 10 years ago, and so meeting the 30-day deadline is nigh unto impossible now that every riparian landowner has been granted permission to do whatever they hell they want in their backyards).  What was even more depressing was watching the laughable caricature of the democratic process today.

It was very very evident that the Republicans on the Joint Committee had no intention of actually listening to any of the 6 hours of public testimony with an open mind.  They had decided how they would vote on this bill even before it was drafted.  The mocking condescension displayed by its coauthor and Joint Committee chairman to anyone, his flippant refusal to directly answer any question told us all we needed to know – this is a done deal.  Never mind that the job of the Joint Committee and the DNR is to safeguard our natural resources for all citizens of the state, now and into the future.  They are perfectly willing to sell out our vibrant, vital landscapes to not even the highest bidder, just the most recent bidder.  The taconite mine will produce low quality iron ore, which will not be in high demand given the copious other sources of higher quality ore available.  It is actually very likely that the mining company will come in and dig a big pit and then decide that it ain’t worth it and skedaddle, leaving us with a scarred and soiled northwoods to try and clean up.

We were asked to come to today’s hearing armed with an 8.5 x 11 photograph of one of our favorite water bodies.  I chose one of Rowan wading off into Lake Michigan, bucket in hand.  But I could just as easily have chosen this one:

The water that falls on oak leaves in Dane County might well come from a lake named Trout or Fish or Mud in Vilas County.  Indeed, the rain that falls in Nebraska or Germany or the Seychelles might come from that lake.  The decisions we make today about how to care for our natural resources have worldwide implications.  This is not just about our backyard.

GET OFF MY LAWN!!

The cool, crisp air, brilliantly blue skies, flaming colors lapping over the hillsides, all make me want to Do Things.  Pick apples.  Pick raspberries.  Rake leaves.  Ride my bike.  Paint the house (ok, just a small part of the inside).  Take pictures.

But Egon, the teenager, sleeps past noon, and Daniel the artist is locked in the garage finishing boxes for his grand foray into Professional Art Sales.   And Shara, my usual partner in adventure, is in France, having her own amazing fall.

So I am on my own here in fall hyperactivity.  I think my camera and I will set off for the countryside in search of cider doughnuts and maple leaves.

Today at Indian Lake, we saw evidence of autumnal fire:

So it was with the 5th annual Bike the Barns on Sunday.

The day started overcast but dry.  The course this year put most of the mileage before lunch, with 25 of the total 65 coming before the first snack stop.  But the hills were for the most part dealable, the route pretty.  The water stop at mile 16 was disorienting – as I came around the curve and saw bikes stopped on the side of the road, I thought – Whoa, this can’t be 25 miles already?!

We pulled into High Meadow Farm about an hour and 45 minutes after setting out, a respectable pace.  Of course, the discovery that one had to hike to the top of the highest hill on the farm to get one’s snack was a bit of a downer.  Daniel fetched my croissant and chocolate milk (oh, yum) for me while I phoned Egon to check in with him, having left him alone for the day.  He was not yet awake.  Chocolate milk and croissant finished, we visited with the resident chickens for a while, then, in a very slight drizzle, more like an episodic dripping, we remounted for the next leg.

Before we’d gotten 50 yards, Vicki whooshed by us down the hill toward the farm turnoff.  So we turned around to join her and be able to ride the rest of the route in company.

Then it started to rain.  All around us, riders unfolded raingear from tiny little packets the size of a hotel soap bar and donned gaily colored jackets.  We shivered in our sleeves.

Back on the road, we attempted a positive attitude.  The rain at first was not horrible, but very wet.  Then the wind started to pick up.  As I cruised down hills, first one, then the other shoe filled with water from the puddles I rode through.  My glasses were simultaneously rain covered and fogged up, making vision very limited.  Daniel had to guide me across roads.  After a certain amount of torture, we stopped and dragged out the route map to see if there was an obvious shortcut.

We opted to skip lunch, afternoon snack and the remaining 30 miles of official route, and instead took a nice little back road over to the starting point.  Total ride:  ~ 41 miles.  Total weight of my soaked socks upon removal:  ~ 2.5 pounds.  Total elapsed time until the hot chocolate kicked in and I stopped shivering:  ~ 20 minutes.

We never intended to stay.  Madison is one of the fistful of transition locales for Beloit alums, along with Portland OR, Chicago, DC and New York City.  You decompress in these cities from 4 (or more) years of living loudly in a 4-square block area of a very economically depressed blue collar town in the upper Midwest.  A place where getting a pound of burgers and a pound of fries from Geri’s at bar time counted as living the high life.

It’s a great town for decompressing.  A great town for attending grad school, a great town for having kids, a great town for buying a house and – oh shit!  we’ve put down roots!  Despite this, though, despite living here for 21 years, despite being deeply engaged in local politics, despite having worked at jobs of all types throughout the city, despite a vast network of friends, I never felt “in.”  There are some here who just seem to be part of the fabric of the city, who you can’t imagine the place without, who seem to have inside information about all the goings on, all the cool and hip happenings.  I was not one of them.

Today, I had an epiphany.  I am a Madisonian.  Now I have *my* coffee shop, the one where I go automatically when in need of joe or to meet a friend.  Previously, any cafe in a storm would do.  Now I have a target – the Victory.  I have *my* bar, where my feet take me when looking for a drink and some company.  Before, when someone would ask “where shall we meet for beer?”, I’d ponder the options and pick one I hadn’t been to in a while or where there was a particular drink I wanted.  Now, unless strongly urged otherwise, I’m at Alchemy.

On my way down Atwood toward the post office inside the Stop & Go, as I was thinking these thoughts, Christine ran past me on her daily jog, calling out “Hey KB!” as she passed.  I am a known quantity here.

I don’t know if it was the protests – which infused me with such a strong, glowing love for my state, the election to the Willy St. Board – which plastered my name and face all over the east side, working with Melissa to try and combat the forces that keep politics ugly and ineffective, my foray into Facebook – where I have connected and reconnected with a spectrum of folks in town, or a combination of these and other events.  But now, I feel Madisonish.  I am one of those people on the inside, someone who is aware and is helping drive the conversation.

It’s a big responsibility.

D & I have decided that Ironman competitions are the ultimate trophy sport.  Like a trophy wife, completing an Ironman is essentially about emphasizing the size of one’s equipment.  (Don’t ask me why women compete in something that doesn’t even acknowledge their existence.)

The amount of money required for the various pieces of apparatus, the registration fee, the time off work, means that Ironmen are the province of the well-to-do only.  This fact was reinforced for me by the number of shiny fancy late-model expensive cars driving erratically around town with fancy bike racks and “26.2″ or “swim bike run” bumper stickers.  As Kerry said:  Stay out of my way as I try to get to work and I’ll stay out of your way as you bike around my city.

The financial expense is, however, overshadowed by the degree of self-absorption required.  They spend months, if not years, training and preparing.  They obsess over schedules and methods and the best wetsuit available.  So that they can spend a day engaged in a degree of self-flagellation that would in most countries be considered cruel and unusual punishment.  (Actually, it now occurs to me that Ironmen and Bridezillas have a lot in common.)

And for what?  So they can brag about their ability to withstand torture?  What if all those Ironmen put the same level of commitment and effort and engagement into some activity that had benefits for a broader community than the individual?  Imagine all the meals that could be provided to starving children in Somalia.  Or the tutoring that could be done with inner city kids in Chicago.  Or the rebuilding of homes and roads and communities in hurricane devastated Vermont?

Self glorification is really not my thing.