This isn't anything earth-shaking or worthy of a "BREAKING" banner.  Rather, it's a way to pass what has been a fairly quiet and slow Sunday here in the Northeast.  (And it's a chance for some good music to be shared with the DKos readership.)

Over the last couple of years that I've been coming here to read and learn, and get my snark-quotient to it's minimum daily requirement levels, I have come to the conclusion that I don't have the "fire-in-the-belly" or the amazing writing and intellect that seems to be the norm here.  At times I am rather intimidated by the analytical abilities of the regular posters.  And so I lurk and learn, and laugh and cry over the postings that have become a necessary part of my day.  

In the past couple of months, I tried a small experiment designed to see if there really is a life without DKos.  Partly it was done because my husband and kids told me in the nicest possible way that I seemed to have become addicted to all things political, the color orange and something called "pooties".  

I live in Maine.  We are usually thought of as the touristy, "cute" sort of place to vacation.  Yes, we've had our share of time in the political limelight - George Mitchell, Margaret Chase Smith, William Cohen, the family that lives in Kennebunkport for a few weeks out of the year...

We have a reputation of being Vacation Land - it was even on our license plates a few years ago.  But we are also very aware politically, and it shows in our kids.  Over the past five years, we have voted and watched as our voices amounted to nothing.  Evidently our kids have watched, and even though I never thought they were paying attention (after all, they are teens and are busy with their lives, which are more entertaining than all the political stuff that "adults" pay attention to), I was wrong.