If this is Saturday.......this must be Milldale.

The coldness of the kitchen floor was unacceptable to the bottom of my feet as I shuffled to the stove to put the water on for tea.
It's sooo early.
My bed was so warm.
Why am I up?

But.....if this is Saturday, this must be Milldale.

 For the last couple weekends and for the next few, Saturday consists of breakfast and sometimes lunch with members and legislators. It's important work, and I reminded myself that I'm not the only one up early on a Saturday.
Hundreds of our members are up to.
Gathering together in towns with names like East Lyme, Middletown, Milldale, Bristol, Hartford, Danbury.

AFT Connecticut legislative breakfast and lunch are like speed dating with the legislators. Tables filled with members having breakfast or lunch who usually know each other from work, sometimes not. Legislators spend 15 or 20 minutes at each table and then are directed by our lobbyist or our member mobilizer to move to the next table so that everyone gets a few minutes with them.
Quite often, it's hard to get the legislators to move. The conversations they are in the mist of with our members matters to them. Not only because our members represent 30,000 households in Connecticut, but because they see it our members what they saw in themselves when they became legislators.
They see a desire and a passion to make this a better society.

So on this Saturday, I'm off to Milldale and then to Hartford. By the time I return home it will be early evening. But it is not a burden, it is an honor, a sentiment I feel I share with all the officers. An honor because I am with our members and they are advocating for their communities and their families, for their patients and their students and for the public they serve.

So, as the water begins to boil for the tea and as the kettle begins its whistle, signaling that my tea water is ready, it also signals that we as a union are ready.

And I'm off for Milldale.