Christine Lahti, 'Yonkers Joe'

Are you always up and about at 7:30 a.m.?

Yes, I am! If it's not skiing, I am up with my kids who are still in high school. I love getting up at 6 or 6:30 -- and I take them to school, or I go spin. Have you done that?

Yes! You must be in great shape.

I'm in pretty good shape. Here in the high altitude of Aspen I did pretty well yesterday. I only fell down once. And I was standing still.

And the kids are surviving high school?

They're doing great. I remember having a lot more sort of issues in high school. I don't know about you. But they're doing really well. I remember high school as being fraught with constant self-consciousness.

I remember it being a nightmare.

Yeah! But I dunno, I was doing theater. What about you?

I had dual interests: the theater's stage crew and marijuana.

Well, that's an interesting club, the marijuana club.

We got a lot done.

I bet you did. I didn't know that existed in high school. I was so naïve. I was in Birmingham, Mich., a huge public school, just massive. And I did theater, then went to the University of Michigan. Then I heard about things like marijuana. That was an exciting time -- the late '60s, early '70s, the hotbed of radicalism. That became the reason I still am such an activist. I'm so grateful for those years.

What are your political goals for 2009?

Well. I'm full of hope for the first time in eight years, as a lot of us are. I'm hoping first of all for a lot of the women's rights issues to be addressed by Obama. I think the gag rule and a lack of funding for family planning, sex education -- all that stuff that Bush really pulled back. Certainly I'm grateful that Obama will not be reversing Roe vs. Wade.

Are you going to D.C. for the shindig?

I'm not. I'm shooting a pilot in mid-January. I went to Clinton's inauguration, the first one.

So what is this pilot?