Post Election Celebration!

We're not having a party; we are a party. We have been feeling very excited about our new president and have managed to not fulfill our rec center obligations (Ok. Well, Fi went for a long swim yesterday, but I did wedding stuff and ordered holiday cards with our photog on it!). This is bad because I am running a 5k on Saturday and really need to be able to complete it. However, my right knee has been hurting. I'm not sure why this is but am hoping to resolve the issue before Friday.

As for the post-election celebration, I must say there has been a bit of a cloud lingering above our parade. The cloud is best described as one of arrogance and stereotypes. An acquaintance of mine from high school is a proud Republican and took the news of our new president elect with the same amount of optimism and grace that Obama spoke with during his acceptance speech. However, to my dismay, he has been hounded by gloating democrats that have been none too gracious about the win of Obama. From what I understand, they've rubbed it in his face, demeaned his alignment with the Republican party and even gone so far as to be slanderous of his very character for his political beliefs. That, my friends, is unnecessary, embarrassing and horribly close-minded. I am embarrassed someone, anyone, and more than one person, for that matter, would be so unkind and unfair.  It sounds as if, somewhere along the lines, sides have been taken rather than people remembering: we are all Americans. We all want the best. We are, as Fi would put it, on the "same team!" Anger and hatred breed only more anger and hatred. Lest we forget, we are all in this together. The democracy has done its job, now it's time to reunite in hopes of a stronger, better future for ourselves and our children, not a divided angry one.

With that said, I hope all Obama supporters will be more gracious and less inclined to lump people into stereotypes based on their voting preferences. Even when I've heard the lame excuse, "Well we had to deal with it for eight years," I've felt stunned at the ignorance with which that comment is made. Just because it's done doesn't make it ok to do so in return. That argument is ridiculous and immature. None of our previous candidates would be proud to hear their supporters are at each others' throats. Just remember that!

In celebration of our election and the lack of the previous vote-counting disasters we've encountered in more recent, previous elections, I found myself a place that carries Lox and Bagels. To many people, this is not a feat. When I'm home in NY, this is rather common, actually. The bagels in NY are huge, gloriously tasty masses of boiled and baked dough. The lox is barely fish, but bright pink and plentiful. In NY they don't pile on extras and remain stingy on the lox-they pile on the lox and too much cream cheese (which usually ends in me scraping more than half of it off-the cream cheese, that is). It took me quite some time to locate a place that serves lox and cream cheese on a bagel here in Columbia. Even more time to find one that does so on a regular basis. But today, in celebration of life, I found and bought one and ate it for lunch. It was worth every overpriced penny.

The bagels are so weak here, I've actually learned how to make bagels myself. I suppose that lesson was twofold, though 1-yummy bagels 2-cost-efficient!

Anyhow, I'm sitting at my desk waiting for more students to come and conference with me. One has already missed her conference, which is really too bad because she has exactly one page of a rough draft written that's supposed to be 3-4 pages (Ouch! And the one page has a lot to be desired at this point). I ran into the elusive Andrew Parker in the hallway, though, who has baby-brother visiting for the weekend and would like for Fi and I to meet him (awww!). We haven't had a girls' night in a while (which means we're due, of course), but Fi and I haven't gotten to spend enough quality time lately as he's been so overwhelmingly busy with play practice...and I am introducing one of our wonderful new CNF writers at her reading tomorrow afternoon...plus a few of my/our students have "gigs" they're playing tonight and tomorrow which we've promised our attendance to...so it seems the next few days will be equally as busy as the last few. Whew!

I'm dressed for the rec and my ass has to go run. I'd like to run four miles today, but we'll see. There is nothing else to report on thus far today...but the day is still rather adolescent so there's definitely time for development.

Hope your two days after election day are wonderful!

xoxo

N