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

Oh, God, THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!

I know we have friends that don't agree, but I have never felt so hopeful before in my life. Thank you, God! Thank you, for giving us a reason to hope that something significant and realistic will happen in our lives.

Even Bunnies!!! Luv Obama!

Our encounter on the way to Liz's.

We went to Liz's and for the most part, all of us Ph.D. students watched quietly-making the occasional joke, eating chips and laughing over Liz's cat Schnell. There was nervous laughter when McCain took the lead super-early on, then silent hope and slight disbelief when we, eventually, saw the polls on two different channels call Obama the president elect. I should explain that we were skeptical because the states they were calling had only reported 1-2% of their votes. It seemed too uncertain and days past of election nights of our youths when we were tucked into bed with the understanding of a certain positive president only to awaken to a new reality danced in my head. We just didn't want a disappointment. We didn't want to celebrate or go to bed with one certainty and awaken to a reality we had no real warning of.

Fi was stuck at play practice until just before Obama gave his acceptance speech, just after McCain gave his concessional speech, but he showed up right when it counted. We all piled into Liz's living room in time to watch Obama take the stage.

Above and Below: Still Skeptical, Before the Acceptance Speech.

As he spoke, I couldn't help but gaze around the room to gauge the reactions of my fellow classmates and peers. In the eyes of most of my friends, there were tears, silent sighs of relief, glistening cheeks and dazed, hopeful gazes. My heart elated and I felt hopeful. Not the kind of uncertain, make-believe hopeful we feel when we first meet someone we might connect with or like, but the kind of hopeful we feel when we know we are in the company of our soulmate-the person we were made to complete. We felt the same hope with our president elect this evening: the hope that exists when we are certain our lives will change for the better.

We have invested in President Barack Obama. I would like to say we have invested in him only superficially, but we haven't. It wouldn't be the truth. We have invested in him on a personal level because we feel he has invested in us in the same way. So tonight, Senator Barack Obama-president elect, we salute you. We believe in you and we thank you.

Congratulations to all of us for a significant and meaningful change!

xoxo

N

"I'm freaking out!"

The above would be Fi's final words on the subject of voting this morning. 

It was 5:15ish when I felt two hands quietly shifting my body. "Hey are you still going to come?" Last night I had excitedly declared that I wanted to accompany Fi to the polling location this morning when he said he was going to get up and get there to wait on line for an early morning chance to vote. Now he was calling me on it. I opened my eyes and in the dark, I could make out the fact that he was already awake and dressed. I wondered if he'd already had coffee, too, and rolled out of bed to play catch-up to his prepared Voting self.

As I got ready to accompany Fi to the nearby poll he was assigned to, I thought about the fact that I have never voted in an actual voting booth in my life, only by absentee. I've been in school for so long and in so many locations, I decided not to change over my legal residence everywhere I went (I didn't get any in-state benefits so it seemed pointless otherwise), therefore, I've always voted by absentee ballot. I haven't seen what a voting booth looks like since I accompanied my mom as a child and fought over which of us children would get to pull the lever. What I imagined I would see at the Missouri polls is not at all what came true. Our voting location growing up was the fire station down the street from our house. The polling station here in MO was at a place the Shriners (my impression is that they're like an Elk Club?) use or own. We were super excited when we got there and, luckily, since it was only 5:30am, there was still a place to park in the lot, though not many. This is what greeted us at the entrance to the polling location.

No Campaigning, bitches! Not even a t-shirt!
And outside the polling location.

When we got inside, there were at least fifteen people waiting ahead of us. Lucky for him, Fi did not finish his coffee before we arrived.

We waited! And Fi was the tenth person to vote that morning, though it took way longer than I thought it would (you can see the waiting voters in the background). The above photo is the BEFORE photo.
This is the AFTER photo. Doesn't he look like a better person, now?

When we were done, we drove around Columbia and checked out the rest of the voting locations we could find. They were completely packed and busy. While I was waiting for him, people just kept coming to vote...again and again. D explained that inside the voting room they had set up sit-down areas with dividers and the voters filled out the ballots with black, felt tip markers. Hmm. Not what I expected. I think that explains why it took so long for him to come out and the line to dwindle. More people kept coming, the parking lot filled up and spilled over into the street and neighboring empty lots. There were old people, young people, all kinds of ethnic backgrounds...etc. I could feel this swelling of pride in my stomach. It didn't matter, at that moment, who they voted for, it just mattered that there were so many people turning out to vote. Two first-time voters showed up with their dad, an old-barely-ambulatory woman came with her daughter. A historic turn-out for an historic election. Can it be more exciting???

Then we celebrated with a Panera egg sandwich that I've been dying to try out for months. (Tasty, but un-exciting.)
Celebratory Panera Breakfast Sandwich.

I've heard several places are offering freebees for voters today! We didn't need that incentive, but if you do head to Starbucks for a free tall drink (after you vote, that is).

I've been glued to the t.v. all day and need to convince myself that by going to the rec center I will not miss out on anything (though, did you guys hear that the two smallest towns in the country-both in New Hampshire and below 20 people in population, I think, voted in Obama as their candidate???). What if I miss another update like that!?! Aaah! The pressure and excitement!!!

Tonight, we'll be at Liz's "freaking out" together! Stay glued to your t.v. sets and cheer like you're on Team America (cus, after all, we all are, aren't we?).

More to come later.

xoxo

N

Our GO VOTE Blog!

Last night we had a tasty dinner of Moroccan Couscous. What made this so tasty, aside from just the yummy veggies and tofu and fab spices, was half a cup of vinegar (it should've been red wine vinegar, but I'm allergic to wine). I adore veggies. Have I mentioned that? My mom is sick of me eating broccoli. Whenever I go home, she knows she'll be making lots of dishes that include broccoli and she gets super sick of it. But, there are a few weeks before she has to deal with it, so here is a beautiful photograph of our tasty couscous with broccoli (is broccoli Moroccan?).
Yummy! However, today we stopped at Panera for lunch so there was cheddar broccoli soup, of course! And half an asiago roast beef sandwich without mayo. When we got home, I took a nap and ate the other half (I honestly can't resist it...that sandwich is amazing! I don't even usually like roast beef!) in that order. No gym today or running, but as you see from Fi's blog, we had a busy day yesterday. We ran around a ton and ended up at David's Bridal for a little while (where I shockingly slipped myself into a size 2 dress...it must run super big or something cus I can't wear my size 2 pants at this juncture. I'm stuck at a 4!), hung out in Shelter Gardens and enjoyed some tree-climbing, hiding/seeking, a dinky pita from Quizno's (also with nothing on it but tasty veggies and grilled chicken) and a trip to the grocery store for some essentials (we've been out of milk for days!).

Right now I'm watching SNL's Presidential Bash. I feel as if I'd be doing myself an injustice by not doing so the night before the election. Liz and I are thinking about volunteering down at the Democratic headquarters at some point tomorrow before heading back to her place to watch the polls. Low key election night with some friends (Fi, of course!) and lots of excitement. In preparation for election day, Fi and I decorated the lawn. We got an Obama/Biden yardie a few weeks back and stuck it in our lawn. It was sort of to silently combat our neighbors who put a McCain/Palin sign in their yard, but mostly it was because we really wanted one. Just to be on the safe side, we bought an extra one so we could quickly replace ours should it be stolen. Today, Fi went out there and proudly stuck the second Obama/Biden sign in our backyard.

He was so excited! Awww!
Read Between the SIGNS :)

I think he looks like a rapper in this photo, but can you blame him? We were super excited about our dual Obama signs and by the fact that no one stole our original sign :) So excited, in fact, that Fi had yet another brilliant idea. It went something like this...

Take One...

Take Two...and three...and four...and five.......

Take Ten! Finally! We have a high-five!

Set Your Alarms, Get Up and GO VOTE tomorrow!!!

If you do, we'll find something equally entertaining to do with our time and capture it in photogs for our favorite blog readers!

xoxoxo

N