Playing Tourists

Happy New Year! Thanks to the office entirely emptying out for the holiday, I got a rare treat--I did not have to do a single six-minute increment of work on Sunday! It was fantastic. In order to properly take advantage of the occasion, the husband and I decided to venture out and experience DC as it is meant to be experienced--as tourists.

We started our adventures by walking down to the scene of all the action lately--the Hay Adams hotel. We were two of the many, many curious Americans hoping to catch a glimpse the Obama family as they (along with so many other Americans) await the vacancy of their future home. We felt completely ridiculous standing there and gawking, waiting for the chance to wave at our future first family, but there was something really neat about the palpable excitement in the air, and we couldn't bring ourselves to walk away.

And our time spent standing out in the cold looking and feeling like idiots was rewarded--we got our second DC celebrity sighting! The Obama women exited the hotel, through the Secret Service tent, in a big black SUV with tinted windows, and surrounded by police cars and other vehicles. As they were driving away, Mrs. Obama looked out the window and waved at us! Some might see it as inappropriate or undistinguished, but I thought the fact that Michelle Obama waved at us through the dark windows had some nice symbolic value--she did not see the American public waiting outside her temporary home as a source of inconvenience or annoyance to be avoided, but instead as people whom she could help cheer and serve. Change is coming! =)

After the wave, we continued our walk down to the White House, where we saw the giant stage and massive rows of bleachers being constructed for the inauguration. We stopped to buy a couple of Obama T-shirts from a street vendor (hey, we were tourists!) and have a delicious lunch at Cosi. Then we headed further down to the Smithsonian Natural History Museum, where we saw reconstructed dinosaur skeletons, fossils, the Hope Diamond, a really cool video about the ocean and its creatures, and a lot of other really cool, really old stuff. After all that walking our feet couldn't take it anymore, so we metro'ed most of the way back to our apartment.

It was really nice to be able to take advantage of some of the amazing and unique (and free!) resources of the city in which we live. I still miss "home," but DC is a great place to visit!

Worth a read

Moral Clarity in Gaza

It's started...

For those of you who are concerned about my complete lack of posting since Thanksgiving, I have only one word to say to you:

Crackberry.

It's been busy. I have decided that no matter how sexy the work you are doing is, it is still work, and too much of it is still too much.

But I had to take a break from my self-imposed exile to comment on the latest bizarre news out of Washington.

Rick Warren will give the inaugural prayer.

Rick Warren? Seriously? The guy who compares abortion to the Holocaust (not that I'm defending abortion, but the Holocaust is not even close to the range of appropriate comparisons here), who thinks that my entire family of Jews and Catholics and Hindus are going to burn in hell (and seems somewhat gleeful about it), who thinks that gay marriage is on par with beastiality, who thinks that women should submit to their husbands--that Rick Warren?

I'm all for Democrats separating themselves from the image that we are the party of godless commies. I thought that Obama's election was a step in the right direction there. But this seems like a slap in the face to all of those people who believe that religion does not have to be a code word for bigotry and close-mindedness.

Maybe there's another Rick Warren out there.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Chicago, Illinois

If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.

It's the answer told by lines that stretched around schools and churches in numbers this nation has never seen; by people who waited three hours and four hours, many for the very first time in their lives, because they believed that this time must be different; that their voice could be that difference.

It's the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled - Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been a collection of Red States and Blue States: we are, and always will be, the United States of America.

Election Day

Celebrate America: Go vote!