Babu wanted to take me for a manicure and pedicure as an early mother's day celebration. Cole and Adeline wanted to come as well. What the heck. Cole sat next to Babu in the massage chair with his feet hanging in the basin. Adeline sat in between my legs with her feet also in the tub.
When Adeline first sat down she wanted to take her skirt off altogether... it did look like a bath... The man massaging mom's feet was startled and dropped his soap. She wanted her feet massaged like me, but was shy about it. "Do you want a towel wrapped around your legs like your mommy?" Adeline threw her head into my lap (which sent the back of the massage chair rolling), but she grabbed the towel and wrapped it like mine when the manicurist looked away.
Adeline chose bright green toenails. Cole chose red for his left foot (that he claims looks too pink) and metallic blue on his right. Adeline was a little miffed that they gave me the green manicure flip flops. I did promise to share.
Tom and I went to our support groups today. I was disappointed at first because the younger members (and single moms) weren't in attendance today. When you are navigating fear and death with people, you become family. The group is the only family a few of the participants have, and due to the holidays, we've missed the last 2 meetings. I wanted to check in with everyone especially the moms.
We got off to a slow start. Several members talked mortgage rates. The moderators don't normally tolerate that kind of banal, non life-threatening topic for long, but this went on and on and on. I debated when I would get up and get tea. I thought about what tea to get. Would I look in the fridge for milk? Would I get caffeinated? It's probably better, considering my dehydration, to take the herbal, and I think I'll hedge my bets and get what I usually get, orange spice.
Now we were talking chanterelle and morel mushroom gathering. I thought I'd wait until we transitioned to the next person to get up. It would be less rude if we were transitioning and although the next guy was a sweetie, he spent a lot of time talking about his annoying upstairs neighbor. As I was about to make my move, he blurted out that he had moved into hospice. He had moments, days, if he was lucky, weeks to live. The hospice nurse told him he needed to find someone to help him administer medication and tend to him. He hoped he hadn't scared us all too much. He looked in my direction as he said it. I was the newest member of the group and the only one who had not yet seen a member die.
I obviously never got the tea. Instead we helped a man to find a way to prepare for a peaceful death. He said he hoped he could make it to the meeting next week. I hope so too.
We stood for a LONG time... waiting for the Obamas. It was worth it! We also got to know the secret service folks quite well.
When Jill and Joe Biden came out, I was terrified that Obama wouldn't make it to the ball. I didn't realize that I was wrapped up entirely too much in seeing him (good luck/no cancer; hope depends on Obama? etc...)
Naturally, three camera batteries died just before Obama was sworn in. We had to allow our iphones to capture the event (thus the fuzziness). Even my iphone died just before the Bidens arrived. Tom had enough juice for 2 photos of the Bidens and 3 photos of the Obamas (phew).
I promised my friend George that I would post photos of my gowns. Here's the Western Ball one. The Arkansas Ball gown will come later in the form of a video. (I promise George)!
It's J.Lo and Marc Anthony:
Everything was made so easy for us thanks to my Uncle David and Aunt Sandy. Sandy's law firm was within the secure zone and close to everything, so we were able to get changed, get warm, grab coffee (and jelly beans) and just sit down. Uncle David got up at 4 am on two separate mornings to drive us around (inauguration day and airport). Thank you!
We got back from DC yesterday. I had wanted to blog the events, but, alas there was limited wireless access and my phone kept dying.
I am still processing the extraordinary events of this last week. I expected to be fired up and shouting out when I got home. I also thought I would be yelling and dancing in the National Mall on January 20. Instead, I was mostly quiet at the swearing in ceremony. Granted, I was frozen solid. I couldn't feel my toes underneath stockings, wool socks, monkey socks, feet warmers and two hand warmers stuck in for good measure. Tom was going all out making friends with all of our neighbors and chatting excitedly. I was braving the elements, trying to ignore my neuropathy and in full-on survival mode. The fake fur hood on my jacket made me feel that much more isolated from the world as I couldn't see left to right without wrenching my head around significantly.
We watched the jumbo screen in front of us and sipped Tom's new friends' peppermint tea. Tom held me up in the air to remind me that we were watching it live. I could see the throngs of people and the capital building, the flags and, yes, the helicopters. I'm so glad Tom did that. I had felt alone among all of these people. My fight with cancer was so wound up with the fight for this President. And the message of hope was most definitely tied to my own hope. I knew that this was an amazing historic moment, but it all became personal and I couldn't process it all.
We seemed to join an Eastern European art film following the ceremony. Thousands of people were directed off the mall and onto the south side of DC. Masses of people walked together through construction sites (we literally squeezed through a hole in a fence and jumped from a cement bridge), in and out of dead ends and along a highway with no traffic (roads shut). It was a strange purgatory land where no one talked, they just walked. The buildings had no color (neither did the sky or the water) and random pieces of trash in the wind made more noise than the thousands of people. We saw buses everywhere, but they all said 'not in service.' Behind the buses, there were large, nondescript restaurants in parking lots (one called, fittingly, "The Odyssey"). We would walk up to the restaurant wondering if it was open (it looked closed), get excited when we saw the 'open' sign, and then shocked when we would open the dark door to see hundreds of people in puffy jackets and wool hats huddled inside. "We're at capacity."
We would occasionally ask someone where they were going (because we surely didn't know). "I don't know." "I don't know." No one knew. We all sort of ended up in a very long line for the Metro, not moving, just kind of clustered together for the sheer sheepitude of it. It was surreal. And I think we were all a little numb and not sure how exactly to digest these events. There were many like me, feeling it personally.
We finally made it to a very distant metro where the line actually moved, and at long last a restaurant (we hadn't eaten for a good 20 hours). What has happily settled from our time in DC is the realization that we were all in it together. I felt that I was connected to everyone I passed. If I smiled at someone, they smiled back. I felt as if I were waking up. I was not high and wild. I was slow and feeling. What a moment in our history. And what began for me as a personal, private moment is becoming, as I understand it, a moment for humankind. Wow.
My throat is sore this morning from all the whooping and hooraying! After the speeches, we headed to Jack London Square to be a part of the crowd and celebrate. We expected a large crowd there, but we didn't expect the crowds along the way. As soon as we got to Shattuck Ave (less than a mile from our house), we encountered people on almost every corner. People leaned in to shake the outstretched hands of drivers and passengers. They danced and drummed and sang on the side of the streets, in the streets. "Obama!" "Yes we can!" Cars going every direction were honking. People hung out of their windows and sunroofs. Fireworks, crying, laughing... I've never seen anything like it.
I experienced something like this when I was a senior in high school and my world view was somewhat smaller (somewhat!). We organized a series of theater, modern dance, ballet, opera, music throughout Winston-Salem in protest of Jessie Helm's attack on the National Endowment for the Arts. I was new to North Carolina School of the Arts and fresh from the conservative world of Charleston, SC. My fellow students were from all over the world, and I was experiencing an awakening. I felt as if my voice could be heard, that people were truly beautiful and damn if I'd ever seen anything as cool as modern dance! Ever since that time, I have been trying to replicate that feeling. Last night surpassed it.
Early in the day, Adeline and I went to vote. She pointed out all of the Obama signs on the way. "Barack Obama! Barack Obama! Barack Obama!" until even I had almost had enough. "No on Prop 8," I said. She looked closely at the man holding the sign and the sign itself. She pointed behind him, "Barack Obama!"
I phone banked all afternoon at the Berkeley Obama headquarters. I was calling PA and Missouri. Calling swing states is enlightening. I didn't convince anyone and most people had voted. One guy screamed "I already BARACKED the vote and then I volunteered all day." That's what amazes me. Everyone I know has done something. Many, many friends drove to Nevada to help. People went to Florida and Pennsylvania. My mom called me from Rwanda and people giver her thumbs up and scream "Obama!" My step-mother called from Australia, where they were celebrating, as well. What is going on?
We drove through much of Oakland, honking and screaming. No one laid off the horn. No one was immune to this huge change. We finally ended up at Jack London Square where we danced on a carpeted stage. I moved my head to the music and a black, older woman in a comfy chair watched me. She smiled and started to bob her head with mine. We were united. Tom experienced the same thing with the hand shake from the car.
It was a party last night... around the world, but it hasn't sunk in yet. What hasn't sunk in? I'm still trying to work that out. It's not just the race thing or the change thing. It's something bigger and even more beautiful. One girl in Harlem smiled and said that she feels she would make a good president one day. Yes. It's the hope, the possibility, the common purpose. I feel as if America has found its voice again, can fly its flag again, can unite again... and it is beautiful.
Scenes of the night:
By the Cheese Board in Berkeley's Gourmet Ghetto
By Berkeley's La Paz
Outside Berkeley's Obama Headquarters (This becane a HUGE party later on in the night).
I have wanted to write this letter for quite some time, and it seems now is finally that time.
I was deeply saddened by your Grandmother’s death today and
want you to know that my thoughts are with you and your family. My
husband and I try to think of her as letting you know that she didn’t need you
to be president. She needed you to be simply who you are.
Of course I did not know her, but her struggle with health
is familiar to me.I am
thirty-seven (as of Nov. 1) and the mother of three children (1, 3, 4).I was diagnosed in January with stage
IV colorectal cancer that had spread to my lymph nodes and liver.My luck is that my cancer is still
considered curable.
We were early supporters of you. In fact my husband’s great
aunt Marilyn Tank (former head of the Women’s National Democratic Club) and I
discussed at great length your speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention. She
was almost ninety years old at the time, elegant and wise. She told me to watch
you… You would one day be President if we were lucky.
She passed away before the primaries even began, but watch
you we did. My husband had a chance to “meet” you at a fundraiser in San
Francisco early in the primaries. I was stuck home with our newborn,
breastfeeding, but I enjoyed hearing how impressed he was by the way you
explained the process by which you
reached your positions, rather than just reciting conclusions.We both sensed that you have an
instinctive belief in other people’s sense of fairness, their ability to
appreciate justice and weigh competing claims in the balance.
What I would like to tell you is that, due to timing and my
eternal optimism, your message of hope resounded with my husband and me on many
levels.Hope. We hope that I will
be cured. We hope to beat the statistics and live. We hope that my genetic FAP
(Familial Polyposis) will not be passed onto our children.I say “we” because my family is going
through this as much as I am.
We also hope that our children will be insured if any of
this medical hell falls upon them. My insurance is capped at $75,000. Three
pills of only one of my prescriptions (and I have many) cost $435.
Chemotherapy is $17,000 per session, and I have had 12 cycles. The liver surgery
alone was $100,000. My husband has negotiated with the hospitals (that J.D. did
come in handy after all!) to lower costs now that my insurance is capped… But
what about those who don’t have the energy or knowledge or time to harass the
hospitals and doctors?
As we close in on election day, I am with you. My
chemotherapy ended last Wednesday and by tomorrow, election day, I will be
strong again. I will call more swing state voters. I will do whatever the
headquarters wants me to do.
In fact, I have, in the past done many non-profit
fundraisers and special events. I am happy to put these talents to use for you
whenever you need them in California. Put me to use. I wish that I could have more than our one fundraiser for
you, but I have done as much as I can in my current circumstances. I must allow
that to be enough.
In closing: I grew up mostly in South Carolina (after
initial years in Australia) and have always felt an outsider for my worldview. With your potential presidency, I have seen a shift in mood
there. My mother (former head of the South Carolina Republicans' club who
attended Inaugural balls of both Bush father and son) had my husband sign
an absentee ballot as her witness. The vote was cast for you. My great aunt
whose grandson has a confederate flag in his bedroom (she also raised her
grandchildren) is considering a vote for you… Just that she is considering means
“Times they are a-changin” (Bob Dylan was my favorite endorsement of you)!
Good luck tomorrow. We’ll be working for you here…and yes,
hoping.
I've finally been getting my strength back the last couple of days (I have faked it on others). The Obama party wiped me out and I feel negligent of my friends. Big things are happening to them and I am MIA. One just had a baby, two are pregnant, one has separated from her husband, one is divorcing, many are looking anxiously for the "right" one... and I'm not emotionally available. Perhaps that's why politics have consumed me. This election is emotional but I'm anonymous calling swing state voters.
I went to a book club last night. One out of seven had read the book (not me). It was nice to see everyone and have the focus on other things (i.e. yes, politics).
Someone mentioned the GOP myth that Obama's birth certificate had not been seen. It has and can be verified on factcheck.org.
Here is the quote from FactchecK:
FactCheck.org staffers have now seen, touched, examined and photographed the original birth certificate. We conclude that it meets all of the requirements from the State Department for proving U.S. citizenship. Claims that the document lacks a raised seal or a signature are false. We have posted high-resolution photographs of the document as "supporting documents" to this article. Our conclusion: Obama was born in the U.S.A. just as he has always said.
This nonsense about Ashley Todd being attacked for her McCain sticker is now proven to be a lie. She herself has confessed. I feel terribly sorry for her. Read on CNN here.
Palin today laughed and made fun of funding for research on fruit flies (she says it was in Paris, France...apparently almost as bad as San Francisco in the GOP circles... the research appears to have been done in NC). She said, "Sometimes these dollars go to projects that have little or nothing to do with the public good. Things like fruit fly research in Paris, France. I kid you not." This was in her first "policy" speech where she sited her support for special needs children. The problem is that "fuit fly research has lead to advances in understanding autism. Hmmm... Did they not research this before spewing it. REad the article by thinkprogress.org here.
Block The Vote by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Read it here! Is Rolling Stone the only credible news source these days? Did you read the actual reporting on McCain? Read here.
Since Nixon, Republican Presidents have made a point of being the President only of the constituents who voted for them. JFK, Dwight Eisenhower, FDR… Can you imagine any one of them stooping below the role of President to all of America? Can you imagine John McCain EVER listening to someone with whom he does not agree? I can see him punching them (and I have the urge myself but teach my children not to punch), but never listening. And would Palin ever feign to acknowledge that a liberal, big city scumbag (like myself) could also be patriotic?
Barack Obama would be the President to all of America. I love that. It is so refreshing to be considered worthy of Presidential attention again!
Today Palin shared with a third grader what a VP does. Apparently, the VP controls the Senate. No, dumb ass (pardon me), the VP breaks a tie in the Senate.
The Jason Jones interview with the current mayor of Wasilla is completely devastating:
Obama then skipped across the Show Me State and was greeted by a crowd ofat least 75,000 in Kansas City.
These photos are so beautiful to me. Look at these crowds!! People are engaged.
A teacher at George and Cole's schools told Tom today that she and her husband have bought their plane tickets to DC for the inauguration (crossing their fingers for an Obama win). We bought ours a month ago. I spend sleepless night thinking of my cuties, these amazing crowds and good will of America (and we in the big cities are NOT patriotic...? Please), and the dress I would design (if the economy didn't stink) for an Obama inaugural ball (to which we do not have tickets).
When I talk to Tom about the dress, he says, "Who cares about the ball? We are going to be THERE with the PEOPLE!" He is right and now on sleepless night, I'll think of the moment when I see the crowds crying... because their grandmother couldn't vote or the belief that any American child can now truly be President.
Other news:
Robin Hayes of NC pulled a Bachmann today. He accused Obama of "inciting class warfare" and said that "liberals hate real Americans that work and achieve and believe in God."
Thanks to Bachmann's McCarthyism, Tinklenberg has raised $700,000 in two days. Hooray! See Friday's blog.
For some additional context, here's the stats on the number of mentions of "socialism" or "socialist" in the same context as "Obama" during first-run broadcasts on the cable networks since Friday as of 11:00 AM Pacific time on Monday:
All: 251
CNN: 101
FOX: 81
MSNBC: 69
Seems that instead of being "fair and balanced" (i.e., giving the right-wing free rein to lie), CNN perhaps ought to be pursuing "truthful and accurate" reporting.
Today, John McCain defended his selection of Sarah Palin as "a cold political calculation" that has "energized our base." He says she is a "a direct counterpoint to the liberal feminist agenda for America."
So what's the "liberal feminist agenda" McCain is fighting against? The one that cares about "health of the mother?"
I was not going to write about politics tonight (or watch anything political), but then I stumbled upon the video below. When she asks for an investigation into whether US senators and members of the House are 'anti-American'... I think, wow, does she know about McCarthy? Watch the whole thing.
Watch Katrina vanden Heuvel of The Nation magazine (I love her) respond:
We found out that this fascist-sounding, crazy lady is running for reelection in Minnesota. It is a very tight race with El Tinkerbell... I mean Tinklenberg... I don't care what his name is (Barack? Hussein? Obama? Why do we have to have these completely unnecessary challenges?). He is a welcome change and since Bachmann thinks over half of her fellow senators are anti-American, she probably doesn't want to keep that company anyway. By her reasoning Harry Reid is probably a terrorist.
Wall Street Conservative columnist weighs in with "Palin is Failin'..." Read full story here.
No news conferences? Interviews now only with friendly journalists? You can't be president or vice president and govern in that style, as a sequestered figure. This has been Mr. Bush's style the past few years, and see where it got us. You must address America in its entirety, not as a sliver or a series of slivers but as a full and whole entity, a great nation trying to hold together. When you don't, when you play only to your little piece, you contribute to its fracturing.
In the end the Palin candidacy is a symptom and expression of a new vulgarization in American politics. It's no good, not for conservatism and not for the country. And yes, it is a mark against John McCain, against his judgment and idealism.
I gather this week from conservative publications that those whose thoughts lead them to criticism in this area are to be shunned, and accused of the lowest motives. In one now-famous case, Christopher Buckley was shooed from the great magazine his father invented. In all this, the conservative intelligentsia are doing what they have done for five years. They bitterly attacked those who came to stand against the Bush administration. This was destructive. If they had stood for conservative principle and the full expression of views, instead of attempting to silence those who opposed mere party, their movement, and the party, would be in a better, and healthier, position.
Now that FNC has reinvented itself as the "24-hour ACORN and Ayers" network, it's more obvious than ever that they don't give a damn about the pocketbook issues facing middle-class Americans.
Based on a search of closed caption data gathered since Sunday, FNC has mentioned the GOP's favorite issues (ACORN and Ayers) nearly thirty percentmore frequently than they mentioned the GOP's least favorite issues, the economy and the middle class.
The numbers are staggering:
Combined, FNC has mentioned "ACORN" or "Ayers" 1,231 times
Compare that to 963 references to "economy" or "middle class"
FNC's propaganda puts it out way out on a limb. Combined, MSNBC and CNN have made 798 references to ACORN or Ayers. Remember, that's both networks, combined.
Put another way, FNC has mentioned ACORN or Ayers 50% more often than both of its competitors put together.
::: :::
Raw Numbers:
FNC
MSNBC
CNN
ACORN
706
67
112
AYERS
525
340
279
Economy
826
1032
954
"middle class"
137
170
163
------
So I've been suffering from more symptoms this round and have had to lay low. The Obama party knocked me out, but it was worth it! We raised over $4000. Very satisfying to mail off to "Attention: Grassroots Fundraising" at Obama HQ.
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