I Can Be Your Hero. . .

Post election, after that sweet moment the polls closed on the west coast and CNN called the election for Obama at 10 p.m. central time on the dot, before they even released the results of California, Oregon and Washington, I’ve been wandering around trying to make sure it’s really true. Everyone says it is, but part of me still doesn’t believe it.

It’s sinking in slowly: we have the black Kennedy’s moving into the house we all own in a couple of months.

Not the Kennedy’s, exactly. Our future first lady has no problem giving her husband, the future leader of the free world, a little bit of grief on national TV. Watching the interview on 60 Minutes tonight, I got the distinct impression that it hasn’t been just his grandmother, Toot, who kept him grounded. Michelle Obama keeps her husband in line all the time.

Not that I think he minds.

I know a little about someone making me want to be a better person. And not just for myself. To include other people in ways that we can. Giving money to local charities rather than buying Christmas presents that people don’t really need or even want.

Michelle Obama is the power behind the throne. Not that she dictates policy or even gets involved enough to express an opinion. Not that she doesn’t have one. I’m sure she does.

Her power comes from a deeper place.

She makes our future president want to be better than he might have been, otherwise. Not because she brow-beats him, but because he wants to be her hero. And his kids’ hero. He wants a better world for his family than he had himself.

He created his life out of nothing with a strong woman standing by, letting him do what he needed to do to live his dream.

Daddy worked long hours, taking as much overtime as he could stand, to make sure we had a better life. I don’t know if that was his dream or not, but I think he was proud in the end. He raised a family, and then another. He was a parent from the time my older sister was born in 1963 until he died last year. 45 years of being a parent to children.

That in itself is remarkable.

Heroic, some would say.

The Obama family is not too different from a lot of others around the world.

Including mine.

Triage

Since all is said and done (the fat lady sang real loud), I'm engaging in gratuitous political endorsement and celebration. Not that I'm shy about voicing my opinion.

But the election's over and the path forward is a little clearer. But only by a bit. We know who will move into 1600 Pennsylvania Ave on January 20. What happens afterwords is anybody's guess.

I do not envy the President-elect, although I respect him thoroughly. He's inheriting a mess that's not going to get better any time soon. From what I've been reading from people who know more about economics than me, we're in a triage stage right now: save the ones you can, leave the iffy for later and let the hopeless cases die. Give them morphine and let them go.

I know that sounds ruthless, but that's how it has been playing out.

Still, I have more hope than I did last week. And not because I believe that a President can change a whole lot by executive order. That and the veto are about the only powers one has, other than appointing Secretaries.

I'm more hopeful because of the message of the President-elect. Throughout the campaign, he's come back time and time again to the message of hope and possibility, invoking the idea that we can achieve all things. That we can become and be what we want. That all things are possible.

That's the most important quality of any President: the ability to inspire hope in times of great peril. The times we're living in.

Hope inspires faith, and faith calms all things.

These days, hope is a priceless commodity. An intangible asset that can be valued only by how people respond.

Perhaps I'm naive, but I don't think so.

In this election hope trumped all else.

Too Much Time on my Hands . . .

I’ve been off work since Thursday at 5:00 p.m., and I’m amazed by all the things I can get taken care of if I don’t have to go to work. I got ink for the printer, unloaded the dishwasher, did laundry, took Shannon out for lunch, went to the grocery, cooked a fabulous chicken, unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher and picked up the dry cleaning. I also paid rent and the water bill, along with a couple of other bills, filled up the car and got it washed.

(Baby was horrible-dirty. Between the landscaping and construction on this property and the mall being demolished across the street, the dust gets a little heavy some times.)

This morning, though, my eyes are swollen, and they burn. The bathroom wall collapsed in on itself a week ago, and it’s been sealed off since. The water damage that had accrued and been neglected over the years reached the point where the tiles no longer stuck to the walls around the tub. They starting falling off in sheets and left water-logged wallboard covered in mold exposed.

In theory, we have 2 bathrooms, but since the toilet and tub for the master bath are in the contaminated area, we really have 1 bathroom and an extra sink. I sealed the mold room off with clear plastic packing tape and a towel as best I could. The worst part is that the sealed-off room has the tub with handicapped grab bars for Shannon. They were supposed to already have them in the other tub by now, so I’m guessing that, since they don’t, the great mold makeover may take a while longer than I had anticipated.

And the Democrats won’t stop calling. On Saturday, I called the county Party office and the state Party office to tell them that enough is enough. I voted over a week ago, so they’re wasting my time as well as theirs. Still, over Friday and Saturday, we had about a dozen calls from one or both of them. I don’t think it was the national Party, because Obama has no chance of winning Texas. He’ll take Travis County handily, but we’ll be one of only a few counties where that happens.

Other races on the state and local level, though, remain important. The carpet-bagger who took over my newly-gerrymandered US Congressional district a few years ago faces serious competition. The man who used to represent me and got gerrymandered out of my district has little to no competition. In Travis County, TX, home of old-fashioned Texas liberalism, old hippies and intellectuals, the US Congressional map is so contorted that it looks like nothing so much as water draining down a toilet. Or a satellite picture of a hurricane about to make landfall. Or a black hole.

Take your pick of analogies. One is about as apt as the other. And appetizing.

We met Shannon’s mother and sister-in-law down south for lunch earlier today. Just one more thing I was able to fit into my fun-filled 4 days off. His mother’s about 80, but spry as ever. She’s as excited about the upcoming election as me, so I’m sure the other diners enjoyed our sometimes-animated conversation. She doesn’t hear so well anymore, so I had to talk louder than I would have otherwise done. They got an ear full, I’m sure.

And his sister-in-law is still going through chemo for uterine cancer after undergoing a radical hysterectomy last month. She’s putting on a brave face, but I could tell it’s wearing her down. “2 more rounds,” she said. “Then we’ll see.”

I have to go back to work tomorrow, so I took another nice, long nap this afternoon. The clock continues to confuse my body. It’s already getting dark, and if I had worked today, I’d just be getting home. It will take weeks to adjust. But I’m sure I’ll be up half the night tomorrow watching election returns, so I’m not sure the time change is going to matter too much over the next few days.

And I’m taking inauguration day off if Obama wins. It will be an historic day that I want to see for myself in its entirety. I didn’t think I would live to see a black president. I thought a woman was more likely to come first. (She almost did, but that’s another story.) And a voice of hope and unity when it seems like to sky is falling makes my heart sing instead of sink.

Enough is Enough is Always Enough

I have received so many campaign calls, many of them from machines that don't understand "Leave me the hell alone", that I finally snapped yesterday. I called both the county and state Democratic Parties to see if they were responsible and to tell them to quit. They're also going to get this letter by mail (although what they get will include name, address and phone number, details that I'm not publishing online for many reasons).

I encourage anyone who is being harassed by any political party or candidate by phone to do the same. I may accomplish little, but it sure feels good to tell them to leave me the hell alone in my home.

The calls have stopped, for now. We'll see.

Click image to enlarge.