Happy Days Are Here Again

We watched the inauguration of Barack Obama in our living room rather than braving the crowds and the weather. Being less than 10 miles from the events of the past few days, however, led to some unusual sightings for us:

* Trips to our local grocery store resulted in unusual sightings: lots of fur coats and at least one Rolls Royce.

* We also bought some Jones Orange "You Glad for Change" soda. On our next trip to the store, the soda was sold out.

* On the way to pick up Doodle from a sleepover on Sunday morning, in the span of time that we waited for a light to change at a cross street to a major route into the city, we saw no fewer than 22 loaded tour buses.

* I saw Obama and his motorcade as he left The Washington Post last week, as the result of a well timed trip to the pharmacy near my office to pick up something for Doodle.

I've lived in this area for six other inaugurations and I've never seen anything quite like this (even though I attended Clinton's first swearing in and the Reunion on the Mall of concerts and fireworks that preceded it). I hope and pray that this momentum and sense of togetherness will go far in turning this country around. Yes we can.

"Cooking" with Tootle

Tootle decided to top off her dinner tonight with a juicy red apple. Suddenly I noticed that she was knawling the apple at a furious pace and so I asked her what she was doing. "Making applesauce," she replied.

Juror No. 85A

Yesterday I performed my civic duty by reporting for jury duty. The last time I was called, about 10 years ago, I ended up as foreperson in an attempted murder trial. At the end of the two day trial, I got to declare the defendant's guilt. You don't shoot a person at point blank range with witnesses present and get away with it. Yesterday, while I was one of about 40 potential jurors called in for possible service in a burglary case, I didn't end up in the jury box. Instead I spent most of the day doing work in a quiet environment, while enjoying the wireless access in the jury lounge. During the voir dire for the burglary case, I found out/noticed some interesting things about my fellow jurors and the process:

• One older man was an intelligence officer in Cameroon for 20 years. He talked to me about how astounded he was by the cost that must be involved in having a jury trial for a burglary case.
• The jury pool was much more diverse than 10 years ago. That's a good thing.
• The woman seated next to me ended up being on the jury. I hope she showed up for the trial's continuation today (it was expected to last 2 days). She asked me who she should talk to if she couldn't come back today. I told her that she had to come back if she was selected for the jury, but that if she had a reason why she couldn't be there the next day she should talk to the judge. She didn't.
• The defense attorney struck the guy who had been a cop for 30 years from the panel, and the prosecutor excused the young African American guy. I would have been surprised if either of those actions hadn't occurred.

Jury service is fascinating for a day, but I'm glad that my name won't be called again for the next several years.

Prelude to an Inauguration

Living in the DC area and being Democrats means that we have inauguration fever--and a four-day weekend coming up. I think we'll be satisfied watching the historic inauguration ceremony and parade on TV (we'll be able to see more, and we'll be warm). I'd love to score tickets to the kids' concert at the Verizon Center on the 19th, but it's probably a long shot (and it will be shown on the Disney Channel). We did take a trip downtown yesterday to visit the official inauguration store. I got each of the girls a keepsake and some pins. Doodle liked this dazzling t-shirt but I vetoed her request. The girl has expensive taste. Tootle's favorite keepsake is the special inauguration Metro farecard; this was the first time that she was old enough to get her own subway ticket. We also stopped at Union Station for lunch; there was a nice display about all 44 presidents in the Main Hall. Tootle was particularly excited to hear about Abraham Lincoln, and Doodle spent some time learning more about No. 44, Barack Obama. We also saw no fewer than two lifesize, but not very lifelike, cardboard cutouts of Obama.

Portrait in Exhaustion

Doodle at 5:15 p.m. I got a new lens today.

Doodle at 10 p.m. Just looking at this picture makes me tired; the earlier spark is gone. This was taken after indoor soccer practice and pizza and a movie with her teammates.

Gutterballs and Strikes

We finished up our winter break by going duckpin bowling. The lane had bumpers so gutterballs were impossible, but I feel like I've had a few real-life gutterballs since going back to work this week:

• I'm so swamped that I'm working from 9:30 or so until midnight every night.


• Doodle's substitute math teacher gave so much math homework that she spent 90 minutes on it before I insisted that she call it quits. At least one kid in the class completed all the work, spending 3 hours on it. Ridiculous.


• We haven't even had a trace of snow yet this season, just lots and lots of cold icky rain.

We've also had a few strikes this week:

• I was able to refinance my mortgage, saving me money each month.


• Tootle is making great progress in reading. She is starting to read chapter books and is so motivated to learn.


• Doodle got a perfect score on her Thanksgiving letter writing assignment. I received the original of the letter as a gift at Thanksgiving, but the grade wasn't issued until this week. It was a beautiful letter, and it made me cry, so anything less than a perfect score would have been inexcusable.

New Year's Day

Tootle tries out her new skates

Playing Mario Kart DS while watching Penn State get crushed