My new purse

I bought a new purse today at Macy's and I found one that seems to work for all my needs. I need it to be big enough so that I can put something random of Ellie's into it, like a toy or a small stuffed animal. It also has to be big enough to fit a couple of small books. I don't want it to be so big that it's cavernous and my wallet and cell phone fall down to the bottom never to be found again. I want lots of compartments so that each of my most-retrieved items will live in its own section and I can grab what I need in a second.

I also need a long handle so I can throw it over my shoulder when I need both hands and I want it to be sturdy enough that it won't break for years and I want it to cost less $50. And I want it to be nice looking.

So today I went to Macy's and Nana had a coupon for $10 off an item and Macy's was having lots of sales anyway. The purse I found was originally $75, marked down to $45 and with my $10 off became $35. Awesome.

I bought it and immediately brought it to where we were sitting in the mall. Then I pulled everything out of my homemade tote bag that I've been using and carefully placed the items into my new purse.

I could feel myself becoming a new woman as my things moved from one bag to the other. I can just see the kind of woman I will become. I will become the kind of woman who will spot something in a store that would make the perfect gift for someone far away and who will immediately pull out a pen and appointment book to make a note of it for future reference. I will become the kind of woman who will then check that appointment book later and see that note.

I will no longer be the kind of woman who waits until she gets her coke and fries at the food court to write the note in a section of the appointment book that she never reads and then accidentally leaves the book on her tray and dumps it into the garbage can with her empty fry container.

I will become the kind of woman who keeps track of her faraway friends' birthdays and will have lovely wrapping paper stored away in her home to wrap those special gifts and plain but appropriately sized boxes to mail them off in.

I will no longer be the kind of woman who attempts to mail a package in an empty Jose Cuervo box only to be informed by the postal worker that you are not allowed to send things through the United States Post Office in a box that once contained alcoholic beverages.

True, I may not be that person now. But I can tell that soon, and with the help of this purse, I will be.

South

I walked outside yesterday to get something from the car and as soon as I walked out the door, I heard a faraway sound. First it sounded like a siren, then it became more musical, like an orchestra tuning up. It got louder and louder and I looked up at the sky and saw a flock of geese flying in formation over me. They were honking back and forth to each other and the sound was a cacophony. I tried to count them all as they passed over me and I think I estimated, after the final stragglers flew through, that there were a hundred geese.

A six-year-old tiff

Ellie has been having some issues with a boy in school. We'll call him "Manfred." Apparently, Ellie ripped something of his when they were on the bus together one day. Manfred was playing keepaway with a painting he had made and when Ellie grabbed at it, she got hold of it just as he was pulling it away and it ripped. She told me it was an accident and she apologized on the bus, but he was very angry anyway.

She told me she ripped something else of his at another time, but I forgot the circumstances of that and she said that was an accident, too. So clearly she needs to work on being too rough in general.

So Manfred has not forgiven her and he has been excluding her from things and making it generally clear that he doesn't like her. Last night as I was tucking her in, she said, "I have to find a way to get along with Manfred." It was so funny how pragmatic she was about it.

I told her that she should make sure he knows that she is sorry she ripped his things and beyond that she should just play with someone else and tell the teacher if he is being mean to her. Once I started giving her advice, she stopped wanting to talk about it. So I told her if she wants to talk about it again to let me know.

But I'm sure she will work it out kindergarten-style and she and Manfred will be back to being friends again soon.

In the car with Daddy

This post is from Greg:

Ellie and I were driving in the car yesterday, and we were talking about aunts and uncles. She wanted to know who my aunts and uncles were, and then we talked about who hers were. After we ran through the list, I mentioned that we also have some good friends who we call Uncles because we like them so much.

“You know, like Uncle Pete,” I said.

She thought for a minute and said, “If he had an ‘F’ at the front of his name, he’d be ‘Uncle Feet’.” And then she laughed hysterically.

Horses!

Okay, I'm sure you're all happy that I'm done being a shrill political gadfly. Here's a little story about our day at the stables:

Greg and I picked up Ellie at school the other day, and Greg came up with the nice idea to go to the stables at Harms and Golf to look at the horses. So we drove on over and walked around the stables and watched the girls riding in the outdoor arena. One woman going by us even stopped and let us pet her horse. Then we walked to another small arena where a man was letting two horses race freely around, chasing each other. That was very cool to see.

We walked through the stalls to the office area and inquired about lessons, but the woman said kids have to be seven to start lessons. But we take Ellie back for pony rides, which they have every Saturday.

So we asked if we could walk around and see the horses, and they said sure, so we strolled through the stalls and read the names of the horses and then we walked back outside to watch the riders again.

While we were watching, a girl who looked like she was about 13 came over to us with a horse and asked if we wanted to pet him. She said his name was Ben and he was a lesson horse and was about 30 years old. I didn't know that horses lived that long, but I guess they do. I wonder if Aunt Gen might have ridden Ben or known of him when she rode there, given as how old he is.

The girl asked if we wanted to meet some more horses and we did, so she brought us back into the stables and showed us more horses. We met Snowy and Lily and Marbles. There were quite a few horses coming and going, so I was getting a little nervous about one of us getting kicked or jostled around, but it seemed to work out. Our guide anchored one of the horses up and let Ellie brush it and pet it.

We headed back home after that. It was a great time! They've redone the stables a lot since I was a kid, but the inside horse arena looks the same, so that brought back some memories.

My Political Soapbox

I'm still so happy that Obama won, but I'm also deeply disappointed by the fact that Californians passed Proposition 8. A majority in California voted to change the state constitution to specifically exclude same sex couples from the right to marry. The right to marry is something the Supreme Court of the United States has already deemed a basic human right.

It's way past time to finally admit that there's nothing wrong with homosexuality and that gay people should be allowed to marry. We are at the point now where we're merely arguing over semantics. We're like selfish children sitting on our toys. "Fine. You can cobble together all the rights of marriage and create your own civil unions. You just can't call it marriage. That's ours. You can't have it."

It's time for this country to grow up and create laws based on reason instead of irrational fear. Prop 8 sets California backward. Way backward. That it passed is just wrong.

President Barack Obama!

We have a new President of the United States. Barack Obama!!!

Our election night story: We got Ellie in bed by around 7:30pm and Jerry came to the house at around 8pm, just as some very early numbers were coming in. We left Nana and Papa to their own election returns party and we headed out to a bar where Jerry thought he might know some people.

The spot was a little dive-y neighborhood bar on Irving Park. It wasn't too packed and it wasn't too loud and they had three big-screen TVs hanging high up by the ceiling and a buffet of homemade food along one wall. Most people were standing in front of the TVs, so we could still find seats at the bar. One very cool, very hardworking bartender handled the whole crowd all night--she was great.

The numbers hadn't changed much between home and the bar, so we hung out and drank beer and wondered what damage Bush can still do in his last couple of months. Then we recounted all the damage he has done up until now. Sounds depressing, but it didn't dampen our spirits because the whole time Obama's numbers were going up and up and up.

He sat at 207 electoral votes for awhile, so we got up from the bar and moved to stand in front of the TV showing CNN. It seems like we were only standing there for a short time, chatting about percentages and the various senate races, when the clock ticked over to 10pm. That's 8pm Pacific Standard Time. The moment the polls closed on the west coast (read: California), all those electoral votes came pouring in for Obama. He won. CNN projected it right away across the whole screen. Barack Obama will be our next president of the United States.

Everyone in the bar went crazy. Around 30 seconds later, McCain walked out to give his concession speech. The crowd in the bar hushed each other, and we all sat and listened to his speech. We cheered when he gave his props to Obama and we didn't jeer. Much.

When he was done, we all hooted and hollered it up again. One woman at the bar raised her hands high above her head and yelled, "It is morning in America!"

Another woman handed me a glass and asked, "Would you like some champagne?" I took it and she said, "We just wanted to share the wealth, you know, like socialists."

Sometime after that, Obama came out to give his victory speech. The crowd at Grant Park looked amazing, but I was so glad I wasn't there. What a crush of people. The much smaller crowd in the bar was so...happy. Some people were crying, and the champagne woman was bawling. Loudly. The rest of us clapped and cheered at the TV screen. I did a lot of happy dances.

Obama gave an amazing and inspirational speech, of course. I think everyone in that bar was ready to walk out the door and personally repair the entire American infrastructure.

When his speech was over, we all cheered and hugged. I texted pretty much everyone in my cell phonebook. I decided to get another drink, but I didn't want another beer. So Greg and I sat at the bar and asked the bartender if she could create a shot called The Barack Obama. She decided to combine a Coffee Liquor and Tequila and she did the shot with me. To Obama!

We left soon after that and headed back home. What a fun night. We were with a perfect size crowd in a fun setting and I really felt like we were all standing smack in the middle of history.

Special Election Week Coverage

I've embedded an RSS Feed to fivethirtyeight.com, a website that pulls in polls from everywhere it can find and reports on the probability of a variety of different election-night scenarios. Everything looks very good for Obama.

Greg loves this site because he's a big numbers guy and he understands all the pluses and minuses and possibilities and probabilities and aggregates and blah dee bloo blah blay. And I understand in my head that this is all valid and probably giving us the truth and I shouldn't be worried because it's looking great for Obama.

But.

I'm still not sure.

I still think there could be a very big upset.

Maybe it will be fraud. Maybe it will be the Bradley effect. Maybe the Right has driven fear so deeply into people's minds that they ultimately won't be able to do it. Maybe a big, green, Republican alien will drop in from outer space and zap every person at the polls with an insta-neocon phaser. I don't know.

So I'm watching the poll numbers like a broker on wall street and waiting for it to be over.