Random thoughts...: History hangover

Last night was history in the making. We elected the first African American president of the United States- and how excited were we?!? So excited that we needed to have an election day party.

I woke up feeling different. Feeling happy and excited about the day. One day I will tell my kids about this. One day I will look back and tell everyone what I was doing when Obama and McCain were going head to head in the biggest presidential race in history.

I get up and run- running to songs that will pump any American up- "We will rock you", "Baby got back", "Sign" by Ace of Base- you know...the usual. After my run I jump in the shower, get my VOTE NOW shirt on and wake Steve up.

We eat Alphabits because that is the best American meal and damn it that they have not been around for the past 10 years of my life. (side note: they got ride of NEW! on the box. Damn straight.)

We walk Mr. Bo- the air is clean and ready for a new president!

I have to go to the police station to get my fingerprints. yeah....I got into some bad stuff and have to clear my name but that is a whole different story. OK- No, I had to go get fingerprints to get a substitute teaching license and what better day to do it!

We drive up to the police station and there are people in red, white and blue with signs that say, "DROP OFF BALLOTS- THIS WAY"

Everyone is honking and waving. How exciting. I have never known this many people to get this excited or to vote for that matter!

We park and go in to the police station where there were these two older gentleman asking what my business is. I tell them and they help me fill out my fingerprint card. They tell me to put a "C" or a "W" for my race and a "F" for my gender. Really? How cute were these two old men?! I wanted to squish them up and take them home! I pay at the counter and away we go. This guy is getting my entire hand black and of course Steve is cracking jokes like, "this is not her first time doing this...." or "Now you know how I feel....." the usual jokes coming from Steve. The old guys are telling us stories about how people leave shoes, socks, watches, rings....you name it- they leave it at this police station while getting fingerprinted. I look down. Speaking of rings- mine is now black! I did not care because at this point- this guy could have covered my face with black ink and I would have laughed and still wanted to take him home. Once I was done- he coved my hands in a lemon scented goo- "Now rub yer hands together like yer washing them- but don't let your ring go in the trash." Thanks buddy. Thanks.

We leave the police station with my fingerprint card in hand and go back home where I had to drop off Steve so he can get the house clean and ready for our election day party and so I could go to work.

I get to work- get some of the "full screens" (its what we say in the bizz) I have to build for all these shows coming up. I go to a meeting- we are voting for who will win the Thursday nights game. TCU or Utah? I pick Utah but I just really do not care. I want to get home to start watching TV. We finally start taping (or shooting- if you will) some of our shows. I get calls and text's from Steve saying that Pink is at the house with him and that he is getting an early start on his celebration for Obama. He sends me a picture of Pink. It is a Pink holding up a vodka bottle that they have decorated. It says OBAMA '08 all over it. Wow- it is around 2:00 and he is going to town already!!

I finally get off work- I am running to the store to get snacks and Steve at this point is drunk. I need snacks to make him sober up!! ;)

I get home and he is probably the worst I have seen him. His friend Pink and him are downstairs in the basement playing fooseball table complaining that the need more beer. They leave to go get more beer after Steve tells me about 5 times that they drank a whole bottle of vodka. Why do they need more beer? Oh screw it- this is going to be a good night with history in the making!!

They go get beer, I am alone putting chips into bowls- listening to the TV. Mom calls. She stops by for a minute and we talk about Obama. We both think that if he can just hit 220 electoral votes, he will win. California is a lock with 50 electoral votes, so we just need him to get that. So far he is leading Florida AND Ohio which is huge! This is so exciting. Oh wait....VOTER ALERT!!! McCain won Kentucky. NO surprise there.

Mom leaves and Pink and Steve come back but Pink actual leaves to go home- so it is just Steve and I. Steve is mad that my mom left so he tries calling her but she did not pick up- so he closes his phone and pouts about it. Drops his phone in the salsa. He graps his phone out of the salsa and says, "crap- my phone has salsa on it..." and goes to the faucet to WASH IT OFF!! I grab him before he ruins his phone and I wipe it off for him. Could be a long night.

Moose finally comes over- THANK GOD and we make our shirts that we got FREE from Gap. It says Vote for _____. So of course we put in - Vote for HERB. and Vote for SOME DRE. Because why not put that on a shirt!?!? Steve strips for the both of us and says, "Put my shirt on for me!" What is he, 5??!!? Moose and I just laugh!

People start showing up- it was awesome. We are sitting there watching TV- but it is on CNN, not ESPN, not FOX SPORTS, not NBC on Sunday nights for football- we were actually watching a news channel. This is amazing! I am looking around the room and I am in awe of all of us so in to this election. We are not watching one of our teams looking to go 8-0 or make the hail mary pass to the end zone- this is history. This is the stuff that you read when you are 16 or 17 in your history class that you do not care about.....and we are watching it on our 47" (thats what she said) TV.

The electoral votes for Obama keeps going up, we are all getting so excited. I tell Moose my grand idea of hitting 220 (ps- I LOVE calling it MY grand idea when it is simple math) and she is nervous- she cannot even think about it! Steve is now in bed- drinking that early made him sleepy. (I have kept waking him up telling him he has to get up, if he misses it- he will be so sad) "Wake me up in 10 minutes." SO I go back downstairs.

VOTER ALERT! Obama wins Florida AND Ohio- our polls are now closed- Kevin says- "Man whichever party is YELLOW- they are winning." LOVE HIM. They have now put down a countdown clock for the polls closing on the west coast. This is it. This means California. Obama hits 220. California immediately turns BLUE- VOTER ALERT! OBAMA WINS PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES- I say, "Holy shit- they just called it!" Everyone was shocked and did not want to believe it.....They did! Sure enough- There is a check mark by Obama!! We start jumping up and down!! We start high fiving and hugging like our team just won the super bowl- This is awesome!! I have to go wake up Steve! Moose wants to come with so we swing open the door- "Steve OBAMA WON!!" Moose and I dance while Steve is slowly opening his eyes (super sleepy AND drunk)- "They called it?" So I explained the whole 220 thing and he said, "Well McCain has to ok that." (why is it on Steve's drunkest of days he can rattle out something actually smart and relative to the situation)

Anyway, Moose and I continued our dance and then went back downstairs. Everyone got on their phones to call someone. Mostly, their parents. Being in our 20's it is amazing to see the world for what it is and to see how far we have come. Sharing it with our parents and their parents is the next best thing when we think "history." Times like this I wish my dad, grandpa and grammy were still alive to see something this amazing. Well maybe not grandpa- he was not a huge fan of "the black folk!" ;) But to come this far in this country is so powerful and so moving.

McCain gives his speech. (He still cannot wave to the crowd. I'm sorry- too soon?) No for real- it was a great "exit interview" and I wrote it down for when I quit the MTN. He is an amazing solider and a brave soul- I am just glad he does not have that pin head crazy ass bitch with him to ruin this country. Sarah Palin waves- you can see it in her eyes. I wonder what she is thinking. "Can I go back to Alaska? Will they still love me? I still need to get that Mama Moose that has been dodging my bullets for awhile now- I guess that is what Tom and I will do tomorrow morning. Remind me to fuel the helicopter tomorrow morning- I need to vent."

We are all just waiting around for Obama's speech. The poor guy just lost his grandmother a day ago- She was the cutest thing ever.

The guy that loves the touch screen comes back on telling us about the demographics of the voters. "Lets go to age shall we..." PRESS- then the screen transforms into a pie chart. "Ya see here? The ages from 18-32- 58% voted for Obama while the rest- 41% voted for McCain- Now lets go back out here...." PRESS- I swear this guy has NO idea what the hell he is talking about he just wants to press the damn touch screen. (Side note: when we had to go through "telestrator training" at work- I was this guy. I was circling players, putting in arrows in the shape of a smiley face, I wrote HI MOM on top of the video- I was all over the place. And here I sit- making fun of this old dude. EVERYONE should play with a telestrator or a voting touchscreen once in their life)

FINALLY Obama comes out. His family is so cute. He looks so tired. But happy. To be honest- I think HE is even shocked he won.
His speech was amazing. He had me at HELLO CHICAGO. I had tears in my eyes....words cannot express his speech. I do not care who you voted for- his speech made you love America. Every America has been pissed off the past 8 years. We have been taken granted for. We are the power house and every other country is laughing at us because of one single man. This is the time were we get back up and we stand up for what we believe in. We all have to remember how it is to be an American and this is a huge start for a change.

I look behind me at Moose to smile at her. We smile at each other (never mind that Steve is sucking on a cigar- THAT is a whole different story!!) and I just keep thinking how weird it is to have a different president. Bush was elected before I could drink alcohol. Now I am married to an alcoholic- No I am just kidding- But think about how long we have had ONE MAN in that White House. Finally EIGHT years later it just feels different. It feels amazing.

I drove into work today and it felt better. I have no idea why- it just did.