President Obama!!!

It's taken me a few days to post my thoughts on the inaugurations. Here's some of my thoughts.....

1) I love hearing hearing the phrase "President Obama" for two reasons - one is that it isn't "President Bush" and second because hearing it reminds me that I now have a president that "gets it" regarding so many values that we share!

2) I had thought the inauguration was going to be emotional but I was caught by surprise by the flood of tears when Aretha started to sing. Dick Cavett wrote a great column that captures many of my thoughts http://cavett.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/23/im-not-weeping-its-an-allergy/

3) Shouldn't Justice Roberts have had a cheat sheet with the words since they are so important??

4) The one sad thing about the day was that my niece had tickets to the purple area and after more than four hours standing in a tunnel was turned away. I'm still proud of her for her intern service to a member of congress that earned her the ticket and proud of her wanting to brave the early hour and cold to try to see the historic event. I hope she gains some solace that even waiting in that tunnel with all those people that she was part of the history making event.

5) My 26 year old son that is barely old enough to remember back to the pre-Bush years, posted on inauguration day that he is feeling optimistic about the future. It's going to be a slow trek to undue the past administration's wrongs but I share his optimistic feeling to know we are now going in the right direction.

6) I thought THE speech was great and I intend to refer to it as a touchstone to remember the historic context for the direction our country will be taking during President Obama's first term.

7) I'm trying to think of how I can be part of President Obama's call for us to serve the country during this phase of my life. How interesting that Starbucks is also helping spread that call to action.

In closing, YAY for democracy and for liberal, patriotic, intelligent leadership! I love that President Obama is making it clear that liberals are also passionately liberal!