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When we lived out in the boonies, we never put decorations on the outside of our house during the holidays. What would be the point? We lived on a remote, dead-end street. Barely anyone would’ve ever seen it other than us. So we never bothered.

Halloween was our first holiday in the suburbs, and our first experience seeing just how nuts the people around here go with their decorations. I was a little embarassed that we didn’t do anything. Well, ok, I put a pumpkin on the front stoop as sort of an autumn-type decoration, but I didn’t carve it or even draw on a jack o’lantern face with a Sharpie, because I suck horribly at all things that require even a teeny-tiny bit of artistic talent.

So, we’ve come to the conclusion that we’re going to have to step things up quite a bit for Christmas. A couple of our neighbors have informed me that everyone puts their Christmas lights up the weekend after Thanksgiving. Um, ok? Seems a bit ridiculous to me since it’s going to be up for a month, but sure, whatever.

To be honest, I’m a little excited at the idea of getting the outside of the house all spiffed up for Christmas, because my parents never did that. My mom would hang up a wreath on the front door, and since our front porch had white columns on it, she’d take a wide red ribbon and spiral it up the columns to make them look like candy canes. But we never had lights outside or anything. I’d really like to get in the habit of decorating the house for Christmas, I think Cate will really get into it as she gets older.

Today, Cate and I met up with Cat, Tony, e-baby, and Tony’s sister Diana to do a little pre-Christmas shopping. We hit a couple of stores to check out their selection of Christmas decorations. I didn’t buy anything today, I was just trying to get some ideas. Lowe’s hardware store has some great stuff – Cate and e-baby both loved all of the animatronic dancing, singing toys – but let’s get real, I’m not going to drop $200 on a giant inflatable Santa and stable (with a stall for each reindeer, labeled Donner, Blitzen, etc.). We also went to Big Lots (or as Cat calls it, Poverty Barn), and they had tons of stuff, which was pretty cheap, so I’ll probably end up heading back there to pick up some stuff. And I noticed that the dollar store near our house has Christmas decorations, so I think I’ll definitely be able to find sufficient supplies for the house that won’t hurt our bank account too much. I haven’t decided how extensive we’re going to get with the decor, though. I’ll have to balance my ambition with my hatred of working in the yard when it’s cold outside.

What about y’all? Anyone else go crazy with Christmas decorations, do you boycott them altogether, or do you find a happy medium?

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I literally can’t stop misting up right now. I am so happy that Obama won, I just have no words for how incredible this is. I saw Jesse Jackson on TV crying a few minutes ago, and I just lost it. To try to wrap my head around what a huge moment in history this is… well, words are failing me right now.

The numbers still aren’t in for North Carolina. I know that it clearly doesn’t matter in light of the landslide that Obama’s got so far. But I have to say that I do feel like I have a vested interest in the NC election, and yeah, I’m going to take it just a little bit personally if this state doesn’t go blue. Conversely, I’ll be taking all the credit if he does win NC. Because you know, it’s all about me. (Ha!)

For what it’s worth…

That volunteer work that I did? I did for that little girl right there. Because I want the best for her future, and I truly believe that Barack Obama will work to improve the lives of all of us, and our children in particular.

Ok, it’s almost midnight, I’m about to fall over from exhaustion, and I have to get to bed. I’m just… yeah. Overwhelmed. Verklempt. Filled with pride for my fellow Americans. And just so, so happy.

Pleasant dreams, everybody.

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One of the great things about NaBloPoMo is that there isn’t enough time to leave an entry at the top of the page waiting for more snarky comments. So! Moving on!

Today is Election Day, and since I voted over a week ago, this morning I headed off to my local Obama campaign office to volunteer. Originally they told me that I was going to be making calls, but when I arrived, they said that they needed more people to do neighborhood canvassing, which is what I did on Saturday. I had worn comfortable shoes and felt up for it, so sure, why not? Whatever way I can help out is fine with me. I joined up with a team – an older man who said he had bad knees but was willing to drive, and another much older lady (around 80-ish), who said she was volunteering so she wouldn’t be sitting at home staring at the TV and worrying all day. Boy, could I ever relate to that. (Seriously, CNN is on as I type. Cate is napping so I’m enjoying my break from Noggin.)

The difference in my experience between Saturday and today was absolutely astounding. I don’t even know exactly how to describe this, but it was truly profound.

Saturday: It was a beautiful sunny day, and the neighborhood that I was assigned to was predominantly white and upper-class (some Asian and Indian mixed in, but for the most part it was Caucasian Central). We were smack in the middle of suburbia; an upscale mall was nearby, a Whole Foods, several well-manicured green spaces, local parks, etc. It was posh, to say the least. The houses were close enough together that usually the driver would park and the other three volunteers in the car would fan out and go to a nearby house. No one ever had to walk far from the car to the assigned house and back. The people we met were generally polite, but some of them were a little icy and very rarely seemed enthusiastic about our presence.

Today: The weather was cold, gray, and rainy. The area we were assigned to was very rural; most of the roads were gravel, not paved. Instead of McMansions in suburbia, I was knocking on the doors of run-down, delapidated mobile homes, most of which had chickens and turkeys running around loose in their front yards. Think of every stereotype you know about poor, rural, Southern life, then multiply it times ten. I’d seen places like this from the highway before, but I’d never been in it. I’d never walked up those muddy driveways, shooing the hens out of my way as I went, and knocked on the doors. I was almost attacked by a watchdog who clearly believed that all unknown visitors had bad intentions. The residents we met were almost 100% African-American.

The people I met today were generally friendlier than the ones I met on Saturday. Perhaps being in such a remote area, they haven’t been targeted by as many political campaigns this year; maybe it was Election Day Fever, who knows. People seemed excited, even if they were just informing me that they’d participated in early voting. However, many people seemed taken aback to see me – a 30-something, suburban-mom-looking, white woman – as the representative from the Obama campaign that was there to speak with them. Lois, the older lady I was working with, got even more shocked reactions than I did. But then, why would you expect a frail little old lady to come out advocating for the more progressive candidate? The surprised reactions made total sense to us. I don’t know if I’ve ever felt quite so insanely overprivileged and blessed in my entire life.

It just struck me how very different these two worlds are, how very different these people are, how very different their issues and concerns must be, and yet the two groups have both come to Barack Obama as the candidate that best represents them. I love that I had the opportunity to see the diversity firsthand.

I don’t know if I’ll be able to stay awake until they get the election results announced tonight, but I’m going to try. I have a feeling that if I decide to crash early, I’ll be needing a Tylenol PM to settle myself down and turn my brain off so that I can sleep.

SIDE NOTE: I shouldn’t have to add this on my blog entries, but apparently it’s necessary. You’re totally allowed to disagree with my viewpoints, but respect for others is requested – nay, demanded. Nasty, hateful comments will be deleted. Thank you.

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Want to guess what I was doing this past Saturday morning? I was going door-to-door for Barack Obama, making sure people had information about early voting and that they know exactly where their polling location is if they choose to vote on Election Day. (In case you didn’t know: for early voting, you can go anyplace within your county. The place where I voted was in a shopping mall next to a LensCrafters. On Election Day, though, you can only go to your district’s assigned voting location.)

I was planning to volunteer on Election Day, but the local Obama campaign office called me and asked if I could help over the weekend, and well heck, why not? It’s only for three hours, it’s not like it’s some huge imposition, and I do believe in the cause. It was fun. It was nice to chat with the other volunteers about the election, and most people that we talked to were very nice. A good portion of them had already voted, which was encouraging. We had a few people on our list who had moved, and the new residents were McCain supporters, which was awkward. But we just gave them the, “ok, sorry to bother you, have a nice day!” And it was fine. Nobody was overly rude, so overall I’d say the venture was a success.

Also, since it’s so close to the election, the local campaign office was giving volunteers all sorts of Obama gear for free. Which is how I scored a yard sign. Check it out.

It’s really bizarre to me how split our neighborhood is – on our street, there are an equal number of McCain and Obama yard signs. But what’s even weirder is how all of the kids are involved with it too. Yesterday, little Ryan gave me crap about my Obama yard sign, and I was like, dude, you’re 5 years old! How do you even know who the candidates are? His mom said she’s worried about him (and his older sister, Cate’s BFF McKenzie) because if Obama wins, she’s concerned that both of her kids are going to be totally depressed. WTF? Doesn’t that seem strange? I mean, I do remember getting picked on when I was in 2nd grade because my parents were voting for Walter Mondale, but I don’t remember caring that much about it.

There are also at least three other kids who live in our neighborhood who hang out with us almost every day when Cate and I are playing in the yard. Their parents are McCain supporters, so they keep asking me about Obama because they seem to want to understand the other side of things. So like, one of the kids came over and asked me what it meant that “Obama wants to spread the wealth around.” And you know, I don’t mind discussing politics with anyone; after all, even when people disagree with me, I can usually keep it respectful and polite, even if some of their views make me want to roll my eyes back in my head until I can see my own brain. But I keep hitting a road block with these kids: how do you explain politics to an 8 or 10 year-old? I can’t figure out a way to break down things like tax policy and “trickle-down economics” on a level where they can understand it. And then when they ask me what I think of Sarah Palin, I can tell them what I think about her lack of experience and the fact that she seems pretty uninformed about the world, but I can’t get into the abortion issue, or that she made rape victims pay for their own rape kits in Wasilla. I’m also trying to be very careful of how I phrase things because I don’t want their parents to get mad at me for putting my liberal beliefs in their kids’ heads. So it’s just strange. I’m anxious for Wednesday to get here just like everyone else, but one of my reasons is that I’m hoping that the daily barrage of questions will let up.

Speaking of waiting for Wednesday: I mentioned this on a post at Mandajuice today, but whatever happens with this election, I hope that whoever wins will work across the aisle toward the best interests of the entire country, not one small subset of the population. Abraham Lincoln was a Republican (back when the parties had totally different ideologies), and he filled his Cabinet with a mix of both parties, because he wanted the smartest men available to work with him, regardless of their party affiliation. He wanted them to argue with him and give him the counter-point to every issue. George W. Bush has surrounded himself exclusively with other Republicans, so there’s no diversity of thought in this administration at all. I hope that regardless of whoever wins – even if it isn’t the guy I like – our next President will prove to be more like Lincoln, because that’s what we really need right now.

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Warning: this post is all about politics. Feel free to skip it if you either don’t care or are going to leave me a nasty comment. Polite disagreement is fine, but this is my site and I like things to stay civil.

A while back, I signed up on Barack Obama’s website to be notified of any events that were happening in my area. They would send me things that were totally out of reach, like one email that told me that Biden was speaking somewhere in Virginia, which, um, no. Don’t get me wrong, I think Joe Biden is an ok guy and would probably be a really good vice-president, but I’m not going to drive for four hours to hear him speak for 45 minutes.

On Monday, I got a notice that Obama was coming to Raleigh. I debated on whether or not to bring Cate with me. On the one hand, I thought it’d be kind of fun – I could just pop her in the backpack carrier and off we’d go. I also considered asking one of the neighbors to watch her, since our neighborhood is chock full of stay-at-home moms, but that felt sort of awkward. (Hello, neighbor with a McCain/Palin sign in your yard. Want to baby-sit for me while I go root for the other guy?) I didn’t want her to interrupt Dave’s workday, but he said it was fine, he could watch her so I wouldn’t have to worry about keeping her happy for the entire duration. I decided in the end to go with that option. So Cate and Dave – the two members of our household who aren’t eligible to vote (for different reasons) – stayed home, and I went to the Obama rally all by myself.

It was seriously cool. Actually, the weather was seriously cold. I think it was in the low 40’s this morning, and there was a really crazy wind that was almost painful. I had to stand in line for over an hour, since it stretched out for over three blocks. The highlight was when the old man in front of me asked me if I was a student. I laughed and told him he was sweet, but I’m 32 years old. He said, “Well, we have a lot of graduate students around here who are in their 30’s…” Yeah, nice cover, grandpa. I’m just going to take the compliment that you thought I was 22 and run with it.

Anyway, once the TSA put me through a metal detector and searched my purse, I headed in to find a spot. It was a madhouse. It was still chilly by that point, but pretty soon the sun came out and then I was in a crowd of thousands of people crammed in shoulder-to-shoulder, so it started to get really hot. A couple of people actually fainted during Obama’s speech. Craziness.

I managed to get a couple of decent pictures while I was there.

It was great, I’m so glad that I went. You can see his speech in Raleigh here, if you want. (No way to embed it, unfortunately.)

Also, I’ve signed up to volunteer with the Obama campaign on Election Day. Nothing big, just calling voters and making sure they know where to go to vote. It’s only for a few hours, Dave can take care of Cate while I go do my part for democracy. Six more days, y’all!

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Guess what I did yesterday?

I like that caption, “I Made Freedom Count.” Made me laugh when they gave me the sticker.

North Carolina has early voting, which is pretty cool. I headed over while Cate was napping, since Dave was working from home. I had read all kinds of nightmare stories about long waits, screwy voting machines, whatever, so I went into it with great hesitancy. And really, it was totally undramatic. The wait was about 20 minutes, which was nothing (I had brought a book with me, so it went by quickly). North Carolina uses paper ballots, so no worries about computer glitches. And… yeah. That was it. Nothing to it, really. But it felt really good to fill in that bubble next to “Obama/Biden.”

[/end political talk]
Back to the toddler updates: we seem to have entered the Age of Elmo. I knew it was coming eventually – it seems to hit every toddler at some point – but it officially started yesterday. We were playing with Jillian, the little girl next door, and she had various Sesame Street characters on her sweatshirt. Cate pointed at Elmo and said, “MELMO!” Later when I was changing her diaper, she noticed Elmo on her diaper and said “Melmo, melmo, melmo!” It’s kind of weird since she only watches Sesame Street maybe once or twice a week at the most, but I’ve heard stories about how Elmo has sort of a magical gravitational pull on kids this age, so I’m not really surprised.

Today I took Cate with me to Target, and she started to have a total meltdown about halfway through the store. She wouldn’t ride in the cart, she wouldn’t walk, she didn’t want the Cookie Bribe, she didn’t want her sippy cup, she just wanted me to carry her, but when I did, she kept squirming because I wasn’t holding her at exactly the angle she wanted to be held. (Have you ever tried to hold a 28-pound toddler while pushing an overloaded shopping cart with one hand? It’s challenging.) Finally as I was making my way past the toy section, I spotted some Sesame Street toys. I grabbed a small Elmo doll, showed it to her, and it was like someone magically replaced my child with a new, happier model. For the rest of our trip, she walked happily through the store, holding onto “Melmo” and talking to him. I was thinking that I would just use the doll to distract her until we were done shopping, but I ended up buying it for her. Elmo only cost $5, and I figured it was worth it since he made her so happy.

Also: I really have to start bringing my camera outside with me more often. Cate is completely enamored with the older girls in the neighborhood, and the feeling is obviously mutual. Yesterday there were three girls serenading Cate with “Row Row Row Your Boat” over and over again to make her dance. And she did. For ages. They try to invent little games with her – they’ll say “ready, set,” which Cate knows is her cue to scream “GO!” and then they all fall down. It is seriously, seriously funny.

A few minutes ago, two of the girls, Rebecca and McKenzie (both of them are in the third grade, so they’re about 8-ish, I think?) knocked on the door to see if Cate could come out to play. I told them that she’s napping, but I’ll bring her out as soon as she wakes up.

In case I haven’t said it already: I love it here. I’m so happy that we moved when we did. I love this neighborhood, I love this house, I love that there’s a Super Target only a couple of miles from us, and I absolutely adore that there are so many kids around for my girl to play with. We are having so. much. fun.

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So, that happened. Lesson learned: don’t antagonize the evangelicals.

I’m starting to think that there really is no point to these conversations at all. It’s not as though I’m going to change anyone’s mind, any more than they’re going to convert me into a Scripture-quoting, pro-life, anti-gay, right-wing conservative. It’ll never happen. So why bother discussing it? Both sides are equally convinced that they’re correct in their thinking, so even trying to have a reasonable “hey, have you ever considered it from this angle?” conversation usually just devolves into name-calling and nastiness.

I mean, thank God I’m not Dooce and don’t have nearly the number of hateful commenters that she had when she wrote about abortion. Still, y’all should’ve seen my website statistics over the weekend. If only our economy would have such a spike in numbers.

The funny thing is, all the conversation did was make me realize that I’m actually far more to the left than I thought I was. I used to think of myself as fairly moderate, but the more I look at the way that the Republican party is going, the more it’s repelling me in the opposite direction. This year is the first time I’ve registered to vote as a Democrat rather than an Independent. If the Republican party keeps moving in the direction that it is, catering to its evangelical base and trying to legislate morality, by 2012 I’ll probably be a full-on Socialist.

As for the religion issue, I just want to end with a couple of things that I don’t think are all that controversial. First, a friend linked me to a blog post called The Politics of Jesus, which I thought was interesting. And unbelievably neutral toward both liberal and conservative viewpoints. Seriously, go read it. You won’t be offended no matter which side of the aisle you’re on. (Well, you probably won’t. Some people – not naming names – look for excuses to be offended at every turn, and there’s just nothing I can do about that.)

Second, my favorite quote from the late, great Kurt Vonnegut:

For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes. But, often with tears in their eyes, they demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings. And of course that’s Moses, not Jesus. I haven’t heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, be posted anywhere. ‘Blessed are the merciful’ in a courtroom? ‘Blessed are the peacemakers’ in the Pentagon? Give me a break!

Ok, maybe not the most relevant quote, but you have to admit, he makes a good point.

Third, just to totally lighten the mood: a guy that I went to high school with created a blog a few years ago that I’ve been meaning to link to, and I just never could find a way to work it into the conversation. It’s called Crummy Church Signs, and it is friggin’ HIGH-larious. (Example: “Stop, Drop & Roll Doesn’t Work in Hell”.) Joel himself is a really good Christian guy, he just happens to have a wicked sense of humor when it comes to this stuff. Seriously, some of his captions make me laugh until my eyes water. Hope y’all read and enjoy.

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