My Thumb is healing! & a proud moment in history.

So for those of you who don't know I spent most of my weekend cooking and in the midst of the power cooking I managed to grate part of my hand off.  And not like a scrape, or a gentle cut, like a solid grate of cheese.  Like enough to have caused lots of bleeding.  So I go to the bathroom and proceed to try and stop the bleeding I manage to break my bathroom a little more than it was already broken.  Amazing I know.  So I was standing in my broken bathroom bleeding as the hot water proceeded to drip out of the faucet even when I turned off the valve from below.  But 2 days later my hand is healing.  Except, except the flap of skin I salvaged and didn't completely grate off is reattached but not nearly as flat as it should be.  So now my hand sorta looks like I was attacked by a hungry dog.  I am trying to make peace with my foolish behaviors, but i think my hand will soon look like one of an animal trainer, a boxer or anyone who normally gets all cut up and gross.  But I guess I will have lots of stories to tell the little children in the park ask their mothers why the crazy old lady with the dogs has all scared hands.

So I have just returned from an evening of 2 Inauguration parties.  An old jewelry professor of mine asked if I was interested in going out with her this evening to celebrate. At first as I stared at the e-mail I thought, "you can just stay in, eat your mashed potatoes and really J you have already taken off your shoes."  Then another part of me said: "J you haven't seen her in a while, you are being a lazy bum, and really your mashed potatos can wait another day."  So I called, I got dressed and I started up the hill.  I got to see 2 very different sides of the upper valley.  One of a rocking dance party for old hippies and the other was a more quiet party for the dignified people of the upper valley.  Both were strange not just by their looks, but also by the company i kept in both places.  The hippy place was, well full of hippies.  And the other place was full of what it seemed like were normal people except the lady I do not love at work. She to me is a wack job.  And in a social setting with someone that likes her, (My lovely date for the evening), she seemed sorta normal.  But then I thought about it.  Life is kinda like my night, either full of people who show they are wack jobs on the surface, or others who are more proper but still wack jobs.  What's a girl to do?  I think it is become a hermit or just deal with the wack jobs because not everyone is like that, and want to know why I know not everyone is like that? Because today we accepted as our president a fine man, one who is a far stretch from a crazy, and has given hope back to a nation. 

I watched Obama take his oath in an auditorium full of people.  An auditorium far away from the Washington Mall and for sure not in listening distance.  Yet at each word there were whoots, at each introduction claps, at each shot of Bush laugher and as the people of Washington DC were asked to rise for the oath of Barack there was no hesitation in the room.  Everyone got to their feet and listened intently as Obama finally took the oath of office and ceremoniously became our 44th president.  There were tears in the room, excitement exchanged in voices, and most importantly for me re-affirmation that this country can be something to be proud of.  So for the first time in 6 or 7 years I placed my right hand on my chest and mouthed the star spangled banner.  (we have to start somewhere, no one every said I was a true patriot) But as I watched this man speak and walk and interact with everyone around him I saw something I have never seem before, the look of a man of distinction, the look of a president.  I know I have lived through many a president.  But thinking back as I spoke to A who brought to my attention that we have really grown up in the Bush era.  Thinking back to Clinton I can't only remember hints of his presidency because I personally was too young to understand what it all meant.  But now as I even if only vaguely get the role of the president and all that sits on his shoulders, I feel something for this man and feel as if he will be the right fit for this moment in history.  And maybe my dreams for a better america that are clouding my judgement, but I truly think if any time we should put hope first it is now.  So I hope that the man who looked like a president, and sounded like a president today proves to be the president we all need him to be.