I have been obsessed with a single recipe lately. I took it from 101 Cookbooks, and have been making it almost weekly since it was published. It is a perfect soul food for wintery nights, although wintery nights in Miami are like spring evenings in Rochester, New York. It is a dish that cooks in the oven, although a more accurate description would be that the ingredients are put in a pot where they melt over a couple of hours into this velvety, slightly lumpy melange of flavor and texture.

What is this miracle food that has me coming back again and again? A kale, red bean and winter squash mole. I have yet to put it over anything, because I’m too busy just slurping it down. I’ve used butternut squash, a blue hubbard and some other winter squash. I’ve used canned beans. I’ve added a couple of cocoa beans to the almonds in the grinder.

No matter what I do to this, it just tastes like some kind of heaven.

Don’t take my word for it, though, make a batch for yourself.

Last week, during the regular boys night out, the boys were actually hanging around the kitchen table. I’d asked Mr. Rings to bring a jewelry neck display so I could photograph my newest piece. He brought the velvet stand, and then asked what I was going to photograph. I showed him the mossy/violets/felted/beaded necklace and he acted as though he’d never seen any of my work before. The long and the short of it: yesterday I went into downtown South Miami, and placed about a dozen items for sale at 5 Golden Rings. There’s a beaded fetish doll, a heavily beaded cuff, many necklaces and even the stitch markers.

He told me that he’s going to make a display in his front window, just in time for the holidays.

(ETA: a picture of the display)

How’s that for happy holidays?

Copied from Mean Louise, and tickling the back of my memory like I may have done this before, I bring you a book meme.

Instructions:

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien

3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte (I read “The Eyre Affair” by Jasper Fforde, does that count?)

4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling

5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

6. The Bible

7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell

9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman

10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott

12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller

14. Complete Works of Shakespeare (OK, so not all of them, but I OWN all of them)

15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier

16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien (Doesn’t this go with the Lord of the Rings? Granted it is a separate story, but really…)

17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks

18. Catcher in the Rye - J D Salinger

19. The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

20. Middlemarch - George Eliot

21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell

22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald

23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens

25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis

34. Emma - Jane Austen

35. Persuasion - Jane Austen

36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis (See 33.)

37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres

39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne

41. Animal Farm - George Orwell

42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown

43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving

45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery

47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

48. The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood (This book still scares the crap out of me. Especially over the past eight years.)

49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding

50. Atonement - Ian McEwan

51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel

52. Dune - Frank Herbert (But then there is Son of Dune, and Extended Family of Dune and Dune the Part Written by the Extended Family of Frank Herbert and who cares)

53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons

54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth

56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon

60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt

64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac

67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy

68. Bridget Jones’ Diary - Helen Fielding

69. Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie

70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville

71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

72. Dracula - Bram Stoker

73.The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson

(I have actually started at least three times. And failed. I even tried getting a running start by re-reading “Portrait of the Artist…” and where is that on the list?)

76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome

78. Germinal - Emile Zola

79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray

80. Possession - AS Byatt

81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker

84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro

85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry

87. Charlotte’s Web - EB White

88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom

89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery (Oh, for the love of God, people. Why don’t you just put “Johnathan Livingston Seagull” on here, too?)

93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

94. Watership Down - Richard Adams

95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole (I have to re-read this, because I LOATHED it, and so many people I respect and admire LOVE it. Clearly I missed something. Maybe)

96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute

97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare (Didn’t we already do the entire works back up there on line 14?)

99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

I seem to be particularly lacking in modern New York Times best sellers, don’t I? And why is there such paucity of sci-fi and fantasy? And such a heap of Dickens and Austen? And does watching any number of film versions and remakes count? What more could there be to “Pride and Prejudice” that I haven’t seen? And I’ve even watch the Bollywood version. And why is there no way to mark the books you hated reading? I mean, I read “The Handmaid’s Tale” and I couldn’t say I enjoyed it, because it still gives me nightmares, but I wouldn’t say I hated it. On the other hand, having been forced in my high school AP English to slog my way through both “Moby Dick” and “Silas Marner” I could honestly say I read and loathed both. While I’m asking, where is “The Wizard of Oz”? And any works by Toni Morrison or Zora Neale Hurston?

Anyway, if you chose to play, please leave me a comment, so we can all congratulate ourselves on how well read we are.

Today is World AIDS Day.

I started losing friends to that disease in 1988, and those first few years were terrible. Scotty. John. Richard. Shel. Alan. Ken. Nick. I started volunteering with an AIDS service organization, and later served for 7 years on their board of directors.

I am so lucky that so many of the men I love are living well with HIV. The years of research have helped to control the disease, but not to cure or prevent it. It’s been 25 years since Care Resource was started. We all hoped that it would have fulfilled its mission and been dissolved by now. Such is, unfortunately, not the case.

This is my Red Ribbon Quilt, and it is for sale in my etsy shop for the remainder of December (AIDS Awareness Month). Half of its sale price will be donated in your name to Care Resource, an AIDS service and research organization serving thousands of people in South Florida. You will receive documentation for the tax deduction. If you would prefer your donation go to a different AIDS organization (perhaps your local one) I can arrange for the money to go where ever you like. I will ship this for free.

There are nine hearts, each one different. There is a red ribbon winding around the border. The piece has been quilted in a feather pattern. Fits a queen or double bed. Reverses to a retro print of a sailor.

Size: 70 inches square

All Tante Leah quilts are made of 100% cotton and come from a non-smoking home, but they probably contain trace elements of pet hair.

Oh so long ago and far away, when MizShoes lived in Manhattan, there was a dj who did a Thanksgiving show where he opened by lighting a fire (aka: crinkling cellophane near the mic) and playing “Our House” by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. I thought of it yesterday, as the RLA and I took a break and sat in the fairy garden and watched the koi and the dogs frollicked in the yard.

This was the first Thanksgiving we’ve ever spent together, by ourselves, and at our own home. It had, as I mentioned earlier, gotten me very melancholy. But in the event, it was soooo pleasant, and soooo relaxed and sooooo easy to remember the things that I’m thankful for that are right here under my nose. I could get used to this. Of course, the GirlCousin called and told me not to, because all hands will be back on deck at her home next year.

I haven’t seen a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in decades. Really. I cannot remember the last one I watched. So I watched this one. In high-def on the giant screen. Boy, was I surprised to find myself in total tears, sobbing at the Rockettes. Who knew? When I told the GirlCousin about this startling turn of events, she told me that one of her earliest memories is of going to see the Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall. She was maybe three or four, and turned to her mother and declared that when she grew up, she wanted to “be a croquette.” I told you people. Cooking is in our blood.

I loved seeing the new balloons. I loved the floats. I loved the marching band from Florida comprised of people who had marched in bands in high school or college and were now well beyond those years. They were great! Once a marching band wonk, always a marching band wonk. Most of the folks were decades beyond their marching band heyday, although there were a few faces that seemed considerably fresher than the rest. Mostly, these were folks my age or older, and they had baton twirlers and color guards and everything. I wonder if the GirlCousin still has her batons?

After that, there was something called the National Dog Show. Who knew? I only know from Westminster. There were lots of nice doggies, and the Cavalier won its group, which is nice to see. The setter who won best in show was stunning, and her markings were exceptional. I rolled around on the floor with the Dog of Very Little Brain to celebrate the dog show.

Eventually, I rousted myself from the beading I was doing to cook. We had a standing rib roast (with only one bone, it fell over, making it a laying down rib roast), sauteed brussel sprouts with fresh chestnuts (American, which is a digression I may get to later) and that epitome of 60’s glamor, twice-baked potatoes. There was a little green tea ice cream for desert. And coffee, of course. And cranberries in port wine as an accompaniment. The pumpkin pie I’d baked earlier in the week was long gone. It is my opinion that there is nothing in the world so fine as a breakfast of hot coffee and cold pie. I may go back in the kitchen today to make an apple pie, just to prove my hypothesis.

We watched a movie, and appreciated each other, and the animal companions, and the families and friends that we love and were not with. And it was good.

Now. About American chestnuts. As you may or may not know, the American Chestnut was almost wiped out by blight in the early years of the 20th century, with virtually no trees left by the 1940s. Genetic engineering to incorporate the blight-resistant properties of the Chinese Chestnut has proven effective, but the groves are still young, and so the chestnut industry in the US is still baby-sized. This was the first year that I was able to find American chestnuts at the grocery store, specifically at Whole Foods. I grabbed them. Unlike the Italian chestnuts which are readily available in the grocery store, not a single nut was revealed to contain mold when I cut the shells for roasting. NOT A SINGLE ONE!!!! They were sweet, and they were much easier to shell when roasted. I was very favorably impressed with the quality. Let’s hope the resurgence of the American Chestnut continues.

There is something funky going on. Is the work server denying me access to my blog, or my blog denying me access from work?

There is a difference, you know.

Thank you to RJ who shouldn’t feel guilty, because I did tag the entry with “Maudlin Crap”, and to CousinSteve who wrangled invitations to his sister’s house (yes, that makes her my cousin, but I have so very, very many cousins) which I graciously declined. Thank you, too, to the Number Three Surrogate Daughter, who also felt responsible. Even the GirlCousin and the Smithy are feeling vaguely unsettled. I’m feeling much better now, and thank you and I’m sorry to have whined so well as to trigger an epidemic of Jewish Guilt. Snap out of it! I did.

I made four sets of stitch markers to put in the TanteLeah etsy shop. There were actually five sets, but I wasn’t satisfied with one set, so until I figure out what kind of head pins to use, there may not be more sets. There’s this set: huge baroque pearls and vintage Austrian crystal on a copper pin. Fits up to a US size ten needle,

This set is vintage Austrian flower beads, a single modern glass bead and the copper head pins. Again, they fit over an American size ten needle.

And another set on copper, these have African trade beads, vintage Austrian flowers, turquoise blue white hearts. Fits up to a US size ten needle.

Finally, the set I’m keeping for myself: these have the tiniest little dark wooden skulls, coral, trade beads, the turquoise white hearts and wee chips of gaspeite. These only fit up to a size 9, and I think they’re going to be my favorite sock markers.

But wait! There’s more. I felted a piece of the yarn I spun and plied into a very fine cord. I added a carved/painted bone button to one end and made a loop in the other. Now, I’m embroidering it with beads and pearls. I want it to get heavy, but still show the felt in places. I’ve been working on this since last week.

Well. How did this happen? For the first time in my life, I find myself without a place at the Thanksgiving table, surrounded by friends and family and food. Thanksgiving in the early years was held at my grandparent’s home. My grandmother made kasha and lima beans. Not together, but those are the two foods that I remember that were not found on others’ tables. Kasha varnishkas with bowties, and with a splash of turkey gravy/juice are one of heaven’s treats. Grandma’s lima beans, on the other hand… well, except for my Grandpa, I think I was the only person who ate them. She made them from dried beans. They were not baby limas, either. These things were the size of baby shoes, and about as tasty and tender. I swear that you had to cut them with a knife and fork, too. They were grayish, and there was nothing in them resembling a flavor. Still, I loved them. I have no idea why.

Anyway, as my grandparents aged, the holiday moved to my mother’s home, and as the kids grew up and moved away, she and my father filled the empty spaces with their friends. The event expanded until it was a huge buffet, with multiple tables and all sorts of family and friends. My mother and father hosted the “widows and orphans” and it was a magnificent excess. The lima beans disappeared. The kasha varnishkas was supplied by my Auntie Em. My brother and I fought over the turkey skin, and my father brandished his razor-sharp knives to keep us at bay until he’d finished carving.

In time, that scene shifted to the GirlCousin’s home. The RLA and I would arrive with our ice-crusher and he would mix drinks until the elders were giggling like teenagers, and the teenagers were surreptitiously snagging cosmos. The GirlCousin’s husband discovered the glory of the turkey deep fryer, and since that side of the family avoids poultry skin like the plague, my brother and I were happily left to devour ALL the fried turkey skin with no competition and none of Daddy’s flashing cutlery to hamper us.

This year, the GirlCousin has had to take a pass, because sometimes life gets in the way of hilarity. Her sister-in-law has taken up the standard, and the family feast moved another 60 miles north. Which, unfortunately, puts it a tad beyond my reach. There are dogs. There are no dog sitters. There is the 4 hour drive. There is just no way.

So, I called my friends. Star is heading off to her family’s annual Turkeypalooza, taking with her the Surrogate Daughters. RJ and MJ are heading to Homestead to hang with other friends. MizPearl has plans with the Southern Ladies Auxiliary. My brother in law is off the to the northern end of the state to HIS in-law’s lake house. I called my recently orphaned boy cousins, thinking that they would need to be fed and comforted in the bosom of family…they had their own plans. The Renowned Local Artist and I are on our own.

It is, to be honest, freaking me the fuck out. I love him, and I love the dogs and the cat, but this is not the holiday I’m used to. I expect to be surrounded by family and friends and raucous laughter and tall tales and competitive cooking. Wish me luck, because I’m going to cook for two, and then we’ll go spend time with my mummy. Maybe I’ll take her some kasha varnishkas.

I changed my side bar. I decided that with the election over and Obama in transition mode, that the Bush countdown could go. I read the Newsweek post-election edition cover to cover. I know that the next four years are going to be rough because of what was done to us over the last eight, but I want to look ahead to our bright future.

I had an interesting conversation the other day. A woman I work with told me that she’d been at a time share pitch and the presenter asked “how many of you fought for your country?” And she knew (it being just before Veterans’ Day) that the intent was to find out how many veterans of the armed forces were in the audience. But my friend, she thought of what she does day in and day out, and what her political stance is, and she decided, hell… She fights for her country every day. So she raised her hand as her husband poked her in the ribs and said “you’ve never served in the military.” But, she said, I vote. And I write letters. And I talk about issues. And I make sure people at the end of life have the right sort of support and care. I think that means I’m fighting for this country.

I told her that I agreed. She does. I do. All of us who refused to stand by quietly during this last administration, as it teetered to fascism and stripped away our rights and tore up the constitution, all of us were members of the resistance. Freedom fighters. So yeah, let’s roll up our sleeves and get to work.

Or, you know, spin, spin, spin. A few weeks ago, Star and I made a road trip to the Palm Beaches, where I purchased a used spinning wheel. In case you wonder, yes, spinning wheels are still produced. This isn’t an antique, merely a gently used Ashford Traditional. I brought it home, and have been teaching myself to spin. Why? Why not. Actually, I wanted to spin the tzitzit for the Rose Garden tallis. Didn’t happen.

But here we have, in the golden light of my studio, my first handspun yarn.

It’s lumpy and uneven, but I love it. The roving (the stuff you feed into the wheel) came from The Yarn Wench (over there on the right in my links). That’s it on the far left in the picture, that fluffy stuff. On the far right, we have the single, or the first stuff I spun. In the middle, that’s called 2 ply, and it’s what happens when you take two singles and twist them together. It’s real yarn. Maybe even enough to knit the edge on a hat.

I haz a new addiction. Perfect for South Florida. I love my spinning wheel. I love the whir and the meditative state I can reach. Well, the theoretical meditative state I can reach. At the moment it’s more like the level of frustration I can reach. But I see it in the not too far distance.

GAH!!! I put cute little cedar balls in my sweater box. So today, I’m wearing something that smells to me like cedar cat litter. I mean, it only smells like cedar. But for some reason, that smell reminds me not of my mummy’s cedar chest, but of that organic cat litter that my cats would never use. Why this is now hard-wired into my brain, only my brain knows.

In other news, one of the folks in my neighborhood who had sported a yard sign for McCain/Palin is now sporting a hand-made sign. Black background, red letters that read: God Bless America. I thought you were supposed to keep the pointy hats and sheets in the back closet, and not on the front lawn? Maybe it isn’t racist. Maybe it’s just a sore loser who thinks that we’ve gone to the dark side? Oh. Dark. Racist. Uh, maybe it’s just a sore loser who thinks that the country has gone to the infidels? Which would be bigotry based on religion? Whatever. Bigotry is bigotry, whatever triggers the hatred and fear. Color. Religion. Politics. Country of origin.

My niece was bat mitzvah’d two weeks ago, and when she and her mom started planning this, they asked me to make her tallit. I was sooooo thrilled to do it. The Niece studies dance. She’s a member of her school’s troupe. She wanted pink. Not necessarily ballet pink, but pink. The Niece is a red head (Gorgeous red. Coppery red. With a pony tail as thick as my wrist.) She’s also tiny, and with skin like porcelain. So this was an easy call: she needed a tallit that was like English roses in the rain. I had some shrimpy-pink dupioni with an all-over embroidery of vines and flowers in old silver. And I had a length of moss-colored velvet that I wanted to use for her bag. She loved both swatches. Easy. All I had to do was put it together.

So I added some dark olive dupioni to the pile, and an embroidered sheer ribbon in soft mossy slash seafoam green that had beads, and another sequined ribbon. I had the smallest scrap of a green and orange Chinese brocade, so I tossed that on the pile of fabric, too. Some different threads in greens and pinks. Digging further into my fabric stash, I found a very Ralph Lauren sort of green/pink/apricot dupioni plaid. All I had to do was put it all together. Easy.

Off to the fabric store to see if I could find a pattern for the tallit bag, because the dozen or so patterns I have and have used just weren’t right. Found a pattern that allowed for patchwork and various fabric combinations. It even had a pocket and a zipper. So I bought a few zippers, in pinks and greens and some more embroidery threads. Easy. I had a couple of months. No worries. Just had to put it all together.

Did I mention that I’d only used velvet once before? That was for RJ’s tallit bag and it was a heavy, rust colored cotton velvet. Yummy. This green was nylon? Rayon? Something shiny and soft. No problems. I started with the tallit, and put together the stripe. I had to keep pulling back, and editing myself, because my first instinct is always that more is better and if a little bit of glitz is good, great heaping piles of it is better. One by one, the extra ribbons and embroideries got taken away. I finally ended with just the dark olive with the plaid layered over it, then the sheer ribbon over the plaid.

I laid the stripe to one side and started on the bag. And fought with it, tooth and nail for the next six weeks.

I machine basted. I pinned everything with great, long quilting pins, every inch. The fabric shifted when I sewed. I ripped it all out and tried hand basting, and the quilting pins. The fabric shifted when I sewed. I ripped it all out and tried a walking foot. But first, I had adventures in my sewing room wherein it took me hours to tear my studio apart and find the foot and others where the tension on my machine needed hours of tweaking to get the stitches to hold firm.I found the foot and… the fabric shifted when I sewed. I ripped it all out and tried hand sewing. The fabric shifted when I sewed. I ripped it all out and tried any number of combinations of all of the above. The fabric shifted when I sewed. I ripped it all out and then all of my hair out. I drank. I smoked cigarettes. I thought about it some more. I tried a steam-set bonding tape. It flattened the velvet and didn’t hold the fabric together when I tried to sew it.  But then I discovered that the zipper and the gusset just wouldn’t set in correctly. I bought shorter zippers and re-drafted the pattern. Repeat most of the steps above regarding hair pulling, drinking and smoking. I had to go to a funeral, and lost work days. I cried on a stranger on the train whom I know to be a sewer. She suggested tissue paper between the layers. It worked.

I tied the knots on the tzittzit at midnight on the Thursday before the Saturday service. It was perfect. My niece was perfect. Happy endings all around.

Those wonderful folks at MoveOn.org are handing out free Shepard Fairey stickers to commemorate the great events of Tuesday. I ordered mine. Go ahead and order yours. The numbers are flying by faster than the digits on a gas pump filling up a Hummer.

Sometimes, you just need puppies.

And doesn’t the air smell fresh? Isn’t the sky blue and clear? Isn’t it a glorious day in our America? You know the one: the non-fear-mongering, non-hate-mongering, color-blind and intelligent America? The only thing that has taken some of the shine out of my eyes this morning is that my state (which voted blue for the first time since Johnson) also chose to legislate hatred and bigotry under the guise of “marriage protection”. Self-righteous zealots.

Last night as we were toasting the end of our national nightmare known as the Bush presidency, MJ said: “they left us a burning, sinking hulk of a ship of state, but damn it, it’s OUR ship now.” And we drank to that. The scene outside of the White House was a shock to me. Was that a spontaneous demonstration? Was it only my imagination that had the crowd illuminated by burning torches, and were there really buckets of hot tar, barrels of feathers and a large rail? Star (who is in HR) asked if it would be possible for Bush to take an early retirement? Could he join the DROP? (deferred retirement option program).

We all sat and watched as John McCain gave a gracious and seemingly genuine concession speech. And then we all agreed that the man who delivered that was not the same man who had run the dirtiest, slimiest campaign in modern civilization. The John McCain who conceded was the John McCain who ran in 2000 and was destroyed by that same slime-slinging. That man was one that all of us die-hard Yellow Dog Democrats agreed, we could have lived with and respected had he won against the Shrub. But he didn’t and then he sold his soul to the evil overlords in an attempt to get to the White House.

We all watched and speculated as to why Palin was only shown from behind. And then we saw her from the front: squinchy little puss face. I wonder what she was thinking, since she had gone on record with her belief that the election was in the hands of God, whose will would be revealed and that she knew that it was the will of God that she and Johnny Maverick would steer us all to the Rapture. Was she wrestling with her God? Was she considering that maybe a shotgun wedding would not be in Bristol’s future, after all? Was she just peeved that Johnny wasn’t letting her speak, which she clearly was expecting? And what was that murderous look on the face of the First Dude? Was he thinking about what a waste of time it was to be wearing that fancy suit, when he could just be in a flannel shirt and jeans back in the family chopper shooting wolves? Or was he considering the possibilities of a hunting trip with Dick Cheney?

Finally it was our generation’s moment of Camelot, and Barack Obama came out to thank his supporters, and his machine and his people. Who are his people? All of us Americans, whether the bitter and failed right wants to be or not. All that gloating back in 2000 that we whiney liberals should just suck it up, that’s coming back to bite their collective asses, non? Our president-elect called on us all to do the right thing, to accept that this will be a hard fight to bring America back to glory. He told us that we will all be required to sacrifice. And all of us in my living room nodded and said yes, yes we will.

It was a moment or ten of brilliant and impassioned oratory, delivered by a man who can think and reason. My campaign button (Return complete sentences to the White House) seemed even more fitting. What a wonderful speech. What a wonderful contrast to the inarticulate chimp and his demonic overlord that we’ve suffered under for the past eight years.

I repeat: Is this not a beautiful day? How soon can we start with the war crimes trials?