The week that was!

What a week it has been.

Monday, the anticipation was so great that I
had a difficult time concentrating on anything.
I took Julie to have a colonoscopy early Monday
morning. That diverted me for a while.

I worked at our precinct polling station in the
afternoon. It was pretty quiet because so many
had voted early. In the evening Robert and I
watched the returns and finally the good news
came through and John McCain acknowledged his
defeat. Obama's speech had me in tears, of
joy, relief and just all around emotion. It
had seemed so unlikely that he could actually
win, but that he should. I suppose it was
our Caucus that had convinced me that we
needed him. Having 80 people show up for a
caucus that usually had fewer than 10!

Now with the unemployment up to 6.5% and the
DOW having lost 10% in two days it is clear
that we are in a recession. I've felt we
were for some time, but the powers that be
have refused to admit that.

Thursday noon Patrick Hanford showed up for
lunch and to spend the night. He has just
returned from Iraq where he was the head of
the division that was training Iraqis to
become pilots. He had quite a bit of inter
action with Iraqis and said that many of
the troops were voting for Obama because they
were tired of seeing the Iraqi government
doing nothing, just letting the US spend
our resources while being cozened by the
Iraq. We had some good discussions and I
learned quite a bit about that part of the
world.

In the evening Viki, Keegan and Ed came for
dinner. That was fun, too. We had more
discussions and it was also a celebration
for all the work Viki had done as well as
I toward getting Obama elected.

Today Robert and I did a little more mundane
activity. We cleaned out the garden shed
which has been accumulating "junk" for more
than 20 years. It had gotten to the point
where we couldn't find anything and really
had no idea of what was in there. Most of
what was in there is now headed for the
dump. I'm keeping all the clay and ceramic
pots. There were three metal garbage
cans which we can put to use for storage.
I probably don't need all the clay pots, but
perhaps Viki or Martha will find them of use.