A defining moment of our lives
Dear Friends list,
How were you spending the evening when you heard Barack Obama had just been elected president?
This was one of those defining moments. It's a cliche as I think Oprah said it at least 3 times last night, but this really was surreal, and the last time I felt like this(besides personal falling in love type stuff) was when the towers fell. It was the complete opposite feeling but still similar somehow it its unexpectedness.
K and I spent the night watching the returns come in with our roommates and sweeties, minus 1, and with the addition of a couple of orphan friends who came over to watch the returns with us. Having them over made the night feel even more like a communal event. I'm so glad they came. I hooked one of those digital set top boxes along with some rabbit ears, and we watched over the air digital signal from the local stations. Which added to the hilarity and annoyance, because when the signal gets iffy, the audio and video go pixelated and the TV personality looks a little silly.
We mostly watched on ABC, although it seemed very weird not to see Tim Russert during any of the coverage. K had to work from home until about 9:30, which totally sucked. But the rest of us kept her company and drank wine and played Scattergories while watching the coverage. In years past, I've watched all the coverage without interruption, but living without cable has deadened my ability to focus on the bullshit for that long so I enjoyed the distractions.
The funniest thing that happened last night was at about 10 or so, Obama had about 207 electorals and McCain was around 130 I think. Several of us needed a bio break and the rest were refilling our wine glasses. We were out of the living room for 5 minutes tops. When we came back suddenly ABC had switched over to local news and the local reporter was calling Obama the president-elect. All the other stations had switched over to, but at least one of them had an electoral total and Obama had surged ahead to 297 or something. Basically we missed California, Washington, and Oregon come in. We weren't sure this was real, and none of us trusted it. We kept checking http://isobamapresidentyet.com/ and they said Obama wasn't president yet. Then McCain came on and gave his concession speech( very well done and honorable by the way) and we knew that it must be over. We waited for another half hour for Obama's speech and we could let ourselves believe that it was true. I couldn't stop the tears from flowing. I couldn't believe the words that were coming out of our future president. They rang true, ALL OF THEM! It was such a relief, and such a wonderful night!
I will never forget it. Thanks to everyone who joined us bambina_cricket , keen2007, ethanhunter, queenofhalves, and of course kiramor . It was a night to remember!
How were you spending the evening when you heard Barack Obama had just been elected president?
This was one of those defining moments. It's a cliche as I think Oprah said it at least 3 times last night, but this really was surreal, and the last time I felt like this(besides personal falling in love type stuff) was when the towers fell. It was the complete opposite feeling but still similar somehow it its unexpectedness.
K and I spent the night watching the returns come in with our roommates and sweeties, minus 1, and with the addition of a couple of orphan friends who came over to watch the returns with us. Having them over made the night feel even more like a communal event. I'm so glad they came. I hooked one of those digital set top boxes along with some rabbit ears, and we watched over the air digital signal from the local stations. Which added to the hilarity and annoyance, because when the signal gets iffy, the audio and video go pixelated and the TV personality looks a little silly.
We mostly watched on ABC, although it seemed very weird not to see Tim Russert during any of the coverage. K had to work from home until about 9:30, which totally sucked. But the rest of us kept her company and drank wine and played Scattergories while watching the coverage. In years past, I've watched all the coverage without interruption, but living without cable has deadened my ability to focus on the bullshit for that long so I enjoyed the distractions.
The funniest thing that happened last night was at about 10 or so, Obama had about 207 electorals and McCain was around 130 I think. Several of us needed a bio break and the rest were refilling our wine glasses. We were out of the living room for 5 minutes tops. When we came back suddenly ABC had switched over to local news and the local reporter was calling Obama the president-elect. All the other stations had switched over to, but at least one of them had an electoral total and Obama had surged ahead to 297 or something. Basically we missed California, Washington, and Oregon come in. We weren't sure this was real, and none of us trusted it. We kept checking http://isobamapresidentyet.com/ and they said Obama wasn't president yet. Then McCain came on and gave his concession speech( very well done and honorable by the way) and we knew that it must be over. We waited for another half hour for Obama's speech and we could let ourselves believe that it was true. I couldn't stop the tears from flowing. I couldn't believe the words that were coming out of our future president. They rang true, ALL OF THEM! It was such a relief, and such a wonderful night!
I will never forget it. Thanks to everyone who joined us bambina_cricket , keen2007, ethanhunter, queenofhalves, and of course kiramor . It was a night to remember!