A celebration of democracy

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One of the perks of working at a school is that I don't have to work on holidays like MLK Day.  Without really planning to, I ended up watching most of the presidential inauguration.  It’s a strange feeling to watch the inauguration of a president that you did not vote for.  I admit that this election was difficult for Gabe and me.  It was probably one of the first times we truly questioned whom we should vote for.  Besides the fact that California leans so predominantly toward Democrats (the state was decided for Obama in the election before the voting had even ended), we’ve benefited from many of Obama’s policies.  Obama was also obviously much more appealing to people in our age group than Romney was.  In the end, however, we decided that maybe there were bigger things to think about than what the president could do for us as individuals.  Mostly, though, I recognize that Gabe and I are both still largely influenced by the thinking and beliefs of our families.  And I do not count this as a bad thing.  These beliefs—including but not limited to our faith—is what I think has kept us grounded in the midst of all our transition.

I do not mean to go into the murky waters of politics, but I say all of this to explain how mixed up I was when I first started watching the proceedings this morning.  Should I be celebrating a man that I wasn’t sure I wanted to be president of our country in the first place?  But then I realized, that the inauguration today was not just a celebration of one man.  It’s a celebration of a country that fought hard to give its citizens the right to vote for this one man.  I watched what took place, and I felt proud.  I am not always one to feel overly patriotic, but I also know that I cannot forget how proud and blessed I feel to have been able to have my own say in the last election. 

I was a little disappointed that the president used his inauguration speech as a platform to promote his political agenda, but then again, I didn’t really expect any less and he certainly has a right to say such things.  I still felt that despite whatever pointed words were said, the American people united to support the man that as a collective we had elected to lead us.  I just hope that no matter how flawed our political system is, no matter what political background people have come from, we can all together be thankful for the men and women who were elected based on the ideals that made this country so great. 

Fall (a.k.a., more of summer) in California

Fall is here and I've found myself missing Minnesota fall like I did last year in Pittsburgh.  Only this year it's different.  This year I'm sitting on my porch in perfect 75 degree weather while it's 52 degrees in Minneapolis today.  I love those chilly, crisp fall days when it seems like you can almost smell the apples and pumpkin spices in the air.  But I'm surprised to admit that I'm enjoying this season in Southern California.  

In the past week, we've actually had rain two days in a row.  I'm learning quickly, though, that "bad" weather here means just an hour or two of pouring rain or waves that are too choppy (I'm sure this is not the correct term) for surfing.  By lunchtime the sun is out again.  Gabe and I have a friend here who grew up in Pennsylvania, and I often reminisce with her about fall days in the Midwest.  She says the perfect temperatures in California can get pretty boring.  I'm sure it can and that it will, but I liked going outside this morning in shorts and a T-shirt.  I'm looking forward to not worrying about digging my way out of snow in the morning or scraping the ice off of the windshield. 

Of course, California does have its quirks.  Some of them are the ones everyone talks about - the surfers, the nice cars, the insanely high gas prices.  There's some others, though, that we've had to discover on our own.  Bad traffic is another staple of Californian life that everyone seems to know about.  But I never knew just how much traffic dominates people's lives here, even when they're not driving.  In Los Angeles especially, traffic is the first thing that people ask about.  Your co-workers ask which route you took to work today, and when you tell them, they immediately tell a better route you could have taken. 

And highways here, they're not just "405 North" or simply "405." No, here it's "The 405," "The 55," "The 110." Every highway name is preceded by "the," almost as if every highway is equally important.  And of course, importance is marked by the amount of traffic on it each day.  And it's true, there's traffic everywhere, almost all the time.

Also, we knew that many Californians were health conscious, but we didn't expect that the amount of calories in each food would be listed on the menu of every restaurant.  We've actually found this feature helpful since we've been trying to watch what we eat lately.  But at the same time, sometimes you just need a cheeseburger and you don't want to be reminded of how much you're breaking your diet.

Yes, there are some annoying things about living in California.  But for the first time in a while, I think we're allowing ourselves to relax and enjoy a place without constantly thinking and worrying about the next place we'll have to move to.