Atlanta for Thanksgiving

So, this past Wednesday morning I had a funeral--the first I have done in several weeks. This has actually been a low season for funerals around here, so far at least.

Well, we left for Atlanta in the mid-afternoon on Wednesday and got there fairly late that night. We got caught in some holiday traffic that we were not expecting, so it took us a little longer to get to our hotel. It was really nice. We stayed at the W Hotel Midtown which had a wonderful view of downtown Atlanta and was just down the street from several things we wanted to see while we were there. When we pulled up, the valet took our car and we had a very nice bellman with a British accent named Jason who helped us with our luggage and was our all around flunky for a few minutes. He definitely earned his tips when, after being out for most of the day on Thanksgiving, he called us by name when we returned to the hotel. Misty was very impressed. We stayed on the fifteenth floor of the hotel and it is one of those hotels where the rooms all have floor to ceiling windows. The 3 little angels acted like they had never seen anything quite so wonderful. I forget that we really do live in a small town and they rarely see a big city.

Thanksgiving Day we slept in late and decided to go look for something for lunch around 11:30 or so. Well, every restaurant that was anywhere near our hotel was closed for the holiday. So, we decided that since we could not find a place to have Thanksgiving lunch, we would go on to the King Tut exhibit and take our chances there. Well, we had borrowed a GPS system from our youth minister at the church and we used it to find our way to the civic center where the Tutankhamun: The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs exhibit was to be held. When we pulled up, there was not a soul to be seen. I got a little worried since we had paid a pretty penny for these tickets. When we got to the other side, we saw several cars so my worries went away. We had timed tickets, but because of the holiday traffic for the exhibit was slow, we were able to go in early. We did finally get to have lunch at the "Cairo Cafe." We had bowls of chicken noodle soup and some sandwiches. Kind of sad, really. After lunch, we went through the 90-minute exhibit which was very nice and well worth the time and money to get there. The girls did very well, even the little ones. They did not sit on anything which was a blessing. When we went to see the Hatshepsut exhibit in Fort Worth, Elizabeth, who was three then, tried to sit next to a sphinx that was like 3800 years old. Scary. After the exhibit we saw a 3-D movie about Egypt. This was probably the girls' favorite part. We then found a park for the girls to run off some excess energy and then we were off to dinner.

For dinner we went to Benihana. The irony of spending Thanksgiving dinner at a Japanese restaurant, like the sad folks at the end of A Christmas Story, was not lost on us. Since it was Madeline's birthday, they sang for her and gave her a hat made of balloons. She did not know what to think of the experience. We had not been to Benihana in quite some time, maybe once since we left the Dallas area, so it was kind of nostalgic for us. We asked for Pab, our favorite waitress. Not really.

Black Friday we went to visit the High Museum of Art which was just a couple of blocks from our hotel. The place was a mad house of activity. Their big exhibit now is the Terracotta Warriors that were buried in the tomb complex of the first emperor of China. The High Museum is very nice and the exhibit was great. We spent a good bit of the morning and early afternoon there and then we decided to do the unthinkable--we went to the mall. I have made it a tenet of my religious faith to never go to the mall on Black Friday. I remember now why I made that vow. We drove to the suburbs, to Alpharetta to go to the American Girl Store and to look for a purse for Misty. I had promised to buy Misty a Dooney and Bourke purse if Madeline finished potty training before her third birthday. Well, she did, so it was time to pay the piper. We found her a nice purse and it was even on sale, so I lucked out. We let the girls ride the carousel and then we were off to the other side of Atlanta. We found another park for the girls to play in and then we went to Pappasito's Cantina for dinner. We have not found a Mexican restaurant we really like in Panama City so we were in need of a Tex-Mex fix.

We really liked Atlanta and felt very at home there. I really feel at home in a city and miss the conveniences and the faster pace of life. I know that some day we will have to move back to a city for sanity's sake. I miss having cultural outlets, if nothing else. I am sure we will visit there more often.

Saturday morning we left for home. We had a nice time and a much-needed getaway before the Christmas season officially began today. I have something every night of the next week. What joy.

On a much sadder note, on our way back from Atlanta we found out that a person who is close to some folks we are close to took their own life Saturday morning. We did not know this person, but the repercussions of this act will definitely be felt around us. This is never easy, but it is just horrible at this time of the year. So many questions. Please pray for the family.

Hope

It has been twenty days since my last blog entry. Things have been fine around my part of the world, but increasingly busy as we near the Christmas season. I loathe the lead up to Christmas, but everyone seems to love it so much that I hate to be a party pooper. Tomorrow I have a funeral to do in the morning and then we will be off for our trip to Atlanta. I am really looking forward to some time away, even if it is only a couple of days. Sometimes just a change of scenery is enough to put a new perspective on life.

Over the last couple of weeks, we have been potty training young Miss Madeline. Misty took off a day of work at the beginning of the month to help jump start her pottying progress. I do not know what it is about my children, but none of them have had little issue with the sensation of wetting themselves or otherwise. They were just as happy as a lark to stay that way forever. So, Madeline has been the same. I tried to reason with her at first. "Why would you want to live that way?" It is difficult to encourage a toddler to look deep within herself for answers to life's puzzling questions. Well, as the weeks have progressed she has been very successful at home and at her preschool. She will turn three on Thanksgiving Day and we were determined she would be trained by her birthday. She has given up diapers and her pacifier in a short span of time. Thank God for small miracles.

In other news ~ These have been turbulent weeks for our country. The election season finally closed with Missouri being called for Senator McCain, though it was severely anticlimactic since over 8.5 million more people voted for Obama and he was well on his transitional way by last week.

I have been thinking a lot about HOPE lately. Hope was Obama's catch-phrase during the election and clearly resonated with voters at a time when the country appears a little hopeless. Now, whether or not I believe he will be able to deliver all the things he says he will is beyond the scope of this entry, but at the very least he was able to strike a chord with many who were in need of a little hope. I think one of the saddest things for me during this past season was just how void of hope the Republican campaign was this year. I do not want to denigrate McCain or Palin, and much has been written and discussed about the problems of their campaign and why it failed, but I really think the main reason was that they missed this strong need for hope that Americans have been crying out for. I remember Sarah Palin in her speech at the Republican National Convention railing against hopemongers and all the Messianic attributes attached to Barack Obama. I seem to remember something about a winged horse from heaven or something to that effect. I thought it was a pretty good speech.

I guess my problem is that so many evangelicals cling to the Republican party as the standard bearer for God and country that to hear the person that many look to as the salvation of the Republican party denigrating someone basically because their message was hope was the last straw for me. Here is the crux: We as Christians are meant to give hope to the world. The light of Christ brings hope into the world for all people. We are to be the bearers of this hope. Hope is one of the big three: faith, hope, and love. Is there anything more Christian than to offer another person hope? Take Obama and anything overtly political out of the equation. What is wrong with hope?

I understand that many see Obama as an anti-Christian leader because of his stance on certain social issues. I am not going to deny any of these issues, nor will I bring up any of the myriad of social issues many Christians could care less about. But I wonder if it is ever right to denigrate hope or to say that hope is something to be scoffed at, something for naive idealists.

I admit that I am an idealist. It is one of my greatest strengths and one of my greatest weaknesses. I want to believe the best about people and I am often disappointed by them when they do not live up to what I believe they are capable of. But I am hopeful that soon our country will be on better footing throughout the world, that we will begin to come together in a way that we have not in a long time.

I am also hopeful Christian leaders will stop talking about the good old days when everyone was white and went to church. Truth is, more people attend church regularly in 2008 than ever before in the history of our nation. Maybe these are the good days, we just don't recognize them. Maybe we just need a little hope.

P. S.: Just so it is completely understood: I do not think Obama is the second coming. I do not think Sarah Palin is a moose-killing hatemonger. I do not think McCain is a hateful old beer distributor. But I do think Focus on the Family may just be a little bit divisive and here's why . . . .

Who Knew I Lived in a Blue State?

Well, it seems like something happened last night. I can't quite put my finger on it. Oh yeah, the world may have changed. I am pleased to be able to say I got to vote for the first African-American President. I must admit that I am still a little stunned that our country has grown up enough to elect someone who is not an old white man. I cannot imagine what it must feel like for African Americans across the nation to be able to truthfully tell their children that one day they could be president. I don't think I ever thought this would happen in my lifetime. But to see all the civil rights leaders with tears streaming down their faces in amazement, it was truly a moving moment. I am just glad I was able to witness it.

It is interesting, but it appears, at least from my analysis of the election returns, that many Republicans left Mr. McCain high and dry on election day. I may have this all wrong, but back in 2004, George Bush won 51% of the vote for a total of 62,040,606 votes (286 electoral votes). John Kerry won 48% of the vote for a total of 59,028,109 votes (252 electoral votes). Now the returns are still not at 100%, but if you look at the preliminary numbers, Barack Obama won 53% of the popular vote with 63,607,129 votes (349 electoral votes as it stands now, but I assume he will end up with North Carolina's 15 votes for a total of 364) and John McCain won 46% of the popular vote with 56,218,351 votes (163 electoral votes as it stands now, but I assume he will end up with Missouri's 11 votes for a total of 174).

The difference between Bush and Kerry was 3, 012,497 votes. The difference as it stands now (with 97% of precincts reporting) between Obama and McCain was 7,388,778 votes. So, looking at these numbers, Obama beat Bush's popular total by over 1.5 million votes. McCain's total was under Kerry's by just over 2.8 million votes. So the total difference as it stands now is about 1.25 million less votes in 2008 than in 2004. Granted, some votes have not been counted yet and the numbers will change slightly over the next month until they are certified, but this is significant considering how many pundits kept talking about how so many more would be voting this time around. I wonder if it was Independents who stayed home or if it was conservatives who did not trust McCain to be truly conservative.

And, shock of all shocks, I now live in a BLUE state. Granted, I live in one of the reddest counties in Florida, and I have already been shunned once today. McCain carried my county with 70% of the vote to Obama's 29%. I guess it is irrelevant now how my county voted. I do have an Obama pin and bumper sticker that will go into my box of memories but, unfortunately not on my car. Don't want to get shot.

Election Day 2008 ~ Do Conservatives Have More Fun?

There was an interesting article in the New York Times today about the differences in the way conservatives and liberals view humor. Maybe liberals are humorless?

Here is a quote:

“Conservatives tend to be happier than liberals in general,” said Dr. Martin, a psychologist at the University of Western Ontario. “A conservative outlook rationalizes social inequality, accepting the world as it is, and making it less of a threat to one’s well-being, whereas a liberal outlook leads to dissatisfaction with the world as it is, and a sense that things need to change before one can be really happy.”

Happy voting! Here are a couple reminders of the past election season:

UPDATE: Thanks, Tim, for this new picture.

All Saints Sunday Should Be My Birthday

So we took the girls to the church's annual "Trunk or Treat" Friday evening. It was fun and I got to take Madeline down the slide several times (see above). The girls went on a hayride and got enough candy for me for the rest of the year. And that brings me to my first confession of the day: I think I have gained 5 pounds, so I started running again. I had become a slacker, which is all too easy for me, and I forget that my metabolism will not stay up forever unless I shake my groove thang or whatever. So, after church today, which was filled with remembrances of church members who have passed on, handbell playing and choir singing par excellence, I came home, had lunch and ran for 45 minutes. I am finding that this time around, I am not in as good of shape as I was the last time I ran, so I am feeling the burn hours later. The joys of being a fatty and not wanting to end up with diabetes or a club foot or whatever.

As I write to you I am enjoying the best day of the year, the day when we Fall Back. It is the best day ever. The only thing that is not good about it is that evening comes so quickly now. It is amazing, but here in northwest Florida, we are so close to the dividing line between Eastern and Central time (we are about 45 minutes west of the line) that darkness falls inordinately quicker here than it did in Texas. No joke, in Texas the summer days would last until after 8:00 p. m. Here we are lucky if it is not completely dark by 7:00--in July! So, the dark days are worse it seems. Maybe I just have to find something to complain about. This is a blog after all.

I am finding that my funk has lifted, thank God, and as long as I keep on running, I am sure it will stay away for some time. The dark passenger averted for a time. My children are no help here. Emma is getting to be such a mini-adult it really bothers me. We spent an hour at Justice for Girls in the mall while she tried on everything in the store and ended up with a pair of jeans, a jacket, and a couple of shirts courtesy of the elder Mrs. Keaton's gift cards. In some ways it is a lot of fun that she is growing up. She told me she knew who I voted for today. I asked her how that was possible and she told me that I never talk about John McCain, so she deduced I had voted for Obama. I told her that it really was no one's business who I voted for, but I did say it was about time a black person became president. It was interesting because she mentioned that it would be a first for an African American to become president, but that if McCain won he would be the oldest president and we would have the first woman Vice-President, not just one but two historical firsts. I did not have the heart to tell her that the one so far trumped the other two, at least in my opinion. Anyway, I am a big ol' frickin' Democrat so how do you expect me to vote?

I just finished up playing and singing with the children's "choir" here at church. A small aside: I do not mention my political leanings at church for fear that someone may think I am a socialist (like the early apostles), or I want to spread the wealth around (yes, please, give the wealth to me), or that I just might be a baby killer. And don't get me started on the issue of greedy capitalism being equated with loving Jesus. I am not going to even say it. I heard a funny, but sad quote Friday night from Bill Maher (which proves I may be the Antichrist) that went something like this: "Barack Obama spent 20 years in a United Church of Christ which proves he is a Muslim. John McCain spent most of his life avoiding going to church which proves he is a Christian."

I have come to the realization that in less than 2 days the election will be over. I do not think it is a lock for Obama. I mean, George Bush got elected twice (really only won once, but hey, let's not bore you with facts) and he was behind most of the election season. Even the exit polls appeared to show John Kerry winning (thank God he did not). I will likely be unable to rest until I know who won, and I pray that we do not have another 2000 and not know for months who "won."

For as happy as I am today, I sure sound cranky tonight. Sorry about that.

May God bless America, all of it, including the parts that are not really America. I think it may be beyond praying that everyone can just get along, but I am going to try it out anyway. God is bigger than all of this, I just hope Christians can be "big" about however the election ends up. I am not holding out much hope.

Peace.