Happy Birthday, Rob!

Rob got back last night at 2am from a trip to Las Vegas where he spent several days communing with tech geeks from around the world at the Consumer Electronics Show. So he started his official birthday morning in an unconscious heap of jet lag, accompanied by Smokey, who does not sleep well when Rob is gone and can finally, finally rest. Which means that tonight maybe I can finally, finally rest.

For his birthday dinner Rob has requested pizza and cake. Yes, that's right, he's turning nine.

Election Obsession 08 Continues

Last night’s primary has everyone scratching their heads over how they could have been SO wrong in their forecasts about the Democrat results in New Hampshire. Now it’s all about how Hillary Clinton managed to get the women voters back in her corner, partly (or mainly, as some reporters seem to be suggesting), with her display of emotion on Monday. I realize that this is how people vote—they vote based on how a candidate makes them feel, whether it seems there is a real person behind the lingo and the promises, and whether they feel that they can trust that person. But it still seems like such a fickle reason to get on board the Clinton train. I hope the women of New Hampshire, who were 2/3 of the Clinton vote, had bigger and better reasons to cast their votes this way. I choose to believe that they did.

At any rate, this is not necessarily a bad thing for Obama, although it certainly adds a level of complexity to the race that went missing for a few days. Between Iowa and New Hampshire, Republicans had basically shifted all of their attention from Clinton to Obama, and now that Clinton has shown she’s still very much in this race, the Rep. group will have to split their criticism once again between the two Dem. candidates. And Obama is solid when he’s on the defense, anyway.

One note on the Republican primary side, boy was John McCain’s speech surprisingly bad. He seemed stiff and uncomfortable and I don’t think he did himself any favors. But I’m sure he can bounce back easily by crying tomorrow or hugging puppies.

Let's get this out of the way

I don’t really want to talk about Mike Huckabee because I don’t want to lend his campaign any credence, especially the kind that comes from a cutting-edge political blog of this caliber. [See It’s possible I have too much time to think.]

However, I do have to say that it is most frustrating to read accounts of his New Hampshire approach that all say “he’s toning down his conservative Christian message” in advance of tonight’s primary, since NHers are considerably more socially liberal than Iowans. Excuse me. How does that work? People haven’t been listening so far and they’ll be fooled by the fact that oh, he seems like a good guy and he’s all about change and he’s not really mentioning that he’s staunchly pro-life and anti-gay marriage and believes that every word written in the Bible is literally true? Are you kidding me? I don’t even believe that every word written in The Joy of Cooking is true. That chapter on bread? Iffy.

Obviously, Huckabee will not come out ahead in NH, but either way, people—aren’t we smarter than this?

Something else that is not worth mentioning: a restaurant in New Hampshire is serving The Huckaburger, which is made with lean bison, baby spinach, sprouts, and tomato on a whole-wheat bun topped with a fried pickle. It does not get my vote.

Free Rice!

Check out the website freerice.com. It's a really great concept for a site: you're given vocabulary words and four possible definitions. Choose the right one and 20 grains of rice are donated through the United Nations. As you continue, the words get harder or easier depending on whether you're answering correctly. The rice is paid for by the ads on the site and the website itself is a non-profit offshoot of poverty.com.
So, you get smarter and hungry people get rice. I love this site. Thanks to Joe for the link!

The road to Washington

As most people know by now, Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee stole the show in the Iowa caucuses. This is exciting stuff for Obama—depending on what happens in New Hampshire and beyond, he could definitely widen his base and potentially bring out voters who wouldn’t normally cast a ballot in November. It will be fun to watch how this plays out.

NPR interviewed Iowa #2 John Edwards this morning and he was unable to directly answer Renee Montagne's question: where do you have to come out in New Hampshire in order to stay strong in this election? He literally talked around the issue for 45 seconds until she asked “But, back to the question, do you have a number?” and he talked around the question some more. I so need to master the technique where people ask you direct questions and you just respond with a few enigmatic code words, a bit of sign language, and then yell "Look over there!"

As for Mike Huckabee, though I doubt he’ll keep his momentum, I welcome him as the Republican candidate, since any number of Dem candidates could totally trounce him in a general election. After the results last night, he announced that now he was “grooving” or “in a groove” or something like that. I don’t know a ton about the Baptist minister from Arkansas, but I suspect he wouldn’t know what a groove was even if James Brown was attached to his ass. And I say that after having seen him performing Freebird in New Hampshire. Check it out if you must.

Taunting Winter

It is 13 degrees in New York today, although with the wind chill it feels like somewhere between 0 and 10. It’s cold. And yet, as I walked to work this morning, I continued past the bus I could have taken, secure in the fact that I was dressed like I was on my way to a Jack London novel.
I saw many shivery people on my path: people with cold tears rolling down their cheeks, people holding scarves up to their faces to block the wind, people making the little mad faces people make when they can’t believe the weather is doing this awful thing to them and they are required to deal with it. But me, I trotted on happily, layered up like the kid in A Christmas Story (I can’t move my arms!) and just as uninterested in bumping into people. Dare I say it, I was prepared for the weather.
The reason: last night when I got home from work, I was the shivery one. It was 25 degrees, but when I walked into our building, I greeted Manny, the doorman, and said, “Oh my god, I can’t believe how cold it is!”
“Just wait until tomorrow,” Manny said.
“What does that mean?” I asked, suddenly nervous.
“I don’t know,” Manny replied honestly. “But people keep saying it.”

Armed with that elusive warning and the more specific information on NPR this morning, I was ready.

Happy new year!

And happy 100th Deepish Thought! I apologize for not posting lately. I've been drunk.

I hope everyone had a very happy and fun new year's eve. We were at Chat and Nina's, eating delicious food, including pounds of cheese that I can now proudly call my own pounds. Nina taught me a few fabulous Bollywood dance moves and we all proclaimed our love for Aishwarya Rai.

In reflecting on 2007, I am blown away by how much traveling Rob and I were able to do: we went to Jackson Hole, Mexico, Miami, Chicago, Atlanta, San Francisco, San Diego, Mexico again, Boston, Martha's Vineyard, and Fort Myers. We got engaged, and some very important people in our lives announced that they were pregnant or engaged (I am not referring to Jamie Lynn Spears.)

I also think that this was the year my skin thickened appropriately to New York's weather and I, so far, have not been excessively whiny about how cold it is. (Sorry, Chicago. I know we haven't seen anything yet.)

I still bite my nails, skip the gym, and occasionally pick unnecessary fights with Rob, but this just means I have more to work on in 2008. Exciting.