Oh Yeah! They are saying there were 100,000 of us there today! Without me and mine it would have been a measly 99,996.

This experience was amazing, even more amazing than when we went to see Obama and Joe Biden in Springfield, IL, a few months back.  It was a glorious sea of people, and the vibe was so good, so hopeful, so empowering.

As the huge line to get to the arch snaked through the streets of Laclede's Landing, I was reminded of how nice we all are, we Obama supporters. I'm not trying to diss anyone here, but both times we've been a part of a throng of Obama people, the mood has been gloriously kind, supportive, and friendly. 

The best moment of the day came as we were approaching the Arch from the Riverfront. Obama's motorcade whizzed by and everyone went wild! And I saw him, I had a phenomenal view of his face; he was glowing. He was waving and the smile on his face and in his eyes told us all that he was as happy to see us as we were to see him. I'll never forget his face, and could feel his amazement and joy that so many of us were there. He was thrilled and we were thrilled, and it just got better and better. The story that I've told my children that they must tell their children and grandchildren is that he rolled down the window, pointed at me, and shouted "Momma Yaya, thanks for coming! I'll save a spot for you up front, and can't wait to get my slippers!!"(I'm serious about the slippers, I'm going to find a way to get Elf Slippers on every foot in the Obama family--Barack and Michelle, these will be freebies!)

There's really no need for me to tell you that his speech was inspiring. It made me cry. And nothing, I'm telling you, nothing is more inspiring that being surrounded by thousands of people of all colors and ages, feeling how real this movement for change really is. Just look at the crowd, and at our happy faces afterward:

I've really got to speak my mind here. When it comes to healthcare, McCain's plan to privatize things with a $5,000 tax credit is just as Biden described in the VP debate last night: A bridge to nowhere. If you think the economy crisis is bad, just wait until you get a taste of the next crisis to come; if McCain is elected it will be, without a doubt, a sub-prime healthcare coverage crisis. McCain acts like he is going to be giving you money. He isn't. He is taking it away, forcing you into an unfair and difficult to navigate labyrinth of predatory insurers who want your money and don't want to give you anything in return. 

I'm speaking from experience. We had to get our own health insurance, and all we can afford is basically a major medical plan with pharmacy discount. We pay out of pocket for all preventative care, every office visit and every procedure. The only decent thing our insurance offers is an affordable ER co-payment. Do you really want to see the ERs of our nation's hospitals more overwhelmed than they already are?

Lack of decent healthcare coverage has ruined our credit and forces us into making critical health decisions for our children based on what we can afford to pay out of pocket. Please check your most recent insurance statements and ask yourself if you could afford to pay not only your full monthly premiums and deductibles, but also the full cost of the office visits and procedures. Because that is what hundreds of thousands of Americans will have to do under the McCain plan when they find themselves searching for health insurance without the benefit of employer assistance. You will foot the bill, my friends, but you will still have to pay your overpriced insurance premiums, too.

McCain's tax credit would not pay for close to a year's worth of our family's "sub-prime" policy. Yet you cannot get in the door at a doctor's office without having some kind of plan, without being "insured" in some way. Meanwhile, the insurance companies set the prices, the ever inflating prices, of medical procedures through their negotiations with health care systems. They've inflated the very prices they refuse to pay. Those are the prices that the uninsured and under-insured have to pay. If you are not part of a group plan, you are on your own and you are at their mercy. And by the way, they have no mercy.

What it amounts to is this: when you are on your own for health care there is absolutely nobody in your corner fighting for you. The job of all insurance companies is to collect money from you every month and deny coverage for you in every way they can manage--that is simply what insurance companies do. They are not charities. I'm sure insurance companies love McCain's plan. Think of it: employers, who ordinarily would be looking out for their employees and trying to ensure fair health care coverage for their people (so they get their money's worth) will happily take themselves out of the equation, workers will be taxed on more of their income than ever before, and a nation of individuals and families will be paying out of pocket for minimal healthcare at the very same time they pay their monthly insurance premiums.

Don't be fooled. Don't kid yourself.  Don't vote for McCain.

No, I'm not referring to the McCain-Palin campaign motto. It's this photograph my brother-in-law shot today. Every thing is perfect in this photo, except, of course, my crazy face. I'm not sure what is really happening in this photo, it looks like I'm about to sneeze all over my husband; since I don't remember sneezing, it's more likely that I'm bitching about something.

But the version of things that I'm sticking with is that I'm singing a beautiful love song to my husband at this moment, either that or "Free Bird." And he is enjoying it. He's caught up in the moment and loving the fact that we are sitting together in this beautiful spot (where we were married 13 years ago), celebrating our son's 11th birthday after eating at McDonald's. Life is great. Most of that was true.

Oh, oh, wait . . . I'm reciting a love sonnet I wrote. That's it. 

I don't normally get political on this blog, but I heard this comment on the radio earlier today and I have to say that it really struck me as hitting the nail on the head. From Brazil's president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, at the UN today:

“The great Brazilian economist Celso Furtado said we must not allow speculators’ profits always to be privatized, while their losses are invariably socialized.”

My nightly relaxation routine is to steal the ipod from my sleeping husband, select Eckhart Tolle's New Earth, Deuter's disco-ish new age tracks, or, if I'm really stressed, some Tibetan monks chanting with their singing bowls. Never content to just relax, however, I also play games. Most nights it's solitaire, but with the start of the anxiety-laden homeschool year, I've ramped up my nightly relaxation/gaming session by playing Mahjong.

Last week I was stressing out about school. It was the first official week and things weren't going as I'd hoped. I had goals and plans, and I was frustrated at every turn. We'd have a good day, and the next was trashed. I would wake up determined to do right by my kids, and was ready to abandon them before lunch. What I'd envisioned for our homeschool year didn't seem like too much, really--just a more than adequate educational experience crammed into the first half of the day so the second half could be filled with the joy, love and adventures that make life worth living! We'd do more than we'd ever managed to do before, and we'd do it in half the time! We'd be content and cuddly, relaxed, yet disciplined. Happy faces would smile up at me as we explored every academic subject under the sun. Quick! There are only 180 days in the school year!

But two kids determined to delay the end of summer can mess with even the best laid plans. So I took out my frustrations on that finger-sliding ipod interface. If I couldn't master the matter of educating those kids I could at the very least master Mahjong.

I set a goal for myself: complete all 72 layouts in the game in less than 3 minutes each. "No," I said to my husband one night, as he sleepily eyed my 3 minute high score, "it's not good enough, it has to be under 3 minutes!" I was getting really good, sometimes making it through a new layout in 2.5 minutes on my first try. Last night, I got through layout number 60, and scrolled on to the next to discover the message "LOCKED, you must master all other layouts before gaining access." Huh? If less than 3 minutes isn't mastery, well I don't know what is! Further examination revealed that I had been logging all those hours in "Single Player Mode." To gain access to the last 12 layouts, I needed to be playing in "Emperor's Challenge" mode. Sigh. I began again, at the beginning.

The trouble with me, you see, is I pretty much always seek to do things the hard way; I get hung up on something insignificant, like how less than 3 minutes means mastery, and anything more is failure. As it turns out, Emperor's Challenge mode gives me nifty little wisdom bits after I master each challenge, things like "flies never settle on an egg that is not cracked." It's a special little treat after a job well done, something that was definitely missing from my Single Player experience. But it's not the wise sayings that have opened my eyes to the truth about me. Low and behold, the Challenge mode only requires that I complete a layout in 5.5 minutes or less. That is mastery, so says the game.  All the stress that I put on myself about 3 minutes or less wasn't necessary to reach my goal. At this point I am well on my way to discovering the delights of those special layouts--and I'm getting there without much stress at all, because, Dude, I can totally do any layout they got in less than 5 minutes!

So, dear friends, I'm sure you are getting my drift, right? I'm not a failure just because I was STILL coaxing my kids to do schoolwork at 5:00 p.m. tonight; the need to do it better, faster, happier was a self-centered goal, it was only about ME. I simply need to get into the right mode when it comes to homeschooling. You don't get any of those special bits of wisdom when you are in Single Player mode.