Hot Flashes, Episode 38: Obamarama

Hot Flashes, Episode 38: Obamarama

Mimi Schmir, one of the writers from "Grey's Anatomy"

It starts this way. Mr. Handsome comes up to me and says, “Mommy, you know my favorite President is Abraham Lincoln.” To which I reply, “Why, that’s wonderful lovey.” To which he replies, “You know he did the emancipation proclamation.” To which I then say, “It is amazing and historic that we are going to have our first African American president of the United States.” To which he then says, “Can we go?”

Which somehow leads us to the back seat of a car that is driving us from Dulles International Airport towards our nation’s capital at midnight. Me and Mr. Handsome, in the fire-engine-red down coat newly purchased for the occasion (the better not to lose him was my idea) and it is fucking freezing cold. “It’s kind of cold, isn’t it, Mommy?” says Mr. Handsome and I say, “Oh, no, you’re just not used to this weather because you live in L.A.” when I’m really thinking, “History should be confined to warm climates.”

And then we’re walking in to an eight-hundred-and-thirty-four room hotel near the Capitol (this preceded by Mr. Handsome’s first view of the Jefferson Memorial and the Washington Monument glowing like a beacon). A hotel that greedily insisted I pay five times what the room would normally cost and pay in full when I booked it.  What happened to, “All men (and women) are created equal?”  All men and women with room on their platinum cards, I suppose.  When we arrive we find a postage stamp-sized accommodation perfect for a liaison with your Page but barely inhabitable for yours truly.  (Let’s just say I’m a firm believer that thread-count matters.) And everywhere we look there are people in long fur coats (apparently history is not always politically correct) and Mr. Handsome says, “Isn’t anyone going to sleep, it’s pretty late at night,” and I say, “Don’t quote me on this but I’m pretty sure no one is going to sleep until we have a new President.”

From the moment we set foot in Washington D.C. it is like this. Swarms of people, grasping on to the feeling that something incredible is about to happen. The cab drivers know it and the cleaning people in the hotel know it and the people in the streets are pretty sure they know it too, everyone part of this collective gathering, this intention to be a part of history, or at the very least, to be on television. (No dummies, we wave every time a camera comes our way. Mr. Handsome in his fire engine red attracts them like moths to a flame. Which we could have used in those frigid temperatures, having lost all feeling in our extremities after a monument sight-seeing tour that might as well have taken place in Nome, Alaska.)

I don’t have the time right now to give you all the details (carpool, wouldn’t you know) but stay tuned and I promise there will be more. Suffice it to say that we stood with the masses at the Lincoln Memorial and listened to singers I lost my virginity to (don’t tell Mr. Handsome that one); we saw Ford’s Theater where Lincoln was shot and the hat he wore when he was assassinated and we read the Emancipation Proclamation at the Museum of American History and climbed the heady steps of the Lincoln Memorial so that Mr. Handsome, bundled against the frigid temperatures, could gaze upon his hero. He ran up those steps like he was meeting a long lost love (I suppose at the age of seven, an historical figure counts as one of those) and when we got to the top (no bounding for me and my Ugg Boots, I might add) he said to me, “Look, Mom. His hands are making sign language. I peer up at Abe and see that indeed, his marble fingers are curled into the American Sign Language shapes for an “A” and an “L.” “Mom, the guy who made the statue was deaf, did you know?” He gazes up at me. “Don’t you love history?”

Which brings us to January 20th, 2009 when we peer out of our hotel window at five thirty a.m. only to see throngs of people already crowding the still dark streets.  “We have to hurry, we’ll miss it!” says Mr. Handsome and so we throw on everything thermal that we own and head out in to the bitter cold. Now the actual inaugural moment is at noon, and the program starts not long before that but we figure we need to get out early to get a place on the Mall. “Did you get the tickets?” he asks me as we rush out the door and I have to tell him, “No, lovey,” because my friend who was supposed to give them to us (we had standing room in the now infamous Purple Gate Section) had missed her connection. “That’s okay, we’ll just be with everybody else,” he assures me and once again I am reminded what a true Democrat my seven-year-old really is.

Democrat or no, once we’re outside the reality kicks in. We can’t get anywhere near the Capitol or the Mall because the streets are blocked by the masses. They are happy masses, giddy masses even, but they are masses none-the-less. And so we walk. We walk and we walk, Mr. Handsome wearing snow boots because crappy mom that I am I have left his winter walking shoes at home. We walk through tunnels that are meant for cars, we walk in circles, we walk towards the future with millions of people who are walking towards the same thing.

Eventually, after two hours of walking we get there. Not to the future, exactly, but to the Washington Monument where we stop in front of a massive Jumbotron (is that redundant?) and stake our claim. Poor Mr. Handsome is shaking in his boots, literally, all the thermal underwear and Hot Pockets in the world couldn’t have warmed up this one and yes, there are some “I’m freezing to death” tears. Around us, swarms of people press against our backs and sides, more African Americans than I have ever seen in this part of our nation’s Capitol and a lovely, concerned woman presses her foot warmers on my child. At one point he tries to turn, Lincoln and democracy a distant memory, saying, “I’m done,” he pushes against the crowd and tries to leave. But there’s none of that, as millions have followed us and we’re going nowhere but forward.

Eventually, after promises of toys and chocolate, Mr. Handsome settles down and the impending enormity of the moment sets in. “I want to see the new President,” he says and I say, “Me too,” and the woman to our left, Mrs. Hot Pockets, echoes the sentiment with a little wave to Jesus somewhere above us in the frigid air. “Look Mommy,” says Mr. Handsome and he points to the Jumbotron where we see the little Obama girls in their candy pink coats walking with their grandmother and we know that soon the moment will be there and history will have been made. “That’s Malia and Sasha,” he chortles, “They’re my age,” and I know what he means because for no logical reason I feel the same way about their father.

And then there he is. “O-bam-a, O-bam-a!!” the crowd is yelling and so is Mr. Handsome, so caught up in the excitement of it all that the cold is forgotten and then the Oath is flubbed and corrected and all it takes is a second, it seems, a second to change the course of history -- Mr. President, the first African American President, and Mr. Handsome grabs my hand with his mitten and says, “Mommy, this is the best trip I’ve ever been on,” and all the things I’ve sucked at as a parent fall away for just an instant and it’s just about this -- a moment when anything is possible. Suffice it to say that it took us four hours to walk back to our hotel. And Mr. Handsome needed to pee the entire time. But he was a real trooper, saying, “Mom, we’re walking through tunnels that are just for cars,” that kind of thing (we were, it was kind of like a reverse Armageddon, all the people in the streets, shuffling along, their extremities frozen but their hearts, I know it sounds corny, but...warm.)

And later there were the balls and the dancing (to be continued, if for no other reason than the dresses) and I pointed my camera at Barack and Michelle and yelled, “Smile!” (I think the Secret Service had their eyes on me from that point on.) There were the buttons and the souvenir champagne glasses with the Presidential Seal, the silly gowns that no one looked at because why would you look at anyone else but the President of the United States and his Jackie-O-esque bride, and later that night I got into bed next to Mr. Handsome who had stayed behind with friends for that part and he said, “Was it fun, Mommy? Did you see him?” and I whispered, “Now, I’ve seen it all.”