Washington, D.C. before the storm

Today, Rebecca and I picked up her tickets for the swearing in ceremony on Tuesday morning. Rebecca was able to snag eight tickets from Senator Bennett of Utah by usurping her Aunt Ellen's and Cousin Scott's names. Her theory, correct as it turns out, was that folks from Red states like Utah couldn't give two shakes of their wives' tails to attend the inauguration. Fortunately, Rebecca has about 80 relatives who live in Utah and two were willing to risk breaking Federal statute and allow her to use their names to secure tickets to the event. Actually, Aunt Ellen and Scott seriously planned on coming to the event themselves. We can't wait for them to get here late on Monday night.

Here is a picture of the Dirksen Senate office building where they would have had to go to get the tickets if they had gotten here today. Instead, Rebecca had to go in and get the tickets for them.

This is what the inside of the Dirksen Senate Office building looks like with Rebecca smiling inside it.



Here is a picture of Rebecca moments after she was handed two manilla folders that had been saturated with ether. We'll have to send a thank you note to the two girls in the background who were able to revive her so she could get the manilla folders that had the tickets in them.

Temperatures in D.C. today were in the low teens. The forecast for Tuesday is low 30's. This picture is of the front of the Capitol where a lucky few will be able to have their buttocks frozen to their chair while they witness the historic moment when Barack Obama, the 44th President of the United States, belches into the microphone.

There will be speakers and jumbotrons so the other lucky few who don't have seats and have to stand way back here will be able to see and hear the historic event as well, all while having their arses frozen off.

Here is a picture of Rebecca with her coveted ticket, standing in front of the reflecting pool. Doesn't she look cute? This is where she will be standing on Tuesday with Aunt Ellen and Cousin Scott. Obviously, President-elect Obama has better friends in the Senate than Mr. Bennett.


After the swearing in ceremony there will be a parade along Pennsylvania Avenue, from the Capitol to the White House. The Newseum fronts Penn. Ave and Rebecca purchased two tickets to the Newseum so that she would be assured of "being there" if she wasn't able to score tickets to the swearing in. Because the number of people allowed to view the parade from Pennsylvania Avenue will be limited to 300,000, she is not sure she will be able to make it from the reflecting pool to the parade area before the parade area has maxed out. So, she is contemplating selling the Newseum tickets on Craigslist to support her new ether habit.

Rebecca took this photo of the Newseum while she was driving to the Dirksen Senate office building. She's been a bit over the top about this whole thing, even going so far as to purchase a red carpet to roll out on the front walkway of our house for the Inaugural Ball we are hosting on Saturday night. Today, she had tears in her eyes as she drove along Pennsylvania and saw all the bunting and flags blowing in the wind and contemplated the great moment she will be a part of on Tuesday.

Christmas, New Years, and January 6th

The excitement that Maya and Jonah showed in anticipation of Christmas this year was contagious. Even Rebecca, a notorious scrooge (albeit, a scrooge who continually outdoes herself in the gift-giving category. See below.) caught the bug. For the first time in our history, my Christmas stocking did not hang limp and forlorn on Christmas morning. Courtesy of Rebecca, it was brimming with all the sundry items that make Christmas morning magical – socks, a “Dumb and Dumber” DVD, and Clementines.

We spent Christmas Eve at our house with Opa, PoPo and cousins from Hong Kong – Eliza and Diana Chu. Diana just completed her first semester at Washington University at St. Louis, which is located in St. Louis. Eliza, her mom, was of course coming to visit and spend the holiday with her after not seeing her for four months. Eliza and Diana, and Alex, the dad, lived in Blacksburg, Virginia for a number of years before moving to Hong Kong about a decade ago, right when I started dating Rebecca. In fact, while they attended Utah State in the 1980’s, Eliza and Alex lived with the Eichlers. When they moved to Blacksburg, Virginia to become professors at Virginia Tech, the Eichlers were living in Woodbridge, Virginia.

Now, Virginia is not like New Jersey, you can’t drive through it in two hours. But even though Blacksburg and Woodbridge aren’t the closest of towns, Eliza, Alex, and then baby Diana were still the closest located family to Rebecca during that time (other family being in Utah, on the west coast, and in HK), so they spent a fair amount of time together. Being able to host Eliza and Diana added a special element to our Christmas celebration – it brought back feel-good memories of youth for Rebecca and we didn’t have to host only Opa and PoPo, who we see all the time.

While we waited for dinner on Christmas Eve we watched Santa’s flight across Asia and Europe on the computer. The look on Jonah’s face as he watched Santa’s sleigh make its way in and around the Roman Coliseum was pure wonderment and joy. It’s nice to see that technology has added something of value to life besides “Dancing with the Stars”.

On Christmas morning Maya woke up before everyone, as she typically does, and claims she heard someone eating cookies in the living room. Being the bold spirit she is, she came halfway down the stairs and saw 1) Santa’s hat, or 2) Santa’s whole being. She changed her story so I’m not sure what to make of it.

On the topic of Rebecca’s gift giving, she got me an even more awesome present this year than she got me last year. I think I’ve blogged about the gift she made last year, a family camping flag consisting of an acorn (representing Jonah Oak) sewn onto a purple background with snowflakes (representing Maya Snow). We hang this from something near our campsite when we go camping and it’s totally cool. Well, this year Rebecca managed to format the entire “Adventures of the Cuy” blog that I wrote this summer while we were in Ecuador and bind it into book form. So, now it looks like I actually wrote a book this summer instead of complained and got drunk. It’s sweet.

Though, I have to admit, I felt a bit like a geek when my friend Adam asked me what I got after he came rolling down the street on his brand spanking new adult size scooter that his wife MaryAnne got for him and then told me about the rock and roll DVDs and the New York football Giants jersey that his kids got him.

“Uh.” I said. “A book.”

Then he took my lunch money.

On New Years Eve, we decided to host a party. This was actually a good idea. We invited all the families with kids from our neighborhood, so it had potential to be a relatively early night. It was a pot-luck and we have some amazing cooks in our neighborhood so we had a good spread too. At nine o’clock, we celebrated the New Year arriving in Greenland by popping the cork to some Sparkling Apple Cider, making a bunch of noise, and throwing confetti all over our living room. Then we sent the kids to bed and everyone else went home.

Some girls that live up the street were having a party so after Rebecca and I got the place mostly cleaned up I went over there with Adam and managed to avoid having to do any Karaoke. It was a pretty good way to send off the old year.

I guess the expected thing to do now is to spend a bunch of lines reflecting on the year, but I don’t really feel the need. Life goes on, right? I’m thankful that we continued to be very fortunate in 2008, and I expect all the good things that happened for us in 2008 and all the positive momentum that we built up as a family to keep rolling along with us. Hopefully, that type of thing doesn’t recognize artificial stops and starts like New Years Day. Two-thousand and eight rocked. If we just keep doing the same thing we’ve been doing, 2009 is going to rock too.

And so far so good. The kids recognized the hilarity of the pictures on the cover of the Dumb and Dumber DVD (in particular, the one of Jim Carrey giving Jeff Daniels a wedgy) so we watched some of that on New Years Day. Maya made us turn it off because it was scaring her.

We’ve gotten back to eating right, alfalfa sprouts and garbanzo beans, after the indulgence of the holidays.

We continue to have dance parties as time permits. Last night we were listening to the Warren Zevon album “The Wind”, which has some good dance songs on it. After we rocked out to “Disorder in the House” which has a guitar part by Bruce Springsteen like nothing I’ve ever heard him play before, we were catching our breath on the couch listening to Zevon cover “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door”. Maya asked me, “Who’s Kevin?”

Speaking of Maya, she recently went to the dentist and came home with three cavities. Rebecca blames this on me and my habit of giving the kids ice cream nearly every day this summer. Well, I say, what else are summers for but eating ice cream? Perhaps, brushing your teeth? I thought we did that. Anyway, the cavities are in baby teeth but it is still a bit disconcerting because Rebecca has a mouth full of cavities. Repairing her teeth has cost us a pretty penny. I hope Maya’s cavities aren’t a sign of things to come with her. It is also disturbing because, rather than being contrite; Maya is wearing her cavities like a badge of honor.

Since Maya’s diagnosis, I have been reading her a book that I wrote for a school project called “The Little Men Who Made Cavities in Steve’s Mouth”. My friend Rob Lembo, who is a fantastic artist, did a great job illustrating it, and I must say that the story holds together pretty well for a first effort. As we were paging through it last night, Maya was making me read every little thing written in there. The cover page, the dedication, and some other silly things I wrote in there. On one page, I had put down the date; January 6, 1988. How crazy that exactly twenty-one years to the day that I handed this thing in as a senior year school project, I was reading the book to my six-year old daughter.