Preschool politics....

Uff da. I'm still at work right now, and I spent the last few hours thinking up fun songs and fingerplays for preschoolers (and typing up the ones that I've made up in the past, along with those old classics....Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes, anyone??), so I'm a trifle brain dead at the moment. I'm also fighting the internal vice clamp that rears its ugly head and bites down on my brain stem whenever I look at my laptop. You see, I had spent several quality minutes today buffing and polishing and scrubbing my electronic friend so that its pearly white could shine through and be, well, pearly. No sooner had I finished this endeavor than I sat down to continue my Expert Composing and smeared what appeared to be a CHUNK of the Sharpie ink on my fingers that I had neglected to wash off before all over my space bar. And it, being Sharpie ink, refuses to budge. Grrrrr. That was a really intense run-on sentence that I am a leeetle too brain dead to fix at the moment. It's off to the gym in a minute, once this file finishes downloading (double grrrr).

Wow. This blog entry is off to a RIVETING start!!

Anyway.....now, I'll be honest: Anyone who has read this blog more than, oh, once knows that my time overseas has been FILLED with ups and downs (with, to be honest, more ups than downs!). However, through it all, while I've missed my family and friends and Peter and the yummy, yummy nieces and the various furry animals that inhabit my parents' house, I haven't missed the United States of America as a whole. Now, I'm NOT saying that I'm not proud to be an American, or that I dislike America, or that I'm going to go out and burn a flag. Certainly not. While being an American today can be a complex label indeed, especially overseas, it's certainly not one that I shun. I just...haven't...missed the U.S.

Until today, that is.

I've been reading everyone's Facebook status updates and blog entries talking about the Democratic National Convention in Denver, and I can't help but feel some pangs of jealousy and homesickness. People have been moved to TEARS more than once after listening to Barack Obama's speech. People are not wanting to take a 10% chance on change. They want to give their children a shot at a better future. They are inspired and crying and filled with a hope that has been absent from most Americans for the last eight years. And, well, I haven't been able to watch any of it due to time differences and, you know, that pesky job that I have. I am clickety clacking songs about scissors on my (now permanently inked) keyboard and trying to catch excerpts on CNN.com while my fellow Americans (the Democrats, at least) are poised for change, and rubbing the toxic distortions of the last eight years out of their eyes.

I realize that this sounds very self-pitying. Very, "Oh, poor me! I have to live overseas in an exciting country (which, by the way, has its own political craziness happening at the moment!!) instead of watching the DNC." That's NOT how I'm trying to sound. I just wish that I could share in the excitement of this moment.

So......my fellow Americans, I am with you in spirit, hoping for change. And even though I am still a DIE HARD Hillary supporter (um, card carrying member of the Sisterhood of the Pantsuit!!), I wish I could have heard Barack Obama deliver his speech. I know I would have been a bucket of tears :)