Inauguration

In honor of the inauguration, we will be taking a day off from our regularly scheduled programming to sit in front of the television and watch the swearing in ceremony and parade. Not that I'm celebrating, mind you, I enjoy grand spectacle for the same reason people like car races: the potential for disaster.

I attended Mass with Pope John Paul II on his visit to Miami, when a bolt of lightning hit the enormous cross behind the altar. The Mass was halted and the park evacuated. I took a lunch break on the sidewalk in front of Vizcaya to watch Queen Elizabeth II ride by on her way to the Summit of the Americas. Nothing monumental happened that day, though I was generally disbelieved back at the office because I could not successfully identify the color of her hat. The main reason I went to the Law Enforcement Officers Memorial ceremony in Washington D.C. was to see Ashcroft in the flesh. I've been in a restaurant where people whipped out guns and were threatening to shoot each other. I've pulled over on Fort Lauderdale Beach to watch a boatload of Haitians pull up and make a run for it, and the Keystone Cops response by the authorities. When Elian was holed up in his relatives' house in Miami, I begged someone to ride down with me and gawk.

Why?

Something might happen. And I must be there.

We are eagerly anticipating news from my niece who will be attending one of the inaugural balls tomorrow evening, one for Bush's Christian supporters. One without drinking and dancing. What else do you do at a ball, I wonder? Her father-in-law was a big backer, probably financially, in addition to his nearly full page pre-election ad in USA Today titled something like, "Seven Reasons Christians Should Not Vote For Kerry." The funny thing is, and all terrorists should stop reading at this point, that as of yesterday no background checks had been done. I guess they are all a trustworthy lot.