Izzo, when you were 1, we elected Barack Obama

Fam, friends, future: What's up!

Happy... New Year?!?!

Or, as Grandpa was singing when he answered the phone Tuesday evening:


So long sad times/Go long bad times/We are rid of you at last

Howdy gay times/Cloudy gray times/You are now a thing of the past

Happy days are here again/The skies above are clear again/So let's sing a song of cheer again/Happy days are here again

So, yeah. Let's write about, oh, hmm, let's see, how about... Tuesday?

We got up early, expecting longish, at least, lines at my new polling place (I finally changed my address just before the deadline); Kit came over to join us and we all bundled up (it was, like, 60 degrees, yo!) and strolled around the corner to the Toll Middle School auditorium.

Strolled past the house on the corner, now for lease, where the woman was murdered by her boyfriend a few months ago.

Strolled, after looking both ways and then looking both ways again, and -- got that Izzo -- looking both ways again, across to Toll's campus.

Strolled past the huge memorial of flowers and cards and dolls and candles and love set out, wet after that night's rain, for 11-year-old Meri Nalbandian in front of the gym, stopped and paid respects, as a few other voters were doing, too. One of them was in tears; I wasn't far behind. Picked up Izzo and squeezed her real tight, and then turned away, tried to refocus on the day at hand, wishing, somehow, that what I was about to vote for would, in some way, honor little Meri, but I couldn't forge a connection.

I entered the auditorium blue and bummed and feeling very, very small.

There wasn't a line at all, they quickly found my name on the blue sheet, I signed, I voted with my ink-a-dot pen in my right hand and Izzo in my left arm, watching how it worked. Kit snapped a quick photo of us, and we strolled to go get our free-for-voting Starbucks coffee (Izzo got a vanilla milk packet) at the other end of the block.

From the beginning, it was a remarkable and remarkably emotional day. It just felt, well, it just FELT.

One of those so-rare just-rained days in L.A. where you can clearly and crisply see the mountains. Where the blue sky peeking out of the rapidly dissipating clouds shows brighter than usual. Cool, but not cold. One of the few days that could win an Oscar, or at least a Golden Globe, for acting like fall. And that big, big something brewing. Seemed like every conversation you heard a snippet of included the word, "Obama." We all knew what the polls told us, but still there was an edge to it. A weight to it.

And through it all, we tried, all day, to get Izzo to join in the chorus, to say her first, "Obama." We chanted and sang and 'peat and repeated O-bam-a, O-bam-a. But Izzo wouldn't even give us an "Oh."

After our free coffees, Izzo and I took off for the, yay, flu shot. Stopped behind two cars at a red light halfway there and got rear-ended. Tapped, really. Enough that I noticed, but not enough that Izzo appeared to, thank goodness. Still, I motioned for the driver behind me to pull over, and when the light changed, we moved forward and pulled along the side of the road, where amazingly a big stretch of curbside parking was available.

I got out, told myself I was gonna be cool about this as I turned to greet the woman getting out of the gold Lexus SUV behind me. It was one of those moments where you tell yourself, OK, I get to be an adult here. OK, I get to be a good example for my daughter here.

One of those moments where I was thrown completely off my game because she said, "What were you doing?! Why did you back up into me!"

Huh?

Long story short, there was no damage, except to my faith in my fellow women. The chick immediately went and called her husband! And put me on the phone with him! And then he tried to bully me: "If there's not really any damage than I suggest you just drive away, we don't want to make things hard on you." Oh, the things I wished I said to him in retrospect, after telling him, "That's nice, but I don't want to make things hard on YOU."

No damage, except to my faith in democracy. Maybe, I thought as I watched the woman nearly collide with another car as she hurriedly pulled away, we shouldn't actually give the American public a voice in really important matters. Television ratings, yeah, we can handle that as an electorate. We deem that American Idol will be huge. But Presidents and major state constitution-amending propositions? Maybe that's better left to actual smart, responsible people?

Flu shot went fine, as far as flu shots go. Izzo conked out for a couple hours when we got home and I did something I hadn't in months: reclined on the couch and read the newspaper. Then I ordered pizza (including one Hawaiian-style, for the man of the hour), picked up Robert, welcomed back Kit and got into election mode.

Fox News couldn't stop showing shots of a pair of guys they were IDing as Black Panthers, though I was never clear why they were showing them except for the overhanded attempt to scare white folk. Them folk at MSNBC seemed extra chipper. Both MSNBC and CNN decided to use these bizarre, offensively bad green-screen digital sets that didn't exactly reek of a stringent focus on reality and truth.

And still, Izzo refused even to give us that "Oh."

The action, naturally, picked up when the first polls closed on the East and the tallies starting coming in. For a minute, McCain led. But before you knew it, Fox News, of all networks, moved Obama in front.

Fresh off voting in his first general election, Uncle Rob controlled the television and gave us his own commentary from the numbers that were coming in at latimes.com on the laptop. The numbers started piling fast, so fast that within a couple hours, before Kit was done cooking up yummy couscous and chicken, with the polls in our West Coast blue states still open, it became clear: Obama was, indeed, gonna get to that 270 electoral threshold, no problem. Obama was gonna win this thing.

And still, Izzo wouldn't say it. Wouldn't even say "Oh."

We pleaded and nagged and teased and taunted, O-bam-a, Izzo, O-bam-a!

She laughed at us. And danced to us. But she wouldn't join in the chorus.

Instead, at around 6 p.m., she started her own chant: "BrrakBrrackBrrackBrrack! BrrakBrrackBrrackBrrack!" Which she followed with a necessarily sassy bet-you-didn't-see-that-comin'-didja smile. Seriously, ask the boys.

At 7 p.m., we turned away from the supposedly serious networks to Comedy Central, where the Daily Show/Colbert Report went live, offering the same updates as the networks, but with funnier, probably better analysis.

And suddenly, party girl Izzo, whom I can't get to drift off before 10 p.m. on a really good night, wanted up into my lap, where she curled herself into a ball and went right to sleep.

Maybe the emotional weight of the day exhausted her? Maybe she saw Jon Stewart and registered that as her bedtime? Either way, she slept the rest of the night.

Slept through the cheering and partying and champagne-swigging that happened over the next couple hours, during which both Daddy and Caitlyn showed up. Slept through Obama's amazing speech in Grant Park, so that I'll have to tell her what that was like someday, how it was the type of inspiring moment that I never imagined I'd get to witness, a moment I thought they didn't make anymore, a moment sharing words and the spirit of Lincoln and King, a moment where great things actually seemed possible, a moment that Izzo can already claim, 17 months in. And how that thrills me!






I'll tell her, later, how I find myself feeling differently about President Elect Obama than I have about other presidents. It's a strange sensation, actually, to not simply be preferring one guy to the other guy, but to be believing in the guy. To be trusting the guy. To be trusting him to take good care of us.

And I was a Hillary supporter.

... of course, it's all a bit tempered by the narrow passage of Prop 8 here in California. It's odd, to be hearing the incessant and wonderful talk of our great civil rights victory and have this issue wedged painfully into the mix. The increased irony, of course, is that exit polls tell us that 7 out of 10 African-Americans voted in favor of Prop 8, voting on the basis of religion rather than party, and that so many African-Americans turned out to the polls to support Obama likely made the difference.

Talking to Hamlet about it afterward and my husband tells me, "It's just marriage. It's not that big of a deal."

To which I get to reply, "Gee, thanks honey. And what do you mean, it's not that big of a deal! Everyone should have the same rights as everyone else. Discrimination is discrimination is discrimination. That's what Amo told me, all that she lost in World War II taught her you have to beware of and fight discrimination in all its forms, all the time..."

"What I mean," he says, "is that gay people won't be equal until one of them can be elected president. That is a big deal."

"What!?" I hadn't seen that coming. "C'mon man, I won't live to see the day..."

And then I stopped myself when I realized just how many times (hundreds, easily, literally) that I'd heard just that statement uttered on airwaves and in real life over the previous 48 hours or so.

Progress. It's slow. But it's real. And Izzo, your generation will get the baton next, whatever that means and wherever that takes us.

....................

Izzo is afraid of sticks. Loves leaves and flowers and plant life in general, but if you want to hear her scream, introduce her to a stick.

Izzo weights 24 pounds, 8 ounces. Or she did, the morning Obama was elected.

Izzo is saying more and more words in Armenian -- and English. Not counting Brrack, which actually, probably, was mostly an accident. Maybe. In English, the vocab is growing, too. Lately, she's added Shoes, Chew, Bye-bye, Baby and Doggie to her collection.

Izzo can take off her pants and socks by herself (almost) now.

Izzo's newest thing is throwing away stuff. Stuff like our socks, our mail, my unused Christmas cards, bookies, newspapers, magazines, canned food, her shoes, just about anything she can lift high enough to dump in the trash can. I just know someday I won't be able to find my keys or cell phone...

Izzo has a very distinctive whine for "I'm stuck." I recognize it immediately, this muffled but borderline frantic "Nnnnnnnnnhhhhnnn!" It comes when she's managed, somehow, to squat underneath one of the dining room chairs, and can't get out. When she's caught in the laptop chords. Or, lately, when she's almost completely submerged under the couch, for who knows what reason.

And there's more, of course, but my goal was to finish this before The View comes on. So I'm about to head over and make Hamlet watch it with me.

Good times. Great times. So, so glad Izzo is here to experience it, sort of, with us.

Love,

Us

IzZebra enjoys her second Halloween*, gets ready to vote** and deals with Momomom‏

Fam, friends, fellow Zebra lovers... and someday, Princess Zebra Izzo, herself:

Disclaimer. This is gonna be one of THOSE pieces of correspondence, folks. One of those takes where I write to the future, with the intention of typing a time capsule that'll remind my daughter -- and maybe myself -- a little about not only what the heck was going on with us, but in the world/nation around us, too.

Like any semi-functioning person in the U.S., I've been paying attention to the political race(s) of 2008. Enjoying it all mostly, finding it all stimulating, fascinating and, thanks to Tina Fey (among others), hilarious.

I generally pay attention, though. For the past four years, I've driven at least an hour each way to work with my digital dial usually set on KPCC -- Pasadena's NPR station. Of course I read the Times. I watch all the news channels. Sometimes I even read my own paper. And I'll watch the Daily Show even when we're not in a frenzied election season.

But there's been something about paying so close attention to politics the past year or so that's worn me the heck out. Given me a spinning headache. Made me want to take a mental vacation to Coconut Island where there are no stump speeches, no plumbers named Joe, no Obamamercials, no lumpy accusations hurled at "the liberal elite media", no idiotic effigies, no fake ATM attacks, no darn political analysis of any kind -- comedic or not -- until the election is settled and officially over...

But I'm an election addict, and I can't do that.

So, Izzo, because my boss let me arrange my schedule so I'd be off Halloween to play with you, we did the naturally spooky, fall thing -- went to the beach. You, me and Uncle Kit hit up Venice, which actually would be apropo of Halloween 365 days a year, but I digress for the moment.

We strolled past the medical marijuana shops ("Come on in, the doctor is in, second floor, step right up!"), the incense vendors, the tie-dyed, Rastafarian poets and just about any other liberal symbol you could ask for, until, eventually we walked past a mural of Barack Obama.


A big, beautifully painted mural of Obama.

A mural.

Not a sign. Not a T-shirt. And certainly not a bumper sticker.

A mural.

A big ol' wall, and a big ol' hopeful face on a big ol' American flag.

Granted, it was Venice Beach, but still, this thought occurred to me: In my time, I had never seen a mural of an active politician.

Murals, to me, are reserved for really inspiring people. MLK. Ghandi. Cesar Chavez. 2Pac.

A mural of Bush? Heck no. A mural of Clinton? Not even. A mural of Reagan? I wouldn't remember, but still, I doubt it.

A mural of Obama? Naturally.

Marketer of the year, for sure. Media darling, yes. But dude's got murals being painted of him, and that in itself is a beautiful thing. When's the last time Americans were that kind of inspired? Not that all of us are, because that would be impossible, but still, that so many are...

And then there's Tina Fey's 3-year-old daughter, whom Fey apparently "tests" by showing her photos in the paper. "Who's that?" "Sawah Palin." "Good, and who's that?" "Sawah Palin." "No, that's Mommy." "Hmmm."

"And, look, Alice. This is Bah-rahk. O-bahm-ah."

"That's crazy, Mommy."

As wonderful as Fey's impersonations of Palin have been, I've laughed harder at her accounts of her daughter. Which says something about where I am in my life, doesn't it? And makes me think that if her "30 Rock" were about life with a 3-year-old, it'd have a much better shot. 'Least with me.

But, again, I digress.

Grandpa suggested, following Obama's speech at the Democratic National Convention weeks and weeks ago now, that we get a Go-Obama pin for Izzo's stroller. Yesterday, at Venice, we finally did.

In a way, the pin for Izzo almost seems silly until I think of the anti-nuke pins in my collection that came about because my parents picked them up at rallies we attended when I was about Izzo's size. So if nothing else, there, Izzo, you have a little souvenir token of history. Even if, in 15 years or so, you'll scoff and go, "Mommmm, I can't believe you put an Obama pin on MY stroller. I would have NEVER supported that socialist!" (After all, staunchly Republican-raised Hillary Clinton not only married a Democrat, she ran for president as one...)

In a way, though, I'd prefer to force a No-on-8 pin on Izzo.

Oh, Proposition 8 -- should California eliminate marriage for same-sex couples?

So, like, I really want to be sensitive to different viewpoints here -- and always. Everyone is entitled to his or her own perspective, including, well, me. And so, um, look: For me, this political season took a sharp turn from interesting and stimulating to offensive and disturbing and stomach-churning when my best friend and I went for breakfast last weekend and had to walk past several groups of vocal Yes-on-8 proponents set up on the corners of the Americana at Brand shopping center.

My best friend is gay, y'all. My best friend would like to get married someday. (For the past couple years, my best friend also has been immersed in making a documentary about a gay couple who's been happily in love and together for THIRTY years -- and who just had a most wonderful wedding to celebrate it: www.orinbernardomovie.com)

And I don't really care how the Yessers want to spin it to characterize themselves as anything other than bigots, because walking past them felt like walking past folks who climbed out of the 1960s with anti-integration signs.

And then there's this: How do these people, who don't know my friend or anything about my friend, have anything to say about her personal (read: polar opposite of public) life? And by the same measure, if it is their very personal relationship with their religion that informs their opinions on homosexuality, that's fine. But why is that of any relevance to public policy?

Intellectually, yeah, I've known there are people who are homophobic. I know people I know and like are homophobic. But it's been jarring, really, to see bunches of people so publicly and loudly and proudly expressing such a divisive, discriminatory viewpoint. Here, in America, in 2008.

And I hurt for my friend, because if it's this troubling to me, how's it feel to her?

Life, liberty, pursuit of happiness -- unless you happen to be gay? Whaaaa? Seriously? C'mon now.

Anyway, I write this here because, yes, I wonder if and hope that Izzo will be able to read back on this someday, read back and shake her head and go, "That's crazy, Mommy."

But also because I can't wait to hear what Izzo has to say about this kind of stuff. How I look forward to our debates and conversations, and let me say this, I will welcome the chance to tell her, "That's crazy, Izzo."

... I will welcome and treasure it.

On Wednesday, our buddy and former News-Press colleague Melik called Hamlet to ask if he had a cousin named Meri.

Nope, Hamlet didn't think so. Why?

Because an 11-year-old named Meri Nalbandian was hit by a car and killed Wednesday morning in front of Toll Middle School where Melik teaches, right around the corner from where we live.

Apparently, Meri had just been dropped off by her mom and was headed through the crosswalk for class. Apparently, another mother who'd just dropped off her child didn't see Meri. How in the world that happens on THAT street at THAT time of day is beyond me.

With Hoover High, Keppel Elementary and Toll all on the same block there, every school-day morning there are kids EVERYWHERE. Izzo and I have walked that way in the mornings plenty of times, just so she can get a look at all the kids. So I know you'd have no choice but to drive as though you're wading through a crowd. How a little girl gets struck and killed within a flashing crosswalk -- again, I don't understand.

Obviously, though, it was an accident. And the mom who'd been driving the car reportedly was remorseful and cooperative and certainly is crushed.

The whole thing is so horrible. And terrifying. And then some. And on my mind heavy since I learned of it.

My heart goes out to those families, and my Izzo: You be so, so careful out there please.

(Life certainly becomes a whole 'nother level of scary when you're a parent...)

...........


(... even as it becomes a whole 'nother level of sweet.)

Izzo was a zebra (the animals that seem to be her favorite of all those housed at our zoo), on and off, for most of the day yesterday, Halloween No. 2!

Oma made Izzo The Most Beautiful zebra outfit in the world -- even though the ears and mane that accompanied the outfit everywhere did so in a capacity other than atop the zebra's head.

So, let's see. Back to Venice Beach. When we arrived, Izzo was a zebra. But because it was much warmer than we'd anticipated, we stripped off the outter shell of zebra and left just the zebra-striped tights I'd so proudly found for underneath. So Izzo was half-zebra until after lunch, when it was time to go walk (and play) in the sand -- which she did very, very well with, but which first required removal of the tights.

By the time we got back to the car, Izzo was a regular Southern California chick, in shorts, tank top and sandals.




She was officially back to being a zebra for our afternoon visit to Tatik's, where she danced and played with Lt. Dangle of the hit Comedy Central show "Reno 911." Then it was off to the grocery store for a few basics and a bag of mini candy bars, just in case a trick-or-treater showed up this year (none did before we, in lieu of trick-or-treating, took off for the Glendale High football game when Daddy got home).

As the sun was setting on our way back from Ralph's, we saw a few kids dressed up, one teenager as, like, a vampire, another little girl as a fairy, and I attempted to point out these characters to Izzo, but the concept didn't exactly resonate. She saw a teenager and a little girl, and that in itself gave her reason to be exactly as excited about them as she would've been any other day of the year.

When we got back to our building, the taxi driver guy from No. 1 didn't comment on Izzo's costume, to my disappointment, but he offered her a piece of candy from their candy bowl. Izzo looked at him as if he were dressed up like a crazy person. What??? Finally, he just gave her two suckers, which she ran around the house with for 10 minutes before discarding them on the floor for Momom and Daddy. Score!

Next year, it'll all make more sense. At least the Halloween part of it all might.

...........

Izzo's got a big black eye and cheek. And so everyone we meet has to ask us, "What happened?" And I go, "Oh, yeah, I wasn't there." And then they look at me like, Why not? Why weren't you there? And I go, "I mean, I was at work. She fell on the coffee table at her Tatik's house." Ohhhh. ... People! Toddlerbabies (especially toddlerbabies whose favorite activities include incessant ballet spins) tend to fall sometimes... though that shiner looks pretty nasty, poor girl.

Daddy dropped Izzo off at Tatik's one day last week -- sans shoes. Izzo desperately loves to go for (w)alks now, but was confined to walking INSIDE the condo that day, unfortunately. I learned this when I picked her up that night, after which we stopped in the grocery store across from Tatik's real quick to get some stuff for dinner. Naturally, three people asked Izzo, (who was in her stroller), "Where are your shoes?" And again, I came with the clunky attempted explanation: "Oh, yeah, I didn't drop her off today." Why not? Why didn't you drop her off? "I mean, her dad dropped her off, and he forgot her shoes." Oh, mmmmhmmm... "I mean, my husband dropped her off..." People! All those toddlerbaby accessories are hard to keep track of!

(And it's weird and funny, to me, that I find myself caring about what strangers think, so much that I'm afraid they're thinking things that they're not even thinking...)

Oh! Izzo has stopped nursing. Right as she turned the corner of 17 months -- done. It'd been reduced to a small part of our not-so-effective bedtime ritual for the past five months, anyway, but now she's officially over it. Officially over me...

... except when she wants to go to sleep. More and more, Izzo has been winding up in our bed again. Half the time, she and I fall asleep together there, 'cause I'll lay down with her, hoping she'll fall asleep before I do so I can get up and hang out with Daddy a little. But then, whenever I do wake up, I move her to her crib, where she sleeps the night away half the time and wakes up midway through the night the other half of the time. In the latter case, she calls, I show up and she reaches for me. I bring her to our bed, she snuggles up close and falls right back asleep, and that's how we spend the rest of the night. And, no, I don't mind at all.

Izzo was getting teased, I learned after the fact, at Robert's birthday party a week ago. She ate too much, some guests said. And her vocabulary was stunted because she was learning two languages at once. Let me be the protective, proud mom here and say what I would've said there: Rubish! Nonsense! What! Ever! According to everything I've learned and read, Izzo's right on track with the words -- and, hello, she's learning TWO languages! And she doesn't eat too much; she eats EVERYTHING! Which is to say, she's game to take a bite of and try out everything -- which is a great sign of a healthy appetite.

I'm just sayin'... my daughter is doing great.

Izzo, I must say, is very clear in communicating her desires. Like, for example, right now she's hovering at my elbow, staring up into my eyes, making little peeping sounds that indicate the following perfectly: Momomom, come play with meeeeee.

And so I shall.

Lots of love to all. Everyone be safe. Enjoy the election.

And more love.

Us