Nemo, our rescue beagle, loves everybody, but some people are particularly special to him.  The son and daughter-in-law who found him in the woods as a puppy and nursed him back to health and into our home.  Other family members.  My cleaning lady and my assistant, both of whom have provided pet care in the past.  

To show his love and appreciation, Nemo unfailingly greets them with gifts.  These are not necessarily things they would think of asking for.  A chewed up blanket.  A dirty sock straight from the laundry basket.  His leash.   Rarely Nemo’s own toys, I’ll admit, but still, you can’t fault the dog for his generosity and his desire to let visitors know they are treasured members of his pack.

Spring is not an unexpected gift, of course, although every year as winter drags on and on, we wonder if this is the year that spring forgot.  Then, a snowdrop pushes through ice-crusted soil, followed by crocus, daffodil, hyacinth and on a larger scale, forsythia. 

Here in Northern Virginia, we’re sure spring has arrived when cherry blossoms begin to appear.  And as they and the Japanese magnolias begin to fade and carpet the ground with pink, the dogwood, redbud appear, and finally, our glorious, breathtaking azaleas. Expected yes, but still, somehow, a surprise.

Nemo and I take a walk together every morning, another gift a beagle gives.  This time of year we take the same walk every day.  Up the road about half a mile from our house, is an embankment of azaleas on the edge of public land.  A genius planted them.  There are masses of every color, an azalea rainbow, and they open slowly, so that every day we have a different view to admire.  The show goes on for weeks, and we try not to miss a moment of it. 

This year the spring parade of color has lasted longer because of cool, wet weather.  That means we’ve been outside less often to enjoy it, but when we are able to get out, the sight and smell of spring is so heady, we can’t make ourselves go back inside. 

The best gifts are unexpected.  A gloomy spring whose glimpses of sunlight and bursts of color are appreciated that much more.  A silly beagle dropping an old sofa pillow at my feet out of love and gratitude.  And for me, this spring, those bursts of insights a novelist receives, those moments when, in the midst of kneading bread or sewing a quilt square, a plot point drops into place, or two characters have a conversation and I can only listen and nod. 

Maybe half of being alive is paying attention, and the other half is saying thank you.  Nemo has this figured out, but we humans can be slower.  Luckily, we have spring and azaleas to remind us.  For this, I’m grateful.

One of the joys of living in Northern Virginia is experiencing the past.  So much American history was made right here, and no drive into the nation’s capital goes by without finding a building I’ve never noticed before, in which events that rocked the world took place.

When the National Park Service recently offered a chance to visit Arlington House, the former  home of Robert E. Lee–in what is now Arlington Cemetery–I jumped at the opportunity.  The event was a kick-off for the commemoration of the sesquicentennial of the Civil War, which will be observed over the next five years.  This particular event was a look at the presidential election of 1860, in which four candidates competed for office.  As part of the evening’s entertainment, we were to listen to four re-enactors stumping for “their” candidate, then vote, even those of us of the female persuasion, and those people of color among us, neither of which had any say in the real election.

We’re particularly interested in all things Lincoln at my house.  My husband’s family claims a relationship through a great-great-grandmother who was a cousin of Lincoln’s mother.  As these things go, the story is more fun than doing the actual geneaology would be.  But, of course, we went to cast our vote for Cousin Abe.

The evening was perfect, cool and clear, and the road leading up to Arlington House was softly illuminated by lanterns.  Our National Park Service guide was charming and well-informed, and the walk to the house was lovely with a moon shining brightly and the lights of the city below. As we were serenaded by a period brass band, our mission was to listen to supporters of each of the four candidates give stump speeches, complete with costumes and soap boxes, and decide for ourselves which man–of course they were all men–to vote for.  In a gesture of 21st century concilliation, even the women and people of color in the crowd were allowed to cast ballots.

That’s when the evening began to feel “real” to me.  Because even though 150 years have passed since the campaign leading up to Lincoln’s election (in which 60% of voters voted AGAINST him) listening to the various candidates’ supporters, I felt as if I were sitting in front of my own television set, watching the increasingly obnoxious ads in the Maryland governor’s race and local Virginia races too numerous to mention.

Without fail, in almost every one of these campaigns, past and present, the ads or speakers have twisted the facts about the other candidate’s record, refused to address the real issues facing the people they want to govern, avoided giving any actual information about their plans for our future or how they’ll go about accomplishing them.  They promise no new taxes, while also promising expensive solutions.  They point fingers, avoid answering questions and hope that buzz words will carry the day instead of logic.  Those with money  try to buy their way into our voting booths.

Lincoln’s campaigner was every bit as off key as the rest.   I wonder if, at the end of that particular speech, Lincoln would have stepped forward to say, “I’m Abraham Lincoln, and I approved this message.”

This is a serious time in our country’s history, and the following is not a partisan request. Whatever you do, whomever you vote for, together let’s “ignore” the ads and the speeches and the cute nicknames that tell us nothing we need to know when we go to the polls on Tuesday.  Let’s do our homework and vote with clear heads for the candidates who have been honest and taken a risk to tell us what they believe and really plan to do.   Maybe if we do, eventually, candidates will begin to do more of the same.

A hundred and fifty years have gone by since the election of 1860, but despite a flawed process, I think we made a good choice with Cousin Abe.  Now let’s wend our way through the garbage strewn trail of television lies, and do it again this year.

So there we were this morning, trying to make a phone call.  Then, there was our beloved telephone company.  Turns out our line was dead. Turns out they can repair it.  In nine days.

Last year our telephone went dead–bees in the box on the pole–and eight days passed before said telephone company toddled out to fumigate the line.  We don’t live in rural Idaho or North Dakota, mind you, and we aren’t in the midst of a blizzard.  We live not ten minutes from the White House–which is not a political statement, please note–and spring’s in the air.  Four years ago the telephone held me hostage without service for two weeks, insisting that the problem with my vanished phone number was someone else’s.  Only when I borrowed a neighbor’s phone, got a supervisor and refused to hang up for three hours until my service was restored, did they actually look to see what was going on.  Tired of me, they fixed it in thirty seconds.  This is not an exaggeration.

Last year when I got the eight day repair sentence I wrote my representative to Congress, my local County Board, and the FCC–the County Board’s suggestion.  Not to complain, to ask them to provide some oversight and some rules.  Four months later the FCC sent me a form letter telling me I needed to write the Attorney General of the State of Alabama.

I live in Virginia.

So today, I emailed all my state delegates and senators.  The County Board, too.  Call me an idiot or an optimist, your choice.  I explained that in Ohio, the local telephone company is required by law to go out and assess the problem within 24 hours of a report.  Why, I asked, couldn’t we, too, have a law that governed this?  Or at least some oversight of our utility companies.

What are the chances anyone will answer me?  And why have I bothered?  Well, maybe it’s because last week the cable company showed up to repair my Internet (down since December) and the technician didn’t have a new modem to replace my damaged one.  Because he wasn’t allowed to carry one. 

The repair man was not allowed to carry the very device that would repair my Internet.  Kafka, were you only alive today.

I had to reschedule that appointment, make sure twice that this time a modem came with the deal, and wait another four days. 

Why am I blogging about this?  Well, I have this theory that when any of us pays for service, we deserve service.  I also worry about all those people unwilling or unable to speak for theselves.  Senior citizens, disabled citizens.  People confused by technology who are not able to navigate the labyrinth of websites, forms, chat lines and bouncing webpages that our utilities claim will help solve our problems.

Maybe all this consumer outrage is simply because I started Weight Watchers last week.  Maybe I need to do a little more consuming of the calorie kind, and use some of those extra points Weight Watchers so generously bestows each week to de-stress.  Maybe then I won’t expect the services I pay for to work and work well.

On the other hand, maybe I’ll start a movement.  Mad about the way your utility companies are treating you?  Write somebody.  Let’s see what happens.  If you aren’t mad because your utilities work just fine?  Let me know where you live.  Is there a house on your street for sale?  I’m interested.

By the way, my phone is working again.  We don’t know why and we don’t know how.  But more than ever, I believe in miracles.  Unfortunately, I can’t cancel the work order.  The incident number they promised to text us, never arrived.  And the form to cancel requires it.

Living in Northern Virginia comes with fabulous perks.  One of them is the proximity of Washington DC’s amazing and free museums.  Living in Nothern Virginia comes with problems, as well.  We are an ambitious lot, working far more than the so-called normal 40 hours a week, and using cars as weapons so that we can be the first to arrive, even if nobody’s there to congratulate us.  It’s quite possible we take “winning” to unhealthy levels.  Witness my experience this morning at my polling place.

This past weekend my husband and I took time to visit the Smithsonian’s recently reopened National Museum of American History.  We marveled, as we have so many times, at the flag that flew over Ft.McHenry on the morning that Francis Scott Key penned our national anthem.  The descendants of the fort’s commander donated this Star Spangled Banner to the Smithsonian when it was clear it needed to be preserved for all of us to enjoy.  And judging by the people walking reverently by that window, this was a sacrifice worth making.  After our visit I experienced, as I so often do in DC, warm appreciation for the country I live in and the many sacrifices that have been made to bring us to this moment in history.

Fast forward to today.  Today Virginians are voting for a new governor, and the election’s an important one, as are all elections. I arrived at my polling place and was gratified that in an election the pundits have already called, so many people were in line.   As I walked toward the door a man with a stack of ballots held one out and asked if I’d like to see the candidates endorsed by the Washington Post. 

Inside, while I waited, I scanned the so-called Washington Post ballot.  It was not, in fact, any such thing.  It was, in fact, a ballot designed by a major party, with names checked off for those who were running under that sponsorship.  Only one name had the notation Washington Post endorsed candidate.

The people around me told me that they, too, had been told this was a list of all those endorsed by the Post, and since our paper has cachet in this community, they’d planned to use it for a last minute consultation. 

I did report my experience, but local election officials can not police what’s said as voters walk inside their polling place, not even lies designed to confuse them.  Although we confronted the man, what are the chances he will stop trying to mislead voters today?

This week we’ve watched reports on the elections in Afghanistan, and we in the US have shaken our heads at perceived corruption.  But truthfully?  Corruption has many faces and nationalities.  Political advertisements on all sides, designed not to inform voters but to enrage them. Facts twisted on major networks to entice viewers.  Pundits who are far more interested in selling advertising than in telling the truth.  Polling place volunteers who intentionally mislead prospective voters.

That flag at the National Museum of American History?  That fine example of the flag that’s flown in every battle my ancestors ever fought for this nation?  It deserves honesty, truth, and brotherhood among our political candidates and parties.  Democrat, Republican, Independent.  Let’s demand no less of any of them.

When you live just outside Washington DC, and your candidate wins the presidency, you go to the Inauguration?  Right?  Oh, wait.  Millions of other people are planning to go.  The temperatures will be below freezing.  There is no hope of getting transportation into the city that morning because the Metros will be mobbed and the roads closed, which means walking from Virginia. 

Thanks, but we’ll watch it with friends, share pizza and memories and cry our happy tears together.

Then the invitation arrives!
 Are we really going to miss a chance to see the Inauguration up close?  Are we going to let the temperatures and miles stop us?  Are we going to waste the generosity of our Congressman, who tracked down my husband to be sure he knew we had been invited?

So the plans begin.  Friends offer a place in their driveway.  Now we will only have to walk four and a half miles each way.  Leave early.  Bring all our own food and water.  Plan to use the gazillion portable toilets on our route. 

Yes, this we can do!

Then a new plan emerges.  Our oldest son gets an invitation, too, to the same standing room area.  Now we’re all going and going together.  He’s a lawyer.  We can sleep on the floor at his firm.  Then we can head over early and get our place to stand.  Yes, this we can do!

So after a “nap” on the only couch and a wonderful dinner at DC Coast with our son,  we set up camping mattresses and sleeping bags on the floor and prepare for a long night.  It’s longer than we could have imagined.  There’s a nightclub three floors below.  And the thrumming of bass and the staccato rapping of a male vocalist keep us up until 2AM.  The sirens, sounds of celebration and erecting of vendor stands keep us up the rest of the night.  Who needs sleep?   This we can do!

Morning finally arrives and with it, breakfast next door.  We get to see the vendors up close.  The American entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well.  We buy Obama Inauguration hats.  They will sell well.  With wind chill, it’s 8 degrees outside. But we came prepared.  This we can do!

We begin our walk.  We see lines.  Not our lines, as it turns out.  Parade route lines.  And the parade begins at 2:30.  That’s six hours away.  Wow, these people are serious.  They woke up this morning and said, what’s a little wait in the freezing cold?  This we can do!

We are channeled farther and farther from the area where we need to be.  The crowd grows thicker, and thicker. 
Everyone is polite.  Everyone seems elated.  No one pushes, no one complains.  People pass information back and forth.  Bundled against the weather we all look alike.  No race, no age, no rich or poor.  We’re in this together.  This we can do!

Along the way we see the massive security efforts. Police out in force, along with Secret Service and the Army.  Snipers pace on the roofs of stately buildings. Wrapped in every conceivable layer, I pose with the mobile crime lab van.  Don’t I wish I could go inside and look it over?

Then our journey comes to a halt.  We reach 14th Street, just seconds after the Secret Service closes the crossing.  Information is as scarce as warm hands.  Will they reopen?  Is there another way across and on to the mall and the silver section where we’re to stand?  Our problem seems minor compared to the mom who left her family on the other side to race back for food and now can’t reach them.  We wait an hour.  The crowd’s getting thicker.  We are hemmed in tight.  Still, people are polite.  We share information.  We find out where people are from and why they have come. 

We are told, at last, that the road will not open until 6PM tonight.  We have no place to go except back.  The crowds behind us are now huge.
  Viewing the Jumbotrons is impossible. I am forced to take off my gloves for photos, fish my camera out from under my coat, hold it high and hope for the best.  All those tiny dots between the trees?  People.  Thousands of them who woke up this morning and said: “This we can do.”

And they did.  No one seems to care very much if they can or can’t move forward.  They’re here to make history.  They will content themselves with whatever they can see on the Jumbotrons and hugs and shouts of joy.  It’s far too exciting to worry about temperatures or proximity.  They are receiving exactly what they’ve come for.  Hope.

We start back to the law offices where we will be able to see the swearing-in ceremony.  On the way we pass a Metro, look at each other and descend to see if we can get home, instead.  No one is there, because, after all, they’re all behind us now.  We catch a train in three minutes, a cab when we arrive back in Virginia and we’re home from the station in less than ten.  We walk inside and turn on the heater and the television set.  And in ten minutes we are watching Barack Hussein Obama sworn in as our next president.  Both of us weep.

All those years ago, when I researched Iron Lace and Rising Tides, my two part series about civil rights and an interracial love affair in turn of the century Louisiana, I would not have believed that someday in my lifetime, I would witness such a moment as the one I witnessed today.

One morning Barack Obama woke up and said: “This I can do.”  And today, he did.  One morning our nation woke up and said: “This we can do, and it’s past time that we did.”

I have never been prouder of my country.