By the light of the moon

Sometimes I wake up on a Saturday morning and think – the last thing I want to do now is go to the Market and buy foods for l’Etoile. It has nothing to do with being tired. One is always tired at 5 in the morning, especially when it is still so dark outside. It’s being weighed down with a week’s worth of issues that cause me sometimes to wonder – why am I doing this? I’d rather be in Paris. Or at least not outside, driving downtown before the city traffic lights are turned back on.

But there is always special compensation in doing something that you do not necessarily feel like doing.

Today, I had a load of good thoughts, too, best articulated in the article by the Progressive’s Matthew Rothschild, reflecting on last night's debate (thank you, neighbor, for the forward). And so, as I pulled up by the Square, I had this internal smile thing going. And, walking around in this different light, I remembered (cautionary note: a cliché is coming, but it’s true) how terrific it is to sometimes do the unusual, the thing that doesn’t automatically seem pleasing or natural. The rewards are tenfold greater than staying glued to your own backyard.

A few photos with the unusual, exotic almost, light of the pre-dusk hours and a few quotes (all in the glow of purple) from Rothschild:

[T]he environment came up and Bush could barely string together a defense, fumbling to come up with an answer about what his Administration has done to improve the environment. Here was his first stab: "Off-road diesel engines, we reached an agreement to reduce pollution from off-road diesel engines by 90 percent.”

In the night light: the sweetness of Ambrosia chocolate inside

Kerry stood his ground and actually has turned the Republicans' smear campaign to his advantage. They have so caricatured him and so lampooned him that when the American people get to see Kerry in person, he comes off surprisingly well. He is smart, knowledgeable, prepared, calm, and forceful.

chocolate and cherry, with the glow of fresh glaze 

"I'm going to spend what it takes to win the war, more than just $120 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan." When Bush used the word "just" before the figure $120 billion, I saw the eyebrows of America bobbing, as Bush appeared intent on mortgaging the nation for his crusade.

an eerily correct label 

But then Kerry gave one of the best defenses of abortion rights I've ever heard a Presidential candidate make. He said he voted against the so-called Partial Birth ban because it did not have an exception for the life of the mother. And he said he voted against the parental notification law because it would force a sixteen-year-old girl who is raped by her father to have to get that same father's permission for the abortion.
Bush had no comeback on this and looked fanatical on the subject.

red, white and what's the third? 

The longer George Bush stands on a stage with John Kerry, the better John Kerry looks.
One more debate, and Bush will be toast.

Twenty-fifth street pre-election diary*

25th is looking so nice! 

It is before dawn. I am about to go to do my forager duties for L’E at the Market. Yet all I can think of is last night. True, I spent the evening with a biased group. But oh my! It was wonderful to watch the debate with a group that wanted to see it as it may appear to the undecided, yet couldn’t really make that final leap, because it was just too dishy to see the favorable-toward-the-Democrats outcome! Kerry held on to his momentum. Is there anything else that is important?

Bottom line: we toasted every time a blooper was made by GWB (substantive, grammatical, whatever). I just want to say that I am Polish and therefore I always stock way too much food and too much wine for any social occasion. But tonight, even though guests brought extra bottles, I ran out of wine. [Of course, one could have drained a bottle on the Dred Scott moment alone! Wow! This will have to go down in history as a debate moment-to-be-cherished.]

P.S. You may walk a block every day, back and forth, back and forth, and you may feel that it harbors no one who thinks and lives as you do. Most likely, you will be wrong. I have to admit it because I am SO MUCH IN FAVOR OF PEOPLE ADMITTING THEIR MISTAKES: I was wrong about his little corner of the suburbs. It has people who worry about why, on a bright day, there are no children playing out on the street together, or grown ups exchanging stories from the day. It has people like me.

Let me conclude with a sign that I found perched over the door of a graphics design agency on 25th street.

(*see “forty-second street pre-election diary” post, September 22, for explanation of post)

On 25th street, a "yard sign."