We got up at 5, to meet our new friends in the lobby at 5:30 to get a cab to the Rennaisance hotel (a couple of miles away and still outside the driving-excluded security zone which stretched for miles around the Capitol and parade route).  We had tickets to get onto a bus there that would take us to the Capitol.  There was no Taxi, and they ended up taking a pedi-cab.  The pedaler offered to have his friend come for us too, but when he arrived, he had no wind-shield and it looked like an awfully cold ride, and luckily we had managed to flag a taxi.

It was cold!  We were each wearing layers on layers on layers, including long underwear, padded vests, coats, gloves in gloves, and more.  The morning was fine, but we had a long cold afternoon waiting for the parade (see later), and we felt like stuffed penguins.

At the hotel, we waited in the lobby, only to discover that we should have gone to the security line when we got there. I ended up waiting in it for an hour, and then after passing us through with metal detectors, they sent us out into the open street to go to the busses. I think a lot of the security around the Inauguration was like that – they wanted to make it highly visible (like the snipers on talk of every tall building), but there were holes. In the end, though, it worked.  Watching the Obamas walking in the open street at the parade, I breathed a sigh of relief when they got to the enclosed reviewing stand.  The sense of his fragility and the many hostile forces (both domestic and foreign) against him, made the security seem bearable, if not believable.

The busses went in a convoy to get through the police lines, and somehow we managed to be on the one bus that missed the convoy.  After a lot of phoning and anxiety on the part of the driver and our volunteer staffer, we did get through. When we learned later about the many people who stood in security lines and never got into the Capitol grounds (like our Metro friends Sean and Brandon – see below), we breathed a sigh of “there but for fortune…”. For a moving account of people who didn't get in, see Marti Hearst's experience with "The Color Purple." Marti is a friend who teaches in human-computer interaction at Berkeley.

Because we were on the bus, we got into the seating area before the general gates had been opened, so we got good seats towards the front.  We had several hours to wait.  Carol had her oxygen, and a medic, Commander Jones from the Public Health Service came by to check (medics were very available and extremely nice, throughout all the events).  She ended up taking Carol into the Red Cross tent for warmth and extra oxygen for an hour or two, while I roamed around taking more pictures.

Our section (section 16 – see the ticket) was for semi-VIPs. Not the political big shots who got onto the platform, but people who had given money or otherwise had some status.  I took pictures of a few (see if you can recognize any of them full set is in the gallery)..  Two rows in front of us was Madeline Albright. Carol talked with her, having met her at a congressional fundraiser in San Francisco last year. At that point she was an avid Hillary supporter. Carol asked what she thought about Hillary being Secretary of State.  She said that she was delighted and Hillary would be great. Carol asked what she thought about there being a sequence of her, Condi, and Hillary, and she said in a satisfied way, “We’ve broken the mold.”

The one discordant part of the day came as people jockeyed for position, standing next to the barrier between our section and the next one, making it impossible to see from the seats.  The sparse (and seemingly untrained) military people in the section tried vainly to get people to move back out of the standing area, and go to the empty seats in the back.  After a good deal of urging, some yelling, and some slightly (though only slightly) hostile shouting by those being blocked, they did manage to get everyone to sit or squat down.  A guy squatting right next to me seemed uncomfortable. I tapped him on the shoulder and his look showed he expected me to yell at him. I asked if he wanted to use our blanket as a cushion, which he did.  Another guy saw us eating and we gave him a sandwich.  So even when people got  a bit pushy, the community spirit was there.

Finally the ceremony started and although we were distant from the platform and couldn’t see anything but the very front of the stage, there was a big jumbotron next to us (though blocked with trees) so we could see the same things people saw on TV.  I won’t repeat those, since you all saw them as well, but will note that Carol cried through the entire length of Obama’s speech. With a telephoto lens, I got some pictures that made it look like we were much closer than we were! 

It’s hard to describe the feelings. Although the talk was received as not having memorable rhetoric, I find that as I keep hearing quotes from it, I remember his saying them and they ring in my ears. Carol cried through the entire length of Obama’s speech, and I got teary from time to time.  My recurring strong feeling was one of “can this really be happening?”  In so many ways, not just the racial ones, this is a turning point that I would never have expected.  I still stop once in a while and think “Where did he come from, so fast, with so much power over our imaginations?”  I can only hope that the feelings from today fuel real progress as the hard work of governing sets in.

After the ceremony as people filtered out, some women from Code Pink unfurled their banners. In general, there was very little in the way of protest. We saw some signs and petitioners on the street (e.g., the “Arrest Bush” group), but no mood of aggressively pushing an agenda. Everyone had some amount of the “hope”. 

After the ceremony, Carol had a long talk with a reporter from the China Sun, and an impromptu patriotic dance.  We watched on the big screen as George and Laura got into the helicopter, and watched it sail over us on its way to Texas (indirectly, at least).  The crowd waved and cheered good riddance and we joined in.

We dashed for the bus thinking we were late after all that celebrating (we were but we waited there anyway) and when we got there, we realized we were sitting for the third time behind the “woman in the fox coat.” (also at the Lincoln Memorial concert and the bus that morning).  The fact we were with a group meant that in the huge masses we really felt that we connected with people and were part of a community. 

The bus took us (this time, in the convoy) to a reviewing stand for the parade (right next to the President’s reviewing stand, in front of the White House).  As we drove up the parade route with a police escort, we felt that we were really privileged to get this special honor. As it turned out, it was an honor to be avoided!

We finally decided that Carol had to get out of the cold and talked to one of those wonderful medics, who said he could get us out of the crowd. We decided to stay just a few more minutes to at least see the Obamas walk by (which we did). Carol says: “The heartfelt highlight of my day was being in the emotional presence of Barack and Michelle as they walked down our section of the parade route. Shockingly, they had no security plastic around them, just secret service guys.  I’m sure they enjoyed not being cooped up in the bullet-proof limo. They seemed genuinely happy to be there and together. We were pretty close to them. I felt their waves and smiles connecting with mine and their fans around me. I will never forget that feeling of joy in “being with them” and the exhilaration of hope and possibility.”

After they had passed, we followed the medic who pushed through the crowd saying “Make way, medical emergency!”  After spending a while in the medical tent so that Carol could warm up breathing some of their oxygen, we did manage to get the Metro back to the hotel.  They were full, and at one point we had to simply push our way onto a car that already seemed overstuffed, in order not to miss train after train.  The Metro is a good system in general, but not for that load! We also took it back from the hotel to the Ball, since the taxi driver we hailed said there was little hope he could drive to the Convention Center in any reasonable amount of time.

One benefit of taking the Metro was more chances to meet people. On this ride we talked with Sean and Brandon, a gay couple sporting fancy tuxes made of gorgeous garments from Africa. Sean is a producer for Black Entertainment Television. They had waited in a security line that morning until 11:20, then realizing they wouldn't make it in, dashed back to watch it in their hotel.

The ball turned out to be a huge disappointment.  We had some kind of vague glamorous image of an “Inaugural Ball” and wore our super-fancy clothes (painfully stylish shoes, the silk tux I inherited from Uncle Joe, and the coat Carol inherited from her mother with the beaded peacock on silk – which has its own story).  We should have figured out that any ball with 11,000 people, done on a limited budget couldn’t be that elegant!

The Metro stop at the Convention Center was shut down for overload, so we ended up going past, turning around, coming back in the other direction, then walking far too far for the cold. Carol was barely able to walk by the time we got there and through yet another security line. There were multiple balls in the Center, and it felt like being herded around at a big sporting event.

The Western Ball was in this huge barn-like space, with little décor, light, or any kind of charm. There were no chairs and people mostly were standing around in the lines to buy drink tickets or the equally long lines to use those tickets to get drinks (water was $3, after people had paid substantial amounts to get in!).  The food was the kind of “crudite” plates you get at Safeway (a few carrots, celery, broccoli..), pasta, and a rolled-up chicken.  Enough not to be hungry, but hardly sumptuous.  I ended up borrowing a chair from one of the ticket sales areas so Carol could sit down and user her oxygen, and taking a glass over to the drinking fountain to get water.

There were name-band performers who we didn’t know, no real dancing, and not much going on.  We did run into some of our friends from California (Sam and Lisa again) and had a chat (mainly about whether we should leave).  We wanted to stay and see Barack and Michelle dance (which was the big attraction of being at an official ball), but it turned out that since everything was running late they weren’t expected until after midnight.  We did see Joe and Jill, and Joe was poetic, quoting from a poem by Irish poet Seamus Heaney:

"History says, Don't hope on this side of the grave. But then, once in a lifetime the longed for tidal wave of justice can rise up, and hope and history rhyme.”

At least in the foyer on the way out we saw a TV with the Obamas dancing at another ball, so it was almost like being there.  Then we left and with sore and suffering feet started the walk back to where there was an open Metro station.  Carol had to decide between painful shoes and cold feet, and ended up walking most of the way with her shoes in hand.

The most disappointing part of this was that in choosing to go to the ball and finding the going so hard, we ended up missing the Google party, being held at the Mellon Auditorium (the same impressive place as Pelosi’s lunch).  We had run into Larry Page at the swearing in and he gave us an invitation.  It was just too late, too cold, and us too tired to make it to another event, so we went back to the hotel.