A Great Day for Voting & Skating

Well, my man Barack Obama -- yep, I'm an Obama Mama -- took South Carolina handily, while my colleagues in Marin County staffed the phone banks. This is the most exciting election, presidential or otherwise, in my voting life.

I'm proud to say I've never missed voting in an election at any level in all since first registering, in 1964 when you had to be 21 to vote. Once when I was working at Harvey's Casino in South Lake Tahoe for a few months, I drove all the way down to the Fillmore District of San Francisco where I was still registered. I worked on Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm's campaign in 1972, then supported George McGovern after the primaries, but didn't canvass for him like I did for Chisholm. I think that year was the end of grass-roots presidential campaigns. Until now, that is.

Barack's autobiography, Dreams from My Father, reveals him to be a reflective man, one who can write with as much eloquence as anyone. Now I'm reading The Audacity of Hope -- I love that phrase! -- and I continue to be deeply impressed by the man. I'm also reassured that he won't get too far off center because he has his wife Michelle, a strong and uppity woman, to keep him in line.

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I'd forgotten about the fact that the U.S. Figure Skating Championship was taking place tonight in St. Paul and was being broadcast on prime time Saturday night. My friends know that I'm wild about figure skating, have been since childhood, when I painted a series of cocktail glasses from photos of skaters I saw at the Shipstads & Johnson Ice Follies.

Tonight was pairs and women's; I should say girls because I think the oldest contestant was 20, the youngest 14, with several being too young to be ineligible for international competition due to their age. It was one of those special nights when every skater gave her and his best. In pairs, both Meryl Davis & Charlie White, whom I'd never seen before, and Tanith Belbin & Ben Agosto were splendid.

In the women's, I'd been favoring young Caroline Zhang, popularizer of the "pearl spin." She skated perfectly, enough to come from seventh in the short program to first in the free skate. Then Rachael Flatt and Ashley Wagner took our spectators' breath away (even mine on my couch instead of in the arena), only to have the final skater, Mirai Nagasu, take the gold. I'd be happy to see any of those four on the podium. This was skating at its breathtaking best.

Tomorrow night is the men's, where I get to see one of my all-time favorite skaters, Johnny Weir.