Inauguration Day and Night

Yes, we were open at work on Inauguration Day.  I polled other businesses and they were going to be open on Tuesday; even the banks were going to be open.

But I knew that Inauguration Day was going to be special and that those of us working (a lot of people took the day off) would want to watch the inauguration and maybe parts of the parade. So at 11:00am, we ordered pizza and settled into the conference room around 11:30.  For the next couple of hours, we marveled at the number of people on the Mall, felt great when Barack Obama took the oath, enjoyed the music and the poems, and listened intently to the new President's speech.  When I got up Tuesday morning, I was a little sad that I wasn't going to be on the Mall, but when I saw the crowds on TV, I knew that I would have felt claustrophobic and lost in the sea of humanity.

I was glad to celebrate Inauguration Day with Maki and other people at work.  This was a day for celebrating with our community and sharing our thoughts about the future.

Around 1:30pm, we all went back to work.  and believe it or not, a lot of work got done.  We have out of state clients and the phones were surprisingly busy.  As I expected, out of state clients were not as in tune with the inauguration and had little idea that DC was basically shut down for the day.  All of our clients in DC + associations in the VA and MD suburbs were closed as well.

After work, I invited co-workers and a bunch of neighbors over for our own Neighborhood Inauguration Party.   We had homemade pizza, enari (tofu) pockets, hummus and chips, BBQ pork and cole slaw, cookies, beer and wine.  We watched CNN for coverage of the parade and the balls.  We loved the President's tuxedo but didn't much like Michelle Obama's dress (it was not flattering, we thought, and not camera-friendly). 

CJ had a ball playing trains and watching a movie with some buddies from the neighborhood.  He's turning into quite the social boy.  He loves it when we have people over to visit and he's very good about sharing his toys, even his trains!

Here is a photo of the entrance to the GW Parkway from Old Town.  Northbound access was blocked and there were barricades the entire length of the Parkway from Old Town to DC.

Here's a photo from CNN of the coverage on inauguration night.

Here's a photo of some of my guests.  The homemade pizza was a big hit!