So this is just a little post that demonstrates how my mind works. Today I went to a paper store and decided that instead of buying Christmas cards, I’d buy rubber stamps and ink and shiny postcard paper and make some holiday cards instead (no annoying envelopes to open, plus I have the fun of making the cards with rubber stamps, which is a totally throwback to my childhood.) So naturally, as of this moment, I’m obsessed with rubber stamps. And I have a stamp on my fridge from the Crafty Bastards festival earlier this year, and I just tracked down where it came from: TheSmallObject.com. The obsession continues. In addition to adorable stamps, above are the happy family retouches the artist makes, and here is her thumb war battle of 1610 print. And she has downloads!

Lovely, lovely stuff.

I’m in the midst of researching an article about inauguration galas, and just came across these amazing old photographs of the D.C. Armory building, where President Kennedy had his inaugural ball in 1961. I was just at the armory for the first time a few weeks ago (buying up far too many Christmas gifts from the Nat Geo warehouse sale) and sadly, the building has fallen into disrepair. But it’s wonderful knowing that Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Leonard Bernstein, Gene Kelly, Nat King Cole, Tony Curtis and Ethyl Merman all performed there that evening. I’m so looking forward to when the inauguration festivities begin here.

Photo: Magnum Photography Archives

I’m making it offical. This is my current obsession. I literally had tears streaming down my face when I saw it the first time. It may have been in small part because I’d had a few beers, but it never, never stops being funny.

Just out: I have a new article in D.C. Magazine about what area caterers are planning for the round of inaugural balls this January. There’s a surprising range: menus culled from Lincoln-era recipes or deconstructed foam-based entrees dubbed “molecular gastronomy.” Yum.

One of my favorite subjects to write about is the elderly, and I’ve covered a few interesting and important stories about helping them with housing, getting them in-home healthcare, and their community walking clubs. So I was kind of excited when I stumbled across The New Old Age Blog written by Jane Gross, who does a terrific job reporting on the subject for the Times. In her latest post, she writes about veteran Times reporter Edith Evans Asbury, who passed away late last month and covered the same beat back in the 70s. During her career, Asbury interviewed Amelia Earhart, Margaret Sanger, and Georgia O’Keefe, and apparently once pissed off Mayor Lindsay to the point where he smashed his phone, breaking it, after she called. What’s more:

When Ms. Asbury joined The Times in 1952, she was given plenty of fluff at first. Her earliest bylines appear on articles about holiday shopping, a wayward canary and the Fifth Avenue Easter Parade. But soon there was meatier fare. In 1955, she wrote a highly praised series on the problems of the elderly. The next year, The Times sent her to report on desegregation in the South in the wake of Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark Supreme Court decision of 1954.

Pretty amazing stuff. Gross looked back through the archives to find her series on the elderly, and its even more impressive in that it echoes and in fact, predicts some of the same issues that the eldery face today. Which is sad and unfortunate in a way, because in the time since, so little has changed.

Photo: Aren’t the glasses so classic? By Ruth Fremson for the NYTimes

I’m watching the Greta Van Susteren interview with Sarah Palin and just got really frustrated when she got on the subject of feminism.

“I consider myself too, a feminist, whatever that means, I consider myself a ‘feminist for life’… I would like to see more of these feminist women open their minds instead of being narrow minded…I’d like them to be bold and brave and explore someone like me… a conservative who believes that government isn’t the answer to all of our problems.”

She then calls abortion a “litmus test” – which is funny, because her pro-life stance says that government should dictate to women exactly how they should solve the problem of an unwanted pregnancy. That doesn’t make sense. But I guess that’s not news.

So here Sarah, just in case you were wondering, this is the definition of Feminist, via Webster’s.

Main Entry: fem·i·nism

Pronunciation: \?fe-m?-?ni-z?m\

Function: noun

Date: 1895

One: Even though it’s a week after Halloween, I’m still thrilled that my “Obooma” pumpkin made it onto YesWeCarve.com.

Two: Did I not call how awesome the story of Ann Nixon Cooper, the 106-year-old Atlanta woman who was voting for Obama was? Because Obama seemed to think so. (And Ta-Nehisi Coates does too.) Barack must be reading my blog.

Last night, as the election results came in, D.C. was a brilliant circus. At the corner of 14th and U, where the race riots erupted 40 years ago this year at the news of Martin Luther King Jr.’s death, there was as conga line of people weaving through the streets cheering “Obama! Obama!” over and over. An older black man walked through the crowd, two tear-tracks shining on his cheeks.

Waving Kenyan flags, rainbow flags, and beating pots and pans, people were hugging and slapping hands, cars were honking and out cruising the streets, drummers were playing, and crowds danced on top of bus shelters holding a cardboard cutout of Barack. We were woozy with possibility. Witnessing history.

We walked a few blocks north to get a cab, getting bear hugs from a couple who were standing next to their car, its doors splayed open. The radio blasted the old Sam Cooke anthem from the Civil Rights movement, its lyrics yearning, striving. “It’s been a long, long time,” Cooke opines, “But I know, a change is gonna come.”

For the last few weeks, I’ve inadvertently put some important things on hold until this Tuesday. Mind you, I’m not running for office, nor am I running a campaign, but this election has still managed to be somewhat all-consuming in my relatively unpolitical life. I’ve devoted a impressive chunk of my evenings to following the latest polling data and news (in a four-course menu consisting of Hardball, Countdown, Maddow and the Daily Show), that today, I actually started to feel twitchy at a bar when all the TV screens were turned to the Monday night football game. I realized I needed a fix, not unlike your common street-level addict. This, I realize, is becoming a problem. Thank god the election is only a few hours away.

I was in California at the beginning of this week, but was so busy talking with Alaskans that I barely left the hotel. (When I did leave, it was in the hopes of seeing the mermaids at Sharkees, but alas, they’re no longer there.) But I managed to get a short stroll along the water (where dolphins were running amok) and snapped this picture. It was the only point I felt like I was on the West Coast.