President Obama has left us with a very important, lasting legacy: The ideology that when they go low, we go high.  Those weren’t just words for an election; they are a rallying cry that we need to put into place always.  Not just for the next two years until the mid-term elections.  Not just for the next four years as we endure the new administration.  Not just in politics.

We need to keep going high.

We need to keep facing racism and homophobia and antisemitism and misogyny and… well… this list is frighteningly long.  But we need to keep facing these lows and going high.

Our family will not be going anywhere.  We will be staying right here and continuing to fight the good fight so that we can actually keep America great since it’s pretty damn good as is.

*******

Though, of course, there are plenty of places beyond the isms that we can fix.

Two years from now:

• There are at least 33 Senate seats up for election.
• There are at least 435 House seats up for election.
• There are at least 36 governorships up for election.

Rather than joke about moving, stay and help love trump hate by getting out the vote in those elections.

*******

Week ago, my father slipped a Madam President magnet on my refrigerator, and it has been making me smile every time I made dinner.  Looking at it this morning made my heart hurt, but I’m not taking it down.  Clinton may not be our first woman president, but she — like Susan B Anthony and Shirley Chisholm — is a stepping stone toward that goal of assuring our daughters that they really can be anything.

So I’m leaving it up.  She’s staying.

This is not the post I thought I would write.  But in retrospect, especially after the Brexit vote, I’m not sure why I thought otherwise.

*******

The cold, grey rain outside matches the mood in the house.  We went to bed last night at 1 am.  We didn’t know the results until we woke up this morning.

I tried to explain what happened to the kids, but I failed, miserably.  Their fears are very concrete: What will happen to the marriages of gay family members?  What will happen to their Muslim friend?  Our fears are a lot more amorphous, and the only answer we’ve found is that we just don’t know.

I wish I had better words, but they’re really failing me this morning.

Lady Hillingdon, seemingly reluctant to have sex with her husband, wrote in her diary: “When I hear his steps outside my door I lie down on my bed, open my legs and think of England.”

How fitting a sentiment since I feel like America has been royally fucked by this election season.

*******

The ChickieNob and I started binge-watching the new Netflix show, The Crown.

It begins with Queen Elizabeth’s marriage to Prince Philip (or, at the time, Princess Elizabeth’s marriage to Philip Mountbatten), and I’ve heard that the series will go up to Diana’s death in the future.  We heard about this series a few months ago, and we marked the release date on the calendar, eager to be mentally transported to England.

The show is fantastic, and we spend the hour alternating between shouting at the television, “Get rekt!” every time someone delivers a clever takedown and holding each other while we sob.

It’s nice to close our eyes and think of England, taking an hour off at a time from this election.  And it’s also nice to get the perspective the show gives to the monarchy, especially a woman’s rise to power.  Yes, the job was Elizabeth’s whether she wanted it or not, but the criticism and grace tell a larger story of what it means to be a woman in charge.  To be held to a different standard, to be scrutinized, to be judged.

It’s a show about the British monarchy, but it comes full circle in helping frame the story around Hillary Clinton.  Hopefully by tonight we will know the fate of our presidency in America.  Beyond voting today and trying to get others to the polls, this election is finished.  But afterwards, regardless of who wins, America needs to take a good, long look at its relationship with women.

*******

Sometimes it is necessary to not focus on the details in front of you but instead use any means of distraction to get through a situation.  Everyone should have a place they can mentally go when the going gets tough.

Other times, we need to come back to reality and face the facts in front of us.  It starts with the narrative surrounding Clinton and it stretches out in a multitude of directions to a multitude of groups.

Deep breaths, everyone.  Today it’s about the election.  Tomorrow it’s about being better and doing better as a country.

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

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I wanted to get a red shawl to wear to the polls tomorrow, even though the meaning will be lost on all but a few select nerds.  Susan B Anthony wore a red shawl while fighting for the right to vote.  I love this quote from the Museum of American History:

It was said in Washington that there were two signs of spring: the return of Congress to the nation’s capital and the sight of Anthony’s red shawl as she also returned to lobby congressmen.

I am very emotional about getting to vote for a woman president in a way that I’ve never been emotional before when going to the polls.  Which is probably the definition of privilege.  I’ve always taken it for granted that I have the right to vote, though there are women voting today who were born before that right to vote.

I guess I wanted to wear red to thank those women who did the hard work of bringing us to this point.

Do you ever think about those women when you head to the polls, or is it only front and center in so many people’s minds because we finally have a possibility for a female president?

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Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts that are connected to businesses or are sponsored post.

Every time I throw a dinner party, we end up with too many leftover desserts.  What happens is that I start with a realistic menu based on the number of people attending the meal.  Then I add an extra dish or two because I worry that the table will not look full or people won’t be able to find something they like or it just won’t be… enough.  It won’t fulfill an abstract concept of enoughness.

Then I plan for a dessert or two, and quickly start increasing the number of desserts and the size of those desserts because I am (1) worried that people will still be hungry after dinner and (2) worried that it won’t be enough.

For Rosh HaShanah, for instance, I made it so that each person at the table could eat nine cookies.  Nine.  Oh, and did I mention they were enormous chocolate chip cookies — only six fit on a cookie sheet.  But people could have nine of them.  People were full from the over-sized meal.  They barely made a dent in the cookies on the table.

In my defense, it’s sometimes hard to judge what people want, or to know whether or not you’ve done enough except in retrospect.

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I am worried about Tuesday.  I’m worried about this election in a way that I’ve never been worried before.  I wasn’t a fan of Romney or McCain, but I was never scared listening to them speak.  I knew they could lead the country, and any problems they created were fixable issues.

But this election is different.

I am terrified of Trump’s America.  I want to believe the polls that place Hillary ahead, but polls are like promises — people may keep them… or they may not.  We don’t know definitively which way this election will go, and I am scared that people have become complacent.  I’ve heard too many people say things like, “Well, I don’t want Trump, but I don’t want to vote for Hillary, so I’ll just leave that part of the ballot blank.”  Or not vote at all.  And I’ve heard too many people say things like, “Don’t worry, Hillary has got this.”  I equally fear that people will not vote, trusting that other people’s votes will keep Trump out of office.

The only way to ensure that Trump does not end up in the White House is to band together and not hand Trump the keys to the White House.

The most direct, proven-to-work path is to vote for Clinton.  Anything short of that is continuing the possibility of a Trump White House.  I’m not saying that because I want Clinton in the White House.  I am saying that because if no one gets enough electoral votes, the House of Representatives chooses our next president, picking from the three top candidates.  I bolded that because I don’t want you to miss those words.  Each state gets one vote, but the House is made up of 246 Republicans and 186 Democrats.  If you choose not to vote for Clinton, you are, effectively, creating the possibility of a Trump White House.

This isn’t about likeability.  This isn’t about emails or holding one person accountable for all human errors.  This is about the opposite scenario, and Magpie says it best:

I’m worried about the possibility of our country being led by a man who has admitted sexual assault, who has used his foundation for personal gain, who’s on trial for fraud with regard to Trump University, who hasn’t released his taxes (because he doesn’t want to show us that he hasn’t paid any), who has called for the ban of an entire religion from entering the US, who belittled John McCain for being a POW, who’s called Mexicans rapists, who attacked a beauty pageant winner for being overweight, who wonders why we can’t use the nuclear weapons we have, who thinks women who have abortions should be punished, who makes fun of disabled people, who disregards the First Amendment and wants an end to freedom of the press, who thinks global warming is a Chinese hoax, who loves Putin, who doesn’t pay his contractors, who … do I need to go on?

So I worry.  I worry about whether I have done enough in doing my part to help ensure that we get someone into the White House who is not going to scapegoat whole groups of people.  I worry about whether there is something more I can do between now and Tuesday night.  I worry about everyone else — will they do enough to stamp out hatred, or will they leave the door open for a possible Trump White House?

We’ll know within 72 hours.