While I try not to venture into the murky depths of politics here on the blog, I have to say that Jack and Pam at the Lake are very pleased with the outcome of this week's election. Not only did we re-elect President Obama, a record number of women were elected to the legislature, including a Buddhist, a veteran who gave her legs for our country and the first openly lesbian member of Congress. Candidates supporting severe anti-choice policies were resoundingly defeated. Same sex marriage referendums were victorious in both Maine and Maryland, and marijuana was legalized in both Colorado and Washington. Even though Tennessee stayed as "red" as it was in the last election and progressive candidates seemingly gained no headway here, there is much about which to have hope when looking at election results across the country.
We celebrated the occasion with about twenty old and new friends in the city, and Jack spent much of the day in the kitchen, making victory goodies for us to add to what ended up being a huge spread of party food. His country ham and biscuits were absolutely divine - ask anyone who was there - but the piece de resistance was a pan of dark chocolate-macadamia nut brownies that we painstakingly decorated with red, white and blue powdered sugar.
Once Jack cut that thing into little squares sometime around the announcement that President Obama had been re-elected, it quickly disappeared. No crumb left behind. Seriously. Several people proclaimed it was the best brownie they've EVER eaten, and they might be right.
As the festivities were winding down for the evening, our friend, Carrie, who'd hosted the party at her parents' house, let us have a peek at her dad's "fire truck room". I've never seen such an impressive private collection of ANYTHING in my life. He's not a fireman or anything like that - he's actually a professor of mathematics at Vanderbilt - but he loves his toy fire trucks. His collection includes impeccably displayed replicas of emergency response vehicles from around the world, including many going back to the pre-modern area.
Absolutely fascinating.
And this is our new friend, Izzy, Carrie's dog. What a sweetie!
