Asking a cousin about her sister, I learned the two of them haven’t spoken in four years.

“We think she’s bipolar,” she tells me. I don’t really remember this about the cousin in question, but I do remember a mid-teen struggle with drugs followed by an even longer struggle to get clean.

Well, I might as well ask the question. Bait, cast, reel it in. “Did you know bipolar is hereditary? ‘Cause it is. Highly hereditary. Did you notice it in anyone else in your family? Say, on your mom’s side?”

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The chateau was beautiful and romantic, with a centuries-old terrace directly on the sea. It was close and warm as the endless deluge of rain kept us within the old walls. I heard Obama’s name in countless conversations in languages I didn’t understand.

After, most of my colleagues gathered in a nearby bar to watch the returns. Wanting access to Kos and interactive maps and Connecticut returns and the man I’ve watched the returns with for the past 16 years (if only by email), I retuned to the broadband comfort of my room.

My 2 a.m. tears were joyous as Sky News called Pennsylvania. Florida was inching its way back into my good graces. Emails, tweets, early returns (showing Chris Shays unemployed at long last!) restored my faith in America. I gave in to the siren’s call of sleep at 3, missing the acceptance speech but confident we finally got it right.

The sea is swirling and crashing in a joyful dance. Everywhere I am greeted with congratulations and handshakes from the Europeans, and happy tears of relief and amazement from the Americans.

My boys know their parents voted for Obama. Some day, they will see beyond the historic moment of electing a black man. They will understand what was at stake in this election. This moment in time will have a legacy. I am grateful and humbled to have had a voice in making a better world for my children.

Let’s take a look back to early September, shall we? A time when I was fresh back from vacation, still basking in the glow of all that family time, before my job chewed me up and spit me back out again. Ha, ha, work, HA! UR so funny. Thanks for the tears this week, it’s been a blast!

But I digress. Way back in those days of ignorance and margaritas, I wrote about how we should judge Sarah Palin on her positions on the issues, not based on her gender.

I still stand by the bit about not judging her because she’s a woman, and especially the part about not doubting her abilities because she’s a mom. And I still really like what I wrote about the tooth fairy, unicorns and the Lucky Charms leprechaun. Anyway.

My thinking has changed a little. I am now convinced that we shouldn’t judge her. At all. It’s sad, really. If I had a frontal lobotomy I wouldn’t want y’all judging me either.  Look at the poor dear. She can’t even get the word caricature out of her perfectly Bobbi Brown’d lips. Can’t you just picture her out on her porch at night with her AK-47 waiting for Putin to invade her airspace? And I wonder how much sleep she loses over those Canadians.

I know this will irk my Couric-hating husband to no end (hi baby! I’ll be right home - gotta go resign first!), but there’s one thing this whole carica charact charade has proven: don’t fuck with Katie Couric. She’ll take you down. She’ll endearlingly tilt her head at you while she does it, and she’ll make it look like she really doesn’t want to ask you the tough question for the third time, but she’ll take you down faster than you can say thanks but no thanks to Congress about the Bridge to Nowhere sell the Governor’s jet on ebay tell Shimon Peres the Israeli flag is the only flag in your office transfer from the University of Hawaii at Hilo to Hawaii Pacific University to North Idaho College to the University of Idaho to Matanuska-Susitna College, and then back to the University of Idaho.

As I was driving to the far-less-alarming ENT today for a follow up visit, I tuned in to my girl Joan Hamburg and heard her interview Kathleen Deveney from Newsweek. Deveney’s perspective on the importance of stopping the mommy wars really resonated with me.  She articulated a it so much better than I did when I wrote ur doin it wrong last night.

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I don’t care what her family situation is. And Rudy is right - how dare anyone question her ability to serve as Vice President because she’s a mom? When was the last time we questioned a man’s ability to lead the country because he’s a father?  1960 just called and it’s even more offended than I am.

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Was Fred Thompson supposed to work the crowd into a frenzy? Granted, I am not a member of their base. But ZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Maybe there’s a Law & Order rerun on A&E instead?

I will never forget the Republican convention twenty years ago. It was pre-Republican “revolution,” but it was just on the cusp of the religious zealots taking control of their party. The featured speakers that year were the Pats, Buchanan and Robertson. Talk about your pandering. Those ho-mo-sexshals sure were quite the formidable enemy to the Republicans back in the day. They somehow threatened the very fabric of our lives as a people those twenty years ago, all while a disturbing number of gay men were dropping dead of AIDS at an alarming rate.

The Pats did it for me.

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