8:01

We’re about to go. Stephen’s not feeling well, so we don’t know how long we’re going to be at the ball, but he’s really being a trooper. It was my plan to case the Metro station before we got to my friend’s house to see whether it was worth trying to park down there. As we got closer, however, I decided to leave it up to chance. I’ve allotted extra time to get down here both today and on Sunday when I came to pick up the tickets and wound up sitting around twiddling my thumbs both times, so I’ve decided to once again just leave early and hope we get to where we need to go in the timeframe that we need to be there. On the tickets, it says that the doors open at 8 and the event starts at 10. I’m not exactly sure what that means, but I know that I don’t want to miss anything, so the one thing that I’m not trying to be this time is fashionably late. I will be sufficiently pleased if I can just see the Obamas and James Taylor. I’m not really concerned about much else.

A few things that my mother suggested that we’re not going to do are as follows:

“Wear a pair of old flat shoes and leave them before you get into the event.” I really wanted to try this, but decided against it once we decided to drive to the Metro, so I’m going to take a chance and hope that I won’t have to walk far since our ball is at Union Station.

“Wear a coat that you don’t mind on losing because the coat check will be a disaster area and you might not get the coat with which you came back when you leave.” This isn’t happening because I only have one winter coat.

“Wear a pair of long johns under your ball gown.” I just couldn’t bring myself to do this, but I did put on two pairs of tights.

“Take as little as you need.” OK, I basically am doing this. I packed a small clutch with some cash, ID, credit cards, tickets, camera and phone, and lip gloss. I’m just hoping that none of this inaugural ball contraband that I’ll have to surrender at the door.

“If you’re trying to get to the ball and it’s just too much– too crowded or too hard to get in, don’t feel badly about turning around and going home.” She, almost prophetically, told us this days ago before Stephen got sick, but that’s taken a lot of the pressure off of getting down there in the event that something horrible happens.

Hopefully nothing too disastrous happens as a result of not heeding my mother’s advice. Then again, maybe that’s what I get for not listening to her.

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