as many of you realized, i was honored to be picked to sit in the FRONT ROW in the seat directly in front of the podium at invesco field. the most amazing experience of my life, truly. what a whirlwind, and so different from the night before, when i had to sit one row away from the ceiling at the pepsi center!
little nobody me from homer, got an email got a mystery email at about 11:30 the night before saying that i had been picked as a hard worker for the campaign to have special seating at invesco the next day. honestly, i thought it was a fake. you know, like those emails from the son in law of the just departed nigerian queen who needed a bank account number to put the money left to him into...
so i had no idea what was going on, and josiah and i went down to the meeting spot at this super swanky hotel, beat from the barrage of activities mixed with the oppressive (for us) heat, in our shorts and t-shirts (didn't even have time to put on makeup, as our hotel was quite far from downtown), to this super swanky hotel. and by swanky, i mean swanky folks. so we go to the aforementioned meeting area, and happen to see a handful of people dressed just like us (imagine us walking over, and under our breath saying 'hey, uh, did you get an email?' and nervously standing around in our flip flops uncomfortable next to the finance commitee folks in stillettos. then this full of energy guy comes over and says, 'if you got an email from rich, go stand by the piano'
hmm... no designated line? this must be fake... how do we explain this to our friends we ditched to get here? then, a familiar face walks by, one that we all recognize (except for our partners that have come along to support us), Jenn Watts, our lovely Western States delegation coordinator and we all are relieved that we know someone here. she tells us little other than she is a worker bee and proud of the work we've done, and has enjoyed working with us thus far.
then, we go through a round of introductions at the piano. all of us are just everyday people, who are passionate and working hard completely grassroots. a school teacher from virginia; a nurse from north carolina... who through our grassroots work got elected to go along with the delegation by the people we worked hand in hand with and only recently really met through this delegation process our democratic party leaders.
then rich comes out with community (nosebleed) looking like passes, but with a green stripe. and goes through the states we live in alphabetically. he jokes with me that the bidens didn't called and said they didn't want to sit next to me, i respond that i love the bidens they must have mixed me up with someone else. we all look at each other - what is going on? then he gets through our names, hands us the passes, and tells us to turn around a see the wall right behind you? see that painting on it? that's how close we will be away from obama making his acceptance speech!! we scream, we cry, and people come up and ask us what is going on and we are all mumbling away saying... i never thought i'd be rewarded for all of my work, i'm just a passionate mother of 3... or a passionate fisherman's wife... or a full time factory worker who loves obama... you get the idea.
IT WAS PEOPLE JUST LIKE US!!!
so then we find out our passes will let us go everywhere but backstage whenever we want, and that we have to go to meet at a certain spot, and get whisked away to go to the stadium. you can only imagine... our hearts are afluttering, our partners now get to get in, and we get to pick a lucky person off the street to get in to invesco... and tears. of course, tears. i couldn't even steady my breathing enough to call my parents... josiah had to do it! anyways it was GREAT. so we go to the field and see the line everyone else has to stand in...
and we get whisked away by our tour guide to the floor:
this is where all the state delegations sit - everyone is so close! how on earth did they manage to make a football stadium seem so small and cozy? anyways, alaska is pretty close!
then we see where we are sitting - more heart palpatations!!! at this point, we are with another couple who has gone through the same thing, we met them at the piano... neither of our partners have been able to have time on the convention floor so they are uber excited to sit with our delegation!
so it only got better and it was sure reason to dance - i got a text in the middle of it from my mom saying i dance the same in her kitchen as i do on national t.v.! my friend has me on tivo! crazy!
No comments:
Post a Comment