Nate and I were on our way back from gallery/bar-hopping when I heard MIA's Paper Planes, aka my ringtone. Not agile enough to answer my phone while biking in traffic, I ignored it. But then, right outside the convention center, Nate's tire popped. While he inspected it I checked my message - it was Tony, my friend through Nigel & Lisa, calling to let me know that he had much-coveted and impossible to land Official Convention Floor passes for that night. Only catch? I had to be at the Sheraton ready to go in 30 minutes.
I'm standing there in flip flops, Nate's bike had only one functioning tire, and walking our bikes back to his place alone will take 30 minutes, let alone transforming into convention-appro attire and somehow getting back downtown with the street closures and SWAT teams.
But I ask you: when the fairy-godmother visited Cinderella, did Miss C refuse the dress, coach, and glass slippers because of a little time constraint? Of course not. It was time to kick into high gear.
Nate took both bikes because he is awesome, and I dashed the other direction looking for a store - any store. And as luck would have it, Forever 21 shines like an affordable beacon on that very street, and in 10 minutes flat I'd bought a dress with jewelry and shoes to match. C had her glass slippers, I now have new gold platforms. Maybe not the traditional slingbacks, but who says the Dems can't rock some style?
Five more minutes and I was at the Sheraton, and transformed accordingly. Tony, aka my floorpass fairy-godmother, handed me credentials and we headed for the shuttle to the Pepsi Center.
And continuing the coincidences, we met up with his colleague Felix and their friend Teresa - who had been sitting next to me on the flight in.
*By now you are wondering, who is this Tony guy and why is he so hooked up? Tony lives in NYC but is from New Mexico, where his dad was governor, plus he's VP of PR for Coke. As in Coca-Cola, as in a lobbyist whose job it is to shmooze people with power. Holla.
After three security checkpoints including bag search and metal detector, we were golf-carted to the door. (This is precisely when my camera ran out of battery power, wouldn't you know.) People were pouring in, and we headed to the box level where we had passes to the Denver Post lounge. After food and drinks (compy comp comp!) we headed into the arena just in time to watch Ted Kennedy take the stage.
Now, I love events. I work for a company that produces events; I am what our event VP Elizabeth calls a "FOMO" (Fear of Missing Out) because I hate missing an opening, reception, party, after-party, or any permutation of the above. I only like football because games are the epitome of a theatrics - the colors, the costumes, the suspense. So while I tried to find an analogy to express the event perfection that is the DNC, I simply could not.
The amazing set design, the live band, the packed crowd with new signs to wave every time another superstar Dem took the stage, the manner and content of the speeches, the slate and who introduced each speaker - everything was just right, culminating in Michelle Obama's brilliant speech. Whoever is coaching her deserves an Emmy. Watching the biographical video that was prologue to her introduction was like watching the year's most charming romantic comedy, and then her brother's introduction, and of course, the divine and divinely delivered speech itself. And the icing of Sasha and Malia coming out and the end - and don't think I didn't notice her intro and outro music both being Stevie Wonder ("I Was Made to Love Her" on the way in and "Isn't She Lovely" on the way out). Brilliant.
As a woman in 2008 with an education and a career, I find it inexcusable that I've only heard Laura Bush talk twice, neither in the context of a speech, and I have never heard Cindy McCain at all. Michelle, as a very successful lawyer, community leader, wife, and mother, is a wonderful model of what the modern American woman is and should strive to be. Especially after Hillary's eight years as first lady, the game is changed. It's not enough to sit primly as a trophy next to the candidate. From now on, the first lady should be viewed like a guaranteed cabinet member -- smart, supportive, and ready to be a leader.
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