Three sleepy but heart-felt cheers for us

The big day has arrived.  Here, anyway.

It’s about 3 a.m. on 20 January 2009 in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.

Of course, it’s not quite noon in Washington, DC, and it’s a full 24 hours until Barack Obama becomes the 44th President of the United States of America on January 20, 2009.

As someone “back home” has said, “Don’t worry about the world ending today.  It’s already today in Australia.”  Getting a first look at this historic January 20, I can tell you that it seems to be a fine day, indeed.

If we were in the US, we’d be glued to a television set as I expect most Americans will be when the Bush debacle ends officially and Obama’s hard slog toward recovery begins.  If we still had cable, I’d probably set my alarm, get up at about this time tomorrow morning when it will already be 21 January here, and watch history being made.

As it is, our friend Lynn has invited us and others from the US to join her (and maybe her Australian husband, John) to witness from afar the swearing in ceremony via cable TV.

Surely this is one of the most important public events in any of our lives, but I guess I’ll catch the re-run Wednesday afternoon on ABC, Australian public television.  At the big moment, I expect to be asleep.

But I’ll be sleeping better because of knowing that a wonderful day has finally come.

Hooray for US.  Hooray for us.  Hooray for ALL of us.