they showed it on tv.  but then they cut away, and they won’t be back on the air until he makes his speech at the crowne plaza hotel at 7:45.  but what is he doing till then?

david just left my house and wasn’t able to drive up hazel dell road, nor west lake drive.  things are shut down all over the place.  he just called me and said he can’t get on the highway at all.  i wonder if he’ll make it home.  he was on the entrance to I-55 off of Toronto road, and cars were backed up.  david is crafty, so i bet he’ll figure out how to go back against the traffic.

we went with kevin to the tomb ceremony this afternoon and there were many people there.  luckily it was sunny, but cold and windy.  they’ve re-done the area around the tomb, and it looks better – all last summer it was just a bunch of scaffolding and an ugly wire fence and stuff.

kevin was instructed that he should get to the crowne plaza ASAP, so we got home and drove him there.  the minute we turned onto Dirksen Pkwy, there were tons of cops everywhere, every few yars, cluster of them.  traffic was stopped, and kevin had to show his ID in order for us to keep going on dirksen.  they let us drive all the way up to the hotel – i kept slowing down to watch the many many cops – but then they said that the 114th was staging in front of the IDOT building across the street and down a bit.

in the crowne plaza parking lot was a long row of bright red utility trucks, and kevin said they were barricades.  lots and lots of cops and secret service in the lot, and i saw one bomb-sniffing dog.

the secret service was very very leery of guys with big rifles attending the dinner.  the barrels had to have NO TRACE of any gunpowder or the dogs would sniff it and, i assume, eat the men.

and then the secret service decided that they also needed to take this one little part off the gun so it couldn’t fire.  not that it could be fired with nothing inside it.

and today they were informed that they might have to use those strong twist-ties, the industrial-strength kinds that they use for…serious tying things…they might have to wind them around the base of the guns.

that would look kind of stupid.

the secret service are getting a little nutty.

i told kevin to call me if he can, but i guess i’m not going to hear from him.  he wasn’t allowed to take a phone, but i told him to find a pay phone.  they still have those, don’t they?

mom has been there since 12:30 this afternoon; this morning i stopped by to see her and she looked very cute and festive, in her red tennis shoes and her obama pin.  i’m proud of her representing the family.  her and kevin, both key players in the dinner tonight.

but will either of them bring me back a piece of chocolate-linconl-penny covered individual cheesecake?

very very unlikely.

dad said that mom had called him – that was about 4:30, i guess – so she must have found a pay phone.  she said she was VERY VERY BORED.  i’m sure there were many more people there than things that needed to be done.

by now, though, she must be having a good time.  kevin, too.

I WISH I KNEW HOW IT WAS GOING.

maybe i’ll have both of them post here tomorrow to share their experiences.

ok then,

happy birthday lincoln grace.