day :: 5

i am exhausted. the excitement throughout yesterday, the nervousness of the night as polls began closing & numbers coming in - then finally the results. by the time president-elect obama gave his speech, i was a wreck. so emotionally on edge, i was unable to stop the tears that flowed as i listened to him speak.

***

***

today we are going on a field trip to do brass rubbings. we did the same trip a few years ago, & loved it. if you ever get an opportunity to do this, i recommend it. until then, why not peel some crayons, & walk around town looking for plaques to rub? after our first brass rubbing trip, we were obsessed. we'd carry a bag of peeled crayons, & squares of paper everywhere we went. it's fun, gets you looking at the world around you differently, & can lead to some great discussions.

we've rubbed at museums, the observatory, & on road trips. some places on our must rub list: disneyland, cemeteries, hollywood walk of fame, & little tokyo. the latter has plaques in the sidewalk along a few streets. they mark the name of the original shops that were there, who owned them, & for how long - at the time of the japanese internment camps. i'm explaining that poorly, but you get the drift.

there are special crayons & paper for rubbing, but as i said, we just use the sides of peeled crayons. for paper; if you're going to try this; it needs to be thicker than printer paper, & better quality than construction paper. a good, medium-weight drawing paper would work well.

you needn't cut your paper into squares if you don't wish. we only do that because it makes it easy to take places. it's also good if you want to frame one, or send to relatives. this way you don't have a bunch of (sometimes overlapping) rubbings all on one page. if your child enjoys doing the rubbings, you can save the little squares in a small scrapbook, or photo album. or you can forget to do anything with them, & forever come across random squares of paper like i did.

***

i hope your day is one of happiness, & hope.
~peace.