TANTI AUGURI!!

….these are the words Italians say when they want to send you “wishes” for something, such as your birthday, a graduation, or a holiday. So, today, as one of the proudest Americans living overseas, I tell you all – TANTI AUGURI!

Now, don’t go running to check your calendars and see what you have missed. You may not be entitled to flowers or expensive presents, but, to me, and evidently to a lot of other proud Americans – today is a holiday. I declare today, Wednesday, November 8, 2006 ‘National Take Our Country Back Day.’

I am speaking, of course, about the mid-term elections that took place in the states yesterday. I was very excited about these elections, but holding my breath until the last minute (and still holding in some cases). You see, I disliked ‘DUBWA’ (pronounced with a dumb look in your eye and your tongue half hanging out of your mouth) before it was cool…I was a trendsetter in this market. Anyway, I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning to call and talk to my mom about the results. When none were in, I set an alarm and slept for a few hours. When I awoke – “we” had taken 3 seats in the Senate. There is a very small window (approximately 2 hours) in the dead middle of the night where we get CNN here in Southern Italy! I have never been so happy to see Wolf Blitzer in my life.

When I wasn’t able to catch up on CNN, I was hooked on this awesome blog my sister told me about. This guy did a GREAT job of providing up-to-the-minute results on key elections.

Personally, I was interested in the TX-22 House race. Beaumont native Nick Lampson was vying for ousted Republican leader Tom Delay’s seat. The irony of this is that, had Delay not played with re-districiting the lines a few years back, Lampson would have never lost his seat in TX-2 to Republican Ted Poe…I wonder, is this irony or karma? Maybe a little of both! Read more about Nick here http://www.lampson.com/! His grandparents moved to America from, guess where, Italy! But, trust me – this has absolutely no reason on why I am proud to have him back in the House.

To end, as a staunch, ‘yellow-dog’ democrat (which according to my dad means “you’d rather vote for a yellow dog than a republican”) I do feel it is important to “check” yourself occasionally and make sure you aren’t voting a party for the sake of voting the party. Luckily, I’m not. You can copy and paste this link http://www.okcupid.com/politics and see exactly where you fall on the political scale. And, once again…AUGURI!