Today is a huge day for me. Huge. When I was a girl, I wanted to be President one day. Male classmates told me I couldn’t, because I was a girl. And now Kamala Devi Harris will be sworn in as Vice President of the United States some time after noon today. As VP to the oldest President ever, her chances of being the 47th are higher than normal. Someone like me – in more ways than X chromosomes – is this close to being President. Six year old Tierra feels vindicated as hell. So how to celebrate Inauguration Day?

Right now, I’m sitting on a dear friend’s couch with a Starbucks latte and Kamala Harris’ The Truths We Hold. The NBC News live feed is on in the background while my sons take turns slapping each other. Pete and Chasten Buttigieg are on the screen now; I love them.

We’ll watch the inauguration ceremony when it comes on at noon, with homemade Jamaican beef patties and ginger beer. My friends’ daughter will be my sous chef and help me wrap the patties. This is a nod to the new MVP’s Jamaican heritage.

For dinner, we’re having butter chicken and saag with rice and naan. As excited as I am to have a Black woman VP, she’s also Indian: we gotta celebrate that, too. I’m particularly excited for this meal because these two recipes have been in heavy rotation at home lately. My sous chef and her little brother have also never eaten Indian food. It’s always exciting to expose little kids to new things.

Then finally, for dessert we’re having chocolate chip ice cream. President Biden is famously an ice cream aficionado, and vanilla ice cream with chocolate chips is his favorite flavor. So I picked up some Breyer’s from the grocery store. Easiest dessert ever.

I usually avoid nationally televised events because I think they’re hokey. But today, I’m watching errythang. Even the big splashy celebrity event at 8:30. Because I need this. I feel like all of us need this as a palate cleanser, whether it’s cheesy or not. Cheesy isn’t depressing or shocking or tawdry, like the last four years have been.

I also need the distraction from my fears about violence in D.C. during and after the inauguration ceremony. I’m hopeful that the city will be quiet tonight. I love my friends and am grateful to them for opening their home to my big loud family during a pandemic. But I want to go home to our little apartment on the Hill. I miss our cat and my plants. My kids need their beds and their toys. I just hope that we’ll feel – and be – safe there again.

Tierra

A malcontent with a heart of gold, Tierra is a first-year medical student, former high school teacher and history PhD candidate, plus mom to four of Bebe’s baddest kids. She curses a lot. Tierra is a DC native but lives in southwest Michigan and will happily exchange writing (hers) for cash (yours).