Gingerbread Houses and Dim Sum

This weekend, my partner's mother and stepfather are in town for an early Christmas. Our oldest boy's 15th birthday was also Saturday, so we spent the day in the city. He'd wanted Dim Sum lunch for his B-day and so we went to our favorite, House of Hong in the international district. Good food, nice ambiance, great shopping at the local Asian supermarket. Later, we parked in the upper garage of Macy's and, as we headed to the ground floor, my mother and father-in-law commented on just how much the Macy's building reminded them of the department stores of yesteryear, each floor bustling in its holiday activity, glitzy, etc. I don't know. I understand what they're saying and I've been in buildings that elicit the same feelings in me. The Georgetown (in Seattle) Sears. I was just in a Sears in Redmond that made me feel the same way. Maybe that's it. A Sears, JC Penney, Macy's--they seem to be like time vaults, each building taking on the permanance of the era in which they were constructed.

I hear that Joe Lieberman has endorsed John McCain and that no Democrats had even sought his endorsement. I wonder if Al Gore sits there by the radio, listening to all of this and thinking of Joe like an ex-lover. "Did I ever really know him?" he asks Tipper. "It's like he was another person then. I can only imagine what my life would be like if we were still together. God, I was a sucker."