Here We Go Again

After returning from voting this morning (with the sound of helicopters protecting Senator Obama buzzing overhead), I discovered that my street is now officially in secret service lockdown. Since the Democratic National Convention, one side of my alley has been blocked, but we could get in and out of our building from the other side of the alley, and our street was cleared for traffic on our block.

If Senator Obama becomes President-Elect Obama (and eventually President Obama), our street will be "locked down" for the next four years. No one without a photo ID proving that they are resident of our street will be allowed to enter.

Hrmph.

This brings up a lot of issues, obviously. The babysitter can't come to our house without us meeting her at the corner. Food can't be delivered (Peapod or take-out) without some potential complications. Relatives visiting (namely our folks) and friends invited are going to have to have some kind of welcome from us at the checkpoint, or be placed on a preapproved list (like was done at our daughter's nursery school). EJ is currently having a sleepover at my parents' place in Wisconsin, and now I'm wondering if it would just be easier for us to go pick her up than ask my folks to come down and navigate this mess while it is still, frankly, chaos.

I called our alderwoman (also our downstairs neighbor) to let her know about the restriction, and she very rightly said that we are going to have a more complicated living arrangement from now on. As I stated, though, the prospect of the McCain/Palin ticket winning and relieving us of all this security is so distressing, I'm willing to forgo pizza delivery for the next four years.

Somewhere between pizza and Palin there must be a happy medium, though. Fingers crossed.