Last Saturday marked a one-of-a-kind occasion: a friend of mine hosted a lavish party honoring ten women who had impacted her the most this past year. This friend wanted an excuse for all us ladies to dress up and feel like a million bucks. She is not by any means wealthy, but she and her husband had a little bit of money leftover from selling off some items when they moved, and they decided to split it and use it for something special and impractical. She took her share and created a festive, memorable night for all of us.

The first part of the gala was held at a top local restaurant, then continued back at my place with coffee and dessert while she dished out the best parts: gift bags, a bouquet of our favorite flowers, and a personal written tribute to each one of us. Everything was customized.

My husband waited on us back at the house and then snapped all the photos - he offered to be the live entertainment as well, but I declined on that one.

Contents of the gift bags were: a book, a journal, a gift certificate to Victoria's Secret, a picture frame, and our tribute written in script. All in all, a very special night.

Excited about an Obama victory? You're not alone. Enemies of the United States across the globe are whooping it up after not-quite-one-term Senator Obama pulled out a victory Tuesday, running on a platform that parroted "change" and "hope" and gave no further details as to their what or how.

After watching the Manchurian Candidate rise to power over these past couple years, it has continued to amaze me that this guy actually manipulated so many votes. Besides not providing any details of his policy or strategies, getting caught in almost daily lies and conflicting statements about his past and his Muslim upbringing, his ties with radicals and his own racist comments, a wife who openly ridiculed this nation until advisors finally shut her up, and his total lack of experience, he still managed to do quite nicely at the polls Tuesday. Which led me to marvel at what was wrong with our country.

At first thought, I reasoned that for any person to have voted for Obama, they would have to be either mindless, moral-less, or a Marxist. The three go together naturally in a trinity, to be sure. As witnessed by many in my college c*l*a*s*s which graduated at least a 70% Socialist demographic, certainly there is a growing faction of such people infesting our nation. Still, at best guess these extremists only comprise about 19% - 26% of the population.

However, I know at least four people in my immediate social and family circle who do not fit one of the "three M's" of the Obama profile and yet voted for him. Knowing each of them well and having discussed what one issue could possibly motivate them to vote for such a man, I came to the following conclusion. Of the four, none were voting issues, nor had dug enough into B.O.'s past to know any one of the items I questioned them about regarding his political platform nor his past. "Change" and "hope" spoke to two of them (deeper than facts could, apparently), and another said she cast her vote based on a "gut feeling." The other appeared to have a "white guilt" complex, as Shelby Steele phrased it, and I surmised that for Obama to have been elected, the meandering herd of moderates to which these folks fit were simply deceived.

Like the Clintons in the '90s before him, Obama was blessed with a Soviet-s t y l e media that was comatose on all his contradictory statements and his slim-but-unimpressive record, and flat-out covert on statements that the Senator had made on radical policy items such as the Redistribution of Wealth and his disdain for the Constitution, evidenced in his laments that the Warren Court had not gone far enough. At the same time B.O. was being built up and sold like some packaged Hollywood Star, his rival McCain was either ignored or portrayed as some sort of doddering corpse, a far cry from the impassioned ardor that the fence-riding Arizona Senator had come to know and expect from the media throughout the rest of his tenure in the Bush administration. For the past eight years, after all he was painted as maverick and darling by these same elitists for his role in subverting Bush policy and going across the aisle to work with Leftists such as Feingold and Kennedy. This dropping of McCain, however, was nothing compared to what the media had in store upon discovery that his running mate was a Conservative, and a Christian at that. Where tabloids had run such articles with titles such as "Obama: Why Michelle Loves Him," they now splashed unflattering photos of an open-mouthed Sarah with headlines that asked about an obscure brother-in-law, minimized her achievements in Alaska (as well as the necessity of the state itself) and questioned [gulp!] her experience. (The mainstream media is STILL trying with all their might - as witnessed by today's headlines - to take her down in order to render Palin's political career ineffectual from hereafter).

Top Five List

5. Please make it so I can come to this site without donning sunglasses.

4. Please make the fonts legible.

3. Please revert to the former system of show/episode/person rating and get rid of the harder-to-use, harder-to-understand facial expression system.

2. Please conform the current layout of profiles, forums, show overviews, etc. closer to the former model.

1. Please don't let personal arrogance or childish obstinacy drive your users away - please have the grace to admit this was just a really bad idea that no one likes and humble yourself enough to respond to your clientele.

I'm late posting this blog but I'm finding that the new design layout keeps me away from tv.com for the first time in the year-and-half since I joined. Just not enjoying it like I used to - never mind the glitches, the format is just confusing and chaotic compared to "the old days." Whoever dreamed this up, you should be using your talents and ideas to create havoc and waste in government somewhere. That way you can demoralize even greater quantities of people for no apparent reason.

On to the topic at hand: this weekend marks our 4th annual Elvisfest tradition at the beach in Delaware. My husband and I left Thursday night after youth group, arrived in Rehoboth Beach, DE a little after midnight, and spent three glorious days enjoying seafood, shopping, biking along the beach...and oh, yes - Elvis.

A local joint - The Rusty Rudder - hosts a weekend-long "Elvisfest" in which impersonators from all over the country come and perform on two different stages. It's a riot. Yes, I am a fan of Elvis, and no, I do not believe he is alive. If he were, he would have come out of hiding when Lisa Marie announced her intention to marry Jack-o. Some of these impersonators are really talented, both in ability to sing and sound like Elvis and also in their gyrations. There's always a band of spirited older ladies who nearly succeed in toppling the more sexually appealing Elvis look-alikes while they sing and mingle with the crowd (some of the Elvises, frankly, do not belong in jumpsuits). This year, my 70 year-old aunt (who owns one of the beach houses where we stay) was in Rehoboth and joined us for the festivities (see below). At first she was wary because she had pulled a muscle in her back the day before and was in some pain. She went though, and when we arrived the Elvis on main stage was horribly flat. However, the next guy did not disappoint, and my aunt was riveted the entire three songs he performed. Later she told us "He made my back spasm all over again!"

35 youth in a converted barn for 40 hours - what a weekend! We had a retreat this weekend and it was awesome. I love sports and I love being around youth because they're still in shape enough to play hard. The rain held off Saturday so we were able to get outside for games and just enjoy the six acres of grass and woods and stream (anyone else out there do Ultimate Frisbee or Capture the Flag? They're youth group staples where I come from).

The most humbling aspect for me was this guy's knowledge - and I mean inside out - of scripture. He just knows his Bible like the back of his hand and if you say, "you know that place where it says" and you're referring to one little paragraph hidden in Leviticus - you can be certain he'll not only know it, he knows the reference, too.

Anyway, it was awesome. And running through my mind all throughout Saturday was a passage from The Chronicles of Narnia, specifically the book The Silver Chair. There is a part in which a girl - Jill - new to Narnia is alone in the woods and terribly thirsty, when she finally comes to a stream. To her dismay, she finds it guarded by a lion. This lion is Aslan, who in C.S. Lewis' books is a Christ figure.

"Are you not thirsty?" said the Lion.

"I'm dying of thirst", said Jill.

"Then drink," said the Lion.

"May I - could I - would you mind going away while I do?" said Jill.

The Lion answered this only by a look and a very low growl. And as Jill gazed at its motionless bulk, she realized that she might as well have asked the whole mountain to move aside for her convenience.

The delicious rippling noise of the stream was driving her nearly frantic.

"Will you promise not to - do anything to me, if I do come?", said Jill.

"I make no promise", said the Lion.

Jill was so thirsty now that, without noticing it, she had come a step nearer.

"Do you eat girls?", she said.

"I have swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, kings and emperors, cities and realms", said the Lion. It didn't say this as if it were boasting, nor as if it were sorry, nor as if it were angry. It just said it.

"I daren't come and drink", said Jill.

"Then you will die of thirst," said the Lion.

"Oh dear!" said Jill, coming another step nearer. "I suppose I must go and look for another stream then."

"There is no other stream," said the Lion.

I read this passage to the kids before the evening session Saturday night and reminded them: He makes us no promise that it won't hurt if we come and drink, but He is the Living Water. There is no other stream.