It's not by any means fabulous. But it is, in its own small way, important.

I've been on this site pretty much all day, which is not normal for me. But my dog had a weird reaction to the anesthesia he was put under yesterday, so I decided to take the day off. My purpose today was to serve as my pooch's pillow. It's a noble purpose, but without something to occupy my mind, pretty damned boring. Thank GOD I have a laptop. So I've been reading stories on this site. And most of them that I've been reading have dealt with Obama's speech. I felt compelled to visit Obama's website as a result of what I read here today. While on his site, I did something that I've not done in the past. I ordered signs, buttons, stickers and t-shirts. The last time I did this was with Howard Dean.

Then I texted a friend of mine who left the Republican party as a result of Barack Obama's book. I told her what I'd done.

My friend and her family are very religious. They're wonderful people. I could never understand my friend's clinging to the Republican party, and was thrilled when she severed ties. Not enough, mind you, to support Obama out of the gate. Like many here, I was holding out for Al Gore. When that didn't happen, I became an Edwards supporter. When Edwards dropped out, I weighed my options and threw my support mentally behind Obama. Yesterday's speech made me want to jump for joy. To scream my support of this man from the rooftops. To do what I could to advertise my candidate of choice. I live in Oceanside, CA. Darrell Issa territory. Democrats aren't all that popular here. I can't wait for my Obama '08 shirt to get here. I plan to wear it everywhere.

So, my friend texted back that she wants a shirt, too. We had a brief digital conversation. Then, because it was clear there was much to say, we moved to a phone call. I asked her if she'd seen the speech. She said that she'd watched it twice and then printed it out for her daughter to read. (Her daughter and mine are best friends.)

We got to chatting about the message of the speech, and the brilliance behind it. And I said, "Why don't you guys come over for dinner one night this week? We'll hook up the computer to the TV to watch the speech and we'll explain it to the girls. We can also talk about it from our own individual perspectives. (My friends are hispanic.) This way, the girls will have a great exposure to what this means from a personal perspective, and the grown ups will learn something, too.

So, Friday night, we're getting together for dinner and a discussion about religion, race and politics. And I hope, out of that, we'll have ideas about how to make our small corner of the world more tolerant.

I can't wait.