First off, this is my first diary after being here for several years and lurking for several prior to that.
My family and I were in Chicago this past weekend for my wife's brother's wedding. My wife, three-year-old daughter, and one-year-old son made the six hour trek from western Wisconsin to the Windy City, picking my mom up along the way to help watch the kids during the festivities. Having both gone to school there, my brother-in-law and his fiancé were getting married on the University of Chicago campus. My wife was doing a reading in the ceremony and my daughter was a flower girl, so on Friday we got to participate in the normal rehearsal activities. On Saturday morning we didn't have anything going on until about noon (when my daughter had to get her hair done), so we decided to get something to eat. My father-in-law had lived and worked in Chicago for a number of years and so he can find his way around and knows some good restaurants. My father-in-law, wife, daughter, mom, and I had decided to go to a place to get Italian sandwiches for an early lunch.
Take a peek below for the rest of the story.
The plans didn't go quite as planned, but afterward, I was very glad of that. The restaurant that we had planned on eating at didn't open for another hour, so we drove around a bit to find someplace else to eat. We found a bakery-looking place and decided to just go with that. We went in, chose some sandwiches, and attempted to place our order. We were told that the dine-in menu was only available next door, and not in the part of the establishment we were in, so we went next door.
Once seated, we figured it would be easy to order since we already knew what we wanted, but that turned out to be not too simple either - they weren't going to start serving lunch for ten more minutes. Seeing as we were somewhat crunched for time at this point, we just went ahead and ordered breakfast food. During the meal we noticed that the staff had different sayings printed on the backs of their shirts and one of these was, "Obama eats here". The restaurant is in the Hyde Park area which is where Obama lives and used to work when at the University of Chicago, so it made sense that he would have frequented the place at times.
We finished eating and were getting ready to go when my father-in-law got up and went out ahead of us to stretch his legs. As we followed towards the door a few minutes later, my father-in-law was walking back toward us. As he met us, he said that Michelle Obama was out there and that she said she would meet us. I didn't really know how to take him (he's unabashedly Republican and doesn't hesitate from ribbing me from time to time) and just glanced over his shoulder to see what I could see. He insisted it was true and as we got to the entrance, he turned and looked up a flight of stairs leading to a smaller, balcony-type dining area. I looked that way too and saw a dark-suited secret service agent.
[Aside: My father-in-law told me later that as he was going to leave the restaurant, Michelle walked in and they exchanged a few (pleasant) words. He told her that his son-in-law was a big supporter, was here, and would love to meet her. She said that that would be fine.]
My father-in-law asked the man at the top of stairs if we could come up and the man motioned that that was fine. (The next few minutes are kind of a blur...) Seated at a table getting ready to eat were Michelle Obama and her two daughters. She stood up as we approached and I held out my hand to shake hers. I had no idea what to say and so instead just gave her a little hug, which she returned (later, while thinking about it, I hoped that the hug wasn't inappropriate). I don't think I was overly nervous or scared, but I was pretty emotional. I know I told her "good luck" at one point, but I'm not sure if I said much else. The others had followed me up and my wife said "hi" and Michelle said something to my daughter. When my daughter said that she was going to be a flower girl, one of Michelle's daughters piped up that she had been a flower girl once too. At one point my father-in-law invited the Obama's to his son's three o'clock wedding ceremony to which Michelle smiled and said she had a pretty full schedule. A few more things were said and then we thanked them and headed back downstairs.
Looking back at it, I didn't think of the situation as meeting a celebrity, but as meeting someone very, very important. Someone who, as the spouse of a leader, has a great responsibility and important role. This woman with the genuine smile, beautiful children, and down-to-earth quality that draws people in, has the role of confidant and partner in life to the person who, in all likelihood, in less than seven months, will be sworn in as the President of the United States of America. And from what I've seen of her when she's together with her husband on television and how she carries herself when he's not around, Michelle will not play the role of a Stepford wife. She, like us, wants to see him elected for the good of the nation and the good of the world and is willing to work for it. The difference is that while we may be donating time, donating money, writing letters, and convincing neighbors, she'll be listening when an ear is needed and offering the type of honest advice that campaign staffers, pundits, and Daily Kos diarists may try to make but don't have as much of a chance of being heard. The fact that Barack Obama is married to the type of woman who will challenge him rather than echo him or be silent, speaks volumes of him to me and is very encouraging as to the type of leader he'll be. Meeting Michelle Obama was an honor and it served to strengthen my resolve to help see Barack Obama elected president.