After a chilly wait in a long line, we have the coveted tickets to tomorrow’s inauguration. We clumsily asked the nice guys in Congressman Blunt’s (R) office if they were going to the inauguration (“Uh, no”). We forgot for a moment that not everything thinks this is as wonderful as we do.

Our tickets are in South Standing (see blue area of map above). Call it emotional proximity. The plan is to hit the Metro as early as possible (4am?). Gonna be another long, cold wait. After the event, a mob scene for sure as we try to make our way to Barb’s office at the other end of the parade route. Then back to base camp for party change and a return to convention center for the ball.

Not expecting to be able to do much more than Twitter tomorrow (if that).

Uneventful trip to DC. The city is clearly gearing up fo The Moment. Big concert tomorrow –if we decided to endure a smaller crowd (150,000?). Then some kind of party tomorrow night for political bigwigs from Missouri. Barb’s going to try to pass me off as a client.

We’ll use tomorrow as a dry-run for Monday and Tuesday. See if we can do the buses and metro. Will try to post pix on the fly and post any video after we return to base camp.

“TV news crews being dispatched out “in the field” to cover the Mall and other key gathering points are being told to pack for survival conditions, which includes likely toting along a five-gallon jug to use for bodily functions. Sadly, bathrooms may become the big issue as the big day unfolds. The city’s subway system is planning on locking all of its bathrooms for security reasons (they will post a total of 150 or so port-a-potties outside of the stations, concentrating them in the suburbs, outside of the city itself; Metro may also close some of its escalators to help with crowd control, leaving newly minted riders to walk up steep metal steps 100 to 200 feet high). The rest of the city plans to deploy up to 5,000 jiffy johns, which works out to something on the order of 10,000 people minimum per bathroom, optimistically assuming that not everyone will have to “go.” – The Daily Beast

Latest inauguration horror story (AP):

“Thousands of people converged on the coat check from three balls at the Omni Shoreham hotel. Fur flew, and not always to the rightful owners. Judges, politicians and assorted bigwigs rushed the coatroom and banged on the door.

“It was a mass of finely clothed and jeweled individuals starting to chant ‘We want our coats! We want our coats!'” said Martin, a Washington-area voiceover performer. “There were elderly women in this crowd, and they weren’t going down without a fight.”

Police were called, and the mob was sent out in the freezing cold, coatless.

“It’s like a massive high school prom, is the only way I can describe it, in terms of the crush of people and the level of sophistication,” said Sheila Tate, who was press secretary to Nancy Reagan. “It’s just packed.

The rest of the story describes the kind of situations I have spent my adult life avoiding. Should be some good photo/video ops.