I couldn’t post about my cat’s feet last night and not post about one of the great moments in his­tory today.

Mid­day today, Barack Obama took the oath of office as pres­i­dent of the United States. Watch­ing the inau­gu­ra­tion from the com­fort of my sofa, more than once I was moved to tears of joy and grat­i­tude. I might as well have been among the 1 mil­lion or so peo­ple on the Mall, cheer­ing and laugh­ing and cry­ing. I could feel the 5 bil­lion said to be watch­ing around the world.

So many oth­ers have writ­ten elo­quently on the sig­nif­i­cance of our first black pres­i­dent, and I’m old enough to under­stand it. But it’s more. It’s know­ing the world will get through the fright­en­ing times we live in now. It’s being com­forted that an intel­li­gent, accom­plished, wise, decent man who under­stands the impor­tance of being a cit­i­zen of the world will lead us. It’s feel­ing hope again for the first time in years. Barack Obama may not be FDR, but I’ll take him.

My baby names  book tells me that Barack means bless­ing or blessed. I don’t what “Obama” means in Kenya, but here in Amer­ica, it means “hope.” I think it means the same thing for the rest of the world, too.