sacramento in one day

j and i drove from san francisco to sacramento to cover the second inaugural ceremony of governor arnold schwarzenegger. ah. work.

we left daly city shortly around 8, and arrived in the capitol less than two hours later. some streets were closed because of this big event so we had to park a few blocks away. we walked towards the sacramento memorial auditorium where the ceremony was going to be held.



there were a few musical numbers that didn't actually matter. some of them even overstayed their welcome mat (hello, mariachi divas!). the program started around 11:30, probably in time for the 12 noon swearing in of the governor. why 12 noon? i have no idea. hehehe.

maria shriver looked splendid in her valentino gown. we were told that the governor was wearing a prada suit and that the bible which was going to be used in the actual swearing in has been with the schwarzenegger family since 1878.

the former mayor of san francisco, willie brown, started the ball rolling by calling all the special guests who would be joing the first family onstage, including the mayors of los angeles, san francisco, sacramento, san jose and other key cities. he also called on eunice kennedy-shriver, maria shriver's mother; then the schwarzenegger kids, then maria shriver.



then ahnuld appeared onstage. on crutches! poor guy. he broke his thighbone (they say it's upper femur) in a freak skiing accident somewhere in idaho. he took his oath, read his speech (interrupted by applause 13 times!) and that's it.

oh, jennifer holiday also performed "and i am telling you..." and she was fuckin' awesome. oops, sorry. got carried away. j-ho has this tendency to contort her face in order to hit the really high notes but i don't think she minds. she's good. and as willie brown said in his introduction, 'there's no other singer in this world who could give justice to this song aside froim her.' sorry j-hud.