As we sit and wait for the election results to come in, a lot of people are wondering: are we going to get a Democratically-controlled House? It's something we haven't seen in a long time and I, for one (yeah, yeah, among many) am pulling for it. I'm even wearing my little "I Voted!" sticker, with all its patriotic optimism.

So, in the spirit of things that we do not see very often, I'd like to present two more, which I encountered this weekend.

Enigmatic Object #1:

Mountain View is a town surprisingly full of cultural diversity - sort of. In a lot of ways all the sushi restaurants and the Asian grocery store where I buy sake just make it seem all the more like the Disneyland of mostly white, highly American, i-pod liberals.

But in some ways that's unfair. I've met a great deal of Russian immigrants since coming here, for example; there are so many, in fact, that they do not share my enthusiasm at what I perceive as a shared linguistic exoticism. To them, Russian is the absolutely normal language for a Russian person to speak (well, obviously), and since there are a ton of Russians around, they figure that since I talk the talk I simply must be one of them. So I am boring. And a little weird for my eagerness.

Also, this past weekend Dave and I were walking downtown, and we saw a Muslim man and woman - seemed to be husband and wife - walking in the opposite direction. I've known several Muslim girls in my lifetime, most of whom have worn a khimār, but I've never seen a woman in full hijab (I am only hoping to be getting terminology right here). And it struck me as so odd; I'm not bothered by it, but I was certainly struck by it. I experienced a very starry-eyed-little-girl desire to run up to the woman and have her explain her beliefs to me. But saying to someone "I don't understand your kind of modesty - can you please explain it to me?" just doesn't sound innocent, so of course, I didn't.

I would still be interested in talking to someone about it though; it's such a bold and visible difference from the life I was raised in. A little girl walking down the street with her father seemed curious about just the same thing; I heard him explaining, as they passed, "Well, it involves their doctrines of belief, and..."

Enigmatic Object #2:

I like to watch nature videos a lot, especially if they star David Attenborough, the charmingly poncy BBC explorer. Dave and I have been receiving - through delightful, delightful Netflix - Mr. Attenborough's Life of Birds DVDs, and we watched one on Sunday night.

And here's the amazing thing: there were a few protracted shots of songbirds in Britain, early in the morning, which were described on the show as, at that dawn hour, having "nothing to do but sing." And so they were singing. But the thing that got me, the thing I'd never seen before, were the tiny puffs of air coming out of the birds' mouths as they sang.

Blowing clouds of mist on a cold day is something that, logically I suppose, any warm-blooded animal should be able to do. But have you ever seen it? A tiny bird, the smallest robin, sitting on a tree branch as the sun comes up, miniscule and emitting clouds.