Throughout his first day, Obama remained characteristically calm, even eloquent, shaking hands with Washington luminaries and accommodating the media pack that trailed his every step.
On Monday, he signed a six-month lease on an apartment just off Capitol Hill and bought a mattress. Today, he hopes to go shopping to stock the kitchen. (He and his wife, Michelle, the director of community affairs at the University of Chicago Hospitals, will decide whether to move their family to Washington permanently.)
There were the usual opening-day glitches. Supporters who flew in from Illinois to watch the swearing-in on television from a nearby reception room wound up looking at pictures of the House of Representatives. (He made it up to them later with 90 minutes of his undivided attention.)
The mock swearing-in -- conducted so that family members and the media can take pictures -- happened so fast that the local television cameras missed it. Michelle Obama nearly lost her purse, and the family got separated when aides whisked the new senator toward his next appointment. ("There you are, Daddy!" one of his daughters exclaimed upon emerging from the bowels of the Capitol.)
When it was nearly over, he confessed to feeling like an NBA draft pick, "poked, prodded and analyzed." He had been congratulated by some of the most powerful people in the world and installed in its most exclusive club. But he said it was people like the cabdriver who impressed him the most.
"All the McCains coming up and the Hillaries and all these folks," he told supporters at a late reception at the Library of Congress, after an ovation that woke a sleeping baby.
"There's been a lot of buildup.... But now the season's about to start, and I'm ready to play ball."
