Airing of Grievances

So Big Guy, Skip, Joey B and I got together with Jim Crowley this evening for Festivus's airing of grievances (since Big Guy celebrates Kwanza, he adheres to the Festivus in August tradition). The difference this time was that we aired national grievances about race, name-calling, and Big Guy's refusal to man up and chug a full-bodied beer.

You'll see me in the picture over Crowley's right shoulder. I was there in case talk turned to the Boston Red Sox, and Big Guy needed to pull something out of thin air. The discussion went pretty much as planned, until the conversation turned to the Michael Vick situation. Crowley thinks Vick shouldn't be let back in the NFL, and Biden thinks Vick should be forgiven. Crowley was insistent and Biden told Crowley, "Hey, don't make a federal case out of it."

And Crowley said, "Well maybe I should."

Then Skip, who'd fallen asleep about a half hour earlier, woke up and said, "Wait, I'm the one making a federal case."

Joe had lost interest and went to play on the swing set, Crowley left in a huff, and Big O and Skip went to Hell Burger for dinner to show they could eat blue collar food at white collar prices. Toes was pretty annoyed by all of this, since nothing was done today on health care, Russia, Iran, Syria or stimulus. So all in all, a good day for America.

Vineyard Vining

I'm planning my vacation up to Martha's Vineyard in a few weeks with Big Guy. All of us pooled our money and put down $35K for a nice little place on the beach for a week or so. The place is called Blue Heron Farm, and it has at least three different residences on the property, a white Victorian house, where Big Guy and Lady M will stay, a hay barn for the press corps we've invited along since they worked so hard for us the past few months, and a shed for Toes and Gibbsy. Given that I put up 30% for the place, I'm assuming I'm living in the Big House.

Big Guy is most excited about the place having a golf practice tee and a small basketball court. Lady M is excited because she's within easy walking distance of an ice cream stand that is open 19 hours a day. I'm just relieved that I didn't pull the short straw that deputy White House press secretary Bill Burton pulled, and that I won't be on Bo duty, since cleaning up after him in the sand is going to be a hassle.

Pulling a Gates

So last night, while we were in Chicago at a Democrat fundraising event, Big Guy decided to drive by the old homestead, pick up the mail that has been making a big pile in the middle of the foyer for the past six months, and make sure he really had turned off the iron before he locked up last December. Our neighbor, Bill Ayers, is supposed to be keeping an eye on the place, but given his life-style back in the 1960s, and '70s, '80s, '90s, and '00s, let's just say he isn't the most reliable individual to be house-sitting unless you have a lot of junk food in your kitchen to keep him busy.

Problem was, Big O left the house keys in the candy dish back in the Oval. Given my slight build, Rahm suggested that I crawl through the basement window and open the place up. But after the whole Skip Gates fiasco, I wasn't breaking and entering anything. Big Guy suggested that Toes do it, because if he got shot we could plausibly say it was a hate crime since everyone hates Toes.

In the end, Big Guy had the Secret Service jimmy the lock, then had them wait outside just in case Ayres had started one of his "hydroponic projects" in the living room. Beyond the mail, the only other thing Big Guy needed to check on was a shoebox up in his bedroom where he keeps his personal papers, like the original copy of birth certificate, the license from his first marriage in California, and his William Jefferson Clinton Presidential Library card. Given the relieved expression he had when we left, I can only assume that either everything's okay, or he really believed that crap he sputtered on national TV the other night without my guidance and was just glad he didn't run into some of Chicago's finest on the way out.

Sweet Home Chicago

Honestly, with a White House chief of staff who used to be a ballerina, a President who tries to boogie down with every talk-show host he appears with, and a press corps willing to dance with their one true love no matter how badly he screws them, how could we not choreograph last night's press conference any better? I thought Chuck Todd looked particularly fetching, and his question was so amazingly discombobulated, that it allowed O to talk for almost seven minutes without even trying to answer the question. Those are the ones he likes the best.

After last night's "So, O Knows He Can Dance" episode, Big Guy and I hit the road to keep pushing what we're now calling "health insurance reform." Big Guy is a little peeved at David Axelrod, who apparently misread the focus group numbers six months ago and thought that "health care reform" was the branding we wanted. Oops. So now, we're at a townhall session pitching the insurance reform we are now certain all of America really wants.

Tonight, we'll be in Chicago, where Big Guy will take credit for the perfect game that was pitched by a Chicago White Sox pitcher. Big Guy noted that the game was completed just as we were touching down in our our hometown. A fitting way to arrive, if you ask me, and totally Big Guy's doing, no doubt.

As Big O noted, he almost pitched a perfect game last week at the All-Star Game, well if you overlook the fact that he didn't face any live batters, didn't have to play defense, or deal with the pressure of aggressive spectators. Come to think of it, that pretty much describes every day at the White House for us.

It's All Adding Up

Big Guy and I joined a group of middle school kids this morning in the Oval. We initially hadn't had the meeting on O's official schedule in the hopes that it wouldn't get a lot of attention.

But nothing Big Guy does goes without notice, so the meeting was a little awkward in as much as Big Guy had to may the kids pinkie promise not to talk too much about our request. You see, these kids won a national math competition, and we were meeting with the individual winner, the two teams that won.

And while I can't go into too much detail about the meeting, I feel fairly confident in saying that we'll have the new budget deficit figures ready for public consumption by Thursday, since the new, er, analysts need to be in Philly in time for the Jonas Brothers concert.

Soft Pitch

I'm back at the White House, because Big Guy and I have to practice the first pitch for the All-Star Game tonight.

We're headed to Detroit, or what Rahm and Gibbsy jokingly call the "Unemployment Capital of the World," for the big speech today. Then we head to St. Louis, where, if Big O can work things out, he will throw out the first pitch.

Big Guy is kind of nervous about the throw, but after watching Michelle rifle a few fast balls off my screen, he seemed to get the hang of it, which is a good thing. He originally wanted to warm up using the White House press corps, but since they throw nothing by softballs at him every day, there's no way he'd be prepared to throw off the rubber at Busch Stadium.

I'm Okay

Remember how I was hoping to take the next couple of days off? Well, that hasn't worked out so well.

My White House designated operator, Felix, clearly has to go. Today, Big Guy and I were scrolling and speaking to an interest group that supported us, and during the middle of the speech, one of my screens collapsed. Turns out Felix didn't tighten one of my screen's bracket rods, and one of my screens collapsed. It was kind of embarrassing, and the accident looked alot worse than the may have seemed on video.

All that said, I think I tweaked something. It may be my ACL, or maybe my MCL, or my "T" joint. Regardless, the Secret Service sent me first to George Washington University Hospital, where there is a special ICU and care facility for senior administration officials. But a good friend of mine, I'll call him Browny for legal reasons, ended up in a coma there after having "minor sinus surgery" if you get my drift, and there was no way in hell, I was going to put up with that.

So off I went to Bethesda Naval, where I figured I'd get looked at and released. But then there were the X-rays, the MRIs, the prodding and poking, the seemingly endless attempts to draw blood where the nurse couldn't find a vein despite my best efforts to explain that I was merely a humble hard-drive. Yet the poking and prodding continued.

Then they discovered that I basically had a limited warranty, and out the door I went. Someone really ought to try to look into this health care thing.