A Trip for Nothing...

Well except a big steak!!

Last Thursday, I was scheduled to go to Indianapolis ahead of POTUS. He would be coming Friday for a quick trip but since there is no longer a press charter, we end up flying out the night before to be in place. On Thursday afternoon, I knew that the chances of POTUS actually going to Indianapolis were less than 50%-50%. I just had the gut feeling that he really couldn't travel to talk more about energy if there wasn't a budget deal. But it made the most sense for me to go ahead and go because if there was some late night deal, POTUS could still make the trip the next day. There's a lot of preparation from the WH/Secret Service's side of things so they don't want to cancel it until they know for sure it's a no-go.

So we flew out to Indianapolis commercially and had a fairly nice flight. Well nice besides the fact that the nice lady next to me sprayed and wiped down the seat with the most potent thing I have ever smelled. I'm not sure what that stuff was but I'm sure it was straight from some hospital or lab or something. I'm all about cleanliness and understand that airplanes are a mecca for germs but this was a bit over the top. I was actually sick to my stomach! But I knew that there was no way for germs to survive contact with that stuff.

When we landed, I was sooo impressed with the Indianapolis airport! It was a really nice airport! That led me to being impressed with Indianapolis in general!! My camera guy and I decided that the first thing on the agenda was to get some food. Both of us had heard from people on the plane that St. Elmo Steakhouse was the place to go. So that's where we headed. All the while, I was checking my blackberry every two seconds to see if the trip had been canceled yet. But we sat down for a wonderful meal. I think I ate half a cow. It was yummmmmy! Considering the night before I had eaten Famous Amos cookies out of the vending machine for dinner, I was very much a happy camper. After dinner we headed to our hotel and just as we pulled up to the Courtyard, the e-mails started coming through. "POTUS postpones his trip to Indianapolis due to ongoing budget negotiations." Or something like that.

So after a lovely night's sleep in the comfy room, I then turned around and came back the next morning. All in a day's work! But I have to say, I will go back to Indianapolis if given the chance! I couldn't tell much after being there for about 12 hours, but I could tell it was a really nice city!!

Deal or No Deal!!!

This week, there was one topic on everyone's minds in DC.. the government shutdown! Dun! Dun! Dun! (That's supposed to be a dramatic sound effect but it doesn't translate well into the written word!) Since most people still ask me: No, I don't work for the White House or the federal government. My network and my job would still have operated at a normal crazy-busy level whether or not the government shutdown. But it did cause for the level of the normal crazy-busy to escalate quite a bit. I had the duty to work a full day at the WH on Wednesday. Usually we split the day in half so no one person has to be there from sun-up to sundown but it didn't work out like that for Wednesday and it was my turn to take one for the team. And honestly, it wasn't bad at all. It was just a long day. And longer than scheduled. The morning was fairly quiet- well at least not busier than normal- and POTUS left to go out of town to Philly for the afternoon. It was such a lovely day for a helicopter departure! I was so excited because it was the first time that it was actually enjoyable to go out to watch Marine One depart. We watched POTUS's event where he talked a little bit about the budget deal talks but his focus was on his energy plan. As soon as he wrapped up his speech, he headed back to the WH and that is where things got a little crazy. We headed out for his arrival and we knew that as soon as he got off the plane, he was going to the Oval Office to meet with the congressional leaders. At this point, I was in hour #13 of my day and was a bit hungry. Leaving the WH for food was not an option, so I ate out of the snack machine. Let's just say there are not a lot of options there. This picture was from a previous day but the options weren't much better. No one has touched that chicken salad or tuna salad since the Reagan days, I'm convinced.POTUS and the congressional leaders were huddled in the Oval Office and obviously I was not. There were all kinds of rumors of what would happen if there was a deal or not but basically we just waited and quietly speculated when the meeting would wrap up and if there would be a deal. We were doing a ton of liveshots and it was busy to say the least!! Then all of a sudden around 10:45p, we heard from the overhead system "Two minutes until the President in the briefing room!" Luckily, we were prepared as a just in case but we had no idea that it would be that quick. POTUS comes out and gives a statement to about two dozen reporters who had stayed late. Then immediately afterwards, everyone ran outside to the stakeout location for the congressional leaders to talk. Usually running at the WH is discouraged but I guess that a mass of people running out of the building didn't freak out the Secret Service too much. They made their comments, we did a few more liveshots and I had a bit of loose ends to tie up and by 11:45p, the Secret Service were walking through the press area and kicking us out.

So I survived my 16-hour work day but it was a scene repeated for both the next two nights. For those two nights, I let my colleagues share in the fun!! One insane night at the White House was enough for me!

Excuse me, Alec Baldwin!

The budget negotiations have really taken center stage in DC recently and the White House has been a happening place. I can't say that there have been an abundance of POTUS events but it's still not been dull at work recently. And the possible government shutdown has been the talk of the town (and I'm guessing the country too but it's sometimes hard to tell when you're inside the Beltway). As the talks continue, lots of different groups are being creative in trying to keep federal funding for their project or cause.

So Alec Baldwin was at the White House to lobby some staffers for funding for the arts. He was supposed to tape an interview with our sister network at 2:30p. Apparently he went to a different gate and the excuse "I'm Alec Baldwin" didn't get him to where he needed to be. He was really late for the interview but he and his entourage finally showed up. He had closed to twenty people with him wherever he went. He started the interview finally at 2:53. My correspondent had a live shot at 3:00p so I knew they would be cutting it close.

Well, Alec does the interview and tells the interviewer why funding the arts is so important. He said "We don’t want to leave the cultural identity of our children to commercial interests alone. If you leave everything to the music industry, and the movie industry, and the television industry for our young people to kind of develop their own sense of self, self-expression, and their identity, we’re in for a lot of problems in this country.” After that he started talking about Snookie. And to be honest, I'm just not cool enough to know who he's talking about. I've heard about her for at least a year now but I'm too embarrassed to admit I have no idea. Clearly, I need to be reading more People magazine and US Weekly!!

So the interview ended at 2:59, or so I thought. I thought he and the interviewer were just chit-chatting and I had to get him out of the way for my correspondent. Except that they weren't done. So right in the middle of the interview, he says to me "I'd like to finish the interview please." God, I really hope they edited that part out when it aired!!!

My correspondent got into place AFTER the show started but with about 2.7 seconds to spare before he had to start talking. It was definitely one of the crazier liveshots I've handled in a long time!

I should mention this was in the middle of an incredibly busy day/week... Obama made a surprise trip to the briefing room, Israeli President Shimon Peres was at the White House to talk Middle East peace, and to top it off, I had had a biopsy of a mole on my rear-end first thing in the morning by a 95-year-old blind doctor and the numbing hadn't worn off so I spent most of the day running around with a numb butt. I tell ya, my life is definitely not the definition of normal!!

Important Role Models

After a fun and crazy day in New York, I got to be the pool for an event with the First Lady to celebrate the end of Women's History Month. She visited Ballou High School in DC to meet with high school students to talk about mentoring. I had heard about Ballou when I was a tutor with a mentoring program (remember me talking about Ernest?) but I had never been there. It's definitely in a part of town that a girl like me only goes to when I'm extremely lost. Especially a place where I should be by my lonesome. But I figured that if FLOTUS was going to be there, security couldn't be any better and I would be fine. My car is already missing a hubcap so I wasn't too concerned about leaving my car there. I had so many preconceived notions of what it was going to be like and all of them were wrong. I felt extremely safe (the number of Secret Service helped) and while the school facility itself lacked in a bit of upkeep, I realized that I was there to see really good things happening. I cherish my days of tutoring Ernest and wish my schedule allowed for something like that again. These kids (at least the ones in the school's library) were quite inspiring. As FLOTUS talked to them, I realized once again how blessed I was to have exceptionally wonderful people in my life as a kid and what a great education I received. But these kids are super-duper inspiring because they have to overcome so much just to get an education at all. FLOTUS said they reminded her of herself growing up in the southside of Chicago overcoming obstacles. These kids have the First Lady of the United States to look to as a role model who understands them. I admire her for making an effort to hold events like this one and so many others and to reach out to those who need good, positive role models.

This was one picture that I couldn't post for work but it makes me laugh. She was actually blowing a kiss to a kid in the library but the camera snapped at exactly the wrong millisecond. This is the picture that would make me doing anything she asked just so she wouldn't yell at me.

I'm sure she is really nice lady in real life. From my brief encounters with her, I'm sure that she never gives this face for real!!

A Night Out in Harlem

On Tuesday, POTUS took an afternoon/evening trip up to NYC and I was lucky enough to get to go with him once again. I think I've been to NYC with a POTUS at least six or seven times. Not that I'm complaining. It's one of my favorite parts of my job!

We flew to JFK and got on the helos. (I've been informed that the army operates choppers and the marines call them helos. I've been wrong for so long. My apologies.) This activity alone reminds confirms to me that I have a great job!! We usually land near Wall Street but this time we landed a little further north on Randall's Island. It was a different view of the city as we flew over and it was an equally awesome view.

We got in the motorcade and our first stop was at the American Museum of Natural History. I had never been there before but I had seen it in the movie "Night at the Museum". I'd seen pictures of the big blue whale hanging from the ceiling. But we weren't there to see any exhibits. POTUS had interviews with the big three networks and we held in the basement in a dark, drab room. Then POTUS made a "surprise" visit to the NYC science fair that was being held there. Wow those kids were super-geniuses! I couldn't even understand what the title of their projects were. One kid made a bike out of bamboo and tested how much pressure it could hold. He has been riding his bamboo bike to school for the past two years. That is the only project that I had even a glimmer of hope of understanding. The other ones included "Development of an optical diode based on the Thueon Sequence" and "Active Noise Cancellation in Human Robot Speech Interaction" and "A Shape-detection for Screening of 2D Membrane Protein Crystals" and "Quasi-Periodic Photonic Crystals for Multi-Wavelength Reflectors and Emitters." I don't know what any of those words mean. Suffice it to say these kids were all geniuses. POTUS said he didn't have a clue what they were talking about either but he just did a lot of nodding when the kids were telling him about their work. POTUS shook a lot of hands and the smart kids screamed and cheered. And as soon as we left the room, the average IQ went way back up.

Then we headed over to the UN for the dedication of the US Mission to the UN building. It was being named for former Commerce Secretary Ron Brown who was killed in a plane crash in 1996. I remember that story happening while I was in college but I can't say that at that point I was closely following Brown's life. But he was apparently a cool dude with an inspiring life story. I learned a lot as former Pres. Clinton and current POTUS talked about him. Oh, and Patti LaBelle was there to sing the National Anthem. We were kind of stuck on the side of this really small room so the pictures are a bit lacking. Like non-existent.

After that, we headed up to Harlem. The cool thing about being with POTUS is that there is never traffic. They shut down all the major roads in NYC during rush hour, which I'm sure didn't make New Yorkers happy but it was pretty cool to sail through the streets with no problem. We headed up to Harlem to the Red Rooster, which is a new and very popular restaurant. They say the wait list to get in is 2.5 months. We got in with no problem!! POTUS was there for a fundraiser which brought in $1.5 million (from a combined 40 people!) so we didn't see him. But we got to eat there. Usually, we hold in a restaurant nearby but this time we got to sit in another part of the restaurant and eat the yummy food. We had spicy meatballs, mashed potatoes, and mac n' greens (mac and cheese and spinach). It was really good. The restaurant is known for its cornbread (or at least that's according to POTUS) but they didn't serve us any. So I asked the owner if he had an extra piece in the back, could I have a taste. Next thing you know, there was a plate of cornbread in front of me that I shared with the rest of the press! Ask and you shall receive!!

After that, we went a couple of blocks away to another fundraising event at a museum. Actually, it wasn't an official fundraiser, but a chance to thank those who had given big bucks before. This might be inappropriate thing to say but it reminded me of a party that the Huxtables from the Cosby Show would have thrown. A lot of rich African-Americans with a few rich white people mixed in.

Once that was done, we got back in the motorcade and went back to the helos. The helo ride at night past the city's skyline is one of the most breathtaking things I've seen and I couldn't do that ride enough in life. It's just stunning. It's also very hard to photograph because of the lighting and the shakiness of the helo. But just continue to trust me. It's the way to go!!

The Blond Chick

Back a couple of weeks ago, I was asked to play the oboe to accompany a choir piece at another Alexandria Baptist church. As you might know, I have played the oboe since the 6th grade but with my somewhat crazy life, I don't play that often these days. I have played the oboe for my church's Living Christmas Tree for the past decade or so but that's been about it. So the thought of someone hiring me is a bit intimidating. I'm not even close to being a professional. I can play but not at that level. So the expectations were high. I received the music a few weeks ago and had I been a real oboe player, I would have pulled out the music from time to time, practiced, and gotten my embouchure in shape to play in front of people. (Embouchure is "the position and use of the lips, tongue, and teeth in playing a wind instrument," according to the dictionary. I didn't want you to think I had to actually exercise and lose weight or something to play in front of people!) But being the busy person that I am, I looked at the music for the first time a couple of hours before the practice with the choir. It looked easy enough!! The thing I forgot to mention was that I was playing alongside an African-American choir. A really, really good African-American choir. The oboe is not exactly the first instrument that comes to mind when I think African-American choir. But one of their songs called for an oboe, so I was glad to accompany. The practice was held in the group's leader's beautiful home on a recent Friday night. It was actually a really fun evening. They sing with such joy, feeling, and emotion and I think the best way to describe it was "raw praise" to the Lord. They sang a few songs before it was my turn to play and it was just a truly wonderful spirit of praise and singing. Then it was my turn to practice. After feeling my way through the song a few times, before I knew it, the practice was over and I was on my way home. At the service, I was expecting to sit off to the side and just play my song and sit back down quickly. But that didn't happen. I ended up sitting in the choir loft with the choir for at least 20 minutes before it was my song. I have worshipped in an African-American church before when I was a summer missionary in St. Louis one summer in college but this was different. I was in the choir loft in front of several hundred people. And let's just say that Brian and I were the only two marshmallows in a sea of hot chocolate and he was sitting waaaaay in the back of the sanctuary. I was just sitting there in the choir loft trying to figure out how to not be so, um, white. I thoroughly enjoyed the moment (except for when I was up on the big screen so everyone could see me!) and it was a great experience of praising Jesus- a bit out of my comfort zone but nonetheless a truly rich experience. As soon as there was a break for a prayer, I slipped out of the choir loft and went to sit with Brian at the back of the church for a really great, deep (and hysterically funny) sermon. Afterwards, I went to put my oboe away and say goodbye to my new friends from this church. As I was leaving, the leader gave me a wonderfully wrapped gift bag for my playing. I waited until I got in the car to open it and when I did, this is what I saw:I am still not quite sure what to make of it. It's a bit larger than the picture shows. It's bigger than one step of the stairs. Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful for the gift and the token of appreciation. I'm just not sure what to really do with it. I think there might have been some miscommunication. I think the leader of the group said to someone, "Get the blond chick who played the oboe a nice gift." And that someone heard, "Get the oboe player a blond chick!" Hahahaha! So now I am the owner of a nice large stuffed blond chick. Don't worry, it's not alive and it's a lovely Easter decoration. I might just leave it out all year round so it can be a topic of conversation and I can remember that fun evening!