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!!