Give Peace a Chance and the Week in Review

It's either feast of famine. Last week, there was absolutely nothing exciting going on and this week has been insane with activity! So I'm going to try to catch up in one big post! I apologize for the length in advance.


Speaking of feast, I shouldn't say NOTHING happened last week. It was Thanksgiving after all. I had the honor of being thankful at work on Thursday from 6a-1p at the WH which was absolutely deserted. I then headed to the bureau for the catered turkey dinner. Then the real highlight was getting to spend the afternoon at the Wingards with 16 others for a wonderful meal and tons of fun. After that I went over to the Myers' for more dinner and dessert and games. I actually skipped the third dinner and just went for the dessert. Even though I was not with my family (which is where I always prefer to be!), it was a really nice Thanksgiving and I was thankful for not only a great family but really, really terrific friends. (Side note, the last time I wasn't with my family for Thanksgiving, I was in Crawford, TX in a tent eating rice and lentils in the rain with Cindy Sheehan and 40 other protesters. So this year soooo ROCKED compared to that!!)


Ok, back to this week. Did I mention that I was quite busy? Monday through Wednesday, we had Prime Minister Olmert and President Abbas in town for peace talks. It's not often that you can use "world peace" as a legitimate excuse for being busy but that was the case this week. Monday, I was in the bureau and produced the evening package (TV term for the nightly story with the reporter's voice with video and then soundbites) and I was planning for Tuesday's trip to Annapolis. There were sooooo many logistics that needed to be taken care of and not a whole lot of answers. But it all worked out.


On Tuesday, I spent about 15 hours at the US Naval Academy where the three leaders were all meeting together (along with about 40 other Arab countries.) It was a historic day because the leaders of Israel and the Palestinians agreed to try to agree. All of the world's problems were not solved in those 15 hours but it was considered more successful than anyone thought it was going to be. And even though I was there, I watched the whole thing on TV. Yep, I missed history in the making because I was too busy with liveshots and couldn't get away for the actual event. But I do have a press pass that says I was there and I guess I was closer than most of the world. Speaking of which, I think half the world was there in the media center. I've never seen so many journalists organized in one place before. We worked out of the basketball arena and I think there were at least 1000 journalists in the room. Security was pretty tight and most of the 1000 seemed like they had never been through a security sweep before. They were shocked when their blackberries set off the metal detectors. I was glad when Wednesday, everyone was back at the WH because it was much more controlled, less people, and a warmer place to work!


Thursday was my favorite day of the year working at the WH- the unveiling of the Christmas decorations. Yesterday morning, I found out at the last minute that I would be handling an interview with the First Lady for my network's morning show. All of the five networks were doing interviews with her so I just had to go represent mine and produce the interview from on site. (By the way, I can't really explain what that means in any terms that would mean anything to anyone but basically I'm just on the phone with the control room and making sure everything goes right.) Anyway, I got to see the decorations (this year's theme is the National Parks) firsthand with only a few other people there. The interview with the First Lady went off without a hitch. I had my picture taken with her in front of one of the trees (unfortunately not the official WH tree) but it was really nice of her to take time to have a picture made with me. I'll post it when I eventually get it from the WH photographer.


But here's the real highlight of the week. In a mid-morning event, the First Lady gave a tour of the decorations and then gave some remarks and took some questions about the decorations. This is one of the only events at the WH where you see a ton of people in the press corps that you've never seen before. Here's why... after her remarks in the East Room, the WH staff puts out the spread of food that they will serve at all the Christmas parties in the State Dining Room. And they invite the press to taste it all. Seriously, I had to pinch myself because this was actual work!! After my second plate of food that included lamb chops (my first taste of sheep in six weeks!) and ham and the best cheese grits ever and some tamales and some salad, etc., I was beginning to feel guilty that I had been gone from the booth for several hours. So I decided to try to feel better by tasting all of the desserts. It worked. They were awesome (except honestly, I was a little disappointed in the bread pudding but the chocolate cake more than made up for it.) The apple crisp and the Bûche de Noël (apparently words for an awesome yule log) were delicious. All of my research will pay off on December 13th when I go to the WH Christmas Party. I'm going to know which foods to concentrate on and which I can leave off my plate.


Today, I'm in travel pool which means I get to go to Mount Airy, MD for an event with the President on World AIDS day. We'll helicopter from the South Lawn (we technically leave from the Ellipse and he leaves from the South Lawn.) I'm convinced that helicoptering is really the way to travel in the DC area. My favorite part is when we arrive back at the WH. It's really really cool to chopper in over the mall by the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument. It will be the perfect ending to an exciting week!

O Christmas Tree!

Yes, I realize it's before Thanksgiving and normally I wouldn't dare speak of Christmas decorations until Black Friday. But this year, I was asked to co-chair the Living Christmas Tree at my church. If you're not familiar, it's an enormous Christmas tree that we put up in the sanctuary and members of the choir stand in it and sing so they are like the ornaments! Words don't really convey how unique it is so hopefully you can check it out for yourself! I guess someone saw the word "producer" on my business card and thought I could do this. So far it's mainly been finding volunteers and delegating. One of my tasks was to help build the tree. Don't worry, I didn't actually do any of the construction. I borrowed a Bob the Builder construction hat from the 3-year classroom and just mainly "supervised" and helped out where I could. I carried parts of the tree and fluffed the greenery and in general just tried to encourage all the hard workers. It's a whole other world with all those construction terms flying around but I did learn a lot like what a BF2 is and what a crazy nut looks like! (I thought that was just a term they were using to refer to me!) None of these new skills are transferable to any other part of my life but now putting up my 4 foot tree is going to be a piece of cake!! The LCT is only about three weeks away!

Speaking of the Christmas season- my friend Larry sent this to me and it made me laugh so I thought I'd share it....

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=9558727443

Oh wait! I forgot about the Japanese!

My international diplomacy streak continued last week with a quick visit from the new Prime Minister of Japan, Yasuo Fukuda. I had spent quality time (well I was along for the ride) with the old guy, Koizumi when we went to Graceland in June '06 but Fukuda is two PMs later and this was his first trip to the WH. The statement by the two leaders was in the Cross Hall and the press was just shoved in a very small place in the foyer. I didn't realize that the Japanese press corps was so tall. I found myself watching the event from the second rung of a ladder just so I could see. So far, there's no story that the President tells of Fukuda. I have heard his story about his dad fighting against Koizumi's dad in WWII at least a hundred times. Hopefully he'll come up with some new material with this new guy!

Third time's a charm!

I ended my week of world leaders with a trip to the President's ranch today to see Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany. That makes three world leaders this week. Covering world diplomacy has been quite busy this week!

Today was my first time actually ON the President's ranch. Some people think we just hang out at the ranch and help him clear brush but really we're at Crawford Elementary/Middle School eating ice cream all day (see one of my first posts!). I've only even been close to his property one time last summer. This time I got to see his office building, where today's presser was and where and the two leaders had their meeting. On today's trip out there, we were accompanied by many many members of the German press. (All I have to say is that I hope they don't judge our entire country by what's in Crawford.) One of the German chicks stood right in front of me taking pictures the entire press conference but I managed to sneak a couple of pictures in when she bent down. The other problem I had is that the two people the President called on were both standing RIGHT next to me so I had to pretend like I was busy writing down every word the President said. I couldn't let the Pres catch me ONLY taking pictures.

All in all it was an enjoyable trip out to the ranch. One of the deputy press secretaries drove me out there (there was no room in the van due to the Germans). I tried to get all kinds of secrets out of him but he wouldn't budge!! But all went smoothly and my pool duties were completed without a hitch. I celebrated the successful event by eating none other than some Blue Bell ice cream!!

A Couple Days Behind

This week has been a little busier than in past weeks and yet I'm neglecting staying up to date on my blog. I hope you'll be able to forgive me. Wednesday afternoon, I was at Mount Vernon with the President and President Sarkozy of France. It was rather chilly but George W. (the original)'s house made for a great background. Don't get too concerned. While we were freezing in our seats, they brought out space heaters for the two leaders. I ended up sitting next to the executive director for Mt. Vernon and a representative from the Mt. Vernon's Womens Association so I got even more background information than most of my colleagues. They were telling me the historically significance in Wednesday's meeting- it was the first time two world leaders had met inside Mount Vernon since Washington and Rochambeau planned the Battle of Yorktown. I can't wait until the next time I go to Mt. Vernon and see the pictures of Wednesday on the wall and I can say that I was there.

Then yesterday, I spent the day in San Antonio at the Brooke Army Medical Clinic and the Center for the Intrepid. Bush met with wounded warriors and toured the facilities. We got to take a tour of the place after he did and it was fascinating. Everyone at that center has lost at least one limb in either Iraq or Afghanistan. It was a bit difficult for me to not stare but the more soldiers I saw, the more moved I was to see what they had gone through. One of the cool things about the Center for the Intrepid is they have a fake wave maker thingy (like on a cruise ship) for therapy. They also have a couple of rock climbing walls. We saw a soldier scaling the wall. He had lost both legs and is now legally blind (he had a fake eyeball with a University of Kentucky logo in place of the iris). It was amazing considering I can't do that with two legs and two eyes. Anyway, the whole place is funded completely by private citizens and it's definitely a state-of-the-art facility.

Now I'm spending the rest of the weekend in sunny Crawford, TX. The weather is actually really beautiful. President Merkel of Germany is visiting the Prez for the next couple of days. I'll see her tomorrow when they have a press conference. In the meantime, the Texas German Society provided us with pastries. Even though I've already had three meals and two servings of ice cream today, I felt that it would be good for international relations for me to eat the pastries. Someone told me they were Danishes but for some reason the term "German Danish" just doesn't sound right.

Parade of Nations

This week has been a busy one at the WH and it's only Wednesday! Three different world leaders are meeting with the big guy this week and it looks like I will see all of them. On Monday, we kicked the week off talking turkey with the Prime Minister of Turkey. Ok, they probably didn't discuss the bird but it was a big news day in that we knew that Bush would respond to the crisis going on in Pakistan. Usually the meetings last about an hour and the press gets to go in at the end. On Monday, we waited and waited and waited for the travel pool to go in (we were travel pool and my colleague Ed went in as the TV representative). Finally after about two hours, they let the pool in and the President and Prime Minister gave some comments. It threw my afternoon off and I ended up having to eat out of the vending machine. But I realized it was for a good cause... they were literally discussing world peace and on the scale of important things, my lunch rates way at the bottom!

Yesterday, the President of France came to town. They had a social dinner and entertainment last night which I wasn't here for. But today they are spending the day at Mount Vernon. As you've seen in a previous post of mine, I love that place! So I volunteered to skip my afternoon nap and go there this afternoon for the press conference. I probably won't be able to show my Mt. Vernon members card today to get in but I've already used it three times this year. Come to think of it, I should have volunteered to give Sarkozy (French pres) and Bush the tour. I think I remember most of it! Thanks to the wonderful museum there, I understand exactly why Bush is taking Sarkozy there! I think it will be a pretty cool experience!

Across the country and back!

On Thursday, I went with the Prez to San Diego for the day to tour the damage of the wildfires. Except that I didn't get anywhere near a wildfire.

Generally flying across the country and back is not recommended as a day trip but when you're with the Prez, anything is possible. Actually, I wasn't on the plane with Mr. Bush- we were on our chartered plane that left at 5a ET. Luckily I was able to get in a couple of hours of good sleep on the way out there or I wouldn't have made it through the day!

Anyway, as we flew in to the San Diego, you could see all the smoke from the fires (actually we saw smoke as far away as Arizona) and as soon as we got off the plane, the stench of the smoke just filled our lungs (and as I mentioned earlier, we weren't really that close to any fires). I'm not sure where the closest fire was but the smoke still knocked you down where we were.

Speaking of where we were, we hung out at Miramar MCAS, better known as the location of the filming of Top Gun. I spent some time looking for Tom Cruise but no such luck! Actually we did our liveshots right in front of Air Force One which was slightly unusual for us but made a pretty shot.

The best part about my long day, besides the fact that everything went very smoothly, was that our chartered plane was Jet Blue which meant I didn't miss any of my TV viewing (which by the way has decreased significantly over the years!) Since we have our own row, we have control over three TVs. So I had one on the World Series game, one on the Office, and the other one on the Virginia Tech game. I hardly slept on the flight home since I had so much to keep me entertained! However, I'm still very bummed about the Tech game. I watched the whole thing and when I got off the plane, it was 10-0 with a little less than 3 minutes in the game. By the time I got to my car (five to ten minutes later) we had lost the game! I can't believe it!! What happened to my Hokies???

***UPDATE: I neglected to mention in my posting over the weekend on how I got the honor of going to San Diego last week. It probably wasn't my turn to travel but I had volunteered. Check that, I had volunteered because originally we were supposed to go to St. Louis for the day. So I signed up because my sister Katherine lives there and I knew it was going to work out for her to come visit me wherever I was working for the day! I haven't seen K since she and Mark visited me in April (just before my blogging days... otherwise you would have heard all about their visit!). I was really looking forward to see her last Thursday and then late on Tuesday night, I found out that we were scrapping the trip to St. Louis and going to CA instead because of the fire. While in the newsworthiness realm, it was the right decision. But in the sister realm, I was upset! Luckily, the President has rescheduled his trip and I'll once again volunteer to go see Katherine!