Saturday, July 2, 2011

Feelin’ Pretty Damned Unappreciated

Let me start by saying I’m sorry this is posting so late, butt when you see what I’ve been dealin’ with this morning, I think you’ll understand.

Since it’s considered a holiday around here, I was just relaxing with my morning mug of Sumatra extra dark roast (Oink!) while checking out our worship sites on the intertubes.  And blam! There it was: the 2011 Report to Congress on White House Staff. My initial reaction was “why didn’t I receive a copy of this,” followed by “where in-the- h-e-double-hockey-sticks am I”?!?

Go ahead, take a look for yourself - I’m not there. And neither is Sam Kass; the busiest (and only-est) man in “food policy” and the leading spokesman for Lady M’s “Let’s MOve” campaign.

flotus kass

In addition to his “Let’s MOve” responsibilities Sammy, as you may recall, is a man of many jobs including coordinating the efforts of our organic honey producers:

Butt back to my original point, Sammy and I don’t show up as paid members of the Big White staff. Unbelievable. Go ahead, check it out for yourself.

 

 
The other  454 White House staffers - including all your favorite thugs goons public servants: ValJar, Pluffy, Favy, Daley, Tiny Tina, Mr. Claire Shipman. Everyone! Except Sammy and MOTUS.
 
Well, you can imagine how that fried my circuits. Then I saw how much 21 of those those schmucks valuable team members are paid: $172 thousand flipping US dollars! AND another  hundred-and-freaking-20 MORE make over $100,000! No wonder there was no money in the budget for that 6-outlet power strip I requisitioned last month.
 
After I got my reflections down off the ceiling, I immediately called Bill (Daley) who explained that Sammy is not included in the report to Congress because he’s not “White House staff.” He’s “Residence staff.” Pardron-ey moi!? Yeah, he’s “residence staff” because he’s not  considered“political” - Bwaaaaahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!
 
Sam-Kass-with-yams
 
Sammy joined us at Big White in 2009 following 2 years of service as Big Guy’s “private chef” back in the Windy City when the Wons lived next door to Tony Rezco who is currently enjoying an all expense paid sabbatical in a federal facility. Butt the important point here is that as a “Residence staffer” we don’t have to report to Congress on his activities, pay or anything else. He’s a Big White ghost!
 
As for Moi, I’m not classified “White House staff” either. I guess I’ve been classified as a “Cabinet Level Administration Appointee” ever since Rhambo gave me my own seal, instead of a raise. To be honest, I didn’t realize the ramifications at the time, butt apparently I am considered “political” now butt not on the list because Rhambo arranged for a Senate approval of my new political position. I guess it’s not that hard. To get approval for a new cabinet level position that is.
 
Anyway, pre-seal, I never used to be political, I used to be just another “detailee” like # 8, Sarah Apsel who makes $108 717 (!)and  #23,  Brandon M. Belford, who makes $119,238!!!!  Now that I have a title and a seal, I don’t make even a fraction of that! I’m moonlighting at the makeup counter at Macy’s just to pay my health insurance for cripes sake (which I need to cover myself now that NASA has been defunded and relegated to focusing on Muslim Science Appreciation training. I think I feel myself getting more political every day.
 
So, I’m sorry I had to vent on you here, butt I am glad to get that off my screen. Doctors say you shouldn’t keep things like that bottled up inside. It’s not good for your system. I think I’ll mention it to Lady M later this afternoon, after she’s had her “tea.”
 
And speaking of  Lady M, there’s nothing new since we went to Vermont to show our support for military families and raise some dough: both intended to help us WTF. Now we’re at Camp David for the 4th of July in order to try to convince the American people that we’re just ordinary patriotic Big White residents.
 
Just a quick note on the military family gig: Lady M and TOTUS-Too put on the now standard show of caring, support and call to action at the Vermont Army National Guard’s Aviation Support Facility in South Burlington. “After meeting so many troops and veterans, after meeting so many spouses and children and parents, I can say with complete authority that you all are absolutely incredible,” Lady M told the audience.
 
mo-totus

I think they’re buying it, aren’t they?

Screenshot Studio capture #106

Well, the ones who are still awake any way.

We didn’t have too much time to “hang wid da troops” because we need to raise a billion dollars before our economic policies kick into high gear, so we went to our third fundraiser of the day at a really cool aquarium. Even though it cost $5,000 per plate (and nobody bought a second plate), everybody seemed to have a good time. Well, except some of the paparazzi, like Molly Walsh,  who were disappointed that they didn’t get direct access to Lady M and were kept at bay by “handlers.” Molls for example, got stuck behind the spiny-soft-shell turtle tank. I thought it was a great spot, butt you can’t make everybody happy.

2605278608_80425729c61194400573

 

The chow was pretty good too, although it’s a good thing Food Policy Czar Sammy wasn’t policing the joint:
Roasted tomato and Maytag Blue cheese on crispy polenta rounds
 
Griddle scallops with sweet chili sauce and crème fraiche croute
 
Orange scented goat cheese, house pickled beets and Digger's Mirth (!) arugula on a crostini
BLT salad in toast cups.

Carnivore option: seared beef tenderloin with roasted shrimp and shaved radishes with herbed bulgur salad and arugula béarnaise sauce;

Or the yummy vegetarian option, falafel pancake topped with roasted vegetable Napoleon and fresh tomato-basil salsa.

All accompanied by rolls from the O'Bread (this was special!) bakery at Shelburne Farms and Vermont Butter and Cheese company cultured butter.

And for dessert, lime coconut macaroon bars, strawberry lemon bars and chocolate chip cookies.

It’s a good thing the food was good, because TOTUS-TOO confirmed that it wasn’t just me: Lady M did give the exact same speech at all 3 of the DNC organized  fundraisers. Butt it was good value  for the  Burlington Aquarian crowd, because  I think the Bostonians paid a whole lot more than $5000 a plate to hear the same speech. Although they did get to hear it first. So that’s special.

Linked By: Larwyn’s Linx on DougRoss@Journal

Friday, July 1, 2011

Picking the Right Bag Lady to Find TWF. WTF?

Welcome American Thinker Readers!

**Dispatched by the mob boss, President “Dick” Obama, the bag lady showed up in Boston yesterday afternoon to pick up the  receipts for the second quarter. The marks willingly assembled at a tony Chestnut Hill mansion for lunch (which included crabs and a collection of tarts ) before handing over an estimated $600k.**

A Little Traveling Music Courtesy of Dewey from Detroit

Hee hee. Don’t worry, it’s just Lady M, having a little fun in the middle of her relentless round of sacrificing for the country by indulging in her latest passion: playing Mafia Wars! The game is known to be very addictive.

80316c_063011obamaar01

An inveterate multi-tasker, Lady M listens to Common on iPHotus while playing Mafia Wars on her BlackBarry – all while on her way to pick up the gaming receipts.  You’ve come a long way, baby!

We had three fundraisers yesterday, one in Boston and two in Vermont, and – as the Mrs. O site so elegantly put it:

While there, Mrs. O also managed to squeeze in a trip to the Vermont Army National Guard’s Aviation Support Facility to speak with military families. Quite a day!

And squeeze it in she did! I’m talking about the military family visit. It was such a quick stop over that we didn’t even get any official pictures! Where is the damn iPHotus when we need her?

Butt clearly, the main reason for the trip was to pick up the big bag of money in Boston. It was such an important stop that, instead of just wingin’ it like she usually does, Lady M brought TOTUS-TOO along with us.

You know how those Bostonians are about using proper grammar and sentence structure. Not that Lady M needs prepared remarks in order to use proper grammar and sentence structure; I’m just saying that there was no sense taking a chance on offending. We’re going to have to come back several more times if we  want a shot at raising that billion dollars that our campaign manager says we’re going to need to WTF this time around.

AP110630114855-1

So we donned a tasteful black fleck-on-white frock custom designed by Jason Wu, and “used a TelePrompTer, despite the relatively small and friendly audience.

You cannot imagine what our entourage on Air Force Won-Too looks like these days: BlackBarry, iPHotus, TOTUS-TOO. Honestly, the electronics-only section is starting to look like a 4th of July sale at Best Buy.

Here’s just a small sample of what Lady M read to the Bostonians:

“I see the worry creasing his face. I hear the passion and determination in his voice. ‘You won’t believe what these folks are going through,’ he told me that last night. ‘Michelle, it is not right. We’ve got to fix this. We have to do more,’ ” she said.

“Barack always reminds me that we are playing a long game,” she added, referring to the president’s call for patience from all Americans as the country slowly emerges from a recession. “He reminds me, as I said to you, too, that change is slow. He reminds me that change doesn’t happen all at once, but that if we keep showing up, if we keep fighting the good fight, doing what we know is right, then eventually we will get there. Because the truth is, we always have in this country. We always have.”

As good as she is, even Lady M can’t say carefully crafted things like that without help from TOTUS-TOO.

Butt the take for the day was worth all the effort, reportedly $600,000! Which is very important, because we’re now posting (PUBLICALLY!) how our fund raising goal of $1billion is doing. We sure didn’t want the first quarter’s results to look,eh, unenthusiastic. That’s why we raffled off the dinner with Big Guy too.

BTW, I hope you all remembered to make your donation by midnight last night in order to qualify! It’s not like we didn’t send out a dozen reminders (harsh language warning).

splash_img

Just last night, campaign commissar Jim Messina sent out an urgent email telling the loyal followers to get their money in before the deadline approached.

“Anyone worth their salt in politics knows tonight is one of the most important tests we'll face as a campaign this year," Messina wrote. "Let's hit it out of the park."

You’ll be pleased to know that the Obots responded: hitting the desired level of 450,000 donors slightly before midnight.

If you have no other life, and wish to follow the real time fund raising results over the 4th of July weekend, just sign up for Big Guy’s twitter feed. Some huckleberry will be tweeting crap out every few minutes all weekend long. Otherwise, you could watch paint dry. Better yet, why don’t you just enjoy a picnic with family and friends and reflect on the great republic that was founded over 230 years ago. Just don’t go to any 4th of July parades, lest it turn your kids into little R-words.

I don’t want you to think that Big Guy has been slacking on his responsibility to raise money for the campaign just because he’s been so busy in Washington “doin’ Afghanistan and bin Laden and the Greek crisis” (butt not the debt crisis) let me assure you that’s not the case. He was busy doin’ his part too, that’s why he couldn’t meet with Mitchie and the R-words yesterday to discuss the budget and debt ceiling. President “the Dick” Obama was in Pennsylvania in order to personally pick up the receipts from the Philly family.

347767300-30170034 Chill, dude.

There were sporadic outbursts from rival gangs while he was in town:

protest in philly

Butt they were effectively silenced and the scheduled pickup proceeded as planned.

As they left town, President “Dick” Obama was seen studying up for the next hit:

Obama%20blackberry1

“I just love this new technology thing you can do with your thumbs”

H/T Barbara Curtis

Linked By: Clarice Feldman on American Thinker and  Chickaboomer, Thanks!

Thursday, June 30, 2011

Tick, tick, tick: 67 minutes with Obama. WTF

First of all, what you’ve all been waiting to hear: Yes! It’s true. We’re going back to the Vineyard for our annual August payday vacay! (because we never stop working our steel trap mind, even when were resting and recreating.)

president-barack-obama-rides-along-bike-path-correllus-state-forest-martha-vineyard-west-tisbury-massachusettsOur steel trap mind, locked in a brain bucket

And now, on to Big Guy’s much anticipated presser: the first one in  months. No time for pressers when you’ve been so busy trying to get the ball car out of the sand trap ditch.

obama-golf-2_600

OK then, I’ll just take a mulligan on this one!

_48414327_carscuplture

And don’t try to read anything into Big Guy’s comments about the R-words having to "take on their sacred cows."  He meant big oil and all the other fat cats who fly around in corporate jets. It has nothing to do with us.

mocowmocow2

mocow3

Sacred, butt NOT a cow (despite the designer heifer duds)

Other important take-aways from Big Guy’s lecture  Press Conference:

On gay marriage:

“I'm not going to make news on that today. Good try, though.”

 

On the constitutionality of the War Powers Act: Libyan KSA:

TIme74-225x300

"I’m not a Supreme Court justice, so I'm not going to put my constitutional law professor hat on here." Besides, the mission doesn't meet the terms of the War Powers Act, so “I don't have to get to the question,"

Pressed, he says: "I’m just saying I don’t have to reach it. That’s a good legal answer."

In response to TIME’s question re. whether the Constitution still matters: in a word NO. Not to this administration.

On the job situation:

"We can focus on jobs as we're focusing on debt and deficit reduction,"

414px-Barack_Obama_playing_golf

Great. We’re going to punt.

 

On the Afghanistan withdrawal:

"We are being successful in those missions, even before the bin Laden operation we had decimated the middle ranks and some of the upper ranks of al Qaeda.”

Butt On the Intercontinental attack the day before:

“Well, keep in mind the drawdown hasn’t begun.  So we understood that Afghanistan is a dangerous place, that the Taliban is still active, and that there are still going to be events like this on occasion.”

Then I guess we’ve taken care of everything we came to do. This is what victory looks like now:

intercontinentalkabulAfghanistan: Victory is not an option

Back to Libya:

Big Guy corrects a previous response, clarifying that when he said the Libyan KMA would take days, not weeks, he meant the "initial phase where the Americans were in the lead would take days." (not weeks, months, or possibly even years) "So, promise made, promise kept."

Asked and answered, OK? Now stop asking.

Again, on gay marriage:

"I'll keep on giving you the same answer until I give you a different one. And that won't be today.”

On the “Gunwalker” case:

“I’ve made very clear my views that that would not be an appropriate step by the ATF, and we got to find out how that happened.”

When we’re agitated, even the smartest man on the planet sometimes forgets his grammar.

On illegal immigrants:

“… (we must make) sure that we also have a pathway for legal status for those who are living in the shadows right now.”

I_CAN_SEE_ILLEGAL_IMMIGRATION-WM_thumb[2]

Oh, I think we’ve already established a path

az3

Debris left behind by illegals as they shed gear upon entering the US via Arizona.

It looks like we could stand to “clean up the mess”  they left behind on the path to “legal status.”Grab a broom in 2012!

On the debt crisis deadline:

They’re not really deadlines, just "markers for us getting into trouble."Then we get another one of Big Guy’s famous car metaphors: “The yellow light is flashing.  Now, it hasn’t been a red light yet.  So what Tim Geithner has said is, technically speaking, we’re in a position now where we’re having to do a whole bunch of things to make sure that our bills are paid.”

I wonder if one of those “whole bunch of things” includes slamming on the brakes? 

Then he prattled on about how important it was to raise the debt ceiling in order to protect US jobs, or something, and some smart ass asks if August 2 is a red light or a yellow light:

“This is a matter of Congress going ahead and biting the bullet and making some tough decisions…We've identified what loopholes in the tax code can be closed that would also raise revenue.”

Since that doesn’t sound like a hard brake, I’m going to say, yellow.

Then, again, he tells us:

        “Now is the time to go ahead and make the tough choices.”

Obama%20Vacation%20Home

Hawaii… or the Vineyard? That’s a tough choice.

blue-heron-house-obama-425js080709

We chose Martha’s. This time.

I sure hope Congress heeds Big Guy’s warnings and cancels their summer vacation in order to work on The Way Forward by increasing the debt ceiling AND taxes so we can WTF for the balance of the year.

“They're in one week, they're out one week.  And then they're saying, Obama has got to step in.  You need to be here.  I’ve been here.  I’ve been doing Afghanistan and bin Laden and the Greek crisis.  You stay here.  Let’s get it done.”

And that, my friend, is what leadership under Big Guy’s leadership looks like. Look Ma, no hands!

 

All of Big Guy’s quotes from our Big White Big Web. All Big Guy, all the time. All you need.

Linked By: Barbara Curtis @ Mommy Life, Thanks!

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

How Do You iPhone? Tweet Me!

I  knew that Tweeting wasn’t going to be our friend. Especially after Big Guy admitted to genetically clumsy thumbs. And Lady M has always been known more for her guns than her thumbs,

Michelle Obama gunshow_Arm Toning ExercisesBack in the day: all guns, no thumbs

So up till now, all of her tweets have been dictated to staffers to tweet out.As a result, a whole lot of the important stuff she wanted to share tended to get lost in translation, ya know?

So when the tweeting Weiner shots took over the news cycle for 3 weeks, I knew that meant trouble for me. Lady M was mesmerized: not by the Weiner per se, butt by the type of attention that was garnered by a few pictures. That sort of face time - so to speak - can’t be bought. Even with the highest paid public relations staff in the history of the Big White.

So now that she’s discovered that you can take pictures of yourself with your cell phone in front of a mirror, we are dragging our iPhone along with us everywhere we go.

And now, I find out, she’s promoted her to official Cabinet status! Directly from tech support! She didn’t even make her go through an ethics check or get an official security clearance – although I guess that stuff has been waived for Cabinet members now.

From here on, she’s to be referred to as iPhOtus (the iPhone of the United States)! The Bitch! iPhOtus, not Lady M.

iphoni copyiPhOtus. Bitch!

iPhone-BITCH copy

So now iPhOtus (bitch) – in addition to tagging along everywhere we go – is constantly nagging Lady M  to “tell MOTUS to stand in front of us so we can tweet this out” or “tell MOTUS to stand still, I can’t focus.” Obnoxious bitch! The iPhOtus, not Lady...you know.

So now I have to stand in front of the two of them while they stage tweet shots to WTF (Win The Future), and I still have to control all the optics in order to make the tweet look good. Within the confines of what I have to work with, you understand. I’m NASA designed, 5G wired, butt I’m NOT a goddess. That job’s already taken.

boogy-2 copy

This iArrangement  creates a frightening feedback loop! Like looking into one of those old barbershop mirrors that project your ever decreasing image into an infinite abyss!

infinite_mirrorCan someone get me a powder?

I’m dying here!

 

boogy-1 copy

That’s right...guns by MOTUS! Call now!

I work my tail off trans-imaging MO’s…uh, tail away, and all iPhOtus does is capture my  work and spew it out all over the intertubes.

I don’t like to complain about my job or the working conditions, butt how am I supposed to keep the Mainstream Paparazzi away from Lady M’s flanks if I have to stand motionless in front of her just so iPhOtus can snap a measly 5 megapixel shot of the two of them gallivanting about?

I even had to ‘shop their images into a triptych on a green screen background so they can “be wherever they want to be”...

MO triplets-green screen“Hiiii there! As your FLOTUS, I take my iPhone everywhere, in order to keep you up-to-date on my healthy day.”

“…and when I say everywhere, I mean everywhere! Here we are teaching African leaders how to properly greet visiting American deities like Buh-rock”

MO LICK PROTOCOL copy“Can you do this with your cell phone?”

I’m not saying  that she hasn’t made any contribution. The snapshot of hers above did turn into our poster demonstrating proper “Welcome to the continent of your birth” protocol.

I should have listened when Gerard warned me that this little piece of Apple technology would be trouble right from the git-go. Butt no, I had to give her the benefit of the doubt.

Personally, I think she’s just preparing for an alternate career path on the very remote chance that the American people wake up lose their senses and vote her and Big Guy out of office. WTF?

I tell you, that Smithsonian gig is sounding better every day.

Tweet this!

Bitch!

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Bridging Our Trade Gap With China: TWF. WTF?

Updated with a little traveling music brought to you by Little Mo:

Big Guy’s headed to the Quad Cities today to tour a factory in Bettendorf, IA and talk about how  "Manufacturing serves as the backbone of communities across our country and the continued revitalization of the manufacturing sector is critical to America's success as we compete in a 21st century global economy." (from our Big White pre-trip guidance pak for reporters.)

We all know how Big Guy loves visiting American manufacturing facilities, and supporting American jobs:

broadway here i comeBringing a little of that famous Obama razzle-dazzle to the factory floor

I guess he hasn’t heard about the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge being rebuild in China yet.

“California decided not to apply for federal funding for the project because the “Buy America” provisos would probably have required purchasing more expensive steel and fabrication from United States manufacturers.”

Ruh-Roh! San Francisco is circumventing the Buy American Act, implemented to “protect domestic labor by providing a preference
for American goods in government purchases?
” This doesn’t sound good, does it?  I don’t think any of Big Guy’s buds at the AFL-CIO, UAW or SEIU are going to like this one little bit. I wonder why San Fran Nan isn’t all over this? Maybe some of her 62% increase in personal wealth last year came from investing in bridge rebuilding projects.

Man, if he can’t get this embarrassing San Fran cost cutting measure turned around pronto, I don’t know if Big Guy will be welcome back onto the floor of all those factories that he loves to tour during campaign season. Here he is in 2009 with a worker showing him, ironically, how he makes these large bolts that are used in bridge construction: (I swear, you can’t make this stuff up.)

Screenshot Studio capture #100Big Guy visits the Cardinal Fastener & Specialty Company factory in Ohio, 2009. They make bridge fasteners. How’s that HOPE and CHANGE workin’ out for you, fella?

Just a quick recap of our economy performance under Big Guy’s stewardship (Results calculated after our $850 billion shovel ready Stimulus package):

UNEMPLOYMENT: up 25%

NATIONAL DEBT:  up 35%

PRICE OF GAS:     up 104%

So, everything’s up! That’s good, right?

On the home front, Lady M is back at the Big White and resting comfortably following her triumphant “Queen of Africa” tour.

p062111sa-1309

As soon as she’s caught up on her sleep, she and Air Force Won 2 will be hitting the fundraising/campaign trail for Boston and Burlington, VT. So we’ve got that to look forward to.

We’ve all got to do our part this time around, because with the R-words doing everything in their power to sabotage the economy, we’ve got a lot of spinning to do. Maybe we can borrow some of these turbine engines from Jeffie to help us get into the spin cycle.

generatorWhoa! Looking into the abyss can make you a little light-headed if you get too close.

 

In unrelated news, Hillary Clinton announces a new role for U.S. State Department: Rock Star Promoter. Yep. State helped Lady Gaga get a Euro Gay Pride gig set up in Italy. Because we have a lot of excess capacity in the State Department now that we’ve hired our summer interns.

Plus, Hil has a soft spot in her heart for the lovely Lady Gaga.

0701-lady-gaga-hillary-credit

A little of Lady Gaga’s lipstick on Hil, and we could be separated at birth

Monday, June 27, 2011

Our Transparent Safari,Troop Withdrawal and Release of Strategic Reserves. TWF. WTF?

Last week, both of our Big White incumbents displayed the savvy and skills that made them uniquely qualified for their historic roles in the Big White in the first place.

While Lady M ate, hugged and charmed her way across South Africa to improve relations between the U.S. and Africa and promote youth engagement, education, health and wellness,

YOUCH“I can’t stop eating French fries. Butt eat your vegetables!”

Big Guy was equally busy pandering to his own various special interest groups. Beginning with his Afghanistan Big Read geared to the Code Pink crowd. He announced his victory and scheduled our troop withdrawal, which we are now free to do because, as you might recall, Big Guy killed Osama.

Next, Big Guy announced the release of our strategic oil reserves in order to drop gasoline prices (because what’s more strategic than our popularity?) And in case you were thinking this was simply a cynical political move, you’d be wrong. Because Timmy (I am not a tax cheat) Geithner explained that it was not, repeat not political.

BTW, speaking of Administrative apologists, Jay Jay also took the opportunity last week to explain how complete transparency works at the Big White: we report on all of the Big White meetings, except the ones we don’t. Because we have our reasons:

"We have been very transparent about the president's schedule… The president has meetings that we don't put on the schedule and that stands for reason," Carney concluded.

There. That should clear everything up.

Jay_Carney-300x253

Then, on Thursday, Big Guy was busy in New York raising about a gazillion dollars at 4 DNC fundraisers in New York City in order to “Win The Future.”  BTW, I note in our Big White Blog that  we are now changing our campaign 2012 slogan up from time to time with “The Way Forward” or “TWF.” Nice, but it doesn’t have quite the same panache as “WTF” does it?

And Big Guy even managed to squeeze in a visit with the troops last week, whom he has nothing butt the greatest respect and admiration for:

THEYALLLOOKALIKEBig Guy, giving a shout out to all the corpse men. He loves ‘em, butt they all look alike in their uniforms.

So, while Lady M was flying home from her great African adventure:

coming homeLeaving the homeland for home: Flaps up!

 

Screenshot Studio capture #098wekin3klm3voodoodoll

…Big guy managed to shoot off another round. Of golf, that is.

In case you’re still counting, that makes 13 weekends in a row, 16 times this year and the 74th round of his historic presidency. It will be awhile before anyone is able to breach this record.

butt obama

Butt all I can focus on is that this means Big Guy’s managed to go 7 weekends this year without golf! Wow! That’s got to be some kind of a personal record too.

 

 

UPDATE: Last week, Little Mo’s Pop was asking how much our wonderful vacation campaign trip diplomatic mission to our ancestral continent cost US taxpayers. Well, now, thanks to my buddy Keith at White House Dossier, we have the guestimate: under $1million, butt over $500,000. We achieved our goals: Lady M, GrannyR, the Wee Wons, the nieces & nephews and everybody else got to go on safari and eat fried fat balls in Botswana and we got oodles of great pictures to help us Win The Future, er, uh, help us find The Way Forward!?!? WTF?

I say money well spent, don’t you?

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Buh-Bye African Pie!

Well here we are, heading home after eating our way across South Africa and Botswana:

byebye

We wrapped up our trip Friday night with luncheon at the Sanitas Tea Garden and dinner at the restaurant in the Mokolodi Nature Reserve where we dined on elephant stew from an old tribal recipe. It was a little tough.

For lunch on Saturday during our safari Lady M insisted on going to Borakanelo, a local cafeteria, where she heard they made organic French fries, her favorite food.

botswanafriesFinally! Some decent food! I’ll take one of those weiners too.

Lady M ordered chicken and chips (no fish available in the interior). We wanted some greens of course, butt alas, they weren’t serving any. This menu wouldn’t cut it with the USDA school cafeteria lunch guidelines, butt I guess when you’re on safari you have to expect to rough it.

The safari was a lot of fun. here we all spotted an elephant:

wow

Out of the frame, unfortunately.

For the occasion, Lady M - ever conscious of being a fashion icon and role model for young African girls - donned a fringed, leopard print Prova scarf draped around her neck and paired with a cheap gray cardigan and gray slacks to demonstrate how even ordinary people can appear to be extraordinary.

Here we are, stalking wild game yesterday:

mamasanYeah Mom, you go first

Back home, Big Guy was equally busy. No, not with the budget talks: raising money so he can afford to run a top notch campaign in 2012. New York was a virtual gold mine (thank you, Goldman Sachs!) where he managed to hit 3 different fundraisers in one night last Thursday! He racked up $38,000 a plate for a Daniel Boulud prepared dinner!

2011_)6_danielSecurity tent for dinner

Here’s the menu:

Reception

Rock Shrimp Spring Rolls with Ginger Soy Dip
Vodka Beet-Cured Hamachi with Horseradish Cream
Crisp Parmesan Basket with Soft Goat Cheese and Fines Herbs
Brochette of Seared Kobe Beef with Pickled Onion and Tartare Sauce
Zucchini Pomponette with Fontina and Tomato Confit
Comté Gougères with Beaufort Béchamel

Dinner

Maine Lobster Salad with Satur Farms Roasted Beets
Horseradish Cream, Mâche “Nantaise” and Walnut Vinaigrette
Sandhi Santa Barbara Chardonnay, California 2009

Duo of Black Angus Beef
Braised Short Ribs with Young Spinach
Roasted Tenderloin with Stuffed Potato and Hen of the Woods
Copain Anderson Valley Pinot Noir “Tous Ensembles » California 2008

Citrus Marinated Strawberries
Vanilla-Raspberry Gelée, Sablé Breton, Yuzu Sorbet

Chocolates, Madelaienes and Petits Four

danielboulardNicely done Danny!

Yum-o!

This while Lady M is choking down African locavore peanut and elephant stew; there’s no end to the sacrificing she does for her country.

Anyhoo, the Boulud dinner was squeezed in between a fundraiser on Broadway for a showing of “Sister Act” with the incomparable Whoopi:

EMULATEHey! Big Guy’s Presidential Seal is missing.[linky fixed now] Again. I better keep an eye on this.

…and an LGBT event (where he got heckled – can you even believe it!?)

I think Big Guy should stop fighting with the R-words over taxes and spending limits and just book fundraisers from now through the 2012 election. At $38K per head, we could have the national debt crisis under control in no time.

UPDATE FOR CENTRALCAL:

Are you sure you really wanted to see this? On a Sunday?

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UPDATE FOR LINDA:

You MOLs are really testing me today, and my battery pack is pretty low after the safari. Butt here you go:

Screenshot Studio capture #097

Butt those aren’t peek-a-boos on the tights: studs. It’s winter in South Africa, after all. Oh, and in case anyone thinks that’s a Palestinian kuffiyeh around her neck: chill. It’s actually a Duro Olowu scarf (who, you may recall, also designed our lovely dress that we wore to dinner on the Vineyard last summer) paired with another ASOS Africa beaded collar jacket.

Linked by: Adrienne’s Corner Thanks!