Invitations? We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Invitations!

Ever since the break-in at the Indian State Dinner, the O’s have been very jumpy. They get up in the middle of the night and check to make sure the burglar alarm is set, and the back door is locked.

Big Guy and Lady M are both really, really steamed about this security breach, and you can be sure someone will be falling on the sword any day now (If by “falling on the sword” you mean “being stabbed in the back”). In the mean time, Secret Service announced some changes in security screening policy:

A government official familiar with the plans says from now on, a staff member from the White House social office will work with the Secret Service at the gates where people check in to attend official events at the president's residence.

Which is kind of funny, because that’s how we used to do it in all of the previous administrations. But when Diva Desiree arrived, I guess the Secret Service decided she wouldn’t be that much help anyway.

 

 

 

So – because I don’t want you getting upset if you see this somewhere else -I’m going to let you in on this top-secret tid-bit: I know I can trust you, but please, for any number of reasons, I implore you not to pass it on. Until such time as we are all comfortable with the new security measures, this is MO’s undercover disguise, and her code name will be “Zapata”. I’m sure she’ll be safe, so don’t worry. And as soon as Desiree figures out how to make out an official guest list while her nails are drying, we can all get back to normal around here.

H/T Vanderleun

Quelle Surprise!

So, don’t tell me that having an in-house public relations staff doesn’t pay off! Look at the booty we just pulled in:

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BEST DRESSED 2009, VOTEZ POUR VOTRE PRÉFÉRÉE !

Yes! The votes are in, and once again Obama wins!

The French couture Bible, Elle magazine, honored Lady M as the winner in the "political chic" category of their best dressed list. Wow! Once again, a well oiled campaign and staffers who are willing to do whatever it takes to win have paid off big. MO even edged out the home-town fav, France’s own first lady, Carla Bruni Sarkozy!!! Sweet! Or should I say “douceur de vivre “?

   

The magazine said it focused on bold style this year, noting, “Mrs. Obama resembles no one else. Her style is unique, and she encourages young designers.”

Elle also praised Obama for adding a new item to the classic first lady’s wardrobe: the cardigan sweater. “She has succeeded in imposing the waisted cardigan as official dress.”

How clever of the French fashionistas to find the two categories that Lady M positively OWNS: bold and “wasted waisted” cardigans!

Here we see both “bold” and “unique” in one outfit.

 

 

 

 

Big Guy still has some matches from a campaign swing through Park City, UT back in ’08 (I think you all know by now that BO smokes, right? I’m not letting the cat out of the bag am I?). They’re from a little French Bistro called “Easy Street” ( BO’s theme song), and are imprinted with the bistro’s motto  “We’re so French we hate ourselves."  Well, I guess.

I hope Carla doesn’t feel too bad about the snub. At least she came in second. I, on the other hand didn’t even get an honorable mention. I rather thought the editors at Elle might have given a little nod to my trompe-l’oeil work.

Frogs: they’re just silly little people who think they’re better than everyone else. But you get used to it after awhile.

H/T Breeze, who has her own name now!

Turkeys, Trees and Tarts. Oh My.

Good Grief! I leave for a few short days and all hell breaks loose around here.

First, I hear Big Guy’s pardoning some turkey, but thank God it wasn’t KSM. Just some gobbler on it’s way to Disney World. I hope old “Courage,” as Big Guy named him, hasn’t heard about what happened to his brother up here in D.C. while he was enjoying the Thanksgiving Day parade in sunny Florida.

I understand the whole fam went to the homeless shelter to donate 2 more turkeys that hadn’t been pardoned and dump off the rest of the vegetables from the organic garden that they couldn’t pawn off on anyone at the state semi-vegetarian dinner.

The O’s then spent a quiet Thanksgiving in the WH, enjoying the usual fare: the aforementioned turkey (may he rest in peace), oyster stuffing (this should not be served if there are young children present), mac and cheese (more appropriate), taters two ways, greens (I thought they got rid of them at the homeless shelter?) and six (!)  kind of pies. I guess we won’t be wearing that Naeem Khan gown again any time soon, with or without the Spanx bodysuit.

Then there was the excitement over the arrival of the Christmas-Holiday Tree for the White House. Here’s Lady M with Santa, and it looks like she’s wearing one of his belts.

I’m gone a few hours and we’ve already forgotten the difference between fuchsia and scarlet?

By the way, I hear that religious ornaments have not been banned from the official White House Christmas-Holiday tree after all. It was just a big mix-up. I found a couple of boxes of these laying around the Blue Room, and as you can see they’re very festive and should look very nice on our tree.

 

And when I left town last Wednesday, I thought everything had gone swimmingly at the first official State Dinner at the Big White. Then I find out we had intruders. How rude!

I suppose the Secret Service is going to take the hit for this, but frankly, if anyone around here would just read the protocol guidelines and their job descriptions, they’d see that the Social Secretary has the final call on guests admitted to State Dinners. But Desiree Rogers, in her Comme de Garcon runway nightmare was a little too busy hob-nobbing to pay attention to her official job responsibilities, (which include finalizing the guest list) and the Barbie-doll-in-waiting slips right in.

 

Seriously, I could have made Desiree something out of a couple of old potato sacks that would have looked better. Can we say “fashion victim”? At least take the apron off.

 

 

 

 

 

 

So we get these two low-life media whores slipping into the tent without so much as an invitation.  Normally I would have said that the sari costume was a dead give away that they didn’t belong. Unfortunately, it appears that liberals think that wearing the clothes native to the country of the honored guest is somehow a deferential and respective gesture. Honestly, I wish someone would read the protocol manual!

Dr. Sanjay Gupta and wife Rebecca Olsen, and the rude Tareq and Michaele Salahi. Apparently they don’t know the difference between fuchsia and scarlet either.

 

 

 

Indra Nooyi, CEO PepsiCo, NOT wearing a sari. Even though she, being Indian born, could if she so chose.

 

 

 

 

 

Whoops! This is never supposed to happen. The stringy blonde hair, I mean. 

 

 

Like I said, the SS is going to take the fall for this, but just between you and me, there might be someone around here that loves to be the big shot and invite people to things he really isn’t authorized to. 

If I keep my mouth shot, maybe I’ll get box tickets again for the ballet this season.

 

PS Thanks everyone, for the comments while I was gone. It will take me awhile to catch up on my correspondence.

We Can Be Thankful This Year

I know a lot of you wonder if there is anything to be thankful for this year after losing the “O” - lympics and other snubs from a recently ungrateful world, but there is:

Be thankful for the men and women who, as Jack Nicholson said, “Stand on a wall” and keep us free. So troops, from me and everyone in America:

THANK YOU

and

HAPPY THANKSGIVING !!!!

Ray Charles: America the Beautiful

MOTUS will be spending the next few days at an undisclosed location, breaking bread and gobbling turkey with the troops. Back on Sunday. Let’s all be careful out there.

Indians Arrive At White House Just in Time For Thanksgiving Dinner.

By all accounts our first State dinner was a huge success. Even Katy thought so! Glitz, glamour, Hollywood! Just like the campaign.

We’ve been preparing for the Indian State Dinner all week: setting up the tent alone was a huge chore. It’s almost as big as the Big White, which I guess isn’t big enough for our parties any more.

But today was an absolute nightmare. First we had to deal with the high strung celebrity chef Marcus Samuelsson who, as it turns out, knows nothing about Indian food. North Africa? No problem. Swedish? Got it covered. Vegetarian southern Indian? Not a clue. Honestly, who’s in charge around here? But no matter, we just cleaned out whatever was left laying around in the garden and slapped some curry gravy on it. Here’s a partial menu:

Potato and Eggplant Salad
White House Arugula with Onion Seed Vinaigrette

Red Lentil Soup with Fresh Cheese

Roasted Potato Dumplings with Tomato Chutney
Chick Peas and Okra
or Green Curry Prawns with caramelized salsify with smoked Collard Greens
and coconut aged basmati

That’s not really dinner; more like garden compost. But no one will notice. The New York Times will be raving for weeks about the edgy fare: “Inspired.” “Creatively vegetarian.” Creatively pathetic, IMHO. I sent out for pizza after everyone split. The secret service guys were very grateful.

The guest list was pretty touchy too, since everybody wanted to come, especially all the rich American Desis. And Hollywood is always a problem for these events: they think all they have to do is call the day before and remind the social secretary how much money they gave Big Guy.Then there was the problem with Oprah’s invitation going missing, just after I thought everything was back on track.

But tech support was superb.In fact we haven’t seen this much tech support since the Democratic primaries.Everyone around here was asking for help with their iPod apps. Even TOTUS was a bit of pest; he wanted one of the tech specialists to take a look at his back up hard drive, which has been sending unauthorized messages to one of his channels.

But let’s just cut to the chase: it was a very busy day, with many wardrobe changes. Here are the highlights chronologically.

Morning, tangerines and limes:

Afternoon,Champagne J.Crew snowflakes, first seen with the Queen. New belt and skirt though:

Evening. Naeem Kahn – Indian born American based designer. Oh, how clever of Lady M! “The dress is entirely handmade, requiring three weeks of work by 40 people, completed in Naeem Kahn's family workshop in India.” So that’s another 40 jobs created or saved right there.

The O’s, pictured here in the portico with Indian Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, and his wife, Gursharan Kaur. They look like they just saw the dinner menu.

I could be mistaken, since I’ve only been here since Ronnie and Nancy, but I believe the only other FLOTUS to go strapless at a state dinner was Jackie. But I’m sure that’s just one of those weird cosmic coincidences. I’m absolutely positive Rosalind never went strapless.

I think, given the parameters I have to work with, I did a pretty darn good job with this. The only tricky part was getting MO squirmed into the Spanx body suit, but it was worth it. After all, even a high-tech mirror needs a little help sometimes. (OK,OK. Raj from tech support boosted my trans-imaging abilities too. But a mirror’s gotta do what a mirror’s gotta do. It’s a jungle out here.)

Over all, a great night. We made it through the whole evening without a single “Apu down at the 7/11” joke. But I hope they get here soon to pick up the elephants. They’ll probably scare the turkeys.

Jet-lagged and a Little Disoriented

Even after a whole weekend to recuperate from the East Asia Apology Tour, and a fun dinner in Georgetown at BFF Valarie Jarrett's swanky townhouse (no-slumming for her here), Big Guy was still major-league jet lagged.  He just doesn’t seem to be travelling so well these days.

So here’s the embarrassing little incident that happened last night in the East Room at Big White that we’re trying to keep under wraps:

 

   

Moshino, by the way.And belted at the natural waist. For a change.

 

 

 

BO was presenting the very special Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award to two women from Zimbabwe who are braver than the whole Zimbabwean army, in that they have stood up to the thieving, murdering dictator running their once prosperous country. Big Guy comes in, reads his elegant remarks, and then TOTUS tells him that he’s done. Now, Big Guy thinks that means like done, done, and so he leaves with Lady M by his side through the Great Hall.

 

Do you think it looks like BO’s makeup is sliding off?

 

 

But in reality, he was supposed to stay to mix and mingle at the afterglow, and when an aide finally caught up with him half way down the hall, he had to do another about face and return to sheepishly announce that "I'm allowed to stay." ” and “I never know what I'm allowed to do.” As if he had to announce this. The speculation that he was just slipping out the back for a cigarette is just wrong: do you really think MO would let that happen?

Anyway, he grabbed a glass of vino when he returned and the rest of the reception went without incident. Then we turned in early, so BO could be extra sharp for the Indian State Dinner we’re hosting tonight. He wants to impress them with his complete command of Indian cuisine, which he developed during his years in Indonesia where he did not attend a madrassas, but he did enjoy many a good madras curry.

Now some of you might think that TOTUS would really be in the dog-house for his role in making BO look like such a doofus last night, but the fact is Big Guy can’t even order take-out without him. So I think he’s safe at least through the holidays: of 2012.

Bamboozled

Lady M was reading this the other day about eco-friendly bamboo luxury fibers being used in high-end fashion such as Viridis Luxe  - favored by the eco-elites in Hollywood – when a little light went off in her head. Why not use her clout to promote not only healthy eating, but healthy dressing as well? Better living through organics!

So now we’re going to expand the Big White’s organic garden to include fruits and veggies suitable for high fashion. MO wanted to put in a bamboo grove, but the Secret Service nixed that idea for security reasons: too much cover for potential evil doers.

 

Besides, as it turns out the luxury fibers aren’t so eco-friendly after all. Apparently to create fabric, “it's chopped up and dissolved in toxic solvents—the same process that recycles wood scraps into viscose or rayon.” Eeeeuuu! Who knew?

So we considered other eco-friendly crops. Cotton was out for obvious reasons.

Flax is still in the running, although it’s pretty hard to consider linen “luxury” along any lines other than you need a staff of servants to keep it ironed.

So MO has pretty much settled on sweet potatoes. Pretty fibrous, and delicious with those little marshmallows.

We have all winter to iron out the details. We need to find a fiber manufacturer who can process the sticky fibers without chemicals. Apparently there’s no such process known to man yet, which is the same teensy-tiny problem the bamboo people have encountered as well, but like I said, we have all winter. As well as George Soros’ entire empire at our disposal: how hard can it be? Besides, he’s already committed to Big Guy that if he can create or save 1million jobs by pursuing an eco-friendly process for turning sweet potatoes into silk.

Lady M is going to delegate that processing part, maybe to Eric Holder, in order to focus on her strong suit, design, We’ve lined up a whole list of designers, and Lady M can’t wait to share some of her very own creative fashion ideas with them.

How can this not be a win-win deal for everyone?

So watch for our new Spring line of wearable vegan resort wear!

As well as a full line of handbags and millinery:

 

And even feminine undergarments:

A full line of eco-friendly, totally sustainable fashion. Good enough to eat. Mmm, mmm, mmm!

We’re still not sure what to call Lady M’s fashion line. Let me know which of these you like best: “Greening Your Seaming”, or “Gussets and Russets?” We’ve already rejected “Gowns of Greens: Made From Beans” and “Casual Cords Made From Gourds.” Just too wordy.

Lady M at Ground Zero

Anon referred me to this, which I post only to show you how much worse it could be without me.

h/t I Own the World

Thanks again anon, we all owe you.

PS. I believe that’s GM headquarters in downtown Detroit in the background.