(Perforated Lines--you can't resist 'em)

(bending)

(left arrow) Saturday, January 20, 2001 (right arrow)

 

1:04 a.m. Today was a very busy day -- for me, as well as for the bushes. We've been out and about, on the go, rush rush rush from the crack of dawn ... cliché, cliché ...

So I didn't watch the new resident of the White House assume his crown. Igor and I were far away from home, in the Laguna Beach area, at a book signing with Harold Burt, of Flying Saucers 101 fame. Igor was holding forth on various government activities, covert and overt, and audience members were practicing their free speech.

By the time we got home, I turned to the trusty C-Span network for a security-camera recap of the day's events and I watched in ... in ... I'm not sure of the exact words ... as the gloomy funereal procession of black hearse-like limos made their dreary way through the gray day from one official moment to the next.

When the camera saw protesters, it did not linger. Laura Bush was hanging on to a large black purse, as though she had somewhere more important to hurry off to. There were no top hats and no fur hats and actually, despite the rain, no hats at all.

Igor has mentioned how annoying it is to hear the new Resident over-pronounce his "s" sounds. Once it's pointed out, you can't stop hearing them. Then there's the way his voice goes up at the end of every single sentence, just like Bush Sr., as if he's telling you something for the hundredth time, and he's tired of lecturing you.

I watched for a while, and then I switched channels and watched some of the inaugural ball action, just in time to hear the triumphant Ms. Harris speak and wriggle her big eyebrows up and down. She creates a big scary smile at the end of each and every sentence. What fun this is!

And I have to say that the visage of our new leader is a fascinating thing to watch. He seems incredibly child-like one minute, fidgety and fearful ... and then the shadow of his dad passes over his features and he ages (drastically) for a brief moment. Then the youth returns. It's very odd to watch.

If you turned the sound off and muffled the melody of the military marching bands, muted the Yankee Doodle and the fifes and the drums, you would have thought you were looking at footage from Moscow or Argentina or some other repressed nation where power is absolute and relentless and unresponsive to the people's vote.

The few people along the route were wrapped in hooded plastic. The mandatory small-flag-waving looked desultory. The camera lens was tearing up. It has, indeed, rained on George's parade.

 

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(spinning balls)

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(left dancer) all verbiage © Nancy Hayfield Birnes (right dancer)