I am old - how old? So old that I’ve taken a White House tour.
To further emphasize my oldness, I was there during the bicentennial in 1976. I remember touring the White House, the Supreme Court, the Library of Congress, some of the Smithsonian. The outside photos would suggest I toured the Capitol, though I have no recall.
What I remember best about my visit 44 years ago was how very boring it was.
Remember? Boring?
Remember four years ago? The grumpy scowl on Michelle Obama’s face, and the fading smile on Melania’s face? Remember George W’s pithy review of Trump’s speech? And, to be balanced, remember how very Jackie O Melania looked in that blue outfit? That was hot. Very TV friendly.
I pray that Biden/Harris Make Americans Bored Again.
Whew. We'll still need to keep working to Keep Politics Dull or we may get someone as malevolent but more competent in 2024, but yes. A sigh of relief. A loooong sigh of relief.
And trying to figure out how to reach out to our qanon-believing people who might be okay with prying themselves off of that now/soon but really need to get plugged into some healthy networks before they get sucked into another qanon-like thing. (that whole Biblical allegory about kicking one demon out, cleaning up the place, and then the demon coming back with six friends and saying "hey! this place is *nice* now!" and taking up residence again...)
Anyway! May politics long be boring!
Posted by: KC | January 20, 2021 at 04:06 PM
Absolutely. The rest of the world truly has been agog, appalled and astonished these last four years, so to have been on the inside must have been the pits. I wish you uneventful tedium from now on, just jobs getting done and nothing but mind-numbing administration.
Disagree about the Capitol, though - I was full of admiration for its studied splendour.
Posted by: Big Dot | January 20, 2021 at 07:38 PM
Big Dot - Studied splendour goes over better at some ages than others. :-)
Also, DC is... not short... on gorgeous, very-large-scale architecture, so if you visited the Capitol near the end rather than at the beginning of a trek, you might be more or less ok-yes-there's-another-one, kind of like if you have been marched through 5 art museums in a row; a palate cleanser is necessary to start really *getting* it again. And if you were marched through 5 art museums in a row, you would likely end up feeling like it was *all* boring just because you were brain-dead by the end of it.
(I agree, though, on the Capitol. It's just that there are so many similarly big things in DC... and I can totally see how circumstances could conspire to make it all boring, especially to someone without a specific interest, in the same way that seeing too many similar-but-another-one geysers in a row has ill effect on people without an active interest.)(I mean, also there's tour guides. Some tour guides can ruin anything.)
Posted by: KC | January 20, 2021 at 10:59 PM
Big Dot - that is nice to hear that the Capitol is impressive. I must admit, The only DC building that truly gives me pause is the red brick Smithsonian Castle on the mall. It doesn’t match. I want a Paris look in a Capitol. Same heights, same roofs, and no red brick building sticking out.
KC - I loved yesterday and today, especially the honesty from the new press Secretary. And it is possible I never got in the building and we just took the photo. A family trip with five photos. Comical to me now.
Posted by: TheQueen | January 21, 2021 at 04:46 PM
The novelty of things working Largely Like They're Supposed To is delightful.
Five photos; I hope at least most of the photos had the family in them and not just "here is an image I could have just as easily bought as a postcard"?
But honestly, with a long sequence of "and here is another historic, majestic room" (or "building") I have no idea how well you'd remember exactly what you did see, unless there was some quirk of memory that tied a place down for you; I saw a large number of truly stunning paintings in the Louvre; if you gave me a multiple-choice quiz where *one* out of each set of four was a painting that I picked out of a room and stared at for longer than 5 minutes, and the other three were paintings similar in tone and style, I am not sure I'd get any of them right? (and that was... a lot less than 44 years ago)
Posted by: KC | January 21, 2021 at 08:00 PM
KC - only one photo was just a postcard. Other things had the family. Mom wore a suit and I wore a skirt at one point. Don’t know why - maybe that was White House tour day?
Posted by: TheQueen | January 22, 2021 at 06:13 PM
The skirt and suit are intriguing! A friend toured DC and dressed professionally instead of touristy, so her photos are non-incongruous and really quite good. But shoes are a difficulty - there is so much walking (and on non-yielding surfaces) and yet dressy shoes are rarely really good walking shoes...
(I cannot even express how delighted I am that news is bland and there are no major immediate known threats. I love it.)
Posted by: KC | January 22, 2021 at 07:18 PM