Michelle, Marbella. Sont des mots qui vont tres bien ensemble.

Yesterday kicked off the start of a very busy month here at the Big White. First and most important of course is Big Guy’s birthday. We’ll be celebrating that in Spain, while Big Guy is in Boyz Town  Chicago racking up the loot for future conquests.

All aboard for Boyz Town! H/T Mrs. P.

But we’re bringing our iPhones to Spain, so we can phone it in - our personal wishes, that is. Then when we get back from our pre, pre, pre-vacation we’ll just barely have time to pack for our pre, pre, pre, pre-vacation on the Gulf where we’re actually going to have to go outside in the hot sun for photo ops.

 

Happy Family returning from Chicago, above, and Bar Harbor, below

When we get home from that exhausting vacation, we’ll barely have time to pack for our real vacation on the Vineyards. As I said, a very busy month.

Lady M is also  dealing with the defection of her communications director Camille Johnston, who will be taking a job in the private sector. I was surprised at first, since I didn’t think there were any jobs left in the private sector. But when I heard she was going to work for Siemens as VP of Corporate Communications,

Big Guy at Siemens wind turbine blade plant in Iowa, last April

I realized it was one of the millions of jobs that Big Guy created or saved! Eric Spiegel, president and CEO for Siemens Corporation, said:

"Our Company's portfolio is well-aligned with America's priorities right now, and we believe our technologies can move the national agenda forward.  This is a major reason why we are moving our U.S. headquarters to DC – and why we are thrilled to have Camille's extensive communications and public affairs expertise to help us position Siemens more broadly in this country."

Allow me to interpret: “we’re going to milk this administration’s obsession with a green energy agenda and we think Cammi can help us gain access to the people who are handing out all the ‘green’.” So we’ll still be hearing from her regularly, but that doesn’t mean we won’t still miss her. As MO said in a formal statement:

"Camille has become a trusted advisor to me and to the entire East Wing. From our first day in the White House when we opened the doors and greeted visitors, she has led a communications team that has developed creative and effective strategies for the Let's Move! campaign, our work on behalf of military families, arts and cultural events in the White House and our international agenda. Her dedication, calming presence and expertise have been invaluable. She will be missed, but we wish her all the best."

Again, allow me to interpret: “Camille’s the one who’s been doing all the heavy lifting around here, so don’t expect a whole lot from me until we find another worker bee a replacement.” And that’s the real reason we’re taking August off.

Cammi, Desi and Jackie: Three down, 19 more to go…

Lady M was so upset about losing Cammi that she needed to get away for a bit. But you can tell that the girlfriend vacay in Spain was pulled together at the last minute, and we didn’t do all the homework.

Villa Padierna at the Costa del Sol resort of Marbella

Although the Villa Padierna on the Costa del Sol resort of Marbella is a 5-star resort, it is apparently a tacky  5-star resort. According to the Telegraph: 

Yet despite the sophistication and elegance of the (resort) where Mrs Obama will arrive with her nine-year-old daughter Sasha on Wednesday, Marbella's reputation does not make it an obvious destination for the First Lady.

Indeed, her decision to holiday on the Costa del Sol has been met with bemusement by some, who associate Marbella more with reality television stars, gangsters, corrupt politicians and wannabe WAGs (wives and girlfriends) than with the genuinely chic and classy Mrs Obama.

Oh, I don’t know: reality tee vee star, check. Gangsters, check. Corrupt politicians – well frankly, this is getting just a bit too obvious don’t you think? Anyway, Lady M had read that Jackie O used to go there to cavort with European royalty and she decided that if it was good enough for Jackie it was good enough for her. She should have done a little more checking on Travelocity. Although normally that would have been Cammie’s job.

Jackie, traveling first, with class

Chelsea Morning on the Rhine: Updated

Now Bill Clinton - he knows how to throw a former-first-daughter wedding! A designer gown, former Astor estate nuptials, beautiful people, months in the making spare-no-expense social extravaganza (and, refreshingly, mostly not on your dime). The wedding drew a phalanx of paparazzi and disrupted everything, including other weddings, in Rhinebeck, New York. But it was worth it.

Compare Chelsea’s fab affair to the former-first-daughter Jena Bush’s wedding, who was married at sunset at the Bush ranch in Crawford Texas (also not on your dime). GWB doesn’t even know how to throw a proper wedding: Jena and Henry’s wedding, at the Bush ranch, officiated by Pastor Kirbyjon Caldwell. He’s an authentic African American as far as I know. 

But Chelsea’s wedding – it was the stuff little girls dreams are made of: hyped as the “wedding of the century” (so far anyway, there are still 90 years to go), and the wedding of American royalty (well, I’ll concede there does seem to be a resemblance between Chelsea and Princess Anne)

Princess Anne and first husband, what’s-his-name 

 Chelsea, looking quite royally British

Here’s the only good news from little miss smarty-pants’ wedding: Oprah wasn’t invited either! Or Babs. Or Stephen Spielberg as it turns out. Or maybe, like Lady M, they were all busy getting their nails done. As it turns out, the star power at the nuptials was pretty dim. Well, aside from the Clintons themselves of course. Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen were the only real “stars” and let’s face it, they haven’t been A-listers for years.

Here’s the first picture of the happy couple. Boy, after all that cosmetic surgery wouldn’t you think she might have picked up something a little more impressive than a girly-man? Oh well, at least she looked like a cake top bride. Nice work by Vera on the gown.

Although I’m afraid if Ms. Wang had seen what her momma wore yesterday she might have demanded the gown back.

Yikes! This looks like something Lady M might wear after a bad weekend

Maybe she was expecting an emergency call from Big Guy to report  to Saudi Arabia.

Anyway, I’m sure Mom and Dad are pleased that their little girl married into a solidly Democratic family. New groom Marc Mezvinsky is the son of former Democratic Iowa congressman and convicted felon Edward Mezvinsky and former NBC reporter and former Pennsylvania congresswoman Marjorie Morgolies-Mezvinsky. But don’t worry, daddy’s crime was pure white collar. Ponzi schemes, you know like Bernie Madoff? And he’s been out of the clink since 2008. In retrospect, he blames it all on undiagnosed bipolar disorder. So, that’s good. He’s not just a chump like Bernie.

Marc’s mother and father are divorced now. And do you want to hear an uncanny coincidence? Marjorie Morgolies-Mezvinsky’s first husband had financial “difficulties” too, forcing her to withdraw as candidate for Pennsylvania’s Lieutenant Governor in 1988. Seriously, what are the odds?

Oh, and did I mention that young Marc is an investment banker? Yes, he used to work for the despised Goldman Sacks, but now we works for a despised hedge fund, G3 Capital. But don’t worry, he studied religion and philosophy in his undergraduate years at Stanford, so he’s got all those bases covered. Now that he’s one of the greedy Wall Street bankers who are ruining America, Chelsea will never have to worry about money again. But as a backup (in case divorce runs in his family), she just completed a masters degree in public health. This could be her key to the executive manor. Along with her law degree legal knowledge (she’s not a lawyer, but might play one on TV in the future, HT: clarice) and Obamacare - which will require years of legislative and regulatory meddling crafting – she’s a natural. But don’t get any big ideas, Chelsea girl, about who’s in charge of the Public Health around here.

Step away from my gravy train, b**ch!

 

 

 

 

Uncle Roger was able to make it to the swanky wedding too. He’s looking more like big bro every year. You may be able to take the “hill” out of “billy,” but not out of  unk’ Roger.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And finally, here’s good news if you’re looking for a new vacation get away: the 50 acre Astor Courts is for sale! I understand that if it sells within 30 days, the Clintons will get a 75% rebate on the cost of the wedding. Damn! Those Clintons still have the magic working for them.

Lady M  and Big Guy are interested, but they’re going to wait until the 30 days elapse.

I also assembled an album of photos from the wedding-that-we-didn’t-even–get-to-send-our-regrets to: enjoy!

View Full Album

Rebukes and Spooks; Volts and Votes

So, it looks like we’re not going to Chelsea’s wedding after all. More about that tomorrow. As you may imagine, this is a bit of a sore point.

The good news last week was – other than the tantrum Lady M threw when she found out about the wedding slight – it was a fairly quiet week around here. MO exhibited uncommonly good sense and did not venture out without me.

Everyone was busy anyway, getting Malia  ready for camp and Lady M and little Sasha packed for their ‘girlfriends’ trip to Spain. Spain! Are you thinking what I’m thinking? El Bulli! Ferran Adrià’s temple of molecular gastronomy: you know - where food is spun out of thin air and light, nothing is what it appears to be, and as much attention is paid to the vessel the food is placed in as the food itself. Sounds like comfort food in Oz.

  El Bulli raspberry course, minimal and yet somehow still unsatisfying 

 

 

 

 

El Bulli’s famous white foam on black base: meant to excite your palate and want more: much, much more

 

 

El Bulli chocolate and pinenut “plums”

 El Bulli “mussels”

 

El Bulli pond scum soup, gilded with water lilies

 

 

 

 

El Bulli “olives” spheres of ephemeral olive flavoring. Will not work well in martinis.

 

 

 

“Molecular” used in conjunction with dinner doesn’t as a rule interest Lady M, as it seems to designate “tiny things.” But we’ve been told not to worry; that while each course is lacking in bulk, the tasting menu compensates with quantity: between 40 and 50 courses! Of course, each ‘course’ is only one bite. We could still have a problem: the last time MO restrained herself to just 50 bites at a meal was when she was recovering from a bout of food poisoning – which was quite suspicious and is still under investigation.

Anyway, it looks like we’ll be going to Spain just in time to enjoy El Bulli because the restaurant will be closing for good after this season. Apparently even at $500 per head (excluding the Stoli) the restaurant has been losing over half a million Euros per year. That sounds like economics we can believe it. Maybe if Lady M really likes it, she can get Big Guy to give them a bailout. Of course if we do, they’ll have to produce an alternate low-fat, vegan menu each night, to support our No Child’s Fat Behind program. 

El Bulli’s peas: regular and “spun” into a sphere of good intentions

Kind of like at GM. Big Guy was in Motown yesterday, doing high-fives and taking victory laps in celebration of GM turning out such a wonderful little sardine can car, the Chevy Chevrolet Volt, with the $50 billion bailout Big Guy gave them.

Driving the GM Bailout: Behind the wheel of GM’s Green lemon

Oh, and they also created or saved 55,000 jobs with that money! Wow! Aren’t Obamanomics awesome!? Everyone is just as excited as can be, even the hard-to-impress NYT:

For starters, G.M.’s vision turned into a car that costs $41,000 before relevant tax breaks ... but after billions of dollars of government loans and grants for the Volt’s development and production. And instead of the sleek coupe of 2007, it looks suspiciously similar to a Toyota Prius. It also requires premium gasoline, seats only four people (the battery runs down the center of the car, preventing a rear bench) and has less head and leg room than the $17,000 Chevrolet Cruze, which is more or less the non-electric version of the Volt.

In short, the Volt appears to be exactly the kind of green-at-all-costs car that some opponents of the bailout feared the government might order G.M. to build.

  Check out that body!

Meanwhile, back on the home front: because Sasha has seemed so sad lately, probably because she has to go to Spain instead of going to sleepover camp with Malia,  Big Guy and Lady M took her to the International Spy Museum last night. When they got back they both looked really spooked. I have no idea what they have in that museum, but apparently it’s really unsettling.  Or maybe it’s because of the book little Sasha selected from the museum store: The Dead Drop. I’ll admit, the synopsis is a little unsettling.

Spies like me

But it’s just a book. It’s nowhere near as unsettling as the real thing:

Next week we’ll all be back in our comfort zone, doing what we do best: Big Guy will be campaigning around the country, Lady M will be staying at 5-star resorts, and I’ll be refracting reality, making sure that nothing, indeed, is as it seems.

Back Soon

Heartfelt thanks to everyone for your comforting words,thoughts and prayers. And for keeping an excellent thread going in my absence. MOTUS will be back in full tomorrow morning.

In the meantime: Good News! Long time MOTUS commenter, Labwriter has finally got her blog, Touched With Fire back on line after being down for a month! Today she features comments on the Won’s View appearance. You should go see.

You will also enjoy her previous post, “Fixed”  which has a clip of  k.d. lang channeling Gertrude Stein - although I think I detect a bit of Wayne Newton. And if you watch closely, at 4:21 I think you’ll see where Lady M learned her signature gait.

It’s a beautiful song (although no one can do it better than the song’s poet, Leonard Cohen) and k.d. has a beautiful voice, I’d say it’s better to just listen than to watch. Kind of how I feel about Lady M some days.

See you all back here tomorrow. Thanks again to all.

Open Link Thursday

Open link for Thursday, July 29. Please keep the rest of the MOL’s updated on the comings and goings of the Royals while we are gone…

Sun sets behind the beacon of hope                    photo: Jim Coe

Open Link Wednesday

Open link for Tuesday, July 28. Please keep the rest of the MOL’s updated on the comings and goings of the Royals while we are gone…

Hope we can believe in

Open Link Tuesday

Open link for Tuesday, July 28. Please keep the rest of the MOL’s updated on the comings and goings of the Royals while we are gone…

We all need a little more Hope

The Shrinking Circle of Life

One week a wedding, one week a funeral. The circle of life closes in.

 Circle of Life by Vitor Bosshard via The Fractal Forest

Sadly, I must report that Team Motus, (which is really just Raj and me) has experienced a death in the family and will be taking a break for the remainder of the week while we tend to family rather than the tomfoolery of the Royal Wons. We will be back by Saturday.

I will post an open thread daily (consider this today’s), in case you have breaking news, pictures, videos and snark you wish to share.  I know our MOL’s, MODS and FOM’s are an independent, clever and creative lot so I trust you to take care of yourselves while we’re gone.

There's far too much to take in here
More to find than can ever be found
But the sun rolling high through the sapphire sky
Keeps great and small on the endless round

                                                    Elton John, The Circle of Life