The Metallica Mystery Tour … continues

Ah, finally! The Imperial bow.

Big Guy’s patronizing speech to the Indian Parliament was sort of confusing. Not the patronizing part - we do imperialism rather well - but the part where he  praised India's democratic institutions: its free electoral system, independent judiciary, the rule of law, and a free press: all things that he opposes in the United States.

And apparently TOTUS refused to condemn jihad, to the dismay of some people both in India and the U.S.

Butt damn! Big Guy does love the Indian ceremonial guards and chefs.

 

Can we get some of these to take home? They’d look good in the Big White.

    Then the Indians threw us a swell state dinner. We pulled out all the stops, including our special hair, lip gloss, gold silk organza blouse, gold mini-boob belt and our special tinfoil reptilian patterned skirt that we had been saving for Indonesia.

  Another potential salt and pepper set for our collection 

I wasn’t really sure we were going to get to go to Indonesia until we actually departed in our schizophrenic dress and blue Cinderellas.

Officially the hesitation regarding the trip was due to the volcanic eruption:

Although the real eruptions we were concerned about were more domestic:

I can’t imagine what it must be like - being rejected by 2 of your 3 countries.

Anyway, Lady M went native for our deplaning and arrival,

adding her own fashion forward touch to this traditional Indonesian dress style. Our wide-legged pants and lace trimmed, boob-cinched tunic style top was unexpected. And unprecedented.

Ms.NBC explains the importance of this Indonesian trip by BO and MO:

U.S. President Barack Obama arrived in Jakarta on Tuesday on a visit aimed at boosting U.S. security and trade ties with Indonesia, and using the most populous Muslim nation to reach out to the wider Islamic world.

Indonesia — an emerging economic power but also a country where U.S.-backed military and police still stifle dissent — is an important destination for Obama for a variety of strategic and personal reasons, aides said. Its importance as a U.S. ally is on the rise, even if the joy over Obama's election has faded since he became president almost two years ago.

Occasionally, even Ms.NBC gets it right. We never know when we might need an ally who still believes in stifling dissent.

PS: Don’t miss Fausta’s take on Big Guy’s Parliamentary message! What India needs: more bureaucrats, or something.

New Delhi Whirl

This trip is such a whirlwind I can hardly keep up with the wardrobe changes.

Here’s what we’ve had going since yesterday:

 The mini-Taj Mahal (and our mini-guide)

 The mini-Taj Mahal (and BO and MO)

 Another couture dress with special MO features

BO was quite taken with Humayun’s Tomb (aka, the mini-Taj):

“I was told this was built in seven years. And for us to build something in seven years in the United States this big would be kind of tough. I give them a lot of credit. Good contractors.”

Translation: We suck, butt you guys are terrific!

And yup, their contractors were the best. Butt I understand the actual laborers weren’t represented by the SEIU and didn’t earn a living wage. Butt some oppressors are worse than others.

We had a chance to dazzle our hosts with our tallness at dinner last night:

Lady M in Presidential flats

The embroidered jacket could almost be vintage St. John from the 90’s. Butt I’m sure it’s not. And look: we finally found pants that don’t cause that “unseamly” binding. And nothing is wrinkled! I’m happy.

Wouldn’t this make a nice set of salt and pepper shakers?

The ensemble was actually a homage to Indian dress uniforms, seen here in the background behind Gibbsy’s finger (on the left hand):

We’ve also been busy shopping, visiting with the adorable little children, throwing rose petals and laying commemorative wreaths (in New Delhi, we couldn’t make the Fort Hood services this year due to a scheduling conflict).

 

No fat behinds here! I smell a vegetarian FDA food pyramid coming soon

Maybe we’re doing vintage this season: this looks vaguely ‘70s

 

Mmmm! Donuts!

So far the only thing missing is a bow. We’ve had to settle for the universal ethnic restaurant gesture of superiority.

However, we still have our address to Parliament, so it’s too early to give up. Speaking of which, Big Guy is up, so I’ve got to run.

Falling Stars: Midday Update

I hope New Delhi appreciates our fabulosity a whole lot more than Mumbai did. They seemed nice while we were there, but like so many of our ingrates back home, they took a snipe at us as soon as we turned our backs:

Well, OK maybe they thought we were dissing them with our sloppy clothes, but we just forgot to pack the Static Guard again. So look what they wrote in their stupid paper (HT/ C Gardener):

God's truth, the city was glad to see him go.

Who would have guessed that Mumbai was populated by so many Tea Partiers? I blame myself for not putting 2 and 2 together: Darjeeling, Assam, chai. Well, you get my drift.

So good riddance Mumbai,

hello New Delhi!

 

Bright and refreshed after our flight and wardrobe change. I’m going to remember to pack the steamer and Static Guard myself next time. Although that’s technically Wardrobe Assistant # 17’s job.

I’m sure things will be much better on this leg of the tricp. I’m picking up much better vibes here.

“Yes, Sahib, we’ve now removed all of the coconuts from the palms. They will all be delivered to Sahib and Rani’s suite, along with a gallon bottle of Bombay Saphire.”

Dancing With the Indian Stars

If your head isn’t spinning a little by now, you’re not paying attention.

First of all, the controversy over how to spell Gandhi’s name rages on with the O’s.  Beginning with the official sign-in at the Gandhi museum, where many thought Lady M forgot the correct spelling for a moment before recovering. Then someone has to go and produce this inscription that Big Guy wrote on his own book when it was presented to the museum collection previously:

   We American’s have trouble spelling foreign names

Don’t worry though, it’s not really a misspelling. Just more international effete intellectualism.

Mumbai was a frenetic visit, punctuated by multiple events, many of which included dancing.

Here’s our second dance of the day, this time as we were entertained by children at the Holy Name High School:

 At least we have our shoes on this time.

Even BO got involved this time. Good experience. You never know when you might decide to take your show to Broadway.

This, of course, was after Big Guy signed some big business deals with India, our new BFF, after explaining how all Americans are ignorant and guilty of stereotyping the contributions of the Indian continent,

"There still exists a caricature of India as a land of call centers and back offices that cost American jobs. That's a real perception,"

He went on to explain how the new trade deals will create or save 50,000 jobs in America. Larry Summers added the numbers up himself.

Then there was the town hall at St. Xavier College, where the students demonstrated why we outsource so many jobs. They are willing to do the job that America journalists won’t: ask tough questions. Like, what the hell happened in the mid-term elections? BO told them he must make “mid-course corrections.” Based on his 60 Minutes interview, I think we can assume this will include more lectures, since the American people still don’t seem to get it.

And then, it was on to New Delhi.

 

 

Good. Now that we have the jacket dance down, we can move on to some of the more complicated Indian dances. We’re planning a music and dance recital after Big Guy and TOTUS give their address to the Indian Parliament tomorrow.

Both BO and MO will be participating. Here’s a little sneak peak of one of our rehearsals:

I think Lady M has her moves down, and the guns are looking great, butt I think we still need to work on the costume. Big Guy’s got the costume down, but he still needs a little work on the moves. Don’t worry though, we’re flying DeneyTarrio in tonight for a crash-tutorial. By all accounts, Big Guy’s a quick learner, so nothing to worry about there.

The Star of India has Arrived

It’s hard to believe we left only 3 wardrobe changes ago. It feels like we’ve been in India forever.

For our departure we wore our new Shar Pei raincoat to go with Big Guy’s new Shar Pei face.

The Shar Pei collection

 

We departed in a wonderful comfy travel dress, complete with our favorite early November flight footwear, sky high suede boots:

Then after a little shut-eye enroute, changed into our elegant silk sari inspired arrival gown:

…tie died silk, a row of covered buttons, lovely pearls and silver shoes. This is what Ikram thought colonialists wear in India. I guess it actually does look like something the Queen might wear.

The Daily Mirror (the other one) described this look like this: “Never one to shy away from a statement fashion trend, Michelle accessorised with a bold pearl necklace, and completed the look with mirror-shiny silver court shoes.”  I think by “court” they meant royal, but never-the-less, I find the term “mirror-shiny” a bit offensive.

We wore the silk-ensem to the Gandhi Museum where BO and MO left these comments for posterity:

That’s the best you can do with 300 speech writers?

Later we went dancing with underprivileged kids, and showed them how to MOOve in order to prevent them from getting fat behinds. Which doesn’t look to be much of a problem here in Mumbai:

Barefoot and casual: I think this look would have benefited from a  cross-cultural boob-belt. 

Butt so far so good on our India vacay: no unusual gastro-intestinal disturbances – butt then that’s what our staff of 200 chefs and tasters are for.

I also snapped some great shots of Big Guy jamming with some of the local musicians. He’s really let his hair down, which is good after all the stress of the those nasty elections. I’ll be posting them a bit later, right now I think I’ll have a spot of tea with some of that special Louis XIII Cognac stocked special for the Wons. I’m feeling a bit woozy, and maybe that will help.

We Lost #1, Butt We’ll Always Have Uranus

As if the bitch-slapping we got from the ungrateful electorate on Tuesday wasn’t bad enough, Forbes just knocked Big Guy off the Numero Uno perch on it’s Most Powerful Person in the World list. You won’t believe this, butt Steve Forbes actually thinks that Hu “Who?” Jintao is the “most powerful person on Earth.” Forbes totally ignored the list of the Most Powerful People on Pluto and Uranus, where Big Guy has been deemed #1 for life.

Big Guy bows to the most powerful person on Earth

Ok, so maybe bowing to the little Chi-Com sent the wrong message. We were simply acknowledging – and grudgingly admiring - the power he wields over his own citizens. We sure as hell weren’t bowing to him as if he was one of our betters: we have no betters, and besides, he’s Chinese.

Butt rubbing salt in the wound, Forbes goes on to explain that the people are placed on the list based on their ability to “bend the world to their will.”  Forbes justifies this libelous move by gushing that Who? “(is a) Paramount political leader of more people than anyone else on the planet; exercises near dictatorial control over 1.3 billion people, one-fifth of world's population ... Unlike Western counterparts, Hu can divert rivers, build cities, jail dissidents and censor Internet without meddling from pesky bureaucrats, courts."

Hey, we could divert rivers too, if we wanted to!

STOP, you’re killing us!

It’s not like Big Guy has been totally on vacation or playing golf for the past 22 months. Well, ok, we’ve recreated a few times just to take the edge off.

Butt Steve, bubbie, are you not aware of the economic take overs we have rammed up America’s collective butts without the meddling of bureaucrats and courts?

Maybe we haven’t  diverted any rivers, butt we got an irrigation ditch supplying water to Mendota, CA shutdown, throwing all 10,000 Latino residents into the unemployment line so we could save a smelt. Has Who? done that?

And we haven’t slammed Blago into the hoosegow, butt not because we’re afraid we’ll end up in the cell next door. And besides, he’s not so much a dissident as a friend with secrets.

If there’s any consolation in the list it is that we kicked Puti-Put’s Ruskie ass, figuratively, and left the Pope in our dust. Butt, we’re not comfortable with some of the other members of the “Top 10”:

1. Hu Jintao
   1. Who?
2. Big Guy
3. King Abdullah Bla bla bla
   1. OK, he’s Royal
4. Puti-Put
   1. No Comment
5. The Pope
   1. Cool hats
6. Angie Merkel
   1. Chick
7. David Cameron
   1. Metrosexual
8. Ben “Ben-Bern” Bernanke
   1. One of Big Guy’s small people
9. Sonia Gandhi
   1. Chick
10. Bill Gates
    1. Greedy Capitalist pig

Clearly, the list is devalued since it has chicks and small people in the Top 10, not to mention Big Guy not on top.

We had high HOPEs for Forbes after they wisely chose Lady M to head their “Most Powerful Woman” list, kicking Fancy Nancy’s Frisco caboose. Butt the temptation to pile on Big Guy was too much after our Tuesday spanking.

Well, Steve, you picked Who? and stuck it to Obama. The only thing left to say is you’re going to regret it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life.

And remember, he’ll always have Uranus