Capitol Cowgirl

The Trench

2009-04-22T14:18:00.000-07:00

I won't lie to myself, I am a glorified receptionist. (I have an embossed golden eagle on my business card, hence the glorification.) Not that I'm complaining, because I do have a wonderful job. Maybe in some inflated, bohemian fasion I should consider my job important. I man the front lines; I lie in the foremost trench, exchanging verbal fire with senior citizens, zealots, and crazies. I am an infantrywoman. Here is an example of the daily battles I fight on the telephone. The fight is to stay calm and rational and sweet, regardless of who's calling and why...

Me: "Good afternoon, Senator Enzi's office."

Caller: "Yea, I am watching your boss Ensign on the Chris Matthew's show right now. I think he, along with the entire Bush Adminstration, needs to go to jail for advocating torture."

Me: "Sir, this isn't Senator Ensign's office."

Caller: "Oh....Who's office is this?"

Me: "This is Senator Enzi's office."

Caller: "Is he a Republican?"

Me: "Yes, sir, he is a Republican."

Caller: "Then he should go to jail too."

Me: "Alright, thanks for calling."

These are the times when I want to abadon standard office procedure and tell gentlemen like this that they are pinheads if that is their political philosophy and encourage them to move to Zimbabwe. Then I would remind them that one-party goverments are simple dictatorships. But instead, I put on my smiley voice, thank them for calling, then brace myself for the next caller.

Obama Mama

2009-03-17T20:27:00.001-07:00

I've put off the telling of this story for far too long. It is now time.....

Return with me to November 2008, when economic doom was not yet imminent and New Hampshire wasn't threatening to secede from the Union. The good old days.

Shortly after Barack Obama's historic November 4 election, I was on a train leaving DC for the wild terrain of suburban Maryland. And who should join me in my train cubby but three Kenyans en route to charming Baltimore. I enjoy talking to strangers, especially foreign ones, so we introduced ourselves and started chatting. They were justifiably excited about Obama's victory. And I was excited that they were excited. But after only five minutes of conversation, it was apparent that Boniface was determined that I would become his blonde bride if I but accepted his advances (which included offers of African safaris and pilgrimages to Obama's deadbeat dad's grave.) I smiled and tried to let him down easy. He was not deterred. He decided to pull out the big guns. And this is what he said.

"Everyone I know who comes here, they marry Americans! I love American women! American woman, Kenyan man,they make Obama!"

I laughed. This relative stranger was offering me the chance of a lifetime. I could give birth to the future leader of the free world, with his help of course. I could be an Obama Mama! Tempting. This is not where I piped up and informed him that I didn't vote for Obama. I just smiled, waved farewell, and got off at my stop. Haha. I love public transportation!

Inauguration Day 2009--To Hell and Back

2009-01-23T12:53:00.000-08:00

I bore witness to history and here are my thoughts.

The Swearing-In Ceremony--sucked like hell. Packed like sardines, with the only thing visible being the backsides of other suckers, I moved 100 feet in 3 hours. When we finally did arrive at the Capitol Grounds, we could see relatively nothing except the backsides of other suckers again. I was cold and my back hurt.

The Parade--sucked like hell. The parade was almost two hours late. My feet were so cold, my toes almost fell off.

The Ball--sucked like hell. Bad food. Expensive drinks. Long lines. Got seperated from my friends for two hours, before finally pushing my way through hundreds of people again packed liked sardines, much to their chargin.

My conclusion: Cattle at feedlots get treated better than we treated ourselves on Inauguration Day. But we were there. Yea.

As a side note: I'm tired and pissy today. There were bright moments during that very long day, however, I'm too tired to remember them at the moment.

O, Tannenbaum

2008-12-22T11:53:00.000-08:00

From the Ghost of Christmas Past comes a classic coversation piece from the dynamic powerhouse duo of Amber Johnson and Sarah Case. May their holiday spirit live forever in the hearts of all children, chickens, Germans, and single women the world over.

Act I:
The stage is set. The lights are dim. The candles lit. Amber begins to sing "O, Tannenbaum" in Genglish with some made-up words, hacking and spitting her way through it. Sarah stares across the table at her in bewilderment, not certain whether she should be laughing or putting her friend on meds. "What was that?" "That was 'O, Tannenbaum' in German ... I think."

Act II:
Amber: "We need to search for a tannenbaum soon."
Sarah: "I thought you weren't going to tannenbaum this year?"
Amber: "I'm not - it's for you ... Cheque, por favor?"
Sarah: "Chicken, por favor? Is that what you said?"
Amber: "CHICKEN FOR THE POOR? What??"

Moondancer

2008-12-08T19:38:00.000-08:00

While mostly enjoyable, there are certain perils to social dancing. Unbeknowest to many onlookers, there is always a dance within a dance going on somewhere on the hardwood floor. I twirl and leap and bound with as much grace as possible just to get out of the reach of a certain someone. But no matter how hard I try, after four minutes of ecstasy on the dance floor, I turn around to find him there, hand out stretched. "Would you like to dance?" Damnit! "Sure," I reply. Then I spend the next four minutes waiting for the dance to end so I can twirl and leap and bound as far away from him as possible. Let me explain...

First think "Grandpa" then picture this: Chia Pets growing in both ears, caterpillar-like eyebrows frolicking in the wind, Medusa-like serpents protruding from each nostril, a mountain man beard, and a flood of grey, course hair secured into a ponytail. The man looks like John Brown reincarnated, except John Brown was better kempt! As a common courtesy, it's common to ask, "So, what's your name?" So, I ask this rather hairy old man, "So, what's you name?" And he says, "You can call me Moondancer." Blink. Blink. Smile. That name really does just makes things that much worse.

Sometimes in the course of a dance, my forehead brushes against his scraggly beard and I grimace. Sometimes he'll wiggle his hips as though to entice me into doing the same, but all I can do is close my eyes real tight and go to my happy place far far away. The most traumatic part of the dance, however, and it happens numerous times within the course of just one dance, is his signature rock step. What, may you ask, is so traumatic about his rock step? Shortly after the rock step, he pulls me in so close that our faces are merely inches from one other. His lips form an O and his eyes get so big that I swear they might pop out of his head. It's in that moment when I long for my heavenly home, a place where nose hairs are always trimmed and I can eat all the chocolate I want. If there is one lesson Moondancer has taught me, it is this: _____________________________ (Please use this blank to insert the moral you learned from this blog.)

Nightmare on 34th Street

2008-12-02T15:27:00.000-08:00

As evidenced by this photo, I was almost canibalized by Spongebob Squarepants at the Macy's Day Parade in broad daylight. I'm not sure "canibalized" is the appropriate word though, given that he is sponge and I am human. Hmmmm? Spongebob has also been known to date squirrells and I don't know how to categorize that relationship either. Anyhoo, if you are wondering why I look so happy in said photograph, it's only because I know that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. Amen.

Cubin People

2008-11-05T09:08:00.000-08:00

Given that the House of Representatives is the voice of the majority, it is almost pointless to send our one Wyoming representative to Washington. (Especially when she rarley shows up to cast her vote.) But we take what we can get, we're not too proud to scrape the bottom of the barrell. Now, after seven two-year terms in Congress, Wyoming Represenative Barbara Cubin is finally retiring. It's easy to forget that not everyone has memorized the names of the 435 members of the House of Representatives, especially the name of the lone voice of the least populated state. Go figure. So coversations like the one below are fairly understandable.

Javier (President of the Hispanic Congressional Association): "How do you know Joy?"

Me: "Oh, we played softball together this summer. We have a lot of Cubin people on the Wyoming softball team."

Javier: "Yeah, they are good ball players. We could use some Cuban people on our softball team. We have some guys from the Dominican Republic who play with us though."

Me: Pause. "Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha."

Dancing With the Stars--Presidential Style

2008-10-17T07:33:00.000-07:00

Moose Hunting--Washington's Favorite Pastime

2008-09-23T21:43:00.000-07:00

This "Times" political cartoon caused me to chortle effervescently on the metro--for which I received strange, concerned glances.

Bailout Blues

2008-09-22T21:23:00.000-07:00

"Play it again Sam." And again. And again. And again. And again. The piano player gets a little tired, okay, really tired, of playing the same song over and over again. Such is the life of a staff assistant on Capitol Hill on the eve of financial meltdown. Theme song: "Eve of Destruction." The panic button was pushed followed closely by a sounding trumpet and a resounding, "Release the Hounds!" Trying to answer four phone calls from angry constituents at the same time is similar to fending off a pack of staffer-eating wolves. Think "Call of the Wild" meets "9 to 5." After they've nawed on you for a while, their hunger seems somewhat appeased and they abandon your bloody caurcus for the next caller to snack on. Granted, their response is warranted and their attacks are never personal. However, a consistent eight hours of pissy voters leaves this Capitol Cowgirl with a nasty case of the bailout blues.

Farewell to Summer--An Ode to Sunbathing

2008-09-21T21:36:00.000-07:00

Upon deciding that I was as pasty as a frosty cone, I took up the sport of sunbathing—for a whopping two days. It was a traumatic two days. My father had just laid a concrete slab at the back of the house in preparation for a new porch that wouldn’t be built for another six years. Here I laid myself. I was as frosty as Snow White herself, but not as thin or delicate. My short, chubby frame was sprawled onto a Loony Toons beach towel. The sun was beating down upon my pudgy belly and Porky Pig-like legs. As Sylvester and Tweety Bird as my witnesses, I was dreadfully uncomfortable. My conscience smote from within, for I was clad in nothing but an evil two-piece, blue and white bathing suit. It was by no means a bikini, however, I still felt the fiery judgment of God beating down upon me. Had I but confessed ownership of such unholy contraband, my friend Patty would have beat her breasts and rolled around in sackcloth and ashes, lamenting the very destruction of my soul. I was in just this frame of thought when I heard the devil himself crackling with delight. Actually, it wasn’t the devil at all, but my cousin Aimee. At that moment, she might as well have been the devil himself, for in her hands lay the very instrument of wickedness itself—a camera. “Click.” Now God would have proof. I was doomed for eternity.

As you might imagine, I felt the need to hunt down a more proper sunbathing locale. Someplace close to the sun, but far from the eyes of neighbors and cousins alike. My eyes sparkled with victory. Of course, why hadn’t I thought of this before? The flat-roofed garage was resplendent with brand new black shingles. Hope had been restored, as had my imagination. I saw myself as I would be at the end of the summer, bronzed and beautiful, beating off the boys seeking the favor of the legendary sun-goddess.

The next afternoon I propped a ladder against the garage and scaled up its side. Once on top I laid out my Sylvester and Tweety Bird beach towel and plopped myself upon it. Stretching out, I felt rather smug. Rejoicing in my own awesome cleverness, I settled in for some sun. What were the odds, then, that the telephone company would roll into the alley at just that moment. I sucked my white and blue body into those black shingles, willing myself invisible. I lay very still and watched in horror as two gentlemen climbed into their company man-lift and began to ascend toward the power lines. Our eyes locked. I don’t think I could have descended off that garage roof any faster than I did, even given wings and not a ladder. Some memories are just too hard to heal. I never did attempt sunbathing ever again. Alas, I am doomed to awkward tan lines forever.

Farewell Mr. Sun! I'll see you again next summer...