Archive for February 21st, 2009
Who would run the best day care center?
Head over to this site, and then look to the right.
Just look who’s in the lead.
It’s not our champ, even though we’d have kids JUST to send them to Hillary Clinton’s day care center.
Nope, the leader’s another woman we love in this world.
You betcha.
Sometimes the Universe Brings You the Wrong French Toast
Dear HillBuzz,
When I first moved to Chicago, I dated a guy named Jason who inspired the term “Eeyore” that I now consistently apply to people who not only see metaphoric glasses half-full, cry over spilled milk, live in a woeful past, and dwell on everything negative, but are determined to bring down the rest of us with them.
It’s like a goal they have, to make those unlucky enough to be around them as miserable and rain-cloud besotted as they are.
Jason the Eeyore and I lasted about a month together, finally breaking up after a trip to the local Jewel to get, of all things, trays of crudite and various salsas for an Amazing Race viewing party, where Jason was upset I talked to not only the elderly woman in front of us in checkout line, but her little grandbaby riding happily in the shopping cart’s fold-down rumble seat too.
“Stop talking to babies and old people! I hate it when you do that!”, Jason bellowed, in clear earshot of a woman who not only radiated sweetness and light, but was in many ways a dead-ringer for Golden Girl Betty White.
Jason totally dissed Rose Nylon.
And I knew, before the carrots, tomatoes, and tiny baby snow peas were rung up, that Jason and I were through, and that no matter who won the Amazing Race that night, he and I would never be crossing any finish lines of our own together.
But, on the way back to his place with the groceries, knowing full well I’d start a new chapter in my life single the next day (and free to talk to as many babies or surviving members of America’s funniest sitcom of all time as I wanted, without scolding), I realized Jason would always be someone I was thankful for knowing, because he not only clued me in on the Eeyores of the world, but he also introduced me to Orange, one of my favorite restaurants in Chicago, and gave me a life lesson there I’d never forget.
Orange serves only breakfast or brunch, and is painted in shades of bright, sunshine-happy, delicious Florida sparkling, well, orange. When you walk into the place, you smell citrus wafting in the air, Fruity Pebbles pancakes cooking and bacon sizzling merrily somewhere, and you’re transported instantly to this safe and snuggly place that’s not Belmont and Broadway, Chicago, USA anymore, but somewhere in your heart where nothing bad can or should happen. Someplace safe and sweet. Someplace all about breakfast and smiles and love and good company.
Unless you’re Jason the Eeyore, in which case you see Orange as just another place to rain down on, and you look for ways to ruin everyone’s day and squeeze the last remaining joy out of their lives.
Breakfast started well enough, though, with fresh fruit sushi Orange calls “frushi” ( sweet coconut rice and various fruits with little cranberry, strawberry, and apricot dipping sauces), served alongside piping hot orange-infused coffee that honestly made every cell in my body feel so relaxed, happy, and alive.
Jason thought the coffee was bitter, and of course the frushi was good, but not as good as it was the last time he was there. Jason hates cranberries, and got a tiny splinter from the chopsticks that, after three tries, with Jason practically jamming his finger into my face, I still couldn’t see. He seemed almost disappointed there wasn’t anything bad to say about the frushi, the kind of person who just keeps looking for something to pick at.
Which, of course, he found when our main orders arrived.
I had the pancake flight, a foursome of tiny babycakes Orange does as a special every day, centered around a different theme each day (and on that visit, it was “The Beatles”, with a Ringo of honey oats and granola, a Strawberry Fields with cream and berries, two more connected to Harrison and McCartney that were so delicious they were wolfed down before my brain could even properly file them away for this essay I never expected to write). Jason ordered chai stuffed french toast, filled with cream cheese and something else, which sounded delicious, like everything else at Orange.
Not being a fan of seafood, Orange is one of the few places in the world where I could eat absolutely everything that comes out of the kitchen, no matter what it was. As long as it looks and smells delicious, I honestly wouldn’t care if it wasn’t what I ordered, as long as it was something I could eat. To me, life’s too short to send things back. Sometimes the universe surprises you with something it wanted you to have instead.
Which is not how Jason the Eeyore sees things.
Instead of the chai stuffed french toast, Jason’s eyes drooped when he saw the chai french toast kebobs put in front of him (which were almost, but not quite, the same thing as what he ordered).
So, Jason, aghast, sent them back. And I had the pleasure of listening to Jason’s take on this particular travesty of culinary justice as the waitress flew back to the kitchen to grab the correct order.
She literally was gone, at most, a minute. It seemed much longer than that because of the black hole of despair and indignation Jason had become, but the waitress literally left our table with the kebobs (which looked DELICIOUS), went to the kitchen, the door closed behind her, and she reappeared with the chai stuffed french toast for Jason.
She apologized profusely, but Jason just grumbled something and looked down at his plate, unhappy. But, beneathe a skowl that would make Michelle Obama proud of Jason for the first time in her adult life, I detected the sadistic glint of a smirk, because Jason thought he found something wrong with this order, too.
“It’s ice cold. I can’t eat this. It’s FREEZING. Here, try it,” he said, pushing a forkful over to me, in the odd way people do when they think something tastes bad or smells funny (so, obviously, they want you to smell and taste it too, because it’s so bad).
Curious, I ate the chai stuffed french toast and my taste buds rejoiced. I can’t remember the last time I had anything that good in my mouth (no entendres of any kind intended). The flavor combinations were impressive, with layers of savory and sweet, and a little hint of unexpected basil in the cream cheese filling. I absolutely loved his breakfast, even more than my Beatles pancake flight (which was damn good in its own right). Which, incidentally, was perfectly cooked and HOT. It wasn’t cold at all.
“Do you want me to tell you what I think, or do you want me just to say it’s cold?”, asked him, knowing no matter what I said, Jason was dead-set on sending the plate back and making a scene.
The waitress was a real trooper, so much so that I decided at that moment whatever my half of the check came to, she was getting a 50% tip for putting up with Jason, who made the very scene I expected from him, complete with a lecture about how hot things should be when served (since Jason was a waiter himself…at a Bennigan’s out by the airport). And the waitress didn’t even roll her eyes or condescend back at him. Make that a 100% tip.
Jason sent another version of that chai stuffed toast back another two times before he was finally satisfied. I long ago finished by pancake flight, and actually ordered more frushi as I sat there for what became a three hour breakfast at Orange. People came and went, sitting down for breakfast, then heading back to their lives, as Jason and I occupied that table, with chai stuffed french toast appearing from the kitchen to visit Jason briefly, before disappearing back into what I imagine to be an increasingly more angry kitchen.
Orange comped our check, but I gave the waitress $50 anyway, so embarrassed by what Jason had done. And I truly believe he set out looking for flaws, trolling for something to complain about, because over the course of dating him, he only ever seemed happy when he was making other people miserable.
After we broke up, that chai french toast really defined not only our relationship to me, but taught me a lot about myself, too. I would have eaten the kebobs and enjoyed them as a surprise from the universe. To me, they were an unexpected adventure, like driving to what you thought was a funeral home and finding an amusement park instead. Jason would mope around complaining he didn’t get to go to a funeral, while I laughed my head off on the roller coaster of life.
And so, “sometimes the universe brings you the wrong french toast” became one of the idioms I use frequently now, and I’ve infected all my friends’ conversations with it as well. It’s shorthand for “sometimes things don’t work out the way you thought, but deal with it”.
More often than not, life brings you delicious surprises, like the french toast kebobs I would have never in a million years ordered, but would have relished when put in front of me. Surprise! And, maybe, the kebobs where what I really needed, nutrionally, anyway. Instead of all those strawberries and cream. Maybe the universe knew better. Maybe it was trying to tell Jason something.
You can’t read too much into breakfast without proving how crazy you are (especially when the Alphabits starts telling you to do things), but sometimes the universe really does send you the wrong french toast for a reason.
When I look at Hillary Rodham Clinton excelling as Secretary of State, looking so happy and confident in her role abroad, I still wish she was our President but am delighted she is in no way connected to the boondoggle that is the Trillion Dollars in spending the Demcorats just forced through Congress. Hillary Clinton will not be saddled with this economic mess. She will not be responsible for anything domestic, as this nation suffers through what’s likely to be a brutal three or four years. Hillary Clinton may not be President today — but that means she’s not in danger of becoming a Carter-esque one-term-disaster-of-a-President.
Sometimes, the universe brings you the wrong french toast.
I never thought Clinton would end up at the State Department, and honestly never gave the State Department much thought in the course of my day. And now, I am riveted by everything she’s doing at Foggy Bottom and follow the State Department’s website regularly. And it’s really been a blessing, in a way. With everything so bad at home, and so many new Eeyores breeding every day in this economy, it’s refreshing to see Clinton in China and read about Sino-American trade relations, instead of following which banks are insolvent and in danger of being nationalized today.
So, Hillary Clinton certainly ordered the chai stuffed french toast for herself, but the universe brought her the french toast kebobs instead. She could have sent them back, and moped around like Jason, but she chose to relish what was put in front of her, and excel on a path she never saw for herself before.
That really inspires me.
And it doesn’t preclude her from ordering the chai stuffed french toast again at some point in the future, like seven years from now.
Just like none of my personal setbacks ever prevent me from trying again, too. Or prevent you from doing whatever you want to do, either.
Life’s just too short to mope and Eeyore about things.
Eat the kebobs if you get them, and realize there are unlimited surprises all around us. Some people roll with the punches, get over personal disappointment, and make the best of all opportunities presented to them.
You can either be Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State of the United States.
Or, you can be Jason, the Eeyore.
Because sometimes the universe brings you the wrong french toast, and it’s always up to you to decide how you’re going to react.
Sebastian Gray,
Chicago, IL
Hillary Clinton in Beijing: Now, and Then
And here’s Clinton in Beijing, back in 1995, asserting human rights are women’s rights, and women’s rights are human rights.
Sometimes we think people lose sight of how truly extraordinary it is that the woman who came to Beijing in 1995 as First Lady went on to become a United States Senator, presidential candidate, and, now, United States Secretary of State. Who knows where she’ll go in the future, but we hope she continues to be a force on the world stage for decades to come, just as she’s been for 17 years now.
Would you voluntarily leave your dream job, that no one on Earth can legally fire you from?
What if you lucked into your dream job, a job you tried to apply for in the past but were rejected for, and you found yourself, not long before your retirement, at the very end of your career, in the position you always wanted?
No one one Earth can fire you.
You’re guaranteed a gorgeous office in a historic building, complete with staff, luxurious travel arrangements, the world’s best healthcare, legal authority to use your own signature as valid US postage, the ability to buddy up with a colleague or two and go anywhere on the planet you want and do anything you’ve dreamed of and call it “a fact-finding mission”.
People have to call you SENATOR.
Would you voluntarily give that up? No matter how many people stood outside your window and clamoured for you to quit and go home?
Honestly and truly, if any one of us here became a United States Senator (D-HillBuzz), mobs with torches and pitch forks couldn’t convince us to step down.
We wouldn’t give a flying fig if a state governor or the White House told us to resign, or if nobody in the Senate cafeteria wanted to sit at the lunch table with us. That’s what takeout and a conference table in our plush Senate office is for. Illinois Governor Pat Quinn doesn’t like it? Tough turkeys.
The Illinois state senate should have thought of that back in December, when former Governor Blagojevich told the legislature he would sign a bill authorizing a special election to fill Obama’s Senate seat. But, Democrats in Illinois realized Republican Mark Kirk would win that seat, so they never passed the special election legislation, and Blagojevich appointed Burris to the Senate vacancy so the people of Illinois would have two Senators representing them in Washington (well, one Senator, and then Dick Durbin, who’s more a waste of space than anything else).
Now that he’s Governor, Pat Quinn’s calling for Burris to resign, so he can appoint a “temporary replacement” for him, and then hold a special election for the Senate seat (in which, we still insist, Mark Kirk would win). Something tells us Quinn won’t really go ahead with the special election part of his dream scheme: instead, he would appoint another black Senator to replace Burris, and then leave it at that until 2010. Either Danny Davis or Jesse White seem to be the two top candidates Quinn has in mind so far.
But, why on Earth would Burris quit a job no one can fire him from?
When people are demanding you give up and quit something, it’s because they can’t get rid of you on their own — or they would.
So, why give them the satisfaction of quitting?
Why give up the office you’ve always wanted, especially when you know you’re not going to run for re-election in 2010?
Why not just enjoy all the perks, have a grand time, gain enough notoriety to write your memoirs and have them actually published, and give a giant, Illinois-style, F-U to all detractors far and wide?
That’s certainly what we’d do.
How about you?
UPDATE: As long as we are talking about asking people to resign. Here’s 10 people we’d love to see resign from the Senate:
(1) Claire McCaskill – whose children “bug her to do things”
(2) Bob Casey – whose children “bug him to do things”
(3) Ted Kennedy – who let Mary Jo Kopechne drown, and who now is incapacitated with illness
(4) Arlen Specter – who spent ONE TRILLION DOLLARS without reading the bill
(5) Olympia Snow – who spent ONE TRILLION DOLLARS without reading the bill
(6) Susan Collins – who spent ONE TRILLION DOLLARS without reading the bill
(7) Max Baucus – who is ineptitude and incompetence personified
(8) Dick Durbin – who is a waste of space
(9) Harry Reid – who says tourists smell, and jammed $8 billion for his own train set into the Spending Wish List
(10) David Vitter – who is possibly the most revolting man we’ve ever met
And that’s, literally, just off the top of our heads, of people who truly do deserve to resign, for gross incompetence and the inability to either think for themselves, read properly, or make decent decisions.
What's the name of Hillary Clinton's plane?
To our knowledge, the Boeing 757 reserved for the Secretary of State does not have a name, or special call designation other than “Special Air Mission”. Flights carrying the President operated by the Air Force are, of course Air Force One (Marine One for the helicopters, or Army One, Navy One, or Coast Guard One if the President’s aboard an aircraft operated by those branches). Flights carrying the Vice President carry the ‘Two” designation, as in “Air Force Two” or “Marine Two”. President George W. Bush flew aboard a Navy fight jet once, creating the first Navy One flight in history. President Richard M. Nixon flew on a United Airlines flight once, creating an Executive One flight (the designation when a President flies aboard a non-government plane).
But, the Secretary of State does not carry a special designation like “One” or “Two” with her flights.
Though, any plane carrying Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton will always be “Hill Force One” to us (the name of her campaign jet in 2008, as dubbed by the press, with her campaign helicopter in Iowa called the “Hill-o-copter”).
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's Special Air Mission 757
What's Hillary Clinton Doing Today?
Hillary Clinton’s in Beijing on the final leg of her tour of Asia. Here are some photos of her visit to the Chinese capital:
Folk artist Peng Xiaoping shows a newly made dough figurine of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to photographers in Beijing February 21, 2009.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, left, listens to Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao during their meeting in Beijing Saturday, Feb. 21, 2009. Clinton and Chinese officials on Saturday agreed to focus their governments' efforts on stabilizing the battered global economy and combating climate change, putting aside long-standing concerns about human rights.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, left, talks to Chinese President Hu Jintao during their meeting in Beijing Saturday, Feb. 21, 2009.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, right, speaks to students, left, who had asked her to sign a copy of the Chinese edition of her book, during a visit to the Taiyanggong Geothermal Power Plant in Beijing Saturday, Feb. 21, 2009.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks during a visit to the Taiyanggong Geothermal Power Plant in Beijing Saturday, Feb. 21, 2009.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (left) is greeted by Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi in Beijing, on February 21
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (L) meets with Chinese President Hu Jintao at the Great Hall of People in Beijing.
Secretary of State of the Day: John C. Calhoun (16th Secretary of State)
Term in Office: April 1st, 1844 – March 10th, 1845
Succeeded by: James Buchanan
- Born at “the Long Canes settlement”, in what became Abbeville County, South Carolina, March 18, 1782;
- Graduated from Yale College in 1804 and from Litchfield Law School in 1806;
- Admitted to the bar in 1807 and practiced law in Abbeville, South Carolina;
- Married Floride Bonneau Colhoun in 1811;
- Gave up the practice of law and established himself as a planter;
- Member of the State House of Representatives, 1808-1809;
- Representative from South Carolina, 1811-1817;
- Secretary of War in President Monroe’s Cabinet, 1817-1825;
- Vice President of the United States 1825-1832, when he resigned; was a Senator from South Carolina 1832-1843;
- Secretary of State in President Tyler’s Cabinet from April 1, 1844 until March 10, 1845;
- As Secretary of State, signed an abortive treaty for the annexation of Texas and aided in accomplishing annexation by joint resolution of Congress;
- Delegate of South Carolina to, and presiding officer of, a railroad-and-waterway convention held in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1845;
- Again a Senator from South Carolina 1845-1850;
- Author of voluminous writings and speeches;
- Died in Washington, DC, March 31, 1850.
