The Flowers Is Is at the Botanic Garden

From top to bottom: The bird of paradise,the indoor courtyard,the banana tree,the tour,springtime in February,and the notorious Devil’s Tongue



By the Queen of Free

OMGGS!

For a respite from the normal workaday world, for a breath of springtime in February, for a change of scenery, the angelic, the paradisaical Botanic Garden at the foot of Capitol Hill offers the weary a song, a pleasant trip into another space of fragrance, beauty, loveliness, and the color of rejuvenation: green.

On Monday Marjorie Abbot, Garden volunteer,led a small group on a delightful tour, providing a brief history of the sanctuary and explanations about a few (time constraints) of its 26,000(!)plants. We saw the “Devil’s Tongue” (so perfectly named)with its horrid smell (everyone took Marjorie's word for it, and nobody tested her truthfulness), hundreds of orchids, medicinal plants bountiful, cacti, and we smelled the uplifting, the magnificent fragrance of the hyacinth.

What a celestial contrast the Botanic Garden presents compared to the brown, the empty, the languor of the outdoors only a few steps away.

The short trip to another world on my lunch break brought to mind these words:

Spring has sprung
The grass is riz
I wonder where the flowers is

Perhaps written by Edna St. Vincent Millay or Ogden Nash. They sound more like Nash, don't you think?

The Poem

By the Queen of Free

All right, already, I know it was almost three weeks ago, but a girl has got to work to eat.

Anyway, this was the scene in front of the Capitol while Elizabeth Alexander read it: More than half had already left their seats.

At least it has sparked thousands of conversations throughout the world and raised the spectre of “poetry” and what contemporary poetry is exactly. (I do not know.)

I know at my office THE poem has come up often since January 20 and two conversations turned into knock-down drag out fights.

Quick! What one word captures it? The first word which comes to mind when you begin to recall the content?

Exactly. Mine, too: Mediocre.

Maybe, mundane. (Please don’t tell Stacie.)

Honestly! Yale? This poem is proof that you can live by reputation alone.

Wasn’t it supposed to send us soaring onboard a new wing of hope? It is depressing stuff, a real downer. (Feb. 21 addition: Some others agree with my assessment, too, based upon this Yahoo story yesterday indicating the poem's sales of 6,000 compared to Maya Angelou's poem sales of 1,000,000 after she waxed poetic(?)at Bill Clinton's 1993 inauguration.)

The placement of the poetry reading on the Inaugural program, after President Obama's inaugural address was sad, like an afterthought giving credence to those who might think it a weak part of the swearing-in.

As the new president neared the end of his speech I kept wondering: “Where’s the poem? Where’s the poem? Wasn’t a poem commissioned for this historic day?”

It was read ex poste facto when few remained at or near their seats on the grounds of the Capitol.

Some stood still and listened to words which seemed to come from a lonely Middle American farmer surrounded by no more thoughts of soaring than the birds he watched land on the fence while his cattle munched hay nearby.

“Repairing the things in need of repair”?

Come on! Any high school English teacher would count off for that phraseology.

“A farmer considers the changing sky.” Powerful stuff!

"We cross dirt roads and highways that mark the will of someone and then others who said, 'I need to see what’s on the other side; I know there’s something better down the road.'" In bold red ink: T R I T E across this section. Which brings to mind (sorry about this):

“Why did the chicken cross the road?”

"We need to find a place where we are safe; We walk into that which we cannot yet see." Really?

Okay, okay already, so the last two lines are okay:

"In today’s sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.

On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp — praise song for walking forward in that light."

I could go on and on, but enough of my tripe. Except it's a good thing Garrison Keillor didn't have a hand in this or we would have been hearing about how the crows pecked out the eyes of the woman and her son at the bus stop, the sky fell on top of the farmer, and the students stabbed the teacher with the pencils.

The poem en toto as found at the New York Times:

Praise Song for the Day’ - The 2009 Presidential Inauguration Poem

Each day we go about our business,
walking past each other, catching each other’s
eyes or not, about to speak or speaking.

All about us is noise. All about us is
noise and bramble, thorn and din, each
one of our ancestors on our tongues.

Someone is stitching up a hem, darning
a hole in a uniform, patching a tire,
repairing the things in need of repair.

Someone is trying to make music somewhere,
with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum,
with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus.
A farmer considers the changing sky.
A teacher says, Take out your pencils. Begin.

We encounter each other in words, words
spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed,
words to consider, reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark
the will of some one and then others, who said
I need to see what’s on the other side.

I know there’s something better down the road.
We need to find a place where we are safe.
We walk into that which we cannot yet see.

Say it plain: that many have died for this day.
Sing the names of the dead who brought us here,
who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges,

picked the cotton and the lettuce, built
brick by brick the glittering edifices
they would then keep clean and work inside of.

Praise song for struggle, praise song for the day.
Praise song for every hand-lettered sign,
the figuring-it-out at kitchen tables.

Some live by love thy neighbor as thyself,
others by first do no harm or take no more
than you need. What if the mightiest word is love?

Love beyond marital, filial, national,
love that casts a widening pool of light,
love with no need to pre-empt grievance.

In today’s sharp sparkle, this winter air,
any thing can be made, any sentence begun.
On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp,

praise song for walking forward in that light.

Archives Presents: White House Transitions

By the Queen of Free

From left to right: Gary Walters, former White House chief usher, Ann Stock, Bill Clinton's social secretary, Sharon Fawcett, Presidential archivist, and Frederick Ryan, Ronald Reagan's chief of staff.

One of the many joys of living in Washington, D.C. is the opportunity to attend and hear free presentations by “insiders” who reveal new stories about employers, Washington celebrities and other VIPs. The entertainment value usually far exceeds that which one pays to see and hear on screen and stage.

That is, if you like this sort of thing. We live here and like it!

At Archives recently, two panels of insiders told stories about Presidential transitions and moving day to the overwhelmingly Caucasian, mixed-aged audience which mostly filled the magnificent William G. McGowan Theatre.

Some of the panelists were the former White House chief usher, Gary Walters; Ronald Reagan’s chief of staff, Frederick Ryan; and Bill Clinton’s social secretary, Ann Stock.

Mr. Walters said the house transforms from a home for one family into a home for another family within hours, all on January 20. “The clothes are hung,” favorite foods are stocked, and “all boxes are emptied” so that the new first family feels immediately “comfortable.” The First Family pays to move its personal possessions.

Preparation for the change begins right after the November election and continues through “to the end of the day,” (meaning January 20, I think).

Ms. Stock said the Obamas' organization and planning should serve as a transition “model” for they moved quickly on White House transition planning. Michelle Obama immediately picked 26 to help staff the White House, Ms. Stock said, unlike any other First Lady. (The White House staff totals around 90 persons.)

Between 100 and 150 events occur in the social life of the White House in the first 100 days of a new administration.

Who pays to move them in and move them out?

They do!

However, the federal government pays to move records, Mr. Walters said. The First Family pays for all their and their guests’ food and beverages, he said. The total cost shocked Laura Bush (I think he said Laura) the first time he presented a bill to her. (What about state dinners?)

Children in the White House make it “a lot more fun,” Ms. Stock said. “They bring life to the White House and to everyone who works there.” The nice thing for the Obamas is they “live over the store.”

One time Chelsea Clinton climbed out on a ledge at the White House to sunbathe, and members of the press brought it to the attention of Walters.

Sharon Fawcett, a Presidential archivist, said Archives keeps the official daily diary of the President. Ronald Reagan’s diaries which he kept and which were published after his death were his own personal diaries. The Archives staff is frequently contacted to find Presidential events and dates which they locate generally within two hours.

Presidential papers are supposed to be accessible five years after the President leaves office.

The White House has no restrictions on pets kept by occupants. Mr. Walters said many different animals have been pets to first families including parakeets, snakes, and raccoons. The staff often supplied Barbara Bush’s dog, Millie, with treats, and Millie was no slouch. About every day the elevator operator at the White House took Millie down to the West Wing where she marched to get treats. Mrs. Bush would call Mr. Walters: “Where’s Millie?" And “stop feeding Millie!”

Terry Sullivan, a UNC-Chapel Hill professor and executive director of the White House Transition Project, spoke on the second panel, "The Presidential Transition," about his experiences from President Eisenhower to George Bush I.

The people the President sees most often are not whom you would expect. The ones he sees daily number about five including the secretary of state, his national security advisor, and his chief of staff with whom he spends about five percent of his daily time.

The press secretary is one of seven to 11 persons the Presidents sees about three times a week, interacting with none on a regular basis (other than his COS).

The President does lots of different things every day “but nothing in particular every day.” (Obama’s and Bush II’s exercise? But he was speaking of practice before their terms.)

About 15 percent of the President's time daily is spent on diplomatic issues.

Another panelist, Roger Porter, a Harvard professor and presidential policy director, said people like to be consulted early, especially Congressional members who want to know about announcements before they are queried by the press.

Presidential scholar and University of Vermont professor John Burke talked about nominees whose pasts proved troublesome. Mistakes are recognized and names are quickly pulled. He listed Linda Chavez, Bush II's choice for Labor Secretary who did not make it.

Assigned parking places are a sensitive issue at the White House, noted Martha Joynt Kumar, the moderator of the second panel, who is a Presidential scholar and another White House Transition Project director.

A Blossom on the Millennium Stage

By the Queen of Free

Looks like one, doesn't it?

Have you ever attended one of the free performances at the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage at 6 p.m. and been disappointed? Nor have I.

The music, the dancing, the sounds are always incredibly outstanding and entertaining. It's easy to drift into "la la" land.

Last Friday night was no different when members of the National Symphony Orchestra played Cesar Franck’s Sonata in A Major for violin and piano and Maurice Ravel’s Quartet in F Major. All the step seats were taken, and it was another SRO crowd.

The only trouble spot were the sounds made by the technician talking into his headset almost nonstop, audible to those of us seated in the back rows.

And I wish the program had included a brief biographical sketch on the performers who were Carole Tafoya Evans, violin; Susan Midkiff, violin; Nancy Thomas, viola; Mark Evans, cello; and Cecilia Cho, piano.

Did I mention the Kennedy Center’s happy hour? Imported beer and pretzels: $4 (before 6 p.m.)

Orange You Glad You Rode Metro on Inauguration Day?

By the Queen of Free

A 50-something woman with short brown hair stood atop her Metro seat and screamed: “Is anyone here from D.C.?”

We had started and stopped and started and stopped at each station for about 15 or 20 minutes along the way from West Falls Church heading into D.C. on this, a very important day. What is normally a one-hour trip from bus to Metro to D.C. became three hours.

The train operator frequently announced: “The central office has told me to wait here. There are six (six!) trains ahead of us” and then came the news that we would skip stops at the Smithsonian, L’Enfant Plaza and Federal Center South. "It's like this all the way to Capitol South," the operator said. Oh boy. I had earlier heard on the radio that the crowds engulfed L'Enfant Plaza, causing station operators to throw open the exit gates.

Like orange seeds inside an orange pulverized into juice, we were a bit more packed than the normal orange crush experience (the orange line, you know) on a weekday. The visitors kept snapping pictures on the Metro. The Metro! Did they not know it was like this every day? I wondered.

The woman and her husband had blue (God forbid, blue!) tickets and were getting antsy about getting to the ceremony on time.
(Good luck, visitors! Are you still waiting in line? Or have you frozen up in the tunnel and been tossed out in the garbage?)

Being the only D.C. resident within earshot I calmed them down with soothing words about Metro’s efficiency. To the New Yorkers smashed up against me I suggested that they get off at Foggy Bottom and walk to the Mall which would be faster and better than standing like flaming flamingos for another hour. Besides, I would have more space for air intake and would be freed of the mother's hair in my face. They took my advice.

As they got off the train they told me: “New York is better prepared for crowds like this than Washington is." As one who protects a loved family member under attack by an outsider (what?) I defended Metro the best I could.

To the right of me stood Mississippians; to the left of me, Vermontians and on top of me, Floridians.

A sitting (sitting!) man, about 40, announced to the crowd as he read from his Blackberry: "The police may shut down the gates at the Capitol because of the crowd crush." Thank you very much! That's just where I was headed.

Soon (payback time), one of his little girls, about 9 years old, showed signs of nausea, and he frantically dived into their family bag of essentials and pulled out a plastic bag to catch her emission in the nick of time. Hoping the involuntary act was not contagious I looked away.

What a difference a stop makes!

The train picked up speed, and after 16 hours we arrived at Capitol South and what to my wondering eyes should appear but my, oh my, fur coats! Fur coats to the left of me, fur coats to the right of me, fur coats up, and fur coats down. They adorned every other woman, quite a different crowd from my group coming in from Virginia. The people roared approval when the station master announced over a loudspeaker that the gates were going up, like the parting of the Red Sea when Moses waved his magic wand.

It was not necessary to walk or even touch the ground for the crammed crowd carried you along. Upon reaching sunlight I discovered how lucky I was that security for the orange sections was fully staffed. At long fences thousands of poor folk with blue and silver tickets stood motionless like cattle waiting for entrances which never opened.

Must have been my color: Go, Volunteers!

A Dark Parade On Pennsylvania Avenue

By the Queen of Free

Mayor Fenty said you could either do the swearing-in or the parade, but logistically, not both. Fiddle, dee, dee: He doesn’t know determinators very well.

Maybe it was my Inaugural seat, rows from the podium which gave me extra energy, or maybe it was the energy transfused from the Big Event itself!

Whatever it was, after the ceremony I joined throngs at the Capitol shouting as loudly as we could “good riddance” to Bush’s departing helicopter, and then I took off for Union Station to warm my toesties.

It took two trips around the station before I found a seat on a table upon which to perch with others and eat my smushed peanut butter sandwich, the likes of which have never been so welcomed.

We were thrown off and out for Inaugural ball preparations, and I made my way to the parade route where a security guy at the gates, muscular, about 30 and 5'10" or so told me to unzip my jacket.

I did.

"All the way," he said. Hhmmm...

We stood inches apart, face to face.

I unzipped the remainder of my jacket.

Immediately he put his hands inside it and moved his hands over my stomach, my sides, my back. I guess being a single woman and a senior citizen (!) made me look suspiciously like one of the female suicide bombers in Baghdad.

Stunned momentarily with my arms still held aloft I whispered: "Whoo, baby, will you do that again?"

Gathering what was left of my wits I headed for the street and found a friendly place atop a short wall at the Frances Perkins Labor Building where I joined four Chicagoans who had their own stories of the day to relate.

They had watched the swearing-in at a bar where they rushed at 11:30 a.m. with their purple tickets when they were unable to gain admittance at the security gates where they had waited three hours. Two men with purple tickets had walked to the Capitol from the Mayflower at 5:45 a.m. and never got in.

"Why didn't you take the Metro?" I asked one.

He smiled: "You know the walk was longer than we thought it would be."

Still, everyone was in a good mood, happy, jovial, and celebratory.

We waited and waited for the new (!) President Obama’s “parade” which a friend relayed by phone was delayed by Ted Kennedy’s sudden illness.

But why did the parade parade have to begin 45 minutes or so after the President’s 500 (conservative estimate) motorcade/vehicle entourage went by?

Meanwhile, a friend visiting from Tennessee was crying when she called me stranded on the other side of Pennsylvania Avenue and prevented by security from crossing the parade route. Medical had thrown her out of a trailer threatening her with arrest if she didn't leave.

"My back pain medicine hadn't even kicked in," she wailed. She called from the Indian Museum where she had found respite, hoping to join the multitudes spread out in the floor there sleeping. "You ought to see them!" she sobbed.

Near the parade parade’s start in the Newseum and Canadian embassy areas (where Canadian choristers serenaded the crowd, singing the Canadian anthem, was it?)I found plenty of room at the fences to see the participants proudly march by: the high-stepping band members joyfully playing their instruments, the drum majors, the Indians on horses from Montana, the flag bearers of many nations representing the Peace Corps.

After a while darkness began its descent, and with it, even cooler temperatures which chased the few remaining onlookers away. You could not make out all the words on the banners announcing the bands. "Was that the Ohio State band?" a man next to me asked. Yes, it was.

Soon my pal Pam from Tennessee joined me, and she was all rested and refreshed from her long nap at the Indian Museum.

Sadly, when we left at 6:30 p.m. with clumps of frozen toes, few remained to see the majorettes, the contrast of the cops superimposed against the silhouettes of the Southern belles in formals (from Mississippi perhaps?), the Boy Scouts' huge flag, all the other magnificent bands, the carefully constructed flashy, glamorous floats. They were still marching by.

They also paraded in darkness for Bush’s second inaugural. Why can’t organizers do a better job?

How cold can you go?

If it’s going to be a dark parade, how about some lights so the marchers can see one foot in front of the other, and an onlooker can see a parade! That's not asking too much for a parade held once every four years, for participants from non-profits who spend hours raising money to travel, to march down Pennsylvania Avenue to the beat for a different drummer whose sound no one hears.

If a drum beats and no one hears it? What applause do they hear from streets populated only by cops protecting what?

Four Bicentennial Birthdays

What is the significance of the bicentennial birthdays of Edgar Allen Poe, Charles Darwin , Felix Mendelssohn, and Abraham Lincoln in 2009?

Darwin and Lincoln were both born on February 12, 1809; Mendelssohn, on February 3, 1809, and Poe, on January 19, 1809.

From the Classics Literature Library comes this:

Edgar Allan Poe's ancestry on his father's side has been traced to Samuel Lincoln, a weaver who emigrated from Hingham, England, to Hingham, Massachusetts, in 1637. The president's forebears were pioneers who moved west with the expanding frontier from Massachusetts to Berks County, Pennsylvania, and then to Virginia. Abraham Lincoln's father, Thomas Lincoln, was born in Rockingham County in backcountry Virginia in 1778. In 1781 Thomas Lincoln's father, who was also named Abraham, took his family to Hughes Station on the Green River, 32 km (20 mi) east of Louisville, Kentucky. In 1786 a Native American killed the first Edgar Allan Poe while he was at work clearing land for a farm in the forest.