The Diary of Angela de la Paz

I can't believe he died, just like that!  Henry Samuelson!  He was so old, but he seemed like one of those guys that would never die.  And old men are supposed to die in the winter!  Who dies on a beautiful day in May, the kind of day that makes everybody glad to be alive?  And how could I tell his daughter that I hated him when she said his last words were about me?!  On his deathbed??!!  She tells me it's from a Steely Dan song:

"I'm gonna take Cinderella down to Mexico--
She said, 'oh, no, Guadalajara won't do!'"

She wanted me to tell her what he was talking about, and she was looking at me like I was his lover or something!!!!  He's old enough to be my grandfather--was.  I told her I would explain after the funeral.  What am I going to tell her??????????????

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(Washington Water Woman is covering for Cinderella on the Mexico operation, but hopes to write a longer blog post next weekend.)

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R.I.P., Mr. ___--your secrets are safe with me. 

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300

"They aren't just in cartoons, kids," said Washington Post reporter Perry Winkle.  "Teenage mutant ninja turtles really do exist."  The two canoes comprising today's urban guerrilla field trip slowed to a floating stop as Winkle pointed to a deformed turtle sunning itself on a tree limb.  "Toxic pollution and endocrine disruptors have transformed the Anacostia and other rivers into chemical experiments."  Winkle reached quickly to grab the young turtle, and its family members snapped in anger and dismay.  "Look," Winkle said, turning it over to expose its genitalia.  "Deformed because of mutation."  (He had heard a couple of suppressed chuckles at the word 'genitalia', but then silence:  the adolescents were examining the turtle carefully.)  "It will probably be unable to reproduce, or its descendants will also have mutations."

"But some mutations are good, right?" asked a bright middle-schooler.

"Sometimes spontaneous mutations can be beneficial, such as giraffes getting longer and longer necks, but mutations caused by pollution generally are not--they cause body parts to grow without symmetry or proportion, such as leaving you with only two toes on your left foot and no toes on your right foot."  (He was talking about toes, but he was thinking about the Congressional staffer he saw decapitated the week before--did I really see maggots crawl out of the inside of her neck?  Could it really have been a zombie serial killer?)

"Or your wanker won't wink," said another, prompting a burst of giggling.

"That's correct," said the "Metro" reporter.  "And the human species is not immune:  sperm levels have declined in many tested populations around the world."

"Have you had your sperm level tested?" asked another, prompting another burst of giggling.

"Oh, I've already fathered 300!" he joked, putting the turtle back on the log so he could start a splash fight.

Several miles to the northwest, Calico Johnson was cantering his horse "Ninja" around his Potomac Manors neighborhood--a horse the realtor had purchased for the sole purpose of having an excuse to see his lovely neighbor more often, since her barn was the only place he could board the horse.  Basia Karbusky had even helped with some additional training that the former racehorse needed in its slow recovery from the nervous breakdown it had incurred last spring.  Nonetheless, Johnson had made no progress whatsoever in seducing the tall blond from Wisconsin, and she only grew more and mysterious in his eyes. 

He halted Ninja behind a small grove of ash trees where he could spy on the car pulling up to Karbusky's property--a nondescript American sedan with Virginia plates.  "It's the Chicago White Sox guy," Johnson said to Ninja (or himself).  "Always on Sunday, always wearing the baseball cap."  He knew it wasn't a lover because the man was never in her house more than ten minutes, but it was still driving him crazy.  Karbusky had told him she had "inherited some money" in his first attempt to find out what she did, and he had initially accepted that, but had grown more suspicious lately.  The organic gardening consultant he could believe, and even that freaky "dog whisperer" she had brought out to treat her cow's bovine narcolepsy, but she now had half a dozen visitors per week, all in nondescript sedans, all staying no longer than ten minutes.  What were they up to?  He was perplexed about all of them, but the White Sox guy was the good-looking one, so Johnson was jealous of him.  He knew if he brought the horse in now, the guy would be gone by the time Ninja was unsaddled.  And what if I timed it so that I was just walking up when White Sox is leaving?  What would I learn, anyway?  Nothing.  Johnson had brought up the issue at the last Sense of Entitlement Anonymous meeting to see if people thought he should hire a private detective--or, even better, if somebody like John Boehner or Dick Cheney could dig up some information on the woman--but they had laughed out loud at him, saying if he couldn't even spy on the woman next door, who could?  Johnson stayed long enough to watch the baseball-capped fellow come back out (ten minutes later), then he led Ninja into a canter back towards the eastern pasture.  I need to stop thinking about her!

Back at Karbusky's property, the woman closed the door and watched through a window until her client's car was no longer visible.  Then she walked into her office and sat down to count the money.  She separated out $300 for some shopping trips this week, then put the remainder in her safe.  She tapped her fingers on the desk nervously, fairly certain that she had seen Johnson's horse again in the ash trees.  Maybe I should just ask him out on a date and get it over with?  Act like a nut job so he never wants a second date.  A couple of clients had asked her out recently, but she never mixed business with pleasure.  What pleasure?  She was getting more and more paranoid, spending most of her time in the house or out in the barn taking care of Mega Moo.  This can't go on forever.  She sighed and returned to the laboratory to prepare the next client's order.

This will go on forever if I don't get rid of it, thought Dizzy.  He was glancing unhappily at the cursed Rolex sitting on his wrist, fretting about the ugliness in his life since he had put it there.  Dizzy was still carrying around his trumpet case, but he hadn't opened it in days.  He found himself walking back to McPherson Square, where it had all begun.  He walked past the Occupy DCers--a small crowd now, all familiar with the mercurial trumpet player and his inexplicable Rolex.  Suddenly he was face-to-face with a tall Italian-looking fellow in skinny jeans and a boat-neck tank top made of red silk.  Impulsively, Dizzy pulled the Rolex off his wrist.  "$300," Dizzy said, "and it's yours."  Luciano Talaverdi (a Federal Reserve Board economist) looked rapidly around, then picked up the Rolex to examine its authenticity.  "Alright!" he said, not even bothering to bargain, and he pulled the cash out of his wallet and handed it to Dizzy.

 A few minutes later, Talaverdi was lying on his psychiatrist's couch, asking if Ermann Esse thought it was wrong for him to buy the Rolex.  "It might not have been stolen," said Talaverdi.  "It might have been pawned--I mean, we are in a recession."  The shrink nodded without saying anything, and watched as Talaverdi read aloud the initials engraved into the watch.  "I'll do an Internet search to see if anybody posted something," Talaverdi said.

"And contact the police?" asked Dr. Esse.

"No, of course not!  They would just say there had been a theft reported, and then keep it for themselves."

"Are you certain?" asked Dr. Esse.

"Yes, I'm certain!" protested Talaverdi, who disbelieved most of the things his mother had told him about the Mussolini era, but had retained a life-long hatred of police officers.  Anyway, I have more important things to discuss."

"Hmmm?" said Dr. Esse, encouragingly.  (He was billing at triple rate to come into the office on a holiday weekend.)

"I started working on a letter to the editor," Talaverdi said, "like you suggested.  But every time I try to explain what the Fed is doing, I go on for pages and pages and pages.  How can people like us, with Ph.D's, summarize so many years of knowledge in a way that simple people can understand?"

"Indeed!" said the highly educated psychiatrist, who rarely said more than a dozen words to his patients.

"I tried to make 3 points, then it became 10 points, then it became 30 points.  I think I would need 300 points to outline what the economy needs and how the Fed is operating!"

"What is your theme?" asked Dr. Esse.

"What do you mean?  I just told you the theme?"

"If you had a title, for example, what would the title be?  Or the subject line in an email?" asked the shrink.

"The End of Hyperbole."

"Do you mean this ironically?" asked Dr. Esse, genuinely perplexed.

"What irony?" asked Talaverdi.

A couples miles to the west, Angela de la Paz emerged from swimming with the pink dolphins in the Potomac, an axe in her hand.  She dropped it beside the Warrior on the shore of Roosevelt Island, then sat down to catch her breath.  The Warrior picked it up and examined it slowly.  "It is new," he said.  I have probably seen 300 axes since the white men brought iron to America, but this one has an enormous amount of embedded evil for something so young.  Maybe we should throw it back."

"Throw it back?!" asked Angela, incredulously.  "I took it from Ardua, and I gave her some parting whacks with it on my way out!  I'm not giving it back to her!"

"Do you remember the last time you took something from Ardua and tried to use it for your own purposes?" asked the Warrior.

"This is hardly the same situation!" protested Angela, but she didn't like displeasing the Warrior.  "Of course, I don't really need it.  I suppose I could just bury it on this island for now.  Ardua would just find somebody else to take it if I tossed it back in the river."

"Yes, you are probably right," nodded the Warrior, pleased with her.  "Let us go bury it now.

Deep in the river, Ardua of the Potomac seethed over the loss of the evil axe, but she was determined to get it back.

Interconnected

Charles Wu smiled as he looked out the window at Delia sitting up on a blanket in his backyard.  His nanny, Mia, had already reported a few unsolicited offers to make Buffy Cordelia Wu an infant model, but the spy could not tolerate any added scrutiny of his personal affairs.  He yawned, bored with listening in on the G8 summit he had bugged at Camp David.  His mind wandered, and he again began gloating about how pleased Hillary Clinton was with his behind-the-scenes role in persuading Beijing to release Chen Guangcheng for a flight to the U.S.  It felt good to be working on Chinese issues again!  Wu had been thinking lately of scaling back on his European and Middle Eastern intelligence work, but everything was so interconnected--at least, that's what people kept telling him.

"It's too interconnected now!" Henry Samuelson was saying at the Heurich Society meeting a few miles away.  "The Administration does not understand the potentially catastrophic chain reaction of failures which might occur!  The U.S. openly siding with the Sunni Arab League against the Shia in Syria?  This will isolate Iran even more!  Without the Iranian counter-balance in the Middle East, all bets are off."

"What are you proposing?" said the former Chair of the Heurich Society, in a sneering challenge to Samuelson.  "Letting Iran have a nuclear bomb as a counter-balance?!"

"Me?  You want me to propose something?  When did this stop being a Society and start becoming the Samuelson-solves-everything club?!  Who came up with Project Occupy?  Me!  Who came up with Project Troll?  Me!  Who came up with Project Cinderella?  Me!"

"Gentlemen!" the speakerphone crackled.  (It was Condoleezza Rice, phoning in from California.)  "I have a proposal concerning the upcoming NATO meeting in Chicago  How many people do we have attending?"  (The Chair and former Chair glared at each other in silence, both thinking the same thought:  what the hell does NATO have to do with it?)

Across the River, Cedric was building a model nuclear bomb out of bottle caps and aluminum cans.  "Rice and lipstick, Rice and lipstick," he sang, "they go together like oil and dipstick."  The social worker on duty at the Arlington Group Home for the Mentally Challenged was baffled by a lot of things that came out of her charges' mouths, but this song was uncharacteristic of Cedric.  (He doesn't even like rice!?)  Cedric abruptly looked up at Hue Nguyen and said, "We had a long talk on Friday about it."  (He was obliquely referring to a phone call with Condoleeza Rice.)  Then his eyes returned to the task at hand, and he resumed singing:  "Rice and Arabs, Rice and Arabs--they go together like blood and scarabs."

Back in D.C., the mentally unstable Glenn Michael Beckmann raced through the Gangplank Marina, jumped awkwardly into a yellow kayak, and began paddling furiously after the Flying Scot sailboat which had just picked up Congressman Herrmark's chief of staff and was heading north.  Beckmann had been spying on her for four days, and was convinced that she was part of the United Nations conspiracy which had poisoned his apartment at Southwest Plaza and would soon ban guns, pick-up trucks, American history classes, and roast beef sandwiches.  (It was all so obviously interconnected, but it took last night's dream to put it all together.)  He could see the blue and purple windbreaker she was wearing to cover up the layers of skin coming off her arms, and the billowing cotton skirt she was wearing to cover up the layers of skin coming off her legs.  You'll never set foot in D.C. again, you U.N. zombie!

Steering the Flying Scot were Herrmark's twin bodyguards from Greece:  Nick and Costas.  Their cousin (and fellow Congressional staff member), Ann Bishis, was seated nervously next to the chief of staff.  It was Ann's idea to take the suspected zombie out on a boat:  if neither sun nor wind succeeded in forcing her to expose her limbs, the twins would "accidentally" capsize the boat and let the god Poseidon decide her fate.  (Bishis was also praying to her spirit animal, the pelican, for aid and guidance.)

Back at the Gangplank Marina, Washington Post "Metro" reporter Perry Winkle--who had also been following Congressman Herrmark's chief of staff since hearing her called a serial killer--finally found a speedboat owner to take him out in hot pursuit, and they raced away from the dock.  He could see the sailboat was momentarily stalled, waiting for the wind to pick up.  Then he realized there was a kayak heading straight for the sailboat. 

I've got you now, you damned zombie!  Beckmann dropped the paddle into the bottom of the kayak as he glided right up to the sailboat and picked up his axe.

Nick ducked, and Costas pulled Ann down, unintentionally giving Beckmann a clear shot at the chief of staff, who turned around in puzzlement too late to see the blade coming for her neck.  The zombie's head went flying into the Potomac River, and the zombie's body slumped down into the sailboat--with hundreds of maggots crawling out of its neck.  Ann screamed, Nick vomited, and Costas cried out to Athena to save them.

"I should kill you all, but since you weren't in my dream, let this be a warning to you!" screamed Beckmann, still brandishing the bloody axe in the air.  Then he dropped the axe into the river, picked up his paddle, and started heading back to the pier.

Winkle's rented boat captain had cut the motor at the first sign of the axe, and the two men flinched as Beckmann raced past them.  "I need to interview those people," said the reporter, pointing to the three people still on board the sailboat.

"Like Hell!" exclaimed the captain, who promptly started his engine and launched his speedboat away from both the sailboat and the kayak.

Twenty feet below them, Ardua of the Potomac gleefully swallowed the zombie head and set aside the axe for some future purpose.  She stared upward, waiting patiently for the humans to throw the zombie body down as well.  (She liked it when zombies terrorized the humans, but she never let any food go to waste.)  I will have to find somebody to make up for the loss to the ranks, mused Ardua, but that Beckmann is just too much fun!

Downwardly Mobile

Laura Moreno trudged reluctantly past Urine Park and into the Prince and Prowling office building.  Ever since Judge Sowell Ame had tossed out Wolfgang Prowling's will which had bequeathed her a quarter million dollars, she had sunk into a deep, deep funk.  She knew more about the law firm's cases than any associate there, but even the first year associates awaiting Bar admission were earning three times as much as she was...after all these years.  She swiped her keycard and headed to the workroom to spend another Sunday afternoon toiling in obscurity.  Her salary had not gone up since the Senior Partner raised it the second month she was there--all those years ago--before the office administrator had put him in his place and forbade any more raises.  Her health care costs had doubled, her housing costs were up 40%, her food costs were up 25%, and she had taken to wearing stained and torn clothing to work because she couldn't afford to buy new clothes.  I used to be an intelligent person--why can't I find my way out?

Not far away, Bridezilla was thinking the same thing:  I used to be an intelligent person--why can't I find my way out?  She was sitting in her Prince and Prowling partner's office staring at the photo of herself as homecoming queen in the high school yearbook she kept bookmarked to that page.  She was not worrying about her health care, housing, food, or clothing costs:  she was baffled that she was still single.  Her current boyfriend, Bucky, was a Kennedy Center actor, so she suspected half of what he said to her at any particular time was probably a line from a play or movie or television show, but it still rattled her when he said things like, "if you really wanted to be married, you'd be married by now."  What does that mean?  Can't a girl be picky?  She sighed at the homecoming queen's perfect skin, timelessly lovely hairdo, and movie star quality gown.  It was true, several guys had asked her to marry them, but here she was, single again, and Bucky might be a bi-sexual for all she knew.  He knows more about hair gel than I do!  She sighed again.  He was sweet, and being with him was a lot of fun, but her life was not going forward.  "You're so smart!" Bucky would say to her often.  "Why don't you become a professor?  Or open your own law firm?  Or go work for some huge corporation?  This work is too boring for you!"  He pictured her taking the world by storm, like Hillary Clinton or Sandra Day O'Connor.  He doesn't get it.  She didn't want respect:  she wanted adoration.  (Dr. Ermann Esse had told her that months ago, and it was finally sinking in.)

Down the hall from Bridezilla, former Senator Evermore Breadman had finally jumped on the Romney Bandwagon, and had already raked in $20,000 in consulting fees this week alone.  "The truth is," he said to the speakerphone on his desk (and the campaign ad writer on the other end), "you can't really say that's illegal unless a judge issues an order saying it's illegal."  ("I'm asking you, as an attorney, to tell me it's legal!?")  Breadman rolled his eyes.  "It doesn't matter!  It hits its mark long before there's an order to yank it from the air."  ("But we could get penalized and fined?")  "It's just a speeding ticket, my good fellow.  They call it a political race because you need to get further faster than the opponent!  Keep your eye on the prize!  You're not trying to earn merit badges or respect:  you want the masses to adore your candidate!"  Breadman got off the call and reached into his bottom drawer for a little whiskey pick-me-up, wondering if he needed to speak directly to Romney about shaking up his campaign leadership. 

A few miles to the east, Atticus Hawk reached into his bottom drawer for a candy bar pick-me-up and discovered that somebody (presumably Ava Kahdo Green) had replaced his potato chips, candy bars, and beef jerky with a drawerful of dried apricots, almonds, granola, and whole wheat crackers.  His new boss had banned him from attending his old boss's funeral ("too stressful!") and banned him from returning to work ("you're not having a heart attack on my watch!"), and today was the first day he had snuck into the Justice Department since being in the hospital.  The former torture expert continued rifling through old memoranda as he listened to the Guantanamo hearings replay.

"You shouldn't be here!" Green protested, walking briskly into his office.  (She had persuaded the security guard to let her know if Hawk entered the building.)

"My new boss screwed up the--"  He froze, realizing he could not discuss it with her, and she froze, hearing what was playing over his computer.  They stared at each other in silence for a few moments.

"Well, how do you feel?" Green asked, sitting down nonchalantly in a guest chair while he flipped papers upside-down without much subtlety.

"Pretty good," Hawk lied.  "I was curious about the Guantanamo hearing and, uhh, well...."

"Sure, it's been intense."  (This was an understatement, as Green had secretly done about fifty hours of Guantanamo detainee pro bono work in the past month with Goode Peepz law firm.)  "Nothing in law school prepared us for this."

"No," Hawk agreed, then there were a few more moments of silence.  "Thanks for the snacks."

"You're welcome!" Green said.  "You should have told me you wanted to come in.  I could have given you a ride."

"You would have refused to give me a ride," Hawk said with a wan smile.

"Maybe," Green said with a sweet smile.  "Well, don't push yourself," she said, getting up.  "I'm coming back in an hour, and you'd better be gone!"

"Agreed," said Hawk, who was feeling sicker by the minute.

A mile to the west, Federal Reserve Board economist Luciano Talaverdi was lying on Dr. Ermann Esse's couch, feeling sicker by the minute.  "Why are they still there?!" he exlaimed, referring to the shrunken but not defeated Occupy DC encampment in McPherson Square, outside the offices of his psychiatrist.  "And now there's an 'Occupy the Fed'!  Can you believe it?  The liberals hate us, the conservatives hate us, the libertarians hate us!  We're just a central bank!  Every country has one!  We're doing the best we can!"

"Do you really think everybody hates the Federal Reserve Board?" asked the shrink, dubiously.

"No, not everybody," conceded Talaverdi, "but my own mamma in Italy refuses to send me her home-made biscotti!  She says America is destroying Europe to keep up American living standards!"

"Interesting," said Dr. Esse (who knew nothing about monetary or fiscal policy).  "Sociological surveys show that Europeans are much happier than Americans."

"Because they're living in a dream world!" exclaimed Talaverdi.

"And you think Americans are more in touch with reality?" asked the shrink.

"Absolutely!" said Talaverdi.

"So Americans are a better judge of the Federal Reserve Board?" asked the shrink.

"No!  Americans are too ignorant to understand what the Fed does.  But they're right that the economy is rotto."

"Hmmm," said the shrink.  "So what I'm hearing is that you are unhappy because Americans do not understand and appreciate your work."

"And want to end the Fed!" exclaimed Talaverdi.

"So perhaps you should direct some efforts to educating the American people about what the Federal Reserve Board does and what other measures are required to restore the economy."

"Ha!  Maybe if I can get Kim Kardashian to talk about it!" said Talaverdi.

"Hmmm, yes, that might be difficult," said Dr. Esse.  (He picked up his special notebook dedicated to all the comments his patients made about Kim Kardashian, and jotted down a few words.)  "Well, I think it's important for us to find an attainable goal to start with.  How about writing an opinion piece for the Washington Post?"  (He recommended this to a lot of his patients.)

"They won't publish me!  I'm just an economist from Italy.  I don't even have an Ivy League degree!"

"Well, you can start small, with a letter to the editor about 'Occupy the Fed' and such things," said the shrink.

"We're the Fed!  We shouldn't have to--" he paused, frozen by Dr. Esse's head-shaking.

"That's what everybody in this town says," Dr. Esse whispered, as he leaned in closer to his patient.  "A hundred-thousand voices trying to scream over each other.  'We're the State Department!'  'We're the FBI!'  'We're the Supreme Court!' 'We're the White House!'  'We're the Senate!'  'We're the World Bank!'  'We're the Pentagon!'  You see, that's why it's about balance of power.  If we had a dictatorship, there would be no competition of ideas.  You are living in a democracy."

"The Occupy people don't think so!"

Outside, Dizzy closed up his trumpet case and stormed away from McPherson Square.  Damned hippies!  Every time he started getting money from the tourists, one of the Occupy DCers pointed out that the street musician was wearing a Rolex.  None of their dammed business!  I'm going over to Urine Park.  I'm done playing for ungrateful people!  He shook his fist at the young people as he marched off.  If I had a claw hammer in my trumpet case, I'd be doing you like that Petworth boy!  Since obtaining the cursed Rolex, Dizzy's income had plummeted 75%, his trumpeting had become tinny, and old friends were calling him "jerk" and "crazy old coot".  He knew he was going to have to sell it, but every time he took it off his wrist, he had a panic attack.  "I hate you all!" he bellowed out as he made his way down K Street, and people parted like the Red Sea in front of him.

A flock of starlings arose to report back to Ardua of the Potomac that everything within a two-mile radius of the White House was full of dark, negative energy, and the demon rejoiced.

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Washington Water Woman is heading out of town this coming weekend, and will return to blogging in a couple of weeks.

River of Dreams

Chloe Cleavage walked slowly out of Prince and Prowling with her cousin, Chloris Cleavage.  Chloris--an actress--was in town for the upcoming White House Correspondents' Dinner.  "Kim Kardashian and Lindsay Lohan!" Chloris said again.  "There will be so much publicity!  My career could really take a big jump.  If only I could find out what they're wearing."

"Just bribe a maid at their hotel," said Chloe quietly.

"Ha, ha!  That's funny!" said Chloris, whose method of helping Chloe deal with the accidental death of her boyfriend, Pierre, was total-distraction-all-the-time.  "Look at those birds!  Look at those flowers!  Look at this guy--is that David Axelrod?"

"You know about David Axelrod?" asked Chloe.

"I Googled 'white house celebrities' before I came--your office is so close to the White House!"

"Pierre longed to be invited to the White House to meet the President," said Chloe, wistfully.  (It was like the time that Wolfgang Prowling had died, and Chloe knew she wasn't directly responsible, but somehow it kept haunting her.)

"I'm going to try to get a photo of Pierre autographed by the President, just for you," said Chloris.  (Chloe made a funny noise in her throat, but no words came out.) "Look at that hideous coat!" exclaimed Chloris.  "Have you ever seen anything so revolting?!"

 A couple miles away, Liv Cigemeier was thinking the same thing.  (Have I ever seen anything so revolting?)  Bo-Oz Consulting's secretive 5G experts were in the midst of a lengthy presentation to International Development Machine, and they were currently showing close-up photos of dismantled pigeon eggs.

"The egg white is used for protein supplements, the egg yolks are used for omega-3 supplements, the shells are used for calcium supplements, and the egg albumin is used like collagen in cosmetic and medical products.  Pigeons, as you know, are freely available in nearly every city on the planet.  Their eggs can be harvested by our clients for free, meaning pure profit after processing.  Vive l'oeuf!  Viva el ovo!"

"They still have labor costs and machinery costs, don't they?" asked IDM's only economist.

"Our proposal to USAID is that they grant the money for the machinery and training costs.  The poor people get no direct salary, but a share of the income," said the Bo-Oz consultant.

"A share?" asked Augustus Bush, President of IDM.

"Perhaps 50% to IDM, 25% to Bo-Oz, and 25% to the laborers.  There are pigeon eggs almost everywhere there are poor people:  you can set this up in any country on Earth."

"But who wants supplements from pigeon products?" asked Momzilla. 

"That's the beauty of it!' exclaimed the Bo-Oz consultant.  "You can call them 'dove eggs', because it's basically the same thing."

 "If you can do this anywhere in the world, it will be easily replicated all over the place," said Liv Cigemeier.  "The prices will plummet on the products sold."

"Well, USAID will probably only pay enough for a few projects, anyway, and only for a couple of years.  You'll get good money upfront."

"And so will the poor people!" boomed Augustus Bush, rising from the table.  (His progress since moving from the U.S. Virgina Islands to Washington had not been as meteoric as he would have liked, and this project was not exactly going to help him leapfrog over his relative, Jeb Bush, to the top of any Vice-President wish lists, but he was a patient man.)

A couple miles to the east, Judge Sowell Ame--not a patient man--was in his Superior Court chambers.  This is it.  He had read the briefs, he had read his clerk's memoranda, he had read the previous judge's clerk's memoranda, and it was inconceivable that any additional pleadings could be filed on this river case--which had dragged on for decades.  He popped another Oreo cookie into his mouth.  Hundred-year anniversary of the Oreo cookie.  Sowell!  Concentrate!  He tossed the half-eaten Oreo packet onto the couch.  More like a love seat.  Ha!  Just once I'd like to have the nerve to tell the attorneys, "Sit down on the love seat!"  They hate sitting there--too crowded.  Sowell!  Concentrate!  He took several deep breaths and prepared to make his Decision.  I've been leaning against Prince and Prowling's client ever since I first saw this, but what Friends of the Potomac Pelicans says really makes sense.  If I rule in favor of P.P.'s client, it's going to piss off some very powerful people; on the other hand, there will be some happy non-profits, and P.P. itself.  He stared at his diploma for a moment, then pulled out a nickel from his drawer and did a coin toss.  Head's!  P.P. wins it!  His gut told him it was the right decision.

 A couple miles to the south, Coast Guard officer Marcos Vazquez checked the latest weather forecast for his shift on the river tomorrow, and he didn't like it.  On the other hand, turnout would be smaller, which meant less possibility of mischief from Ardua of the Potomac.  Is this what it's come down to?  I actively hope for fewer people in boats?

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Don't let the demon of D.C. keep you off our beautiful river!

http://potomacriverkeeper.org/set-sail-clean-water

Oil and Water

The men of the Heurich Society passed around Irish coffee to hearten themselves against the bitter gray skies and dreadful news out of Argentina, but it was not enough.  Henry Samuelson got up to close the velvet curtains of the upper meeting room of the Brewmaster's Castle, then sat back down.   He told the butler to bring in some candles after he was finished passing around the doughnuts, then got down to business:  "If I had still been in the CIA, we would have known Fernandez was going to nationalize the Argentine oil."

"And you would have overthrown the government?" asked the former Heurich Society chairman.

"Don't get smart with me!" hollered Samuelson.  "We all know that we have to protect our own interests.  We've got the Bush clan and neo-Nazis buying up private lands in Paraguay and Argentina to control the fresh water aquifers.  Hugo Chavez is dying in Venezuela, setting up a huge power vacuum to come.  Videla admitted that the Argentine dictatorship made thousands of political opponents disappear violently between 1976 and 1983.  And what's the U.S. government doing?  Hiring hookers in Colombia!  Who's minding the store?  Our interests have not been in this much jeopardy in South America since Allende was elected in Chile."

"Didn't you adopt your daughter in Argentina in 1980?" asked the former Heurich Society chairman.

"That is not the point," said Samuelson through clenched teeth.  "We CANNOT allow class warfare to erupt again in South America.  I propose we move Project Cinderella south of the border.  She's sick of the Middle East anyway."

Angela de la Paz (AKA Project Cinderella, among other things) had already visited Argentina once on a secret vacation, and would soon be surprised to learn she was going back.  Several miles east of the Brewmaster's Castle, she waved goodbye to the last of the Friendship Gardeners--who had sharply abridged their Earth Day activities at the National Arboretum due to the chilly rain--then followed Dr. Devi Rajatala back to the arborist's office.  "We really needed the rain," Dr. Rajatala said for the upteenth time, and Angela nodded again as she curled up in a chair and waited for Dr. Raj to make hot chocolate for her.

"I can drink coffee now," said Angela.

"Yes, you're all grown up," said Dr. Rajatala with a friendly dose of sarcasm that Angela had become accustomed to.  (Dr. Rajatala continued making hot chocolate.)

"My mom went to Seattle once.  She said the weather was just like this, and the people told her it always was.  Who could live in a place like that?"

"Every place has its own problems," said Dr. Raj.

"No sunshine?  That's unbearable," said Angela.

"They get some sunshine--how else would the trees and plants grow?"

"I suppose."  Angela was bracing for Dr. Raj to tell her again how she needed to go to college and learn stuff, but Dr. Raj just handed her the mug with a smile.

"Everything needs both water AND sun to grow strong," said Dr. Raj.

Here it comes, thought Angela.

Back on the western side of town, the Assistant Deputy Administrator for Hope was happy to be in his State Department office on a Sunday afternoon because he now had his best assignment in years:  plotting a USAID program to help impoverished Africans utilize newly discovered aquifers hidden under the Sahel and Sahara.  "Poverty breeds terrorism," he had heard many, many times, and some philosophers claimed that it was harsh, dry climates that bred the most fanatically violent forms of religion in the world.  I can really make a difference! he thought.  Soon they'll stop talking about the Arab spring and start talking about the Arabian springs of water gushing from the desert!

"Do you really think springs of water will start gushing from the desert?" Charles Wu asked his spy companion, a few miles north of the State Department.

"Well," said Slow Man, pausing to sip Musette sangria after a stirring rendition of "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia", "my sources tell me that speculators have already swooped in to buy a lot of those GIS-mapped properties."

"Buy them from whom?" asked Wu, who had already performed "Cowboys and Angels" as his karaoke requirement for getting intel from Slow Man.  "Who owns the deserts?"

"From whomever they can--bribed government officials, tribal leaders, sheiks, businessmen."

"And how good are those land titles?" asked Wu.

"Cheaply bought, to be sure, but if somebody actually strikes water, they'll probably generate enough cash to defend their little fiefdoms.  Cash, then guns, then little Thunder Domes all over northern Africa," said Slow Man.

"So these are a number of different buyers?" asked Wu.

"I don't have all the details," said Slow Man.  "Some Al Qaeda, some communists, some neo-Nazis, some business speculators, some arms dealers, some Somali refugees, some drug dealers."

"And do some of these land titles overlap?" asked Wu.

"Ha, ha, ha!  Now you're seeing the picture!" said Slow Man.  "Nigeria cries how it needs its $80 million national debt forgiven, then we find out that one oil state governor there pocketed at least $130 million himself!  So I ask you, is it more equitable for the people to let their governments spread the water wealth, or are they better off letting the, shall we say, private sector carve it up?"

"Equitable?" said Wu.  "What you're talking about sounds like years--maybe decades--of armed conflicts."

"I am only the messenger," said Slow Man.  "Thank God I do not have to decide these things."

Several miles to the west, Ardua of the Potomac celebrated the coldest, dreariest Earth Day she could ever have hoped for.

Interruptions

Television reporter Holly Gonightly looked through the camera to make sure the shot was what she wanted: five nannies seated in a semi-circle on the steps of the Library of Congress [subliminally suggestive of the U.S. Supreme Court], brown paper bags over each head, the sunlight casting shadows behind them. "Please go down the line, and everybody say 'testing, testing, testing'." The nannies dutifully repeated the words down the line. The cameraman then played back the tape so that Gonightly could hear how their voices sounded through the paper bags. (Dramatic!) "OK, I think we're ready to go!"

Nanny number two abruptly sneezed, then removed her bag to blow her nose. Gonightly exchanged worried glances with her cameraman, then positioned herself to begin the expose.

"Holly Gonightly reporting from Capitol Hill." She was wearing new shapewear to avoid looking TFFT (too fat for television), and special makeup to have a thinner-looking face. "Please tell me the name of your organization." She stuck the microphone into the first nanny's face/bag.

"N-U-T-T-Y. That stands for Nannies United To Take Y-chromosomes."

"And what is the purpose of Nutty?" asked Gonightly.

"Not 'nutty'!" said the third nanny. "It's N-U-T-T-Y!" (She rolled her eyes out of habit, forgetting nobody could see them.)

"The purpose," said the first nanny, "is to position ourselves into an economically viable future by replacing the mothers of our charges."

"Stealing their husbands?" asked Gonightly.

"Don't twist our words!" said the third nanny.

"Stop interrupting!" said the fourth nanny.

"I have just as much right to talk as anybody else!" said the third nanny.

"OK, everybody will have a chance to talk, but let's go one-by-one. Nanny number five, you work for a family of five in Eastern Market." (Quick check of cheat sheet.) "The father is Chief of Staff for a U.S. Senator, and the mother is a paid lobbyist for a Fortune 500 corporation. If the father divorces the mother to marry you, and you become a stay-at-home mother with only part-time custody of the three children, won't he expect you to get paid work outside of the home?"

"What?! Of course not!" said the fifth nanny.

"He will be paying child support, and no longer have the income of his wife to make the mortgage payments. How exactly will your situation improve?"

"That is not the point!" interjected the third nanny. "We are the ones that take care of the house and the garden and the meals and all the lovely things that make his home a castle!"

"And take care of the children?" asked Gonightly.

"Of course! The children! It's all about the children," said the third nanny.

"It's not our fault the economy is destroying women's chances!" said the second nanny. "Obama's policies made 92% of women lose their jobs!"

"No," said the first nanny, "92% of the jobs lost were women's jobs. We would have better jobs if it weren't for Obama."

"So you do not like taking care of children?" asked Gonightly.

"Of course we do!" said the third nanny. "And you [looking at the second nanny] became a nanny during the Bush Administration!"

"Our jobs are hard," said the first nanny. "For instance, we were all expected to work yesterday to take the kids downtown for the Cherry Blossom Festival Parade, and Saturday is supposed to be a day off! They gave us extra pay, but that doesn't make up for the extra exposure to pollen--I slept eleven hours last night! And I'm still sneezing."

Gonightly returned to the fourth nanny. "What about love?"

"I love the kids, and I love their father! But their mother is evil."

"Why is she evil?" asked Gonightly.

"Because she works outside the home!" said three nannies in unison.

"So do the fathers," said Gonightly.

"If those women would stay at home with their kids, then single women would be able to get jobs!" said the third nanny.

"It's Obama's fault, just like Romney said," said the fifth nanny.

"Do you feel you speak for all nannies?" asked Gonightly.

"Oh, no," said the first nanny. "Some nannies are too ugly to land a man, so they just take care of the children."

"Reporting from Capitol Hill, this is Holly Gonightly!"

In the midst of the small crowd of onlookers that had formed on the sidewalk to watch this intriguing event stood Congressman Herrmark's Chief of Staff--a woman. She was appalled by the entire interview. She had worked hard to get where she was, and being a woman was not nearly as much of a handicap as being a zombie. I know a Senator's chief of staff with a lobbyist wife and three children, she thought [though this description actually fit quite a large number of people on Capitol Hill]. I should eat her. She was thinking, of course, of eating nanny number five, but, in truth, she really could not stand that lobbyist wife. What if I eat her instead? Will he marry that ninny nanny? It had taken her years to learn how to use her special skill set to advance her own professional objectives, and she shook off these sudden impulses. I need to keep my eye on the prize. (All of her killings had to fulfill at least three out of five potential purposes on her kill-criteria list, and it was also important to prioritize.)

A mile to the south, Glenn Michael Beckmann also had a kill-criteria list, but he kept it all in his head. Trapped indoors by season allergies [which he blogged about as germ warfare set loose on the city by the United Nations], he kept himself busy with his home inventor kit. Today's project: create a Taser field that can be added to your automobile so that you can electrocute homeless men that approach with donation cans while you are stopped at an intersection, or those pesky children out in Arlington and Alexandria who start rubbing wet rags on your windshield before you agree to the "wash". Deep in the bowels of Beckmann's apartment building, the Southwest Plaza demon focused most of its energies on Beckmann because so many other people had moved out of their units. (The demon had yet to learn the balancing act of being a leech without destroying the host.) Suddenly the paranoid schizophrenic next door began screaming about aliens invading his bathtub. Beckmann could not and would not tolerate these interruptions. He got up, grabbed the pistol holstered at the side of his Lazy-Boy recliner (the other Lazy-Boy holster held the TV Guide), shot several times through the wall at his neighbor's apartment until the hollering stopped, reloaded his gun, then put the gun back in the holster. He rummaged in his work cabinet for the spackle, filled up the holes in his wall, then went back to his electrocution project.

Several miles to the north, Chloe Cleavage (one of the Southwest Plaza residents that had gotten away) was sitting in her condo Lazy Boy recliner, staring in disbelief at Pierre (a former resident of Occupy DC). Pierre was kneeling before her, a ring in his hand, proposing marriage. Cleavage found the ring (inherited from his grandmother) hideous, but that was not the worst aspect of the proposal. "We could go live in Shenandoah National Forest, off the grid, livin' off the land as Nature intended!" (He really just wanted to marry her to get on her Prince and Prowling health insurance plan, but he thought a more romantic and over-the-top proposal would serve his purposes best.) "I could build a little cabin for us with my own bare hands, and--"

"Stop! Just stop!"

"Of course, my love!" he said, hopeful.

"We have nothing in common!" exclaimed Cleavage.

"Just what the birds and bees have in common, my love, and isn't that all that Nature calls for, ultimately?"

"I'm going to the office," she announced, and stood up without another word.

He watched in silence as she grabbed her bag and headed out the door, then he buckled over in pain from the kidney stones and gallbladder stones that had first started developing when he was abstaining from drinking water to minimize urination while camped at McPherson Square. "Aaaaargh!" Feeling dizzy, he staggered up and out to the balcony to get a fresh breeze. Suddenly overcome with nausea, he leaned over the balcony railing to vomit, then was too dizzy to stand back up. His feet gave way, and he grasped at the railing in vain before plunging to his death several stories below. A flock of nearby sparrows jumped up in alarm, but the nearby starlings just watched in silence.