Lounging With Laura


The New York Times Magazine is running (for paid-up subscribers and content thieves) a blessedly short puff piece titled "Laura Bush is Back at the Ranch."  Why so short?  Well, it was originally a little longer, but as you will see from this rough draft somebody rescued from the garbage can, there is a kindly editor who prettied it up a bit.  Remember -- the New York Times is a willing and eager spinner/enabler/PR tool of all presidential administrations: past, present and future.



I Had No Idea How Stressed I Was


GOOD RIDDANCE, WASHINGTON: There is a stark contrast between life in the White House and life at home. I didn’t really know I was stressed until I moved home and started taking massive doses of Valium I wasn’t.

 

HOME ALONE: Barney and Miss Beazley had a harder time adjusting than we did. They miss the large staff and have gotten clingy.  They started peeing in George's shoes when he took them off, and then squish.

NEW DISCOVERY: I found how incompetent I am around the home. For 14 years, I never cooked. This last Christmas, when the last of the help finally quit I cooked lunch for my mother and our daughter Barbara. I just roasted the turkey breast. The whole turkey seemed too difficult. Life is too difficult.

FAVORITE DEMOCRAT: Hillary Clinton. She and I have a lot of the same interests in helping women around the world.after we invade their countries and having annoying husbands. I am My secretary is still in touch with her publicist, and periodically our minions staffs talk.


GRANDKID PREP: We put a secret door from our bedroom that opens into the girls’ part of the house, in the hope of one day I can escape this living hell having to leave it open so that we could hear a baby or babies.


FAVORITE OBJECT: I have walking canes made by Roosevelt Wilkerson, a formerly homeless man in Dallas. He finds these great sticks and carves the Ten Commandments in them. We gave one to Pope Benedict that said Suffer the Little Children and No Child's Behind Left.


CHERISHED RUG: The one I got for free bought through ARZU, a company that an American woman started for Afghan women as a tax write-off, to help them find employment -  help, not actually find, mind you.


A TOUCH OF GORE: We built this house during the 2000 campaign. We knew we wanted it to be energy efficient. We have geothermal heat and air. We built a big cistern, and water runs off the roof into a trough into the cistern.  We put lots of Dow chemicals in the water to kill off all those Giant Texas skeeters and if the neighbors' pets trespass and take a drink, too bad.


FAVORITE CHORE: I love cleaning. The girls love to make fun of me about this. I just like for things to be orderly. My husband is pretty orderly, too.  We have untreated OCD.  We’re both ruthless about getting rid of clutter. We're both ruthless, we're both ruthless, got to wash hands...


ENTERTAINMENT CENTER: We loved “The King’s Speech” and “The Social Network,” but what I watched this year, which became an addiction besides the pills, was an old BBC series called “The House of Eliott.”  The help My staff had given it to me for my birthday, and when we had those long snow days, when George screamed if I tried to leave the room  I never got out, I watched all 34 episodes. It is about two sisters who are left by their father penniless, and they develop into fashion designers. Of course, I was never left penniless, haven't had to work in years and I am set for life because of George's investments in Middle Eastern oil and the Bush Crime Family's many and varied business ventures.


FANTASY CAREER: I would have made a very excellent book editor, because I am interested in writing and in words, and I like red pencils.  And orange pencils and purple pencils and green pencils and kaleidoscopes and the smell of glue and


COUPLES RETREAT: George and I do everything together, really. We read at the same time. We go to bed early and I read The Hardy Boys to him very single night. We have all of our breakfasts and dinners together. The ones the help cooks.


PRESIDENT BUSH'S MOST ANNOYING HABIT:  Smack. "Smacking on chewing gum."


ON THE PRESIDENT’S MIND: He’s always worried about our small lake that is stocked with bass, because he loves to fish. There’s always some concern: It’s too hot. It’s too cold. Too soft.  Too hard.He has to have everything just so. He's the decider..  Are the fish not getting enough feed? That’s what he worries about. Oh, and the frogs.  He has to have those frogs on the Fourth of July to stick firecrackers into and blow up, like the neighbor boy told Nick Kristof at The Times that time.  What a cute story that was.


SIGN OFF: I actually just got a BlackBerry message from George that said "jdsdseihfgye8ddg", “Where are you?”