Jan

16

And you plan, hell or high water, to go. Once-in-a-lifetime, Divine Intervention miracle result, TG not to see that woman lie for four more years. Etcetera. So: What to do. How much will it cost? Can you do what needs to be done to make it through the dollar blizzard?

There's the train, if you're coming from a distance. Major bucks more than the bus. You can take the Chinese buses, not guaranteed to arrive on time, but only $30 each way, and reasonable as these things go.

Or the military skirmish-level of flying, squished seating, also sold out, and inadequate luggage space. And the pat-downs and stink-eyes of the airport Homeland Security types. Plus the major layout for last-minute ticketing, unaccompanied by your loved ones, since you have to pay extra for a
1. choice seat on the aisle, and
2. Seat next to a friend or spouse.

Then , where to stay. Pretty much every hostel, now $100/night for the executive manger straw and bunk-bed starvation accommodation, is all sold out. Compare and contrast: Back in 2009, there were supposedly 1.8 million hysterically thrilled up their leg visitors to the Obama Inauguration. The estimate for this year, 20 January 2017, is a shaved 440.000, poor-man's carnival visit list. (That lowball is probably going to turn out wrong, like the mavens of missing who got the election results 98% wrong.)

But now, all the big-buck hotels are pretty much filled by one week prior. So scrambling for guesthouses, B & B's, people you know who have a cousin whose sister has a nephew with a house in the 'burbs with a spare bed.

That costs $175-295 for 3 or 4 sharing. They involve a 20-minute ride from the outskirtiest skirts to a mere 15-minute hike to the parade grounds. If it's the cheaper alternative, you'll need to rent a car, or hire an Uber, or (my humorous alternative, which I have done in the past) bring along a bike. Once in the heart oof Inaugural region, you'll need a trainride to the spot. This all assumes traffic is moving, and that your 'short hop' from outside DC will not become a grueling hur in stuck traffic lanes and fraying nerves.

You have to eat. So if you don't pack a cumbersome suitcase or backpack to haul food, on the astringent diet budget spectrum, then you have to rely on local fare, all genially jacked up for the occasion. At least two or three or four meals, tip and tax, and not looking chintzy with your companions or spice. Figure another $200 for those blue-plate specials.

Hey, restaurateurs gotta eat, too, right?

If you can't cope with these details, as they say, then for a mere $2200, even, you get viewing rights, a nice bed in a good place, and a few invites to galas where your fellow Republicans will be jolly with wassail and beers. Hoisting a tankard or two, you'll justify the extra piracy for the day or two of rejoicing. Then, if you nix the Gala Package for "00 (low end: High end—unknowable digits), you can shell out $300 per gala. So don't forget your gay apparel, in that suitcase you have stored somewhere a headache away when you go back home. You can't be expected to wear your fancy duds all that stand-up time as Donald J. takes the oath of office and you freeze your tootsies waiting for the festivities to begin. The duds are for the nighttime fiestas. So you have one or two changes of clothing to think about packing.

These galas will of course provide tranches of delicacies, tables groaning with terrific stuff. (Even the Dems, when they celebrated, forwent the PC tofu and alfalfa sprouts to knuckle under bevies of branded luxe seafood and tenderest of tenderloin. And so on. So you'll chow down to hold you all the way back to Keokuk or Wainscot or Albuquerque.

Then home, not forgetting to race back for your stored bags and accumulate. Even without the Special Package, you're still in for a couple of thou.

Worth it?

How delighted are you we have finally prevailed over the terror of seeing that pant-suited panther for four extended Obamayears?

Letya know. I'm on the list.


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  1. astro the dog on January 19, 2017 8:15 am

    Barack Obama and the Facebook Election
    The president-elect was far ahead online, Matthew Fraser and Soumitra Dutta write.
    By Soumitra Dutta and Matthew Fraser Nov. 19, 2008, at 12:20 p.m.

    Obama as folk hero: To be what he’s trying to be — black, idealistic and president — is nothing less than superhuman Obama’s had unprecedented importance for black people. We even forgive his blunders, because he’s one of the family
    ERIN AUBRY KAPLAN
    —————–
    Monday, January 16, 2017
    Apologies for making you suffer through it again but Trump will most likely attain folk hero status.

    Each 1/2 of the nation is having their time of ‘hope’ as the main ingredient for success to only turn into failure at the latter stages of the main and larger nation building cycle in place. It is uncanny as towards each point in history ‘hope’ became the cause towards the affect.

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