Hail to the VEEP

Friday, January 23, 2015. A date which will live in hilarity.

For those of you who know me or have been reading the blog for a bit, my life is seasoned with unpredictability. What I say or write about usually has only 12 hours or so of conception and gestation prior to verbal regurgitation, and some of my daily activities are plain random. In a quantum astrophysics sense.

So I know you are wondering how on G-d’s great green EARTH did I meet Vice President Joe Biden; because guess what boys and girls, this isn’t a wax statue from the Madame Tussauds Museum!! See, here is what happened: my friend works for the White House and needed volunteers to help out during Mr. Biden’s recent visit to Los Angeles. At the time, I had a very flexible schedule, and jumped at the chance of meeting a fellow Orange alumnus — not Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH).

 

I got selected, against all odds, to be a driver in the Vice President’s motorcade.  Did I mention that I also was suffering from the California Death Flu?  That mutated with Ebola?  Oh, I didn’t?  Because I was a rockstar.

And like a rockstar, I got to stand in line for nearly an hour until I could have my 27.3 seconds of bonding time with the Gentleman from Delaware. And what a character! First of all, he’s a lot taller in person than I imagined, and built like Abraham Lincoln. Long and lean, but not as tall, and with a strange aversion to top hats.  Also, for a man his age, he has perfectly coiffed hair.

Once my number came up for the photo-op, we chatted about our alma mater, the good ol’ ‘Cuse, how I don’t miss the snow (nor do I envy his climate), and my dear friend Amie Parnes, author extraordinaire, who recently released a book about former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

I suppose if I could describe our interaction in a hashtag, it would be #nofilter. Apropos? He came across as very personable and charming, and he even shook my hand, despite the fact that I had the pneumonic plague — or at least felt like it.

Lastly, I got to do some real badassery, like chill with the Secret Service, drive a van in the convoy, and go down the 405 WITHOUT TRAFFIC. I felt like Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic, before she sank: I’m king of the world!!!  But I’m a girl!!!  So I’m a queen!!!

I guess there’s nothing left to say except let’s go Orange!!! I know he’s done plenty of press, but now he’s taken centerstage in the dog-and-pony show.

From the Rose Garden, Ryzenberg On is Signing Off.