Wednesday: Dinner at the White House

Anyone who’s anyone in Washington has given strict orders to their assistants or secretaries to “clean” the agenda of commitments on Wednesday nights. Lest the Obamas call…

Fifty days in Washington and Michelle and Barack Obama have already established a custom: Wednesday nights are party time at the White House. “This house is very big and sometimes we feel alone,” joked the President when asked about the events being held in the presidential residence. “It’s hard for me to drive myself around outside, so what I’ve decided is to bring the world to me.”

So, beneath the watchful gaze of the portraits of George and Martha Washington, the white columns of the most symbolic home in the U.S. boom to the sound of “Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I’m Yours” by Stevie Wonder, during a party held after the singer won the Gershwin Prize.

Another Wednesday, the week before, with Black History Month as the excuse for celebration, the group Sweet Honey in the Rock let loose their a cappella songs before an audience of around 200 scholars from all over the city.

Washington is a fashionable city, and Wednesday is the coolest day on the calendar. On this day, with Monday already a depressing memory and Friday a close promise, the traditional dinner for the nation’s 50 governors was held, bringing together a total of 130 diners. On the menu there was no lack of wines from California, Michigan and Oregon. There were pastries filled with crab and artichoke, veal and scallops, carrots and spinach, in addition to a fruit salad with pistachios. But the best things were the desserts. After the blueberry pie with caramel ice cream, when Obama and the press had already retired, the senior politicians launched into a conga dance. “Thank you also for waiting until I had left before you started the conga line,” the President said to the governors the next day. “I heard it was quite a spectacle.”

“Someone like me, a poor kid from the country, feels very comfortable in his presence,” said Congressman Mike Honda, after attending an event for the different caucuses that make up Congress. “I felt like I went to a graduation dance, not a drawn out event at the White House,” Honda insisted. “Obama is down to Earth and engaging.”

Only a few people were surprised when, during the lunch held at the White House for the Super Bowl, Obama himself got up and offered cookies (oatmeal raisin) to the guests. And he showed a 12-year-old boy with urgent physiological needs how to get to the bathroom.

“We are only temporary residents,” declared President Obama. “This place belongs to the American people and we want to make sure that everyone understands that our doors are open.” Fifty days in the White House and already those nights when George W. Bush turned off the light on his desk at eight p.m. are a gray and distant memory. It was out Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. On the weekends, nine p.m. was quite excessive.