and 69 more...
Tue, Jan 14 at 10:11 AM
14 January 2025
The Moon was beautiful out above the patio which is still enveloped in last week’s stubborn ice. The Big Sway commences. It is unseasonably cold and the smoke cloud by the ash pillar is dense but brief since we use the Patio entrance because it used to be owned by the leadership of the International [REDACTED] Union, whose name Legal told us not to mention.
Accordingly, the suite was set up for hospitality with the wall knocked out of the kitchen making the old living/dining/kitchen spaces open for circulation with a bar and food service in the middle. Fun place that is no longer a home, per se, but a nice communal transit and gathering space not unlike a Ready Room,.
Which is what it is. The Chairman has the fancy one on the 8th Floor where Speaker Albert resided as the most powerful elected Dem in the Nixon Administration and third most powerful person in our government. We are a little shabbier now, but you can’t beat the location, amenities and the fact that a successful coup d'etat was run from right here. The remodeling obviously went well.
We’re ready to start this week now that some of this is almost over. That’s all the humor we can find after watching the devastation in LA. The stories were poignant, until they got to the looters who are prowling 22,0000 acres of the suddenly flash-melted belongings of the richest zip code in human history.
Pete Hegseth is already dressed, briefed and headed for The Hill for confirmation, and if it works we will soon know who our Chairman knows and if the inner circle he appoints are people we used to deal with. Ollie said the consultants swarming around are trying to get the messaging straight as they figure out what mouths will be used to spread it.
Which is why Ollie was perfect for his knowledge of Econ and Sports. And information? He used to spell his name “Ali.” It is a process here, and we have specialized (and decorated) people who have lived through these emotional changes and help the people now dealing with the distress of losing the part of their names with “majority” in the title. Or gaining it, of course.
We think Socotra can provide a messaging source consistent in support of good government across a broad spectrum of issues with brief position papers and support right from the patio or the running track at Washington & Lee High School when warm enough. That is the old name for the school that had to be changed to remove honor from the family that owned this part of the County they named and in which some of us plan to spend eternity.
We don’t mind and we will only care as long as the Black Rifle Coffee and Monkey Shoulder is in the time-locked hospitality safe. Which we have found can be locked open without being closed for ease of spontaneous operations.
Which is part of the messaging, of course. We’re going to attempt to keep it flowing in that spirit, but the shock and magnitude of the fire news and the pageantry and exit festoon of awards and medals to some whose names has sparked rollicking laughter.
So there is hope. This will lurch through today and DeMille says we need to straighten our hoodies, get our masks straight and get ready to start covering the big sway as a new rider attempts to take charge and ride this team of big Clydesdale of a Fifteen Minute County.
Kristina says be careful in areas with Sharia-sensitive dress areas. Kristina said she would take care of overthrowing the regime in Tehran over that matter. We agreed as a group, two abstentions, about the recent trouble with Kurds and Turks and Iranians and the Israelis. Apparently, they think they are a nation with better claim of being a violated state than the Palestinians. Or at least that is what our regional accidental expert Vapor thinks they think.
“We can take that one on some other cold morning,” said DeMille, and waved some of the loose editorial ends around. “We got four or five data streams we can use to increase circulation statistics. Ollie actually follows sports, so we have international, domestic, local restaurants and weather.” He pointed at Vic slumped at the end of the long table.
“He had a piece on Tracy O’Grady, the famed chef and owner of the Willow. Vic spent a decade in her place, formal at first, coat and tie for business lunch or dinner. But two office changes the put him on both sides of the street from elegant fine dining eventually transformed the Willow Bar into his living room. He claims that had nothing to do with the failure of the plaza complex and it was a simple case of bad management, or we would still be dining there. Like California.”
Melissa is following the negotiation to turn that beautiful glass tower and plaza into a homeless center. “This is not exactly the Missing Middle we have been looking for.”
Vic yawned. This morning, he was using the conference table since it is cheaper than Northside Social: Coffee and Wine. We like the fact that they cover the whole spectrum of human emotion in one package we understand.
He was working on a food string without urgency but admiration. Vic put down his device on the conference table with a frown. “In 1979, my squadron did 110 days steaming out of sight of land ready to smack those guys.”
He didn’t use the terms he used to and we laughed. “If there is another pandemic, ‘I would just as soon do it out there. Where it’s safe.” He had the remote blood pressure cuff set up on the table.
DeMille sighed. Now he had to work the medical thing in the stream. It gave him an immediate reading of 123/72/74 which was narrowcast by WiFi to the medical center,
More on some of these issues as they topple into them So, we plan to sit straight, keep a ready smile, have a light to shine on people digging where the bedroom or the workshop used to be, and remember that finally, Spring is next after all that election stuff that lasted since 2016.
With a little sensual sway!
Copyright 2025 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com