The Mega Post (Part 2: Birthday Week Continues and Work Goes Berserk)

The last week in June was a - you guessed it - busy one with little time to relax, which is what I'm mostly trying to do now while I write. This also goes a long way to explain why I haven't posted before now. Oops, sorry about that. But between birthday events, impromptu celebrations, and crazy historical events disrupting my standard routine (so much as I have one these days), the previous week hasn't allowed much time for sitting down and spilling thoughts and happenings down on the web.

Midway through the workday on Tuesday, I got a typical harried brusque message from Goo imploring me to join her in a surprise attack on Davia. Apparently Ben (Ben who? I don't remember any Ben. Did he ever hang out with us?) was in town to surprise Davia and we were gathering after work to grab a few drinks and hang out. I am all for hanging out with awesome people. I am also all for drinking. Great mix! However, Goo was feeling particularly frantic and needed to leave work early. The standard employee works an 8 hour day with a lunch break (9-5). Congressional employees, when not on a specially dictated recess, work a 9 hour day (9-6) and usually eat lunch at our desks.

Goo wanted to leave at 5. Not wanting to take a single hour of leave, I came up with another reason to skip out of work without... actually, you know... skipping out of work. So, at 4:30ish, I arranged to have a book set aside in the Library of Congress main reading room (which is GORGEOUS). I told my co-workers I was headed over to LoC, which we do fairly often, and that I'd probably be there until the end of the day so I was taking my bag. I then tromped over there, grabbed the book, and jotted down the few notes I needed. And then the library closed at 5, so... I had to leave anyway! Totally not my fault. However, Library of Congress is a maze and they close basically ALL OF THE EXITS at 5, so it took me a while to get out of the damn building and over to Longworth to meet Goo for the walk in surprisingly pleasant weather over to Chinatown.

Yeah, I get rare-ass books in here and do the nation's work. No big deal.

In Chinatown we met up with Sara and Noah, then dragged Mike and Ben over from their Corner of Obliviousness to our Hideaway of Bathroom Smell. About a half hour later, Davia arrived and squealed and jumped about, and we all wished her another happy birthday. Ben made awkward whisper noises at me a lot...after forgetting to invite me to this surprise entirely. Because he hates me. He said so. Because he is mean. Mike got indignant about Scarlett Johansson being clothed (fair), Davia got frustrated about Mike and Ben playing Diablo III instead of being sociable (ok), and Goo got upset because GODDAMMIT CARMEN SANDIEGO IS HERS (wtf). It was a fun, special evening.

Goo's. You no can has emotional connection to.

On Wednesday, I met Jeff, Davia, Sara and (eventually one day once he had sufficiently navigated the red line which we all agree he is kinda bad at mostly because it is the RED LINE) Noah. Also Jeff's Mom who paid for our meal and pitcher of swirled margaritas. Thanks, Mrs. Asjes, you are the best. Also the margaritas were the best. We were there to celebrate Jeff possibly purchasing a home, which he may or may not have done. I am unable to confirm or deny whether this happened, but I will say we were celebrating its occurrence or non-occurrence. I've also forgotten why I had to be careful how I referred to this. Whatever, we had burritos and margaritas. It was good. Goo could not make it because her old Congressman is boring and puts people to sleep but is otherwise a lovely man.

Then on Thursday, my work world exploded! With my boss and our chief press correspondent out, we were forced to weather one of the busiest national news days centered on Washington, D.C. in some time. First off, there was the health care decision. I'm very pleased with how it turned out, and, unlike many, I do not share the "The sky is falling!" fears of either heartbroken conservatives or paranoid liberals. The ACA, while not the best version of the health care bill, is a good piece of legislation that will in fact help a lot of people in the lower and middle classes as well as people with prior conditions and college students who need insurance for a bit longer while the recession continues to screw them over. As for the decision itself and what it means, I suggest clicking over on the sidebar there on that link to Mike's blog, where he has a very concise write-up that I feel sums things up nicely. On the work end of it, we had to deal with a couple calls from Members and the press about prior legislative responses to Court decisions. Most of this was very straightforward procedural questions, but it came along with another piece of big news on Thursday.

On Thursday afternoon, for the first time in history, the House of Representatives held a sitting attorney general in contempt of Congress. What does this mean? Well, after being held in contempt, the case is referred to the Justice Department which will then decide whether to pursue charges. Given that Eric Holder heads up the Justice Department, they obviously decided to forego charges. We have been getting questions all week about precedent. Was this the first sitting cabinet member? What is the history of Congress holding executive department figures in contempt? What is the history of executive privilege in the United States? Being the official historians of the House, we're very careful to avoid absolutes, and there's a lot of referring people to specifically useful offices. This week, we referred people to the House Oversight Committee (headed by Rep. Issa who originally brought the contempt charges) and several reports on house oversight, contempt, and executive privilege. I like to keep this blog from getting too bogged down in the minutiae of what I do at work, but it's been a rather interesting and quite historical week for us. Nothing is immediately relevant to our publications (we avoid any chance of being political by refusing to write on anything in the past 10 years and only writing the barest facts about living Members or former Members), but we have lots of information stored away for the historian's office records.

I've got one more post in me that may go up tonight or tomorrow about this weekend with the close of Davia's Birthday Week, the Big-Ass Storm out of nowhere, and hosting a refugee from powerlessness.