The Binary Circumstance

Julie Leung and her techie husband Ted Leung had a very nice get-together for Bainbridge Island bloggers yeterday.

It was a beautiful sunny afternoon as I found my way to their home in a neighborhood that immediately reminded me of Wysteria Lane from Desperate Housewives.  As I drove into the subdivision, past yards with beautiful gardens, landscaped medians and skillfully planted strips between the sidewalk and the curb, I saw a cluster of families and little children running through the yards and into the street.

There were bicycles in the middle of the road and as I approached one parent rushed out to pull them to the curb.  One little plastic kiddie car was still in the street but close enough to the curb that I could pass it safely.  Had I been Mrs. McCluskey from DH, I would have run over it and then explained to the parents that that’s what their children deserved for leaving their toys in the street.

I looked at the faces, thinking I might spot Bree, Lynnette, Susan, Gabrielle, Edie or Mike the plumber, but nobody looked familiar.  Surely they must be here somewhere, I thought.

When I arrived at Julie’s house I realized it was across the street from a house that I had looked at when it was one the market about a year ago.  I pointed it out to Julie she said it had been sold because the owner had to do a little jail time for some overly-creative accounting he had done for his company.

After hearing that, I thought surely those familiar faces from Desperate Housewives would appear soon.  But all the homes close to Julie and Ted’s seem deserted.  There were no parents or children running from house to house invading each others’ lives.  It was eerily quite.

The mystery was solved by a news item this morning.  It seems that at least some of them had flown to Washington, DC for the evening to attend the press corps’ dinner where Laura Bush described how President Bush’s early bedtime had turned her into a desperate housewife.

The president sat down and she proceeded to note that he is “usually in bed by now??? and said she told him recently, “If you really want to end tyranny in the world, you’re going to have to stay up later.???

She outlined a typical evening: “Nine o’clock, Mr. Excitement here is sound asleep and I’m watching ‘Desperate Housewives’.??? Comedic pause. “With Lynne Cheney. Ladies and gentlemen, I am a desperate housewife.???

The line earned particularly rambunctious applause from the area of the Hilton Washington hotel ballroom where actor James Denton [Mike the plumber] from the hit ABC show sat.

I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the others were there, too.   

The boundry between TV and reality is so easily violated.

At any rate, in spite of the setting, there was no desperation at Julie’s party.  Just a fun time and some very interesting people.

It looks like Busker, (a.k.a. Chris Holmes) who I really enjoyed talking to, is the first with a detailed writeup.  Because he’s British, I was interested in his views on Absolutely Fabulous.

I found out that due to his experiences in London publishing, I am now just two degrees of separation from Joanna Lumley, and three from Jennifer Saunders, two from Bob Woodward and Carl Berstein who he carted around England on a book tour.

That leaves me three degrees of separation from a lot of presidents and all their men.  Lucky me.

We both struggled to remember the name of the "tall one" in Thelma & Louise. Genna Davis.  I had to look it up on Julie’s computer. Chris reminded me that she had been in Tootsie (I finally remembered the scene this morning) and I reminded him that Helena Bonham Carter had been in Fight Club playing radically against type.  What those two movies had in common was Brad Pitt.

Julie’s link above is to her account of the party.  She also includes links to some of the other writeups.

| Go to Home - Most Recent Posts

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 1st, 2005 at 10:01 am and is filed under Bainbridge Island, Humor. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a reply. Pinging is currently not allowed.