By Jenna Bush Hager and Barbara Pierce Bush.
Sometimes you find yourself reading things you probably wouldn't have thought you'd read while on vacation, or more like "while your vacation trip is canceled and you're stuck in the house babysitting your sick mom and then your mother decides to wake up and look for an "acupuncture pen" on your computer for two hours and look, this book is sitting right here." Which is kinda why I ended up reading this book by the Bush twins, a short but pretty good autobiography of their lives. Lord knows I was not a fan of their dad back in the day, but they seem nice enough and switch back and forth as to writing about what life's like in the Bush family. Most of them have had memorable love stories, George W. comes off as smarter here (he got A's in math in business school), and you get to see the periodic speech or e-mail from their parents or grandparents. George H.W. was quite the sappy e-mailer, while Barbara I accidentally got an e-mail intended for Barbara II about waxing and felt free to share her opinions on that topic (don't use Nair).
Overall, it sounds like their childhood was pretty normal to them, interspersed with "life in the governor's mansion" and having Secret Service agents off and on over the years. They admit to their foibles with cameras and drinking in college and the like--hey, there's no guidebook for being first daughters. It sounds like 9/11 was pretty terrifying for them--Barbara was whisked out of class and taken to the nearest "pay with cash" divey motel where she couldn't even watch her dad's speech very well on television." Their parents were rushed to secure locations so they couldn't call them, so the Secret Service did get the twins in contact with each other.. They do sound like they've had interesting lives and opportunities that came from all of that, though.
Notable moments:
- Barbara II has the exact same name as her grandmother, which wasn't an issue at the time of her birth but once she was old enough to try to call out for pizza, people usually assumed she was making a joke and would hang up, and she had no idea what was wrong and nobody in the family explained it to her, apparently. She used aliases during the presidential years when flying but it's a general pain in the ass/confusion issue for others.
- Barbara II says they didn't get to know their grandmother very well until they were sixteen because they usually only saw her in crowds of 10-20 other cousins instead of one-on-one. and she took up needlepoint so they'd have something in common.
- Barbara I would wear unmatching shoes just for fun in her 80's and once danced with John Travolta.
- Barbara II once flipped the bird--obviously--in the seventh grade class photo because everyone was going to do it and then she was the only one who actually did it.
- Laura Bush would move the girls out of college housing by throwing their clothes into trash bags and then throwing them out the second-story dorm window. "Efficient, avoiding stairs, and taking all of ten minutes to clear out a room. (I highly recommend it as a packing method.")" -Barbara II
- Uday and Qusay Hussein had pictures of the twins (clothed) in their giant collection of naked women pictures. They were so creeped out.
- Barbara II: "My agents seven comforted a number of my friends' broken hearts--who better to ask for male relationship advice than the two guys sitting in the front seat of the car with you?"
- One of Barbara II's Secret Service agents, Steve, got interested in the job when he met John Hinckley Jr. while studying psychology in college. She later nicknamed him "Steve the Bastard" when he did an online quiz giving him the Wu-Tang Clan name of "Bastard Bastard Harbor Master."
- Barbara II would claim that one of her agents was her brother when people asked how they knew each other when traveling, since they couldn't admit what they were.
- Jenna snarks on all of the articles written about her drinking: "The last line of every story was invariably: 'Her twin sister, Barbara, attends Yale University.'"
- "To write about war is a difficult task; to write about a war that your dad launched when he was president is almost impossible." -Barbara
- Jenna's boyfriend Henry got nasty notes on his door about how he should be in war.
- One feels very sorry for poor Henry Hager, Jenna's eventual husband, in this one. On date one, he parks his car right where they're about to land Marine One, so they have to rush out the door and move the car. On date two, his car runs out of gas on an incline and it rolls right into the Secret Service car following behind. The Secret Service car is fine, Henry's car is not. Later when trying to bike with her dad, he ends up getting hit by one of the Secret Service car doors opening, sending him flying. GWB's response to this: "Well, he's a nice kid. The biking was fun. It was all good until he was doored."
- Barbara II met Silvio Berlusconi, "who had a reputation as a ladies' man." Uh.... "He told me that I should have children with his son, right after telling me, 'If I was younger, I"d have children with you.' A few sentences after that, the female translator stopped translating."
- Barbara II also ended up sitting next to Putin and hearing the tragic story of his dead older brother. Unfortunately it also involves the "Bring out your dead!" 'I'm not dead!" from Monty Python and the Holy Grail--for real, happening to his mother except his mother didn't die. Damn.
- When seeing the Olympics in Beijing, Barbara II and her dad and everyone else had to mime any conversations that they wanted to have due to bugging.
- GWB's reaction to Henry saying he wanted to marry Jenna: "We love Jenna, but you know she can be a pain in the ass." Jenna still does not appreciate that remark.
- A TA of Barbara II's refused to give her an A unless she could talk her father out of going to war.
- Barbara II made a video in favor of gay marriage. Yes, her dad knew, it was something they would politely debate/argue about.
- Jenna says all these people say that Barbara I looks like she'd bake great cookies. "I cannot remember Barbara Bush ever baking anything."
- Barbara I: "I don't care if you are the president of the United States, take your feet off my coffee table" (to GWB).
- Barbara I: When asked by Jon Meacham if she ever thought GWB would become president, she laughed her head off, followed by saying "No."
- Barbara I made stockings for everyone and even made stockings to be used after her own death for other great-grandchildren, arranging ahead of time for someone else to do the personalization.
- Jenna: "I did have a boyfriend who, while staring into my eyes, said, "I wish your eyes were like your sister's." I wanted to yell, "No shit! I love the color of her eyes!"
- Jenna has some great responses every time someone maritally nags her about Barbara II not being married. Barbara II says that if she wanted to be married, she would be.
- Barbara I had a mug that said "Reading Is Sexy."
- This interview also mentions a lot of great stories from the book, which saves me the trouble of typing more out.
Anyway, I was pretty entertained, so four stars.
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