Parking Karma

The Urban Dictionary defines Parking Karma as the uncanny ability to find an open parking space in a desirable location of a busy parking lot.

There are people who have parking karma and my husband is one of those people. While on our trip recently to the east coast, there were two scenarios where his parking karma proved beneficial.

Scenario 1: Provincetown, Mass. center on a busy "tourist" Sunday. As we headed into town to find a parking spot to join the other tourists, we drove to the main street and expected to be circling the block a few times. Our guide even said to head to the outskirts and we would walk in. Just as those words were said, we spotted an open space - actually the space was nearest to the main street. Voila! We were out of the car and having a grand time.

Scenario 2: Boston, Mass. Park Street, close to the State House. We were returning to Boston for one night before going to the airport to return the rental car and catch our flight the next day. Our GPS guided us neatly to 8 Park Street (Union Club of Boston), our hotel for the night. Our plan was to drop off the bags and locate a spot in the Boston Common parking garage at a HUGE fee (absolutely never expected to find street parking). Much to our surprise, there was a metered spot available almost in front!

This Parking Karma is a wonderful benefit of being married to my husband. Somehow, it has even rubbed off on me as I often locate a spot close to my destination. How about you? Got Parking Karma?

A message from Michelle

For only the second time in my adult life, I am not ashamed of my country. I want to thank the hard working American people for paying $242 thousand dollars for my vacation in Spain. My daughter Sasha, several long-time family friends, my personal staff and various guests had a wonderful time. Honestly, you just haven't lived until you have stayed in a $2,500.00 per night suite at a 5-Star luxury hotel. Thank you also for the use of Air Force 2 and the 70 Secret Service personnel who tagged along to be sure we were safe and cared for at all times.

Air Force 2 only used 47,500 gallons of jet fuel for this trip and carbon emissions were a mere 1,031 tons of CO2.These are only rough estimates, but they are close. That's quite a carbon footprint as my good friend Al Gore would say, so we must ask the American citizens to drive smaller, more fuel efficient cars and drive less too, so we can lessen our combined carbon footprint.

I know times are hard and millions of you are struggling to put food on the table and trying to make ends meet. I do appreciate your sacrifice and do hope you find work soon. I was really exhausted after Barack took our family on a luxury vacation in Maine a few weeks ago, and we are now in Martha’s Vineyards although I can’t find the vineyards. We just had to get away for a few days……after all, we had been working in DC for 8 or 9 days in a row.

Cordially,

M. Obama