The email read:
“To start off, I want to send my condolences to Sharon and her family over the loss of Penny. Our pets are like family so I understand how hard this time is.
“The reason for my outreach today is to invite Sharon to the NATO Summit.”
(Penny was my sweet dog who was hit by a car in our driveway and killed a few months ago. She is missed every day.)
Of course, I accepted the invitation – attending a NATO summit is peak Governerd, and perhaps a once in a lifetime opportunity.
The State Department, the Department of Defense, and NATO also invited other members of the public to attend, some of whom I already knew, and others I was happy to meet. People in my group came from Spain, Germany, the UK, Canada, Ukraine, and of course, the United States. We were all members of the public attending the summit – not there as official representatives of any country or group.
We arrived early in the morning as instructed outside the White House, waiting beneath the already brutal rays of the sun for our private tour of the East Wing.