Spring Visitors: Vol. 2

My VIP guests -- Mom and Dad -- had lovely (mostly sunny and cool) weather and many adventures this weekend on their first visit to the city! Besides being tourists, we also had time for a few rounds of Scrabble and lots of playing with Rachel.

Thursday's signature event was dinner at the Chart House along the Potomac waterfront in Old Town, Alexandria. We walked the 17 blocks from the King Street Metro station down to the waterfront (and back) in order to see all the shops and buildings along the way.

Friday's main activity was the Old Town Trolley Tour. We took the "orange loop" through the Mall and Monuments area. As our conductor said, "this city will monument you to death." We then took the "green loop" through residential and business areas in northwest Washington. I forgot to take a picture of the trolley, but where we loaded is just a block from my office, so maybe I'll walk over and take one some afternoon.

I did, however, remember to memorialize this picture while we awaited the trolley: the historic Ford's Theatre is now immediately next door to the Hard Rock Cafe and across the street from a variety of tacky souvenir stands. I've always found that so odd. We skipped Hard Rock and headed to the Capitol City Brewery for a tasty lunch. Later we took the Metro to Arlington Cemetery where rode the 40-minute Tourmobile loop through the cemetery.

Saturday's fun started at the Air & Space Museum, where we also saw the Treasures of the American History Museum (closed for the 2nd of a 3 year renovation). To kill the three hours until our dinner reservation, we walked through the Mall to see the Kite Festival, did a lap around the White House to see protestors, and did a photo op at McPherson Square!

(Side note on McPherson Square: we saw it on our green loop tour, and the conductor told us that General McPherson was so often having his last name mispronounced as "Mc-Fear-son" that he coined the response, "There's no fear in McPherson." We laughed out loud at that one, since we assumed someone in McPherson, Kansas, came up with that slogan! Every young bullpup learns it early in life!)

I almost forgot our other stop: The National Geographic Society Museum. They had a display called Frogs! that has been advertised on posters in the Metro cars and we were in the neighborhood, so we swung by. We were actually quite impressed with all of the different frogs in their habitats. Some were so exotic looking that we thought they were ceramic or glass at first!

What Do March Showers Bring?

We all know that "April showers bring May flowers," but what do March showers bring? Well, a slew of super-coordinated yuppies - that's what! I mean, it's tough enough to balance your city shoulder-bag plus your Starbucks every day. Add an umbrella to the mix, and wow, you've got to have some talent! :-) I'd post a pictures of it, but I can't figure out how to juggle my latte, bag, umbrella AND a camera.

I hope these showers pass through quickly; I've got some VIP guests arriving this afternoon, and I want them to see the great views when they fly in. Not to mention, I don't want us to have to see the sites in the rain tomorrow!

Easter at the National Cathedral

Ryan, Jason and I got up early this morning to attend Easter services at the National Cathedral in northwest Washington D.C. We had an absolutely beautiful drive over there just after sunrise. There was virtually no traffic, so it only took about 20 minutes. Our route across the Memorial Bridge and past the monuments, Georgetown and Embassy Row offered breathtaking views that really got us in the spirit of the day.

I was very impressed with the service and the wonderful welcome by the Dean of the Cathedral, who drew several chuckles with his opening remarks about the crowd. The cathedral is part of the Episcopal church, so we felt right at home.

Spring Visitors: Vol. 1

My brother Ryan joined us for a fun weekend. He was happy to leave the threat of snow in Chicago for the beautiful (though at times at bit windy) spring days here!

Friday's big event was a bicycle tour called Bike the Sites that took us past the monuments and museums along the Mall area. It took about 2 1/2 hours for our group of 15 tourists and our guide to do the loop. I was surprised to be the only local. We followed up our ride with lunch at the venerable Old Ebbitt Grill, and then headed back to the Mall for museum tours. We were overwhelmed by the crowds at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum (see picture below) and headed to the Gallery of Art-West Building for some space. Dinner was sushi and sake at a new restaurant in the Penn Quarter called Asia Nine. Afterwards we walked over to Chinatown to look around and take a picture of the gate.

Saturday we headed to the Eastern Market for a fun outing and to buy ingredients for dinner at home. Jason and I had not made it over there before, and we were really impressed with what we found in both the food and craft displays. We'll definitely be returning soon.

Train Troubles

It’s been a moderately rainy spring, but I’ve only been caught in one torrential downpour. It was last summer or early fall. I don’t remember exactly when, but I do know the exact skirt and sandals that I was wearing. For some reason I took a different train home and ended up needing to transfer at an outdoor platform two stops from home. It was almost dark and past rush hour, so I had to wait 20 minutes for the right train! Just as I was boarding the train for the last 5 minutes of riding, the sprinkles started. By the time I got to my station, it was torrentially raining. I had an umbrella, but it really didn’t matter since the rain was coming down sideways. I ran across the street to my condo building, but my skirt and legs were completely drenched. Thank goodness I could just dry off and put on pajamas instead of having to sit at my desk for an entire day.

I learned an important commuting lesson relatively early in the summer: pick up your feet to walk! During morning rush hour, you can’t really walk independently in such a mass of people; you just shuffle along with the crowd. This is also the case for loading and unloading the trains at peak times. I was part of a huge crowd getting off a train one morning. As a group we just sort of fell out the doors when they opened. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the trains can be so loaded down with people that the car actually sinks below the platform due to the weight. As I shuffled/fell out of the car onto the platform along with everyone else, the front of my foot fell down – ever so slightly – between the car frame and the concrete platform. I sort of stumbled and involuntarily made a weird little scream, but the jarring motion of the car rising (as the people rushed past me off the train) brought my foot out after just a brief moment. I lost some shoe leather, some skin and some pride, but learned a valuable “life lesson.”

City Stories

I’ve been meaning to do a little back blogging about some of the interesting folks that I’ve seen on the streets (and I don’t just mean homeless people, but I see a lot of those, too).

Men on the street and subway having loud, long conversation with themselves both amuse and confuse me. I feel a little guilty – or at least awkward – about “eavesdropping” on the conversations. But I did get a good chuckle last fall when I noticed one of these fellows doing his monologue on the street carrying a KPMG tote bag! Almost as good at the Belimo t-shirt down the trash chute!

On a cuter note, there is a day care in basement of my office building. Everyone once in awhile, I’ll see a parent dropping a kid off. The funniest is when the day care takes the toddlers out for rides in the nice weather. They sit in these special little wagon strollers that have 6 or 8 car seats built in. There’s always at least one kid trying to get out or an empty seat where one has been let out and is walking with one of the teachers. When they’re all down walking, they hold onto a string of rings to keep them all in line.

Go Fish!

We had a great game night last night with friends! Of course it's wonderful to get together to see each other in general, but couple that will some rousing board games and snacks, and it was an excellent evening! We played a few rounds of Catch Phrase and then started in on Trivial Pursuit Pop Culture (the one with the DVD). The Trivial Pursuit (and the score of the K-State basketball game that we were hearing streaming through on the web broadcast) was draining our positive energy, so we switched to Cranium Pop 5, which was new to Jason and me. Loved it! It's got strategy (which way to order the 5 pieces and how risky to be with earning points), charades, Pictionary and Play-Doh all wrapped into one!

Here's a link to it in case my ringing endorsement makes you want to run out and get one yourself. http://store.cranium.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=1_7&products_id=903

Interestingly, if you read the description it mentions "Monday Night Football" and "mullets" as possible answers. We had both of those last night - using humdinger (them) and letter line up (us), respectively, neither of which was successfully guessed.

Quiet Day in the Suburbs

We've had two weekends in a row without any big plans thanks to the flu. Last weekend was Jason's giant battle, which has continued through most of this week. That weekend started with the doctor on Thursday and a Friday sick day for work. I woke up Sunday feeling bad and ended up taking Monday off. From what I'm hearing, the flu has hit everyone in the past few months. I'm feeling much better now, and I think Jason is, too, although he's got a lingering cough.

Today's big outing was a trip to the Bed, Bath and Beyond at the strip mall for a new chef's knife. (We skipped a trip into Home Depot or Michael's, although I want to reassure everyone we have the exact same combination of stores here as in KC.) We contemplated an entire butcher's block knife set but realized we only had $50 in gift cards and 8 feet of kitchen counterspace. I'm anxious to see if I feel like Rachael Ray slicing and dicing with the one knife we did get! If so, I guess I can head back to the store for 2 more to use up the rest of my gift card!

We continued our suburban Saturday with a trip to Bertucci's for pizza. It's a pizza/pasta chain similar to an Old Chicago. They have delicious rolls that they bring to your table with olive oil dipping sauce. I had 3 before my pizza arrived, so I have almost all of my pizza leftover for lunch tomorrow!

Our yard is flooded from a constant drizzle of rain the past 3 days, but we just had a fun time chasing Rachel around in the dark through the puddles (on purpose). She needed to stretch her legs and we needed to laugh at her! Pretty sure she'll get a bath tomorrow.

697 Miles

My car made its weekly trip to the grocery store today. Like a little old lady, I only drive it for errands and shopping. Jason put gas in it last week when we were out and joked that it was getting its quarterly fill-up. I was curious just how many miles I had logged and pulled out the paperwork from when the car was shipped out here as part of our move. From the day the car was delivered here on June 2, 2007, it has been driven 697 miles. That's in 9 months!

Jason's car gets driven a little more, but not too much. Since his car already had a lot more miles due to all of his driving with Belimo in Kansas City, we intentionally drive his car if we go on any roadtrips -- like when we drove out here for our move and when we went to Indiana for Thanksgiving. But even those trips are pretty few and far between. I guess our cars can enjoy another 15 months of the easy life before they, too, go back to the real world.