An Afternoon at the Tidal Basin

Last Friday Zach finally had his giant exam to see if he's learned anything in the past two years of his masters program. It was appropriately brutal. More importantly, it was finally done, and just in time for the Cherry Blossom festival. The second he walked out of the test, we headed towards the metro and scurried downtown. It was a beautiful day, the blossoms were in full bloom, just the perfect day for a nice stroll along the tidal basin. Along with everyone else.

Ok, I'm going to complain once - just once - about the tourists. DC is generally such a lovely town. Clean,  pretty, abounding in free museums and monuments and polite people in suits who are to busy to actually go to any of those things, leaving them uncrowded and delightful. Not that I actually go and take advantage of those things, but I know I could. And then they come. It's not just that things get crowded. It's that they get crowded by rude, smelly, idiots. People who think it's acceptable to throw trash all over the metro and wade in monuments honoring the dead. And yes, you can easily tell the difference between tourists and residents. I don't know how exactly, but it's quite obvious. I know, I'm such a snob. There are some lovely people, sure. Some can almost be endearing like the women who excitedly exclaimed "Oh! How exciting!" after crossing a street and getting honked at by an impatient cab (which is pretty much just what happens when you cross any street downtown.) But, alas due to the law of large numbers there are just so many unpleasant tourists that I can't help but to dread them all. Things finally get nice, and then my dear city becomes inhabitable in the midst of the invaders ravaging. Oh well. Just try to imagine how lovely this would be without all the people.

Anyways, the basin was beautiful. I can't say that anything terribly exciting happened. We walked, we talked. It just felt so amazingly wonderful to be out in the Sunshine, enjoying life. Not a textbook or classroom in sight.

I may have been a little overzealous about documenting the occasion. I made Zach stop every couple of minutes for a million pictures, poor afternoon light and lack of skills be damned. It was just so lovely. Below I have far too many pictures (because I'm indecisive like that) as proof. You can find the few I didn't post here on my facebook.

All in all, it was a lovely afternoon. Jaded as I am, and even with the crowds, there is just something so simultaneously stunning and peaceful about the soft sea of pink blossoms. I highly recommend coming by some year if you ever get the chance. I'll promise to make an exception to my tourist aversion just for you.

It's a Saint Patrick's day Facebook Miracle!

Yesterday was the kind of day that is so beautiful it makes the Angels weep a little. Bright blue sky, warm sunshine, just a hint of a breeze. After a long and horrible winter, things could not have been more prefect.

Except that I was in class, my back to the window, the little bits of sunshine reflecting off my screen mocking me. So, like any disillusioned student with internet access, I drowned my sorrows in a little harmless facebooking. The patron saints of facebook must have been looking out for me, because one of the first things I saw was a status update by the amazing Mindy - former roommate, bridesmaid, friend and person extraordinaire. Seriously, everyone who has ever known Mindy loves her to pieces, possibly because she possesses a dark magic, but probably just because she is so Mindylicious. The post just mentioned that she was wandering around DC, alone, for a few hours, did anyone have any suggestions for what she should do? I humbly suggested that perhaps she should meander around DC with me, she accepted and we were on.

I was more than a little excited. An excuse to skip my afternoon Wills class and be out in the sunshine would be good enough, but this was almost to good to be true. The second my morning class ended I practically flew out of the classroom, raced down six flights of stairs, ran onto a bus, frantically dropped things off at my apartment, threw random things into a purse and set off for downtown.

On the metro ride down, I finally had a few moment to be nervous. I haven't seen Mindy in almost a year and a half. Plus, I'm one of those bad friends who considers herself "keeping in contact" with old friends if I comment on a Facebook status update a few times a year. Sure, for the first half hour or so, there was a little awkwardness as we tried to catch up on where we were, but after that, its like the last year+ just didn't matter. We were chatting, and walking and laughing our heads off just like we did at 2am in our Provo apartment.

We didn't do anything to terribly exciting. It was too nice to be stuck inside even the best museum, so we walked. And walked. All over DC, past a horde of marble monuments, some random bales of hay in the Mall reflecting pool, the best monument ever (FDR, I love the water), the green white house fountain and other DCness. I'm a nerd, so I traced our route on Google maps. We walked about 4.5 miles over the course of about 4 hours. I'm a naturally lazy person who generally shuns physical activity, but even for me the time just flew by.

However, eventually it was time to head off on our separate ways, so we headed up to a metro stop. Where we proceeded to talk for almost another hour, even with commuters weaving around us (and one very drunk homeless man going out of his way to bump into us). Saying good by to such a great day almost seemed cruel, but we managed somehow.

Mindy, thanks for the great time. It was the best Saint Patrick's day ever. And now I have a go-to story the next time some one rags on how the internet keeps people apart. Clearly, this day was an amazing Saint Patrick's day Facebook Miracle!

Snow (or how my Utah heart began to thaw)

This morning I woke up, brushed me teeth, turned on my computer and was greeted by my weather bug chirping about snowfall in the DC area. I wasn't quite ready to accept the icon, so I stubbornly kept the blinds drawn in a desperate attempt to stave off the harsh chill of reality. Alas, Zach had no such bashfullness. Because his inner child was raised in Alaska, Zach was bouncing around like a puppy, pulling open the blinds in a giddy fervor and revealing the ice cold flakes of evil coating my once temperate and pleasant home. 


Can you tell that snow is not my most favorite of weather? It didn't used to always be this way. In my Oregon childhood snow was a miraculous substance that blanketed in the world in loveliness and winter cheer, and most importantly of all brought with the miracle of school cancellation. But four miserable years of trudging about in Utah winters managed to beat most of my snow spirit out of me. During those perpetually snow and sludge coated months I began to bitterly refer to snow as the hate of the world and would generally had a bah-humbugesque attitude.  


But, even with my bitterness, it seemed worth snapping a photo or two through my window, so as to have evidence of my discontent.

Curiously enough it was actually kind of fun having an excuse to use my camera. And avoiding studying did seem like a solid plan. So I figured I may as well through a coat and boots on over my oh so chic yoga pants and giant shirt ensemble, meander down stairs and take a few shots. Hey, I'll take any excuse to wear my awesome whale boots.

 

To my great surprise it was actually kind of pretty outside. With the snow icing the previously bare and depressing trees and lending a touch of softness to the old brick buildings, Soft, white flakes gently floated down, leaving little kisses on my nose. In spite of myself, there was something nice about the scene. 

I ventured out a little ways, took a few silly shots of myself in the classic outstretched arm method. I may have started to skip and twirl a little bit amidst the flurry.

Catching sight of the church steeple towards the end of the block, I made my way down towards the lot of Christmas trees on its lawn, took a bit of a detour over to the Catholic church across the street, and other wise enjoyed wandering around for a bit.

 

For the bored and the curious, I have more pictures on facebook. All in all, I'm not sure if it's just the lack of Utah-ness, my love of the whale boots or if it really was pretty outside, but for the first time in a while I really enjoyed the snow. It remains to be seen wheteher this will last, especially as teh winter wears on, but for today it was a pleasant surprise.

Somewhat belated semi obligatory 4th of July Post

Living in DC it really felt obligatory to go out and do something all celebratory for Independence day. There's really no excuse not to. And I had an all too clear vision of inevitable conversations:

"So what did you do for Independence Day?"

"Oh nothing special, just stayed home and watched a movie. It's not like we live close to various monuments, a big fireworks show, free concert or anything cool like that. Besides, everyone knows that liberals secretly hate America."

Well I'd rather not deal with that and the ensuing feelings of loserdom that would result from such an exchange. Besides, at the last liberal conspiracy meeting in between plotting the downfall of the family and creating a government run dystopia, we promised to do a better job of keeping the Anti-Americanism under wraps. (Of course I kidd, liberals aren't anywhere near organized enough for any meaningful conspiracy. Oh, organized liberals, I crack myself up). Anyways, we had sufficient motivation to escape from our hermitage and hit the town for one day. After a few minutes of google searching we found that there was a concert at the south lawn of the Capital building right before the fireworks began, and as two things are better than one we decided that was the destination for us.

But, before undertaking such a great journey we had to be all prepared with a giant duffel bag of very important things we could not survive a few hours without. It all seemed very essential. Of course knowing that Zach would have to haul the giant bag from our shoebox apartment to the metro (about a mile and a half) and then from Union station to the Capital building may have influenced my decision making. And uh, I may possibly have added to his burden a little bit as I felt inclined to take the "scenic route" up to the metro. But even with the heavy load and the heat and the humidity we managed to make it up to the metro in decent time. Enough time to stop off at Whole Foods and gather a lovely picnic. I had visions of lovely baguettes with bits of cheese, fresh grapes and strawberries and other elements for a picture perfect picnic. Of course, other people must have had the same idea as whole foods was very much picked over. So Subway was substituted. Much less picturesque, but still quite tasty.

A quick metro ride and we were downtown. I don't think we've been downtown since Zach's birthday in the beginning of June, and up in our pretentious, suburbanesque corner of DC we tend to forget how cool this city really is. Seriously, everything is covered in marble and trying so hard to masquerade as a classic 500+ year old building. Not to mention the seemingly endless statues of men on horseback or dramatically holding an iron piece of paper. Also, as an added bonus, finding our way to the Capital building was rather easy. Being the biggest thing around all we really had to do was look up, and walk in the direction of the giant dome.

Finding the Capital was easy, but actually getting inside was a little more challenging. Zach and I thought we had left plenty early. The fireworks were set to start at 9:15pm, with the concert beginning at 8pm, and gates opened at 3pm. We arrived a little after 4pm, and were greeted with a long line which we shuffled forward in for about an hour. Once we arrived the end of the line the slow movement made a little more sense as every person was being scanned by mettle detectors and each bad was being hand searched. Not that the bag check was particularly thorough, I'm sure I could have hid some C4 or something in a hidden pocket if I was so inclined. But hey, the appearance of safety is all that really matters, and we were just happy to be out of that line and ready to lounge about for a few hours until the show started.

After the long wait in line I was less that thrilled to find that the lawn was already quite stuffed, especially any area that had a view of the stage. I didn't quite believe that the prime seating could really and truly be all full, and so I dragged the tired Zach and the giant bag around for a while, before ultimately ending up in the very same place we had first tried. It was still a decent spot and wasn't too crowded (yet). So we proceeded to settle in for the next 3 hours. Reading material and people watching more than provided enough entertainment.

Of course, as entertaining as books and people can be, we were quite happy when the concert started. Especially since they had raised up a big old jumbo tron on a crane, so we could actually kind of sort of see what was going on. And oh we were so glad we got to see what was going on. You see, like most free community concerts, and especially for ones in our nations capital, the concert had to be absolutely unoffensive to just about everyone. And so the headliners of the night were the great Barry Manilow and the Sesame Street Muppets. And as slightly ashamed as I am to admit it, I really enjoyed both of them. Manilow is just so infectious and happy to be there, that you kind of get swept up with him. And he is especially awesome when he's trying to be sexy, and you see this old, white guy shaking his hips with a touch of bedroom eyes. Oh Manilow, you try so hard.

But as awesome as the Manilow was, the best part of his performance was this little kid a few feet away from us who was seriously rocking out. He was shaking and grooving with everything he had and even threw in some classic disco moves. As a close second was an adorable Hispanic couple next to up who got all snuggly and cute during the slow songs. They also apparently own a hotel in Mexico. I know this because before they left early the husband introduced himself, pitched the hotel (which apparently makes really good fish?) and gave us his business card. It was loud and he had a bit of an accent so I only understood about half of what he said, and mostly just smiled and nodded. I really hope I didn't promise or agree to anything crazy. A little random, but still fun. And hey, a Caribbean Mexican vacation could always be fun. And the hotel really does look gorgeous. However, cute as they were, the award for best PDA of the night goes to the middle aged couple who totally started making out, complete with a sitting dip and the accompaniment of their preteens moans and complaints. Ah, old people love/lust.

Much fun as people had rocking out to Manilow (well, as much as you can rock out to Manilow) the Muppets were the real stars of the night. I mean they even got introduced by the President. And everyone loves Sesame Street and will happily cheer and sing along. Sesame Street really should be involved in more parts of life, it just makes everyone smile and teaches valuable lessons about how C is for cookies, and we should all love trash (reduce, reuse and recycle anyone?). Some other people sang and did a very nice job (well not so much Aretha Franklin, but shes so old and iconic that it doesn't really matter), but really Manilow and Sesame Street were the highlights.

With the genuine and somewhat unexpected fun of the show, I was rather excited to just lay back and watch the fireworks explode in blaze of beautifulness all over the sky. Yah, not so much. Not only is the Capital lawn at a funky angle from the fireworks, there were also many trees that worked wonderfully at providing some much appreciated shade earlier in the day but were less appreciated for their fireworks blocking. We tried to join the crowd struggling for a decent view between the trees, but we only got a few colorful glimpes. Very pretty glimpses, but not quite what I had hoped for.

I suppose all's well that ends well. Since we couldn't really see the fireworks Zach and I wormed our way through the crowd and headed back towards Union Station in the hopes of beating the crowds. It actually worked fairly well. The station filled up quickly, but as it was one of the first stops in DC that woudl be used by the fireworks viewers the train was mostly empty when we boarded so we actually managed to get a seat. a seat for which we were very grateful for everytime we pulled into a station packed to the gills and saw people struggling to fit into a car that I wouldn't have beleived could possibly hold anyone else. Even from the relative comfort of our seat cocoon, we were quite glad to get out of there, go home and collapse into a happy pile of goo. All in all it was a good day. And now for the obligatory pictures!

The Evil Winter Followed Me

As many of you know, during my BYU days I took great joy (or at least did it often enough that one would assume so) in complaining and/or mocking Utah in general and BYU in particular - yes they both have good qualities, and it was a good experience overall, blah blah, but that's not the point. Above all else I hated loathed and despised the snow that would fall like a plaugy pestilence and coat the world with hate and despair. It was just so very very cold and wet and slippery and slushy and was just generally a concoction created by Satan to make mortals long for the warmth of the underworld, or commit homicide for a pair of mittens, or at least swear a little. I swore I would never live in such a winterland massacre again.

Unfortunatley, in all my hatred of the snow I think I may have underestimated the power of the cold.

You see, winters in DC look beautiful. The sun is shining, it looks happy and warm - and best of all not even a hint of snow in sight. I was walking up to school today and well it was more than a little cold. And windy. Reaaallly windy. But Zach walked half the way with me, so I was distracted and fooled myself into thinking I had adjusted. My face still wanted to crawl off my skull and hide, but I assumed that was just because it wasn't covered. So I kept on walking and eventually reached my school.

Of course I was happy to get inside but it didn't seem like that big of a deal. About 5 minutes after sitting in a warm building something odd happened. My nice, covered legs starte dto do that tingly thing, like they had just woken up. My whole legs were shot through with horrible pins and needles, liek a thousand angry bees as they worked there way back into life. Yes, my freakin legs had actually turned numb from the cold and fallen asleep. I hate the snow, but it never turned my freakin legs numb! I swear, Utah winter followed me and just put on a disguise of bitter, biting cold to try and hide its evil.