Directionally challenged

Some people can't figure out where they are going. I don't mean that in a metaphysical sense, but literally - they couldn't find their way out of a paper bag with a map and a flashlight.

A month ago, in my ever-annoying attempt to make learning opportunities for my sister's kids, I gave my nephew a map. We stopped at a rest stop mid-Ohio and had hours to go, days in the car. I thought he might be able to amuse himself.

For a while, he called out letters and my sister and I guessed at the city or river he'd found.

"C."

"Cambridge?" we asked. "Caldwell? Columbus? Cincinnati?"

"Cleveland?"

"Cuyahoga?"

After a while, his amusement faded and the awkwardly-folded map made it back to his pocket, but in Indiana, we picked up another and he tried again. Of course, we didn't grow up in Indiana; we weren't as good at guessing.

"How far do we have?" I asked, not really caring.

"I don't know."

All three of the kids strained to see mile markers or exit signs. They knew miles were numbered from West to East and South to North. They didn't quite get it but driving west on the turnpike, they could pretty much just read the number on the sign, and I would stop asking.

"Can you find us on the map?" I asked. "We just passed Crocker."

"No."

"We're at the top. Can you find the turnpike, a thick line? Numbered 80? 90?" He nodded. "Follow it to the left. That's west."

"I can't find it," he said, crumpling the map.

I leaned back and showed him the road. I followed it west and there we were.

"We only have this much to go," I said as I held my fingers apart.

"It doesn't matter," he said with lower lip jutting. "I don't need to know how to do this. I'm just going to get a GPS."

"Everybody needs to know how to read a map!" I protested and he disagreed.

My dad, his grandpa, used GPS. One in the car and one for walking. He even brought them to the south of France with local maps loaded. Emily in the car and Jacques in the pocket both told us where to go. Most of the time, though, I sat in the back of the car, navigating, recalculating faster than Emily.

"We could turn here if you want to stop in Saint-Pantaleone," I said, and we always did. I looked for the hash marks when we walked, stripes on a wall, for footprints and paths. I remembered a hike through the Vaucluse four years earlier.

"This should take us out by the cemetery," I noted, and it did. I knew where I was.

Occasionally, I get lost. In Paris, walking the three or four miles back from Montmartre after seven hours in an Irish pub with a pair French foreign legionnaires. Wandering through the nuclear-powered fishing village and navy port of Tuxpan, Mexico. Trying to leave RFK Stadium. For the most part, though, I have a sense of where I am and where I am going.

The sense of direction helps with my job: Project management. I mediate between technical people and business people, guiding the work, and I help define policies and procedures to standardize financial systems. I build templates. I build flowcharts, diagrams and pictures with words to show how to get from where we are to where we want to be.

I have wanted to be in Africa for as long as I can remember, at least since reading The Spider Sapphire Mystery, when Nancy Drew went to Nairobi and Mombasa, Kenya. I wanted to learn Swahili. I wanted to solve mysteries with my two best friends and my footballing boyfriend, Ned.

For the past seven years, I've been planning a trip – saving money, hoarding my vacation time and talking it up to friends and family. This year, I'm going. I've convinced a friend to join me and made plans to visit South Africa, Botswana and Zambia. Not exactly Nancy Drew territory, but with friends in Lesotho, it makes sense.

Plane ticket. Camping safari. A few nights in bungalows in Kruger National Park. A few days in Capetown. I'll be gone for a month. I've bought a new camera. This afternoon, I start my vaccinations and next week, I'll go to the embassy for my Zambian visa. I need new clothes, shoes, a sleeping bag. Biodegradable shampoo. And I need to insure the trip.

I basically know the steps I need to take to get myself from here to there and how to be prepared, but that doesn't squelch the feeling that I'm driving without a map.

"The mess on Wall Street has people very worried," Matt Lauer observed this morning on the Today Show, and it was true.

The Dow fell almost 780 points yesterday, the largest one-day drop in the market's history, costing about $1.2 trillion, based on the $700-billion bailout bill rejected by Congress, and I'm taking a trip that costs more than my first year of college, more than my last year of college.

I'm planning an engagement party for friends. I'm buying cameras and plane tickets, vaccinations and sleeping bags. I'm buying CDs. Movies. Books. I'm spending money as I always have, less than I make but more than I should, and I don't know if that's right.

I'm 33 and single. A vein in my forehead throbs every time my mom mentions kids, which is every time I talk to her. I volunteer. I travel. I'd rather spend time with friends than a random man I met in a bar or a particular random man I met in a bar. I get lost with French foreign legionnaires.

I don't have a map for my life. I don't a compass, and it wouldn't help anyway. I have no idea where I'm going - I just hope I'm heading in the right direction.


Tag: Directions Maps Life

Loving Frank

"What is that?"

"What?"

"On your thigh?"

"Oh, that's your address. I didn't have any paper," the girl shrugged and tugged the hem of her dress down to cover the ink. She picked up a flute of sparkling wine and peach puree, a Bellini, and said, "I was going to write it on my hand. This is better, right?"

An address on a slim runner's thigh and bottles of champagne. Four lawyers, two teachers, two masters degrees, one move toward a doctorate in psychology, and me. I didn't quite know how we all knew each other, but for years, four of us had been meeting to discuss books. In the past year or so, our group had doubled in size.

In the past, neighbors had complained about our decibel level. In some restaurants, I could hear our table from the bathroom. The girl with the address on her thigh could hear us from the first floor when she entered the building; we met on the fourth.

The host's husband seemed somewhat put out when chased from the house. The apartment. He'd put together a playlist for us and we talked music in between words about the book, Loving Frank, historical fiction based on the extramarital love affair between Frank Lloyd Wright and Mamah Borthwick.

He'd seen the spread, the host's husband. Frittata. Asparagus. Baked French toast. Banana bread and zucchini and orange chocolate chip muffins. Fresh fruit. Mixed greens. A lemon bundt cake with fleur de lis baked into the side and powdered with sugar. Champagne.

With hanging head and hangdog eyes, he shuffled out to a bar, to meet up with a friend, to watch football.

Earlier in the day, a man called to ask me to watch football. He called to ask me to do just about anything but football was first on his list. Walking through the market and sidestepping to avoid a stumbling toddler, I stopped and shopped for carrots. A butternut squash.

"What are you doing today?"

"I'm actually on my way to book club," I said.

"Book club, huh?" he asked. "Do you watch football?"

"I do, but I'm heading to book club."

"Wouldn't you rather watch football?"

"No."

Not with him. Not instead of my plans, my friends, my Sunday afternoon with book club.

I'd crawled out of bed with three hours sleep to walk to the market for zucchini and banana. I'd grated. I'd mashed. I'd baked seven little loaves that filled my apartment with the sweet smell of home that greeted a friend and me as we came in from Oktoberfest to nap on a Saturday afternoon.

I had plans to pick up a friend. To drink a Bellini. A mimosa. To listen to music. To talk. To spend hours together and long for more, something else, something sooner than our November plans. To laugh over an address on a thigh.

The last-minute offer couldn't compete.


Tag: Books Friends Loving Frank

Cézanne nights

"I think I almost shat myself," I thought as I pulled off the Beltway late Friday night or early Saturday morning while most of my friends and family were nestled, all snug in their beds. It could have been the Fiber One bar or the fact that I'd just driven the scariest section of road I'd ever driven. In my life.

My head hurt from concentration, my shoulders and next from tension and my hands from gripping the wheel and the half moons indented in the flesh of my palms, flesh that still might be under my nails.

I bellowed along with the Barenaked Ladies and a CD from my junior year in college, "Pretending I'm someone who's not seventeen, doesn't know what you mean when talk turns to single malts, or stilton, or... My shoe box. Shoe box of lies."

At first, I sang to keep myself awake and then I sang to keep myself calm, my knuckles white on the wheel.

"You're so nineteen-ninety and it's nineteen-ninety-four. Leave this world behind me 'cause you don't want me anymore."

Some time between four and six, as I headed from Williamsport, the rain that had plagued us all night, all morning, intensified. Visibility decreased until the world outside resembled a Cézanne landscape with everything somewhat identifiable but not clearly defined. Vague outlines and blocks of color replaced the road, the lights, and other vehicles.

The lightning helped, which, fortunately or not, flashed almost constantly as I hydroplaned toward the District and my stomach started to rumble. The fear. The Fiber One. The liter of Diet Mountain Dew.

On the way out, I'd stopped at a gas station for the soda and to fill up the tank, worried that I wouldn't find anyplace open at four, worried that I'd run out of gas on a dark, quiet highway. I picked up coffee for me and hot chocolate for the team I was replacing, and drove to the exchange to track runners in a 183-mile relay. Lucky exchange #13.

Shift #1 was soaked to the bone. They'd been there since 8, tracking the runners on waterlogged pages and trying to keep warm. I arrived early and my shift mate late. I watched the people who knew what they were doing and tried to stay dry, taking over the clipboard, the flashlight, a reflective vest with the words "Race Crew" emblazoned on the front.

The time crawled as we marked down the time of runners.

"12:42... 12:42."

"Runner!"

"What time is it?"

"12... 12:43."

I worried about the directions we gave out. The later it got, the more people wanted reassurance.

"Do we turn left or right?"

"Right at the stop."

"Did you see? Two runners just went left."

My shift mate drove out to retrieve the runners, to put them back on the trail, a route we really didn't know. Right at the stop. Out into the dark night. Look for a red flashing light and the next turn.

The rain drizzled down on us while the stream of runners dried up. We sat under a pair of umbrellas with our legs exposed, reading Cosmo by flashlight. What it means when a man cries. How to read a man's pose.

"Maybe we can get runners to act it out."

"Seriously, if I ever see a man do that, I think I'm going to have to laugh."

For the last hour or so, only a runner or two passed.

"Great job!" we cheered as I wrote down the time on the sodden page.

"Thanks for being here for us."

I smiled for almost five hours straight, in my jeans and windbreaker, with tights and thermal, with my pink, rubber rainboots. I added a fleece late in the night or early in the morning. I added gloves. My shift mate considered the cordless electric blanket in her trunk. As the last runner passed, the volunteer coordinator called from Exchange #12 and told us to pack up and go home.

We'd already started. Packing up, anyway. Going home soon followed as I settled into the seat with hands at 12 and two.

I'd worried about the drive. I'd worried for days about the drive. I bought the soda. I drank the coffee. I thought I'd have trouble staying awake, but that fear made way for worries that I'd stay alive.

"If I did sh*t my pants," I mused, "it probably wouldn't make it past the tights, but I could drop the roof and let the rain handle it."

But then, it stopped. The fear passed. I pulled off the Beltway and drove toward the city as the rain lessened and the sky lightened. Cars flew past on the GW Parkway, and I headed home. By the time I reached the Hill, Marines in shirt sleeves and khakis had started setting up Oktoberfest, ready to start the day.

"Just call me angel of the morning, angel. Just touch my cheek before you leave me, baby."

I kept singing as I pulled up in front of the house, dropped my bags on the floor and crawled into bed, still wearing my thermal and fleece. I drifted to sleep with images from the drive burnished into my mind. Cézanne.


Tag: Driving

The Global Electoral College

I missed the debate last night. Or rather, I didn't watch the debate. I missed seeing emotions play across the faces of the candidates. I was in the car, driving to the middle of Maryland to stand in the rain and cheer for strangers running in a 183-mile relay from Cumberland to DC. To cheer and track their times. Make sure they followed the rules. Make sure they turned right at the stop.

I didn't watch the debate, but I listened to it as I drove in the rain. Cheering at points. Shouting at others. (I was alone in my car.) Both seemed to carry themselves well. I agreed with points on both sides and disagreed with others. I didn't track anything or make sure the candidates followed the rules, but I listened. The world listened.

In advance of our own national elections, the Economist opened the polls for the world to vote. From now until the first of November, people, world wide, can vote for the US presidential candidate they want to see in office come January.

The Global Electoral College
Votes are cast on a country-wide level. Each country is assigned a number of votes according to the size of its population (we call these "electoral-college votes" on the model of America's actual electoral-college system). Then all the countries' votes are tallied, to determine each candidate's worldwide total. You can see at a glance which countries are pro-Obama or pro-McCain, along with their respective vote percentages. The candidate with the most electoral-college votes will win the worldwide election. Of course our winner may not be the actual winner in the real election though it will be interesting to see who The Economist's readers choose.

The Economist might appeal more toward one side or another. International voters might have their own interests in mind. It's not a scientific poll by any stretch, but it does provide a global spin of our national election.

Interesting, at least.

Tag: Election

Beer and Marines

This Saturday, September 27, marks the 6th Annual Oktoberfest on Historic Barracks Row. I don't know where I've been for the past five, four of which I lived just a few blocks away, but I don't remember hearing anything before this year. I still might not know if not for my walking tour of the Congressional Cemetery and a poster proclaiming it. An announcement: The cemetery will sell bulbs.

The event will feature the Redskins Cheerleaders and tours of the Commandants' home. Brass bands, puppet shows and a petting zoo. German cars. Booths. Bulbs. Beer.

Fifteen teams of four active military chefs from the Army, Navy, Marine, Air Force and Coast Guard will compete in a mystery box competition, making dishes from a box of ingredients. Kind of like my weekly CSA crate, which I also need to pick up sometime Saturday.

Between now and then, I plan to drive someplace that isn't DC or even close to DC to stand by a road and watch runners hand off a baton. Standing, watching, tracking and cheering in the cold autumn night. I'm working the midway exchange on a relay from Cumberland to Washington on behalf of a friend who's running the race.

I don't mind volunteering; I'm actually looking forward to it. I just wonder about my state of mind after a full week of work, a two-hour drive and a four-hour shift starting at midnight. How am I going to make it home? How am I going to make it to Oktoberfest a few hours later?

Theoretically, I could skip but for two things: Beer and Marines. Two things plus plans with one of my friends and the fact that I'm Oktoberfestively-challenged.

While I've been to beer gardens in München, I've never partaken in the 16-day festival and world's largest fair, with some six million people attending each year. I have been to Blocktoberfest in Ballston, but it isn't the same. Preppies with beer on streets near the mall. Bands playing rock. No pretzels the size of my head. None of the wursts. Neither lederhosen nor dirndls (though, plenty of breasts popping out).

I don't expect to see much of the same on Barracks Row, but there will be cheerleaders and tours, brass bands, puppets and animals, German cars, booths, bulbs beer and Marines.

Barracks Row, the oldest commercial corridor in Washington DC was once the city's main business district. Oktoberfest is a community festival organized by Barracks Row Main Street that celebrates the street’s renaissance. Two years ago (or was it three?), Barracks Row won the Great American Main Street Award™.

Oktoberfest will be held Saturday, September 27 from 11 am to 5 pm on Historic Barracks Row, 8th St. SE, south of Pennsylvania Ave and near Eastern Market Metro. At 5:05, I plan to face plant into my couch.


Tag: Capitol Hill Washington DC Oktoberfest

Autumn

It feels like fall. Autumn. The start of something or the end of something, I can never figure out which.

Outside, rain falls cold and constant against the window panes. Cars make more noise, splashing up water as they pass, probably too fast for the slick roads, but maybe that's just how it sounds with wheels in water.

I am tired. Exhausted. Ready to curl up and sleep until the sun breaks free again. Friday night, I won't sleep nearly enough but going to bed early probably won't help. I can't stockpile the sleep. I can't store it in individually-packaged portions like the soup in my fridge, ready to pack in my bag for lunch or the night I won't sleep.

The roasting of vegetables wafts through the air. Tomatoes, shallots and garlic. A capsicum pepper. I roasted them all earlier tonight and blended them into a thick, velvety soup full of flavor.

Candles are burning. The cooking is done. I ate my dinner of chana masala, a chickpea curry that I made, overcooked and salvaged earlier in the week. I've packed up the soup in small plastic bowls with barely a taste. I'd eat them later, grabbing an individual portion for my backpack and lunch at my desk.

Soon the fig from candles in the fireplace will replace the tomatoes and shallots, the garlic and pepper. The flickering lights will lull me to sleep and I'll crash on the couch, staggering back to my bedroom with the light, white cotton duvet and the thin lilac sheets. I haven't changed the linens to the winter set yet, the red flannel sheets and the comforter in varying shades of burgundy and plum. The thick warm blanket. Last week, it was summer. This week, it's not.

In one of my bags, I have a card for firewood delivery. I'll lose it and find it and lose it again and at some point, I'll order half a cord. People will steal and try to sell to my neighbors, knocking on metal-gated doors and peddling my logs. They'll try selling it to me or raising cash by cleaning my stoop.

For now, though, I still have freckles on my nose and cheeks. The fading lines of flip flops mark my feet while I long for sweaters and corduroy. The fabric of kings. I dream of caramel apples and county fairs. Chocolate chip cookies. Roasted vegetables. Figs.

The end of something or the start of something, I can never figure out which. If I don't sleep soon, though, I won't make it through Friday night.



Tag: Fall

Eagle Eye

And then, there was the movie itself: Eagle Eye. The fast-paced action thriller with Shia LaBeouf and Michelle Monaghan. A slacker and a single mom being controlled by a voice on a phone, every phone, every lcd and ticker and TV they could find, being pushed into an act of terrorism.

Two unsuspecting Americans are separately drawn into a conspiracy by a mysterious woman they have never met, but who seems to know their every move. By the time they discover her frightening identity, they have become her unwitting accomplices in a diabolical assassination plot. Shia LaBeouf (Transformers [Editor's note: Really? Transformers? Not Disturbia or the last Indiana Jones or even Holes?]) stars as a young slacker whose overachieving twin brother has died mysteriously. When the young man returns home, both he and a single mother find they have been framed as terrorists. Forced to become members of a cell that has plans to carry out a political assassination, they must work together to extricate themselves.

Alongside LaBeouf and Monaghan, the film boasted a star-studded cast with Rosario Dawson and Michael Chiklis, Billy Bob Thornton - That isn't a secret, is it?

I was pleasantly surprised to spot Ethan Embry, from one of my top five flicks. And Turtle from Entourage, Jerry Ferrara. I couldn't find him in the credits, but I couldn't deny his voice. Another voice prompted me to wait through the credits, to no avail, but overall, I knew so many of the faces, the voices, the names. The actors. Unfortunately, though, the stars couldn't carry the film.

Perhaps it was the juxtaposition of a pre-film conversation about federal employment, the current state of the world, and the sheer amounts of coordination required to pull off something like Eagle Eye.

"And then the CR," I heard the woman next to me sigh. I glanced over my shoulder and shook my head.

"What is 'CR'?" asked the James Carvel-esque man to her left.

"Continuing resolution¹," I replied. "We're not going to have a budget until March at the earliest."

"Maybe the whole year," the woman added.

Furloughs and moratoriums. On travel. On hiring. The suspension of "non-essential spending." The complete lack of a budget for the first half of the fiscal year for every federal agency and millions of employees, both federal and contract. Maintaining status quo. With the election, the current state of financial crisis, it would be months before Congress could or would pass spending bills. CR.

Last night, after a day of political posturing from candidates and debates over timelines and timelines for debates, President Bush addressed the nation in prime time.

"Our entire economy is in danger," President Bush said, addressing fears of financial panic and loss of financial confidence. "We are in serious financial crisis."

Congress was being urged to pass a $700-billion bailout package. Forget Federal budgets, appropriations and continuing resolutions. People, including vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, have started mentioning the prospect of entering a Great Depression.

In this world, with this frame of context, I was supposed to believe that someone, anyone, was tracking every move - every charge, every email, every phone call? Developing and revising game plans with human players and human inconsistencies? In real time? It's taken me six months to get a team of developers to pull data from one system into another. Six months. One table.

It wasn't a particularly credible film, but it was fun. I got caught up in the action. I got wrapped up in the story, the big booms, the freckle-faced grin of Monaghan's "son" and figuring out where the plot would go next. I enjoyed the shots of DC, Union Station, the Pentagon and the Capitol. I enjoyed the shots of Indianapolis and the Dayton International Airport and the scene on the conveyor belt.

The film wasn't particularly original, either. I could name half a dozen movies with similar plots. As I walked out, other people did, chattering in the lobby, on the escalator, walking down the sidewalk. They didn't exactly like it but they couldn't stop talking.

I could only imagine the film on IMAX.

It carried a PG-13 rating for action violence and language. Overall, it was a pretty clean film, a little jumpy and full of fabulous explosions, but clean. And it was free. I could save my movie money for Choke, also released Friday. If I'd been willing to drive to Baltimore last night, I could have seen it for free, but I'll pay for that one.

¹continuing resolution/continuing appropriations - Legislation in the form of a joint resolution enacted by Congress, when the new fiscal year is about to begin or has begun, to provide budget authority for Federal agencies and programs to continue in operation until the regular appropriations acts are enacted.


Tag: Movies

Recognize! Killing time.

Too late to go home, too early for anywhere else, I left the office and headed north, putting off my decision for another block, five or seven.

By the time I reached Gallery Place, Chinatown, though, I realized I was ridiculously, hopelessly early for Eagle Eye. The movie wouldn't start for two hours and while advanced screenings required advanced planning and standing in line for an hour or so, two hours seemed a bit excessive.

I thought about grabbing dinner, but I wasn't hungry. I thought about grabbing a coffee, but I'd want to sleep at some point. A drink, but I didn't want to miss the movie. Shopping for a Waterpik, but that would require shopping for a Waterpik.

In front of me, the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum loomed large and inviting, open 'til 7, as I recalled, and I climbed the steps to while away the time with my 30-pound bag.

"Excuse me, ma'am," said a guard who passed, looked back and returned. "We have a no backpack policy."

"I'm going to have to leave," I thought. "I can't leave my laptop in a coatroom."

"You're going to have to carry it in your hands or wear it on the front."

"I can do that," I said and smiled broadly.

I shifted the heavy bag on my shoulders, from back to front, and rested my chin on the wide, flat end of my laptop. I looked over the man's shoulder to read about the display and graffiti behind him: RECOGNIZE! Hip Hop and Contemporary Portraiture.

Since its inception in the late 1970s, hip hop has become hugely influential in America. While images of hip hop performers are as pervasive in our culture as the music itself, some visual artists have created powerful images that both celebrate and explore the complexity of this creative form. The six artists and one poet whose work is included in RECOGNIZE! have approached hip hop culture through the lens of portraiture, and, in combination, their contributions highlight its vitality and beauty.

The graffiti murals of Tim Conlon and Dave Hupp served as self portraits in an art form without a live audience, their tags vivid in blue, yellow and green, in massive letters.

A few years ago, at a workshop in L'Isle sur la Sorgue, I wrote about street art in the French village.

"Why would anyone want to read this?" the instructor asked, dismissing my piece. I thought of him as I walked between the spray-painted walls of a Smithsonian museum. At home, a book of street art, graffiti and stencils rested within arm's reach as a birthday present picked up in Argentina. It rested close to another about tags on trains, whose author I met at a screening of his documentary on the same subject: freight train graffiti art.

I wandered through the photos by David Scheinbaum – black and white shots of Erykah Badu, Mos Def, Del Tha Funkee Homosapien, Blackalicious. Shots in dark venues. A cigarette dangling. Hair piled high and messy on top of a head. Blurry shots with hands mixing vinyl, bangled arms waving in the air.

I wandered into a room with a poem on one wall and a collage, an installation by Shinique Smith, hanging in the corner, black paint dripping toward the baseboard. I sat on a bench listening to the poem once, reading along with the words, and again as I stared at the corner. It emphasized Just. As in righteous or justice or barely. No more. Exactly.

"Life isn't just anything," I thought as I listened to Nikki Giovanni.

A guard looped the rooms, heavy steps falling on the hardwood floors as I listened and stared, as I walked among the photos of Scheinbaum. The paintings of Kehinde Wiley with Ice T ala Napoleon and LL Cool J.

"The ladies do love cool James," I thought as I stared at his face in oil on canvas.

Out in the hall, a half dozen women in white sneakers rested their weary bones on an overstuffed bench between the graffiti. Music poured from a room toward the end of the exhibit, thumping and calling. Behind a wall, five chairs in a row faced a large flat screen and a video played endlessly, with or without people watching. The women in the hall. The heavy-stepped guard.

I checked my phone and realized too much time had passed. I'd lost myself for a half hour or so in a half dozen rooms and the hall. I needed to keep moving. I slipped through "American Origins, 1600-1900" and rounded a corner.

I had to stop again for Kate, glorious Kate, and a centennial celebration of the actress. For baby pictures and family photos, Hollywood stills, posters, and cartoons of the incomparable Katharine Hepburn. A 1968 cover of Time magazine. Her Oscars stood tall and proud, ranging in height, in a glass case. Another held a signature red, Brooks Brothers, turtleneck sweater and I could imagine it draped around her shoulders.

By the time I finished paying homage, walking, standing and looking, reading, killing time, I would be late. I moved toward the entrance, the exit, with my head down and skipped the Faces of Discord: Civil War. I hadn't even made it a quarter of the way around the first floor of the museum. A museum I had visited several times before.

Time didn't seem "killed" so much as turned out to pasture after a rich, full life. I made it to the movie, waited in line, and thought about the art I had seen. So much better than a Waterpik.


RECOGNIZE! Hip Hop and Contemporary Portraiture will be open until October 26, 2008 while One Life: KATE, A Centennial Celebration closes September 28, 2008


Tag: Washington DC Art

Car Free DC

Every day, I walk to work. It's about two-mile walk through Capitol Hill, past Library of Congress and the U.S. Capitol, past the House Office Buildings, by parts of the Smithsonian. I could Metro but it takes just as long and the walk is just so beautiful. Besides, it does good things for my head and great things for my legs.

As I walk, I pass people on bikes and other walkers. Some run past with ponytails swinging and leg muscles rippling. In my comfortable shoes, I bypass people with strollers and my neighbors with dogs, police watching cars at the top and bottom of the Hill and people waiting for buses.

On the bus shelters themselves, I see the same ads every day. They seldom change – though, I got a kick out of the installation of the ESPN turf ad emblazoned with the words "Stiff-Arm Monday’s Suckery." Even on a Tuesday morning, even though I'm not into football and don't know where to find ESPN on the box, the ad makes me smile.

The ones I notice most, though, the ones that make me smile and think, are part of Chevron's Human Energy campaign: I will leave the car at home and I will use less energy.

Honestly, it's probably preaching to the choir as I see them while walking to work. They're on bus stops and viewed by people taking public transportation, but maybe someone passing on Pennsylvania Avenue or driving down Independence will take note of the ads, sponsored by an oil company, and think.

Yesterday I pledged to be Car Free as part of Car Free Day Metro DC.

Car Free Day is an international event celebrated every September 22nd in which people are encouraged to get around without their car - highlighting transit, bicycling, walking and all alternative modes of transportation. By taking a fair number of cars off the roads people who live and work there are given a chance to consider how their neighborhood might look and work with a lot fewer cars.

Car Free Day was first celebrated in Washington, DC in 2007 with approximately 1,000 participants committing to be car free for the day. On September 22, 2008 Car Free Day is expanding to a regional event that encompasses the Washington Metropolitan Area. Individuals throughout the region are encouraged to participate by leaving their car at home or going "car lite" by carpooling or vanpooling. By taking the Car Free Challenge, participants not only are eligible for some great prizes, but they also help to improve air quality, save money, and reduce their carbon footprint.

Unfortunately, it didn't mean nearly as much as it would have four years ago when I drove to work every day, shaking with tension behind the wheel of my Jeep on I-395. Fortunately, I didn't have that much of a footprint to reduce. While the car might have helped with getting to Ballston for my six-month cleaning and check at the dentist, I made it just fine on Metro, one of the official sponsors of the event funded by the District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia and U.S. Departments of Transportation.

The DC Circulator offered free rides all day, and the event website featured a list of resources for becoming Car Free or Car Lite, including Metro, the Washington Area Bicyclist Association, Commuter Connections and Telework/telecommuting information. The day has passed but the information is still available.

I missed the Car Free Street Celebration with live music, free t-shirts and giveaways, which is a shame as I might have enjoyed the Segway demonstration and test rides, but I still have time to participate in the Metro YouTube video contest. And if I weren't volunteering from midnight to four for a race somewhere between DC and not DC on Saturday morning, I could participate in Bike DC, a noncompetitive, community bike ride through 17 car-free miles of Washington, DC. I could borrow a SmartBike for that.

I used to compare living in DC to living a small town, walking to my bank, my school, the local library, but that isn't the case. When I lived in a small town, everyone drove everywhere. Two blocks to Dairy Mart. Three blocks to work. And they were angry if they couldn't find a spot in front of the shop.

Unlike some of my friends, I do have a car and I use it. I'll need it to get to the race somewhere between DC and not DC at midnight on Friday and to pick up a friend for book club Sunday morning, but more often than not, it sits empty and lifeless in front of my house.

Every day, I walk to work. It's about two-mile walk through Capitol Hill, past Library of Congress and the U.S. Capitol, past the House Office Buildings, by parts of the Smithsonian. It's not like anywhere else in the world.


Tag: Walking Washington DC

One last tour

I winced as I walked down the stairs.

"I don't think I'm going to do a walking tour tomorrow."

"I don't think you should, not if you want to go to work on Monday."

After a few beers, though, after hours on the stool, talking to friends and twice as much water as beer, my legs felt better. Either that or I couldn't feel them anymore, which might have been the tequila, but I changed my mind.

In the morning, though, just a few hours later, I shut the door on my workday alarm. My head was pounding, which was definitely the tequila, and I changed my mind back. I needed more sleep. I needed to run errands, to run to the market, to figure out a way to use the peppers, yams and tomatoes in my crate and to make my lunch for the week. I needed to act like a grown up, in as much as the tequila-induced headache would allow.

Sitting on the couch an hour or two later, watching SoapNet, I realized I could make it all work. I might not make it to three or four tours for the day. I couldn't visit every neighborhood or hear every story, but I could hit one. Maybe two.

I looked at the list and thought of my errands, my plans, the things I needed or wanted to accomplish before the weekend ended. I thought of the neighborhoods and the places to see, the stories to hear. They were all so interesting.

Should I go with Shaw? From the Howard Theater to the pool hall where Duke Ellington decided to become a musician? Tudor Place and a historic garden tour, a 200 year-old garden with a boxwood circle, the English knot garden, and the largest collection of old growth trees in DC? Blagden Alley and Naylor Court? The nooks and crannies of Washington’s back alleys?

I considered the history of Brookland and the once rural place where Abraham Lincoln spent summers during the Civil War. The "work of architects such as John Joseph Early, Howard Mackay, and Hilyard Robinson" and "the former homes of famous residents such as Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Robert Weaver, Ralph Bunche, Sterling Brown, Justine Ward, and Pearl Bailey."

In the end, though, I decided to stay home. Or close to home. With a tour of Capitol Hill and Eastern Market. I would learn more about my 'hood and the place I chose to call home.

Capitol Hill and the Landmark Eastern Market
Trace the evolution of the 135-year-old Eastern Market from the Navy Yard to its present location, a Victorian-style masterpiece designed by architect Adolph Cluss. Hear stories about market culture and how, despite a ravaging fire in 2007, local efforts have maintained this vital neighborhood hub, where shoppers are greeted by the familiar faces of generations of vendors. Presented by Cultural Tourism DC and led by local historian, Carole Kolker. Special thanks to the Capitol Hill Restoration Society, the Flea Market at Eastern Market, and the Capitol Hill Community Foundation.

We wandered just a few blocks from the Metro to market with many stops in between as Carole delivered a thoughtful, well-researched monologue on the history of the neighborhood and the market itself. The talk covered local architecture and the Eastern Branch, or the Anacostia River, about John Phillips Sousa, whose grave I'd seen just a day earlier, and The President's Own, the United States Marine Band, about William Prout who once owned so much of the land upon which we stood and the families who own stalls in the market, people who've worked for generations in longest continuously-operated market in the District of Columbia.

As we walked, Carole talked about the fire of April 30, 2007, the three-alarm fire that gutted the market and put the vendors at odds for months until public support and a temporary structure were raised.

Tina Roach, of Quinn Evans, the architectural firm rebuilding the market, talked about the opportunity the fire presented, a chance to implement major change and bring this building from 1873 up to modern code. She talked of boilers and chillers and a pottery studio that would move and reopen. She talked about tresses and the need to preserve and maintain the internal structure of the building as well as the shell that survived the fire. The historic building would reopen in June 2009.

She was followed by a man from the DC Office of Property Management, where people can find the current development on the reconstruction of Eastern Market in the form of a webcam, and the man who managed the flea market on Sundays. When he started the flea market 25 years ago, he was the only vendor in a market closed on Sundays with indigent alcoholics sleeping in the doorways. On this, the 25th anniversary, the flea market represents 60 different countries on five continents.


I assume Antarctica is exempt. And maybe Australia? I've definitely seen Provençal prints on the tables and the Guyanese flag, furniture from Asia, from Africa, and local artwork hanging from vendors' stalls. The artwork also hangs on the walls of the temporary structure, exemplifying the artists' relationships with the vendors, the market, the neighborhood I call home.

Eventually, I made my way home. The tour officially ended with the speakers, but some of us stayed for a quick walk down North Carolina to see the houses of the 'hood and the statue of Olivia Seward, adopted daughter of Lincoln's secretary of state. We walked back past a boy with a yard sale, with toy cars and Candy Land and a signature campaign to give the Nats' park a name other than Exxon.

Back through the market one last time, for onions and buttons, parsnips and photos and home again to do all those things I'd put off for far too long. I'd have enough time, enough time for everything, including the chance to learn more about the place I love and live. Tequila or no.



Tag: Washington DC Eastern Market Cultural Tourism DC

All walked out

I'm all walked out.

I awoke far too early after an uneasy night's sleep, of waking and seeking the alarm clock only to discover I'd been asleep for an hour or two. After a while, I just got dressed and climbed into my car with a thing on my shoes for tracking my time. A thing for which I do know the name but it escapes me now. Hours later. With my sunburnt face and aching legs.

It wasn't the 5K that did it, that erased my memory and pained my legs; though, that didn't help.

The morning dawned clear and cool and I found myself in Oronoco Park an hour or so before the race. I sat on a bench and watched the crowd – from infants in strollers to octogenarians. Puppies. Parents. Teenagers.

As the participants queued at the starting line, I stood to the side, trying to keep out of the way of the runners.

"Are you walking or running?" I asked a pair at the curb.

The woman laughed. Her teenage daughter flashed her braces and said, "Walking."

"You can join us," her mother said.

She expected to walk with her coworkers but found that most were working the race, standing at the sidelines and making sure people went the right way. They cheered for the woman at every checkpoint and I cheered along with them. They made the walk fun.

By the time that we'd finished, we'd lost the teenage girl who jogged the last mile or so, but the coworkers assembled and clapped.

"Should we run?" asked my new friend and I nodded. We ran across the finish line to cheers of "Go, Natalie!"

After the walk, after saying goodbye to my new friend and giving back the thing tied to my shoe of which I can't remember the name, I ran errands, picking up some new towels. The crate. And headed back into DC by way of I-295, knowing I wouldn't have much luck with 395 as it was closed at the 14th Street Bridge. A closed highway, track work on the Metro and walking tours in DC. I think there was a home ballgame, as well. The city just seemed backed up.

I had more errands to run. More things to do. To act like a grown up. Instead, I walked a mile or so to the Congressional Cemetery for my first visit and a docent-led tour as part of WalkingTown DC.

Congressional Cemetery Civil War Tour
History comes to life at the 201-year-old Congressional Cemetery, the final resting place of more than 700 Union and Confederate soldiers, local residents, and military and cabinet officials with close ties to Abraham Lincoln. The Lincoln connections include his personal valet; the door keeper and usher at Ford’s Theatre; and the bartender who served Booth his pre-theatre drink; among many others. Led by Congressional Cemetery docent Steve Hammond and presented by Congressional Cemetery.

For an hour, an hour and a half, we wandered the cemetery, listening to stories of the city and the people who once lived here. I wanted to go back and snap pictures of the chapel. The gravestone for Leonard Matlovich with its inscription of "When I was in the military, they gave me a medal for killing two men and a discharge for loving one." The angels. The stones leaning sideways. The pared back rosebush. But I ran out of time and I ran to the Metro to make my way to Southwest DC and a second tour.

Washington Waterfront
Since Pierre L’Enfant drafted the first city plans for the District of Columbia, the Southwest quadrant has been home to a diverse community that has included wealthy speculators, free blacks, and European immigrants. Learn how urban renewal brought reinvention as you visit the Titanic Memorial, the city’s oldest row of houses, a marina, and a colorful fish market. Led by Carolyn Crouch and presented by Washington Walks.

While the first consisted of 20 or so interested walkers, the second tour seemed closer to a hundred. Though, as many times as I tried to count, I couldn't pin down the number. Toddlers playing and being chased by their parents. People coming and going. Neighbors walking through the group.

The stories from one tour overlapped with the other and I heard different views of the same events. I saw places and statues that I didn't know. I made new friends – a couple from Reston – and walked with them, talking during the walking and standing together during the lecture.

For two more hours I walked, almost three, three and a half by the time I got home, touring a neighborhood not too far from my own yet one that I seldom visited outside of baseball games. A lifetime ago, I visited the waterfront fairly regularly as I loved a man who lived on a boat but those days had past.

By the time I got home and thumbed through my mail, through my bills, and swatted at the mosquitoes that found their way into my apartment, by the time I crashed on the couch, I was tired. Exhausted. And grumpy. But I needed to clean up to meet up with friends. I needed to check out the schedule for Sunday to see where I'd walk in the morning.

I couldn't pass up the free tours.


Tag: Washington DC Walking

WalkingTown DC

I forgot about WalkingTown DC, that this was the weekend of walking tours, when I signed up for the 5K.

I would have signed up anyway, for the New Orleans Rebirth Race/Walk, but it wasn't 'til my brother wrote that I remembered all of the walking that I wanted to do. With a reminder all the way from Argentina, I thought I'd take a look at the schedule and see what would fit.

From civil war forts to an eco bike tour, cemeteries and monuments, alleys and universities, geology and architecture, Cultural Tourism DC is sponsoring more than 80 free walking tours (and a few bike tours) in 18 neighborhoods across Washington DC.

The tours range from 45 minutes to five hours. Most are walk up; though, some require reservations. All tours are free. They are led by both professional and amateur guides, depending on the tour. Information about each is available on the Cultural Tourism DC site.

Greater Greater Washington plotted the tours on a timeline, a visual schedule to help people plan and I've created a table of the tours that weren't full as of Friday night. (I recommend clicking on the image to make it bigger or, you know, legible.)


Congressional Cemetery Civil War Tour? Art on Line: The Story Behind the Artwork at Metro Stations? Shaw: Where DC Comes Together? There are so many options covering parts of the city that I just don't know, even after nine years in the area.

Unfortunately, charts and tables cannot help me decide, and they can't give me strength once my legs fail. Here's hoping I've got a while until that happens.

Just say no

The television campaign of the 80s and 90s must have been somewhat effective as it's ingrained in my mind. Between the commercials, the songs, the TV shows with Punky Brewster and Diff'rent Strokes featuring Nancy Reagan's catchphrase, I heard it enough. Just say no.

I still use it fairly often, in an offhand manner. I'm never really talking about drugs, just refusing to do something that one doesn't want to do. In those days, though, I took it more literally. I swallowed the spiel - hook, line and sinker.

As I got older, "Just Say No" made way for D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) in the local school system and the program recruited high school seniors to speak to local grade schoolers, to serve as role models.

I might think twice if someone asked me today. Actually, I'd flat out refuse if someone asked me today. Not because I disagree with the views of the program – kids shouldn't take drugs – but because the term "role model" scares me.

role model¹
noun
someone worthy of imitation; "every child needs a role model"

Worthy of imitation? Me? Not so much. But in those days I didn't think through things. Drugs were bad, so sign me up! Besides, volunteering got me out of half a day of school.

I put on my T-shirt and drove to my former elementary school with Mr. Basketball and a couple of cheerleaders. A few other seniors. Mostly I remember the sixth graders, sitting behind painfully small desks with gangly limbs and pimply faces, greasy hair. Some where still children. Others looked like adults. They were on the cusp of becoming something more than the kids with recess they'd always been.

As we talked about parties and drugs, about drinking and violence, I realized that the kids were already something more. As sixth graders, many of them had more experience than my 17-year-old self. In hindsight, as sixth graders, some of them probably had more exposure than my 33-year-old self. I've been somewhat sheltered.

"I like your friends," I recently said to a host following his party. "That girl said she wanted to interview me for her thesis."

"What girl?"

"The blond one outside. The teacher. She came with that guy from work."

"The one who was snorting coke off my bathroom sink?"

"There was someone snorting coke off your bathroom sink?"

How did I miss that?

At 17, none of us had our own bathroom sinks, much less coke habits or parties, really. A handful of kids got in trouble for staging a senior skip day, which most of us skipped, and getting caught drinking at the local state park. For the most part, though, we were pretty straight laced. Good kids. More focused on basketball and calculus, the art room and band. We were D.A.R.E. role models.

Then I went to college. My D.A.R.E. t-shirt slipped to the bottom of the closet and later, into a Goodwill bag. Most of my friends were smoking pot. All of them were drinking. Some were involved in other, more dangerous things, and my friend Scott from freshman year was expelled for dealing drugs out of his dorm room. I still didn't do drugs, but I drank.

For the most part, though, I worked. No more volunteering. No more sleeping. Between a full honors course load and working full time, the news and the store and the four jobs I held simultaneously in one single summer, I didn't have time for anything else. Definitely not a life worth imitating.

The summer before my senior year, my brother graduated from high school. My memories of the trip are somewhat hazy – a long weekend with my mom who'd just moved back into the country and my sister, visiting from DC, my grandparents from Minnesota, my brother's friends. I got my first speeding ticket trying to right a spilling bag of Goldfish. My brother playing guitar while my grandfather listened on the front porch. A party hosted by my stepdad's ex-wife and her husband and our convoluted family lines.

We shared a series of rooms in the Holiday Inn, the nicest hotel in town. One of the only hotels in town. We used to swim there as kids with a pass for the summer. Tootsie rolls from a cooler. Soda from the machine inside. In another seven years, my class would hold our reunion in the ballroom, which wasn't a ballroom at all. Until that weekend, though, I'd never stayed there.

My brother invited a few friends to the hotel for a post-party-party. I grabbed a beer from the cooler that someone older than me had bought and sank to the floor. It was my first weekend off in… well… since I'd started college?

"Hey, you're Kristin, right?" one of my brother's friends asked. "I'm Nate's brother."

"Oh, hi," I replied. "You're all grown up. In high school now?"

"I'm going to be a sophomore," he said. "You know, you were my D.A.R.E. role model."

Drinking with Nate's little brother. I was his role model and both of us were underage.

"Um, just say no to drinking."

It pops into my head, time to time, when I think about volunteering, about mentoring or tutoring, when I think about my role in the lives of my sister's kids. When people drive with a fish on their car or a sticker that says "Baby on Board," when people have kids in their backseat, I hold them to a different standard. I'm careful about the clothes I wear, the logos, the message slung across my print T's - do they describe me? Do I represent them?

It might be a little too much. Nate's little brother is all grown up and doing just fine; though, the last time I saw him, he brought up the party and laughed. Maybe I wouldn't flat out refuse if someone asked me today. I would think twice and I might just say no.


¹ role model. Dictionary.com. WordNet® 3.0. Princeton University. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/role model


Tag: Role model

New Orleans Rebirth 5K

I'm not much of a runner. Actually, I am not anything of a runner. One of my mom's favorite stories from my childhood, one that she frequently tells, revolves around my refusal to run in first or second grade.

Apparently, we'd just had a discussion about saying no, about not doing things that we weren't comfortable doing even if an adult asked. I took it to heart and stamped my little patent-leather-shod foot in Mr. E's gym class. I refused. She got called to the school and tried to untangle the mess inside my head without bursting into laughter.

Of course, I don't remember any of this, but my mom wouldn't make it up and of her three kids, I doubt she mixed it up. I'm the only one who'd stand up to a man 30 or 40 years my senior for the sake of not running.

In my defense, I did have as-yet-undiagnosed asthma, triggered by sports. Running. I played soccer and wheezed half the game and the whole bike ride home. The same with basketball. Nobody wanted me on their teams and I couldn't blame them. I never learned how to run. How to breathe. How to pace myself. I still can't run to save my life and god forbid there's ever an occasion when it would save my life, running from an attacker. A bear. The altar.

Swimming was fine and I did that through college, with license to lifeguard under my belt... er, the strap of my suit. When I moved to Colorado, I took up hiking and even climbed to the top of Long's Peak, a 12-hour hike up one of the 58 "fourteeners" in the Rocky Mountains. These days, I walk: to work, from work, to the zoo, to Virginia, wherever my head and my legs take me, but I still don't run.

One would think that might keep me from joining a 5K. One would think that might keep me from joining a 5K with a marathoner-in-training, but we didn't need to finish together. And the New Orleans Rebirth 5K is raising money for relief and recovery efforts in the city of New Orleans.

I couldn't say no.

Of course, I did check out the site and the official name of the event: New Orleans Rebirth 5K Run/Walk, emphasis mine. No patent-leather-shod stomping. No need to refuse. I would gladly walk for the place that I loved. My mom would be proud.

New Orleans Rebirth 5K Run/Walk
Saturday, September 20, 2008, 09:00 AM
Oronoco Bay Park
Corner of Union and Pendleton
Old Town, Alexandria, Virginia

Local partner organizations and neighborhood association representatives from the New Orleans area will attend to display information about their organizations and talk with attendees about their efforts on the ground. Come and declare your support for the rebuilding of this unique city.

For those who need more of a run, such as marathoners-in-training, the Pacers Alexandria fun run group has planned a "10 Mile + 5K" training run prior to the race.


Tag: Washington DC NOLA Walking

Chocolate and wine

Chocolate and wine on a Tuesday night? Wrap me in silk and call me your petite chou. It just felt so decadent. Even knowing that the proceeds benefited a local nonprofit celebrating both an official launch and its 100th rescue of a dog in the DC area didn't quite assuage the delicious guilt of chocolate and wine on a Tuesday night.

Granted, I don't generally eat chocolate. Despite the site's moniker, I don't really like candy. I have a freezer full of the stuff, delighting my nieces and nephew. It all started with a leftover pack of Hershey bars from a camping trip. Visiting family dove into the pack while I was away, in France, in Germany, and they replaced it with Snickers, somewhat defeating the intent of the original pack: a true candy sandwich of s'mores.

From there, the pot grew to include baking chocolate and melting chocolate, kinder eggs with frozen toys inside, an Easter egg, a box of Dutch chocolates from a Norwegian houseguest, bars in at least four different flavors from three different countries, peanut butter cups, kisses and Girl Scout cookies: Thin Mints, Samoas, Trefoils and Tagalongs. (The cookies are not technically candy, but they are a sweet treat.)

In the living room, I have a bag of birthday gummy bears and thank you chocolates – a gift from the president of an international organization with whom I once worked. Chocolates wrapped in foil and paper with pictures of windmills and wooden shoes. Girls in braids. I tried to pawn them off on the kids, which only backfired as they raced around my tiny, breakable apartment shouting, "I'm bored!"

But last night's chocolates were different: Dark and rich, displayed in a glass case, shown in full, sweet glory on the screens over the bar with video of fire, melted chocolate, chips.

I might have drooled into my wine.

I missed winning a bottle by just one number. A friend won a basket from a local day spa and another girl in our group a pair of tickets to this winter's Nutcracker. Late in the evening, I found the friend who invited me; I'd already made friends as I stood alone at the bar, drinking my red and waiting.

By the end of the night, a girl would ask for my number, looking for a friend. Her brother would ask for my number, looking for a date. Both would pitch the man over the course of the night, trying to woo me with tales of his Bourbon Street Steak and Ginger Lime Salmon. I'm a vegetarian, but it was a good try.

"He can cook," the girl said.

"Then, why don't you ever hang out at my house?" he replied.

"You live over the bridge," she laughed. She'd come when he got their sister's seal of approval. The girl went on to explain that he didn't decorate, that once she didn't either, leaving her walls blank, leaving her life blank as she awaited a husband and kids that just didn't come.

"You've got to live your life now," I protested. "We have chocolate and wine on a Tuesday night."

I flirted with a bartender, charming and sure with an accent as delicious as the chocolate itself. He sprinkled "love" and "sweet" into the conversation as terms of endearment but no petite chou.

My friends left, as did I, slipping out of my heels and dropping three inches. Four. Stepping into my flat, comfortable commuter shoes and back into my life. Walking and Metro. A book almost finished and a new one to start. A fridge full of ratatouille and curry. Okra and beans. A freezer full of chocolate.


Tag: Wine Chocolate Charity

Cocktails for a Cause!

I've got a new obsession: DogTown on the National Geographic channel. I started watching with the rehabilitation of Michael Vick's dogs. Following the raid on Vick's compound (Bad Newz Kennels), 49 pitbulls were sent to rescue organizations throughout the country, including 22 that went to a facility in Utah - DogTown.

DogTown is part of Best Friends, a 33,000-acre animal sanctuary located in southern Utah. In addition to the hundreds of dogs at DogTown, Best Friends serves as home to cats, horses, rabbits, goats and various other farm animals — about 1,500 animals at any one time. Per the National Geographic website, "DogTown is often the last hope for dogs requiring specialized or urgent medical attention or for abused and neglected animals. This is especially true for the group of dogs from Bad Newz Kennels."

The episode with the pitbulls garnered my attention but it wasn't just Vick's dogs. It was the trainers and the vets and I was hooked.

An ex and I once adopted a dog. Actually, the ex adopted the beagle, but I was listed as the emergency contact and the dog's person when the boy wouldn't or couldn't be there. We shared the dog for a while. He'd been hit by a car – the beagle, not the boy – and a shattered leg that required very expensive surgery led his owners to give him up. Put him down. A surgeon saved his life, fixed his leg and gave him to a shelter where the boy found our dog.

When, after several months of dating, the boy decided to stop talking to me, I lost not just my relationship but also the dog. My first shared pet. My first pet, really. There wasn't actually a breakup. He just disappeared - the boy with the beagle - and I was angry, hurt, and not completely surprised. Eventually, I got over it (while holding out hope that I ruined chocolate chip cookies for him) but I still miss the dog.

Today marks the launch of both Co Co. Sala's Chocolate Boutique as well as that of K9 Lifesavers, an organization rescuing dogs in the DC area.

A friend sent the invite and I thought I'd pass it along. I just caught up with last week's episode of DogTown. Between that and the impact of Ike, I've got dogs on the mind. Rescue dogs.

Chocolate's always kind of there.

K-9 Lifesavers Launch Party
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
6pm to 9pm
CoCo Sala chocolate lounge & boutique
929 F Street NW Washington DC 20004

$10 Donation Kindly Requested



Tag: Rescue Dogs Washington DC

Planning

Sitting on the couch, half listening to my local news at 25 past the hour and straining to hear the garbage truck, the recycling truck, an indication that I should bring in the bins, I almost missed the story.

According to NBC4, a 61-year-old woman was abducted at gunpoint from a parking garage at the Springfield Mall. The kidnappers forced the woman into her own car and to ATMs where she withdrew cash, to a convenience store for beer. At some point, the driver lost control and crashed into a wooded area. The woman, the kidnapped woman, was found dead in her car and her abductors taken to a local hospital.

I turned from my computer, from my work on the couch, and looked at the TV, but the newscasters moved onto another topic, to something else, and back to the national broadcast with news of Ike, search and rescue and devastation in Galveston, to the missing child Caylee Anthony and the season premiere of Saturday Night Live. The weather. The local weather. A move from hazy, hot and humid to breezy, hot and humid.

There on the couch, I got back to work. Grounded by a thwarted delivery from UPS, I awaited my new camera and wondered why I didn't have it sent to the office. I worried about wandering too far from the front door, about showering and missing the knock and about the pain in my neck, and I wondered about the kidnapping.

I used to live in Springfield. My roommate and I had lived in Alexandria for a year when she found and bought a house. I moved with her. The house was nice and we got along. The drive wasn't too bad when it wasn't rush hour, and when I wasn't too tired after work or on the weekends, I walked in Lake Accotink Park or around Burke Lake. But I was always tired.

After four years of driving up I-395 during rush hour, of tension headaches and stress, of an hour-and-a-half drive to go 12 miles, I realized that I lived in Springfield: A town without an actual town. (I know – I went out driving, trying to find it.) It had the mall and the Metro, strip malls and housing developments filled with curving drives and cul-de-sacs but no Main Street.

The one time I tried online dating, I met a man for dinner. He suggested a place at the mall, my choice of any place at the mall, a selection that included Bennigan's and Boardwalk Fries. We had a number of other incompatibilities, including his handholding habit and painfully awkward conversation, but the location served as the first strike.

The mall itself scared my sister. She thought it was sketchy; I thought she was overreacting. It was a mall with Auntie Anne's Pretzels and Bath and Body Works, Claire's Boutique and Forever 21. How dangerous could it be with Lane Bryant and Limited Too, Spencers and Victoria's Secret?

The news told little about the victim herself, a woman just a year older than my own mother. I don't know why she was there – for a movie? A gift? She had to go to Mo's? Hot Topic? Lids? Maybe she hit the Piercing Pagoda. Did a trip to Target lead to her death?

I had trouble switching gears between the news and my work. It would happen again at 55 past the hour with another local newsbreak and a repeat of the kidnapping story. I sat on my couch and tried to focus on a timeline for work. The RUP process. Words like "productivity" and "best practices" floated through my mind. Project management. Predictability.

Planning made sense to me. It was part of my job and part of my life. I sat on the couch and awaited the camera I bought for Africa. A trip I'd been planning for the better part of five years. Six. A trip for which I'd been saving just as long, hoarding both money and my vacation time. From vacation plans and vaccinations to project management and my 401K, so much of life revolved around planning for the future.

A woman ran to the mall on a Sunday afternoon, was kidnapped and died. No amount of planning could have accounted for that.


Tag: Washington DC

Saturday in DC

No plans for the day quickly changed as I stepped from my apartment into a surprisingly swampy Saturday in September. I wore the t-shirt that my brother bought for my birthday, one that read "Can you smell what Barack is cookin'?" which I found incredibly funny despite my relative ignorance of WWE and the tagline associated with The Rock, and a pair of jeans because I thought it would be cool outside. It was damp and dreary and a rainy Saturday morning. I was wrong.

Nevertheless, I swam through the day with my entirely too-warm clothing, my water bottle and market bag to meet up with a friend. We hadn't actually met; though, we'd known of each other from years. She was new to DC, and earlier in the week, we made plans to meet and wander the market.

"I'll be the one in the red and white dress," she wrote.

"I'll be wearing an Obama t-shirt," I replied. It was the first chance I'd have to wear it unless I wanted to risk getting fired.

Over dinner Friday night, the men at the table next to ours, told us about the day's Walk 4 Change, hosted by Diversity 4 Obama. When I got home, before I fell asleep on the couch, I looked up the site and found times, the location and a recommendation to wear Obama gear. Can you smell what Barack is cookin'?

When I left my friend in the red and white dress at Union Station, however, I was hot, sticky and tired. I'd risen sometime around five after a restless night. I could use a nap. I could use a shower, a change, a tall glass of lemonade, and I desperately wanted to transfer to orange and just go home.

Cheerleaders and speakers preceded the blessing from a Baptist minister. An a capella group gathered around a single mic to sing the National Anthem to a bare-headed, heart-covering crowd, and then we set out on the walk. Down 14th Street and Constitution Avenue, walking in the middle of the street toward the Lincoln, an escort of police on motorcycles lined the group.

"What do we want?" called the man with a bullhorn.

"Change," answered the crowd.

"When do we want it?"

"Now."

The chanting wasn't all that organized; it never is. "Yes, we can" morphed into "yes, we will" and later somebody started "We will, we will, Barack you" ala Queen. At some point, I heard someone try to start my personal favorite: "This is what democracy looks like."

Young and old. Straight, gay, lesbian, transgender. Black and white and all shades in between. By the time I left, I could add pink to the list as bits of my arms ranged in color from carnation to carnelian, bubble gum to burnt sienna, my left arm darker than the right. I wouldn't call my face sun kissed unless the sun was a big sloppy dog, slobbering all over my chin, nose and cheeks. My forehead. A couple of dogs were there, too. A pair of dachshunds and a Pekinese making the march on their short little legs.

One woman carried a sign reading "60-year-old Mama for Obama." Another sign said "MC = W3" and most seemed to say something about "change." Some people carried yard signs and bumper stickers while others bore signs that were hand lettered in marker or pen or sparkly, pastel puffy paint.

I saw the man who'd sat beside us at dinner, the one who told me of the rally, and he wheeled his bike beside me for much of the walk. A woman with a sign claiming "Disabled Americans for Obama" rolled in her wheelchair.

As we marched past the White House, people on top of double-decker buses stood to snap pictures, capture video, of the stream of people that blocked traffic. Drivers snapped pics on their cellphones or with pocket-sized digital cameras, and they honked, pumped their fists in air. From the young, pony-tailed blond in a Lexus to cabdrivers with patrons to the man clearing plates outside a café, people cheered. They waved from the sidewalk.

"Join us," shouted the marchers, and some of them did.

Not all were supportive. Some people booed. A number shook their heads with disapproving looks and flashed a thumbs down. I smiled and waved; there wasn't much else to do. I respected their own right to peaceably assemble, and I actually hoped they would for whatever cause or candidate they supported. It was part of the democratic process. Though, not all agreed with my approach.

"Can I flash that man the bird?" one woman asked. "The one with the thumbs down?"

When all was said and done, she passed the car, shaking her head and her sign.

And the whole time, it was just so flippin' hot. Sweat dripped down the middle of my back as I peeled the shirt from my skin. I ended up with curved little marks under my breasts as I sat barefoot in the sun next to the Reflecting Pool, listening to reggae.

Jordan Hines, a high school senior from Delaware, delivered an impassioned speech and on November 4, he'd vote for the very first time. Ward 6 councilman Tommy Wells delivered a short and sweet speech and we listened, we danced, to the music of Soulsations and Platina Productions.

"Sí se puede."

After a while, a few hours at least, when I'd properly broiled my face and marked myself with the sign of the farmer and a pasty flesh shirt, I walked most of the way home, intending to stop at Smithsonian for the Metro but continuing to walk when I heard the sirens and saw the flash of lights outside of the castle, between red brick and carousel. I never did figure that one out, but the fire truck moved to the museum next door and extended a ladder.



I went home and dropped the clothes that were sticky with sweat. I washed my face and redressed, heading out for my crate of fresh produce and a bottle of wine, ready to figure out what came next on a Saturday in DC.


Tag: Obama Rally Washington DC

Soul food

I must have been in second or third grade when I first heard the jokes. When was the drought? When were Farm Aid and Live Aid and Hands-Across-America? We are the World?

I was young.

I might have seen something about the drought and famine on Diff'rent Strokes. I definitely heard the jokes in the locker room at the Y, jokes of the "screw in a light bulb" variety. I don't remember the punch lines; I didn't tell the jokes. I never found them funny – those or the ones about Helen Keller and later, the Challenger, that circulated around same time. They've probably always been circulating but only amongst kids in second or third grade because, truly, they're awful, humorless, crass and outright mean.

Last night I joined a friend for dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant, Etete, one of both the Washingtonian's 100 Very Best and their Cheap Eats, the perfect combination when eating with a friend. Especially when said friend offers to take one to dinner.

After work I walked a couple of miles from the south side of the Mall to U Street because I was too cold down in Cubeville. And then, by the time I got to U Street, I was early and far too hot, sweaty, sticky and gross. I ducked into a gay sports bar for a drink, and then I met my friend at the Ethiopian restaurant.

I suppose the concept's what reminded me of the jokes: an Ethiopian restaurant. The half-understood memories of famine and the thought of fine dining. They couldn't quite reconcile themselves in my head. Sally Struthers, fly-specked faces, famine, starvation and death with the Washingtonian.

It didn't take long, though, for Ethiopian soul food to take its place at the forefront of my mind. Sambusa for my friend and tomato cucumber salad for me, bringing our only utensil in the form of a fork that we shared (I for the salad, she for her chicken.) Those plates made way for a basket of injera and a fasting platter, filled with vegetarian dishes, with greens and lentils, potatoes, gomen, yekik alicha, and azifa. My friend's doro wat filled the center of the tray. Sesame and safflower oils. Spices like fenugreek, cumin, basil, coriander, ginger, saffron, mustard, cardamom, red pepper and thyme.

I watched my friend for a second and followed her actions, tearing a piece from the roll of injera, a spongy, sourdough crepe, and scooping up the vegetables with my right hand. She'd eaten Ethiopian several times before but it was the first for me. So few of my friends enjoyed eating with their hands. Some downright disliked it. Though, I'd had injera before, using it to eat curry in the absence of naan or roti.

Unfortunately, dinner passed entirely too fast. I'd be hard pressed to say if it was the quick, efficient service in the small, inviting restaurant or the company. We never seemed to run out of things to say. It took at least 20 minutes for me to realize the group seated two tables down included a favorite coworker of mine and her partner, both of whom I'd known for years.

When I went the bathroom, I returned to find my friend talking with the men at the table next to us. Until that moment, I hadn't even realized there were men sitting at the table next to us.

"They heard us talking about politics," she said.

We talked politics with the mismatched couple of a gaunt gray-haired man and his young, well-dressed friend, date or lover, until well after our plates had been cleared. They finished each others' sentences, asked questions, talked about themselves, the country, the world, but our table was empty and our bellies were full. We reluctantly walked into the night and into the bar next door for another drink, a little more conversation.

I would be home and asleep on the couch by 10, dreaming of the etete (or mama) for whom the restaurant was named, a woman dishing comfort food that never seemed to end.


Tag: Food Washington DC

Remembering

Walking shakily toward the front of the apartment, blindly seeking a cell phone that just wouldn't stop, I stumbled.

Prying my eyes open, I saw the mess at my feet; clothes lay where they fell: Shoes by the front door, socks by the end table and trousers over the end of the couch. I found one shirt in the hall, the other at the end of my bed. Bits and pieces had completely gone missing.

I also found scraps of moleskin, a bandage or two, and I walked as if I'd just climbed off a horse... after three weeks on the trail.

You should have seen the other guy.

Guys.

I could only imagine how they felt – the four soldiers who'd walked 24 hours, the entire day that was the seventh anniversary of the events of September 11, 2001. As for me and my pain, I knew I ought not complain. I'd only walked from eight until midnight. Granted, that followed walks to and from work and over lunch, looking for them on the Mall. Seven miles of so. Working a full day. Volunteering. None of it added up to 24 hours of walking.

Over the course of the day, the four men - Steve Stephens, Jesse Stephens, Duane Dion Padilla and Nathan LeDoux would completely approximately 12 laps of the Mall. At approximately four miles per loop, the men would cover 48 miles each in one day of continuous motion.

The event, envisioned by Sgt. Steve Stephens on July 5, 2008, served as a walk of remembrance for the thousands who lost their lives on September 11, 2008. The soldiers, who serve in the same unit at Fort Detrick, united to plan an event two months later, training with four-, six- and eight-hour walks to mentally prepare for the walk. They created a website, raised funds and secured permits from the Park Police. They generated some buzz in the media and news crews came out to film the start of the walk.

Some of us had seen it on Wednesday night's news or Thursday morning. A few heard about it from friends. We showed up and looked for the walkers on the Mall or found our way to the information tent to wait. Nobody knew what to expect – four men walking alone, crowds of hundreds, throngs of thousands or something in between.

When I showed up at eight, after walking the Mall a bit, I sat at the tent in my new T-shirt and waited. Ten minutes later a group of 20 or so limped into sight and dropped to the ground to stretch, change socks and massage aching limbs. Twenty-four hours on concrete would take a toll on anybody or any body, even if it belonged to a soldier.

The pace had slowed some during the course of the day, but they would go until midnight. They would accomplish their goal. The first of their goals, anyway: the walk of remembrance. A holiday and a memorial on the Mall might take a bit longer.

I didn't mean to stay until midnight. I intended to make a lap or two, maybe peel off at the Metro but somewhere between Lincoln and Washington, Steve turned to me and asked, "You're staying 'til the end, right?"

"Yes," I said, without thinking of the day I'd already had, that Metro wouldn't be running and I'd have to walk home, or the day that would start in so few hours. "Yes."

I meant it.

The stretch on the north side of the reflecting pool looked like it went on forever. Spotlights flashed across a cloudy sky. I lost my sense of direction as we circled the Washington Monument, waiting for the reporters that never showed. I lost my sense of balance as I looked up at the obelisk from its base. The patina on statues. The crunch of gravel underfoot. Images embedded themselves in my mind as the minutes, the hours, passed.

Sacrifice and freedom: The words floated in the humid night air as we walked and talked. They'd already been moving for 20 hours or so by the time I arrived – I was surprised to find anyone talking, willing to talk, to an interloper, but they did. More people joined, some went home, the crowd ebbed and flowed, as did the conversation.

"As a soldier, I signed up for this," Steve said, saying that the people who died on 9/11 were just trying to live their lives and the American dream the best way they knew how.

"Now you've got him going," LeDoux joked later as Steve started talking again about the walk, but nobody minded.

About a dozen of us crossed the finish line – the soldiers, wives, a fiancée, a few random strangers (including myself) and a puggle named Ollie. Only there wasn't a finish line. There wasn't a ticker tape parade or a marching band. There was a Capitol police officer telling us and the cameraman from a local news station that he needed to move his van. Tempers flared, words faltered and bodies ached, but they did it.

I snapped a picture or two of the walkers, of the men who made it happen, even if they were quick to protest that it only happened because of people like us. People who walked. People who funded the endeavor. I knew the truth; it was all because of them.

It started raining at three minutes past midnight.

The men climbed into the van with their wives and fiancée. The man with the puggle headed west. The father and son somewhere else. I would walk partway home with another of the walkers, stopping for a beer or three and continuing our conversation. Eventually, I'd make my way home and peel off my clothes, sticky and rank, letting them lay where they fell as I crawled into bed.

In the morning, a delay on the Orange and Blue lines meant I'd slap bandages on my torn and battered feet and ignore the ache in my thighs to walk to work again. I didn't have much choice and I knew that I'd need more practice if I planned to walk again next year.



For more information or to get involved, please see the event website.


Tag: September 11 Walking

Walking shoes

Last night I wrote something about 9/11, something I fully intended to post today. I'd like to say it was something new, exciting and different, but even as I wrote it, I knew that wasn't the case. Despite the references to my family, Angela Chase and REM, new shoes, old crushes, it wasn't that great.

The day itself dawned humid and gray: September 11, 2008. Just hearing the date turned my stomach, and as I listened to news of the dedication of the Pentagon memorial, I wanted to stay in bed. The thought of 184 empty benches reminded me of Oklahoma City and all of those empty chairs. The gates with the times. The fact that this memorial wasn't the first of its kind and it wouldn't be the last.

I pulled myself from bed and readied for work, left for work. As I walked past the Library of Congress at 8:46, church bells tolled on Capitol Hill and I looked up to see Old Glory billowing at half mast. I walked past the fences and barricades that have cropped up in the past seven years, access blocked to the Capitol. I walked past the cops in their cars who sit at the top and bottom of the hill, blocking traffic, unknown trucks and vans.

At the client site, in my Federal Office Building with flags flying at half mast, past security guards and metal detectors, wearing a badge imprinted with my biometric information, I sat at my desk and checked my email, cringing at the subject lines – 9/11/08 and 9/11. My schedule 9-11-08.

Every day for the past seven years, I have submitted my schedule to management. Where I am. How long I'll be there. How to reach me. Because one day, seven years ago, they couldn't account for everyone. Not at first.

We have an emergency supply kit in the coat closet. I wear or carry walking shoes every day based on accounts from the World Trade Center of women in heels, and I send in my schedule. We all do.

Normally, the schedule doesn't bother me – it's part of my daily routine. It's just seeing the date over and over in my mailbox that felt so wrong. I wondered again, as I did in the post that wasn't so great, when the date would stop making me cringe. When I could schedule meetings on 9/11 without a sense of foreboding. When I would stop noticing barricades around museums and monuments, around the Capitol and Library of Congress. When I would stop noticing the protestors outside the House office buildings.

When?

As I walked to work on a morning so gloomy and gray, so different from the blue skies of 2001, I thought of other news I had heard as I cowered in bed, unwilling to face the day. Soldiers from Fort Detrick had embarked on a 24-hour walk of the Mall, a walk of remembrance.

I don't know where they'll be when I break for lunch, but I'll go out and walk for a bit. Maybe I'll come back after work, after volunteering. I've got my walking shoes.


Tag: Washington DC

Crash course

Until fairly recently, my only knowledge of CERN, Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire or the European Organization for Nuclear Research, stemmed from Dan Brown's book Angels and Demons, aka "the other one" or "not The Da Vinci Code." In the book, a secret society wants to destroy the Vatican using a bomb built with antimatter stolen from CERN.

While the whole antimatter thing floated a bit over my head, I caught the flick: Religion, science and volatility (a fairly common combination in the current campaigning season). I also discovered that the worldwide web, if not the internet, came from CERN and I learned a little about the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

The LHC accelerator is a ring 17 miles in circumference, installed in a tunnel about 300 feet underground. It uses giant magnets in cathedral-sized caverns to fire beams of energy particles. Apparently, the book didn't represent it quite right, but it introduced the concept of the LHC and colliding protons with a block of metal, creating a whole bunch of things, including antiprotons, leading to the antimatter in the fast-paced story.

Today, scientists plan to experiment with the LHC and crash particles into each other (at 99.999999 percent of the speed of light) to try to reenact the "Big Bang." Actually, it might take a while for the machine to reach full power – months even – but the Big Bang is planned in a very small way, to try to answer a lot of unanswered questions about physics and the origins of the universe.

Things like "dark matter," "dark energy," extra dimensions and "Higgs Boson" (the "God Particle" believed to give mass in the Big Bang theory) are on the list of questions. Once again, the whole $9 billion shebang floats over my head but my mind keeps wandering to the "bang" part of the deal. Big Bang. Even on a small scale, it sounds scary, earth-shattering as well as creating, but I suppose that's the point.

Apparently, I'm not alone in my fear as some critics and scientists outside of CERN have suggested that the experiment could create "tiny black holes of intense gravity that could suck in the whole planet."

Matt Lauer and Meredith Viera spoke and joked about the end of the world on Tuesday morning's Today Show.

"If we're here later..." Viera laughed before the break and after the introduction of an earth-sucking black hole. The story discussed both the topic and the lawsuits that have followed.

A German chemist, Professor Otto Rossler, filed a suit claiming that the experiment would violate the right to life of European citizens and pose a threat to the rule of law. In March, two American environmentalists filed a lawsuit seeking to force the U.S. government to withdraw its participation in the project.

From the lawsuits to the worldwide web (still invented at CERN), websites, chat rooms and petitions to death threats and alarming headlines (Britain's Sun newspaper on September 1: "End of the World Due in 9 Days"), the news has spawned some concern. Scientists working on the LHC are being besieged by phone calls and emails from people who fear the world will end when the collider starts smashing.

I'm not exactly sure what the Vatican thinks of it.

"The LHC is safe, and any suggestion that it might present a risk is pure fiction," said Robert Aymar, the French physicist who heads the CERN. British physicist Brian Cox said the "end of the world" ideas were "nonsense.... spread by conspiracy theorists."

Whether or not the LHC is "safe," it still makes me think. Whether it generates tiny, earth-swallowing black holes (which totally makes me think of the Nothing in The Neverending Story) or I'm hit by a bus walking home (this is DC, after all), eventually, I will live my last day on earth. It could be today. Tomorrow. 20,812 days from now, based on my family history.

The question that keeps circling my head at nearly the speed of light, crashing into itself and other thoughts, is whether I will have truly lived.




Tag: Science Life