We spent a long weekend (Thursday through Saturday) at the beach on the Atlantic Ocean in Wildwood, New Jersey, midway between Cape May and Atlantic City, which are on the very southern tip of the state. To get there, we decided to take the route through Delaware. First, however, you go through Annapolis, Maryland, and then cross the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. We crossed this bridge on our way home at sunset. Here was our view.
Jun 17, 2012
Crossing the Chesapeake Bay Bridge at sunset
We spent a long weekend (Thursday through Saturday) at the beach on the Atlantic Ocean in Wildwood, New Jersey, midway between Cape May and Atlantic City, which are on the very southern tip of the state. To get there, we decided to take the route through Delaware. First, however, you go through Annapolis, Maryland, and then cross the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. We crossed this bridge on our way home at sunset. Here was our view.
Apr 22, 2012
Mar 6, 2012
Sept. 11 memorial
This is the Sept. 11 memorial at ground zero in New York City. We visited it over the weekend.
The last time I had been there was Sept. 18, 2011, just a week after the terrorist attacks. I flew there from Chicago and got to go all the way "to the fence," the closest anybody who wasn't a rescue worker could get those days. As part of my job as the ELCA's disaster communicator, I flew there that week with the ELCA's Presiding Bishop, H. George Anderson, and a few other ELCA staffers to cover the ELCA's response to the terrorist attacks and to show our solidarity with the people of New York City.
OK, actually, the last time I had been there was a little over ten years ago, a few months after the terrorist attacks that year. I had just asked Sarah to marry me while we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, and from there, we proceeded to ground zero.
The last time I had been there was Sept. 18, 2011, just a week after the terrorist attacks. I flew there from Chicago and got to go all the way "to the fence," the closest anybody who wasn't a rescue worker could get those days. As part of my job as the ELCA's disaster communicator, I flew there that week with the ELCA's Presiding Bishop, H. George Anderson, and a few other ELCA staffers to cover the ELCA's response to the terrorist attacks and to show our solidarity with the people of New York City.
OK, actually, the last time I had been there was a little over ten years ago, a few months after the terrorist attacks that year. I had just asked Sarah to marry me while we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, and from there, we proceeded to ground zero.
Feb 12, 2012
D.C.'s most bizarre "museum"
On my birthday, which was last Thursday, I took the day off, and so did Sarah. We took the girls to daycare and school as usual so we could have the day to ourselves.
One thing we had wanted to do for a while was tour the Mansion on O Street. This is another unknown D.C. landmark that we’ve discovered since living here (but for the Hovicks, not the sort of place that Ingrid would have taken you). I had heard about it through a Groupon, so, since it was cheap, we decided to try it.
It’s a bizarre place. It’s near Dupont Circle and is four or five typical, historical row houses (the type that are more than 100 years old) on a street that are connected. They say they’re a combination hotel/event venue/museum. I’d say that the entire place – every room – is also an antique store.
So you show up at your scheduled tour time (you book a time yourself and buy a ticket), and the “butler” meets you at the door, which is locked. You are checked in, given a glass of champagne, and then told you’ve got free reign of the place, only you aren’t allowed to go in any doors that are closed (that have a “Do not disturb” sign on them) because they are occupied hotel rooms. So it’s a self-guided tour, and you can wander around these houses at your own pace. Many of the hotel (sleeping) rooms were open, so we could go inside them, and each had a large bed, a large bathroom (most of them had strange things like a bidet, a multi-head massaging shower, a Jacuzzi tub, etc.), a large closet, and a kitchenette. Most of the sleeping rooms had themes, like the country room or one room that was a country lodge/log cabin (it was the best one because it had a loft above the bed where there was a kitchenette on one side of a cozy den area). On the ground floor were reception/dining rooms and a bar. It seems they host office or holiday parties or wedding receptions there. There is a wine cellar in the basement where you can have a private dinner party – it’s a cozy place. Some rooms are general gathering rooms/living rooms, like the billiard room, or a sitting room.
But the décor – picture this: Every square inch of the walls is covered by large paintings or floor-to-ceiling bookshelves with used books or other shelves or ledges covered by knick-knacks. And it’s all for sale! The butler tells you that you can buy anything in the house except the signed guitars (signed by famous musicians). So imagine going to an enormous junk store in an old house where you have to wander through many, many rooms. We didn’t buy anything – it’s all old and junky.
The catch, or the gimmick, with the place when you tour it is that there are secret passageways –30-some of them. They tell you that if you can find two or three of them, you’re doing extremely well. We found about five (we had seen another touring party go through one near the entrance). They tend to be full-length mirrors with no handles. It’s confusing enough with the several stairways that wind up and down the houses.
So there are a variety of ways they can get you in this place – to visit and stay as an out-of-town guest, to tour the place as a “museum,” to come shop at the place (they have holiday shopping events and the like), or to come for a scheduled event, like a meal, although you can go on the weekends for brunch or high tea.
So don’t be surprised if you want to come visit us in D.C. and we tell you that instead of staying with us at our house, we’re going to book you in a hotel. My plan is then to leave it at that – not tell you anything about this hotel. You’d see right away when you check in that it’s a bizarre place. You’d have a terrible time finding your room, so once you get there, you’d stay inside it for the night. Then you’d wake up for breakfast in the morning and then have to find your way to the breakfast room. And while inside, you’d just go crazy from all of the junk that is packed into every room.
One thing we had wanted to do for a while was tour the Mansion on O Street. This is another unknown D.C. landmark that we’ve discovered since living here (but for the Hovicks, not the sort of place that Ingrid would have taken you). I had heard about it through a Groupon, so, since it was cheap, we decided to try it.
It’s a bizarre place. It’s near Dupont Circle and is four or five typical, historical row houses (the type that are more than 100 years old) on a street that are connected. They say they’re a combination hotel/event venue/museum. I’d say that the entire place – every room – is also an antique store.
So you show up at your scheduled tour time (you book a time yourself and buy a ticket), and the “butler” meets you at the door, which is locked. You are checked in, given a glass of champagne, and then told you’ve got free reign of the place, only you aren’t allowed to go in any doors that are closed (that have a “Do not disturb” sign on them) because they are occupied hotel rooms. So it’s a self-guided tour, and you can wander around these houses at your own pace. Many of the hotel (sleeping) rooms were open, so we could go inside them, and each had a large bed, a large bathroom (most of them had strange things like a bidet, a multi-head massaging shower, a Jacuzzi tub, etc.), a large closet, and a kitchenette. Most of the sleeping rooms had themes, like the country room or one room that was a country lodge/log cabin (it was the best one because it had a loft above the bed where there was a kitchenette on one side of a cozy den area). On the ground floor were reception/dining rooms and a bar. It seems they host office or holiday parties or wedding receptions there. There is a wine cellar in the basement where you can have a private dinner party – it’s a cozy place. Some rooms are general gathering rooms/living rooms, like the billiard room, or a sitting room.
But the décor – picture this: Every square inch of the walls is covered by large paintings or floor-to-ceiling bookshelves with used books or other shelves or ledges covered by knick-knacks. And it’s all for sale! The butler tells you that you can buy anything in the house except the signed guitars (signed by famous musicians). So imagine going to an enormous junk store in an old house where you have to wander through many, many rooms. We didn’t buy anything – it’s all old and junky.
The catch, or the gimmick, with the place when you tour it is that there are secret passageways –30-some of them. They tell you that if you can find two or three of them, you’re doing extremely well. We found about five (we had seen another touring party go through one near the entrance). They tend to be full-length mirrors with no handles. It’s confusing enough with the several stairways that wind up and down the houses.
So there are a variety of ways they can get you in this place – to visit and stay as an out-of-town guest, to tour the place as a “museum,” to come shop at the place (they have holiday shopping events and the like), or to come for a scheduled event, like a meal, although you can go on the weekends for brunch or high tea.
So don’t be surprised if you want to come visit us in D.C. and we tell you that instead of staying with us at our house, we’re going to book you in a hotel. My plan is then to leave it at that – not tell you anything about this hotel. You’d see right away when you check in that it’s a bizarre place. You’d have a terrible time finding your room, so once you get there, you’d stay inside it for the night. Then you’d wake up for breakfast in the morning and then have to find your way to the breakfast room. And while inside, you’d just go crazy from all of the junk that is packed into every room.
Apr 6, 2011
Article I wrote for my organization's magazine
If anybody is still out there and paying attention to this blog, I thought I would share an article I wrote for my organization's magazine (which I am also the editor of). This article shows not only my work and what I do these days (writing articles and editing a magazine, among other communications tasks) but shows the work of my organization - what type of work it does. This article also serves as a bit of a travel journal, telling you about a memorable work trip I took last fall to Mississippi, my first non-tourist trip to the "real" Deep South and my first time in that state.
Like a phoenix from ashes, a town rises from a hurricane’s flood
Mississippi community destroyed by water uses water to rebuild itself
By Stephen Padre
Down in the bayou, along the Gulf Coast, sits the small town of Pearlington, Miss. Moss hangs low from the mighty oak trees in the quiet, still air. The town’s sleepiness today belies what it has been through in the past several years. Part of its quietness is the result of the town losing many of its residents, not by choice but by force of extraordinary circumstances.
Pearlington is one of those places that defines itself by a major event. For this town, it was Hurricane Katrina, which hit the U.S. Gulf Coast in late August 2005 and became the costliest natural disaster in American history. Little Pearlington, sitting on a remote corner of Mississippi’s short panhandle, was slammed by the enormous hurricane. But like other small communities on Mississippi’s Gulf Coast, Pearlington was overlooked and forgotten as the nation’s attention focused on the crisis unfolding in New Orleans, less than 40 miles away. Surrounded by major bodies of water—the Gulf of Mexico, Louisiana’s Lake Pontchartrain, and a river on one side—the town was flooded and nearly destroyed by Katrina.
Today, Pearlington’s residents speak of the time before Katrina and the time after Katrina. The hurricane did its damage through water. The sea came inland and swept houses away or left debris on property, leaving it uninhabitable.
But the town has another history, both before and after Katrina, that is also all about water. For two periods of a few years before the hurricane and since then, Pearlington has been receiving assistance from Community Resource Group, the Southern RCAP, as the town works to construct new drinking water and wastewater systems.
“I never thought I would spend my entire career [with RCAP] working with this community,” said Tom Johnson, the Senior Operations Management Specialist for CRG who has worked with Pearlington’s leaders for more than 14 years.
This is an unusually long lifecycle for an RCAP project in a community. Most technical assistance providers like Johnson spend three to five years providing technical, managerial or financial assistance for a system before moving on to help other communities in need.
Pearlington’s leaders first contacted CRG in late 1997 because it had an inadequate wastewater collection or disposal system. Many homes were discharging raw sewage directly into the Pearl River or various bayous. The state Department of Environmental Quality had sampled various sites in the area and found the water of the river and bayous contained high levels of fecal coliform bacteria.
From 1997 to 2000, and starting again in May 2005, Johnson worked with leaders to create a water district and secure funding from various sources to install a sewer system. While the area had functioning water wells, it was decided to also install a drinking water system. By July 2005, the district had a fully designed sewer system ready for bids from contractors as well as enough funding from several sources to get the project started.
Then Katrina hit.
Five years later, as Betty Baxter sat near where her home once stood, her eyes welled up with tears as she recounted how Katrina destroyed houses and devastated Pearlington. After she talked about the frightening days of flooding following the storm, she drove visitors around town in her car and stopped at her property. Now it is just an empty lot after the house she and her husband had lived in was razed because it was too damaged in the flooding to rebuild. Only the enormous, moss-draped oak trees sit peacefully around what Baxter said was her living room and dining room.
Tom Johnson and Betty Baxter
“People lost everything they had—everything, except what they had on their backs,” she said.
Baxter was not alone in what she suffered. Prior to the hurricane, there were 871 homes and buildings in Pearlington. Katrina destroyed more than 700 of them and heavily damaged the others.
Baxter is currently the secretary of the water district and since Katrina has taken a key leadership role in pushing for completion of the water and sewer systems. She is 73, and her husband is 80. Since Katrina, they have lived 30 miles away from the coast. She knows they must make a choice. They can return to Pearlington and rebuild their house and their life there, but they are getting too old to start over again. Or they can remain where they are.
Baxter has invested too much time and effort in the water system through her service on the district’s board to leave her work now. She wants to see her town get its water system so it can continue to build itself up from the devastation of Katrina.
“I’m not a quitter. I feel like I am obliged to stick it out and see that they get a water and sewer system,” she said. “I live in Picayune, but my heart is here.”
Johnson said Katrina set the town’s work on its water systems back years. But he has continued his work with the town as well.
“We don’t know where we would have been without Tom,” said Baxter.
As a result of the hurricane, most of the funding that had been lined up with Johnson’s help for Pearlington’s project disappeared. Mississippi’s governor diverted grant funds to rebuild the infrastructure on the coast. Pearlington’s water district had already spent more than $800,000 on designs, easements and other preparations for its water system.
The district had hoped to obtain enough of the post-disaster rebuilding funds as grants to complete its project, but this did not happen. So the district is applying for a $1.5 million loan from the U.S. Department of Agriculture-Rural Development to finish the work.
Nevertheless, 14 years later, the system is beginning to operate, and CRG, through Johnson, will work with the system until all construction ends and the system’s daily operation is running smoothly. Customers’ homes were being hooked up weekly to the system late last year.
“This is truly an example of where CRG/RCAP has worked from the start until today with a project helping them form [a district], secure funding, write manuals and procedures, and everything else,” said Johnson. “I feel that in the last 14 years I have been required to use all the experience I had prior plus educate myself and learn many other things to get this system to where it is.”
Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, Pearlington hopes to pull itself out of the flood waters of Hurricane Katrina. In addition to installing a new water system, one way it is doing this is with the establishment of a community center. The building was built by a charity as a gift to the town. Betty Baxter, the secretary of the water district, stands by the center’s dedication plaque.
Padre is RCAP’s Director of Communications and editor of Rural Matters. He visited Pearlington in October 2010.
Like a phoenix from ashes, a town rises from a hurricane’s flood
Mississippi community destroyed by water uses water to rebuild itself
By Stephen Padre
Down in the bayou, along the Gulf Coast, sits the small town of Pearlington, Miss. Moss hangs low from the mighty oak trees in the quiet, still air. The town’s sleepiness today belies what it has been through in the past several years. Part of its quietness is the result of the town losing many of its residents, not by choice but by force of extraordinary circumstances.
Pearlington is one of those places that defines itself by a major event. For this town, it was Hurricane Katrina, which hit the U.S. Gulf Coast in late August 2005 and became the costliest natural disaster in American history. Little Pearlington, sitting on a remote corner of Mississippi’s short panhandle, was slammed by the enormous hurricane. But like other small communities on Mississippi’s Gulf Coast, Pearlington was overlooked and forgotten as the nation’s attention focused on the crisis unfolding in New Orleans, less than 40 miles away. Surrounded by major bodies of water—the Gulf of Mexico, Louisiana’s Lake Pontchartrain, and a river on one side—the town was flooded and nearly destroyed by Katrina.
Today, Pearlington’s residents speak of the time before Katrina and the time after Katrina. The hurricane did its damage through water. The sea came inland and swept houses away or left debris on property, leaving it uninhabitable.
But the town has another history, both before and after Katrina, that is also all about water. For two periods of a few years before the hurricane and since then, Pearlington has been receiving assistance from Community Resource Group, the Southern RCAP, as the town works to construct new drinking water and wastewater systems.
“I never thought I would spend my entire career [with RCAP] working with this community,” said Tom Johnson, the Senior Operations Management Specialist for CRG who has worked with Pearlington’s leaders for more than 14 years.
This is an unusually long lifecycle for an RCAP project in a community. Most technical assistance providers like Johnson spend three to five years providing technical, managerial or financial assistance for a system before moving on to help other communities in need.
Pearlington’s leaders first contacted CRG in late 1997 because it had an inadequate wastewater collection or disposal system. Many homes were discharging raw sewage directly into the Pearl River or various bayous. The state Department of Environmental Quality had sampled various sites in the area and found the water of the river and bayous contained high levels of fecal coliform bacteria.
From 1997 to 2000, and starting again in May 2005, Johnson worked with leaders to create a water district and secure funding from various sources to install a sewer system. While the area had functioning water wells, it was decided to also install a drinking water system. By July 2005, the district had a fully designed sewer system ready for bids from contractors as well as enough funding from several sources to get the project started.
Then Katrina hit.
Five years later, as Betty Baxter sat near where her home once stood, her eyes welled up with tears as she recounted how Katrina destroyed houses and devastated Pearlington. After she talked about the frightening days of flooding following the storm, she drove visitors around town in her car and stopped at her property. Now it is just an empty lot after the house she and her husband had lived in was razed because it was too damaged in the flooding to rebuild. Only the enormous, moss-draped oak trees sit peacefully around what Baxter said was her living room and dining room.
Tom Johnson and Betty Baxter“People lost everything they had—everything, except what they had on their backs,” she said.
Baxter was not alone in what she suffered. Prior to the hurricane, there were 871 homes and buildings in Pearlington. Katrina destroyed more than 700 of them and heavily damaged the others.
Baxter is currently the secretary of the water district and since Katrina has taken a key leadership role in pushing for completion of the water and sewer systems. She is 73, and her husband is 80. Since Katrina, they have lived 30 miles away from the coast. She knows they must make a choice. They can return to Pearlington and rebuild their house and their life there, but they are getting too old to start over again. Or they can remain where they are.
Baxter has invested too much time and effort in the water system through her service on the district’s board to leave her work now. She wants to see her town get its water system so it can continue to build itself up from the devastation of Katrina.
“I’m not a quitter. I feel like I am obliged to stick it out and see that they get a water and sewer system,” she said. “I live in Picayune, but my heart is here.”
Johnson said Katrina set the town’s work on its water systems back years. But he has continued his work with the town as well.
“We don’t know where we would have been without Tom,” said Baxter.
As a result of the hurricane, most of the funding that had been lined up with Johnson’s help for Pearlington’s project disappeared. Mississippi’s governor diverted grant funds to rebuild the infrastructure on the coast. Pearlington’s water district had already spent more than $800,000 on designs, easements and other preparations for its water system.
The district had hoped to obtain enough of the post-disaster rebuilding funds as grants to complete its project, but this did not happen. So the district is applying for a $1.5 million loan from the U.S. Department of Agriculture-Rural Development to finish the work.
Nevertheless, 14 years later, the system is beginning to operate, and CRG, through Johnson, will work with the system until all construction ends and the system’s daily operation is running smoothly. Customers’ homes were being hooked up weekly to the system late last year.
“This is truly an example of where CRG/RCAP has worked from the start until today with a project helping them form [a district], secure funding, write manuals and procedures, and everything else,” said Johnson. “I feel that in the last 14 years I have been required to use all the experience I had prior plus educate myself and learn many other things to get this system to where it is.”
Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, Pearlington hopes to pull itself out of the flood waters of Hurricane Katrina. In addition to installing a new water system, one way it is doing this is with the establishment of a community center. The building was built by a charity as a gift to the town. Betty Baxter, the secretary of the water district, stands by the center’s dedication plaque.Padre is RCAP’s Director of Communications and editor of Rural Matters. He visited Pearlington in October 2010.
Aug 14, 2010
Apr 27, 2010
Update on recent happenings
Rotary Club lunch
Last week I attended the weekly lunch meeting of the Rotary Club that meets up 16th St. a couple of blocks from my office at the University Club. I was investigating hosting an exchange student - if this club brings any foreign students over – and the president of the club had invited me to attend a lunch meeting as his guest so we could meet. My initial contact was made, and that business was taken care of, but I was also thrilled to get inside this exclusive club, which is essentially the in-city “athletic club” or “country club” (without the outdoor parts like tennis courts, pool or golf course).
Well, there wasn’t anything unique inside, at least the parts that I saw – nothing private or exclusive or new to me. It was all just very fancy and upscale. There were many wood-paneled rooms – the various bars and restaurants in the place. Certainly the bathroom had some extra amenities. You could use some mouthwash or a comb or polish your shoes with their little machine. The room the lunch was held in was on the second floor and was like a fancy hotel ballroom set up with round tables and a buffet table at the back – like any banquet at a hotel that you would attend. The source of arrogance for this place isn’t its location (on the water or in an exclusive suburb), but its location. I’m sure many of the city’s powerful businessmen, lobbyists and government workers frequent this place, which is just a few blocks from the White House, although I walk past it regularly and have rarely seen anybody well-known outside (I did pass Tom Ridge nearby one day on my way to work).
Hillwood Estate, Museum & Gardens
A couple of weekends ago, we took a few hours on a windy but sunny Saturday afternoon to visit the former estate of Marjorie Merriweather Post, which is just a few miles from our house, but which we had not really known about from living here (another hidden gem in the city; ask us about what we’ve discovered when you visit). Post was married and divorced about four times, and some of her husbands were wealthy and/or powerful, and she was also the heiress of C.W. Post of the Post cereal company, which later became General Foods. As a wealthy socialite, she purchased an estate here and set about collecting art – mostly Russian and French – and keeping a lavish garden, all the while entertaining famous guests.
Pictures of our visit are posted here.
All of our photos were taken outside, and most are of the gardens. We visited at exactly the right time for the gardens, which were in full bloom. I don’t think I’ve visited a private garden that had so many flowering plants before. It was simply spectacular. We were not allowed to take photos inside the mansion, which was Post’s house but is now a veritable museum. She expanded the house and added a lot of rooms here and there, many of which were just to show off her various art collections. There was about as much practical living space as there was space for the art and entertaining, like the “pavilion,” which was for showing movies and holding ballroom dances.
The mansion/museum was a bit familiar to us, since it was very much like a palace in Europe, of which we have seen many, only on a smaller scale. Honestly, I don’t know what was more spectacular – the house or gardens. For a private, little-known house-museum, it has something rare: Its centerpieces are a small handful of pieces by Faberge, including two of his famous eggs. The “surprises” in them (when you open them) have been long lost, however. There were several important portraits of Russian royalty throughout the house, and the grand piano in one of the sitting rooms had pictures of people she would entertain regularly. I spotted a framed picture of John and Jackie Kennedy at the end of the piano.
Drama on our block
Yesterday I had left the office at my earlier time, at 5:00. Sarah and Lexi were still not home from their weekend away, but were on their way home. As I approached the intersection where our house is, I crossed one street as usual and heard a fire truck approaching. I looked down the block and saw that it was coming toward me. I didn’t think this was a big deal, since we hear sirens all the time, sometimes even on our street – mostly police cars flying past. I expected it to continue down the street past our house. But then, as I crossed the other street in front of our house, I happened to look down another street and thought it looked foggy. It was odd, I thought, but then remembered that it had been a drizzly day with rain off and on since the night before. But then suddenly I connected the two – the fire truck and what was actually smoke! By then I had crossed in front of the fire truck, which had pulled up across the street but close to our house. A house across the street from our and a few doors down was on fire! I had arrived at precisely the right moment as the first fire truck arrived.
I went in the yard at the end of our house and watched all the fire fighters arrive and as all the other neighbors were coming out of their houses to see what was going on. Some were running out as the smoke billowed up from the roof in the back of a house. More fire trucks arrived, and at the peak of it all, there were a total of eight trucks occupying more than two blocks of the neighborhood, plus other police and fire vehicles and an ambulance at one point.
The trouble with this fire was that it was smack in the middle of an entire long block of row houses, and one could easily see that if they didn’t put it out soon, it would easily spread. So some policemen were going door to door and telling residents to get out. I saw them do this to one house, and the woman seemed unusually calm and left her house with her dog on a leash like she was going to take the dog for a walk anyway. I would have been quite concerned that my house was also going to go up in flames. Yes, I would have taken the dog, but certainly I would have left in a bigger hurry and would have been more visibly concerned. As it happened, the fire did spread to one adjacent house, and fire fighters were scrambling from all sides, breaking windows in the front second story windows to get in and accessing both houses from the roof with two ladder trucks.
One fire truck was there until about 9:00 last night – about three hours total. Today the two houses are boarded up. This was a big reminder of the dangers that we face – from the wiring I did when I installed new lighting fixtures in our dining room and entryway (did I do it correctly?) to living in a row house, where a fire in your neighbor’s house could mean certain destruction in your own house.
Last week I attended the weekly lunch meeting of the Rotary Club that meets up 16th St. a couple of blocks from my office at the University Club. I was investigating hosting an exchange student - if this club brings any foreign students over – and the president of the club had invited me to attend a lunch meeting as his guest so we could meet. My initial contact was made, and that business was taken care of, but I was also thrilled to get inside this exclusive club, which is essentially the in-city “athletic club” or “country club” (without the outdoor parts like tennis courts, pool or golf course).
Well, there wasn’t anything unique inside, at least the parts that I saw – nothing private or exclusive or new to me. It was all just very fancy and upscale. There were many wood-paneled rooms – the various bars and restaurants in the place. Certainly the bathroom had some extra amenities. You could use some mouthwash or a comb or polish your shoes with their little machine. The room the lunch was held in was on the second floor and was like a fancy hotel ballroom set up with round tables and a buffet table at the back – like any banquet at a hotel that you would attend. The source of arrogance for this place isn’t its location (on the water or in an exclusive suburb), but its location. I’m sure many of the city’s powerful businessmen, lobbyists and government workers frequent this place, which is just a few blocks from the White House, although I walk past it regularly and have rarely seen anybody well-known outside (I did pass Tom Ridge nearby one day on my way to work).
Hillwood Estate, Museum & Gardens
A couple of weekends ago, we took a few hours on a windy but sunny Saturday afternoon to visit the former estate of Marjorie Merriweather Post, which is just a few miles from our house, but which we had not really known about from living here (another hidden gem in the city; ask us about what we’ve discovered when you visit). Post was married and divorced about four times, and some of her husbands were wealthy and/or powerful, and she was also the heiress of C.W. Post of the Post cereal company, which later became General Foods. As a wealthy socialite, she purchased an estate here and set about collecting art – mostly Russian and French – and keeping a lavish garden, all the while entertaining famous guests.
Pictures of our visit are posted here.
All of our photos were taken outside, and most are of the gardens. We visited at exactly the right time for the gardens, which were in full bloom. I don’t think I’ve visited a private garden that had so many flowering plants before. It was simply spectacular. We were not allowed to take photos inside the mansion, which was Post’s house but is now a veritable museum. She expanded the house and added a lot of rooms here and there, many of which were just to show off her various art collections. There was about as much practical living space as there was space for the art and entertaining, like the “pavilion,” which was for showing movies and holding ballroom dances.
The mansion/museum was a bit familiar to us, since it was very much like a palace in Europe, of which we have seen many, only on a smaller scale. Honestly, I don’t know what was more spectacular – the house or gardens. For a private, little-known house-museum, it has something rare: Its centerpieces are a small handful of pieces by Faberge, including two of his famous eggs. The “surprises” in them (when you open them) have been long lost, however. There were several important portraits of Russian royalty throughout the house, and the grand piano in one of the sitting rooms had pictures of people she would entertain regularly. I spotted a framed picture of John and Jackie Kennedy at the end of the piano.
Drama on our block
Yesterday I had left the office at my earlier time, at 5:00. Sarah and Lexi were still not home from their weekend away, but were on their way home. As I approached the intersection where our house is, I crossed one street as usual and heard a fire truck approaching. I looked down the block and saw that it was coming toward me. I didn’t think this was a big deal, since we hear sirens all the time, sometimes even on our street – mostly police cars flying past. I expected it to continue down the street past our house. But then, as I crossed the other street in front of our house, I happened to look down another street and thought it looked foggy. It was odd, I thought, but then remembered that it had been a drizzly day with rain off and on since the night before. But then suddenly I connected the two – the fire truck and what was actually smoke! By then I had crossed in front of the fire truck, which had pulled up across the street but close to our house. A house across the street from our and a few doors down was on fire! I had arrived at precisely the right moment as the first fire truck arrived.
I went in the yard at the end of our house and watched all the fire fighters arrive and as all the other neighbors were coming out of their houses to see what was going on. Some were running out as the smoke billowed up from the roof in the back of a house. More fire trucks arrived, and at the peak of it all, there were a total of eight trucks occupying more than two blocks of the neighborhood, plus other police and fire vehicles and an ambulance at one point.
The trouble with this fire was that it was smack in the middle of an entire long block of row houses, and one could easily see that if they didn’t put it out soon, it would easily spread. So some policemen were going door to door and telling residents to get out. I saw them do this to one house, and the woman seemed unusually calm and left her house with her dog on a leash like she was going to take the dog for a walk anyway. I would have been quite concerned that my house was also going to go up in flames. Yes, I would have taken the dog, but certainly I would have left in a bigger hurry and would have been more visibly concerned. As it happened, the fire did spread to one adjacent house, and fire fighters were scrambling from all sides, breaking windows in the front second story windows to get in and accessing both houses from the roof with two ladder trucks.
One fire truck was there until about 9:00 last night – about three hours total. Today the two houses are boarded up. This was a big reminder of the dangers that we face – from the wiring I did when I installed new lighting fixtures in our dining room and entryway (did I do it correctly?) to living in a row house, where a fire in your neighbor’s house could mean certain destruction in your own house.
Mar 22, 2010
A Washington Peeps show
O, the cheap gimmicks a venerable institution must stoop to.
Most likely in the name of community outreach (i.e., to attract readers), The Washington Post, that newspaper that once brought a president down, the bastion of journalism famed in book and cinema, the former home of that iron lady Katherine Graham, sponsors an annual Peeps contest. The newspaper invites submissions from the public (its readers, residents of the Washington, D.C., area) to design and construct a diorama, a scene using Peeps, those marshmallow Easter candies made in the shapes of chicks and bunnies.
For the last couple of weeks, Sarah and I have been following a group on Facebook that supports of one of the entries and the person/people who created the “Washington National Peepthedral” scene full of a choir and a procession, complete with a miter-wearing bishop Peep and the Darth Vader gargoyle that really does exist at the cathedral.
The 36 finalists are on display for the first part of this week at the Post’s offices, and at lunch today, Sarah and I walked over there to view them. They are allowing the public to vote on its favorite as well.
The scenes are fun, clever and creative. Many did what I knew had to be done for a winning entry – pick a current event from the news or pop culture and create a Peep scene around it - and so there are several scenes from our big February snow storms (the enormous snowball fight in Dupont Circle) and a snowy scene from the Olympics. Others borrowed from children’s and adult literature to create Frankenstein, Madeline (Peepaline) and Goodnight, Peep (Goodnight, Moon) scenes. The attention to detail is admirable on some. Another favorite of mine had a bunny Peep as Normal Rockwell in a re-creation of his triple self-portrait scene. Pure genius, that.
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Although I've been a Facebook fan of the Peepthedral scene and do think it's clever and well-executed (extra points for its additional "marketing" effort on Facebook), here is the one I voted for:
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It's the scene of the White House party crashers. I voted for it because:
I did not enter the contest this year because I heard about it only about a week before entries were due. But I immediately told my artist brother about it and said that we needed his help for our entry next year.
See The Washington Post's page with photos of all the finalists
Most likely in the name of community outreach (i.e., to attract readers), The Washington Post, that newspaper that once brought a president down, the bastion of journalism famed in book and cinema, the former home of that iron lady Katherine Graham, sponsors an annual Peeps contest. The newspaper invites submissions from the public (its readers, residents of the Washington, D.C., area) to design and construct a diorama, a scene using Peeps, those marshmallow Easter candies made in the shapes of chicks and bunnies.
For the last couple of weeks, Sarah and I have been following a group on Facebook that supports of one of the entries and the person/people who created the “Washington National Peepthedral” scene full of a choir and a procession, complete with a miter-wearing bishop Peep and the Darth Vader gargoyle that really does exist at the cathedral.
The 36 finalists are on display for the first part of this week at the Post’s offices, and at lunch today, Sarah and I walked over there to view them. They are allowing the public to vote on its favorite as well.The scenes are fun, clever and creative. Many did what I knew had to be done for a winning entry – pick a current event from the news or pop culture and create a Peep scene around it - and so there are several scenes from our big February snow storms (the enormous snowball fight in Dupont Circle) and a snowy scene from the Olympics. Others borrowed from children’s and adult literature to create Frankenstein, Madeline (Peepaline) and Goodnight, Peep (Goodnight, Moon) scenes. The attention to detail is admirable on some. Another favorite of mine had a bunny Peep as Normal Rockwell in a re-creation of his triple self-portrait scene. Pure genius, that.
.jpg)
Although I've been a Facebook fan of the Peepthedral scene and do think it's clever and well-executed (extra points for its additional "marketing" effort on Facebook), here is the one I voted for:.jpg)
It's the scene of the White House party crashers. I voted for it because:
- It's current (well, barely, but probably was at the time it was conceived)
- It's a good setting for use of Peeps as people
- The theme is good for a play on the Peeps word
- It's well-executed
I did not enter the contest this year because I heard about it only about a week before entries were due. But I immediately told my artist brother about it and said that we needed his help for our entry next year.
See The Washington Post's page with photos of all the finalists
Feb 8, 2010
Getting walloped with winter weather
Our house at 4:00 Saturday afternoonThis is our first winter back in the U.S., and boy, are we getting a lot of it!
Sure, we are really noticing the winter weather after living near the Equator for a while. Sarah remarked the other day how she appreciates living in a place with distinct seasons again. Also, Geneva did not get any heavy snows (despite what people think, Geneva is not high in the Alps). So we have returned to the type of cold, wet, snowy winters we knew in Chicago.
First there was the pre-Christmas winter storm. They said that big of a storm was rare - only every 50 years or so. We flew out to Seattle the day after that storm, and we were nervous about the airports being open and getting to the Baltimore airport by road to fly out. But we made it to the airport and to our flight with no problems.
Then, this past weekend, an even bigger storm hit the D.C. area. We were walloped! The snow started falling on Friday morning and did not let up until Saturday at 5:00 p.m. There was so much anticipation around this storm - lots of talk and many things shutting down or letting out early. I felt a bit left out with no scheduled events of my own to cancel, since everybody else was canceling their events. The only thing we had scheduled on Saturday was a birthday party of a friend's son out in the suburbs in Virginia, but we didn't need to worry - this was called off on Friday.
With no flight to catch either, we had no obligations outside the house, so we stayed inside all day Saturday, content to let it snow. I went out in the late morning to start shoveling, and by then, there were 19 inches of snow in our back yard (where it had drifted a bit) and 14 inches on the sidewalk in front of our house. Our car was completely buried by that time. I shoveled part of the sidewalk around our house. Yesterday, I could feel the shoveling I did in my lower back.
A measurement taken at 4:00 Saturday afternoon in our front yardWe managed to get out of the house and go to church yesterday morning. Of course, the usual crowd wasn't there. Many members live out in the suburbs. There were only about 30 people there. We knew we could get there on the subway (only two stops away) but that it would take longer that way than usual. So we just started out early. It took us an hour to get to church. The organist could not make it, so I volunteered to accompany the service on the piano, and people really appreciated it.
By the time we got home from church in the early afternoon, the sun was beating down hard through a clear sky and was doing well to melt most of the snow off our car (I had shoveled most of it off earlier). So we finished digging it out, and now it's clear, although we still don't need to go anywhere with it.
As I said, there was a lot of lead-up to this storm. Everybody started talking about it and preparing for it early. We heard that on Thursday morning, 24 hours before the snow started falling, some grocery stories had been emptied out. But perhaps because the storm was bigger than what we thought was the biggest storm in December, the city was still caught off guard. Many streets are still not plowed, the buses are not running, and only the underground stations on the subway are open. So today, Monday, two days after the storm, on the first workday after it, most of the city is shut down. The federal government is closed. D.C. schools are closed. Sarah's office is closed, as is Lexi's daycare. I didn't get official word about my office being closed, but I decided not to go in today (our boss is on vacation this week and next anyway). So it's a snow day for everybody.
We aren't really unhappy or crabby about what's happening, but the only bummer is that while we are all just trying to cope with a huge amount of snow, another snow storm is on its way tomorrow afternoon. It is due to snow for about 24 hours more and leave us with at least 5 more inches! One little complaint I will air now, however: Since late Friday, the signal for our cable TV has not been coming in clearly. This was the ideal weekend for us, stuck inside, to catch up on all of our taped shows, but we haven't been able to watch any TV - live or recorded - since then because of snow on the lines or something probably snow-related. We do have one TV that is not hooked up to cable, so we've been able to stay caught up on the news.
Not to mention the previous weekend and last week: On Saturday of last weekend, it snowed much of the day as well, and we got about 4 inches. And then it snowed again on Tuesday - just a few inches. That last snow was very pretty. This was when I had family from Seattle (and some from NYC over the weekend) visiting. They managed to get out and fly back home before the big storm on early Thursday morning.
So, needless to say, we've had our share of real winter weather this first winter back in the U.S.
Dec 24, 2009
Lets go to the movies....
Stephen and I went and saw a movie in a theater yesterday afternoon. Only the second one since we have moved back to the States. We walked in the theater and pretty much stopped in our tracks - they had removed a row of seats and put in the table in each row so that people could eat during the movie. Condiments, napkins and the menu were already on these tables and a waiter would bring your food to you if you wanted to order anything. Both of us thought this was a bit weird. Do you really need to eat a hamburger while watching a movie in a theater?? Is this the norm now or just a novelty in Seattle??
(We went to see 'Up in the Air' and thought it was quite good. It doesn't have your typical happy ending so if that is important to you, you might not want to go see it.)
Dec 21, 2009
Dec 17, 2009
More scenes of the season
Lexi in front of the Christmas tree at a holiday party we went to
Lexi at the Botanical Garden, all decorated for Christmas
Dec 14, 2009
Christmas scenes from Our Nation's Capital
The Christmas tree at Union Station, a gift from Norway as thanks to the United States for our help in World War II (yes, a few years has passed since then, but they're still very grateful to us).
The Christmas tree on the grounds of the Capitol.Dec 7, 2009
Fondue American-style? We say "Fon-don't!"
A little while ago, we saw advertisements in the paper for the holiday concert of the Air Force band. We know the son of our former (first) pastor in Chicago (at Ebenezer), who plays saxophone in this band. So we got tickets from him to attend (we’ve learned in D.C. that you don’t have to do things the conventional way like the public does them; it’s all about using your connections to get something).
We decided to make a whole date night out of it, so we got our friend (Michelle) to babysit Lexi and went out to dinner before the concert. We tried one of D.C.’s fondue restaurants, one of our favorite meals from our time in Switzerland, obviously. How does the American version of a fondue meal at a restaurant fare? Herewith our list of rants:
But we were able to get a more authentic Swiss meal even in Nairobi, at Rudy’s, a restaurant not far from our house there. Granted, Rudy was a native Swiss (Swiss-German), and we didn’t see any native Swiss at this restaurant on Saturday. We’ll never go back to there. We felt the way they did fondue was just so wrong.
We decided to make a whole date night out of it, so we got our friend (Michelle) to babysit Lexi and went out to dinner before the concert. We tried one of D.C.’s fondue restaurants, one of our favorite meals from our time in Switzerland, obviously. How does the American version of a fondue meal at a restaurant fare? Herewith our list of rants:
- Atmosphere: Granted, this restaurant was in the basement of a building, the same place you would find your Swiss friend’s carnotzet, where you would gather for your fondue meal and wine tasting (next to the cellar). But rather than the cozy, rustic atmosphere of a Swiss lodge with stone walls, they’ve got a modern décor with lots of wood and shiny metals and lots of modern art on the walls. And part of the atmosphere (the fun) of going to a restaurant in Switzerland for fondue is that you’re hit immediately at the door by the heat, humidity and strong, pungent smell of cheese. It’s an oppressive atmosphere, yes, but that helps keep you warm on a cold Swiss day, which is when you’d be eating fondue. This place was quiet well ventilated and didn’t smell at all.
- Quantity: The recommendation from the waitress, for the “whole experience,” was to get the multiple-course meal, which started off with a cheese fondue (the only course with cheese), then went to a salad and then the “entrée,” which really was fondue with meat (cooking meat in a broth), and ended with a chocolate fondue dessert. We didn’t want to spend a lot for the entire experience (it’s quite expensive), and all a fondue meal to us is bread and a lot of cheese – that’s it! So we ordered just the salad and cheese course. The pot of cheese was slightly larger than appetizer-sized but still not generous like a real Swiss meal would be (and the Swiss would gladly bring another pot of cheese if you finished the first one).
- Ingredients: Our main cheese fondue meal included “fresh” bread and three different types of it. A “real” Swiss fondue meal is just one type of bread – cut-up baguette (or that type), and it’s usually not so fresh and soft (fondue originated with stale, dry bread, and thus the melted cheese to soften it up – it’s what the shepherds carried with them high up in the Alps). Besides bread, we also had a couple of small bowls of apple chunks and chunks of fresh vegetables (celery, carrots and cauliflower). Again, something unheard-of with a real Swiss fondue meal. Our waitress made our fondue at the table in front of us, and it took all of a minute. It was just like all American foods – instant this or that. Real Swiss fondue cheese takes a while to melt and blend slowly. Plus she added nutmeg. We had never seen this before. There was a strange blend of spices in the cheese – pepper and nutmeg – that we weren’t used to.
But we were able to get a more authentic Swiss meal even in Nairobi, at Rudy’s, a restaurant not far from our house there. Granted, Rudy was a native Swiss (Swiss-German), and we didn’t see any native Swiss at this restaurant on Saturday. We’ll never go back to there. We felt the way they did fondue was just so wrong.
Nov 30, 2009
Blame the baguette
In early September 2008, I wrote a post ("The end of Geneva - and the world - as we know it?") on our Africa blog (now closed) about how switching on the Hadron Collider, outside our old home of Geneva, was possibly going to spell the end of the entire world. The concern by some scientists was that in trying to replicate the Big Bang - the origins of our universe - with this enormous atom smasher, the process of Creation would end as quickly as it began by creating a giant black hole that would swallow the earth and bring inhalation to humankind. No small thing, mind you. No "Oops, I guess that was the wrong thing to build. Can we try it again differently next time?"
But because I'm still able to write blog entries, that obviously did not happen. Another item for my Thanksgiving list last week of things that I'm thankful for.
However, in early November this year, there was a somewhat humorous story out of CERN, the scientific facility where this large atom smasher is housed. It seems that this machine, among the most complex scientific instruments ever built by humankind, at the cost of many years of work and many billions of dollars, was sidetracked by a small, insignificant object: a piece of bread. Here is a news report about the incident:
Peckish bird briefly downs big atom smasher
(AFP) – Nov 9, 2009
GENEVA — A peckish bird briefly knocked out part of the world's biggest atom smasher by causing a chain reaction with a piece of bread, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) said on Monday.
Bits of a French loaf dropped on an external electrical power supply caused a short circuit last week, triggering fail-safe devices that shut down part of the cooling system of the giant experiment to probe the secrets of the universe, CERN said.
The system was restored several hours after the incident last Tuesday while the multi-billion dollar Large Hadron Collider was barely affected, a spokeswoman said.
"The bird escaped unharmed but lost its bread," CERN said in a statement.
"On Tuesday 3 November, a bird carrying a baguette bread caused a short circuit in an electrical outdoor installation that serves sectors 7-8 and 8-1 of the LHC," it added.
"The knock-on effects included an interruption to the operation of the LHC cryogenics system."
The 27 kilometre-long (17 mile) particle collider, which runs in a circular tunnel under the French-Swiss border near the city of Geneva, has been plagued by problems since it was briefly started up in September 2008.
However, CERN said the latest incident was minor and did not affect attempts to restart the accelerator later this month following repairs.
"It made for a small warming from absolute zero (minus 273 degrees Celsius, minus 459 degrees Fahrenheit) on the Celsius scale to minus 268 degrees but the machine was not stopped," CERN spokesman Renilde Vanden Broek told AFP.
"Everything returned to normal a few hours later and operations were able to resume in the night of November 5," she added.
Designed to shed light on the origins of the universe, the LHC at CERN took nearly 20 years to complete and cost six billion Swiss francs (3.9 billion euros, 4.9 billion dollars) to build.
The bird was believed to be an owl.
(end)
In other words, the process of discovering the origins of our universe, the most profound question ever asked, was thwarted by a simple French baguette. Moral of the story: Baguettes are bad. Or: Don't feed the birds. What brings down one of the biggest and most complex pieces of science equipment that humankind has ever built? Nature and the humble and common baguette. Remember that it was a nature again - an iceburg - that sunk the Titanic. The real moral of the story: Don't mess with nature. Also, in investigating nature, you just may destroy exactly what you're seeking when you create that black hole that's going to swallow the whole planet in an instant.
Thankfully, however, that group over at CERN is better than rocket scientists, and the other day they were able to fire up this puppy and break a record (whatever that means, i.e., what the significance of this is, I do not know). With a news release from CERN itself, there was a photo, and front and center in that photo was our good friend from church in Geneva, Jeff Steinhagen, one of those brilliant scientists who helps to adjust all the knobs and dials on this machine. Way to go, Jeff! (Apparently breaking this record was big enough that Jeff had to call his wife and wake her up at midnight to tell her the news.) Just don't destroy us all in trying to break new records, okay? And put down that forkful of fondue you're eating - you may cause that machine to malfunction again!
But because I'm still able to write blog entries, that obviously did not happen. Another item for my Thanksgiving list last week of things that I'm thankful for.
However, in early November this year, there was a somewhat humorous story out of CERN, the scientific facility where this large atom smasher is housed. It seems that this machine, among the most complex scientific instruments ever built by humankind, at the cost of many years of work and many billions of dollars, was sidetracked by a small, insignificant object: a piece of bread. Here is a news report about the incident:
Peckish bird briefly downs big atom smasher
(AFP) – Nov 9, 2009
GENEVA — A peckish bird briefly knocked out part of the world's biggest atom smasher by causing a chain reaction with a piece of bread, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) said on Monday.
Bits of a French loaf dropped on an external electrical power supply caused a short circuit last week, triggering fail-safe devices that shut down part of the cooling system of the giant experiment to probe the secrets of the universe, CERN said.
The system was restored several hours after the incident last Tuesday while the multi-billion dollar Large Hadron Collider was barely affected, a spokeswoman said.
"The bird escaped unharmed but lost its bread," CERN said in a statement.
"On Tuesday 3 November, a bird carrying a baguette bread caused a short circuit in an electrical outdoor installation that serves sectors 7-8 and 8-1 of the LHC," it added.
"The knock-on effects included an interruption to the operation of the LHC cryogenics system."
The 27 kilometre-long (17 mile) particle collider, which runs in a circular tunnel under the French-Swiss border near the city of Geneva, has been plagued by problems since it was briefly started up in September 2008.
However, CERN said the latest incident was minor and did not affect attempts to restart the accelerator later this month following repairs.
"It made for a small warming from absolute zero (minus 273 degrees Celsius, minus 459 degrees Fahrenheit) on the Celsius scale to minus 268 degrees but the machine was not stopped," CERN spokesman Renilde Vanden Broek told AFP.
"Everything returned to normal a few hours later and operations were able to resume in the night of November 5," she added.
Designed to shed light on the origins of the universe, the LHC at CERN took nearly 20 years to complete and cost six billion Swiss francs (3.9 billion euros, 4.9 billion dollars) to build.
The bird was believed to be an owl.
(end)
In other words, the process of discovering the origins of our universe, the most profound question ever asked, was thwarted by a simple French baguette. Moral of the story: Baguettes are bad. Or: Don't feed the birds. What brings down one of the biggest and most complex pieces of science equipment that humankind has ever built? Nature and the humble and common baguette. Remember that it was a nature again - an iceburg - that sunk the Titanic. The real moral of the story: Don't mess with nature. Also, in investigating nature, you just may destroy exactly what you're seeking when you create that black hole that's going to swallow the whole planet in an instant.
Thankfully, however, that group over at CERN is better than rocket scientists, and the other day they were able to fire up this puppy and break a record (whatever that means, i.e., what the significance of this is, I do not know). With a news release from CERN itself, there was a photo, and front and center in that photo was our good friend from church in Geneva, Jeff Steinhagen, one of those brilliant scientists who helps to adjust all the knobs and dials on this machine. Way to go, Jeff! (Apparently breaking this record was big enough that Jeff had to call his wife and wake her up at midnight to tell her the news.) Just don't destroy us all in trying to break new records, okay? And put down that forkful of fondue you're eating - you may cause that machine to malfunction again!
Nov 22, 2009
Busy, Busy
Obviously, we are busy! Too busy to post anything to the blog anyway. What have we been up to?
House projects-weatherizing doors, considering changing thermostats, still unpacking and rearranging furniture, hanging some things up on the walls, buying cabinets/shelving for storage space. We also hung curtains in our room which now really helps to cut out the morning sun. While most of the house faces west, it is still very light in the morning. Plus the usual cleaning, cooking, lawn mowing, car washing, etc.
We have also done some cultural things including concerts and memorials. And did we write about driving through the Shenandoah Valley on Skyline Drive? I can't remember if we did or not - but it was gorgeous. Lots of beautiful leaves and vistas. We would highly recommend it.
Work is also keeping us busy - though maybe me more than Stephen. Our fiscal year ended Sept 30 so we are going through year-end now. It's the quickest close I have ever experienced...and there is still a lot to clean up, I would say. But that means Jan-March should be pretty calm.
We are also starting to get more involved at church. I have joined the choir and am enjoying singing in a group again. Stephen will probably be helping out with their communication stuff - there is a lot that can be improved there. Lexi is going to the nursery during the service and seems to be adjusting to that. She definitely likes coffee hour afterwards.
We are looking forward to Thanksgiving. Lexi is looking forward to the airplane ride and Mom to seeing her family and seeing how the girls interact. Stephen will seek advice from the guys on some of our house projects. We leave Wednesday very early (6:20 AM flight!) to MSP through Detroit. My brother's family has generously agreed to host again. I hope we can convince everyone to come east next year so we can host. We have the room!
House projects-weatherizing doors, considering changing thermostats, still unpacking and rearranging furniture, hanging some things up on the walls, buying cabinets/shelving for storage space. We also hung curtains in our room which now really helps to cut out the morning sun. While most of the house faces west, it is still very light in the morning. Plus the usual cleaning, cooking, lawn mowing, car washing, etc.
We have also done some cultural things including concerts and memorials. And did we write about driving through the Shenandoah Valley on Skyline Drive? I can't remember if we did or not - but it was gorgeous. Lots of beautiful leaves and vistas. We would highly recommend it.
Work is also keeping us busy - though maybe me more than Stephen. Our fiscal year ended Sept 30 so we are going through year-end now. It's the quickest close I have ever experienced...and there is still a lot to clean up, I would say. But that means Jan-March should be pretty calm.
We are also starting to get more involved at church. I have joined the choir and am enjoying singing in a group again. Stephen will probably be helping out with their communication stuff - there is a lot that can be improved there. Lexi is going to the nursery during the service and seems to be adjusting to that. She definitely likes coffee hour afterwards.
We are looking forward to Thanksgiving. Lexi is looking forward to the airplane ride and Mom to seeing her family and seeing how the girls interact. Stephen will seek advice from the guys on some of our house projects. We leave Wednesday very early (6:20 AM flight!) to MSP through Detroit. My brother's family has generously agreed to host again. I hope we can convince everyone to come east next year so we can host. We have the room!
Oct 19, 2009
Garden Tour - at the White House!
Sunday afternoon, we went with our friend, Michelle, to the White House and toured the grounds/gardens. Here are some of the pics...(and no, you weren't supposed to go on the grass).
Oct 16, 2009
Oct 13, 2009
Home sweet home
We have been in our new house for a couple of weeks now, and we are loving it. The major and best feeling I have isn’t so much a sense of ownership – knowing that the place is ours – but it’s a feeling of space and comfort, being able to spread out and feel truly at home. It’s a feeling of being settled and being able to use a space fully without feeling cramped or that I’m there only temporarily. I love having a lot of space now, room to spread out, having many rooms, each with its own purpose, as well as having all of my belongings together, every little comforting thing that I have and want, all together in one place (especially all of my favorite cooking “toys”).
I have yet to really spend a full weekend in the house. We did start officially living in the house two weekends ago, the second weekend that Sarah’s mother was visiting to help us make the move. But things were chaos inside with boxes coming from so many different places, and we were so busy the whole weekend moving in. Last weekend I went to Seattle to see my family again. This past weekend I was around nearly the whole time, until I left late Sunday afternoon for a business trip to Orlando.
But we are settling in nicely, and we are getting boxes unpacked and finding places for things. One thing that we are having to do is buy and install towel racks in the bathrooms (all 3 ½ of them) and shelving in most of the closets. When we get these necessities taken care of, then we will turn to more cosmetic improvements, such as painting. We are fortunate that the house, built in 1911, has been totally renovated inside and all walls are gleaming white, so the entire house is a blank canvas waiting for our personal touches. We love color, so we will have a lot of fun with our many rooms and walls. Then we can hang our pictures and display the many items we’ve collected on our travels around the world – our cuckoo clock from the Black Forest, my large ebony mask from Malawi, and our photos of the Matterhorn, the Old City of Jerusalem, the Pyramids at Giza, and the Great Wall of China, among many other souvenirs.
One of the greatest pleasures for me on weekends is having the time to cook (i.e., being able to take my time when cooking, unlike on weeknights when we just try to cook dinner as quickly as possible after work). Our house has a large kitchen, so it’s great to have space to cook in. However, we went out on Friday night and tried a pizza place in Columbia Heights, the lively neighborhood just south of ours, where there are lots of stores and shops and restaurants. But Saturday night we made dinner at home, and I was able to resume making a coffee cake for Sunday morning breakfast. With my stuff that was stored in my parents’ basement in the Seattle suburbs (that came in a moving van two weeks ago) was a new Kitchen Aid mixer, and I’m loving it. I’m also thrilled to have my automatic bread machine again. I can start baking a different kind of bread each week for the lunches I take to work. And I can cook as much as I want and have the dishwasher clean everything – I’m still thrilled to have a dishwasher, which my family did not have when I was growing up. We’ve got all new appliances in the kitchen, so they work well (although we’re still trying to figure out the personality of the oven – how it bakes best).
While outside cutting the lawn on Saturday, a new chore for us with a real, single-family home, a neighbor from a few doors down stopped and introduced himself. His name is Banks B. Banks. Seriously. He promptly pulled out one of his business cards and handed it to me, explaining that he does ironwork.
Banks B. Banks
“The Iron Man”
his card reads. I wonder if his middle name is also Banks. If so, I wonder why he didn’t put Banks Banks Banks on his business card. He told me, “Welcome to the neighborhood.” I should have responded with, “Thanks, Banks!”
We’ve met a few other neighbors over the past couple weeks, but none of them seem to have such colorful names (or nicknames).
So, we are settling in and doing quite well with our new digs. We hope you will come soon to visit us (okay, if you’d prefer to wait until spring when the weather will be nice again).
I have yet to really spend a full weekend in the house. We did start officially living in the house two weekends ago, the second weekend that Sarah’s mother was visiting to help us make the move. But things were chaos inside with boxes coming from so many different places, and we were so busy the whole weekend moving in. Last weekend I went to Seattle to see my family again. This past weekend I was around nearly the whole time, until I left late Sunday afternoon for a business trip to Orlando.
But we are settling in nicely, and we are getting boxes unpacked and finding places for things. One thing that we are having to do is buy and install towel racks in the bathrooms (all 3 ½ of them) and shelving in most of the closets. When we get these necessities taken care of, then we will turn to more cosmetic improvements, such as painting. We are fortunate that the house, built in 1911, has been totally renovated inside and all walls are gleaming white, so the entire house is a blank canvas waiting for our personal touches. We love color, so we will have a lot of fun with our many rooms and walls. Then we can hang our pictures and display the many items we’ve collected on our travels around the world – our cuckoo clock from the Black Forest, my large ebony mask from Malawi, and our photos of the Matterhorn, the Old City of Jerusalem, the Pyramids at Giza, and the Great Wall of China, among many other souvenirs.
One of the greatest pleasures for me on weekends is having the time to cook (i.e., being able to take my time when cooking, unlike on weeknights when we just try to cook dinner as quickly as possible after work). Our house has a large kitchen, so it’s great to have space to cook in. However, we went out on Friday night and tried a pizza place in Columbia Heights, the lively neighborhood just south of ours, where there are lots of stores and shops and restaurants. But Saturday night we made dinner at home, and I was able to resume making a coffee cake for Sunday morning breakfast. With my stuff that was stored in my parents’ basement in the Seattle suburbs (that came in a moving van two weeks ago) was a new Kitchen Aid mixer, and I’m loving it. I’m also thrilled to have my automatic bread machine again. I can start baking a different kind of bread each week for the lunches I take to work. And I can cook as much as I want and have the dishwasher clean everything – I’m still thrilled to have a dishwasher, which my family did not have when I was growing up. We’ve got all new appliances in the kitchen, so they work well (although we’re still trying to figure out the personality of the oven – how it bakes best).
While outside cutting the lawn on Saturday, a new chore for us with a real, single-family home, a neighbor from a few doors down stopped and introduced himself. His name is Banks B. Banks. Seriously. He promptly pulled out one of his business cards and handed it to me, explaining that he does ironwork.
Banks B. Banks
“The Iron Man”
his card reads. I wonder if his middle name is also Banks. If so, I wonder why he didn’t put Banks Banks Banks on his business card. He told me, “Welcome to the neighborhood.” I should have responded with, “Thanks, Banks!”
We’ve met a few other neighbors over the past couple weeks, but none of them seem to have such colorful names (or nicknames).
So, we are settling in and doing quite well with our new digs. We hope you will come soon to visit us (okay, if you’d prefer to wait until spring when the weather will be nice again).
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