March 2007, Washington D.C.

We went to visit Lindsay and Rich in Washington, D.C. They are really fun to visit, and have a great apartment and a comfortable futon. Lindsay had made some addictive orange caramels so I snacked on those all the time, and she made macaroni and cheese out of Fine Cooking.

First, we went to see where Clara Barton used to live, since we'd read in the August 17, 2006, Watertown Daily Times (Page D1, 'GUARDIAN ANGEL' KEEPING EYE ON CLARA BARTON OFFICE) about the discovery of papers and clothes in the ceiling of a building that was scheduled for demolition. Now it will be a museum some day. The "guardian angel" was there and told us a lot of good stories. Here, he's pointing at a telegraph cable. Her helper (a patent attorney) lived across the hall and had wire strung over from the first school for telegraph operators, which was next door. The attorney received messages from her from the front lines.

Between Thursday and Friday, we went to the Holocaust Museum, the WWII memorial, the American Art museum. A big highlight for me was the nature photography exhibit at the Natural History Museum. Robert Creamer's scanner art was also pretty interesting.

We had lunch at Potbelly Sandwich Works, outdoors, in the last few minutes of decent weather and we had dinner at King Street Blues, a Fathers' Day present that Lindsay gave to Scott last year. Specialties: ribs and catfish. :)


Christian Peace Witness for Iraq

Friday night we got the National Cathedral early and stood in the rain until they let us in. About 4000 people from 48 states and over 20 denominations gathered for a worship service. After the service we walked down the middle of Massachusetts Avenue, along Embassy Row. We passed many embassies where people were looking out the windows, and some came out and stood on the sidewalk as we passed. We hope they know that it was a Christian peace rally. (Another highlight was a Crispy Creme donut, fresh from the oven, at a pit stop.) We continued on to the White House (Bush chose not to be home) and we stayed until a speaker gave us a closing call to action. weather.com said it "felt like" 18F, and was snowing and we were very glad to get back to Lindsay and Rich's.

Washington Post articleWashington Post before.
New York Times (AP article) after.
Christian Peace Witness for Iraq web site.

Saturday. We got up early to go to the zoo, but most of the animals were hiding from the cold. We did get to see the pandas and a bunch of rodents and monkeys in the Small Mammal House. Buddy would love the
naked mole-rats which he could watch on rat-cam.

And, finally, we had a truly amazing lunch, Latino dim sum at Cafe Atlantico. All six of our 'kids' took us out to lunch (only Lindsay and Rich got to enjoy the experience, however) for our 35th anniversary. The food was beyond fabulous. We splurged from start to finish -- I had, just for example: a mango mimosa, guacamole fixed at the table, asparagus with mayo (ha! you think you know what mayo tastes like!), cooked slivered pineapple with cilantro and who-knows-what, mango and sardine ravioli (mousse-like, in maybe spring roll wrappers), skirt steak carne asada, with a dessert that included a warm chocolate cake (melty inside), Venezuelan chocolate flan, baked bananas with mint sprigs with teeny-tiny leaves, and banana-lime mousse. We felt very, very, special.