Well Hello there!

While in Washington DC a friend of mine (Hey David!) and I stumbled upon the National Museum of the Forest Service. It is a little dinky place with the most fantastic talking Smokey. I loved it! (which tells you more about me than anything ever would. *read dork here*)

Out of the limited time I had to site see this was my favorite. Why? Because they had great swag and were willing to dispense it generously. I picked up a calendar (that I will never use as a calendar but the photos were so amazing that I just had to have it as a painting muse), a bunch of bookmarks (because every decent librarian should have bookmarks, right?), magnets (to hold my kids school tests on the fridge. Yes, I still do this even though the two I have in school are over 25) and pencils (because you never know when you'll need a pencil).

If you are ever in DC with a little (and I mean really little because this place ain't big) time to kill stop in. The talking Smokey is cool and the people are really friendly. More than a little desperate-for-visitors friendly which made our visit seem like the highlight of their day. Sort of creepy and heartwarming all at the same time. I felt like we were doing them a favor by stopping in and signing their guest book when I was the one that was captivated by the damn bear.

Thank you for humoring me, David.

Am I the only one over a "certain" age that loves these things?

Love,
M

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

JR likes to read books about presidents and significant individuals from the founding fathers to around the Second World War. He's rather eclectic in his interests. One of his favorites is Franklin Roosevelt. When he found out that there was a new (for him) memorial he just had to go.

This memorial is separated into room-like gardens with statuary mingled around each room. As soon as JR saw it he wished I had been able to be there. I love statuary gardens. 

I'm not the Roosevelt scholar like JR is but I think that a man that makes statements like this was pretty much ahead of his time.

Each room has at least one waterfall. 
According to the National Parks website; "The waterfalls throughout the memorial are there for several reasons. First, they are symbolic of FDR’s connection to and love of water (he was Assistant Secretary of the Navy during World War I). Second, they block out some of the noise from the airport located directly across the Potomac River." 
They are so practical. We put water features at our home because I love the sound of water and I'm a bit of a eastern religion/hippy/zen weirdo because I insist that all our water features be near a door. Keeps out the evil spirits, don't ya know.

He was voted in for an unheard of 4 terms during one of the most difficult times in U.S. history. He presided over the country during WWII and the Great Depression.
 

Where farmers and urban dwellers like were losing their jobs, homes, farms and families. My aunts remember the Great Depression. They still don't eat beans or onions because they ate them so often during the depression. My grandfather dug up his backyard lawn to put in a large vegetable garden in order to feed his family, which he tended until he died in 1973.

Roosevelt's fireside chats became legendary. He used the radio to keep the people of the U.S. informed, to promote his agenda (the New Deal) and to give hope to the citizens.

It would be nice if politicians of today remembered that they have jobs because the American people have trusted them to do the right thing.

 

Roosevelt was stricken with polio. He never walked without aid again. The media respected the privacy of presidents and the American people really were not aware that he had a disability. From the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library;
"On August 10, 1921, FDR developed acute symptoms of poliomyelitis while visiting his summer home on Campobello Island, New Brunswick, Canada. He was thirty-nine years old. Based on the incubation period of the polio virus, it is believed that FDR most likely was infected while visiting a large Boy Scout encampment at Bear Mountain, New York on July 28, 1921."

 

JR didn't get a very good picture of this statement but what he got resonates today.

"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much, it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little."

In this day and age the rich are getting richer, the middle class is shrinking and the poor are getting poorer. Politicians, take heed!

I'll stop preaching now.

On top of all that FDR was a dog person.That scores pretty high in my book. "Seven years later the President received a black Scottish terrier puppy as a gift and named him Murray, the Outlaw of Fala Hill. Fala became his constant companion for the rest of his life." FDR Library

That is JR's look at the FDR memorial. He was really impressed and I wish I would have been able to see it with him.

Have a great Monday everyone.

Love,
M

PS: it's Monday so try to make it meatless.

A room with a view

As most of you know, we are in Washington DC right now. I'm here to learn all kinds of interesting things, such as how to teach digital preservation tactics to non-digital preservation people. This is a train-the-trainer event. It has been interesting. I've sort of been brought in as a ringer for the South Central region. I know a lot about digital preservation and about giving training sessions so a lot of this is redundant for me but it is not for the other team members from the South Central region. So my part in this is to help all of them out in setting up and giving workshops within the next year. This will probably require me to travel to exciting places like, Oklahoma City, Lubbock and Shreveport. I know! You are all jealous.

We are staying at a hotel right on Capitol Hill. 2 blocks from the Capitol building. Normally, when I come to Washington DC I stay with my friend Robin or my cousin Pat. I call it an excuse to spend quality time with those that I love. What this really is is that I'm cheap. A metro trip into the city is a ton cheaper than a hotel room in the city. Since the Library of Congress (LOC) is paying for our room I'm taking full advantage of them. 

We are literally right across the street from the LOC James Madison building. Makes it a one block walk for me and JR is enjoying the fact that he is two blocks from the Mall.

This hotel is old but not real old, which it makes a cross between a big box hotel and a boutique hotel. Big box hotel usually equals big room with a king sized bed, fancy amenities and a bar. A boutique hotel usually equals a small room with a double sized bed, very few amenities and no bar. This in-between hotel has a middle sized room with a double sized bed, some amenities, such as fancy soaps and shampoos, a continental breakfast and decent cable, but no bar. 

The one nice thing we have is a view.  

Of the Catholic church. Funny thing about this church. They have a bell that rings on the hour it just doesn't ring the right time. This morning at 7 am the church bell rang 15 times. I counted. Now, if it had rung 15 times at 3pm I could totally say that they are on a 24 hour clock and that would make some kind of sense but 15 times at 7 am makes no sense. 

 

These are the row houses on the street below our room. They can't be more than 14 feet wide which makes me wonder about furniture placement. I bet you were wondering about that also. It seems of critical importance to me. 

These people have rooftop decks. I bet they are the envy of all their neighbors. I envy them now. I want to sit up there, survey all of those domains where I am not the queen of. There are a lot of domains where I am not the queen but I could imagine myself as the queen if I was sitting on one of those rooftops. I have a very active imagination. 

So that is our current lodging. Pretty exciting huh? 

I want to thank my cell phone for taking adequate but not great photographs, the lovely gray weather for keeping the glare down and for reminding me why I never want to move back to Seattle, and reservationist for giving us a top floor room.

Love,
M

PS: sorry I haven't been around to all of your blogs. My travel and work schedule has been and for the next 4 weeks will be awful. I'll try to visit all of you soon.

JR goes to Washington DC

 While I am busy workshopping JR is taking in the sites of Washington DC. 

Let's see a bit of the sites through JR's eyes.

 He checked out the Library of Congress

or as I like to call it

The Mothership

He must have thought the ceilings were cool. 

Well, they are.

He made his way to the National Botanical Gardens

From the amount photos that he took you could tell he is a farmer at heart.

Flowers

More flowers

And even more flowers. 

I'm very glad that he is having a great time. 

Love,

M

My sincere apologies

I feel the need to apologize to the drivers in the Washington DC metro area for the following infractions:

1. Not jackrabbiting off the light. I totally understand that the 10 extra seconds that it took my foot to move from the brake pedal to the gas pedal slowed you down considerably but honking at me didn't make me want to hurry up. Mostly, it just pissed me off. Which in turns makes me go slower. You may want to keep that in mind for next time.

2. Only going 70 miles per hour in a 55 mph zone. I am so sorry that I wasn't going 80+ mph like the rest of you but I was trying to find the road that I needed to turn left on. Going 70 mph was a compromise. I didn't want to miss my turn. There was a glass of wine at the end of that road. Missing it would have caused me to miss my nightly glass of wine. Trust me when I say nobody wants that. Missing that sacred glass of red will cause me to swerve into you at 70 mph. Something none of us wants.

3. For staying in my own lane on the beltway. Yes, Yes I now know that staying in your own lane is a major No No. I'm still not sure why all of you feel the need to weaving in and out of traffic in order to get one or two cars ahead but I guess you have your reasons. So just let me say one more time I'm sorry. Though if I can be perfectly honest I'd do it again and again. Why? Because you'll never convince me that that 30 seconds I might save will actually do me any good.

4. For using my turn signal: Sorry, I didn't realize that turn signals were an optional feature on vehicles sold in the DC area. In my defense, my car was equipped with turn signals and I felt obligated to use them.

5. Red lights apparently do not mean stop. It seems that red lights mean go really fast or slam on your brakes and hope that the person behinds you stops in time. I'm sorry for leaving enough room between me and the person in front of me that coasting to a stop was possible.

So all you DC drivers, please take pity on a courteous out-of-town driver that didn't know that the same rules of the road that the rest of the country adhere to doesn't apply to DC drivers. I'll try not to drive in the area again but I can't make any promises. How about I make you a deal? When I plan to drive in the Metro area I give you all plenty of warning.

Love,
M


PS: to the woman that decided that she didn't want to take a left after all and left the turn lane and crossed 3 lanes of traffic in the the intersection; aren't you glad I was looking for that glass of wine?

Randon Tuesday Thoughts on Wednesday

So I'm a day late? I'm also a dollar short. Does anyone say that antidote anymore? Yeah, I didn't think so. And, with the economy in the toilet it should read: A day late and 10 dollars short. We can just say I'm late today.

As most of you know I was at a Librarian's conference this weekend in lovely but busy Washington DC. Our nation's capitol, where the air is humid and the drivers are crazy. I'm sorry that I wasn't able to stop by your blogs but the conference site didn't have wireless. I KNOW! How crazy is that.

Here are some random highlights of my trip. Details to follow.

Wine on patio of restaurant in Annapolis, Maryland.

Very pretty
Very peaceful
VERY HOT!
VERY HUMID!

Exhibit hall in conference center.

Busy little bees work down there.

Cooking/cookbook demo in exhibit hall.
You knew I couldn't pass this up
Hey, I got a free cookbook out of the deal
and that gentleman up there, we had a meaningful discussion.
Okay, we traded business cards. Shut up! It was too meaningful.

Cookbook section of the Mt. Vernon gift shop.
I really haven't found a gift shop I didn't like
but one that carries cookbooks is my favorite.

Mt. Vernon. The home of George Washington.
He was there by the way.
Of course, he's dead.
So he probably doesn't smell too good.
He probably didn't smell too good when he was alive.
Bathing wasn't an everyday occurrence back then.

Pretty flowers.

We'll get into some more details in the coming days. I need to make some apologies to the drivers in the Washington DC metro area, I have some thoughts on conference sessions held after lunch, the best thing I ate and many more exciting topics. Can't wait, can you?

Off to work now,
See you all later.

Love,
M

National Botanical Gardens

There's something you all don't know about JR. Well, there are lots of things you don't know about him but we won't go there. Not today. Not while he's not here to tease about them. Wait, I forgot where I was going with this (damn menopause), oh right, JR.


I've talked about his love for his nightly Fritos corn chips, cashews and beer before dinner. How he eats these things then has dinner, then desert and never gains a pound. BTW, he just lost 2 more. If I didn't love him so much I'd hate him.


What I don't think I've talked about is how much he enjoys gardening. He loves nothing better than to putter around in the dirt growing veggies and flowers, mowing and weeding (except me and the kids. Or at least he better say that). The only time that I have had to do any real outside work (he would question whether I do any work, inside or outside) is when we had our 1200 square foot vegetable garden, 200 sq. ft. herb garden and the orchard. Gardens that size take several people, a couple of kids and a dozen chickens (chickens are the best organic weed control devices on the face of the earth. The eggs ain't to bad either) to keep them productive.


There has never been a house that we have lived in that he hasn't put a garden of some sort in. This includes the apartment we lived in while I went to grad school. In Seattle he knew when to plant everything, in Bloomington, IN the timing was a little different but not so much as to throw him off. Phoenix was a tough nut to crack. It took a little over a year for him to get the seasons (plural) down. Now, in Houston he is starting it once again with our kiddie pool gardens.

This is not to say that I have nothing whatsoever to do with the gardening around here. I usually am the idea gal.
Kiddie pools? My idea.
Huge ass veggie garden? My idea
Chickens? My idea
Ducks? My idea (okay so I make a mistake once in awhile)
Stand alone herb garden? My idea
Container garden in our apartment? My idea

I plan what to plant, where to plant, and how much to plant. He actually plants, weeds, and harvests. He does clean up. You know, like that batter at the end of the rotation in baseball. That is what that person is called right?


To tell you the whole truth and nothing but the truth (ugh I'm a dork) he cleans up after me a lot. Case in point:

• I decide to paint a room. Three fourths of the way through I get tired of painting and he finishes it.

• 90% into a remodel project I bail (I'm sure I have a perfectly good explanation) and he takes over to finish the job.

I don't want to you get the impression that I am ADD or anything. I finish stuff. My kids are grown and out of the house (sort of) aren't they? I never bail on the big things. Just the things that need a long term commitment. I'm very project driven.

It's just that this little idiosyncrasy of ours is just how we roll. Sort of like the fact that he can't find his way out of a brown paper bag and I come in to save him with my unerring sense of direction. It's that give and take in a relationship that comes after a few years. It's a synergy that we have developed over time.

What does any of this have to do with the National Botanical Garden? Not a damn thing. Except that JR really likes flowers and I was in Washington DC for our 27th wedding anniversary. So I went to the gardens to feel closer to him that day.

Love,
M

RTT - The Different Shades of Washington DC

Keely has been in a bit of a funk lately.
I can't hardly blame her.
It's hard to keep up with house, family, kids and (gasp) your very own life
but it is especially hard when your job is harshing your buzz like Keely's is.
So head over there and give her some comment love.
Cuz, you all know that we need it.

I spent a whole day on Thursday here.
This is the National Archives.
They have some of the cool old stuff in the United States.
They have the Declaration of the United States.
They have lots of documents, reports, and papers from both World Wars,
and various other important events in US history.
They have some really great things.
They think that they have ALL the cool old stuff in the United States
but they are wrong.
Because do you know who has more?

That would be the Library of Congress.
Not only do they have more cool stuff but
they have every book, movie and recording ever published
and anything else that is produced in the United States (it's a rule).
They have millions of their items digitized.
They have employee 4500 people to take care of millions upon millions of items.
They receive 25,000 items everyday and keep 10,000 of them.
EVERY.SINGLE.DAY!
Now, if I wasn't a librarian I could figure out how many items this is in a year but I would have to count on my fingers and toes a whole bunch of times.
Why don't they keep all of them?
Because they already have copies of some of the stuff (yes, stuff is a technical term).
FYI, It pays to know someone who is a librarian there.
The back stage tour rocks.
The stacks and the vaults are awesome.
Us librarians are such rebels. That photo above?
It was taken against the rules. Photos are not supposed to be taken in that room. I feel kind of sneaky.

I walked by this building a couple of times.
I didn't go in.
I had heard that the people in this building were
making some really important decisions about health care reform.
From what I hear they did.
All of it scares me. Why do I get the feeling that we have put the wolves in charge of the hen house?
What they accomplished is so much less than they could have done.
Does that sound cynical?

This must be the largest phallic symbol in the United States if not the world.
Four square shaped balls?
Should the monument see someone for that?
Sculptor or cement worker?


I hung out with my friend Robin.
Yes, we did play dorky tourists.
We were perfect for the part.
Look at that hair. The weather was a tad humid so my hair decided to go its own way.
Right after this Robin spilled pasta sauce all over her scarf. It pays to wear black. Slimming and food droppings proof. The girls may not be large but they catch their share of food.

We had great food in the Little Italy section of Baltimore.
Imagine an Italian restaurant on every corner of a six square block area.
I was in carb heaven.
We ended up at the neighborhood hang out.
The only place to be.
After eating a ridiculous amount of food
Robin and her husband took me to the airport.
Where I had a free glass of wine at the bar.
Looking sad and pathetic reaps rewards.

That is the quick tour of Washington DC and Baltimore. I'll post a bit more tomorrow.

Love,
m