Alas...

...I have a head cold.  It has sucked the energy right out of me, so I may not be able to update the blog much for the next day or two while I recover.  On the other hand, I have a fair bit of spare time, so maybe I will update.  The ultimate decider, I suspect, will be the quality (or lack thereof) of the wireless I'm poaching from one of my neighbors (not sure which, though).  I have pictures to upload, and on a weak wireless signal it will take hours.  I'll try shortly, but I give no guarantees.  Thanks for sticking with me, though, despite my lack of posts over the last two weeks!

EDIT (1:52pm): I cannot get Blogger's Add Images function to work on my internet connection, so I'm afraid I'll have to wait until the internet is being more auspicious.  My apologies!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from the snowy north!  Mom and Dad have set up our traditional-style tree (at left, looking leaner than usual) and we've packed the presents underneath.  In addition, the cats (above, William in black and white and Lucy in gray) send their warm and self-satisfied greetings from their basket (underneath the heating vent behind the couch).  Perhaps not all of you readers celebrate Christian religious holidays, but for those of you who do, Merry Christmas!

Christmas Vacation!

It's been a long time coming, but tomorrow I leave DC for the wilds of frigid Wisconsin.  I realize that I leave a number of promised posts (see yesterday's entry) unwritten, but I promise to write them in between meeting up with family friends, playing with the cats, and enjoying not having to get up at 6 every weekday morning.  I will only have intermittent internet access while away, of course, but hopefully I'll be so fully recharged after a week off that I'll be able to write all the remaining December posts and then start into January on time, rather than lagging behind!  And pigs might fly, but you know, around about this time last year swine flu.  (Hee hee!)

Enough of that - I've got to finish packing so I can get to bed.  I'm very worn out today, but the anticipation of vacation has put some wind in my sails - enough to wrap presents and shove things in my suitcase, at least.  But hey - the nights are getting shorter now, and I don't have to do anything substantive at work until January 3rd.  Things are looking up!

The Midwinter Solstice

It is the evening of December 21st, the longest night of the year, which I also like to call the Darkest Night of the Year, not for any scientific reason, but perhaps because I've been influenced by one too many fantasy authors who link the power of evil magic to the winter solstice (Susan Cooper, I'm looking at you).  This time three years ago I was somewhere over the Atlantic (flying back from studying abroad in Germany), fighting a persistent head-cold, and talking with an attractive gentleman about graduate school, while trying not to fall asleep (at least, not until the conversation was finished).  This year, to chase away the dark, so to speak, I'm headed to dinner with K&R, bringing with me a bottle of excellent wine that I got for $3.49 at Safeway.  Thank you, Safeway card and (I suspect) the power of overstock.  After that, I come home to wrap Christmas presents, and hopefully get some more blogging done.  Watch the space below this post - I have at least three more to write that should come before this one.

However, to tide you over until I put out some more posts, here are two more pictures from St. Peter, which I attended on Sunday evening again (my ratings remain essentially unchanged).  I took pictures in between the end of Vespers and the beginning of Mass, so now you can see the stained glass:

Yes, there's a dude in the way, but I didn't want to be too conspicuous, since this isn't a tourist attraction.

Trendy angle shot?  Nope - the result of trying to be a stealthy photographer.  Looks like I need practice.  (Nice stations of the cross, though, aren't they?)

Navy Yard

When my father graduated from high school, he knew he wasn't ready for real life.  He didn't know what he wanted to do with himself but he did know one thing - he didn't want college right then.  So, like any good Midwesterner who longs for adventure, he joined the Navy.  He still tells stories about his time in the Mediterranean during the early 60s - he was in Beirut before it fell to pieces, and the Balearics, and many other places.

I tell you this because I knew from a little bird (my mother) that he wanted nothing more for Christmas than a hat with "Navy" on it and, being a resident of the capital, I decided to get him one, which was harder than I expected.  My first stop was the Navy Museum at Navy Yard.  It's out of the way, but I figured surely the museum would have a hat.  It did.  But for whatever reason, some bright spark decided that having the museum shop open on the last weekend before Christmas just didn't need to happen.  (So after chasing to the Heritage Center at the Navy Memorial, which closed early for a private party, and returning two days later to discover that they had hats for just about everything else, but not for the Navy - at the Navy Memorial! - I finally ordered it from the Navy online.  For pity's sake.)

I didn't actually spend very much time in the museum, but when I was outside I took some pictures of a rather unconventional "sculpture garden" which I'd like to share below:

This is a big gun.  (Duh.)

This is a big propeller - big as in my head reached the lower edge of the blade at 3 o'clock, and I'm 5'9".

This is the conning tower of a submarine.  And yes, it is in fact sticking out of the ground.  I have no idea where the rest of the submarine is.  Nor do I know which submarine it is, though if someone enterprising wanted to look up that number (285) I'm sure you could find things out.  Leave a comment if you do.

This is a big bell (are you detecting a size theme at all?).  I don't remember why it was significant, but it's here.

Ah, but I do remember the significance of this one!  Remember the Maine?  (You know, the battleship that was blown up in Havana harbor in 1898 and that helped, along with yellow journalism, to start the Spanish-American War?  Please tell me you remember that from high school.)  This is its spare propeller, which is conveniently engraved on it.

This is another big gun.  A really big gun.  Like 30 feet long big.

 This is another series of large guns.  The one in the background is so large that I couldn't get it in a single photo without great hassle.  As you can see, it's mounted on a rail car.  Turns out its a World War I era bombard, which has its genesis in smaller bombards from the Civil War, which were given over to the purview of the Navy because, I guess, no one else thought they could handles such big...guns.  There was actually some neat footage in the museum of these things firing against the Germans in WWI - amazing stuff.

And this is: my idea of modern art/why I will never make it as an artist.  Unless you have the same non-sequitur humor that I do.  Which, if you actually follow this blog (and find it remotely funny), you just might.  Let's just say that that's one well-protected postbox and move on...

But wait - I nearly forgot the best part!

 This is a destroyer [of worlds - hee!].  It's the USS Barry [Obama?] and you can tour it when the Naval Museum is less dead.  Guess where I'm taking Dad when he comes to visit in March?

First Proper Snow!

We got our first proper snow yesterday, but a quick look at the weather forecast last night showed me that it wouldn't be around for long.  So today I decided to walk to work so I could see my first DC snow before it melted away in the days to come.  I snapped a few pictures so you, too, can see what it was like.

How many people get to walk to work and see the rising sun glinting off the dome of the Capitol on their way?

DC has a fraught relationship with snow.  You may remember last year's Snowpocalypse (or Snowmageddon - I can't seem to get people who suffered through it to agree on a name), which paralyzed the city for days.  But even smaller amounts of snow have been known to foul things up.  Portions of the Metro run above ground, and it takes just half a foot to cover the third rail and render those bits of the system useless (coincidentally, this includes the greater part of the Metro which serves northern Virginia and almost all of it in Maryland, but very little of the Metro within the District itself).  This batch of snow wasn't severe enough to snarl up Metro, but I'm waiting...

Isn't this pretty?  It was about 7:40 when I took this picture, and as you can see, nobody's out.  Long-time residents of the DC metro area are not generally fond of snow, and certainly not fond enough to go walking around in it on their way to work - not when they've got Metro, MARC, the Beltway, and the buses to take to work.  I, on the other hand, enjoy vistas like this one.  Everything seems somehow tamer with a light dusting of snow.  Take these skylights:

On a day without snow, these skylights which illuminate the tunnel linking the old and new buildings of the National Gallery of Art are sharp glass projections jutting up from the pavement.  With snow, it makes you wonder if in fact there's some spiky polyhedron buried under the snow, and just the tips are poking out.

Or maybe I'm just crazy.  But that's why you read, isn't it?

Capitol Hill Books

Capitol Hill Books
657 C St. SE, Washington, DC 20003
Website

I don't anticipate doing bunches of store reviews - after all, you can find more stores than I can visit, and more opinions about them, on Yelp - but occasionally I take a particular fancy to a certain store and I want to share it with you.  I did this once before, which insightful readers will probably remember, but this particular entry is dear to my heart, because I love used book stores.

Back in Hyde Park there was one in particular which had carts of $1 books out on the sidewalk during operating hours, and I acquired several excellent books there, including a gorgeous edition of Death in Venice (Thomas Mann, translated), a beautifully illustrated Tristan and Isolde, and a weighty copy of Bocaccio's Decamerone.  J always wants his books new, but I like mine used (unless they're textbooks), because old books have this delightful smell of must and dry paper; they feel like long-hidden treasures when you open them up.  New books just feel like commodities.

Anyhow, as you probably have guessed, I have found a used bookstore.  It's in the Capitol South neighborhood (yesterday's post), and it's insane.

You see, I wasn't kidding.  Capitol Hill Books occupies a row house across the street from Eastern Market, and it is crammed floor-to-ceiling with books.  And these books are in quite good condition - unlike some used book stores which sell anything which at one point resembled a book, regardless of its current state.  And they come in incredible variety: 

...fiction books in the fiction room...mystery books in the Mystery Room, foreign language books in the bathroom, cookbooks in the kitchen on the kitchen sink, business books with the lawyers in the Business Closet, cultural biographies in the Cultural Closet, and a Weird Section for those who like witches, dreams, and things that go bump in the night.  We also have books on history, philosophy, travel, Washington DC, theology, psychology, politics (of course), games, art and more.  

This quote doesn't really do it justice.  To the right is the aforementioned kitchen (the 1950s refrigerator is still there, though I doubt it's running - it's covered with books).  The poetry section, as you can see, takes up the old kitchen cabinets, and possess its own ordering system: Emily Dickinson on top, T.S. Eliot and W.H. Auden sharing a nook next to Whitman and Wordsworth, who share a nook as well.  This is standard operating procedure throughout the shop, and in the fiction section, where everything is organized alphabetically by author's last name, from time to time you'll see notes indicating that such and such author isn't here in his/her proper alphabetical position, but rather in that cubby-hole across the way (Hemingway), or downstairs in the religion section instead (Chesterton).  Notes and arrows will guide you throughout the store - just be on the lookout.  And you mustn't forget that every bit of space is used, so you might have to look somewhere unconventional for something.  Science fiction, for example, is in the basement, where the ceiling is so low that you have to stoop if you're any taller than I am (and I stooped anyway, because I'm a bit paranoid about low ceilings).  Even the stairway between the first and second floors is crammed with books:

It's definitely a one-lane road going up and down this staircase.  Interestingly, there are enough people here on a given day to cause traffic jams.  Many used book stores I've encountered have always been empty whenever I step in - on weekends, Capitol Hill Books often has a dozen people creeping between its tottering shelves, looking for mysteries, history, fiction, sci-fi, religion, philosophy, politics, and all other sorts of books. This is probably helped by its advantageous location, across the street from the market, but it's also gotten press in one of the DC-oriented blogs (DCist) I read (that's actually how I found out about the place).  I can't help but wonder if the owner makes a profit at all, but since the books are in good condition and go for more than disposal prices ($7 is the cheapest I've seen), there must be enough money coming in to justify keeping the joint open.  What I like, of course, is the thrill of the hunt, and the occasional jewels I uncover while searching.  In a crazy, cluttered bookstore like this one, there are certainly many to find, which is why I keep coming back.  I'm told there are other good used book stores in the city, but even if (when) I find them, I've no doubt that I'll keep coming back to Capitol Hill Books.

Capitol South

J is considering moving out here at the end of the academic year, but we both agree that my current apartment is not sufficiently large for two people who love having their own space as much as we do.  Not content to just move down the hall - since there's no telling if apartments in this complex will be available when we need them - I've begun feeling out different neighborhoods to see if I'd like to look for apartments elsewhere.  First up: Capitol South, the region (you guessed it) just south of the Capitol complex.  Capitol South isn't an official neighborhood - everything near the Capitol is called Capitol Hill - but I intend to carve my own regions out of this city, so if I want to divide Capitol Hill into subsections, I will.  I confined myself to a relatively small area around the Library of Congress, extending south a few blocks towards Eastern Market.  And what have I got to show for it?  Pictures, of course - and rain-damp pants.  Ah well.

The most prominent feature of this mini-neighborhood, besides Pennsylvania Ave SE, is the proliferation of charming row-houses.  These are different from the austere brick houses of other parts of the city (Georgetown); there are colors, metal-work (look at the grilles on that balcony), architectural details, and in some cases little front gardens.  Some are modest, some middle-of-the-road (above) and some, ritzy:

This bit of town is clustered around St. Peter's church (see my posts about it here and here) which is a great feature in my mind; it's also very close to the Capitol South Metro stop (Blue and Orange lines).  Pennslyvania Ave SE is the main transport arterial for those with cars, and there are plenty of good sidewalks for walkers like me.  The neighborhood is pretty, and I like being so close to Eastern Market.  And having the Library of Congress across the street is a kick too:

Downsides: there's no supermarket here - in fact, no proper grocery stores (I like my Safeway, turns out!).  There's also not that many apartment buildings here, which means that there may not be very many units available for rent and/or they may be units rented by private owners of the row-houses, which are harder to find out about (it's generally large companies on Rent.com, for example).  However, this neighborhood is close enough to Waterfront that if one had a car (and J probably will), one could simply drive to the Safeway.  Of course, that's a moot point if there aren't any apartments to be had - but I'd be willing to live here if I could!

Especially because this was in the local real estate broker's window:

I don't normally say this, but SQUEE!  I could definitely see myself walking down the damp brick-lined sidewalks of Pennsylvania Ave, in sight of the dome of the Library of Congress, perhaps carrying some things from Eastern Market for dinner and peering into brightly-lit shop windows as I go...

Tardy!

I've been remiss this past week, although I claim to have a good excuse - too much going on.  Multiple things came to a head last week, from extra tasks at work to baking for a bake sale, to cleaning, to Christmas shopping, to guests, to masses of dishes to do (several times over, in fact).  Rest assured, I did some fun things this weekend, and will write posts soon (hopefully tomorrow evening).  After all, I have another church review to share, along with photos of the craziest used book store I've ever encountered, a crafty project or two to share, and adventures in a new neighborhood.  It's not like I haven't been doing anything - but finding the energy to write...well, that's another question entirely!  I'll do my best to summon it up tomorrow as much for me as for you, dear readers, because (Heaven help me) my Christmas shopping isn't done yet!

Church Review: St. Peter

Part 1 of the adventures of Sunday the 12th, backdated from Friday

St. Peter
313 2nd St., SE 
Website

The church on St. Peter on Capitol Hill is quite literally on the hill - it is across the street from one of the annexes of the Library of Congress, which is in turn across from the Capitol itself.  It is also a block and a half from Capitol South Metro, so getting here is no problem at all - I could probably walk it if I wanted to, but I came down to Capitol South after running some errands in Columbia Heights and intended to run more errands before Mass, so I didn't feel up to walking.  Still, this is one of not too many Catholic churches south of the Mall, and the third closest to me (give it a 4).  The other two are St. Dominic, which I've been to numerous times now, and St. Vincent de Paul, which only has one Mass in English, at 8:00am (blurgh); the other, at 10:30, is in Ge'ez, which even I'm not adventurous enough to attend.  What's Ge'ez, you ask?  I didn't know either, until I looked it up.  Turns out it's an ancient Semitic language which was once the official tongue of the Kingdom of Axum and the Imperial Court of Ethiopia; nowadays it's used just about exclusively as the religious language for Ethiopian Orthodox and, in St. Vincent de Paul's case, Ethiopian rite Catholics.  Washington has the nation's largest Ethiopian diaspora, remember, and great food to match; those which are Ethiopian rite Catholic (rather than Roman rite) must go to Mass somewhere.

Howevah, this review is not about a Ge'ez Mass on Sunday morning at St. Vincent de Paul, but an English Mass on Sunday evening at St. Peter.  The church was recommended to me by some friends of K&R (through K&R, since I haven't met these friends, although really I should), who reportedly say that it's quite tolerant.  I was afraid that tolerant meant, as it so often does, hippy and inclined to sloppy modern music, which is why I've put off going for so long (and they do have a folky Mass on Sunday mornings), but it seems silly to look farther and farther afield for new churches to visit when this one is so close.  So I arranged to do some shopping here (more on that in future posts) and then end up at the 5:30 Mass.  I have loved Sunday night Masses ever since I got in the habit of attending the 8:00pm at the cathedral in Freiburg when I studied abroad in Germany, and thought that if I could find something even half as lovely, I'd be set.

The most striking thing about the outside of St. Peter, which I realized as I came upon it after exiting the Metro into a cold rain, is how tall it feels.  There are two reasons for this - the most prominent, of course, is the tower which, as I discovered over the course of the afternoon, can be seen from several blocks away on many sides.  It's also reminiscent in more ways than one of a lighthouse, which is quite fitting for a church, I think.

Second, and less noticeable in a photo than it is in person, is how high up the main church is from the street.  Look at the front steps in the photo up top (sorry about this one - it has the full tower, but also raindrops, apparently).  It's a good five feet vertical difference between the street and where you enter the church.  This has an interesting effect - rather than just stepping into the church from street level, or climbing up a couple of steps, you have to ascend as staircase, a bit like climbing a mountain in terms of symbols.  Other churches have had this (St. Patrick, Sagrado Corazon, and the Cathedral, to name the most prominent), but because St. Peter feels so vertical already, I think the effect is heightened.

Once you step inside and past the swinging wooden doors, you find yourself face to face with something Palladio would find quite pleasant.  I have very few photos because when I entered the priest was saying Vespers (!), and by the time Mass ended I was too hungry to stick around (I was also damp from the afternoon's adventures and wanted nothing more than to go home and eat the pork and potatoes waiting for me in the refrigerator), but I intend to return to take more.  Please forgive my rather poor specimens this time around.

The church does not feel modernized - intentionally, like St. Stephen, or tragically, like St. Dominic - but neither does it feel so old, like St. Mary Mother of God, that the very walls resent the use of the vernacular.  It's very much like St. Patrick, but less grandiose (recall the size of the apse there vs. the size of the apse here).  The coloring, as you can see, is very tastefully done - cream walls with tan accents, lots of light, and a bit of colored marble and gold, but sparingly used.  There are rounded arches everywhere, but the setting off of those arches with clean straight lines (look up at the top of the apse, and the lines that run backward to the choir loft) given a feeling of airiness and clearness that I thought was refreshing.  I felt like the modernist folds of St. Stephen were trapping - this, on the other hand, felt fresh and open.  Ah, Palladio (who?) - and Brunelleschi too, come to think of it (see).

The rear of the church is also quite nice - the choir loft is one of the prettiest I've seen in this country.  Feels like it ought to be in London somewhere.

Aesthetics, a 5.  I seem to be handing those out quite a bit lately.

The liturgy itself would qualify for run of the mill.  It was a forgettable sermon, and nothing particularly interesting in the rite except that the servers -both girls, which is great - wore the old surplices, though without any patterns, rather than the typical white albs.  But I probably would have thought things pretty average had I not come in early and stumbled upon the second half of Vespers.  There was the priest, standing with the cantor, chanting Vespers, in an elaborate gold cope.   I thought - mistakenly, it would appear - that American Catholics had given up on Vespers and left it to the rich Episcopalians who could afford to hire an organist on weekday afternoons.  Turns out St. Peter has made do without the organist, and substituted in a talented pianist (!) instead.  During the Mass he did some modern but classical-feeling settings of "Oh Come Oh Come Emmanuel," and I was pleased to see that the hymnal had some older hymns in it.  4s for both Liturgy (since I'm feeling generous, and since this was the best attended Sunday evening Mass I've ever seen in this country, complete with quite a few young adults) and Music.

This means that St. Peter averages 4.25 (4+5+4+4=17/4=4.25), pretty good.  I'd be interested in attending another of the Masses, though I'd be willing to make a Sunday evening Mass my tradition, just as I did in Germany.  And, you know, I have to go back so I can get some better pictures!

Have You Been...Drinking?

I have a smallish mash-up/signwreck to share, for which I alas have no picture.  But the visual is not quite so funny as the concept, and I trust my own story-telling skills enough to recount this humorous little incident.

Yesterday at work we had a bake sale for the Combined Federal Campaign, the pre-winter holidays month-long charity drive, the only time when anyone can solicit donations for any cause in the federal workplace.  There's an entire book of places you can select to donation a bit of your paycheck every week, and plenty of paperwork, but our coordinators have tried - successfully, I think - to shake things up a bit.  One such initiative is this bake sale, for which I contributed some of my delicious Chocolate Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies (cow patties). 

Naturally, as is often the case with things of this scale, far more was contributed than could possibly be consumed in the course of a single day (I'm told the big conference room on the north side of the building was full), so today they've assembled the remnants in the break room and are selling them for half price.  As I was walking down the hall to the bathroom this afternoon I noticed that some signs had been put up directing would-be buyers to the location of this second, smaller sale.  The title was what caught my eye:

Hangover Bake Sale

In the Break Room

10am until everything's gone!

Not leftover, mind you, hangover.  I had the irresistible image of my boss and various other senior workers staggering drunk into the break room and scarfing cookies and cupcakes "until everything's gone," and nearly lost it in the middle of the hallway.  Especially because my boss is on a diet...

Might I also add that none of my cookies made it to the hangover bake sale?  You see, when I bake a thing, people like it.  Even food-fussies like the communications director.  Ha!

The National Portrait Gallery

I had made a vow to save most of the major museums for this winter, when I don't anticipate wanting to walk around the city very much, but today I made an exception, because I had heard that a particular exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery had been the center of some controversy, brought upon it by the Catholic League, and had subsequently self-censored in a most shameful manner.  Naturally, I had to go investigate. 

The exhibit, for those not familiar with the story (and I will admit that not everyone follows art news or gay news as much as I do - though there are some who trounce me in one or even both categories), is Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture which, despite the rather bland name, is actually fascinating.  It is an examination of the impact of sexual difference (read "non-heterosexuality") in American portraiture and runs the gamut from John Singer Sargent to Georgia O'Keeffe to Andy Warhol.  The pieces are widely varied, running the gamut from photographs to abstract art, including film.  And it is film which is the center of the controversy, because one of the film pieces, A Fire in My Belly by David Wojnarowicz, a gay artist who died from complications of AIDS in 1992, portrays a crucifix with ants crawling on it (about 11 seconds from a roughly half-hour long video).  Perhaps unsurprisingly in these polarized times, the video drew criticism from conservative politicians and pundits, among them the Catholic League (with which I have no affiliation, and for which I profess infinitesimally small sympathy), and the National Portrait Gallery, to its shame, caved and withdrew the piece.  You can read more about it here.

I doubt that I would have heard about the whole thing had it not cropped up on the Facebook monster (as much as I loathe it, it does keep me up to date on a number of things, thanks to the efforts of friends more clued in than I am), which informed me that an art-historian-friend of mine had written an article examining the symbolism behind the offending art piece.  I read it and was not only positively impressed by the article, but also resolved to see the exhibit, if for no other reason than to flip a symbolic bird to the twits at the Catholic League who, apparently, have trouble understanding the concept of free speech.  So after attending Mass at St. Patrick - to re-establish my Catholic credentials, if they were ever in doubt - I marched over to the gallery, stopping in the courtyard to have lunch and plan my afternoon.

The courtyard deserves special note - the only thing I've ever see like it is the courtyard at the British Museum, which is neat, but so is this one:

Is this not awesome?  Better still, it doubles as a conservatory, where people can lounge about (as much as one can lounge on marble, anyway) in the company of plants and have their lunch.  This is useful, because as the weather gets cold I intend to continue adventuring, but I also intend to continue to bring my lunch with me, and I'll be damned if I'm going to sit on a bench in the snow and eat my lunch.  Knowing where there are heated placed where you can eat your lunch is good indeed.

After lunch I headed up to the second floor where the special exhibits are housed, and determined that the only way I could get to Hide/Seek from where I was was to go through the section of the museum dedicated to portraits of the presidents, so I did.  Most of them are fairly unremarkable - either because they're the standard profile on a black background with few other details, or because they're presidents for whom I have little affection - but there are a couple which deserve special mention because they're prominent and important.  Here they are:

Although Washington was the president when this picture was painted and is surrounded by the grandeur of office - the background would not be misplaced in the portrait of a monarch - he stands attired in simple clothes, a visible rejection of monarchy and the claim to absolute power which Washington could easily have made (and, to be honest, he would probably have been given a dictatorship if he had wanted one).  Not that Washington is entirely devoid of feudalism - what you may not know is that his family's coat of arms provided the basis for the flag of the District of Columbia, so Washington's feudal influence continues, if not in the form of a monarchy.  Coincidentally, Washington's release of power when his time as president ended is why I cite him as my favorite when my real favorite, FDR, seems like an unwise preference to make public (big government socialist!).

Abraham Lincoln is probably my mother's favorite president (although I've never asked), Civil War historian that she is, and this is one the most famous (if not the most famous) portrait of him.  It is the image of Lincoln that we cherish - that of the melancholy thinker, burdened with the fate of nation and grappling with the moral - just as much as Washington's honor and leadership prowess.  Not everyone who manages to attain the office is worthy of it or capable of executing it properly - witness the long succession of barely semi-competent men who preceded Lincoln, for example - but Washington and Lincoln are two of the greatest, without doubt, and their portraits have places of honor in this exhibition, as well as in the American psyche.

Well, having gotten my weekly dose of patriotic idealism out of my system, let's move on to controversy, shall we?

Special exhibitions in the National Portrait Gallery cannot be photographed, presumably because they want people to buy the exhibit catalog ($45 at the museum store), so I don't have photographs, but if you click the link up near the top of this post you can see a few of the pieces and read a bit about the exhibition.  Let me say simply that I enjoyed it quite a bit, and it was well attended that afternoon, almost certainly to a higher degree than it would have been without the associated controversy.  And, by the way, that story has a [somewhat] happy ending - a gallery owner will be showing a portion of A Fire in my Belly, or you can watch it online (just click that link, and then the link in that article).  In all, the video is doubtless going to be exposed to many more people now that it's been booted from the exhibition than it would have had the assorted conservative blowhards kept their mouths shut.  Ooops!

And as a sweet, semi-patriotic finale, I passed this on my way out:

The Preamble of the Constitution made out of license plates - NEEEET!

A Very Productive Saturday

Today alone I've made up for my lack of productiveness last weekend (I accomplished basically nothing last Sunday, and was quite perturbed about it at the time).  But today has gone quite well, and it's only quarter to eight!  Here's what I've managed to accomplish:

1)  Draw up a budget for the new year, and determine that repaying my student loans will not entail grinding poverty and destitution. 

I had been meaning to do this for a while, but this morning (after a languid hot shower which was far longer than strictly necessary - shoot me, environmentalists), I sat down and did it.  Thanks to the National Student Loan Data System, I can draw up a page that details all of my federal loans (and, since all of my loans are federal, this means I can see all of my student loans).  The site does lag behind by a month or so, so outstanding interest figures are behind, but sometimes you just need to know exactly how many loans you took out, and how big they were.  But most importantly, you can also figure out who's servicing them, and then head over to their website to get more precise information - like monthly payments. 

Armed with the knowledge of how much I'll be expected to fork out in January, I pulled together a spreadsheet where I deducted my various expenses from my salary (including anticipated deductions for health insurance, which starts next month), allowed for various other irregular expenses (like haircuts) and came out ahead.  Not rolling-in-dough ahead, but ahead enough that I have a bit of discretionary spending money.  Not much, but far more than I had last year when I was still in grad school.  Essentially, I have to live until September much like I'm still in grad school, in terms of consumption.  Why September?  Because that's when I'm supposed to get my grade increase - the president may freeze my salary, but if I get a promotion I earn more, and there's not a thing he can do about that!

2)  Find (and purchase) curtains for the sliding door, which lets heat out like a sieve.

After lunch, I hopped on the Metro up to Columbia Heights, for to get a Christmas tree, but first I stopped at Marshall's, my favorite knock-off store in the DC area (of course, I don't know very many others besides Filene's, so if you have recommendations, by all means leave them in a comment).  I was just wandering through the home goods section when I cam across the curtains.  And I suspected - correctly, it turns, out - that I had hit the jackpot.

You see, I have come to the conclusion, as the weather has gotten colder, that my windows leak.  I'm not quite certain which way - if they leak heat out, or cold in - but I've had the heater in the dining room running non-stop for days, and this morning when I finally pried myself out of my warm bed my hands were so cold that I didn't even want to touch me.  Now, I've had bad circulation for a while, but honestly, "hands of death" indoors, when you've had the heat on, is a bit much.  So I decided that, even if I didn't need curtains aesthetically, I needed curtains to stay warm (thank Heaven I don't pay for heat).

This is what I eventually decided on:

They're not actually shiny - that's just the flash.  They are, however, too short.  This is because 84" is the longest standard curtain size one can find with any sort of ease, and my windows are floor-to-ceiling.  Also, my curtain rods are somewhat higher than they should perhaps be, but that comes as no surprise, given who put them in (not me, and that's all I'll say).  More importantly, they don't clash with the rest of the apartment - the tan basically matches the majority of the walls and the brown matches the accent wall - they cost less (both of them together) than a single panel would have cost at Bed, Bath, and Beyond, and most importantly, they work.  Ever since I put them up I've felt warmer, even though I haven't turned on any more heat.  I'm sure that when I move somewhere with standard sized windows the curtains will fit better.  For now, I'm just not going to worry about it.  Who sells 96" curtains?

Also, I'm rather fond of the detailing on the rings.  I'm just a bit weird like that.

3  Obtain a Christmas tree

After my triumphant purchase of curtains at Marshalls, I headed upstairs to case the joint at Target.  I was unimpressed with the Christmas trees, and remembered seeing some in the catalog of Bed, Bath, and Beyond that shows up, unannounced and unsolicited, in my mailbox on an oddly irregular basis.  The catalog also had a "20% off a single item" coupon in it, which was enticing, since I wasn't pleased with the prices at Target (not something I usually say, but perhaps someone decided to gouge holiday shoppers this year.  Or maybe we haven't been harvesting as many artificial Christmas trees this year due to climate change or something).  In the front of the store - thank the Lord, since going through Bed, Bath, and Beyond is sensory overload to an unpleasant degree - was my quarry.  I got a 6.5 foot pre-lit tree for $40, after the coupon.  Not too shabby.

Of course, when you unpack an artificial tree, it looks like hell.  I remember reading reviews on Target of the various artificial trees, and inevitably, someone would complain that their tree didn't look like the picture.  No, of course not, because your tree has been inside a box since it left China a couple of weeks ago, twit.  Real trees may be messy and expensive and give some people (like my boyfriend) allergic reactions, but they have one jump on their artificial cousins: they don't have to be fluffed.  My tree looked like it had been in a fight with a hay baler of a cylindrical (rather than cubic) persuasion, cross-bred with a poor-quality broom.  So I set it up and commenced fluffing.

An hour or two later - I lost track of time, probably because I needed to stop and get a pill for my headache partway through - I was done, the tree properly fluffed.  It's a lot of work - if you don't do it right, you'll be able to see right through the tree, and there's no sadder reminder that your tree is artificial than being able to look all the way through it.  Or, worse still, looking into it and seeing wire.

So, properly fluffed (for the most part - I still need to do a bit here and there), here it is:

(Hooray for pre-lit trees, right?)

I'm also pleased that I was finally able to put the random black sheet (that I've had for years now) to good use - as a tree skirt.  A very professional-looking tree skirt, I should add.

Now, I haven't done any decorating yet, but these are my ideas:

- paper chains or lattices (very fine, in either case) to help cover any remaining gaps; I could do the same with strings of beads, but I can make things out of paper (which is cheap), whereas I'd either have to buy materials for strings of beads and string them myself (ooh, fun) or just put out for strung beads.  I'd rather do paper.
- homemade salt-dough ornaments, which my parents did when they were a young married couple without children
- a large something for the top of the tree.  Not sure what that's going to be yet - at home it's an angel, but if I decide to make something, it's won't be an angel, as I'm just not that artistic.  I am, however, going to Eastern Market tomorrow, so maybe I'll find something...

On Craftsmen

I have been remiss in my blogging lately because I have been assigned temporary duties at work which generally leave me too frazzed to write anything even mildly interesting, and because very little has happened in the past week that is of any interest to anyone, even me.  Except one thing.


Plumbing.

Now, before you picture me being washed off the edge of my balcony by a raging flood of backed-up dishwater (or worse), allow me to clarify: the only thing at issue is my kitchen sink, and the problem appears to be not that it won't drain, but that it won't drain all the way, which I discovered Tuesday night after doing my dishes.  Running the disposal somehow allows the water to drain from the sink, but not from the chamber directly under the basin which houses the disposal blades.  I tried to unplug whatever's plugging the sink (if that's even the problem) with some drain cleaner, but even after leaving it in over Tuesday night, it didn't help.  So, on my landlady's advice, I called the front desk after lunch today and asked them to send someone up to look at it.

I didn't expect that they would have accomplished this by the time I got home, but indeed they did.  The only sign that someone was here was this note, scrawled in marker on a bit of paper towel:

I'm not sure who exactly wrote this note (a "Kay," perhaps?  Or is it "Kg"?) but I find it oddly comforting.  There is something comforting about having someone promptly attend to your problem and have a solution prepared  all before you get home from work, rather than drawing things out for days or even weeks at a time (that's right, U.S. federal government, I'm looking at you).  That, I think, may be the primary difference between craftsmen and bureaucrats - the one has a practical solution which can be implemented relatively quickly, while the other has six reams of paperwork to go through (half of which will contain errors) before he or she can do anything.  This is why a good craftsman is a good thing to find indeed, and as anal as my complex may be about other things, I am grateful for their promptness in this matter.  If this afternoon is any indication, all I need to do is clean out the cabinet under the sink tonight, and by the time I get home from work tomorrow my sink should be successfully snaked (that's a verb now) and back in working order.  Thanks be for good craftsmen!

Culinary Adventures: Beer Thanksgiving

Because most young federal employees like me don't have enough vacation days to take off for Thanksgiving and Christmas, we have to make a choice - and inevitably, we choose to save our days for Christmas.  This leaves us to our own devices for Thanksgiving.  This time last week I was on my way to "Friendsgiving" at S & D's and brought along homemade brownies (not a very good recipe though - they taste good, but they don't look it).  Since K&R and I all had to "work" yesterday, we decided not to celebrate Thanksgiving on the actual day, but on the following Saturday - today - as an organized sort of potluck.  But whenever  K has potlucked Thanksgiving with friends she has a culinary theme.  Last year it was bacon (I went home, so I missed it), and this year, it's beer.  Everyone who brings food has to have worked beer into it somehow.  I jumped at the opportunity - I love a good culinary challenge.

All right, you think.  Baste the turkey with beer, and serve beer, and perhaps put beer in the stuffing, but how to work beer into everything?  Doesn't sound easy, does it?  Below, with one exception, are the results of my own efforts:

The exception is the batch of cookies in the upper right, which have no beer in them and are not intended for Beer Thanksgiving.  They're intended for me.  But the upper left is beer bread, and the lower right are cornbread muffins with beer in place of milk.  Have a closer look:

I'm still working on my food photography, but I think that's a tolerably good photo.  And furthermore, these are really easy.  The base is Jiffy Cornbread Mix which, as a Midwesterner, I swear by.  All you need to do is follow the instructions for cornbread muffins and substitute 1/3 c. of beer (relatively dark, so it has some flavor) for the 1/3 c. of milk the recipe calls for.  I used Killians (the bottle on the left in that first picture) because I only had one bottle of Guinness, given to me by K&R so I could make beer bread:

Now, if you like beer in your food, you'll be pleased to know that this is almost as easy as the muffins are.  Just take 3 c. of self-rising flour, add 3 Tbsp. white sugar, and one bottle of dark beer, like Guinness (don't do this with Miller Lite or it will taste like wallpaper).  Mix and pour into a greased loaf pan, then bake at 350 for 45 minutes, brush the top with butter, and bake for another 15 minutes.  (Honestly, though, it was practically done after the first half hour, so since you're supposed to brush the top with butter once a crust forms, I did it after that half hour and then put the loaf back in for the 15 minutes, and got what you see - I suspect this is because I had it on the bottom rack).

Both the muffins and the bread smell delightfully of beer when hot, and I'm sure they'll be a hit.  I just need to pack them up, change clothes, and toddle over the K&R's for my third (!) Thanksgiving!

(Oh, and if you want the recipe for those cookies, just ask.  They're amazing.)

 Om nom nom nom nom...

Happy Thanksgiving!

I've just returned from dinner and Battlestar Galactica with K&R, but I wanted to take a moment to wish Happy Thanksgiving to all my readers!  You'll probably have noticed that I've fallen a bit behind, but while J was here I spent my time with him, not writing (sorry, but can you blame me?), and this week has been excruciating.  I'll catch up shortly, I promise - I've done it before (remember October?) and I'll do it again.  In the meantime, though, I'd like to send Thanksgiving greetings to all my readers around the world.  They're a  diverse group:

Austria, Canada, China, Costa Rica, Denmark, 
Egypt, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Japan, 
Poland, Russia, Slovenia, and the United States

I don't know all of you (or at least, I don't think I do), but thank you for reading.  I never thought that I'd have readers from multiple continents when I started writing - I had just intended it as a sort of visual diary for myself!  But even so, I do hope you're enjoying the reading as much as I enjoy the writing and the exploring which stimulates it.  In thanks for your attention, I have a pair of presents:

• If you'd like to make keeping track of my exploits easier, I've added a "Subscribe" feature on the right, beneath the bagel (ha!).  
• I've also added a "Cast of Characters" section on the right, under the labels.  Since it's my policy not to identify people by name or otherwise make their lives public, I only use first initials.  This means you might get confused as to who I'm talking about, so read the "cast list" to get sorted out.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Dear "Leadership Guru"...

...Martin Luther King, Jr. was not a "schmo," Sir Isaac Newton did not discover gravity when an apple fell on his head, Saving Private Ryan is not a management instruction tool, and you're not funny.

That is all.

The Capitol (at Night!)

Backdated from more than a week later...I'm a bad person (again).

This evening, when I arrived home from work, I found the first half of dinner on the table and the other half being constructed in the kitchen by J, who can cook gourmet-quality when he sets his mind to it.  We ate early, because he had been advised to see the Capitol at night.  So we walked up 4th and took a right at the mall.  Unlike yesterday, I had the good sense to bring my camera:

What most people don't know is that there are two reflecting pools - the famous one that runs from the Lincoln Memorial east, and then this one, between the Capitol and the rest of the Mall.  On the other side of the pool is a statue of U.S. Grant (probably the only memorial he's got, unless you count Grant's Tomb).  From this far away you get a lot of traffic lights - not a terribly good photo.  We ventured closer, and I tried again.

There, that's better.  Interestingly, the dome is the only part of the Capitol that gets floodlit.  I suppose I had expected it to be more like the White House, which is almost entirely illuminated:

(This is from March - I haven't actually been past the White House at night since I moved here.  Perhaps I should rectify that.)

Today, I should note, was the first day Congress was in session since the midterm elections.  As we hung out and looked around (I insisted on inspecting this fountain because I love water feature's - J doesn't), we heard sirens and looked to the north - left - and saw a cavalcade of police cars with a black van in their midst.  I wondered aloud if it were a cabinet official coming from testifying to Congress, but J thought it was too grand for a secretary, and besides, would they be testifying over the dinner hour?  It was big enough for the president, he opined.  Then I remembered that the vice president is the president of the Senate, and noted that the flag on the Senate - which indicates whether it's in session - had been taken down.  It would make perfect sense for a cavalcade to speed the vice president from the Senate to the north-west, which is where he lives (the Naval Observatory is in the northwest part of town).  So perhaps that was him.  My first brush with Washington celebrity!

We talked and observed a while longer, but then it got colder - it had been cold to start, but the wind picked up - so we walked home.  J was to leave tomorrow - he would fly out while I was at work.  Fortunately for both of us, our parting wouldn't be as unhappy as when I left Chicago (we were both torn up for days), because over the few days we've been together we've sorted a lot of things out in the best possible way.

Anyhow, the Capitol's always been neat - now it just has another layer of significance for me, which can be added to all the other layers of significance others have attached to it.  If you could see them all, the Capitol would start to look more like an onion than a legislature.  This might be awkward - who wants to take orders from an onion?

The National Cathedral

As my readers have doubtless figured out, I'm Catholic, but my boyfriend isn't.  He's unencumbered, religiously-speaking, but has a gay uncle who is the rector of a large Episcopal church in Dallas.  I am told that this uncle applied for a position at the National Cathedral, and helped write the hymnal they use there.  I also know - no need to be told - that my boyfriend is an Anglophile of the most dedicated sort, and having seen the National Cathedral briefly in March, I know that it's trying hard to be an English cathedral.  Fortunately for those of us who like that sort of thing, it does quite well in that respect.

What may surprise you, however, is that I gave up my weekly Mass to attend the National Cathedral instead (exhibit A in the case for me being ridiculously in love with that man).  So here goes - a Catholic in the heart of Episcopal America (the National Cathedral is where the Episcopal church's presiding bishop was inaugurated, after all) - will they scent the foreigner in their midst and cast him out, with much wailing and gnashing of teeth?  Will it be a revelation that drives me from Rome to Canterbury?  Will the cathedral impress my unflappable boyfriend?  Read on to find out!

Washington National Cathedral
3101 Wisconsin Ave. NW 
Website

The National Cathedral is located, surprise surprise, in the neighborhood of Cathedral Heights (check the blog map for the exact location), and sits on a hill such that it can be seen from the platform of the National Airport Metro station (which is outdoors and on stilts a few dozen feet from the ground, but quite a ways away).  To get here from my place, take the Metro from Southwest to Chinatown, then transfer onto the Red in the direction of Shady Grove (is it shady, I wonder?).  We got off at Cleveland Park and stopped for a bite to eat (for J, not me, because I had eaten breakfast while he was in the shower).  We then walked west on Macomb St. and approached the Cathedral from it's north side (the picture on the left is from the south, which is much prettier as it gets all that lovely southern sun that I used to have in Chicago).

When we turned the corner and saw the towers of the cathedral, J was mightily impressed (there's your answer to question 3).  The National Cathedral does its level best to pass for Canterbury - you think I'm kidding, but look at this photo of Canterbury and then this one of the National Cathedral and tell me there aren't any similarities - so for my anglophile par excellence  this was absolutely great.  I like it too.

We had decided to attend the 11:15 Eucharist (not Mass, I learned - Episcopalians don't say "Mass") because it had organ and choir, and promised to be the most immersive experience.  And it was.  The service opened with the cathedral choir (men and boys, in the proper English tradition) processing in while singing a motet, continued with several excellent hymns, and concluded with a very well done organ voluntary.  In between there was chant, more boy choir, and solo organ.  I am mightily impressed, but as I said to J, one of the reasons you see this here but not in many Catholic parishes of local prominence is that the National Cathedral can afford, and can draw, a good organist, a talented choirmaster, etc.  Most Catholic churches don't have the prominence to draw such people, and even more often can't afford them.  Even some Catholic cathedrals struggle with music due to money.

The only complaint I have is that all of the hymns were pitched too low for me to sing at my best.  I've been every major voice part in the course of my musical life - I started as a boy soprano, and was subsequently "graduated" to alto because alto parts for boy choir are always harder and I was a good singer, even though I still had the voice to sing soprano (I took the change of assignment as a demotion and a personal insult, because the soprano melody line was always prettier and they got to sing the descants at Christmas).  When my voice changed, it sank all the way to bass, and I sang bass in the high school madrigal group as a freshman.  But then I began to ascend upwards again, singing second tenor as a sophomore and rising up to the elite ranks of first tenor by senior year.  I'm still a tenor - a first tenor by any choir's standards, though not by operatic standards (though, as I have no intention of pursuing a career in opera, I suppose that doesn't much matter).  The majority of men, however, are middling baritones, and it was for these men that the hymns were pitched.  This is all well and good - more people feel comfortable singing, which is great - but I don't get those soaring high notes that let me stand out from most of the other guys in the room.  Nevertheless, the portly lady standing next to me complemented me on my singing voice as the service drew to a close.  I was surprised she'd even been able to hear me, and managed little more than a bashful "thank you."

I won't acknowledge that this sort of music never occurs in Catholic churches (although I am willing to concede that you'll have more luck finding it in Europe), but the liturgy here would not happen in a Catholic church.  Most prominent among the differences is that the Episcopalians have a First Reading and a Gospel - they're missing the Second Reading which Catholics always include.  There are differences in some of the prayers, of course, and I definitely messed up the Creed, although the lady next to me didn't shoot me a glare or raise a ruckus and have the infiltrated Papist thrown out (answer to question 1).  It's times like these when I realize how attached I am to the Catholic Mass - to the point that I will recite what I know, only to notice that the rest of the congregation isn't saying what I am.  Oops!


One thing I've gotten used to in the Catholic church is homilies of moderate length and moderate impact.  The Savonarolas and fire-breathing Dominicans have been supplanted by modest parish priests with modest goals for their sermons: elaborate on the readings of the day and attempt to relate that somehow to a social problem or a moral lapse that everyday Catholics encounter/experience.  Even the remaining Dominicans don't breathe fire (see the church review for St. Dominic), and I can't remember remember the last time I heard a priest speak about Hell.  But I suppose there's something about the National Cathedral that inspires the grandiose.  Maybe it's the stained glass (above).  Or perhaps it's the vaulted ceiling, soaring pillars, and elaborate woodwork (right).  Could it be the intricate marble floors, or the painstaking (and very aesthetically pleasing) needlework of these kneeler pads?

I don't know.  And I wish I had more pictures to share with you, because I forgot my camera and had to make do with my phone, so only about half of them are free of blur.  I'll just have to return with my camera sometime.  But in any case, my point is that the sumptuousness of the cathedral evidently inspired the homilist to attempt to reach the lofty heights.  By which I mean he spoke at length on every major theme which has ever occurred in a sermon, and then attempted to link them with some scripture passages which preceded the gospel.  Not the actual reading itself, mind, but the passages which precede it.  Three quarters of an hour later (you think I'm joking, but I'm not - at least, not much), I had no idea what point he was trying to make and I was craving some lunch.  Three cheers for the apocryphal Catholic priest who, on a boiling day in August, got up to the ambo to deliver his homily, said "It's hotter than Hell in here," and got back down.

On a totally unrelated note, did you know there's a lump of moon rock in the National Cathedral?  There is, in the "Space Window," on the left.  The moon rock is actually in the window, in the middle of the dark circle in the center-top (surrounded by the white ring).  Twenty feet to the left is Woodrow Wilson.  Yes, our 28th president.  He's buried in a sarcophagus in one of the aisles of the cathedral, and is actually the only U.S. president buried in the District of Columbia.   I've always shad a soft spot for Wilson, so J looked on in bemusement while I said hello and attempted to get a photo (this is the photo I was trying to take, but mine didn't turn out.  This is what I get for going to a cathedral without a proper camera).


Now, since this isn't a Catholic church I can't really call this a church review, as I won't contemplate attending on a regular basis, but supposing I were to review it anyway...

Location: 3 when the Metro decides to cooperate (as it did today), but a 2 on days when it doesn't.  Also a 2 once the weather gets colder - the hike from the metro station to the cathedral is about a mile, which I don't want to do in sleet.

Aesthetics: 5, without a doubt.  See pictures and gushing above.

Music:  Very good indeed.  It was all pitched too low for me, but quite good nonetheless.  Give it a 4.5.

Liturgy: Not really feeling the whole "sanctity of the Mass" thing Catholics look for, and the sermon was awful.  2.5 - a 2 for the sermon, but an extra .5 for women at the altar.

That gives us 15 of 20, or an average of 3.75.  Good, but not so fantastic that I'll be converting any time soon (there's your answer to question 2).   However, the National Cathedral, it should be noted, is not funded in any way by the government or any public funds, nor is it funded by the Episcopal Church, although it is Episcopal (though you have to look pretty hard on their website to find this out).  No, the National Cathedral is supported entirely by private donations, which has meant that it has suffered greatly during the recession.  In fact, it has reduced its staff by more than half to meet budget shortfalls caused by a slump in donations.  So if you've got some money to burn and love a good cathedral - in the very best, English Gothic sense of the word - perhaps you'd consider a donation.  Doesn't matter if you're not Episcopal; this building is awesome.  So although I'm not going to convert, once my finances loosen up a bit, I may have a donation or two to make...