Drinking spring
Social media found me a date for Saturday night. Aine and Aedan were off to stalk cherry blossoms. In all the years I've lived in the area, I'd never hiked about the tidal basin while the trees were in bloom, so I hopped on Aine's idea and gave them my guest room for the night.
By two, we were on the metro, poor Pink - who had been persuaded to abandon her also uninterested and allergic husband and hop on the blossom bus - somewhat dubiously in tow, especially when just as we sat down on the metro, Aedan turns to Pink and asked Do you have enough drugs for me too?
Allergic people and cherry blossoms.
This could get wacky. There might be balloon animals.
Pink looks at me hesitantly. Follow the balloon animals? There are no balloon animals.
You just can't see them. Yet.
So we got off the metro with Pink muttering about following invisible balloon animals and me trying to persuade everyone to sing. Aedan, our faithful sherpa guide, shouldered the camera pack and pretended not to know us. We wound our way to the Tidal Basin, swimming through the crowds like salmon going upstream. It was madly crowded, can I say madly crowded again? Despite the sea of humanity, despite Pink's wanting to strangle the people who were picking the blossoms and harming the trees, the weather was perfect, the breeze was like drinking spring. We took endless pictures of the trees, found the tulip library (who knew we had one?) and completely failed to obtain water at the lines of vendors that were lengthy and unmoving.
We made it halfway round the tidal basin before having enough of the unmoving masses. A long walk to the Lincoln memorial and back, where it was only slightly less crowded, Aedan asked So, museums?
Me: Absolutely not. No way do I want to be inside with all these people. We swam our way to the Smithsonian metro where the line wrapped all the way around the escalator, so we hiked back to L'Efant where there was no line and along the way we found street vendors with absolutely no line. At last, I could buy a bottle of water. Then, Pink made the mistake of pointing out the vendor had Bubbles Powerpuff Girl shaped ice cream, which I bought her.
Pink: Um, do I owe you money for this now?
Me: Oh, no. My treat.
Best three dollars I spent all day. It was horrifying from the zombie face to the gumball eyes.
There's probably an uncomfortable food fetish analogy to be made about how much we enjoyed watching our friend eat ice cream before we went home, where we ordered all the Indian food in all the land and went back through the pictures, where we realized exactly how phallic the Washington monument could be from the wrong angle and that 'Shoulder Monkey' scotch was, in fact, darn decent.
Sunday, I meant to weed the garden, and thought first, I may as well put the sunroom plants out on the deck and given them a spring shower, which led to finding aphids all over half a dozen plants and small damage to the bookshelves - by the time Roland got home, we ended up deconstructing, refinishing shelves, touching up paint and spring cleaning the sunroom. Not the spring chores I'd had in mind when I got started, but that's the dangerous thing about rightful placing. One things leads to another and another and ... much was accomplished with the cat in a snoozing pile amidst it all.
By two, we were on the metro, poor Pink - who had been persuaded to abandon her also uninterested and allergic husband and hop on the blossom bus - somewhat dubiously in tow, especially when just as we sat down on the metro, Aedan turns to Pink and asked Do you have enough drugs for me too?
Allergic people and cherry blossoms.
This could get wacky. There might be balloon animals.
Pink looks at me hesitantly. Follow the balloon animals? There are no balloon animals.
You just can't see them. Yet.
So we got off the metro with Pink muttering about following invisible balloon animals and me trying to persuade everyone to sing. Aedan, our faithful sherpa guide, shouldered the camera pack and pretended not to know us. We wound our way to the Tidal Basin, swimming through the crowds like salmon going upstream. It was madly crowded, can I say madly crowded again? Despite the sea of humanity, despite Pink's wanting to strangle the people who were picking the blossoms and harming the trees, the weather was perfect, the breeze was like drinking spring. We took endless pictures of the trees, found the tulip library (who knew we had one?) and completely failed to obtain water at the lines of vendors that were lengthy and unmoving.
We made it halfway round the tidal basin before having enough of the unmoving masses. A long walk to the Lincoln memorial and back, where it was only slightly less crowded, Aedan asked So, museums?
Me: Absolutely not. No way do I want to be inside with all these people. We swam our way to the Smithsonian metro where the line wrapped all the way around the escalator, so we hiked back to L'Efant where there was no line and along the way we found street vendors with absolutely no line. At last, I could buy a bottle of water. Then, Pink made the mistake of pointing out the vendor had Bubbles Powerpuff Girl shaped ice cream, which I bought her.
Pink: Um, do I owe you money for this now?
Me: Oh, no. My treat.
Best three dollars I spent all day. It was horrifying from the zombie face to the gumball eyes.
There's probably an uncomfortable food fetish analogy to be made about how much we enjoyed watching our friend eat ice cream before we went home, where we ordered all the Indian food in all the land and went back through the pictures, where we realized exactly how phallic the Washington monument could be from the wrong angle and that 'Shoulder Monkey' scotch was, in fact, darn decent.
Sunday, I meant to weed the garden, and thought first, I may as well put the sunroom plants out on the deck and given them a spring shower, which led to finding aphids all over half a dozen plants and small damage to the bookshelves - by the time Roland got home, we ended up deconstructing, refinishing shelves, touching up paint and spring cleaning the sunroom. Not the spring chores I'd had in mind when I got started, but that's the dangerous thing about rightful placing. One things leads to another and another and ... much was accomplished with the cat in a snoozing pile amidst it all.