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Mar. 9th, 2008 06:48 pmI'm currently watching the sunset begin over the capitol dome.
My weekend has been lazy. Someone came by yesterday afternoon doing a survey for her doctoral work about the type of building and the neighborhood. It was supposed to take 15 minutes, but we're both southerners so she left over an hour later.
Jon Stewart once described Washington as a "chocolate crust around a marshmallow center." The analogy is apt. I'm coming up with theories and opinions, but for future reference, if I talk about Washington, I mean the seat of government and the politicians. If I refer to the District, that's where I live.
They've always been separate entities. Washington is why I don't have a local drugstore -- CVS has no pharmacy because the assumption is that it's serving the people who work in the federal buildings and might need an aspirin or a Coke. The District has the accurate slogan on its license plate "Taxation Without Representation."
Today, though, I walked to the Botanical gardens and saw the orchid exhibit. I also went to the East Wing and saw the "In the Forest of Fountainebleau" exhibit which includes nineteenth century photographs of the area as well as Barbizon and early Impressionist paintings. Some of my time was spent explaining the Cold War and Vietnam to Wendell, a guard at the East Wing, who got to talking with me. Apparently, not everyone who comes is respectful of art. He served in the Persian Gulf in the early 90s and was talking about seeing the kids coming out of the current Iraq war when he goes to Walter Reed for his VA check-ups.
People are so willing to talk here.
My weekend has been lazy. Someone came by yesterday afternoon doing a survey for her doctoral work about the type of building and the neighborhood. It was supposed to take 15 minutes, but we're both southerners so she left over an hour later.
Jon Stewart once described Washington as a "chocolate crust around a marshmallow center." The analogy is apt. I'm coming up with theories and opinions, but for future reference, if I talk about Washington, I mean the seat of government and the politicians. If I refer to the District, that's where I live.
They've always been separate entities. Washington is why I don't have a local drugstore -- CVS has no pharmacy because the assumption is that it's serving the people who work in the federal buildings and might need an aspirin or a Coke. The District has the accurate slogan on its license plate "Taxation Without Representation."
Today, though, I walked to the Botanical gardens and saw the orchid exhibit. I also went to the East Wing and saw the "In the Forest of Fountainebleau" exhibit which includes nineteenth century photographs of the area as well as Barbizon and early Impressionist paintings. Some of my time was spent explaining the Cold War and Vietnam to Wendell, a guard at the East Wing, who got to talking with me. Apparently, not everyone who comes is respectful of art. He served in the Persian Gulf in the early 90s and was talking about seeing the kids coming out of the current Iraq war when he goes to Walter Reed for his VA check-ups.
People are so willing to talk here.
