Archive for the “D.C. Vignettes” Category

Hey everybody. We’re on our way to Austin, and so are our hundreds (not kidding) of boxes of stuff. Our boxes and furniture are on a truck that I believe is currently in North Carolina or something; Brian, Pearl, and I are all at a Super 8 in Morristown, Tennessee. We’re hoping the three of us will be at our new apartment on Sunday, and our stuff is probably going to arrive on Wednesday. Phase 1 (packing) and Phase 2 (loading) were both so completely insane — and I am so, so exhausted from going through both of them plus lots and lots of tearful goodbyes — that I can’t even begin to describe this past week. Just trust me: it was crazy.

We’ll report back soon!

This is our friend Kenton.

Kenton is a zookeeper at the National Zoo here in D.C. Normally he works at the small mammal house, but one day last week he was working at the kids’ farm at the end of the zoo, and he invited us to come by to feed the animals. Yay!

Did you know that when you hand-feed a donkey, this happens?

NEITHER DID I, but it was pretty awesome. And by the way, our VIP status made all the other zoo visitors jealous, especially when we were feeding the animals. Sorry, children!

Also, one of the donkeys totally pulled a Yellowstone bison-style dirt roll!

I love farm animals.

Also, the farm has this:

It’s actually a very educational giant pizza because it’s part of the Pizza Garden where there’s an exhibit on how various pizza components are grown. Good job, National Zoo. (Also, it turns out you’re supposed to be A CHILD to climb on the giant pizza, but I didn’t see the sign until after the damage was done. Whoops!)

In conclusion, the farm was awesome.

We also visited Mr. Beazley:

He used to live on the national mall in front of the natural history museum, and my dad used to take me there all the time when I was a little girl and I would climb all over Mr. Beazley (Brian did this too when he was a child). I’m glad we got one last visit!

Okay, so then, the next day, Kenton was back at small mammals, so we came back for another behind-the-scenes tour. Yay! We thought we better get used to some of the animals we might see in Texas, so we spent a lot of time with Baby the armadillo:

Isn’t she cute?!

We visited some of the other small mammals and concluded with Wicket the red panda:

Thanks, Kenton! We had an amazing time!!!

It’s currently posted in the Metro and/or “around town” here in D.C. If you live/work here or are coming in this weekend for the inauguration, could you please keep an eye out? If you see it, please try to get a photo of it in person; the guy in the photo is a former housemate of mine from New York and he would (obviously) enjoy seeing the ad out in the world.

Let me know if you see it! Thanks!

Happy inaugural weekend!

Before we left this morning, I realized that I had forgotten to put my credit card payment in the mail the other day. Since I was still packing, Brian went down to the lobby of our building with my envelope. We don’t have a mailbox or anything in our building or even on our block (sigh), so usually when we have things to mail, we either cross the street to take them to the mailbox on the corner or we just leave them in the lobby. Pretty much everyone in our building tucks his outgoing mail into this big sign on top of our mailboxes:

We were trying to get going, so Brian opted not to go across the street today. But, alas, tragedy ensued! Brian placed the envelope on top of the sign as usual… and it fell right through! Aaah!

So anyway, the point is, I had to go all MacGyver on that thing with a letter opener, and you guys are going to love what I unearthed from behind that sign. Check it out!

We found a telephone bill from when stamps cost 22 cents, something from Brown’s Arlington Honda dated 1986, and my personal favorite:

…this 80s-tastic sales mailing from Glamour magazine circa 1988. Nice!

We also got my credit card payment, by the way, so we’re all set, and we did leave all this old stuff down there so we wouldn’t accidentally be guilty of tampering with the mail. It’s a federal offense, you know.

“Washington is a city of Southern efficiency and Northern charm.” — John F. Kennedy

In other cities, folks vote early to save time at the polls. Brian and I have to vote early this election because of our upcoming trip to Chicago, so we ventured downtown to take care of it this morning. Poor D.C. There was a huge line with tons of people, and we were told the wait was about an hour and a half. Brian had to leave to meet some friends for a prearranged lunch, but I decided to stick it out.

In reality, it took about an hour and 50 minutes, and we (I mean, all the other voters and I) were herded from hallway to room, chair to chair, one line to the next, in a display of cheerful inefficiency that I know can happen in any municipal office… but I like to think there’s nothing quite as special as a D.C. government operation. We were some committed voters, though; no one (well, except Brian) gave up and left. Voting is important! (And Brian returned after lunch, by the way. He thinks for him it only took about an hour and 20 minutes.)

Anyway, after I cast my digital ballot on one of the two (!) electronic voting machines (hello?! Where are my tax dollars going??), I headed down to the Metro, where I had to wait 14 minutes for a train to take me back to the Woodley Park station (where, by the way, the elevator had just broken — again) and my apartment, the former balcony of which is now apparently being used as some kind of masonry center for the construction crew. Awesome!

But seriously, I would have done all that and more if necessary in order to vote, even though I know D.C. will go for Obama, like, 99.9%.