After yesterday’s travel debacles, I made it to “the District” this morning around 10:30, at which time I discovered a city pretty much locked up from Sunday’s snowfall. Relative to Minnesota’s recent storm, this one wasn’t much, but it was obvious that the city’s not equipped to handle it. The streets were slush ponds, the sidewalks were iced over, and people were bundled up for Arctic expeditions.
And but so, my taxi ride to the conference hotel took about ten minutes over the empty streets, allowing me to check in, unpack, and still make it to the afternooon conferene sessions.
Lemons thus made into lemonade, I was pleasantly surprised to find the sky still full of light when the day’s sessions ended at five. Spring is coming! I headed directly to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, of which Julia had asked me to take a picture. The first and second times I had been to the see the White House (last March and in October 2000), the people on the sidewalk across from Lafayette Park were businesslike, solemnly taking the requisite pictures.
This time, I snapped my pictures as part of a shifting group of twelve or twenty other people, all grinning happily and all taking pictures like crazy. My favorites were three French-speaking black hipsters who each took a turn standing at the fence directly in front of the White House portico, counting “Un… deux… TROIS!” and then leaping into the air while the others took pictures. While they were having a great time, everyone else (except maybe the cop who was cursing at his squad car’s steaming engine) was having a good time, too, even four months after the election and six weeks after the inauguration.
very nice long-shot of our national phallus. (can i write that on a family blog?)
you’d think after using wordpress for two + years, I’d remember my own website’s url. oh, well. since i seemingly can’t blame the CO, i’ll blame parenthood.
Thanks for the compliment. Yes, you can use the word “phallus” here. Who said it’s a family blog? Oh, me?