It's raining again...

It has been raining for two solid days now and is supposed to continue all weekend- well yesterday it was more misting than full on raining, but today, downpour. So I've felt restless while also not wanting to do anything in particular at the same time. This shot is the Lincoln Memorial as seen last night from our rooftop terrace (yeah, I work somewhere there's a rooftop terrace, no biggie). The monuments, including the KC which of course is the living memorial to John F. Kennedy (Uncle Kennedy as we like to refer to him), are beautiful at night. Stunning, even in the rain.

The week has been pretty normal overall. My new normal I guess (though no galas! next one isn't until the 26th) I went to the Washington Ballet's performance of Don Quixote last night. It was pretty awful. As my dance fellow friend put it, they are in the top 30 ballet companies in the US. Who knew there were 30 ballet companies in the US? It seemed like a ballet choreographed as if it were an opera. Random solos intended to illicit "spontaneous" response mid dance, while the corps did very little. And they used recorded music - poorly recorded music - which is pretty unacceptable in my books. However, I'm enjoying seeing things in the different theatres so I still get a little thrill out of that. Though I realize I miss being in a theatre - really in one - where all the crew and the house managers know who you are and you are there to do something. Anyway, I suppose 9 months as a spectator won't kill me.

We have reached the weekend. Tomorrow I'm going in for a few hours to hear a lecture on George Ballanchine. I'm sure I must have learned about him during my dance history classes at York, but I have no memory of it. Since the KC's resident ballet company only performs the choreography of Ballanchine, I thought perhaps I should learn a little about the guy. Sunday I'm planning to go out to Eastern Market for brunch and to have a look around the farmers market itself. It's supposed to be huge and fantastic - indoors similar to St. Lawrence in Toronto - and very newly renovated. I believe it only reopened this summer. I'm excited to see a whole new area of the city - I haven't been out there since our first fellows drinks night, which feels like a long time ago now.

Washington Taxi tidbit #33

Cabs here are pretty awful. They are hard to get and fairly expensive if you find one willing to drive you were you need to go- not so much the fare itself but all the "extras" they charge you for - some legit, like airport pick-ups and some not, like groceries that you carry yourself. I have had to read out the extra fares rules to a cabbie trying to charge me for something that he's not supposed to. Essentially half of them are crooks - and actually there is a significant criminal case on right now where something like 17 are charged with things like fake licenses etc. If public transit was more frequent this wouldn't be an issue. (ahem DC - public transit and perhaps some street lighting and half your troubles would be solved!)

Anyway, I took a cab home from Adams Morgan earlier this week and he got lost. It's hard enough to get someone to take me to Virginia ....he was actually very nice and stopped the meter so the ride was way cheaper than it normally was and we weren't very lost (I knew more or less where we were). However, I was in the cab quite awhile because of this and we were chatting. He was relieved to learn I wasn't married because this way I could find an American to marry so I could get a Greencard. Apparently it's easy. I'm assuming this is what he did, though he didn't come out and say so. Not sure exactly what to do with that advise...

How you can tell we aren't American....

Our embassy in DC. Look at the tiny flags!!!

Reminds me of a wedding cake

Which is ironic really, isn't it? (and that's not my arm, I was just trying to be artsy...)

Ms Packwood marches on Washington

Damion and I at the start of our trek.

The Street Where You Live

Well not me, but my FFF. Welcome to Adams Morgan. Cute isn't it?

On my way to her apartment for the first time on Saturday, I bumped into Joel, the coordinator of the fellowship program (he's new). I thought this was really funny since I know maybe 25 people in this city. Parts of it are very small town like and that is quite comforting.

Adams Morgan is a bit like Yorkville if Yorkville was adjacent to Regents Park. DC is that kind of place, neighbourhoods change by the block. So it makes for an interesting mix of characters.

But it has a Whole Foods and you will be relieved to know that it is just as over-priced, and yet fabulous, as it is in Toronto. I was carded!! This is not unusual really because every bar and restaurant pretty much cards everyone. So it isn't because I look so youthful(though I'm sure I don't look a day over 32). However, I had not expected to be carded at the high end grocery store for buying a bottle of wine.

I mention Whole Foods mainly because it is here I bought the ingredients for the most expensive butter tarts ever made. As it was Canadian Thanksgiving, I thought I should make something that was Canadian and the only thing I could think of was butter tarts because they don't have them here (pecan pie is close but not the same thing). I don't even especially like butter tarts. Anyway, sadly the most expensive butter tarts ever made, did not set properly so I ended up not taking them to the office as planned. They were quite tasty though, even in their overly runny state.

The weekend was blissfully lazy overall. Saturday I did not leave the apartment once I'd gotten there (it was rainy so I had a perfect excuse) and watched a Bones marathon on one of the 200 channels she has. Sunday was the march, mentioned above, and Monday, I explored the neighbourhood a bit. I found this bookstore/coffeeshop/speakeasy called Busboys and Poets. It was really barely a bookstore which was a bit disappointing, so little browsing opportunity. It was also packed so there wasn't even a corner for me to prop myself if I'd wanted to have a cup of tea. And I'd not brought my fancy laptop to work on so I wouldn't have fit in (it was that kind of place - which is weird considering I'm pretty sure there was a drug deal happening on the corner across the street).

That night, I went with a few of the fellows to my first local DC theatre experience. It was a staged reading of the sequel to the Laramie Project. The original was written 10 years ago around the murder of Matthew Shepherd in Laramie Wyoming. This sequel was being simultaneously performed in 150 places around the world including all 50 states, DC and Toronto. It was interesting to see, though I thought the actors were for the most part pretty awful and the writing weaker than the original. I was however glad to have been there and to have attended something with the DC theatre community. The KC is somewhat removed from the norm - similar to how it was when I was with the Mirv - so it was good to be there.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

This post will be short as I'm staying at my FFFs fabuous pad and using her French keyboard which is NOT QUERTY so lots of letters in places I'm not used to them being -so it's slow going. (the spell checker also thinks I'm spelling absolutely everything wrong)
Am so enjoying the freedom of some personal space, I feel like myself again. And this neighbourhood is very similar to Queen St in Toronto so lots of little cafes and shops - very lively.

Today I joined the Equality March and walked from here (18th and California) to the Capitol and back - the march was 2.3 miles and I think it's another mile to where it started so I feel very virtuous for lots of reasons.
Day off tomorrow for Columbus Day. I am going to my first non-KC play so that's going to be exciting I think...
More when I have my keyboard back....

Everything starts early here. It's now about 9:45pm as I write this and tonight I went to dinner, walked to an auditorium on the GW University campus and heard a reading by Michael Chabon (author of the Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay among others) with an overly long Q & A period, and am home after my half hour+ commute. It's a very sleepy sort of place. I think part of it is that the Metro closes at midnight (at the latest, I think it's earlier some nights) so that handicaps the city somewhat. But in general, it just isn't a late night sort of town. The majority of the programming at the KC starts at 7 or 7:30 too. I guess that's just what works. It is also much more rare for someone here to work after 5pm (government hours) - I of course do, but that's a whole other issue.

The reading was interesting, though not the best I've been to. It was good to go do something a little different and I'm always up for seeing different venues.

This weekend is Columbus Day weekend here so we have Monday off. And Saturday and Sunday too as a bonus. Tomorrow I'm heading into DC and spending two nights at my FFF's fabulous Adams Morgan apartment while she is in NYC. Tomorrow when I get there, I may just never leave. I may just lay on the couch and watch crappy television for eight hours straight. We'll see.

Sunday I'm going to the "Equality March" - they are woefully behind on gay rights in this country and plus I thought it would be good for me to wash the memory of the anti-health care rally from me once and for all. It's down on the Mall so it will be neat to see it full of people. And I can walk there from my fancy bachelorette pad :-)

And the KC has posted our "class" pictures. So if you'd like to amuse yourself you are welcome to look:

http://www.kennedy-center.org/education/artsmanagement/fellows/fellows_10.html

I would just like to say that they edited our bios and did a terrible job. AND the headshots were taken after the group shot for which we spent about 2 hours outside in the wind (this is a very windy city - especially on the terrace of the KC), so no one is especially happy with how their hair looks. However...

Metro tidbit #143

They close the Arlington Cemetery stop when the cemetery is not open. I do not know this as a verified fact, however, from my observation this seems to be the case. I mean it makes sense but it just hadn't occurred to me - the cemetery is so big it's not going to be your closest metro stop regardless and I guess this also ensures that people leave the place when they are told to!

I haven't made it there yet but will at some point. My friend the bagpiper sometimes plays there so I may wait until he's playing for something to go...