I'm back

The natives (OK, just Marianne) are starting to get restless because I haven't been blogging.

I've had one or twelve things going on though.

It's been a busy push to get ready for the first day of school with lots of meetings and commitments at the school, plus we went to Washington, D.C. and Virginia!

It has been at once enjoyable and exciting and exhausting.  I'm really looking forward to a boring fall with a predictable and mundane routine.  Fingers crossed.

Adam and Emma and Mark flew to Washington, D.C. on Wednesday.  They did some sightseeing around The Mall but mostly, they were at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum by Dulles airport.  There were things like the Enola Gay and the Discovery Space Shuttle there and they were big fans.  Ask Mark to show you his pictures.  (Or just wait until he asks if he can.)  Also, Emma said she loves the entire balloonist aesthetic.

When you're the mother of Emma, she tells you which aesthetic she is in favor of or not.  That's just how it is.

Thursday I had a full day of meetings (including but not limited to a meeting for all the Alpine School District employees).  The cheerleaders and drum lines from the high schools greeted us.

I felt like a hero.  Is this how high school sports stars feel?

That evening I flew to Washington, D.C. also.  I prefer flying with my family and not just because I couldn't figure out my headphones.

(Although that was a consideration.)

The swampy humidity of August on the East Coast was in full force.  The cicadas chorused and Adam freaked Emma and Mark out a little at one point by telling them to hurry because as soon as the sun went down the cicadas started falling out of the trees.

We went sightseeing on Friday.  We went to the Capitol:

And Adam said we should go to the Library of Congress.  I'm all about stacks of books but I thought that was all the Library of Congress would be and I wanted to see other stuff more.

We ended up going though and I'm so glad we did.  Also, the part we went to is more like a museum than a library.

The architecture was opulent and everything was beautiful every way you looked.  We saw a Gutenberg Bible, a Suffragette exhibit, Thomas Jefferson's personal library that he donated to the Library, a display of maps including the first map where the word America appeared.

Library of Congress = worth it.

We saw Adam's doppelgänger on the steps of the Supreme Court building.  Adam is an enthusiastic follower of the Supreme Court.  He follows their cases with interest and we saw a husband on the steps--who looked sort of like Adam--with his wife taking pictures him.  We of course made up an entire back story for the guy, who Emma named Jeff.  Adam just shook his good-natured head at us.

We walked from there to the National Gallery and Adam jaywalked on a tiny deserted street.  We were all shocked because he never jaywalks.  We decided he and Jeff (who jaywalks all the time) had switched essences.  At that very moment, Jeff was walking to the corner to walk in the crosswalk and his wife was mystified because it was so unlike Jeff.

Adam just kept walking and pretended not to know us.

When I was a little girl, my parents had an art book I loved.  (I've told my mom that is what I want for my inheritance.)  Years ago when I went in the National Gallery for the first time, I realized that all the paintings in that book were from there.  It was sort of astounding.  Emma and I walked around the museum together (while Adam and Mark moved the car) and I showed her the paintings I'd loved as a child, including the Rococo ones I had wanted to live inside.

We both got a little teary when we walked into a room that had Manets and Monets and Renoirs.  We're nerds but we have each other.

I sent Adam sort of unhelpful pictures like this of where we were:

He instead used his phone to track me but we were on a different floor than he was and the phone didn't know that.

This is just to say we should mostly stick together.

After Adam and Mark joined us, we were looking at a Van Gogh.  I was pointing out the brushstrokes because the brushstrokes on original paintings are my everything.  A terse security guard said, "No pointing!"

I said, "I can't point?"

She said, "Well, not that close."

So I backed up a few feet.  Emma said maybe it hurts the paintings feelings if people point at them.

Mark wanted to see the World War II Memorial and the FDR Memorial before we left town so we obliged.  By then we were all hot + sweaty but how I love Washington, D.C.  It is a beautiful city that makes me feel patriotic.  I also loved hanging out with my people.

We headed to Charlottesville. ( I'll tell you more later.)

But here's something for you:

First day of school for my 11th grader!  I can't think about it too much.  That is all.

He's sporting his uniform of t-shirt and sweats.  He spent his childhood in a t-shirt and track pants.  We had a few good years when he wore actual pants but he has gone back to his native tradition.