Garden Party, Funny Letters to the President, Catholic Gospel Church, and a Racist Cop

Such a great weekend!

Ed and I, though exhausted, got the house cleaned and laundry done before company came on Saturday. Sat. a.m. we did a grocery run for the garden party, which started at 1. We made fancy chicken salad sandwiches and Texas Caviar, the easiest recipe in the world. Others brought stuff and came dressed for summer. I had a really good time.

It was warm out so we took an afternoon nap, and then I started to feel restless. We randomly decided to go the National Archives, which was closed for a few years and recently reopened--this is where they keep the D of Independence, Constitution, Bill of Rights. After we saw all that jazz, we decided to check out the “museum” part of it (this is new, I am pretty sure). They had the funniest exhibit of letters written to various presidents, many from school children. One to President Ford (I think) was like, Dear President Ford, I think you are half right and half wrong. Signed, XXXX Another kid wanted his room declared a natural disaster by President Reagan and another wanted to be the marine corps mascot. They were so fun. There was a letter from Fidel Castro when he was like 11 asking for a $10 US Bill. The exhibits were actually really great. They had great photos of presidents/first ladies as children. They had a movie of all the different armed forces propaganda. We were there for a little over an hour—it isn’t huge, but the information was really interesting. Best part of course, is that it is free.

Sunday we went to church. It is a Catholic Jesuit church that has a gospel choir (as in full on clapping etc.) and is held in a small chapel of the church in the basement. This was not your traditional church. I felt well dressed in shorts and flip flops. Church started about 10 minutes late as everyone chatted it up. Everyone comes up to the alter for the Eucharist and the peace offering is one big love-fest. It was a very small, but diverse crowd. The homily was about acting kind and altruism. Church went a good hour and half. I couldn’t help but thinking that this is how Church was back in the days of Christ—a small group of people from all walks of life who all knew each other who worshiped in an understated basement and hugged at the peace offering and sang loudly and clapped because they just wanted to praise God. Ooohhh so different from St. John’s Parish in Minot.

After church, we picked up our friend Kevin for a day at the beach. A mere 45mins, $6 later we arrived at Sandy Point on the Chesapeake. The beach was huge. It was a great day of laziness and goofing around in the water. The only downer was me overhearing a beach police officer on the phone talk about the “stupid Hispanics” he was just dealing with it. I didn’t really think, but reacted from my gut and screamed “I heard that” (he is still on the phone) louder…”I heard that” and then he got off the phone and came over to me, I said “I heard what you said and race is not a factor” he informed me that when people use their race (I think he meant language) to avoid the law that it is (whatever that means). I repeated that race is not factor. He apologized to me. I told him ”don’t apologize to me, apologize to them”. He left. Ed and Kevin were gone at the time and when they returned they wanted to get his badge number. I didn’t really didn’t want to—I publicly embarrassed him and called him out on his wrong. He’ll think twice next time—whether or not he really understands what is wrong about what he said….that is another matter

Greetings from Minnesota

Hello from the land of 10,000 lakes

It has been a great little weekend get away. Even though I got the airport over an hour early, I was running to my gate due to a school group that took up almost every person at the United ticket counter. Add this to yet another reason that school groups in DC annoyed the bejesus out of me.

Anyway, got in Thursday night and had a fun day Friday just running errands with Dad and Danny and meeting Jean for lunch. That night, Krys and Trevor hosted a great BBQ and it was great to see everyone. Mad shout outs to bloggers Anna, Mindy, Gretchen, Natalie, Matt, Dave, Shad? and Justin?? (I am guessing those tow have them). ALso present were Meggan and Eric and Krys and Trevor, the hosts. We played "what are your obsessions" an impromptu game that ended up being great fun. A mad shout to all the girls who helped save the white pants from the red wine incident. GOOD NEWS! I soaked them in oxyclean all day yesterday and they are perfect!! Note to self: no more discussions of Wal-mart at dinner parties. As Natalie said, we might as well have moved on to religion, abortion, and sports.

Saturday, I walked Lake Calhoun with my mom and Abby (the dog). THose two didn't fair too well. Abby barfed twice and pooped twice which is 2 more bags than we had, but we managed. Jean had a horrible allergic reaction where she her eyes were watering uncontrollable. The weather and lake were beautiful, incidently. Jean and I then went and did a little shopping after waiting for their kitchen cabinets to be delivered. I supervised this job. :) We went to church and to Danny's restaurant (the one he works at least), Stellas. The food was really fantastic and it was fun to go with him because he knew the menu well. We were pleasantly surprised when we got 50% off the bill. That night, we went to the parent's rooftop and opened father's day gifts. Dad loved the 1911 map of MInneapolis that I got him from Eastern Market. It is so cool! I might loved it more than him.

The weather here has been so nice--70s-80s but not humidity. I fly out today at 4ish. It's always great to be back.

Crash

I highly recommend everyone see the movie, Crash, in theaters now. Warning: it is not a feel gooder. The whole movie is about racism/stereotypesand the interconectednesss/division of mankind. I thought it was extremely well done, and does a great job of confronting our own biases/stereotypes in the context of the real world.

Let me know if you have seen it and what you think.

Angela and Cheri Blair (wife of Tony Blair)  

Ed with Cheri Blair (Wife of British Prime Minister Tony Blair) 

Have you seen sports moms and dads on Bravo? I saw it for the first time last night.

Here is a low down if you missed it:

• Football dad who has underachieved in his own life but is convinced is 10 year old is going to the NFL—no joke Mom wears son’s jersey to game
  
• Cheerleader mom who sends child to 3 hours of hip-hop dance class and has her on two competitive cheer teams. Girl’s goal is to be a national all-American (or whatever the distinction is). Coach gives her a hard time for not landing the final pyramid thingy—basically says she blew it for the team (which took 2nd). Girl is a about 7.
  
• Skater mom. She was the worst. She watches her son’s practices and grimaces every time he falls. She said something about how everytime he falls, she thinks of how much money she is spending on coaches/ice time etc. Son admits that having mom watch makes him anxious, but mom is so anxious at competitions that she NEVER watches. Mother went into a 4-day depression and barely talked to the son when he fell at a regional competition that excluded him from junior nationals (he ends up getting to go as an alternate after all).
  
• Basketball mom/coach. Daughter is talented, but coach is barking at her and others. She is very hard on her. Daugher says she tries to do what her mom says so she doesn't have to listen to her.
• Equestrian mom. She is going through a divorce and most likely will have to sell the horses. She morgaged her house to buy them and said to her daughter that this was her college fund (aka, you need to get a scholarship). She is the most normal, though.

Shakespeare and the Prime Minister's Wife

I have been a bad blogger.

The week recovering from the busy/crazy weekend was hard as you can imagine. I was really tired all week. I am old. It is true.

Saturday we did the race for the cure. We haven’t been running, so we decided to walk. BIG mistake. It took 1 hour and 20 minutes to walk 3.1 miles because you are walking with 60000 people. The event was great. We got some freebies and then headed to DuPont to go to the Phillips Gallery, which was free. We also got pizza at Pizza Paradiso (all the DC people reading my blog are salivating). I am trying to make my weekends feel like I am on vacation, doing fun things that I enjoy—not chores and errand running (though I do a fair share of that). I am trying to avoid the malls, Target, and grocery stores (though we definitely go) and do more cultural things/outdoors/social things. We have been a lot better about that.

We went to Shakespeare in the park which was really fantastic on Sunday night. For some reason in my head, because it was free, I thought it wouldn’t be as high of quality, but it was really really well done. According to the signage, the Shakespeare theater is one of the world’s top three Shakespeare theaters in the world. That’s what the sign said. The only problem was a power outage left us in the dark. It was unclear when it would come back on; the play was almost over so we decided to go.

We had some bad news Sunday afternoon when I learned my friend Judy’s dad had died. He had been fighting cancer and everything went downhill quickly. Luckily, judy and her whole family were there. We are going to try and go to Cleveland this weekend while her family sits Shiva. The funeral is today.

Last night Ed and I went to the Kennedy Center and saw and interview of Cherie Blair, Tony Blair’s wife. She was interviewed by Paula Zahn. The tickets were free through work. Hillary Clinton made a surprise appearance to introduce them. Cherie was quite lovely. She is a barrister (lawyer) and has kept her career while raising 4 kids during Blair’s terms as prime minister. She has been railed by the press for many things, but she was as classy as they come. Paula didn’t do a good job in the interview though in my opinion because neither of them ever seemed at ease. It seemed very formal, very chosen answers. Zahn was rarely able to get some truly human stories out of her. Except! Did you know that there is no lock on the prime minister’s bedroom door? Staff has been known to walk in, in the middle of the night with something urgent. NO PRIVACY. Afterwards, there was a reception on the roof deck of the Kennedy Center with some great desserts. We got our picture taken with Cherie (by a photographer; not my own camera unfortunately).

We also had an interesting conversation with my boss, an Australian, and her friend who is also from Australia about how the American culture in general is not on to question. It came up because the prime minister must every week address the opposing parties members of parliament for questioning on why he has said/done what he has done in the last week. It is broadcast publically (actually Ed sometimes watches it on CNN). They believe that the Prime Minister owes it to the people to defend why he does what he does. It is duty as a servant of the people. Can you imagine if in this country if the President had to answer to serious questioning from the opposing party EVERY WEEK? It would be a different world; our history would have changed completely. If the Democrats question anything now, they are described as whiners and unpatriotic. We should learn from our mother counter QUESTIONING IS GOOD (especially when it comes to politics)!

In other news, I finally got some groceries and cooked at home last night. I feel like a new woman.