This Halloween was, like so many others, absolutely wonderful. Friday morning I boarded a bus to Washington DC and arrived in time to look around a DC library and wander about the Natural History Museum. I love well-written display cards. I was a little disappointed by a few of the patrons of the museums, but over all it was nice to see people in the museum. Example of disappointment:
Granddaughter (age aprx. 9-11): I don't think we evolved from apes...
Grandmother: No, we probably didn't.
Granddaughter: I definitely don't look like that!
Grandmother: I would sure hope not!
Did we not read the exhibit? We share what percent of DNA with them? Did you see those hip bones in the previous room? I'm not saying we all have to agree with the theory, but at least encourage the kid to see how our structures are very similar. Whether you believe in evolution or not, you can't deny that our bone, muscle, and DNA structures are very, very close. I think we often make misreading or mistyping mistakes that make us appear much less intelligent that we are. Grammatical errors and gaps in education are one thing... staring at an exhibit and saying it's wrong because you don't want to think you look like an ape? I don't know what to do with that.
At 5:30 they kicked us all out and I walked about the National Mall and stopped by where the Colbert/Stewart stage was being set up. I shared some decent conversation and decided that traveling a crazy distance to do.... anything isn't that special. Most people do it at some point or another. 12 hour bus rides... 14 hour car rides... weird people in big cities... crazy people in small towns... we all encounter them. I used to say I'd do pretty much anything for the story, but I'm thinking about retracting that. Someone else already did it and told the story better. I suppose what I want to say is I'll do most anything for the adventure.
Eventually I wandered down to "My Brother's Place" where I met a few more crazies and then met up with my good friend from college, Joe for one of the best (beer) happy hours in DC.
We caught up, wandered around the National Mall, returned to the stage being set up, waved to the camera,
and journeyed on the Red Line to his [now former] place of residence where I met one of the interesting people he lives with... one of their cats and the dog! I don't necessarily want a dog of my own at this stage of my life [too much commitment], but other people have some pretty fabulous ones. Joe walked with me through the cold back to the Metro where I took that fabulous red line to the other side of the city to stay with my friend from high school, Lizzy!
Inevitably we stayed up talking so despite a bit of sleeping in, the next morning showed up early. After a bit of cereal and tea, we journeyed off to "The Rally" with about 215,000 of our closest friends [according to an aerial analysis by AirPhotosLive.com for CBS News]... or maybe a few less friends and a lot more people just like us who are surface-ly informed and mostly just trying have a fun Saturday when we don't have to work.
The Rally was a bit different than I imagined it might be. I definitely thought there'd be more comedic political talk, but it was more 1 part Roots, 1 part musical guest, 1 part commentary of the current people in the news, and 1 part Stewart/Colbert banter. I would've like a bit more political banter, but I did managed to see [or hear] Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Sheryl Crow, Kid Rock, the Mythbusters, The ROots, Don Novello, R2D2, Cat Stevens/Yusuf, OZZY [my 8th grade bf with OZZY tattooed on knuckles would've been jealous], the O'Jays [in their white suits.... mmmmmm], Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, John Oliver [I busted out my Peter Pan costume at the same time, Yusuf [Cat Stevens... I didn't cry during Peace Train, no, no, why would I have teared up?], and... a few others live so I'm not going complain. And, I will note that while I didn't have a sign, I did wear my "No Keg Left Behind" Mayday 2010 t-shirt.
Afterward Lizzy and I met up with Joe and oddly enough I stayed the calmest in the crowds [and without prescriptions...]. We had some supper and beverage and all was well. It was a bit chilly by this point so we had some hot chocolate, journeyed about some lower-priced clothing store and then headed off to watch the Oregon Duck's place. They won. It was a fabulous game. I also won... tied for third place in a costume contest [out of more than 4 people] and went home with $25... which covered my drinks and part of lunch. Yay! The grown-ups were tired so we went home after the game. It was probably for the best as I had a four and a half hour bus trip the next day followed by NYC Halloween.
Sans the unemployment part, my life is pretty amazing.
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