Washington DC Art, From Nature to Hip Hop to Sex

Yesterday, Chris and I caught the orchid exhibit at the Botanic Garden. I wouldn’t exactly call it exciting, but (as you can see) the flowers are gorgeous.

We hit the portrait gallery twice this week. Thursday, we went to see the new hip hop portraiture exhibit called Recognize! The highlight of the exhibit is definitely the paintings by Kehinde Wiley. He paints contemporary hip hop stars in intense colors, but puts them in poses reminiscent of classical portraits. They may hold pool cues instead of royal staffs and often have royal crests painted into the scene. Very cool.

Also yesterday, we went back to the portrait gallery on our way back from the Botanic Garden. It’s one of the only museums open later (until 7:00). We hit the top floor where the portraits of music and sports legends are housed in a very cool part of the historic building. But first we stopped to see the portrait of Stephen Colbert. Incredibly, this is a picture of the line in front of the bathroom where Colbert’s portrait is. I assure you there was no line in front of any of the presidents’ portraits next door.

Thinking about the pictures of all those old, dead, white dudes reminds me. We also voted last week. DC went 75% for Barack Obama, helping to give him another primary day sweep. What a great time to be in DC.

The week before, Chris and I headed over to the Rock and Roll Hotel for the Sex Worker’s Art Show. Former and current sex workers entertained us with tales of their exploits and plenty of nudity. They started us off with a male prostitute reading the letter he wrote to Rick Hilton while staying in one of his hotels. It then moved on to burlesque and a crazy fetish show. Some poor guy from the audience ended up tied and forced to blow Mistress Keva’s strap-on while the crowd chanted “faster” in Vietnamese. It was all topped off with a naked transvestite sticking a sparkler up her/his ass and lighting it. They couldn’t go anywhere from there and neither can I.

Until next week...

The Best Vodka in DC and Two Hours in Hell

Chris and I finally decided to head over to the Russia House this week. We see it every time we leave our apartment, but we were under the impression it would require us to dress up. And, well, we’re generally too lazy for that. My workmate informed me that jeans would be perfectly acceptable in the bar and that they had amazing martinis, so I decided to check it out for myself.

She was right. The Red Velvet Punch (Raspberry Vodka, Mandarin Vodka, Orange Juice, Lemonade, and Grenadine) was like drinking the best fruit punch you ever had. Still, I regretted having ordered it after seeing the size of the vodka shots in our vodka tasting. We let the bartender pick our vodka and, with the exception of the blueberry Stoli, he did a great job. The best pure vodka was definitely the Reyka, incredibly smooth. My overall favorite; however, was the Alchemy “Chocolate.” It was like a Dr. Brown’s Creme Soda, but so much better.

Given the ridiculous amount of vodka we were drinking, we decided it would be best to actually order some food. All these years I thought I grew up eating Jewish food. Turns out I grew up eating Russian food. We had borscht, perogies and rye bread. I don’t even like rye bread, but I ate it in a fit of vodka-tinged nostalgia. Of course, these perogies were made with puff pastry and the borscht contained meat (including pork) - definitely not the Jewish way. We also had some of the best duck I have ever tasted. All of which was in a cozy, dark, elegant, and relaxed bar.

The most amazing thing - Neither one of us was the least bit hung over the next day.

Now for Hell

Those of you who know me know that I am not a group person. However, since I don’t want to lose my Spanish, I decided to sign up for a Spanish Meet-up. This is supposed to be people just going to a restaurant and talking in Spanish for a while. I went to one a while back and it was good. Met some cool people, spoke a little Spanish...

Unfortunately, the person who ran this group is leaving to go to Boston. The man who took over the group is a little too into being a leader. We met at a restaurant near U Street. The man had his wife and kid with him. He made everyone wear name tags. He led us like a substitute teacher on a grade school field trip. He made speeches. He talked about activities. And then...Oh God...It’s like reliving it all over again...He busted out musical instruments and Started Singing!

It was at that point that I slammed my vodka tonic and asked for my portion of the check. I was really trying not to be rude, and there were some sane people there, but it was all too much.

This weeks movie recommendation is:

A Thousand Roads has been playing at the Museum of the American Indian. It was directed by Chris Eyre (Smoke Signals) and shows vignettes of different indigenous people in the Americas (a Mohawk in New York City, An Inuit in Alaska, A Navajo in New Mexico, and an Inca in Peru). It is slightly corny, but interesting. Word of warning, it shows the aftermath of a whale hunt in Alaska. It’s not as gross as you might think. The scenery is gorgeous.

A Glimpse of DC Nightlife

This week, aside from working, I spent quite a few hours drinking around town.

Thursday was a goodbye party for one of my co-workers. The crew headed over to a dive/pub called Fox and Hounds. The vodka tonics came as a glass filled to the brim with vodka and a bottle of tonic on the side. Needless to say, I was feeling it by the time somebody decided to play Pat Benatar on the cyber jukebox. I managed to keep my dignity and avoid air guitar. Wouldn’t have mattered in DC anyway. This is, after all, the city of nerds. Evening conversations covered non-profit administration, graduate degrees in public policy and exciting forays onto ancestry.com.

Saturday night, I headed over to a house party of Barack Obama supporters. He won so early in South Carolina that I got there after the results were in. No matter. The party was in a classic Georgetown townhouse inhabited by several grad students. It was dorm-room chic packed with a, mostly young, but diverse group of red wine swilling political junkies. Guests watched the MSNBC ticker like some people watch a basketball game. All quieted down for Obama’s (incredible, as usual) speech. They also got quite excited about the Caroline Kennedy endorsement.

Later on Saturday night, I met Chris at a tiny bar in Cleveland Park called Aroma. The DJ was spinning everything from A Tribe Called Quest to Billy Joel. I was spinning from several strong cosmos. The crowd was decidedly younger, hipper, and hip hoppier. Yet, being DC, they still had CNN going above the bar and quite a few of the could-have-appeared-in-the-dance-scene-in-Matrix-Reloaded hipsters were watching it as they waited (and waited...) for their drinks.

DC, gotta love it.

This week's movie recommendations:

In December, the modern art museum had a Romanian film festival. I caught two of the movies, both of which were great:

C Block Story is a short film with charming characters (especially the women). It is hard to describe the movie without ruining some of the surprises. I’ll just say that it revolves around an elevator and sex. If that doesn’t make you want to see it, I don’t know what will.

Occident is a feature film that weaves together three different narratives about Romanian families and friends. The movie is thoughtful and sometimes deadpan hilarious. “Occident” refers to the west. Many of the characters are trying to get to Western Europe where they think their opportunities will be better. It also appropriately rhymes with accident. Serendipity plays a major role in the story. It touches on issues of race, gender, wealth, and values in sometimes surprising ways. Definitely worth a look.

2008 Begins in Washington, DC

The year began with Chris working and me being too lazy to go up to his work at midnight to celebrate the new year. Probably a good thing, since there exist some embarrassing Chris pictures from that evening. On a good note. I was off more than a week from work and had plenty of time to get things a little more organized in the new apartment.

The Air and Space Museum

Eliza got into town on New Years Eve. We met the next day at the Air and Space Museum. That contraption in the photo is, I presume, a replica of what they used to land on the moon. I hope it’s a replica, seems hard to believe you could land on the moon with some PVC pipes and golden foil. Would someone explain to me why space exploration is not waste of time and money?

The museum has exhibits on the invention of flight, planes in the world wars, and commercial flights. One of the most interesting parts is the hands on activities room where they demonstrate the principles of how planes get up there. Now that I know, I’m glad I’ll be sailing on my next trip. One of the demonstrations was of gravity. There was a childlike figure dressed in a space suit that you could haul up and then drop down as quickly as possible. It looked like a form of child torture and there were quite a few brats in the room I wanted to experiment on.

DC Spanish Meetup

I have been signed up for a Spanish meetup forever, but kept finding excuses not to go. Last week I finally did and it was actually very tolerable. I was relieved to find out that it was not a thinly disguised pickup group. A couple of people were native Spanish speakers so it isn’t the blind leading the blind. I need to make sure I don’t loose all that Spanish I worked so hard for. Only bad part is it was all the way in Georgetown and, being that the metro doesn’t go out there, was a pain to get to.

Washington DC Free Movies

One of the many fabulous things about Washington DC is all the free stuff to do. There is a constant stream of film festivals and most of the museums have auditoriums that run regular films as well. This weeks movie recommendation is:

Cochochi

Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna (Y tu mamá también) have a production company called Buena Onda. Cochochi is one of their films. It is fictional, but plays like a documentary about two indigenous (Raramuri) boys from the sierra madre mountains in northern Mexico. These two boys have graduated from elementary school and go off to deliver medicine to a far off relative. Much of the film is in the indigenous language. All the actors are people from the area.

The most interesting part of the movie is how it was made. Two backpackers got lost and were found by the boys. As they spent time in the Raramuri community, they came up with the idea for the story. They had to do quite a bit of negotiating in order to get the community to agree to participate in the movie. They also had to figure out how to pay the boys without doing something that would completely distort the economic system. (They ended up giving he boys scholarships and replacing a bridge in the area that had been washed out.)

I won’t claim it is the best movie I have ever seen, but some of the cultural differences are a trip. It is hard to imagine grade school kids disappearing for days and no one panicking in the least.

Basketball Games, Panda Bears, Politics and Snow!!!

As I mentioned last blog, I’ve never lived anywhere with real seasons before. How excited was I when we actually got snow. This is a park near where I work. It snowed all day and I had to run over to the window in my office every five minutes to watch it. When my boss called to find out if anything was going on, all I said was “It’s snowing!”

The snow picture was actually taken on our way to a basketball game. The stadium is walking distance from my work, much nicer than having to drive an hour and a half to get there, like from Santa Cruz. Of course, the one time we bought basketball tickets in Santa Cruz, we forgot to go. Duh. The Wizards were playing the Cavs, but, as luck would have it, LeBron was out. At least the Wizards won.

Chris and I also stole some time to go to the zoo together. The National Zoo isn’t much, to be honest. Most of the animal houses are small and depressing. However, it is still worth a trip to see the giant pandas. How cute is he. As soon as visitors spotted the panda, they would let out an uncontrollable, “awwww!”

It’s not all games and cuddly pandas. We have, in true Washington fashion, been keeping up with politics as well. I went with one of my workmates to see Barack Obama speak at a foreign policy event. He seemed tired when he arrived, but he livened up once the audience questions began. He is so much funnier when not confined to a two second debate response.

That brings you through December. More next week.

Life in the Nation’s Capital

Chris and I have been in DC since July. And we are loving it. The only downside is that Chris is working nights and I am working days, so we aren’t seeing each other much. Although Chris may be happy that he has an excuse to get out of going to all the museums with me. There are so many and most of them are Free! How great is that?!

The picture is the outside of the Museum of the American Indian. The architects built it to look like one of the ancient cities in the Southwest, like Canyon de Chelly. I’ve already been there quite a few times. They always have something going on - from movie showings to marimba bands. They also have what has to be the best museum café in the world. The Mitsitam Café is broken up into different sections, each serving food from a different region of the Americas. I love the South America part, but I also usually hit the plains area for some fry bread.

I’ve never lived anywhere with real seasons before. I’m told that I’ll be over the cold real quick., but so far I’m still getting a kick out of it all. We didn’t have much of a fall, because it stayed unusually warm, but there were a few gorgeous days before all the leaves fell off the trees. I went down to see a Guatemalan photo exhibit at the Organization for American States museum and then wandered around the lake - gorgeous, as you can see.

It’s great being in a place where everything works, but I’m already starting to take it for granted. I hardly remember not having running water half the time or sharing a shabby, back-breaking twin bed with Chris in Guatemala. Truth be told, I think our trip might have made us enjoy the luxuries more than ever. We splurged on a really good bed and, for the first time in a long time, neither of us is waking up with backaches every morning. Ahhh. I also have a blowdryer again and so decided I could get a more high maintenance do. The bangs are covering some new and rather unsightly forehead wrinkles. (Getting old is the pits.)

Next blog - Basketball games, panda bears, politics and Snow!!!

Antigua to Miami to Tulsa to DC

It has been many months since my last post. In the words of Inigo Montoya “Let me explain...no, there is too much...Let me sum up”

Antigua

Chris and I decided to make one last stop before coming home. Antigua is only about an hour outside of Guatemala City and most tourists end up there at some point. It’s one of those cities that, the minute you arrive, you know exactly why so many people keep going there. It is beautiful, surrounded by volcanoes, and filled with nice people who don’t seem to have been corrupted by all the tourism.

Miami

Finally, we flew back to Miami. The first night we just wandered around our old stomping grounds on South Beach. It looks pretty much the same except with way more skyscrapers and chain stores. The highlight of the first night was a huge colada we got from David’s Café.

I spent most of the time combing the classified ads and taking advantage of the free internet at Panera (my mother has dial-up!). I also got lucky and was able to see Jeannette and Melissa. We met Jeannette at Jackson’s Ice cream (of course). Melissa was in town to throw her mom a surprise party. I think I got there just in time to rescue her from a meltdown.

When not job hunting or visiting friends we were reading through the stack of books we bought - including Barack’s newest, Edwards book on poverty, and Richardson’s autobiography. We even stopped by at a (rather poorly attended) John Edwards event on Key Biscayne where a very exhausted Edwards made a quick speech, shook everyone’s hand, and disappeared.

Tulsa

The job search was taking a bit longer than anticipated and my mother’s house is in bfe. We decided to ditch the rental car, and the state of Florida, and head back to Oklahoma to see the cats (and Rick and Stacey of course).

Again, I spent most of the time combing ads and sending resumes, but we did get invited to a family wedding. Every time the priest would say something about the wife obeying or keeping a nice home for her hubby, I would give Chris a nudge and make a face - much to the amusement of Chris’s father.

Washington, DC

We finally settled down again. We are in Washington DC with our new jobs, new apartment, and old cats. Loving DC and already plotting our next trip. More on that next post.