Celebration on the Hill

Hi, all. Jen and I just spent the week in our nation's capital. We traveled with Jen's co-worker Karen, the second most rockin' girl at ACS. And the second shortest. These two distinctions were won through hard work and determination. Don't ever let anybody tell you that you can't be the second shortest person where you work. Unless you are Jeremy Turner.
The first thing I notice about leaving the mid/south/west/"heartland" is that nobody serves Dr. Pepper. I don't know if they don't serve it because nobody drinks it, or if nobody drinks it because they don't serve it. . All I know is that Mr. Pibb is a very poor substitute. Mr. Pibb never went to medical school. He's just some dude.
The second thing I notice is that where I live is really... white. I know I'm coming from whitey white Stillwater, but even Denver was pretty white. This is why most of the ethnic food I've ever eaten in the mid/south/west/"heartland" is sub-standard. Diversity is a good thing.
The third thing I notice is that being in airports and airplanes all day sucks ass, unless you have a really good book.
We got into DC around 5:00, and had to fight rush-hour traffic from Dulles into the city and to our hotel, the Marriott in Westpark, next to the Zoo which we didn't realize until we were on our way home. We got checked in, and took a cab to the kick-off event for COH. We got registered, and schmoozed a bit, then went in search of ethnic food. We found an awesome Thai food right by our hotel. We both got Pad Thai, and spring rolls, and ate every bit. They did not serve Dr. Pepper. We then crashed.
Day two:
We started with showers. The funny thing here is that we both took showers the night before after traveling all day. Off to the Ambassador breakfast for our region. For no adequately explored reason, Hawaii is part of our region, prompting a lot of "Aloha Y'all!" all day. The breakfast was yummy for hotel food, and we met a bunch of people who we'd be spending the day with. We then boarded the Metro en masse, pissing off the locals late for work. The Metro let out at Union Station, and we walked down to the Capital, where the giant stage was. After opening ceremonies, there was a parade, and we went to work. What we mainly did was man the booth, and visit others. But in the afternoon, we got to go meet with the politicians from our local districts. The point of the whole thing was to get a massive amount of people from all 50 states and provinces into Washington to show support for cancer research. Each state had ambassadors to meet with every representative and congressman who would meet with them. Jen and I were on the teams to meet with Rep Lucas and Senator Coburn. Lucas was very open and honest, and was all for what we were doing, happily signing the promise to help get funds back from reappropration, and to take a leadership role in getting more funds sent that way. Coburn, on the other hand was not so eager. I have never liked Coburn, so let's just get that out of the way. He violently pro-life, and extremely homophobic. He was the one caught doing a crossword puzzle during John Robert's confirmation hearings. What I do like about him, is that he has made it his mission to cut pork barrel spending in The best-known of these was an amendment to the fiscal 2006 appropriations bill that funds transportation projects. Coburn's amendment would have transferred funding from the infamous Bridge to Nowhere in Alaska to rebuild Louisiana's "Twin Spans" bridge, which was devastated by Katrina. It was because of this that he wouldn't sign. Morally, he won't sign things just for photo ops, that he doesn't intend on working toward. He said that if he signed it, and it didn't get done because of Washington bureaucracy, he'd be held accountable. Which is true. That was the whole point. But the fact that he'd rather not sign and stay safe than sign and try was weird. Especially for a two time cancer survivor. Better luck next time.
We went on to the Wall of Hope, and as the night was getting chilly, we wanted coffee. After about a half an hour looking for any coffeeshop, a local walked us the three blocks to one that was in a hotel near the Holocaust Museum. I found all the locals I met, with one very drunk exception, to be extremely nice, eager to help, and just a great bunch of people. Armed with hot choc and lattes, it was on to the Luminaria celebration: a ceremony where white bags lit from within by a candle, representing a loved one effected by cancer, are lined up along the reflecting pool in front of the capital. It was massive and beautiful, and I have no pics of it. After closing ceremonies as the night was winding down, a bunch of staff members ducked out and went to Murphey's Pub. There was live music(a large Irishman with a guitar who did a great cover of Down Under by Men at Work, au=amung others), and we all sang and danced and drank and ate cheese sticks. Then we climbed the way too steep hill back to the hotel and went to sleep (after showers).
Day Three:
Day three was the really fun day. Day three was the sight-seeing day. Day three was the day we all went rogue, not bowing to anybody else's time tables. Day three was the day of the trolley. The trolley takes you to almost every significant monument or touristy thing in the city. All for a mere 30 dollars. They take you there, telling you interesting historical facts en route, and trying hard to be funny. In this fashion we saw most of the main monuments of DC. My favs were the Jefferson and the Lincoln monuments. They had a lot power behind them. They don't make monuments like that anymore. The sad thing that I noticed is this: After 9/11, they put up temporary concrete barriers around all of the monuments. These prevented anybody from driving a vehicle within a certain distance of any one monument, as they blocked the drive-ways that were used to unload busses and what not in front of each monument. Well, this "war on terror" has become a seemingly permanent thing, as they are slowly creating permanent barriers, or in some cases, removing the streets that were brigaded. I think they thought these things would be up for only a short while, but the sad truth is that they have to make lasting plans. But I digress.
I was moved by the sheer size of Arlington. That place goes on and on, and they just bought a bunch more of the surrounding land for expansion, another sad fact. I also really liked the Korean War Memorial. That wasn't there when I went as a kid. When we were waiting on the for the trolley to take us back into town, as we were all really hungry by this point, we were accosted by a bum. I'm not sure what his main point was, but whatever it was, he backed it up the assertions such as: "My black ass was born in DC" and "You need to get your white ass out of here". I tried to tell him that I was waiting for the trolley to do just that, but he wasn't buying. Through a barrage of insults, pointings, profanity, and gin-spittle it was determined that I was a fag, and he seemed satisfied with that, and staggered on down the road. Of course, the trolley was 30 minutes late, prolonging our temporary friendship. When the trolley did come, all we wanted was food. Not so fast there. First you have to wait while they block traffic for the president's motorcade to go by. Cops and black cars and giant SUVs carrying men in suits with machine guns drove by for about 10 minutes. The two attractive Norweigans on the trolley with us had a hard time wrapping their brains around that one. They asked us if that's how he traveled every where, even to the market. Well, he doesn't go to the market. They seemed astonished by this. Then we had to fight all the backed up traffic to get to a restaraunt. ANY restaraunt. We ended up in Chinatown, and I had some awesome sesame chicken. The bill came in Chinese, which made it hard to figure out who owed what, but hey, it's Chinatown.
After that we got back on the trolley to see the national cathedral, embassy row and Georgetown. Here I parted ways with my companions to go have dinner with my friend Ann whom I had not seen since Blur played the Ogden in '96. After a bus ride, and a Metro ride into Alexandria, she fed me lazagna and Newcastle, proving that she is indeed a wonderful friend. Jen and her crew had some dinner, and went to Hotel Washington to see the view. They got to see The Prez fly over in a helicopter, the second sighting of the day. We all made it back to the hotel in one piece around 2:00 am, and decided it was a good day, but now it should end. The guys at the hotel told the girls that it was a good thing they came back late, because the president of Pakistan was there that night with a truck load of entourage to have dinner with Cheney and Condoleeza. Off to sleep.
Day Four:
The last day. We only had time for a few things before we had to go to the airport. We chose The Holocaust Museum. A good choice. Everybody told us that if we could only see one museum, to o that one. They were right, and I offer the same advise to everybody else. It was very moving. We were there a good three hours, and I still didn't see everything I wanted to. We started walking back into town, stopping for pizza, and to get a closer look at the Whitehouse. The Snipers on the roof also got a closer look at us, which was a little unnerving. They don't like it when you wave at them. We did some shopping, and headed off to the airport. The flight back seemed longer than the way out, but at least I got to sit next to Jen this time. We watched Poseidon on the tiny TV screen, and read, and did a crossword, and napped. The lay-over in Denver was too long, but no long enough to go into town to see friends. So I ate a sammich instead. We got into Tulsa around midnight, and headed off to the Grandparents to collect our son. We missed him so much, it was all we could do to not wake him up when we got in.
So ends our trip to DC. We had a lot of fun, and I can't wait to bring Jackson there when he is old enough to care.