Excellent. Went to the field in front of the Washington Monument last night to listen to the US Army Band play. The 1812 Overture with live cannon fire! (and that live cannon fire smell.) That's some uplifting music for you. I never knew that classical music had this capacity to put crowds on their feet.

Let me tell you about Friday.

Went to the Natural History Museum with Shpachee, because museum-hopping is a hobby of mine. The elephant statue in the entrance hall had been renovated, so that you could no longer pick up a phone plugged into the plinth and listen to the audio documentary about pachyderms.

Had a precursory look at the modern Mongolia exhibit, mostly because we had to walk through it to get to the Dinotopia exhibit, though there were interesting reconstructions of yurts. The Dinotopia exhibit seemed more like a total plug for the miniseries instead of an actual point of academic interest worth being in a museum. Even so, the parts of the exhibit unrelated to the semi-crappy miniseries were great; James Gurney really deserves his reputation as an artist. The architectural miniatures were really shoddy, but the paintings.. it was great to recognize them from the books, except the originals were so much richer, and at their original size, you could pick out an amazing amount of detail. Of course, the best ones in the exhibit were the best ones in the books.. Waterfall City, Canyon City, World Beneath. And Chandakar, which isn't in the books. I think it's sort of strange and a bit disturbing that I get a more spiritual experience from reading fantasy books and walking through Rock Creek Park than from going to church. Though if atheists are to be believed, it's only a matter of picking the best work of fiction.

Uh, some Southeast Asian history stuff and the African cultures section. And the pre-Ice Age mammals exhibit, which I thought Alex would have liked. It was quite a novel experience, because as a little kid on field trips I'd only look at the dinosaurs. Giant sloths! Giant elk! Mammoths! Giant armadillos! Pigdogs! Thin rhinos! Tiny horses! I saw the dinosaur exhibit too, which I've seen once or twice before, but it was still awe-inspiring when you're actually aware of the size of these things.

We would have watched Cirque de Soleil (with Shpachee mocking my bad French) on the IMAX, but it aired at 5:45, so we just left and went to Dupont Circle by Metro. We were trying to walk to Georgetown but we got lost, but it was still pleasant getting lost in a non-touristy part of DC. It was actually quite quaint, with brick houses and windows with shutters and gardens, and we went into an actual general store, the type that sells everything. Shpachee said it was like being in a book because it was so quiet. But we did get to Georgetown eventually after getting a bunch of retarded directions.

Chili fries at Johnny Rocket's, a retro diner with a soda fountain and jukeboxes and oldschool "Coca-Cola" posters plastered over the tile walls. Chili fries get really squishy and gross halfway through, and they are possibly the unhealthiest food product in existence, but they were still good. Shpachee wondered how they could be considered a side.. who'd be hungry enough to eat anything else? I ordered some Mr Pibb (with no dot after Mister) because it's a running gag on 8-Bit Theater, then realized that a webcomic was affecting my consumer decisions. Freaky.

Went shopping (or Looking, since we're too poor for Georgetown) at Commander Salamander and Urban Outfitters and United Colors of Bennetton and American Eagle and other places that sell useless but expensive articles of clothing, such as....

-Sweaters knit from really thin material. Too thin to actually protect from the cold, too thick to wear by itself, liable to fall apart 30 seconds after you buy it.
-Shirts you wear over your actual shirt. So.. not really a jacket.. but not really a shirt..
-Halfling shorts. Known as such because maybe they'd be decent on a hobbit. If you combine two of these shorts to create a pair of SuperShorts, you'd maybe have a pair of shorts for human girls that'd come down to the middle of your thighs.
-Teenytiny TankTop. I thought it was a purse, until I picked it up and realized the bottom was open. You could stitch it closed, and it would be a purse.
-Pants That Are Too Tight On Me. Pretty self-explanatory.

Tried to walk back to Dupont station, got lost again, collapsed in a Starbucks near the station after we found it, drank some super expensive tea, went home, got picked up by my mom at Twinbrook, went home and ate corn on a cob and generally hung out.

And that was my day.

Quotes of the day:

"Let's have phone sex with the elephant!" -Me about the old elephant statue in the Smithsonian with those phones. Maybe this is why they renovated it.

"Is this the way to Reagan National Airport? I need to get off at Gallery Place. Is this the way to Gallery Place?" -Old out-of-towner on the Metro with luggage, despite repeated instructions to just get on the damn train when it comes, and get off when the station says "Gallery Place." It's not that hard.

More.. about.. Saturday. I to the Keniworth Aquatic Park in DC, which was possibly the most ghetto park I've ever been to. It wasn't like, even a real park. There were some pools, and mosquitos, and dying water lilies and lotuses. Most parks have a trail or something.. this was just like.. some sort of lakey areas you find next to a highway. I dunno, maybe I expect parks to be more wooded or have gazebos sitting around.

I think it's rather sad how one part of DC can be really ghetto, and you cross a bridge, and (Capital Hill music starts playing here) you've got like Union Station and the Capital and CNN and Fox headquarters and the Tidal Basin. And the American Gas Association or something. But my dad said that the area was starting to improve economically anyways, because of its proximity, and I guess you could see it, from the new shopping centers and stuff. It wasn't that ghetto, just more ghetto than what I'm used to. Which, being in like the top 5 most prosperous counties in the US, no doubt gives me a damn skewed perspective of what's rich and poor. (I don't feel that it's skewed because it's my perspective, but given my environment, it probably is.) I worry about this.

But Jesus Christ!!! It has kiosks for public libraries!!!

So I was with my parents on the Tidal Basin for a bit, but of course the cherry blossoms were gone. I was like, "Hey, what's that pretty building in the distance over there?" and my mom was like, "Arlington National Cemetary." And I was like, "Oh." And she was like, "Want to go look?" and I'm like, "No," because I wasn't in a funerally mood. I felt sorta stupid though, cuz I was essentially pointing to a cemetary and going, "Oooh, purrrty!"

My mom knows a lot of cities real well.. she can find her way around Hong Kong and New York and DC because she's lived in all of them. I think it's bloody amazing. And then we went to the Jefferson Memorial, because when we were there last year, the steps facing the Tidal Basin were closed for renovation. I really don't see why they have to make a statue of him so big. I mean, in real life he was probably just a normal sized guy. I don't know.. this.. giant statue thing.. seems too Ozymandian for a man who encouraged democracy and shnitz. Sure, he did a lot of great things, but there's no need to have generations of people after him peering up his giant bronze nose. It sort of.. defeats the purpose.

BTW, you can see the White House across the Basin from the memorial. I had a camcorder, so I zoomed in a lot, feeling a bit like a voyeur.. I think it's funny that in Hong Kong the people there were amazed that the White House was actually in DC and you could go in it and drive up to it.

You Know You're From the DC Metro Area When..."

You say you're from DC, but you actually live in VA or MD but are too embarrassed to say it.
Coke is always called coke. It's not soda or pop, or even soda pop. As in "Hey do you want a coke?" "Yes, what do you have?" "Sprite, root beer, Coke..."
You always got pissed when Fauquier County got out for snow, and you didn't.
"I got stuck behind a motorcade" is a common excuse for being late .
You have a few friends who don't know what their parents do...It's Top Secret government work.
We don't have southern accents, IT'S NOT THE SOUTH!!!!!
You consider Costco to be fun (and now you know that there's alot to choose from)
We get out of school for government closings
You never actually call "the Metro" a subway.
* you have eaten at Cali T, Cal Tor, or C T, but have no idea what California Tortilla is.

(Though I disagree... MONUMENTS ROCK!!!! HA! [to a certain extent].)
You know what's funner than Costco? Taking tours of DC and then acting superior because you know everything.