Bill and Patti and los Vagabenderosos, after eating the best Chinese food ever.
I think one of the big lasting values of this trip will be the connections. New ones made, old ones renewed, etc. I felt it. Good free food, reconnecting with kin, feeling those deep-down stirrings of patriotic pride; it was a nice stay in DC.
Here's Bill! May we all look this good at 60.
Bill helped raise me. Since the age of three he assumed a parental role in my life and I'm glad for it. But I hadn't seen him in nigh on four years, since he took off from Oregon back to his family farm in Iowa. I had been too busy, first with my post-college life in the City and then with my political crusading, to ever visit him there and though we stayed in touch via these here internets, the connection had grown thin. But it was just like old times. Well, not just like -- everyone's older; I weigh more, Bill less, etc -- but the connection was still there, still good.
Patty's an artist and old DC denizen and long-time friend, and her an Bill are stuck together like 60-year old teenagers. It's quite sweet -- see their livejournal for definative proof. She recently busted her leg (for which she has a cast and an illegal magnetic pulse machine she had to pretend she was buying for a horse; take that FDA!) so they're pretty low key, but that was allright with us.
Poor Patti broke her leg, and then had to pretend she was a horse to get this magnetic device that aids bone-knitting. Hopefully her luck is turning around.
The first night we went and had dinner with their friends the Smuckers, who are a laugh and a half themselves. The stuffed us with garlicky pasta and pork and beans made with with fresh West Virginia hog, and pushed more Yeunglings on us than we could responsibly quaff in the time we had. They also had a friend, an 80-year-old peace activist and former minister named Van, who was out of town and would let us stay at his house. Perfect!
So we ate too much and laughed just enough and rambled back to our adopted home and made for the passing out. The next day we got up to do some sightseeing, hit the mall, did the museum of Natural History which we found to be informational but exhausting. After that is was vegeetarian tacos at Patti'n'Bill's and a quick jaunt out to a bar that's also a bookstore where the bartender baught us a round but I drew the short straw and drank water instead of whiskey while we browsed the "Introducing" series and made up jokes about Fucault.
And that's how it went. The licence plates say "Taxation Without Representation" because DC doesn't have any congresspeople, and we dig that. It was dinners with kin, nights out expoloring; good times.
Tia's a biking sociologies buddy of Luke's who showed us the town and put us up for a night. Awesome!
Our last night we stayed with a Reedie friend of Lukes, Tia, who took us around to the monuments at night and eventually back to her neighborhood for a slice of local life. Night-time monument-viewing is a good idea; there are fewer crowds and more majesty in the dark, and the neighborhood of Mount Pleasent has a great bar called "the Raven" where we were able to squeeze in a round before closing. It was good; an international/old-man clientele, decent music, a few cute girls, and the the raucous old-lady bartender jokingly busting down on the regulars to drink up and get out. Fantastic scene. Highly recommend it.
And so in the morning we woke in Tia's cooperative, had a little coffee with the housemates and talked hippie communes in Oregon and such, and then we were on the road; hard charging northbound for a five-night stand in NYC.
