Tag Archives: Washington

May 9, 2012 · 0:00

Git Along Little Doggies

One of my very favorite movie scenes of all time is one you may have forgotten.  Have you seen The Italian Job with Mark Wahlberg, Charlize Theron, Donald Sutherland and Edward Norton?  I love this movie, and not just because it is (partly) set in Venice, my favorite place on Earth.  And not even because it also stars my beloved late (sniff) blue Mini-Cooper.

Remember the scene where Hansome Rob (Jason Statham) is stuck in traffic waiting to make a left turn behind an actor (played by Scott Adsit) rehearsing for an audition?

“Give me your badge.  And your weapon.” Over and over until the light is just about to change.  Then Rob honks the horn, the actor realizes he needs to go, and does, leaving Handsome Rob stuck at the light.

I love the scene because it’s such a true-life event.  In fact, this sort of thing used to happen to me all the time.  The result – I sit in

G-R-I-D-L-O-C-K

Damn, I hate that.  It’s funny in a movie.  In real life, when there are things that must be done — important, occasionally life changing things — well, it isn’t quite as funny, is it?  Usually, I just need to get along to work, to home, to the bathroom, to wherever.  So does everybody else.

You know, it seems that now, in real life, the absent-minded driver has been replaced by the intentionally jerky driver who doesn’t stop when he/she know there isn’t a snowball’s chance that he will make it across the intersection.  So he/she gets stuck in the middle along with other, like-minded jerks, and folks like me who try to get along.  Nobody gets anywhere.  No work gets done.  The only thing they raise is blood pressure.

I know these folks.  I’ve seen them outside of their cars.  They are the same jerks who used to throw temper tantrums on the playground if there wasn’t a swing available (whether they really wanted to swing or not).  Who used to bully.  Who have been jerks since before the egg and sperm that formed them ever hooked up.

We here in the Washington, DC area are way too familiar with these guys.  And we don’t want any more.  In fact, we are pretty damn tired of folks who stamp their feet, pound their fists, and spit in the face of one of the cornerstones of civilization:  working together for the common good.

Now someday soon, I’ll tell you all about the truly wonderful work that was done as a direct result of bipartisanship in the United States Congress.  Yes, it’s true.  And it happened in my lifetime and yours.  But that’s for another day.

But believing as I truly do in lawmakers working together,  imagine my disgust when I saw this clip of the jerk, Richard Mourdock, who beat Senator Lugar to be the Republican Party’s candidate for Senate in Indiana.

Boys and girls, listen up.  Nobody gets anywhere when everybody stands and stamps their feet.  And if someone running for office says:

“To me, the highlight of politics, frankly, is to inflict my opinion on someone else”

Well, then, it’s time to work to keep him out of office.  We have enough jerks pushing their way into the middle of the intersection and going nowhere.

Let’s see if we can find folks who might want to work together to solve problems.  Because we have a whole mess of them.  And to fix them, all of us need to get along.

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Filed under Driving, Elections, Humor, Hypocrisy, Stupidity, Voting

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April 28, 2012 · 0:00

The Masterpiece

In 2003, I assured myself and my husband a comfortable retirement when I invested in Art.  And not just any old piece of art.  Nope.  I bought a Rembrandt.

Seriously.

You know Rembrandt, I’m sure.  He painted wonderful stuff:

The Night Watch (thanks Google)

And some seriously cool self portraits:

Google Again

OK, so now I am sure you know that I am discussing serious ART.

Well, I went to an auction in an affluent area here in NoVA the day before my husband, John’s, birthday.  They were selling all kinds of things.  Neat furniture.  Life size sculptures of animals. ( I considered buying myself a horse, and there were some available.  I like looking at horses; they are lovely animals.  But I don’t ride horses, and pooper scooping for a horse, well, that never really appealed to me.  Plus they bite.  I don’t like being bitten by animals I am feeding.)  But at this auction they were selling life-size horse sculptures.  Sculptures don’t poop, so I seriously considered buying one for the yard when the bidding started.  My niece, Jen, who was with me, held my arms down.  Thanks, Jen.  I was going for the pastoral look here at my house, but it was not to be.

The stuff that they were selling was pretty neat, actually.  An amazing assortment of furniture was on offer.  Sadly, none of it was furniture I was in the market for; and I couldn’t afford it anyway.  Nevertheless, I bought my husband John a lovely desk, one that he wouldn’t have picked out in a million years.  It was greeted with an unenthusiastic “oh, thanks.”  It was a bargain.  Unless you think of the fact that he didn’t really need a desk at the time.

But auctions are fun, and exciting.  It is easy to get caught up in the spirit of raising your hand to “win” something wonderful – to take it away from someone else.  Among the items that we could have previewed was a lot of art that I didn’t look at.  We have tons of pictures here in our house.  Way too many.

But the auctioneers were tricky.  They mixed up the art with the furniture.  And that, really, is how I came to own a Rembrandt.  Because they said the magic words:

“The next item (No. 214) is by one of the greatest Masters.  Rembrandt van Rijn!”

I looked around at the assembled crowd.  They were all ooh’ing and ahh’ing at the possibility that they might today purchase A Rembrandt.  Suddenly, I had to have it.  The fact that I had no idea what it looked like was completely and totally irrelevant.  It was a Rembrandt — a masterpiece.  How could it be anything but awe-inspiring?

The auctioneer called for an amount I could never afford, but nobody raised their hand.  The number went down.  And down again.  Still lower.  Way down to about the cost of a nicely framed poster of a Monet.

My hand went up.  For a picture I had never seen.  A Rembrandt!

After I started the bidding, several people joined me.  But by then, well, I had to have it; that Rembrandt was mine, dammit.  And I won.  For a ridiculously low price, I will add.  I think.  No, no, I’m sure it was dirt cheap.  Positive.

I took the picture home and proudly presented it to my husband for his birthday the next day.  Rembrandt is John’s favorite artist, and I knew he’d be thrilled to pieces to own a piece of his work.

John was truly delighted to know that he owned a Rembrandt.   So delighted, in fact, that he decided that we should put it up in the one room in our house where no one ever goes.

You see, the picture is an etching of Rembrandt’s father.  Who was seriously ugly.  And so, as day follows night, is the etching.

One ugly old dude. I mean, our masterpiece.

But the frame is beautiful.

And some day, when our house is robbed, the burglars will follow the signs we have put up all over the house:

“Don’t bother taking the electronics!  Upstairs is a Rembrandt.  Take the picture of the ugly old guy.  Please.”

Please don’t mention this post to our insurance company.

*     *     *

Many thanks to Eleanor of How the Hell Did I End Up Here whose recent post reminded me of my, um, Masterpiece.

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April 17, 2012 · 0:00

Back from Beyond

As you may know, today the Shuttle Discovery took its last flight, from Florida to here in DC, where it will go on display at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum’s Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Va.

But first it did a victory lap around Washington, DC.  From my office perch across the Potomac, I had a window on the flight.  These pictures were taken by my colleague, Julie Pearce.

 

From my office window. Photo credit: Julie Pearce

And this one:

Photo credit: Julie Pearce

And yup, I’m a lucky girl; I get paid to sit here.

 

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August 23, 2011 · 0:00

What’s shakin’?

I used to think that there were some things that just weren’t, well, real.

Writer’s block, for example.  Nope.  It never happened to me, I thought.  PMS?  Well, ask my husband and son about that one.  Fibromyalgia?  Enough said.

But really, the idea of earthquakes in the Washington DC Metropolitan area?  No way!!

But check the news — we had one today.  In fact, it was the second earthquake I’ve experienced, and they’ve both been here!  Well, whatddya know.

My first earthquake happened before my morning alarm went off, well before I’d had my first cuppa.  So I don’t remember too much about it.

But today’s earthquake happened when I was wide awake.  And I can be eloquent about it:  it felt weird.

Yup, today, I felt the earth move under my feet.  I stepped under the doorjam and looked out the window, expecting the worst.  I saw the earth move under Washington!  But, thank God, the sky didn’t follow the song and come-a-tumblin’- down.  In fact, nothing tumbled.  Nothing at all.  Thank you and Yahoo to the building inspectors and the regulators who set standards for building construction in the U.S. – you guys are awesome!!!  Because with a few very minor problems, Washington stands.  Chalk up another one for the regulators who protect us all!

Well, of course all the buildings are empty now, so it really doesn’t matter.  They were evacuated.  You see, regardless of the fact that almost nothing happened, government buildings were emptied.  They sent folks home.  You would have thought there were snow flurries!

That, of course, meant that then everyone who works in Metro DC sat in their cars or on the subway, where they would be oh so safe in the event of a HUGE aftershock. 

You know, they even grounded the airplanes.  Ummmmmm…..  When something is happening on the ground don’t you want machines capable of getting off of the ground to be, well, off the ground.  DUH!!!

There was one casualty, though.  When I got home my dog, Cooper, was clearly traumatized.  You’d have thought that someone had vacuumed.  But no, next to him on the rug was debris.  Our home had clearly been damaged by the earthquake, and Cooper was the worse for it — two sports plaques belonging to my son Jacob had been violently shaken to the floor, where they will remain as a memorial to the Earthquake of 2011.  Or until someone else picks them up.

But when I saw the pandemonium that came along with the earthquake, I decided to help.

So can somebody please hand over the DC Metro Area’s “Panic Button” – I think that whoever has it now is trigger happy.

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