Guitar Heroines Meet Einstein

They went to museums yesterday and hiked to the Jefferson Memorial then came home to play Guitar Hero and practice multiplication (seriously), so we thought they would want to put off seeing the Lincoln Memorial until today. We thought wrong. They ate jambalaya with chopsticks and then we were off for another moonlight tour of the monuments. Uncle Mike pointed out the Supreme Court and Library of Congress and then he took them across the Potomac River into Virginia, a dizzying experience since he had to go around the traffic circle twice before he could get back across the river.

The statue of Einstein was a big hit as were the Japanese handwarmers once we figured out how to get them to heat up. The Reflecting Pool is absolutely magical at night; from the Lincoln Memorial we could see perfect images of both the Washington Monument and the Capitol.

Today they want to go shopping. I think I'll make them eat mashed potatoes with chopsticks first.

Thompson Girls Ride the Metro

The monuments at night are quite spectacular but on Thanksgiving 2008 they paled in comparison with the Thompson girls. Simply riding the escalator down to the subway was thrilling; Mara made her sisters turn around so she could record the moment for posterity. It's fun to view Washington through a child's eyes.

Today they are going to explore some museums with their mom, Uncle Pete, and Colleen. Tonight Uncle Mike and I get them all to ourselves because Katie is going to take her cousins out on the town. I'm hoping they'll get a chance to sit on Einstein's lap and praying they won't try to sit on Lincoln's. I mean the girls, not the cousins.

Why didn't anyone tell me that Lizzie is a rhyming whiz just like her great-grandmother?

Happy Thanksgiving

I am thankful for family, friends, freecycling (those people will take ANYTHING), mass transit, World War II veterans who sit next to teenage boys on trains, inspirational teachers, creative writers, mail carriers, whoever invented the Internet, book clubs even though I haven't been to one in five months, pastry chefs, and people who create puzzles. I'm happy to be alive at the same time as you.

P.S. Amazon contacted me yesterday. The price of a Rowenta Focus iron has just dropped by almost $15. Apparently sales have skyrocketed in the past week. Is it I, Lord?

Freight Elevators are Uplifting

Don't tell Matt, but he's getting a t-shirt imprinted "Freight Elevators are Uplifting" for Christmas. If he wore an XL or XXL size t-shirt, I might be able to squeeze in a more fitting slogan -- like "I Was Trapped in an Elevator with my Mother and All I Got was This Lousy T-Shirt" -- but if he wore an XL or XXL size we probably would never have been stuck in that elevator in the first place.

We went to the storage locker yesterday to retrieve two mattresses and box springs which, of course, the moving guys had tucked behind 50 boxes of books, 75 pounds of slides (!) belonging to Mike and his dad, several chairs, and a really nifty four-foot tall wire contraption coated with red plastic which I vaguely recall ordering from a garden catalog back when I planned to become a tomato farmer but then we moved, and moved again, and yet again, and now we're here where there's not enough dirt to accommodate a tomato plant. Katie thought the tomato frame was worth a guffaw but was even more thrilled to spot the boogie board collection. Those boards are sure to come in handy when we move to our oceanfront retirement villa in Maui or Malibu.

Mike went off to rent a van once we wrestled the mattresses out of the locker. Katie stood guard over the tomato frame, boogie boards, slides (!), and books while Matt and I went in search of the nifty mattress-moving cart UHaul lets us lessees borrow (you probably won't believe this, but we don't own our own mattress-moving cart although Mike will probably put it on his Amazon Wish List before Christmas rolls around). The cart was on the loading dock, right where it was supposed to be, so we had to use the freight elevator to get it to our lockers which are on the second floor.

By now Matt and I are both well-versed on freight elevator protocol: pull the strap to close the outer door, pull down the mesh door, and push the button for the floor you want. Except the outer door on the first floor elevator is heavy. Incredibly heavy. Heavier than the outer door on the second floor by a long shot. With both of us swinging from that canvas strap like a couple of chimpanzees at the National Zoo, we could not budge that door one centimeter. This went on for quite some time but all our carefully choreographed joint leaps were to no avail.

Hark! Do I hear voices? Three ladies strolling toward the exit spotted our predicament. The young one, the pleasingly plump, helpfully hefty, graciously gigantic lady, offered to assist. She grabbed that strap and the door promptly smashed down hard and fast -- on her finger! I felt so bad. When last I glimpsed her through a small crack in the door, she was waving her hand in the air and hopping from one foot to the other. Thank you so much! Sorrreeee! I sure wish I had thought to get her name and address because I think she might forgive me if I took her a batch of Christmas fudge . . .

A Ham is Born

Maybe I need to spend a little less time reading the Style section of The Washington Post and a little more time scanning the front page. So when exactly did they clear up that Global Warming problem? Jack Frost was nipping at my nose yesterday morning when I sprinted the mere 30 yards from Union Station to “my” museum. Although Yokosuka and the District are in the same latitude, I don’t remember feeling this cold in Japan. It probably has something to do with ‘ocean effect’ but someone else is going to have to research it because I have a bake sale deadline looming and I’m trying to get my butter to soften faster by glaring at it.

Not too many schools schedule field trips around the holidays so yesterday’s tour will probably be my last until 2009. Drat, drat, and another drat because I was just starting to feel comfortable enough to “embellish” the script and now I’ll probably have to learn it all over again in January. And today I came up with a rather winning docent persona, if I do say so myself. There’s no way I could do this as me so I decided to be – drum roll, please – perky and outgoing Shirley MacLaine. On the spur of the moment, I introduced myself as “Mrs. K” and immediately started feeling like a rising new hip-hop star. Then, about five minutes after the tour started and completely unexpectedly, a museum staff member handed me a battery pack and rock concert head microphone in order that a dear little mute, hearing-impaired, wheelchair-bound boy could listen to me through special headphones.

That’s when I morphed into a strange fusion of Shirley MacLaine and Mick Jagger.

We “stamp, stamp, stamped” across the Ben Franklin foyer when it was time to talk about stamp collecting. I improvised a modified Moonwalk to illustrate how paths became trails became roads as more and more settlers moved west. The only thing missing was a catchy ditty we could sing as we moved from one activity to the next, so please send your suggestions before I’m compelled to pretend I’m Weird Al Yankovich and start butchering every song Freddie Mercury ever wrote.

I haven't had this much fun since the last karaoke night in Japan.

Lack of Focus No Longer an Excuse

Just before we left Japan a six-inch bamboo skewer impaled itself in my vacuum hose. Plan A called for duct tape and Plan B had me replacing the vacuum but neither plan was executed because the hose miraculously repaired itself during its long journey to D.C. Scientific types would probably chalk this up to temperatures in the cargo hold rising just enough to cause the soft plastic to expand and reunite. Since I'm not a scientific type, I'm crediting my charmed existence and the fact that I own the the vacuum recommended by Real Simple magazine, a Eureka Boss.

Forget those pricey Dysons and Mieles when you can get a Eureka Boss for under $160. When it comes to suction, the Boss outperforms every other vacuum I've ever owned and/or used.

(Disclaimer: Since I was not allowed to touch the Electrolux canister model my mother bought when I was in high school, I can't compare that brand to the Eureka. The Electrolux was such an uncharacteristic splurge for Mom that she claimed sole operator rights. I do believe I succeeded in keeping the grin off my face when she issued that decree, one of the two Marcia Mandates I was not the least bit tempted to break. "What do you mean I'm not allowed to vacuum anymore? Gee whiz, Mom, you're so mean!")

Take some of that money you saved buying a Eureka and invest it in a good iron. A Rowenta Focus, for example. I used my new Focus this morning for the first time and was absolutely amazed with the results. Ooh-la-la, the steam! One quick pass over Matt's white oxford school shirt and -- poof! -- every wrinkle disappeared. Some consumers are enamored with this iron's steam output and professional-looking results but complain that the Focus is thirstier than other irons. Well, duh. Steam = water + heat. I don't mind refilling that large water reservoir after ironing four shirts since the overall time I'm spending at the ironing board has been cut in half. And if I dance or skip between the ironing board and the sink, the entire endeavor can go in the exercise column. That's called multitasking.

The Focus has a proboscis like Nefertiti, great for nosing into little corners and crevices (although it beats me why you would take the time to iron around buttons unless you're planning to wear your shirt unbuttoned). You can pay more for a Rowenta (the Focus is a mid-range model retailing for about $70) but why bother unless you're planning to start your own ironing business?

Entries like this are what happens when someone rediscovers housework after taking a few years off. Writing about it is sure a lot more fun than doing it.

My Favorite Non-Canine

Can I truly have a dog phobia when I'm not the least bit afraid of Mel? Certainly. Most people who know Mel snicker when they hear him referred to as a dog. He is that precocious, inquisitive, well-behaved only child who sat behind you in third grade and was happy to share his Twinkies with you. When I spend the night at Mel's house, I'm not afraid he'll attack me if I need to use the bathroom in the middle of the night. That's high praise and always a huge relief (in every sense of the word).

We experienced our first snow flurries this afternoon just after I wrapped up another gig at the National Postal Museum and while Matt was running laps around the Bishop O'Connell track. Mike completely missed the excitement because his nose was glued to the grindstone as usual.

I'm cracking open a book Katie gave me a while back, Julie and Julia, about a girl who spends a year making all the recipes in a Julia Child cookbook. If I pace myself correctly, this ought to put me in the proper mood to create a memorable Thanksgiving dinner this year. Pete and Colleen are coming from Baltimore and we're also expecting my niece Ann (Pete's sister) with her four girls. Exciting times!

Sunday at the Newseum

This is what Jerry and Cathy look like when they're having fun. We were standing on the Newseum's sixth floor Pennsylvania Avenue Terrace when I snapped this picture, thinking it would make a great Christmas card. No, no, no on the ho, ho, ho. In their defense, the wind-chill factor on that terrace felt like -15 degrees.

The Newseum opened this past April to rave reviews and lives up to all the hype. Matt liked it as much as I, meaning we worked our way down from Level 6 at a snail's pace and I'm going to have to go back to get my fill of the exhibits on the lower levels, like "G-Men and Journalists: Top News Stories of the FBI's First Century" and the Pulitzer Prize Photographs Gallery. The Berlin Wall Gallery and 9/11 Gallery moved me to tears but Matt and I dawdled the longest in the News History Gallery where we laughed at video clips spoofing the news (from the first season of Saturday Night Live through recent episodes of The Colbert Report).

The Newseum is not affiliated with the Smithsonian so there is an admission charge. Next time I'm going to shell out an extra $5 so I can try reading the news in front of a live camera.

Monarch Visits Maryland

The Secretary of Defense and Secretary of State supervised the coin toss before the opening kick-off of the Navy-Notre Dame game at M & T Stadium in Baltimore. You can't pick them out in this picture -- Mr. Gates is distinguished by a mop of white hair and Ms. Rice is in a red suit -- but I captured the coin toss anyway so Mike would know what he missed. Because he and about 50,000 other fan/motorists were still looking for parking spots while the Midshipmen were singing the National Anthem.

Why were all those fans running late? One reason is they were forced to form a single lane about five miles west of Baltimore to let a black sedan and three shiny black SUVs speed past in the far left lane. I hate to jump to conclusions so maybe Ms. Rice and/or Mr. Gates were not passengers in that black sedan and maybe the guy sticking his head out one of the SUV windows (the guy with a shaved head and wire snaking out of his ear) was merely impersonating a Secret Service agent.

Public servants in a democracy would surely not presume to inconvenience their fellow citizens, their titular masters in fact, in this manner. Public servants would never, ever ignore a speed limit unless they were rushing to the hospital in a medical emergency. Public servants would welcome the opportunity to stand in long lines like the rest of us to be frisked by other public servants for the pleasure of watching a college football game.

Still, I can't help wondering who was riding in that black sedan. Was the Queen of England running late for the noon dolphin show at the National Aquarium perhaps?

Soaring on Docent Wings

We've had a Smithsonian kind of week here. Mike ran (literally) home from work Wednesday at the unprecedented hour of 5pm to escort me to a volunteer appreciation party at the National Postal Museum. The theme was "Latin Jazz" to celebrate a stamp by the same name, the food was incredible, and the cavernous Old Post Office reverberated with foot-tapping melodies played by the Music Teaching Project, a teacher-student ensemble.

Thursday I conducted my first full tour for 10 Maryland second graders with Allison observing. Jeff was going to observe me Friday but Allison decided I was ready to solo so, less than 24 hours later, I was showing 20 second graders from Woodbridge, Virginia how mail delivery has evolved over the past 300 years. They were a participatory bunch, which is great (and might be even greater if I could manage to hear anything they said), and extraordinarily well-behaved, my standards in that regard leaning toward the realistic.

Conducting a tour filled with me with such buoyant goodwill that I positively beamed all the way from Union Station to L'Enfant Plaza where I fetched my official Smithsonian ID card. You don't see too many people positively beaming in D.C. -- I guess everyone besides me is weighted down with such pressing issues as what Barack Obama ate for breakfast this morning or where his daughters will attend school -- so most people just averted their eyes the way we do when a crazy person in our Metro car starts hollering to herself (this has only happened once, Jimmy). Being treated like a crazy person irked me so I decided to make a game of getting other people to smile. I love your umbrella! What cute shoes! What's that H on your baseball cap stand for? The cap was his prize for winning a trivia contest at Hooters. This conversation could have gone in one of two directions, trivia contests or Hooters, and for once I chose the higher path and we had a pleasant, 10-minute conversation about trivia contests and his work as a music educator.

Not counting the second graders, I think I made about 10 people smile Friday. This might turn out to be my new thing: The Smile Project.

Tombstone Tales

Here's an idea that should earn a standing ovation from historians and genealogists: a family tree on the back of a tombstone. Is this clever or what?

Jerry, Dave, and I spotted this tombstone when we were wandering around the Stockbridge cemetery last month. Just after I took the picture I noticed the names of the decedent's maternal great-grandparents in the lower right corner. Aaron Moeckel, Alvina Artz, Edward Carley, and Eda Walz. My brothers and I might have unwittingly stumbled upon the explanation for how we are distantly related to Odie (Mary Odema) Moeckel. Is Eda Walz the sister of my Grandma Crippen's father?

Filing for Odie was my favorite task when I worked for Dad during high school because she would always put her work aside to chat (I'm sure Dad appreciated that). She was so thrilled when I told her that I was going to name my first daughter after Grandma Sykes, I impulsively promised to name my second daughter after her. After tossing and turning for several days, haunted by visions of the hateful looks my second daughter would surely cast my way, I decided I'd go with Mary Moeckel Whatever, eliminating Odema entirely, and call the kid Kelly.

Since I put so much thought into this but never had a chance to use the name, please feel free.

Speed Dating Jackson-Style

If you think I lack self-control, consider this: I did not use this picture to illustrate yesterday's entry on speed dating. Not that it didn't cross my mind . . .

This is Gillian (Jill) Crowley Peck and Bobby (Booper) Prestler. Jill and I were having lunch in the cafe behind The Lilac Tree, a charming shop in our hometown, when Booper wandered in to use the facilities. Had I thought to switch my camera to movie mode, you might have been able to pick up Jill's "I'll kill you for this." Jill is really good at smiling and gritting her teeth at the same time.

How to describe Booper? We grew up in the same neighborhood and, although he is four years my elder, we were classmates in fourth grade, his eighth and final year in parochial school. After that he briefly attended Hope School along with two other boys from our neighborhood who were also born in 1948. According to my mother, a Scarlet Fever outbreak in 1948 caused mental retardation (the expression used at the time) in Danny and Vic but Bobby had other issues. Some of us diagnosed him as an idiot savant after we saw Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man. Bobby deserves credit for at least 200 of my SAT points; he told me more about Hitler's atrocities during a 20-minute monologue (he talked, I nodded) in the A & W parking lot when I was 16 than I subsequently learned in two consecutive college semesters. Currently he's concerned about increased sales of firearms which he links to the mortgage crisis, forecasting a dire future wherein homeowners will take aim at growing hordes of homeless seeking shelter.

There is a soft spot in my heart that belongs to Bobby Prestler. He returns the smallest gesture of kindness a hundredfold. Yes, he can be a pest and maybe my heart would have hardened some by now if I still lived in Jackson and he was showing up on my doorstep every day, but he is the one person besides my family and Jill who can still make Jackson feel like home to me after all these years.

Now I'm off to find a frame for this picture so I can cross Jill off my Christmas list.

Speed Dating for Seasoned Parents

Adjusting to new systems and procedures has always been the hardest thing about changing schools for my three children. Empathizing with them was not a struggle for me since I had my own adjustments to make. Between them, Katie, James and Matt have attended a grand total of 15 different elementary and high schools. Along the way, I've had to master 13 different weekly communication systems, fit into (or at least endure) 13 different Parent-Teacher Organization formats, memorize 13 different ways to spring a child for a dental appointment, and figure out 10 different drop-off/pick-up routines. Why must every school have different procedures? And was it simply a coincidence that the two elementary schools with the simplest and most effective communication systems were the only two schools my children attended that had nuns as principals?

The one thing that's been fairly standard across all the schools is parent-teacher conferences and, thanks to a rogue gene that occasionally craves routine, I actually look forward to these sessions even when the student under discussion is not the one who always without fail managed to turn in her homework. Most schools allocate three or four hours for conferences at the conclusion of each of the first three quarters. The parent schedules a 5-10 minute appointment with the teacher(s), shows up on time, and sits on a little chair outside the classroom door for 20-30 minutes because it is a rare teacher who can move the parents in and out on schedule.

The seasoned parent brings a book to (a) pass the time in the hallway and (b) subliminally impress upon the teacher that the student comes from a family of readers. (Trust me on this, young parents: a book leaves a much better impression than a cellphone or BlackBerry.) Rather than getting frustrated or impatient while sitting in the hallway, the seasoned parent makes a mental note to gently compare the teacher's lack of time management skills with the student's failure to turn in homework on time should push come anywhere near shove. Finally, the seasoned parent never, ever reads any essays by their child and/or his/her classmates that might be posted in the hallways, especially after their child enters junior high.

The above tips will be all for naught if you send your child to Bishop O'Connell High School because the person who invented speed dating apparently went on to design a new parent-teacher conference format Mike and I were delighted to experience the other night. (Little Miss Put-a-Damper-on-Mom's-Enthusiasm tells me the speed dating format is in vogue at other schools these days but I still think I need to spread the word if 12 out of 13 schools are still doing conferences the old way.)

The teachers sat behind desks around the circumferences of two gymnasiums. Parents lined up in front the desks for a turn in the guest chair(s). This was incredibly efficient; if there were already two or three parents waiting to talk with Teacher A, you just ambled over to Teacher B or Teacher C. I was so enamored with the speed dating analogy that I chatted with a dashingly handsome young man who teaches a class Matt will never take. And it seems like a principal might be able to draw some pertinent conclusions by simply strolling through the gym and eyeballing the length of the lines.

Moral Dilemma in Magnolia Bakery

If I remember correctly from fourth grade arithmetic, 12 city blocks make a mile. This means Matt and I covered more than six miles Sunday afternoon when we walked from our hotel on 40th Street to 75th Street and then back past the hotel to catch our train at Penn Station. Our milk of human kindness soured before we reached the first mile marker.

Like metal shavings to a magnet we were drawn to the windows of Magnolia Bakery which occupies a prime corner of the Rockefeller Center at 48th Street and 6th Avenue. Smiling workers were expertly spreading mounds of creamy frosting on cakes stacked three or four layers high and the sun was bouncing radiantly off glass cases crammed with cupcake-size cheesecakes in tempting flavors like key lime, vanilla bean, pumpkin, chocolate marble, and caramel pecan. Matt had his eye on a vat of banana pudding and I was hoping to beat a little kid to the last portion of apple crisp when we pushed open the door.

A twentysomething urchin followed us into the bakery. He had an acoustic guitar slung across his back and the hair on the crown of his head was that striking shade of yellow nature reserves for daffodils in spring and sycamore leaves in autumn. His clever use of his iPod earbud demanded most of our attention because he pulled it out of his ear as he approached us and then spoke into it like he thought it was a microphone. "Can you give me some money? I haven't eaten all day."

Momentarily mesmerized by that imaginary microphone, and flashing through the history of imaginary microphones from broomsticks to hair dryers, I decided to take my cue from Matt, the boy who at the age of nine donated his brand new winter coat to a school clothing drive and at the age of 14 forked over a week's worth of lunch money to help the volleyball team buy new uniforms. Matt also gets most of the credit for my Jaguar Philosophy, to wit: When you're driving a Jaguar with an impressionable kid in the car and the light turns red, you have to give $20 to the raggedy man standing in the median or risk losing your soul. (Note that I am no longer driving a Jaguar, having long since frittered away my gas fund.)

When Matt didn't poke his bony elbow in my ribs in the Magnolia Bakery, I told iPod boy that we hadn't eaten yet either (which was true). Then Matt and I left the bakery without buying anything (drat). But we went back to the bakery after talking ourselves out of feeling guilty about not feeding someone who owns a guitar and iPod.

This pretty much sums up my current thinking about helping people pay mortgages on homes they can't afford.

And I'm a little cranky because that last piece of apple crisp disappeared while we were addressing this moral dilemma.

Vote!

Mike Completes NYC Marathon

Mike finished the New York City Marathon yesterday 10 minutes faster than he finished the Tokyo Marathon earlier this year. Which is why Matt and I didn't see him cross the finish line. We were parked on a bench in Central Park about 200 yards from the final stretch, digesting pretzels and discussing John Lennon and Woody Allen, when Mike sprinted those last few yards. Whoops.

When Mike first ran this marathon back in 1986, there were 20,000 competitors. This year there were 40,000 runners. Since there are only 39,999 cabs in Manhattan, we ended up walking two miles back to our hotel and then sprinted another half mile to Penn Station. The person who complained about the post-race hike was not the person who ran 26.2 miles.