Spring Break Week (well, the first half)

Lots of my Facebook friends are posting about exciting trips this week due to spring break.  I've got friends in Australia, Italy, the Caribbean, Canada, New York City, etc, etc - all posting daily about their wonderful adventures.  Well, I may not have gone anywhere exciting this week, but I've sure had some interesting experiences so far - and it's only Wednesday!  Here are some highlights . . .

Tourists for a Day
Every now and then I like to go downtown and play tourist for the day.  Living outside the most powerful city in the United States definitely has its advantages - I mean really, how many people can hop in their car and visit the National Mall in DC on a whim?  Of course, having grown up here and now raising my own family in the area, the times we actually take advantage of everything DC has to offer are few and far between.  So yesterday the kids and I packed our backpack full of Subway sandwiches and off we went.  Over the course of five hours I managed to drag the kids three and a half miles without too much complaining.

Ella finally meets Eleanor

We visited the FDR Memorial and Ella got her picture taken with Eleanor Roosevelt. She was thrilled since every time one of us does something she doesn't like she stomps her foot and says "Eleanor Roosevelt would NOT like that!"  For some reason she's developed quite a liking for FDR's First Lady.  We ate our Subway sandwiches by the Tidal Basin and fed scraps to a friendly duck. The sky was crystal blue and the reflection in the water of the Washington Monument was pretty amazing. We visited the MLK Memorial and basked in the sun as we gazed up at his face.  We trekked toward the White House, stopping to visit the peacefully deserted DC War Memorial and cutting through the densely packed WWII Memorial while the kids excitedly shouted "It's Obama, it's Obama!" as an official looking helicopter flew overhead. We finally made it to the Wax Museum where we came face to face with every single U.S. President, entertainers from Will Smith to Ella Fitzgerald, sports phenoms from Alex Ovechkin and Tiger Woods, a very skinny Oprah Winfrey, three versions of Michael Jackson and last but not least, Jack Sparrow - Jack and Ella's favorite pirate. We ended our journey licking swirled soft serve cones on the steps of the Old Post Office Pavilion before stumbling back onto the metro to head home. All in all a thoroughly exhausting but satisfying day.

Halfway through our very LONG walk around the city!

Ella and Jack with a very young Michael Jackson

Just When We Thought Our Neighborhood Couldn't Get More Interesting . . .
Well, if you thought what I just wrote about was exciting, wait til you hear what happened when we got home from our trip into the city.  We noticed a van with the local ABC station logo parked at the top of a cul-de-sac across from our house.  Being curious (or just plain nosy), I grabbed a pair of binoculars and shamelessly spied on the news team from Ella's bedroom window, wondering what could be newsworthy on our relatively quiet street.  I say relatively because there have been some incidents on our street lately, including a massive hunt for a burglar, a rash of break-ins of unlocked cars, and other various events that I will not get into for fear of sharing too much information about some of our neighbors.  Anyway, the news van certainly caught our attention.

We realized that they were setting up to do a live report, so at 5:00 we turned on the news and within the first few minutes of the broadcast we discovered the shocking news that a man who had gone on a shooting rampage at a college campus in California earlier in the week had once rented a room in a house RIGHT across the street from us.  Great.  This just makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.  It goes to show you that we really have NO idea who is living around us. There's nothing like finding out that a mass murderer used to live just steps from our front yard.

I'm Glad I'm an Introvert
My last post was about my introverted nature which I've since decided has nothing to do with being social.  However, I've come to the conclusion that I like being introverted.  I think introverted people have the advantage of being able to quietly observe the world around them and thus have more self-awareness than extroverts.  This of course can backfire, as some introverts become so self-aware they are afraid to draw any attention to themselves.  Extroversion, on the other hand, when taken to the extreme can result in a gross  lack of self-awareness which can then cause the extroverted person to make a complete ass out of themselves.  My introverted self observed an overly extroverted girl at Starbucks do just that.

I was quietly sipping a Frapuccino and tapping away on my keyboard at Starbucks on Monday, trying to catch up on paperwork for my job, when a girl and two guys came in and sat down near me.  They looked like they were in their early twenties. The girl immediately began talking in a loud, annoying voice as if she were the only person in the room. Both guys were hanging on her every word like a couple of dopey puppy dogs. It was pretty obvious that neither one was her boyfriend and that she had them wrapped around her finger. What came out of her mouth was unbelievable. Keep in mind that Starbucks was fairly full and that the other patrons were either reading, typing on laptops, or talking quietly amongst themselves.

Girl:  So instead of getting a tattoo for my birthday I decided to get a colonic instead.

Guy #1: A what?

Girl:  A colonic.  You know, they stick a tube up your butt and suck everything out.  It's like an enema. It's amazing. I feel incredible now.

(insert annoying Valley Girl type laugh as both guys laugh somewhat uncomfortably)

Then she started talking about how she was learning about all the muscles in the body and I noticed that she had a textbook on her lap with the title "Massage Therapy".  Ugh, she would be the last person I'd want to get a massage from.

Girl:  yeah, you know, so like, I'm learning about all the MUSCLES in the body, like, the muscles in the back, and the shoulders, and the legs and all that stuff.

Guy #1:  cool, cool.

Girl:  yeah, cause you know, if your muscles are messed up it can affect everything.  EVERYTHING! Like if you can't sleep, or if you get headaches, or you know, if you can't get an erection.

Guy #1 and Guy #2:  (staring at her with dumb grins on their faces)

Yes, this extremely extroverted girl with absolutely no self-awareness practically shouted the word erection at the top of her lungs in Starbucks.  I'm not sure what she was trying to do, embarrass the two guys, draw attention to herself, shock the coffee-sipping crowd by talking about enemas and erections, or maybe she is just so stupid she has no idea how idiotic she sounds.  Whatever the case may be, it made me extremely thankful that I am introverted by nature and aware of what I say and do around other people.

Well, that about wraps up the first half of my spring break week. Tomorrow we leave for Philly and I'm sure many more adventures await us there. I'd be surprised if anything tops what I've written about today, but you never know.