Andrew and I decided to run a couple of errands this evening and get them out of the way before the painter comes tomorrow. As we were on our way out the door, Andrew reminded me to grab my purse, but I didn't see why I would need it and so I left it behind. We made it to Trader Joe's without incident, did our shopping, and started to make our way over to Target. The Tao seemed to be trying to tell us something. We were catching all the red lights and people plotted on at their own leisurely paces in front of us. Andrew suggested that meant we should just go on home, but my feeling was that we should have headed to a different Target. We were out of allergy medicine and Target sells the brand that works best for us both. Andrew turned the car around and we went to the Target that was closest to Trader Joe's. We went in the store and didn't find the allergy medicine. Damn. We picked up some other things that we needed and made our way to the car. Andrew hit the unlock button on the car remote about a dozen times, but nothing happened. This was nothing new, the remote has always been flaky. When we reached the car Andrew unlocked the driver's side door manually with his key. The overhead light did not come on. Andrew tried in vain to hit the button to unlock all the doors with no result. Prognosis: the battery was dead, and hey, I didn't have my cell phone on me. It was in my purse back home with my AAA card. Hmm, well Andrew has a AAA card, I thought. I asked him to look in his wallet for it when he remembered taking it out and setting it aside for whatever reason (oh, that's right, his wallet was getting too thick and his butt was uneven). Doh. Andrew asked me what I thought we should do. I decided that we should go stand by the store exit and ask patrons if they had a set of jumper cables. After asking a dozen or so people I finally found someone that was able to help us. He gave us the jump we needed, I thanked him profusely, and we went on our merry way straight back to our apartment. Along the way the battery light came on. I thought warnings were supposed to preceed incident. Sure, both Andrew and I had vague feelings that something was wrong to begin with, but then why does the Tao have to be so indecipherable??? Even before that I had a feeling that we should have the car checked, but I ignored it. Maybe the battery dying is a warning of something larger looming. Well, we're not taking any chances with it. Andrew is currently making out a list of service the car needs. He'll call the dealership tomorrow and set up an appointment.
Yesterday afternoon Andrew, Mike, and I walked over to the Arlington National Cemetery. Here are some of the pictoral highlights of our tour:
All in all, I walked over 13,000 steps, according to my pedometer.
This past Saturday my new friend Ame (aka kissendre on IRC) drove down from Norfolk to spend the day with me. We walked over to the District from my apartment, passing by the Iwo Jima Memorial, the Netherlands Carillon, Arlington National Cemetery, the Lincoln Memorial, the Vietnam War Memorial, the reflecting pool, the new WWII Memorial, and the Washington Monument. Our first actual stop was the National Gallery of Art's Sculpture Garden, which is six acres of sculptures.
We stumbled across a Calder (who is my favorite artist) there:
This next piece looked two-dimensional as we were walking up to it, but as we got closer it revealed itself to be 3-dimensional:
This reminded both Ame and I of the movie Donnie Darko (2001):
Our next stop was the Hirshhorn Sculpture Garden. Here's another Calder for your viewing pleasure:
Another cool sculpture with the last Calder again in the background:
After that, Amy and I went into the National Gallery of Art.
Ame informed me that these next two paintings are a light study:
Sorry, but this next one came out a little blurry:
This was Calder's last piece before he died:
Another Calder I recently discovered:
According to my pedometer, Ame and I walked six miles on Saturday. We were sore the following day. However, I was energized today. I really must get out walking more often. Next weekend Andrew and I, along with our friend Mike, are going to try to make it over to the Smithsonian Folk Life Festival. Someone is coming to paint our apartment on Saturday and that may bleed over to Sunday. We just have to wait and see what happens to know whether or not we can go.
These are a couple of images that were languishing on my digital camera.
