The Romance of June

It is July 1st, and I am flying. Ok, I am not really flying, but I am typing while sitting on the plane on my way to Seattle. In reality, the flight is only one leg of my journey to spend the 4th of July in Walla Walla. Doesn’t that just roll off your tongue—“Walla Walla”.

As the title of this post insinuates, Nick and I had a rather romantic June. We attended two weddings, and celebrated our own anniversary—6 years since that memorable evening in Walla Walla when we were married, and 10 years since another memorable evening in Seattle when we started dating.
To celebrate our anniversary Nick took me to Chesterwood, a country home and studio of Daniel Chester French, a sculptor best known for the sculpture of Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial.
Daniel Chester French (lovingly referred to as DCF at the Chesterwood Visitor’s Center exhibits) bought a farm in the Berkshires in 1896, where his friend and prominent architect, Henry Bacon, designed him a cozy house to live in with his family and a bright, airy studio to work in. French personally created the landscaping around the house, transforming the farm into formal gardens.
The Visitor’s Center on the property contains a small, but well done exhibit on various projects French undertook. He first studied art with no other than Loisa May Alcott’s sister, May Alcott. Though at first it was the Augustus Saint-Gaudens’s statue of Lincoln that was considered for the Lincoln Memorial, the commission eventually went to Daniel Chester French, and he spent over 6 years working on the project.

Nick and I spent some time looking around the studio, where many plaster sketches and smaller models of French’s work were on display. One side of the studio had enormous doors and railroad tracks leading outside through the doors. A volunteer explained to us that French used the tracks to wheel his work outdoors to see what the sculpture would look like in the natural light and to check for extortions.

We also went into the house where Daniel Chester French lived, but only the first floor was open to the public.

Heading to Walla Walla now, only two weeks after our anniversary, I feel that we are simply continuing to celebrate. The romance continues…

Visiting Charlestown Navy Yard

About a month ago Nick and I visited Charlestown Navy Yard. Our main goal was to take a tour of the USS Constitution, world’s “oldest floating commissioned naval vessel”, but once there we discovered many other areas to explore.

While walking around, we saw one of the nation’s first dry docks, built in the 1830’s. We also saw several austere looking granite buildings, which apparently have been designed by Alexander Parris—the same architect who created Quincy Market in Boston and introduced a “large scale use of granite in structural facades.”

One of these granite buildings we encountered was a ropewalk—a building where ropes used to be made—also designed by Alexander Parris. A ropewalk building had to be really long, because workers walked backwards twisting the fibers to create a long rope segment. The ropewalk in Charlestown Navy Yard is the oldest ropewalk still standing in the country. Unfortunately, we could only see the building from the outside, and sadly it looked like it was in disrepair.

Before boarding the USS Constitution, we took a tour of USS Cassin Young, a Navy destroyer that was active in the Pacific during World War II. The ship has been decommissioned and preserved as a memorial museum ship, maintained and operated by the National Park Service.

The tour took us to the lower decks describing what it would have been like to live and work on the ship. Back on the main deck, I found the galley to be most intriguing with its enormous mixer and three stock pots big enough to fit a person.

Unlike USS Cassin Young, USS Constitution is still a commissioned US Navy ship. A US Navy officer dressed in a 19th century sailor uniform gave us an overview of the ship's history. Touring the lower decks, we got to see the ship’s guns and sailors’ quarters. (Apparently, back then sailors on a ship slept in hammocks.)

Launched back in 1797, USS Constitution is maintained and operated by the Navy with a crew of 60 officers and sailors. Since it was restored to be able to sail under its own power in 1997, it makes a “turnaround cruise” every year usually around the 4th of July. Unfortunately, there will be no cruise this July, because the ship is currently being repaired, but the work is expected to be completed by the fall.

Our Mini Vacation in Washington DC Two Weeks Ago

We wanted to take a short vacation, that did not require too much planning or many hours flying. So we decided to go to Washington DC—we have not seen our friends there for awhile and there is no shortage of things to do in the area.

Admittedly we still did some planning. For example, we tried to come up with some places we wanted to visit, and prioritize them. Two things came up to the top—Frederick Douglas’s house for Nick and Ford’s Theater for me. Needless to say, we managed to make it to neither one of those two locations. Luckily, we still had a lot of fun doing other things.

Friday was a hodgepodge of interesting places around the National Mall. Walking through the Lafayette Square, we went inside St. John’s Church. (In case it is hard to read the plaque in the photo below, it says that every U.S. President "since President James Madison has attended occasional services here.")

After a required nod to the White House, accompanied by many laments that we did not get a spot on a White House tour, we headed to the Museum of American History.

Far from trying to see the entire collection of this museum, we went for what we considered the highlights, and the Lincoln room was definitely one of them. We saw two original casts of Lincoln’s face, and the original cast of his hands. (Later in the American Art Museum, we saw copies, and were glad that we have seen the originals. The copies had a lot less details.) Other items of note in this exhibit included the top hat that Lincoln wore often, including the night of this murder, a cuff stained with Lincoln’s blood that belonged to an actress who ran up to give him water and held his head after the shots have been fired, a line up of Lincoln’s photographs, where one clearly sees an increase in aging that the presidency and the war have inflicted on him.

In the same museum, we carefully examined Julia Child’s kitchen and determined that she had way too many knives.

The next stop on our trip was the Natural History Museum. Here we spent most of our time looking at dinosaurs. On our way to see moonstones, we joined a large crowd of people to take a peek at the Hope Diamond.

Exhausted by all the history, we headed to what is supposed to be the best cafeteria in all the Smithsonian Museums for lunch—the café inside the American Indian Museum. We spent almost half an hour deciding what to eat, and can now confirm that the café was well worth the extra walk.

After an unsuccessful attempt to visit Ford’s Theater, where Lincoln was killed, we headed to the American Art Museum. My primary goal there was to see John LaFarge’s stained glass windows, commissioned by Frederick Ames for his fancy house that still stands on Dartmouth Street in Boston.

Other memorable items in this museum included several works by Daniel Chester French and August Saint-Gaudens, the last portrait of John Adams painted by Gilbert Stuart, several portraits by John Singleton Copley, and the original portrait of Benjamin Franklin that you see on one hundred dollar bills.

Nick ventured to the National Archives for a peek at the original copy of the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution, while I got a head start socializing with friends.

After dinner we all headed to the Lincoln Memorial. Unfortunately it was far from deserted, but we still enjoyed the experience and the view.

Before retiring for the day, we also made a stop at the FDR Memorial, which Nick and I have not seen before.

Saturday began with an amazing breakfast cooked up by our hosts that included pancakes and home grown strawberries. (How much better can it really get!) Our next touristy activity turned out to be a visit to the Udvar-Hazy Center—the relatively new wing of the Air and Space Museum. As expected, my favorite part of the museum was the space section, where we got to see the Gemini VII command module and the boiler plate Apollo command module with floatation devices attached that came from the actual Apollo 11 command module.

Yet the funniest items in this exhibit were tubes of cosmonaut food.

Later in the day, Nick and I tried unsuccessfully to visit the National Art Gallery. After a quick, mandatory stop at the Air and Space Museum on the National Mall, where I spent some quality time staring into the actual Apollo 11 command module, we walked around the grounds around the US Capitol Building.

Here are some fun facts revealed to me by the AIA Guide--an impulse purchase I made early Friday.

• The Ulysses S. Grant statue in front of the Capitol is the tallest equestrian statue in the city, and only second tallest in the world—the first being the statue of Emmanuel in Rome.
• The reflecting pool in front of the Capitol lies on top of the tunnel that carries US Highway 395 underneath the mall. The pool was put because nothing could be planted there.
• The terracing and the layout of the Capitol grounds was designed by none other than Frederick Law Olmstead, whom we know and love in Boston for creating the landscaping of the Emerald Necklace, including the Back Bay Fens.

We tried but failed to see a Frederic Auguste Bartholdi fountain a block away from the Capitol—it was removed for restoration.

On Sunday we sadly bid goodbye to Julie and Andy, picked up a Zipcar at the Union Station and drove off to Virginia. (Nick and I never stop to marvel at how wonderful the Zipcar concept and service is. Here we were in a city we did not even live in, and here was a great car waiting for us at the perfect location.)

In preparation for our visit to Fredericksburg, we listened to Shelby Foote’s Civil War, which promptly put me to sleep—shameful but not disastrous, because Nick made an excellent tour guide once we were on location.

We climbed Marye’s Heights and looked down at the town of Fredericksburg below.

From this excellent position, the Confederate Army was able to completely overpower the Union soldiers as they tried very unsuccessfully to cross the Rappahannock River and take the hills. Our view of the river was very different as the hills have overgrown with trees, whereas back in the 19th century they were almost bare.

After a quick lunch, we visited Chatham, a beautiful Georgian-style house built in the second half of the 18th century overlooking the town of Fredericksburg and the Rappahannock River. Most notably, Chatham served as the headquarters for the Union army during the Civil War and doubled up as a hospital after Union’s disastrous defeat in the battle of Fredericksburg in November of 1862. Walt Whitman came here after seeing his brother’s name on the list of casualties. Both George Washington and Abraham Lincoln have visited the house at different times, while Robert E. Lee refused to order artillery fire onto it because it was here that he had courted his wife. Unexpectedly we got a tour of the upper floor of the house, and it turned out that the house is much smaller than it appears to be from outside.

From Fredericksburg, we drove straight to Monticello, but the gates to Jefferson’s plantation closed just before we got there, so we had to delay our visit till Monday morning. Instead, we walked around the University of Virginia campus, admiring the Rotunda and the Pavilions Jefferson designed.

Monday morning turned out to be relatively cold and rainy, but the weather did not deter us from touring Monticello. The house tour led us through most rooms on the main floor, including notably Jefferson’s bedroom and his library. After strolling around the gardens surrounding the house, we left the top of the “Little Mountain” to walk by Jefferson’s grave before heading back to the car.

We considered but decided against making another attempt to visit Ford’s Theater. Instead we stopped for lunch and had an uneventful, though extremely rainy drive back to the Union Station. We will have to come back again soon in order to

• prevent Chester (one of Julie’s cats) from sleeping his rightful bed (the one in the guest room)
• play with Loki (Gayle’s dog)
• visit Ford’s Theater and its museum
• visit Frederick Douglas’s house
• tour Monticello when it is not raining cats and dogs
• visit Appomattox
• explore more battlefields around Frederickson and Chancellorsville
• take a guided campus tour of the University of Virginia

The list goes on and on. We will just have to return.

Playing "Ketchup"

My previous post was about the Olympic Games—that was certainly a long while back, almost two month ago now. Let’s recap before I move on to the more current events.

I celebrated my birthday. And when I say “celebrated”, I really mean it. We actually threw a little party at our house, with food, and guests, and cake. Cake! The reviews for the cake were rather flattering, so I promise to proudly post the recipe.

The Back Bay Fens flooded,



then burned,

Originally uploaded by Ol' Mr Boston

then bloomed,

and is now freshly green. And then Eric and I saw two turtles in the Muddy River.

Nick has been talking about seeing turtles for several years now, but this is the first time I have seen any. Spring came to Boston early this year, and it has been beautiful.

The Boston Marathon has come and gone--the stress and excitement now replaced by a sense of pride and accomplishment, and exhaustion. (I invite you to read about all the details of my Boston Marathon run this year in my "Marathon Post".)

The weeks after the marathon left me so tired as I never was even while training, and as a result I have not even attempted to achieve anything (outside my job of course) since.

Nick and I spent a day at the Charlestown Navy Yard, touring the USS Constitution (world’s “oldest floating commissioned naval vessel”) and USS Cassin Young. However, the visit may warrant its own blog post.

Watching Figure Skating

Training for the marathon won't kill me, because watching Olympic figure skating will. It is almost 11:30pm, and the men's short program is still in full swing live from Vancouver. I will not and cannot stop watching, and this is my third evening straight watching figure skating--pairs competition was on Sunday and Monday nights. Thankfully, there will be a break tomorrow--the men's long program is not until Thursday night. And it will go late into the night. While the short program is only 2 minutes and 50 seconds long, men's long program is 4 and a half minutes long!

Here are the roots of my addiction to figure skating:

Ankle Stories

The following is a slight variation of the song by the Decemberists called Red Right Ankle (if you follow the link, click on the Preview button to hear the tune).

This is the story of my poor left ankle
And how it came to meet my leg
And how it twisted as my feet got tangled
On the stairs as I fell.

And how it screamed in misery
“Oh what have you done to me!
For whatever differences our lives have been
We together make a limb.”
This is the story of my poor left ankle.



That was 5 weeks ago, and things are definitely improving. For example, I have started running for 5 minutes a day last week. Of course, it will take me a bit longer than 5 minutes (more like 4+ hours) to run the Boston Marathon. With just over 2 months left before the race I am determined to do it, and my plan is fully supported by my team's coach, my physical therapist, and of course by my dear husband. So please--no worrying!

Yosemite National Park: Staying in Curry Village

While visiting the Yosemite National Park, we stayed in a heated tent cabin in Curry Village. We chose to stay in Curry Village because of its excellent location—right in the Yosemite Valley, with beautiful views and close to many trailheads.

A “heated tent cabin” is a tarp draped over a plywood room, built on an elevated wooden platform. Our cabin had electricity and came with two windows and an opening in the door, open to the outside but covered by a tarp. Being a “heated” tent cabin, the room also had a forced air heater.

Staying in this “heated tent cabin” in Curry Village felt similar to camping, but nicer. We had beds, pillows, sheets, blankets, and clean towels every day. Unfortunately, I am just not into camping all that much. So I found it somewhat difficult to climb from under my two blankets and a sleeping bag in the middle of the night, and then put on socks, pants, fleece, coat, hat, gloves and a head lamp—all for a trip to the communal bathroom.

Black bears live in Yosemite National Park. Their proximity and their excellent sense of smell require all tent cabin guests to store their food and toiletries in the “bear locker”, and one was stationed by every tent cabin. A “bear locker” is a metal box with a deeply set, covered latch that would be impossible for a bear to reach.

After spending the night inside the bear locker in the winter, some toiletries changed their consistency. Toothpaste, for example, became a bit difficult "to chew", and applying deodorant and lotion had a rather cooling effect on the body.

At first, we did not take the food storage rules all that seriously. While we locked up our peanut butter and jam, a granola bars and a bag of cookies remained in our packs overnight. Bad idea! Next day, we discovered that bear lockers do not only protect us from bears. A little mouse went through our backpacks and enjoyed a bit of granola and cookies. Certainly we never forgot to extract all edible items from our backpacks again.