I think I should like to wish everybody a "Happy Wednesday!"

Once again, no pictures. Sorry!

After my late night yesterday with the ballet and typing my blog and everything, I slept in this morning, and so missed going downstairs to work out—rats! However, I did do a good hour and a half of walking today, and was certainly tuckered out enough by the end! I really do like to walk here in D.C. as often as I can. The streets are always full of interesting things to see and smell and listen to. Unfortunately, today it turned out to be really, really cold, so the only thing I could think about was how idiotic it was for me to leave my hat behind (luckily, I had my scarf!) at the Barlow Center, and how my gloves were kind of thin, and how strange it was that the inside of my legs felt like they were on fire all day!

I had a busy day at work until about 2 pm, when my supervisors had to go to a meeting. I had wanted to go and see that “Anorexic Art” exhibit, so they told me to just go then and come back at 4. I found it without any problems, but as the exhibit turned out to be kind of small (um, one room, maybe ten photographs...hardly an EXHIBIT, people!), I left after just a few minutes. Oh, and I forgot the camera, so no pictures. Meh. I’m not really sorry—you didn’t miss anything. Just picture a bunch of really sick-looking skinny girls in strange poses with hair in their faces, and you get the idea. Anyway, I wandered over to the National Portrait Gallery, where I was EASILY able to pass the rest of my two hours of free time in going through their fantastic American Presidents (and Vice-presidents) exhibit on the second floor.

The exhibit was extremely interesting, and there was much more to see beyond the official presidential portrait. For example, there were political caricatures (Thomas Nast did a fun one of Ulysses S. Grant in a chair, which turned out to be ironic since Grant was later known as the “Armchair president”) and satiric sculptures (On the spot, I only recall Jimmy Carter as a helpless little midget), famous photographs, signatures (well, only one signature—it was on a letter from George Washington to Gilbert Stuart about posing for the painting. Very cool!), informative plaques, quotes on the walls, and interactive media (you could press buttons to hear FDR’s fireside chats and watch famous presidential speeches on TV—“Ask not what your country can do for you,” and “Mr. Gorbachev—tear down this wall!” were the best! I was sitting next to this tired-looking guy to watch the speeches when Richard Nixon came on, giving a very heartfelt and sincere speech about the need to preserve American ideals and liberty and justice and all that, and I could literally feel the “Yeah, right” seeping through the snorts and head-tosses of my companion. It was also kind of painful to watch a very emotional speech given by Lyndon Johnson, where he described the kind of president that he wanted to be remembered as (which, of course, was nothing like the president I remember him as). On the other hand, I felt nothing but disgust when I came across Bill Clinton’s smi(rk)ling portrait and the accompanying description of his affair with an intern while in office. Ugh.

Anyway, this exhibit was possibly my very favorite in the gallery thus far! Its main feature was, of course, all the “official” portraits of American presidents, including very famous ones such as the unfinished George Washington by Gilbert Stuart, the Lansdowne George Washington (come to think of it, there were about five or six portraits just of George Washington. Apparently he was known was the man whom everyone wished to paint), and the “penny” painting of Abraham Lincoln. I enjoyed looking at the paintings where the presidents posed in particularly unique manners: George Bush had a very friendly, ordinary, approachable pose (which the newspapers said was “bland,” but I actually kind of liked it). Abraham Lincoln was bending over with his chin on his hand, supposedly so that more of his long, lanky figure would fit in the portrait! I was a little disappointed that the only version they had of John F. Kennedy was a rather blurry Abstract Expressionist version by Elaine de Kooning. He’s actually one of the more handsome presidents, and it would be nice to get a realistic view of him for the record. On the other hand, I see nothing wrong with doing an Abstract Expressionist painting of Presidents Harding, Johnson, Coolidge, Cleveland, or Taft, just to, you know, add some more personality or perhaps obscure some of their...um...less attractive features.

After my two hours ran out, I headed back for the museum, but got a bit disoriented when I started out and walked in the wrong direction for four blocks or so. Fortunately, it was still day time and there were no bridges in view...whew! When I made it back to work, Michelle and Vivian both had projects for me to work on, so I did the best I could until it was time to go. Basically I’m writing up a description of our upcoming gallery exhibit for the website (or “Web site,” as Michelle very strongly prefers), and Michelle and I are not too happy with the current drafts that I’ve come up with. A lot of it is just basic stuff pulled from the press release, but there’s lot of grey areas where you can go wrong in terms of giving too much description or too little. My other is project is much more exciting: I might get to do an interview with someone for the spring 2009 issue of the magazine!!! Sarah might be interested in knowing that this lady is a knitter, and specializes in the creation of very tiny costumes (and I mean REALLY tiny! She sometimes uses wire in place of knitting needles). As a matter of fact, she hand-knitted the costumes for the small doll puppets used in the upcoming movie Coraline (remember the previews, S and H?). And speaking of that movie, I pass a theater place every day on my work that is ALWAYS playing the trailer on the wall, so I get to think about Coraline at least twice a day!! I wasn’t too interested in seeing it after I first saw the preview in December, but I might have to change my mind if this bombardment keeps up...

After finishing work at 5:30, I headed home, but stopped briefly at Trader Joe’s to get some more fruit. I was planning on going to Safeway too, but eventually decided against it as I was too tired and had enough stuff to keep me going until, well, tomorrow, at any rate. Basically I just need to finish compiling my “food storage” (Sis. Blanchard, as you’ll recall, wants us to have a week’s supply before Friday).

But on to Trader Joe’s. Kirsti recently requested my opinion on the store, and I figured that I might as well come out right now in voicing my high regard for the establishment, based solely on the following reasons:
1. It has YELLOW bananas, RIPE apples, and PACKAGED oranges...unlike SOME places (Safeway, I am looking at you. Glaring, rather, with the “eyes of hate.”) Unfortunately, it also has a sneaky selection of “Organic” produce items which happen to cost about five times more than the regular kind, but once you know where to look for this and how to avoid it, you’re fine.

2. In the D.C. store, there’s a nifty little place in the corner where sweet old ladies dish up free samples of hot, deliciously cooked food in little (well, maybe even medium-sized) cups. I have yet to encounter a free sample I didn’t like at any place, but the samples at Trader Joe’s are so good they almost qualify as mini-meals. Especially if you cheat and take two cups, heh heh.

3. Free stuff. A nice employee working there broke a banana open and told me I could just eat it, since he would have to throw it away after breaking the stem. And all because I happened to be standing next to him talking about how I like my bananas!

4. Drama. Only today someone knocked over a bottle of red wine on the floor and it went EVERYWHERE! The shattering noise and the image of oozing red wine all over the floor was the stuff of classic film, folks. You just don’t see that kind of stuff everyday.

5. Fastest cashiers in the East! Or at least that’s what it seems like. They have about ten registers and their cashiers are always very energetic, hollering “NEXT!” at the top of their lungs and rushing to pack the groceries. They’re also usually friendly, asking me how I am and if I want two bags and telling me to have a nice day and all. We’re practically best buds, this Trader “Joe” guy and I.

Soooooo, after thoroughly enjoying my shopping experience with Trader Joe’s, I FINALLY got home around 6 pm, and set to work making dinner: tonight I had the cheesy pasta stuff—which is GREAT once you know how to make it!—along with grapes and yogurt. Mmmm-mmmmm! In the kitchen I caught up on the latest gossip in the Barlow Center, and learned the following:

1. One girl is very UN-happy with her internship experience thus far. I’m pretty sure she works in a senator’s office on Capitol Hill and has nothing to do all day... Once again, I’m finding out the benefits of working at a small, run-down place!

2. Emily Parker—really super nice girl, and our V.T. coordinator at the Barlow Center!—ate some bad chicken the other night and got food poisoning. Apparently she was throwing up all night and missed work this morning. Yipes!

3. Other Emily got engaged!!!! This MORNING!!!! To Mike, another BYU intern whom she had been dating since October!!!! Sis. Blanchard made her tell us the story at Institute tonight, and she said they had gone jogging in the morning to the Jefferson Memorial, where he had knelt and pulled out the ring, and her hand had been so cold it almost didn’t fit....!!! And we all were very excited and there was much clapping and aahing and oohing in the land. They’re getting married April 24.

After a quick half-dinner, I went to Sis. Blanchard’s Institute class on Presidents of the Church and the nation. Class lasted an hour and fifteen minutes, which was a little longer than I expected, but still pretty fun and interesting. We learned some interesting things about the presidents and religion, like Thomas Jefferson’s belief in Christ sans all the miracles, the Resurrection, and the Ascension, George Washington’s fear of being buried alive deriving from his belief that Christ was actually buried alive, and Washington’s embodiment of the counsel in Mosiah to not have kings lead the people. We read from the scriptures as well as from the “Presidents and Prophets” book that I’ve seen at the BYU bookstore. I’m interested to see what will happen as we get further on in history with the presidents, so I’ll probably try to keep my Wednesday nights free as much as possible! After class, we had delicious apple pie/strawberry pie (which was too good NOT to be home-made!) and vanilla ice cream. Aaaaaaaaah....heavenly. I’m upstairs now trying to talk myself into doing homework, but it obviously hasn’t worked since I’ve been sitting here typing my blog for the past hour. So, yeah, I guess I’ll get to that. Homework, then scriptures, then my nightly comfort reading of Redwall (I fell asleep after maybe five paragraphs the other night...so sad!), and then THURSDAY—the last work-day of my week! Hurrah!