The view on the lake just doesn’t get old! In this photo, you can (barely) see a line of Canada geese waking up and crossing the lake. I love the peacefulness in the mornings and watching (and hearing) the lake wake up.
The week, part one:
I’m pretty sure this is the same fawn I saw on West Mountain a week or so ago on my way to yoga because she was about in the same spot. She’s so pretty and decided to pose for me when I stopped to snap her photo on Monday. Aside from yoga on Monday and Tuesday mornings, the first part of the week was mostly getting ready to leave Hot Springs: getting Flavia a domestic travel health certificate, getting nails done, driving to Little Rock for hair (all the important stuff!), and getting the house closed up. In between chores, I continued my Gilded Age binge and am now up-to-date on episodes. Monday afternoon, I stopped by to visit with David and we had this visitor on the back porch – I think it’s some kind of young heron. He was pretty inquisitive!
David and Alison dropped me off at an airport hotel on Wednesday where Flavia and I stayed the night before our very early flight to DC — and there we begin part two of the week!
Part two —
Flavia was a good traveler on our direct flight into Reagan National – I love the view coming into DC! We got settled into John’s hotel suite, then I went off to meet Lea for coffee – it was great to see her!
It was even better to see John after almost a month! He took me out for a nice dinner at 60 Vines nearby.
Friday I went to Main State to get a typhoid vaccine – it was so fun to be back in the building again and even better to know I was there but didn’t have to work! I ran into someone from my first tour in Juarez (Candace) and someone from my second tour in Tel Aviv (Emily). I had coffee with Laura Mc (Buenos Aires) and a separate chat with Jill M (Guadalajara and Buenos Aires). After tracking down a missing packing at SA-1 in the retirement office (um, in my retirement counselor’s desk drawer even though I had emailed her repeatedly trying to find it…but all’s well that ends well, I guess…) I went back to Main State to join John and my old RCO colleague Neal:
John and I ended this busy Friday with a lovely dinner at Ris.
Saturday was a gorgeous day outside. I walked up to Chef Geoff’s to meet Lea for brunch, then walked to the Hirshhorn Museum. On the way, I ran into one of my A100 favorites, Kellee F (with whom we served in Islamabad), so she walked with me and we sat in the sculpture garden yakking for an hour or so – what a fun bonus! The exhibits at the museum were really good! Twin brother graffiti artists from Brazil (who go by the name of Osgemeos) had these fantastic and fantastical pieces, among hundreds of their pieces:
A Laurie Anderson installation was a graffiti-filled room with a huge acrylic crow:
One of my favorite pieces was by an artist from Ghana, Amoako Boafo, called “Cobalt Blue Dress,” done in a finger-painting style in oil – it was huge and absolutely eye-popping!
Today, my boss from Guadalajara came to visit – we sat in the hotel lobby drinking coffee and catching up. He’s one of my favorites and I hadn’t seen him since I broke my leg in 2019 (the last time he saw me I was on a walker!). He’s just as smart and funny as ever, and it was good to laugh with him again!
Afterward John and I took the metro to Pentagon City Mall, where he also treated me to a nice brunch at the Ritz Carlton next door. And, to keep our record intact, we ran into a colleague from Buenos Aires (Jess) on the metro home.
It’s so fun to be back in the city with so much to do!
