Petrified Wood on the Washington Mall

I remember going to the Petrified Forest in Arizona when I took a trip out west once so I was delighted to see some pieces of petrified wood at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum on the Mall in Washington, D.C. recently.  I don't know if these pieces are from Arizona but they look very much like the ones I'd seen before.
To show how I had no idea about it, when I went to the petrified forest national park in Arizona, I really expected to see a standing forest of "frozen" wood. Feeling a bit silly, it was, of course, 'just' several acres of land that you can walk through on paths that weave among logs and trees and stumps that are lying on their sides and are fossils that were created when they got buried in sediment and minerals leached into them aeons ago.
 What is especially interesting are the tree rings and all the different colors that the minerals show in the "wood" pieces. You can touch the ones on the mall and they feel just like stone!  So interesting!

 

Christopher Columbus and Abraham Lincoln Downtown

Christopher Columbus statue

Abraham Lincoln statue

As I go about the city on the way to meetings in various offices, I'm always surprised to stumble upon statues of famous people.  For instance, walking south on 3rd Street NW I saw this Christopher Columbus sculpture near the Italian community building. It's in a courtyard next to the Italian society building. Then, in front of the District of Columbia's own Supreme Court, the District Court of Appeals, on Indiana Ave NW, there's a wonderful sculpture of Abraham Lincoln. It's easy to miss these if you are in a hurry, in a cab or if you are too busy texting you don't see what's around you. Of course, I forgot to carry my digital camera with me so I took these photos using the miracle of my cell phone camera. Praise God for amazing devices!

Blue Sky and Daily Bread

Gutted Wonder Bread building

Wild clematis icing the rose of sharon

When I saw the sky through the open roof of the old Wonder Bread building at 641 S Street NW, I just knew I had to snap it as after the building is developed there will be no chance to do that again! It's a big building -- about 98,000 square feet -- that will become stores and offices. I actually looked up the history recently, to find out that the Wonder Bread Factory opened in the early 1900s as Dorsh's White Cross Bakery. Then it was bought by Continental Baking Company in 1936 and used  as a factory for Wonder Bread and Hostess products (Twinkies perhaps!) until they relocated to a larger plant in Philadelphia, closing the DC factory in 1988. When I first moved to BloomingdaleDC I do recall smelling the baking aroma as far away as North Capitol street sometimes and hearing that they gave away "stale" or "overrun" baked goods to anyone who got there at the right time.  Then again, the sky has looked wonderful lately almost every day so I found myself snapping my usual flowers and plants and things, all with the sky in them.   How wonderful is our daily bread of blue sky!

Washington DC's Famous Dome

I have to admit that every time I have a meeting on Capitol Hill in some office in one of the House or Senate or Capitol buildings, I get a bit of a thrill walking up the stone steps, or tramping through the marble halls, looking up at the ceiling, noting the gilded murals, or even going through security and getting lost in the corridors. Any one of hundreds of famous worthies have surely stepped on the same stairs, passed through the same passages, made their case or argument, and spoken a million important words ahead of me. A fun part is sitting in some Member's office waiting my turn and sometimes being given popcorn, or chocolate candy bars, or peanuts, or iced water that some offices give out to guests. Even if the meeting doesn't go that well -- you know some staffers just don't seem to listen, or some Members are not available for very long -- just being in such a significant place affects me greatly.  I sometimes joke that "I'm just a girl from a village in the old country and here I am in one of the most powerful places on the planet." But you know, it's no joke!

Sunrise Hibiscus in Front of Waterfall in National Gallery of Art

A few weeks ago we made a family visit to the National Gallery of Art here in Washington DC and not only was the art great to look at but also there is always a lovely display of flowers in the underground restaurant. This time it was these very pretty sunrise hibiscus flowers and they had them growing in front of the glass wall that is in front of the waterfall.  Well, this is what I call them as I once had one of these plants and kept it for a few years, taking it in over the winters.  However, one year I missed a frost warning and my lovely Sunrise Hibiscus got nipped in the cold and quickly died.  I was very disappointed.  Since then I've got other flowering plants but it was great to see this one.

Ronald Reagan National Airport Terminal A Building

Who doesn't like the old airport building at Ronald Reagan national airport in DC?  It's now the Terminal A building that has airlines like Jet Blue, AirTran and Frontier. It's curved front and Art Deco feel, shining white paint with gold leaf decorations evoke another and perhaps less complex time in Washington, DC.Apparently it was designed in late 1930s and opened in 1941 according to the summary history I found of the airport that is nearest to me. I'm not sure when it was named after the 40th President, Ronald Reagan, but who remembers what it was called before that?

Photo Essay of Tuesday Lunchtime in DownTown DC

Lining up for lunch at the food truck

Lunch time I had an errand and went across Farragut Square to get a sandwich and some cookies for our staff meeting. Somehow I just knew it was going to  be a great day for photos as the park was filled with people eating their lunch, buying their lunch and chatting and just generally enjoying the sun. So I snapped a half dozen photos as I thought this captured downtown Washington DC in the summer very well. From the pigeons, gnarly trees, food trucks and flowers, it all seemed youthful and joyful and I wished I could have spent more of my day outside.

Pigeons ready to pounce

Interesting gnarly tree

View from K Street across the park

Pansies hanging in the  balance?

View towards the White House over Adm Farraguts Shoulder

Diagonal path across Farragut Square park

On Capitol Hill Again

Capitol Building Facing East

It is my privilege to have to go to meetings on Capitol Hill every once in a while and today, while  on my way to a House hearing this morning, I snapped this shot of the U.S. Capitol Building. Very soon the trees will be blossoming and leafing and this photo would not be possible at all. A short while later, on my way to the Rayburn building, I paused for a moment and saw the Washington Monument all the way down the Hill and onto the Mall. I'd never seen this view before because usually the trees block the view but they are still not blooming and the air was clear and sunny so I could see quite far. I was so glad to have my digital camera at hand, glad to be early for the hearing and be able to take the time to stop and stare and record these images of the nation's wealth that I enjoy almost on a daily basis.

View from Capitol Hill to Washington Monument

Telecommunications Titans and Those COAT People

I nearly fell over with surprise at an event this past Tuesday when Rep. Ed Markey of Massachusetts included me in a list of five people that he named and said we were "telecommunications titans." Interestingly, a co-worker snapped a shot of the live captioning behind him as he said it. So here it is, immortalized on the screen behind his head, at the celebratory event in the very grand Caucus Room of the U.S. House Cannon building. The five of us have been called several things along the way as we have lobbied for disability accessible technology policy over the last five years, but this one is the most interesting moniker! I consider it a great honor to have been called out like this in a public venue where there were almost 200 people, including a senator, the chairman of the FCC, several administration appointees and no end of other highly influential Washington DC people! At another event we were referred to as "the COAT People" as our coalition's acronym is COAT. That one made us all laugh, particularly as it was said in a very matter-of-fact tone by a private sector attorney -- that we all loved to work with -- at another public event. Our legislation was signed by the President in October. Learn more about COAT here.

Related articles

• Rep. Ed Markey: Building Online Ramps to Equal Access (huffingtonpost.com)
• Bill to make Web, mobile more accessible to disabled clears Congress (zdnet.com)

Evening Visit to Congress Or Yielding Myself the Time I Need to Consume

This evening several of us attended a late session of Congress where the U.S. House of Representatives were considering any number of bills before they go out on break (again). Our legislation was number #63 on a huge list so we knew it would be late before our bill was considered. So, after showing our red passes we went through security. This was a thorough search as the guard found a small spray hand sanitizer in my make-up bag and told me to go back outside and throw it in their special bins they have for such items and then made me walk again through the metal detector machine. So after walking through winding paths inside the new Visitor Center we ended up turning in our cell phones & cameras and got into the Gallery and watched the proceedings. It's a very bureaucratic, ritual-laden process and we were in quiet hysterics about how each Congressional Representative gave him or herself permission to speak after the House chair said "Each side will control 20 minutes."  The Member would then say, "I yield myself as much time as I may consume." And then the House Chair would say "the Member is recognized" and the speechifying would start with Members yielding back and forth their time. Most of the bills were of little concern to us although at one point one Member got himself into a good rant and rave about the recent DOJ decision involving threatening of voters, even though the bill under consideration did not directly, or even indirectly, seem to be connected. Things also got a bit lively when someone got worked up about the federal government only paying $1 for land that cost a city government $170,000 but it all seemed a bit arcane and unreal. That is, of course, until they came to the legislation we'd been working on for four years and we sat their agog as they went through the legislative ritual and passed it! Hooray! What a gladness this was!