City Views, Country Dreams

Good evening from New York. This afternoon our seasons seemed to change from a cool, dampish spring to a rather warm early summer. The time/temperature sign on the neighborhood bank said it was 80 degrees F. Wow! What a switch. On Friday morning, I took a train down to Washington, DC for a long-planned visit. It was cold when I left New York, and even colder, plus rainy when I got to Union Station in our nation's capital. There was suspense at that point whether wrangling between our country's major political parties were going to result in an actual "shutdown" of the federal government as of midnight Friday. The following is a photo of the Capitol Building where some sort of vote needed to take place by midnight. The following photo taken from my wonderful host's car shows the rain. Just behind those trees is where the Capitol is, even if you cannot really see it. This weather called for wooly layers of clothing and umbrellas. One reason for this visit was to see the splendid Gauguin exhibit, at the National Gallery, that had recently traveled across the Atlantic after a stay at the Tate in London. If the government shutdown were to have happened, the National Gallery, as a publicly-funded museum, would have had to lock its doors. If the shutdown were to have taken place, my host would have had to stay home from his government-funded job on an enforced furlough until various politicos got their acts together. And so, we decided to see the Gauguin show late on Friday afternoon, just to make sure that we would be admitted. I have seen many Gauguin exhibits over the years, and it was grand to see some old favorites amongst the paintings, prints, and wood carvings. As we had a few minutes left before the normal closing hour for the NG, we also took a quick peek at a Canaletto exhibit. I liked the Gauguin much more. On Saturday morning we learned from various news reports that some sort of temporary settlement had been reached, and the government would not close down. Unfortunately, the rather fierce weather continued. No actual rain, but grey and chilly, and damp underfoot. We had a great breakfast and then went out to a local garden center to get some annual plants for my host's garden. It was a fun place to visit, where we pulled a creakly little red children's sized wagon around the various beds of flowers, herbs, and other plants and made our selections. This was all very relaxing and so very different from my usual New York pace. After a delicious lunch, we took a walk round my host's neighborhood, and I did take a photo of this cherry tree. This weekend was the end of the annual Japanese Cherry Tree Festival held in DC to honor the Japanese who gave many of these beautiful trees to our nation. We did not attend any of the official events, but saw some of them reported on television later. It was more fun to see local flowers in bloom. If you look very carefully just to the left of the base of this wonderfully knarled tree, you will see Coco, the fraidy cat, one of my host's neighbors. We happened upon her after our walk, and tried hard to convince her to come a bit closer for a hello. In vain. She's a lovely black cat with bright green eyes.

I dined very, very well this weekend, and did not have to do any dishes. Delicious chicken dishes, omelettes, salmon, all with imaginative seasonings. Lots of chatting about all sorts of things, and lots of laughing also filled the days.

All too quickly, it was time to get back to that impressive Union Station, and to hop on a train headed back up to New York City.

I usually show you all a bit of my own city, but this time I have given you just a quick glimpse of another city. Having this quick visit to another beautiful place was great fun.

I'll have to try it again soon.