The Balancing Act

This week we tried to get settled in before Clayton starts law school. On Monday we had a small freak out session when we received a letter informing us that Clayton was missing one of the mandatory immunizations required by GW. Without it he could not register for classes or get his schedule or be assigned to a section. By the time we received the letter on Monday all the Doctor's offices we closed. (We get our mail from our landlords who were out of town and had the mail on hold.) So we planned an emergency trip downtown for Tuesday morning. We figured that if we were downtown we might as well do some sight seeing.

On Tuesday morning we decided to walk from our house to the metro to see what the commute would be like. After a long but uneventful walk we made it to the metro and headed down to Foggy Bottom. The conductor on the train sounded ridiculous over the PA system. One of the things he kept saying was "Blue Line to Largo." all the vowels elongated.

We went to student health services and found out that because Clayton is married and not living in a dorm he did not have to get the immunization and could just sign a waiver. We were relieved because the immunization was really expensive. From student services we walked to the national mall and started touring. We decided to go the American History Museum at the Smithsonian first because it was closest air conditioning. While there we saw Julia Child's kitchen, Dorthy's Ruby Slippers, Michael Jackson's Hat, Cat Woman's Costume, and a whole selection of pop up books. We concluded that just about anything counts has an American Artifact. Clayton was really excited to find a portrait of Stephen Colbert. If you have seen Colbert's Show he sells one of the prints as a fundraiser for charity that benefits children. At the auction he drives the price up by saying "If you do not bid on this you are saying that you hate children." We went to the National Art Gallery and walked through the sculpture garden. This helped Nicole realize that she is not that bad of a sculptor. There were others that made her feel tiny, unskilled and insignificant. We had lunch by the fountains and Nicole opted to take a nap. While she was napping on the park bench Clayton covered her in newspaper and moved to a different bench, completing the homeless motif. Just kidding about the newspaper part but we did get a great picture of Nicole asleep on the bench. We went to the National Art gallery and found out that the Smithsonian keeps a large quantity of portraits and sculptures of nearly, partially and completely nude figures. Nicole thought about smashing some stuff in there to rid the world of ugliness and/or sin. They did have some really cool paintings we saw a few Van Gogh's, Monet's, Cezzane's that was pretty cool. Then we went into the natural history museum just so we could see the Hope Diamond, a huge blue diamond. While there Nicole wanted to see the live butterfly exhibit but they were out of tickets. For those of you planning a trip out here tickets are free on Tuesdays. They also had a nice collection of rocks. We finished off the day by going by the Capitol Building and as Nicole likes to call it the "Supreme Court WHATEVER building". After that we jumped on the metro and then walked back home. We were both really tired when we got home. We did a some rough calculations and discovered that by the end of the day we had hiked over eight miles.
It was like hiking to havasupai, but with better facilities and AC some of the time. It turns out that the Metro station is about 2 miles away from our house, a bit farther than we thought.

On Wednesday, we heard about a job opening for a graphic design job. Nicole spent the rest of the week gathering her portfolio. It looked fantastic in the end. She finished it up on Saturday and we promptly mailed it. Keep your finger's crossed or pray for her which ever is your custom.

On Thursday and Friday Clayton had orientation at GW. He found it rather boring but really enjoyed starting his homework. The most interesting part was figuring out his commute. At first we didn't know we had any other commuting options besides wading through the parking lot of traffic to get into DC, or simply taking the metro. Nicole's cousin gave us the tip to try "slugging." Slugging is a fantastic form of transportation where you walk to a parking lot and line up with the other slugs, slang for people bumming a ride, and bum a ride into the city. Drivers get to use the carpool lane which cuts off 45 minutes of their commute, and you get a free ride. At first we were apprehensive about getting into a stranger's car. The whole concept seemed to go against our childhood safety instructions. After calculating the metro rates during rush hour, which are twice the normal rate, slugging seemed worth a try. Thus on orientation day Clayton defied his natural instincts to sleep in and woke up at 6am to test out the slugging method. It was a 2.5 mile walk to the slug line. Nicole, fearing that something might happen to her husband, wanted to at least give him a ride to the slug line. He, however, didn't want to be dependent on her for a ride. No, he would rather only have to be dependent on complete strangers. He figured that at least they would be on time. It all went really smoothly and Clayton plans on "slugging in" every morning.

On Saturday, we found our new favorite grocery store. It is a Latin/oriental grocery. They have all kinds of weird and bizarre foods, as well as regular produce, and best of all it is all reasonably priced. They also have samples on Saturday, which is a lot of fun. We found some unusual produce, Sweet lemons, jack fruit and white eggplant. There were a few things that we couldn't find so we headed to Wal-Mart. This turned out to be the most entertaining thing all week.

We think that school must be starting soon because it was super crowded with people buying school supplies. The check out lines were supper long and everyone was getting impatient. After waiting in line for twenty minutes we heard a kerfuffle behind us. Turning around we saw two heavy set black ladies and an equally heavy latino couple "getting in each other's grills". The dialogue sounded something like this
Black Lady 1: "Don' you talk to my momma dat way!"
Latino Man: "I aint talkin to yo momma!"
Black Lady "Yeah you was an' you bein disruhspeckful"
LATINO LADY: "Don' you be touch'n my man!"
BLACK LADY1: "I ain't be touch'n him! He be touch'n me"
LATINO LADY: "I KNOW he not evuh wanna touch dat"
BLACK LADY 1: "Yeah he is being DISrespectful! You Don' wanna go there wit me! Owww noo you don' wanna go der wit' me!"
(pushing ensues. other shoppers and workers start staring. the manager enters the scence.)
Manger: Y'all need to calm down.
Black Lady 1: "You don't wanna go there with me!"
Latino Lady: "You don' wanna go there with me!"
Black Lady1: "I don' gotta be takin' this from no gang banger!"
Latino Lady: "I aint no gang banger you a gang banger!"
(More pushing and swearing ensues)
Crowd: Watch the language there are children!
Latino Man to Black Lady1: yeah there are kids don' be swearing around them.
(it should be noted that both the latino lady and the black lady have children sitting in their carts.)
Black Lady1: "She started swearing first!"
Black Lady 2: " Oh calm down you know how ignrant THEY are."
(Clayton and Nicole exit the scene trying not to laugh)

All in all it was a pretty great week! Peace and Blessings Y'all, peace and blessings.