Georgetown mystery.

Spotted at the corner of Wisconsin Avenue and Volta Place in Georgetown (DC) today. I always admire the Lutheran Church at this corner. Their sense of gardening matches my own -- whimsical, unplanned, over-packed, riotous. Today however, I discovered a new feature that may be the church's doing. This big fungus was manually affixed to a tree next to the sidewalk by the church. My sister will know what it is. But I wonder if my sister will know why it's there? She used to live in Georgetown but I don't think she drove 4 hours from her current home in the northern Appalachian Mountains to put it there. On the other hand, my sister -- an obsessive mushroom forager -- is whimsical and prone to unplanned, riotous acts so who knows.

Here's the church in October:

Happy Hallowmas.

[November 1st is All Saints' Day -- and is also known by some as Hallowmas, facts I spent most of my life not knowing.]

Today I went with a friend, formerly just another blogger (The Complaint Department) and now a very good in-person buddy, to the National Gallery of Art in DC. We thoroughly toured an Andrew Wyeth exhibit, and also saw a few other odds and ends. (And, truthfully, we had a long lunch in the Gallery restaurant and then a long visit at the gift store so it was a balance between art and consumption.)



Wind from the Sea, 1947.

We parked in front of the Capitol, which is undergoing repairs. [insert lame joke about Congress and repairs here]

 

The Rotunda in the National Gallery of Art.

 

Many people know of Wyeth's famous painting Christina's World. It's not my favorite Wyeth, not by a long shot, but maybe that's because it's almost become a joke painting -- so many take-offs and parodies over the years. The works we saw today contained no humans but many windows and curtains. All were stunning.

 

After I got home and did some googling on Wyeth I was reminded of Helga, a secret German model he had for many years who posed nude for him. He was married, she was married, and neither spouse knew of the painting sessions. I'll have to do some more reading to find out what else occurred, if anything, during those long hours of posing and painting. And there's my gossipy art lesson for the day. 

Shipping container apartments. If I were younger....

 

This shipping container apartment building is in Northeast DC, near the Franciscan Monastery where I spend several hours each Friday in the office sort of working. I read about this apartment and invited a friend to join me in a drive-by inspection after work last week. I had hopes of getting inside to see an actual unit, but they're already rented and occupied. And I wasn't nervy enough to ask the young man carrying in some boxes if we could barge in and check out his place. The building is in walking distance of Catholic University and the residents we saw entering and leaving certainly looked like students.

The idea of living in a shipping container is so appealing. In theory. Though I'm not sure I'd want to be on the top floor in August, even with air conditioning. I'll bet electrical storms are exciting!

 

[This is one of the first pictures I've taken with my new iPhone (oh the fun!); I hope to get better at it when I know what I'm doing. Plus I don't have user-friendly photo editing software right now so my photos are published raw, with no tweaking. I need to tweak.]

A neighbor's garden.

I like to poke around other people's gardens and this one was extra special.  I went with my friend Susan, and after we roamed around the White House gardens a bit we strolled through some other gardens on the Mall and passed by this sculpture. So many people, children especially, must see this and and say "what's that?" Only the old know!

The White House beehive is bolted down like that to protect it from the helicopter winds. We were there just after 9 AM -- I think -- and I was so conscious that the four Obama ladies were possibly at home that it was a bit distracting. I knew that Mr. O was in Williamsburg prepping for his next debate in two days. (Good prep, I'd say.) Anyway, I kept looking up at the windows and wondering what it would feel like to have hoards of strangers roaming around my front yard at 9 AM on a Sunday morning, taking pictures of my bedroom windows, speculating on who was awake and who was still asleep.

Scenes from two neighborhoods in DC: Brookland in Northeast DC (top, at the Franciscan Monastery) and Georgetown in lower Northwest DC (bottom).

My daughter captured this shot on her cell phone when she was in DC a week or so ago.

According to Robin Nagle, Professor of Anthropology at NYU, "Every single thing you see is future trash. EVERYTHING."

Even these sweet clapboard and detached houses in Georgetown, where most houses are brick and attached. The above observation about trash came from this article that I stumbled across this weekend. I'm fascinated by dirt and garbage, and so is this professor. I missed my calling. I now know that I really wanted to be a garbalogist.

Nagle says "we are surrounded by ephemera, but we can’t acknowledge that, because it’s kind of scary, because I think ultimately it points to our own temporariness, to thoughts that we’re all going to die."

She trying to get NYC to create a Museum of Sanitation.

I love the houses in DC. So much more attractive than those McMansions.

These row houses are on 13th Street, just a few miles from the White House. Where I hear a nice new family will move in on January 20th.