Today is our penultimate day in Takoma Park. The house is almost empty - everything we are shipping is in boxes, waiting to be containerized by the shippers, the unsuccessful yard sale items were picked up half an hour ago by Purple Heart (the Salvation Army could schedule pick-ups only from the 15th), and almost all our clothes etc. for the West Coast are already in suitcases, with the final packing to be done after the shippers come in a couple of hours. Tomorrow the house will be professionally cleaned, and we will set off for the last leg of our American adventure.
What have we been up to in the last two weeks? First of all, we celebrated A's fourteenth birthday. He and I awokened at 7 a.m., when SR and LR called him on Skype from Israel to wish him happy birthday. After waiting an hour or so for S to wake up (I used the time to make brown sugar cupcakes for our breakfast), I gave A the present I had made him: hand warmers for next winter. S gave A a birthday card. Much to A's disgust, ADC was away in Kansas at a conference. This often happens; very unfortunately for A, he was born at the height of conference season, and one of his parents is almost always away on his actual birthday. This was the the reason for the four-day birthday celebrations, and why he only got his real present on the solstice.
Next stop in the birthday celebrations was spending the day at the National Zoo. Both boys were very excited to go, but at the end, as we were walking back to the Metro, in a burst of local patriotism, both declared that the Biblical Zoo in Jerusalem was better. Actually, they may be right - ADC says that the Biblical Zoo is in fact considered one of the best zoos in the world, and it certainly seemed to be bigger than the National Zoo. We began with the cheetahs, who are much smaller than one would think in real life. There was a volunteer docent there, who talked to us about the cheetahs for a bit. S asked her if there was a Noah's Ark at the zoo like there is at the Biblical Zoo; she was rather confused until I explained that Noah's Ark is the name of the visitor centre there! She laughed and told him that there were several visitor centres.
It was very hot and humid in the Zoo, and I felt sorry for all the animals that had adapted to cooler climes. It turned out that many of them had strategies for copying with the weather: for example, the pandas. The pandas are undoubtedly the Zoo's strongest point, and the boys were very disappointed not to see them in the outside enclosures. I suggested that we might see them in the indoor viewing section, and indeed, each (air-conditioned) room there held a larger or smaller panda lying on the floor, clearly seeking relief from the heat. There was a lot of educational/informational material on the corridor wall that ran parallel to the pandas' rooms, and eventually we reached the behavioural observation station: two people in white coats behind a glass wall, looking at a wall full of screens showing the pandas from various angles. S asked why they were watching the pandas so closely, since they weren't doing anything, and had difficulty accepting my explanation that they were watching closely so as not to miss it if they did do something! We continued after the pandas to the bird house, which was a little underwhelming. I guess that seeing birds at Kruger Park spoils you for life. Or else the various birds - mostly South and North American - were just not that interesting, compared to birdwatching in nature anywhere. The latter was definitely A's opinion.
The Zoo has a main drag, and after the bird house we went back to it, and basically walked along to to great cats. On the way we stopped to look at the American bison. The Zoo has a female, and she is immense. The mind boggles at the idea of the male being almost double in size! She was sitting in the shade looking shaggy and miserable, and I was glad to see that the elephant - next on our path - were Asian, i.e. used to humid climates. Only one of them was outside when we were at the enclosure and she was doing all the things that elephants are supposed to do: eating hay, brushing herself down with hay, squirting water on herself. The other elephants could be seen from inside the former Elephant House, now the Elephant Community Center. No wonder A loves elephants, they always look like they are smiling! He bought another elephant for his collection at the Zoo store: a turquoise soapstone one made in Kenya.
We continued past the seals and sea lions, the otters and the grey wolves to the great cat display. Like the grey wolves, the Sumatran tiger was pacing - but he spent some of the time swimming back and forth in the moat that surrounded the enclosure. I think everyone who saw that envied the tiger in that moment, as it gradually became hotter and more oppressive. The lions and lionesses (in sex-segregated enclosures) were gnawing on bones at that time. One of the lions had an extremely impressive mane, and sat facing the lionesses and growling. I wonder what he was thinking. By that time we were starting to get a bit tired, so we went quickly to see the orangoutangs and gorillas. I always find great apes in zoos very sad, and this was no exception. At least they seem to be kept stimulated with daily visits to the Think Tank where they can play computer games, among other things.
Rain had been forecast for most of the day, so we took raincoats to the zoo as a successful prophylactic measure. It began raining just before we reached the Takoma metro station on the way back, and there was a break while were walking homewards. No sooner had I closed the front door behind us and the heavens opened. It rained very very hard for nearly two hours, stopping just in time for us to eat the first birthday meal, pizza at Roscoe's, followed by gelato at Dolci. At Roscoe's we sat viewing the street, and saw the cook go out to pick herbs from the boxes outside. A and S found this very exciting.
Next stop in the birthday celebrations was spending the day at the National Zoo. Both boys were very excited to go, but at the end, as we were walking back to the Metro, in a burst of local patriotism, both declared that the Biblical Zoo in Jerusalem was better. Actually, they may be right - ADC says that the Biblical Zoo is in fact considered one of the best zoos in the world, and it certainly seemed to be bigger than the National Zoo. We began with the cheetahs, who are much smaller than one would think in real life. There was a volunteer docent there, who talked to us about the cheetahs for a bit. S asked her if there was a Noah's Ark at the zoo like there is at the Biblical Zoo; she was rather confused until I explained that Noah's Ark is the name of the visitor centre there! She laughed and told him that there were several visitor centres.
It was very hot and humid in the Zoo, and I felt sorry for all the animals that had adapted to cooler climes. It turned out that many of them had strategies for copying with the weather: for example, the pandas. The pandas are undoubtedly the Zoo's strongest point, and the boys were very disappointed not to see them in the outside enclosures. I suggested that we might see them in the indoor viewing section, and indeed, each (air-conditioned) room there held a larger or smaller panda lying on the floor, clearly seeking relief from the heat. There was a lot of educational/informational material on the corridor wall that ran parallel to the pandas' rooms, and eventually we reached the behavioural observation station: two people in white coats behind a glass wall, looking at a wall full of screens showing the pandas from various angles. S asked why they were watching the pandas so closely, since they weren't doing anything, and had difficulty accepting my explanation that they were watching closely so as not to miss it if they did do something! We continued after the pandas to the bird house, which was a little underwhelming. I guess that seeing birds at Kruger Park spoils you for life. Or else the various birds - mostly South and North American - were just not that interesting, compared to birdwatching in nature anywhere. The latter was definitely A's opinion.
The Zoo has a main drag, and after the bird house we went back to it, and basically walked along to to great cats. On the way we stopped to look at the American bison. The Zoo has a female, and she is immense. The mind boggles at the idea of the male being almost double in size! She was sitting in the shade looking shaggy and miserable, and I was glad to see that the elephant - next on our path - were Asian, i.e. used to humid climates. Only one of them was outside when we were at the enclosure and she was doing all the things that elephants are supposed to do: eating hay, brushing herself down with hay, squirting water on herself. The other elephants could be seen from inside the former Elephant House, now the Elephant Community Center. No wonder A loves elephants, they always look like they are smiling! He bought another elephant for his collection at the Zoo store: a turquoise soapstone one made in Kenya.
We continued past the seals and sea lions, the otters and the grey wolves to the great cat display. Like the grey wolves, the Sumatran tiger was pacing - but he spent some of the time swimming back and forth in the moat that surrounded the enclosure. I think everyone who saw that envied the tiger in that moment, as it gradually became hotter and more oppressive. The lions and lionesses (in sex-segregated enclosures) were gnawing on bones at that time. One of the lions had an extremely impressive mane, and sat facing the lionesses and growling. I wonder what he was thinking. By that time we were starting to get a bit tired, so we went quickly to see the orangoutangs and gorillas. I always find great apes in zoos very sad, and this was no exception. At least they seem to be kept stimulated with daily visits to the Think Tank where they can play computer games, among other things.
Rain had been forecast for most of the day, so we took raincoats to the zoo as a successful prophylactic measure. It began raining just before we reached the Takoma metro station on the way back, and there was a break while were walking homewards. No sooner had I closed the front door behind us and the heavens opened. It rained very very hard for nearly two hours, stopping just in time for us to eat the first birthday meal, pizza at Roscoe's, followed by gelato at Dolci. At Roscoe's we sat viewing the street, and saw the cook go out to pick herbs from the boxes outside. A and S found this very exciting.
The weekend of A's birthday was overshadowed by a major event: the car battery died when I set out for the supermarket on Friday morning. I think it must have died immediately, but as our road is a slope, I was able to coast downhill until a red light. When I then tried to turn right, the car definitely died and I was stuck. After a while a police car came by, and they were able to push me to a side street so I no longer blocked the road, but they couldn't jump start the car "because of the electronics in their own one." In additional to my general freaking out at what had happened, I was really flabbergasted by that - if the police can't jump start you, who will?! Anyway, after calming down a bit, and a few unsuccessful phone calls to friends and acquaintances (everyone was at work), I realised that I could hear a lawn mower. I walked towards the sound and very luckily, the gardener was kind enough to jump start me and I managed to make my way home. I then sent the boys out to buy milk and eggs - we had just enough fruit and vegetables to keep us through to Sunday, when we could go to the farmer's market. All this happened while ADC, who is in charge of the car, was away, with his own problems - both his flight to Kansas and the flight back were delayed due to Tropical Storm/Tropical Depression Bill (a strangely innocuous name for such a disruptive piece of weather). I was too flustered at the time to understand when he told me that I just needed someone to come and change the car battery. I only worked this out at around midnight, at which point I e-mailed three companies. Only one responded overnight, I called them in the morning and at 10:30 on Saturday I had a functioning car again. It turned out that not only was the battery 3 years old and thus due to be replaced, but we had been doing everything possible to drain it passively: short infrequent trips, leaving outside in the cold and the heat ... All's well that ends well, and it didn't cost too much (at 4 p.m. on Saturday I got a quote from another of the companies that was $50 more).
On returning from the supermarket, I embarked on more baking: ADC was going to arrive home much later than planned, so I baked A's birthday cake. I have never baked so much in my life: cupcakes on Thursday, corn bread on Friday night (instead of challah, as I am not up to coping with yeast), and now a chocolate cake. ADC insisted on icing it when he returned home, and A was very pleased. His second birthday meal was aglio-olio pasta with chopped zucchini flowers (we will not be here for the fruit) and birthday cake. He then received his main birthday present: a fancy hiking backpack, with integral water bag and air-flow back.
On returning from the supermarket, I embarked on more baking: ADC was going to arrive home much later than planned, so I baked A's birthday cake. I have never baked so much in my life: cupcakes on Thursday, corn bread on Friday night (instead of challah, as I am not up to coping with yeast), and now a chocolate cake. ADC insisted on icing it when he returned home, and A was very pleased. His second birthday meal was aglio-olio pasta with chopped zucchini flowers (we will not be here for the fruit) and birthday cake. He then received his main birthday present: a fancy hiking backpack, with integral water bag and air-flow back.
On Sunday, A had two birthday meals!! Breakfast was bacon and eggs, to general delight (except mine). As a vegetarian, I cannot understand my children's obsession with bacon. I personally gag at the smell of frying bacon (well, I dislike the smell of all frying meat, chicken and mince as well. I am fine with grilled/barbecued (in both senses) meat, though). Anyway, breakfast with bacon is a highlight of staying at hotels and B&Bs for them, and there was bacon in the freezer for some reason, that needed to be used. The fourth and final birthday meal was supper at DCNoodles, one of the first places we had eaten in Washington (before going to hear Ian Anderson at the Lincoln Theater back in October). A had asked for a Thai meal, and it was excellent. He had the same thing as he had the previous time, pad see eew with broccoli, while ADC had pad thai, S had drunken noodles (delicious but a bit too spicy, he said) and I had an excellent noodle soup, very similar to the bastard toom yum that we would make at home. After all that spicy food, we looked for an ice cream place and found Menchie's, one of growing number of self-serve frozen yogurt places. You begin by choosing up to four flavours of frozen yogurt, then there were a selection of of sweet crunchy things (like M&M's) to add, then a selection of fruit pies, and finally fudge/marshmallow/Reese's/
When ADC went to the Pink Floyd meet-up, he dropped the rest of us at the metro station and we went to visit the National Archives. The security screening was the most severe I've seen here outside the airport (admittedly, I haven't visited the White House or Congress). We started on the entrance floor, where we saw one of the four extant 1297 copies of Magna Carta. We then went upstairs to the rotunda where the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are displayed. We stood in line for just over half an hour (possibly the longest queue I've been in here; it felt like visiting the Sistine Chapel, because the rotunda has such a high and decorated ceiling), and spent less than 15 minutes actually inside, since we only wanted to look at the actual documents, not at the informational material alongside it. We finished our visit at the Public Vaults exhibition, which we agreed was the most interesting: each case held examples of the kinds of materials kept in the National Archives, ranging from treaties and laws to letters to the President from the public. Those were particularly moving, with a GI in 1944 asking Eleanor Roosevelt to be his child's godmother, one young boy asking President Nixon for funding as his mother had declared his bedroom a disaster zone, and another informing President Ford that he was half right and half wrong. They reminded me of the letters to Yitzhak Rabin that I used to answer as part of my job at the Prime Minister's Office from January 1992 to November 1995.
The week after A's birthday was the last week with any sort of routine for a while, I think, since the second week of camp was cancelled. A and S were very disappointed, as they were looking forward to a marine biology camp - but I guess not enough people felt like paying that price for four days of camp. They thoroughly enjoyed Japanese art camp, though, coming home not only with manga booklets they had prepared themselves, but with papier-mâché Noh masks, origami animals, kimono designs and durga(sp?) heads. They also experienced a sushi workshop, and are now prepared to eat some kinds of vegetarian sushi, which is an improvement over refusing to eat sushi at all (they both reject still fish in any form). We spent three nights that week watching movies: two nights watching The Last Waltz on Netflix, while on Thursday, we went on a family outing to the cinema, for only the second time since coming to the US. We saw Inside Out, which deserves its rave reception. I won't go into the plot, so as not to spoil anything, but it was a complex and original story, with really fantastic animation and artwork. I thought that all the sweaters worn by the characters had really been knitted. Surprisingly, the traditional Pixar short before the main feature was terrible, in my opinion, by any standards, but especially considering how excellent Inside Out was.
My own week was productive: I edited two articles and reviewed another. The article I reviewed was for Journal of Ethnopharmacology, and I am not sure I am really competent to review there. In this case, however, I thought the methodology sound and the information useful, but the English was so bad (the authors were Turkish) that the article was almost unreadable. I sent it back with an "Accept pending major revision / revise and resubmit", but ADC told me I should have rejected it. I'm not sure about that: the topic was certainly suited to the journal and really my only problem was with the language. I don't think the authors should be penalised totally for spending more time on their research than on their language skills. On Friday night M and D came over for supper - part of the campaign to finish everything in the pantry. As a result, we served meatballs, brown rice/wild rice/barley and succotash, with challah to start and brownies and biscotti to finish. We finished a bottle of wine (opened that evening) and a bottle of port (opened several weeks ago). They also came over for fireworks, and cleaned out everything that we couldn't donate to a food bank.
My own week was productive: I edited two articles and reviewed another. The article I reviewed was for Journal of Ethnopharmacology, and I am not sure I am really competent to review there. In this case, however, I thought the methodology sound and the information useful, but the English was so bad (the authors were Turkish) that the article was almost unreadable. I sent it back with an "Accept pending major revision / revise and resubmit", but ADC told me I should have rejected it. I'm not sure about that: the topic was certainly suited to the journal and really my only problem was with the language. I don't think the authors should be penalised totally for spending more time on their research than on their language skills. On Friday night M and D came over for supper - part of the campaign to finish everything in the pantry. As a result, we served meatballs, brown rice/wild rice/barley and succotash, with challah to start and brownies and biscotti to finish. We finished a bottle of wine (opened that evening) and a bottle of port (opened several weeks ago). They also came over for fireworks, and cleaned out everything that we couldn't donate to a food bank.
The weekend after that was slightly schizophrenic. For the first time in a while, the rain began in the early hours of the morning on Saturday, rather than in the afternoon, and continued almost without a break until late at night. As a result, we switched around our plans, and spent the day at home. We did a bit more packing (mainly ADCs clothes) and had quality family time: playing games together (and choosing which ones to ship and which ones to take to the West Coast), and watching To Have and Have Not. As I remembered, the plot suffers from comparison with Casablanca, but Lauren Bacall holds her own when compared to Ingrid Bergman. Both are incredibly lovely, but with a very different sort of beauty. It is hard to believe that Bacall was only 19 when she made that movie.
On Sunday, we got up early and went to the farmers' market for the last time. Of course, it was the best it has been for a long time - everything is starting now (hence why we ate pasta with zucchini flowers again). We then continued to Mt Vernon, where S had been on a school trip, but which the rest of us had not seen. It was a very different experience from Monticello, which we visited off-season on a foggy day, so that we only got to see the house. At Mt Vernon we saw the two-part movie overview (part 1: advertorial for the site; part 2: hagiography for Washington), took the timed-entry tour of the house, and spent most of our time exploring the garden. The differences between Jefferson and Washington are expressed amazingly well in the differences between the estates. Washington was a farmer and a soldier, while Jefferson was an intellectual as well as a politician. Monticello is much more interesting as a house than Mt Vernon. Admittedly, the interpretation at Monticello was much better - we had a proper guided tour, rather than being herded in line with people repeating the same spiel in every room. Even so, there was something much more ordinary about Mt Vernon. Washington described it as "pleasant," and that is what it is - pleasant and unexciting. I also found the Jefferson family cemetery more moving than Washington's tomb. On the other hand, the gardens and grounds - which we could not properly experience at Monticello, due to the fog and the winter - at Mt Vernon are wonderful. The upper gardens, with their combination of flowers, vegetables and parterres, were what I had expected the National Arboretum to be like. The pioneer farm, where eighteenth-century American farming is reenacted, had a lot of potential, but when we asked the interpreters questions, they had difficulty getting away from their set speeches, which was disappointing. We had just missed, by a couple of weeks, the hand-harvesting and threshing of the wheat grown there in a system devised by Washington himself. We did see the harvested grain in what had been stables and it was fascinating to touch the kernels, still soft (one always thinks of the dry wheat, forgetting that it would begin as soft as sweetcorn kernels).
We then continued to Huntley Meadows Park. Compared to our visit almost exactly two months earlier, we saw far fewer birds. We did, however, see an osprey with fish in its claws, being beaten about by a much-smaller redwinged blackbird, clearly evicting a predator. We also saw a rather huge turtle, possibly an alligator turtle, in addition to the common red-eared sliders. We ended the weekend with our last Southern barbecue, at a local branch of Famous Dave's, where we had eaten in Chattanooga. This branch did not have the grilled pineapple I remembered fondly, but both the chips and the broccoli were excellent, from my point of view, and the others all enjoyed the ribs very much.
On Sunday, we got up early and went to the farmers' market for the last time. Of course, it was the best it has been for a long time - everything is starting now (hence why we ate pasta with zucchini flowers again). We then continued to Mt Vernon, where S had been on a school trip, but which the rest of us had not seen. It was a very different experience from Monticello, which we visited off-season on a foggy day, so that we only got to see the house. At Mt Vernon we saw the two-part movie overview (part 1: advertorial for the site; part 2: hagiography for Washington), took the timed-entry tour of the house, and spent most of our time exploring the garden. The differences between Jefferson and Washington are expressed amazingly well in the differences between the estates. Washington was a farmer and a soldier, while Jefferson was an intellectual as well as a politician. Monticello is much more interesting as a house than Mt Vernon. Admittedly, the interpretation at Monticello was much better - we had a proper guided tour, rather than being herded in line with people repeating the same spiel in every room. Even so, there was something much more ordinary about Mt Vernon. Washington described it as "pleasant," and that is what it is - pleasant and unexciting. I also found the Jefferson family cemetery more moving than Washington's tomb. On the other hand, the gardens and grounds - which we could not properly experience at Monticello, due to the fog and the winter - at Mt Vernon are wonderful. The upper gardens, with their combination of flowers, vegetables and parterres, were what I had expected the National Arboretum to be like. The pioneer farm, where eighteenth-century American farming is reenacted, had a lot of potential, but when we asked the interpreters questions, they had difficulty getting away from their set speeches, which was disappointing. We had just missed, by a couple of weeks, the hand-harvesting and threshing of the wheat grown there in a system devised by Washington himself. We did see the harvested grain in what had been stables and it was fascinating to touch the kernels, still soft (one always thinks of the dry wheat, forgetting that it would begin as soft as sweetcorn kernels).
We then continued to Huntley Meadows Park. Compared to our visit almost exactly two months earlier, we saw far fewer birds. We did, however, see an osprey with fish in its claws, being beaten about by a much-smaller redwinged blackbird, clearly evicting a predator. We also saw a rather huge turtle, possibly an alligator turtle, in addition to the common red-eared sliders. We ended the weekend with our last Southern barbecue, at a local branch of Famous Dave's, where we had eaten in Chattanooga. This branch did not have the grilled pineapple I remembered fondly, but both the chips and the broccoli were excellent, from my point of view, and the others all enjoyed the ribs very much.
Our final full week went by very fast. Not as much time was taken up with packing as I thought - but we did sort out a lot of stuff. The Lupus Foundation took away four big bags of old clothes and shoes - amazing, considering how much we got rid of just over a year ago, when we left Israel. The boys and I had haircuts on Wednesday. S and I are quite happy, A not so much. He has a very clear idea of what he wants, but isn't able to communicate it quite so clearly to hairdressers, it seems ... The rest of us think he looks good, though. I spent a lot of time sewing - I completed a second pair of shorts that I began last week, and made a pair of pants from start to finish - with perfect seam matching at the crotch, if I say so myself. It was an interesting experience to sew with linen rather than cotton. I'm planning to wear these pants on the flight to Seattle, and I hope I don't discover that I should have lined them. I'll see what another round of laundering does, though.
We saw people and said good-bye to them three evenings this week: on Monday we had dessert with our new next-door neighbours. S continued to win the heart of their five-year old daughter by reading aloud to her for over an hour. On Wednesday, we went to our old next-door neighbours, to their condo in Bethesda, for supper. I continued the mission of finishing what's in the pantry by baking a cake. I used a recipe I found on the internet "closely adapted from Nigella Lawson", that used canola oil, brown sugar and melted dark chocolate, as I didn't have butter, granulated sugar or cocoa left. On Friday, we went to SG and HG for the last time. It was lovely, as always. I'm glad we got to know them.
The Fourth of July celebrations took place over two days: the parade was on Saturday, the real date, and was very amusing. We were much better positioned than we had been for the St Patrick's Day parade. The fireworks, postponed to Sunday due to rain, were well worth the wait: nearly 20 minutes of some of the best fireworks I've ever seen. I don't know the names of all of them, but my favourites are the ones that explode in different colours, float down a bit, and then explode again in golden showers. I kept on thinking of the lines from Summer by Alice Low: "We like the things that summer brings. It brings fireworks, late at night, red and yellow, blue and white." It took me a long time to understand that the book was referring to the Fourth of July; as a little girl in South Africa, I didn't realise that the book was American.
We spent the first part of the day packing the suitcases we are taking to the West Coast, to be sure that we had enough space and didn't need to ship even more clothes. Thankfully, it looks like we are OK. In the afternoon, we watched Harvey before ADC erased our user profile, as he sold the computer and it was collected tonight. He also sold his bike back to the shop, and tomorrow he is sleight car back to the dealers. So far, he is the only one to have any luck - we set out the small number of items (mainly kitchen appliances of which we have doubles with the right voltage back home in Israel) on the front lawn and tried to attract passers-by from 4 p.m. until after the fireworks, i.e. around 10, with absolutely no success. Yesterday Ariel took all the remaining closed packages to the Takoma Park Food Pantry on his way to the car dealers.
Getting back to Harvey: I hadn't seen the movie before, but was familiar with the concept of a six-foot tall invisible white rabbit, I'm not sure how. I thought the movie was very sweet, and I particularly enjoyed the relationship between Mrs Simmons and Judge Gaffney. I also though that Elwood P. Dowd's line "Well, I've wrestled with reality for 35 years, Doctor, and I'm happy to state I finally won out over it" was absolutely brilliant. In order to finish our subscription to Netflix DVDs, Ariel and I watched another two films over the past few nights. Last night we watched The Last Waveand the previous two nights we watched Boyhood. It would be hard to find two more different films, I think. The Last Wave, directed by Peter Wier (whose surname is missing a D, I always feel), is a very creepy tale of how a white Australian lawyer become drawn into the Dreamtime when he agrees to help a group of Aborigines accused of murdering another in a drunken brawl - which turns out to be a ritual killing due to the latter committing sacrilege. Boyhood, on the other hand, is a slice-of-life filmed over twelve years with the same actors, which despite having ups and downs (particularly the mother's relationships), ends on a positive note. The conceit of the actors naturally aging, rather than being made up or using different actors for different ages, was very well executed, and everything was entirely believable.
We spent the first part of the day packing the suitcases we are taking to the West Coast, to be sure that we had enough space and didn't need to ship even more clothes. Thankfully, it looks like we are OK. In the afternoon, we watched Harvey before ADC erased our user profile, as he sold the computer and it was collected tonight. He also sold his bike back to the shop, and tomorrow he is sleight car back to the dealers. So far, he is the only one to have any luck - we set out the small number of items (mainly kitchen appliances of which we have doubles with the right voltage back home in Israel) on the front lawn and tried to attract passers-by from 4 p.m. until after the fireworks, i.e. around 10, with absolutely no success. Yesterday Ariel took all the remaining closed packages to the Takoma Park Food Pantry on his way to the car dealers.
Getting back to Harvey: I hadn't seen the movie before, but was familiar with the concept of a six-foot tall invisible white rabbit, I'm not sure how. I thought the movie was very sweet, and I particularly enjoyed the relationship between Mrs Simmons and Judge Gaffney. I also though that Elwood P. Dowd's line "Well, I've wrestled with reality for 35 years, Doctor, and I'm happy to state I finally won out over it" was absolutely brilliant. In order to finish our subscription to Netflix DVDs, Ariel and I watched another two films over the past few nights. Last night we watched The Last Waveand the previous two nights we watched Boyhood. It would be hard to find two more different films, I think. The Last Wave, directed by Peter Wier (whose surname is missing a D, I always feel), is a very creepy tale of how a white Australian lawyer become drawn into the Dreamtime when he agrees to help a group of Aborigines accused of murdering another in a drunken brawl - which turns out to be a ritual killing due to the latter committing sacrilege. Boyhood, on the other hand, is a slice-of-life filmed over twelve years with the same actors, which despite having ups and downs (particularly the mother's relationships), ends on a positive note. The conceit of the actors naturally aging, rather than being made up or using different actors for different ages, was very well executed, and everything was entirely believable.
Yesterday we went to our last Smithsonian museum: the Museum of American History. It was a good choice for an afternoon's entertainment, but I think we were right to keep it low on our list of museums to go to. We went to three exhibitions, averaging an hour per exhibition: We started in the Food hall, where we saw Julia Child's kitchen, in which her TV shows were filmed. ADC was very envious of all her copper pots. The description of how American food changed from 1950 to 2000 was very interesting, especially as it seems to me that many of the movements that took place in the US in the 1970s are now occurring in Israel. We continued to an exhibition on a house in Ipswich, MA, which was continuously occupied from its construction in the 1760s until 1963, which told the stories of four families that lived there - a Revolutionary merchant, an abolitionist and reformist family, an Irish washerwoman and her factory-worker daughter, and a grandmother and grandson during WWII. That last kitchen put the 1950s kitchens into a different perspective! We then moved to another wing of the museum, to exhibitions on transport. We started with maritime transport and the Atlantic world, and ended with the containerisation revolution of shipping in the 1960s and 70s, which moved the centre of West Coast shipping from San Francisco to Oakland.
That brings me full circle to the beginning of the letter ... Next letter will be from San Juan Island or Seattle.
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