03 April 2007

Cherry Blossoms and Ketchup.

I’ve lived in the DC-area my whole life, but the annual Cherry Blossom festival never seems to get old for me. I go just about every year. Even when I was at Penn State, I used to bring my non-DC friends down to see the trees. They’re just beautiful. My favorite part is when the wind starts blowing and the blossoms scatter like a pale pink snowstorm.

So when Charlotte e-mailed me this morning to ask if I wanted to meet her and the fam at the Tidal Basin during lunch on this perfect 80-degree-sunny-day, I didn’t have any hesitations. Especially since the office is slow today.

I took a cab from my office and had him drop me off right on the bridge…Char and Levi were downtown but there was a lot of traffic and they still had to find parking. So I walked around, enjoyed the weather, took some pictures and then sat under a tree and read through a few of my paperclip-marked articles.

Charlotte called to say they had been driving back and forth looking for a place to park, but had no luck. I told her that was fine, that I was just enjoying being outside on my lunch break and getting away from my desk, but that I’d probably have to get back to work soon.

At that, she said “well, let’s just drive you back to work because we already told the kids they were going to see you and they’re already excited. Plus, it’s a showtime down here, we’re just going to go to the zoo anyway.”

I don’t know how I could ever doubt that riding through DC with that cast of characters would be less fun that relaxing under a tree in the sun.

Levi was driving his work pickup truck, so they stopped by the curb and I hopped in the front cab so that Charlotte was in the middle and Levi was driving and I was in the passenger seat. Apparently, this makes Levi some sort of pimp because he started getting all sorts of comments by passers-by. The best of which was a National Park Service employee that rolled down his pickup truck window and yelled at Levi, “WHHHHEW!! You’ve got two! Allllright!” and proceeded to give him the “thumbs up.”

Also, I know Washington isn’t what you might consider a “big city,” but it certainly provides for good toddler entertainment. Tunnels, in particular, seemed to turn their world upside down.

Then I told Charlotte that I could not join them for their outdoor grilling tonight because I was attending my first ever Passover Seder, and this would be my first Jewish celebration barring me and Rachel’s latke-making-fest around Hanukkah. I described latkes as “flattened tots” and then went into my qualms with all my jewish friends banning me from dipping them in ketchup. For it to really be a traditional latke, I had to eat it with sour cream and applesauce (which, by the way, surprisingly delicious…or as Char said “That sounds like a symphony in your mouth.”).

Levi admitted that sounded pretty good, but remains steady on Camp Ketchup with me.

I hope I have something interesting to report from dinner tonight. As long as it doesn’t involve me eating gefilte fish (although, I don’t know…can I dip that in ketchup?)

I am going to update this a bit later with some pics from the Tidal Basin I took today...

3 comments:

Sarah said...

I can't wait to see the pictures! I am so sad to be missing it.

Charlotte : ) said...

And for the rest of the day, "Where did Yhatzee go? Why's she have to work?"

BTW - the Zoo was too crowded to go to as well. It was a SHOW.

Rachel said...

my new goal in life is to win levi over to the apple sauce and sour cream camp! Charlotte is awesome and totally there already...Looks like i'll have to make latkes again soon!