Sakura

Tis the season for Cherry Blossoms or "sakura" in Japanese (I think). Most of the petals have blown away by now, but last weekend the trees were in high form. I was lucky enough to go at non-peak times, so I avoided a lot of tourists. But that means I had to go at less than ideal times, being Wednesday and Friday after work. One day was rainy, and one day was windy. The second time around, I brought a friend with a camera! It's good to have friends with cameras. Her name is Jenny, and she's a coworker of mine.


Hi Jenny!


Twisty branches.


The picture every tourist takes...


The blossoms look like snow. (But I'd much rather have Cherry Blossoms than snow.)


The dramatic sky...


The Cherry Blossoms line the tidal basin. I don't know how we managed to miss a picture of it, but lots of the trees were bending over towards the water. When you stood under them, it was a beautiful canopy.


The rain was worth it for this puddle.

A New Room & Plants

My blog is behind the times because I am slow to post, but I am going to tell you about my "new" room anyway. A few weeks ago, I finally got my own room! I have had two roommates in the other room. The first was Dani, and we got along really, really well. She left at the end of December (her internship was only for 3 months). Then I roomed with Amy (from Middlebury!). We got along well too, but it was hard to transition. It was starting to feel like the dorms in college - I couldn't escape for "me" time because there was nowhere to go.

I probably could have changed rooms much earlier, but the room that was available was in the basement, so I let Stephan have it without putting up a fight. Even though it will be cooler in the summer, I don't think I can handle not having much light. So I waited for this room. It's on the third floor (like my last room), so I can still use the upstairs kitchen and bathroom which are the nicest ones. It's light green and has bamboo-like window shades. The two windows face south and west. Even though I had more windows before, there was a tree in front of them and they faced north. My plants are happier in the new room, and it stays pretty light in the evening because of the west facing one.

I have my own closet with a shelf above, two dressers, a desk, a short bookcase, and a little table thingee. Right now the desk and the bookcase are next to the windows so that they can support my seedlings. Oh, I also have a big comfy chair with a tall lamp by it for a reading/knitting corner. I put up my paintings from the DR and a rainbow flag by my bed. It's a great room!

Now about these plants that I've been mentioning... I am using the house backyard as my playground (garden). In years past, people who lived here have dug up the whole yard (maybe 8' x 25'??), but people haven't always gardened, so it was pretty overgrown when I got here. So far I've dug up about 2/3 of it, and yesterday and today I planted my seedlings! Now because my garden at the food bank got cancelled (did I mention that?), I really am going at this blind. I was hoping to get taught everything at the food bank garden and then get a second try at my house garden. Now I'm looking things up in books and learning from my mistakes. That's good, I guess, but I'd rather learn from a person who's already learned from her mistakes if that makes any sense...

So my garden attempt is kind of comical. I started what I thought was a lot of seedlings, but because some died and because a lot got tangled and broke, and mainly because I underestimated, it's going to be pretty sparse. But our garden's pretty small, so I'm finding that this may work out. I'm putting 3 transplants where I hope 1 will survive, and I'm not even sure I should bank on that happening. If it does, I'll have like 4 cauliflowers, 4 cabbages, 12 beets, 8 broccoli, and 6 collards. Funny, right? I have higher hopes for the things that produce for the whole season, like tomatoes, peppers, swiss chard, and basil. Oh, and I think there will be a lot of garlic, but I only get to harvest that once at the end of the season.

The main impact of this gardening experience is an increase in my urge to intern with someone who knows what they're doing. (And that I will HAVE to get a camera if any of these plants turn out.)

Health Update

As promised, I wanted to let everyone know what happened after I went to the doctor. This time the doctor knew why I was there, and she had pre-ordered the h-pylori test, so they did it right away and... I don't have h-pylori. In a way that's good - I don't have to take two kinds of antibiotics - and in a way that's bad - I don't know what caused my acid reflux. At the time that I saw her, I had been feeling pretty good, but she still referred me to a gastroenterologist to follow up. I'm glad because as soon as I left, the acid reflux came back en force. This time I tried unfiltered apple cider vinegar in water (not too pleasant). It didn't seem to work right away, but since then I haven't had any problems!

Strangely, my triglycerides are down (actually below average now), and I'm thinking there was something else that came out better too. The doctor is calling it a fluke. They can't tell about the iron right away because red blood cells have a life of 29 days, so they're going to check again in 3 months. In the meanwhile, I'm really trying to eat an iron-rich diet. In the morning I swallow a spoonful of molasses every day (ick!).

I don't feel back to normal, but I can function with relative normality. It's really nice! Thanks so much for all the support - I thought I'd better get an update posted soon before everyone thought I was dying. :) If anything else interesting happens with my health, I'm sure I'll let you know.

Anika's Allergic to DC

I've been having health problems. First I had acid reflux for about 3 weeks. I went to the doctor who prescribed Nexium. She also said she'd test me for a bacteria called H-Pylori. If I tested positive, that would explain the acid reflux, and I could take antibiotics and get over it. When I came back 2 weeks later for my test results, the doctor told me I was anemic. I asked her about H-Pylori. She was like "huh? Oh, I guess we ordered a test for that didn't we? Well I don't have the results here. Maybe they got lost. I'll look into it and give you a call." Of course she didn't. When I called her back, she didn't seem to know what I was talking about. Finally I talked to her today and she said that the test never happened, and that I'll have to come back in to get tested again (but not til Mar 10).

Meanwhile, I'm trying to up my iron by planning out my meals and eating very iron-y snacks. Oh and avoiding certain things because I have high triglycerides. But I got really sick last weekend. I left work on Friday morning with a plastic bag on the Metro in case of upheaval. I came home, threw up, and proceeded to not eat for 3 days. My crowning glory was Saturday when I woke up for an hour and then went back to bed until 5 PM. When I woke up, I watched TV for 7 hours. My stomach hurt when I sat up or stood. I was able to keep food down (crackers, Sprite), but I didn't feel like eating much. On Monday, I finally felt better. Then last night (Thursday), I started feeling terrible again. I stayed up late, running to the bathroom a few times, but I never threw up. WHAT IS UP WITH MY DIGESTIVE SYSTEM?!? I hate this.

Nemesis

On my first day of work, someone (or something)
tried to scare me away from the food bank. I stepped out of the bathroom stall, approached the sink, and something sprayed in my eyes. "AHH!" I jumped back in pain. There, mounted on the wall to my left, was the evil spraybot that would never give me a moment's rest.

The next time I entered the bathroom, it sprayed before the door had even swung shut behind me. Just to prove its superiority.

We stare each other down every time I enter. It's eye. My eye. It's eye. One day I will best you, Spray Bot. One day, you will spray your last.

Ha ha ha Eastern Market Man - You came crawling back!

In November, a guy sold me a hat at Eastern Market. Two weeks later, the chin strings broke, and I brought it back. I said "can you fix this?" and he said "umm... yeah, do you live around here? I'll bring it back tomorrow." I came back tomorrow, and he wasn't there. I thought "his English wasn't so great, maybe he meant next week. I'm pretty sure he only comes on Saturdays not Sundays." So I came back the next week, Saturday and Sunday. I came back the next week, and the next. No hat man. I left for holiday in cold, cold Pennsylvania, and I had no hat. I came back to DC, and it got cold, and I had no hat. Then, one fateful day (today), I went to Eastern Market to look for squash. I thought I'd take a breeze around the stalls, to look for my hat man. It had kind of become a habit, although now I wasn't even sure if I knew what he looked like.

There, on the other side of the market, was a guy who I thought might be my guy. Boy, did he look surprised to see me. When I asked him about my hat, he didn't even try to play dumb. He offered me another hat (they couldn't find the right material to match the old one and fix it) - it was a more expensive hat, but he guessed I could have it. You're dang right I can have it! You avoided me for 2 months, but my persistence won the day. You can't stay away from the Eastern Market and all its capitalistic promise... Victory is mine!!!

This is Why I Moved to DC!

Well, not really, but it's a big, big bonus. I live within walking distance from the capitol and the National Mall where many events took place this last weekend.

On Sunday my guests arrived - Paul & Erin Boers (from Goshen), and Ben Friesen (from NYC) and we immediately headed off to the free concert at the Lincoln memorial. We were told that we could bring no bags or chairs or really anything, so Ben wore his entire weekend wardrobe so that he could go straight to the concert without a bag. When we got to security, everyone had bags and chairs, and they were let in. Doh! We met up with three of my coworkers and two of my housemates, and then promptly got separated. It's kind of amazing that we found everyone in the first place. It helps to have a 6'4" man with you. We put Erin's rainbow hat on him (Ben), and just to make sure, had him jump up and down. Sure enough, my housemates found us in the crowd! We were a few hours early, and there were already a lot of people there, but it was surprisingly easy to work our way up to the front. I was in front of the first big screen, and I could see the figures of the famous people as they sang or spoke on stage. They also showed the Obamas on the jumbotron every once in a while. It was cute to see Malia and Sasha take pictures of the stars, or complain to Michelle. There was another girl behind the Obamas who was asleep. I didn't have too high of hopes for the concert, and sure enough, it wasn't that great. I saw a LOT of famous people, but it was kind of like watching them on TV, since I could only see their figures on stage. There were a lot of dry speeches made by comic actors. (Who wrote those terrible speeches and why did they get comic actors to deliver them?) My favorite song was "Higher Ground" performed by Stevie Wonder, Usher, and Shakira (although I didn't realize it was Shakira at the time). Most of the performers did duets or trios, but U2 and Garth Brooks each sang like 3 songs by themselves. With such a stellar lineup, why feature these two? I think Stevie Wonder should get more credit than that.

The concert took up most of our day on Sunday. We were worn out after standing in the cold. On Monday, we walked down to the National Mall again to check out the preparations. We weren't the only ones with that idea. People milled and took pictures as the sound check blasted. We went to a Smithsonian (Natural History?), which was clogged with people too. After about four hours we were spent. It was another "short" day in the sense that we weren't out for long but we were bushed.

Tuesday was the big day. We were planning to leave around 8:30 when we got a frantic phone call from housemate Carly at 7:45 (I'm surprised her call got through, because the networks were busy most of the day). She said "come to the Mall right now!! They're closing off entrances because it's so packed!" So we threw on the layers (I knew there was a reason I packed my snow pants!), stuffed egg bake and bread in our pockets, and took off. We were going to try the subway, but fortunately decided not to. People who got on the subway ended up spending two hours to get three stops down. Some people took the subway all the way in the opposite direction to board the one they wanted. All weekend we were expecting the metro to be overloaded and craziness everywhere, but it really didn't hit until Tuesday. When we started walking, there was a steady stream of people that only got bigger the closer we got. Some streets were so clogged that we had to keep taking detours. Eventually we ran into the highway, which was also clogged up. Not with cars, mind you, with people. I have never seen such a thing. We pushed our way past on the on-ramp and started walking in the direction people were coming from. We went up a hill and climbed a fence to get to an overpass, which got us past the "traffic" jam. Here was our one casualty - Erin ripped her pants on the fence - an inauguration day memento.

Finally we got to the spot we had staked out the day before - the Washington monument. We were so far away from the capitol that we didn't even have to go through security checkpoints. The great thing about our spot was that we were on a slight hill, so we could see the screens and the capitol building in the background. The bad thing was that the speakers at that spot were pretty quiet. We could hear the one behind us (and off by 3 seconds) better. I was so hot from the frantic walking. That lasted about 2 seconds and then I was cold. The concert from Sunday was rebroadcast on the jumbotrons, and people danced along to keep warm. When the ceremony finally started, it was kind of hard to take it seriously. I kept expecting to get hit with emotion, but that didn't really happen. While there were many, many people there (2 million?), from the Lincoln memorial behind us to the capitol in front of us, we weren't that packed. It didn't sound like a huge crowd cheering, so we usually didn't cheer very long. I couldn't believe when Obama took his oath that a new presidency was underway. It happened so fast! The majority of the ceremony was people walking onto the stage. I'm glad I was there, though. I witnessed history, and every day it's sinking in a little more that we have a new president.

After the ceremony, we climbed up on a short fence and looked out over all the people. The biggest spectacle might have been the sheer amount of people. Either that or all the Obama paraphernalia. There doesn't seem to be an item that you can't find an Obama version of. Action figures, light switches, buttons - I wish I had made a list of all the amazing gear. Once again we were worn out from our few hours outdoors as we let the crowd sweep us home.