JUN-C-12
RUNNING IN THE NEW SUMMER SEASON,
AND A VIEW OF THE SMITHSONIAN FOLKLIFE
FESTIVAL
ON THE MALL, AS I PREPARE FURTHER
HAITIAN INFORMATION FOR FUTURE PARTICIPANTS:
THEN: TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALL GAME!
AND, A CAPITAL HILL RECEPTION FOR “
June 24—26, 2003
The first days of official summer after the vernal solstice have been beautiful, with sunny, clear bright, and not yet hot long days. I have been running each day after too long a layoff with the rainy days here and the monsoon rainy season in muddy rutted roads in Haiti intervening. I ran to the DC Mall and watched as the Tuareg peoples in their conical hats built elaborate masonry structures on the mall using too-fragrant animal dung: I took one shot of them in silhouette against the Washington Monument yesterday and when Tom and Sherrie and kids were here I had seen them in the rain erecting a classic Roman arch with a keystone. I had then come upon groups of “Communities” calling themselves the “Twelve Tribes” passing out pressed apple cider and herbal teas--- a very welcome midway point in my hot run around the DC Mall, indeed. I picked up their literature, which seems to advocate a “New Social Order” following the prophecies of Yashua, the Hebrew word for the Greek word Jesus, and they say they are a religion of love and respect for all members of society—leaning rather heavily on old testament prophecies, and wearing the beards, earth tones and simple skills of the Amish or other communities, but attempting to be more inclusive with many foreign members on the Mall eager to talk about their beliefs and living styles. These “Communitarians” (Amitai Etzioni, GW University Professor would be very annoyed if I used his term and his political party to characterize this fringe group of outsiders) have the advantage that they have opened up a few days before the larger Folk life Festival on the Mall, sponsored by the Smithsonian, and unlike last year’s theme of the “Silk Route” and things Eastern, this year is a three part cultural festival of the cultures of Mali, Scotland and Appalachia.
I have run from home along Needwood keeping an eye out for the fawns, which should surely be dropped into the ferns and grasses in the shade. I have been watching one deer that beds under the rhododendrons now in full bloom in front of my kitchen window, since I figured that it was bedded there for a reason, and it would not even get up, but alertly watch me from the shadows as I walked by to the Bronco without even bolting. On my fourth pass, I saw the reason I do not need to keep watching closely to see any fawning going on here, since he has spikes in velvet. But there are groups of does I have seen that are still heavy, and if they have been holding off until later in June to get to better weather, there is no holding back now!
I have also run from the GW Wellness Center of which I am a member paying monthly fees, but without having used it this year so far more than half a dozen times. So, I have decided to use it more often in the brief interval before I am gone again for several months, and now I can get the added bonus opf stopping off at the mid-point to take in parts of this year’s Folk life Festival.
I got a good note from Millie who had a good
surprise party for her 35th anniversary (see Jun-C-11) and announced
that they have a small cottage on a lake in
Next week, all of the designer meetings have been
rescheduled to make up for those that were missed in the SNAFU of the missed
flight from
I ran around the Mall in the first real (meaning HOT
summer days—complete with “red alert” smog warnings!) and came upon the Folk
Life Festival on its opening day. There
is a big still producing the single malt scotch of which
PRINCE GEORGE’S STADIUM FOR A HOMETOWN TEAM BALLGAME
I hurried back to get ready for my evening with the Aukwards. They had got six tickets to a minor league ball game at Bowie MD with the Bowie Bay Sox—an Oriole farm team. Joe knew many of the players, and in the one-tenth filled stadium with 2,103 other paying attendance (proudly announced as 103,000 for the season so far) we watched the Bowie Bay Sox win 4:1 over the New Haven Ravens. It is a cozy small and intimate way to see a ball game, since we were right behind home plate and had the pick of the seats there. The kids got restless, despite cotton candy, ice cream cone swirls, (I had a root beer float) and the Bay Sox Mascot frightened two year old Michelle because most kids do not understand a bumbling purple feathery big bird coming over to hug them. Now, if only it were a purple friendly dinosaur!
MY VISIT TO CAPITAL HILL
AND “
WITH PAUL FARMER
I went to a House of
Representatives Caucus Room to hear the Capital Hill staff briefing from Paul
Farmer and his group from Cange Hospital arguing against the aid embargo of
government assistance to Haiti—whatever else is said about the poor nation, we
gave millions in aid to the Duvalier dictatorship, and now that they have a
democratically elected president, we are embargoing aid already approved. The director of the Cange hospital is Loune
Ayoud, and Paul Farmer proposed her for the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award,
and she got it. I went to the reception
in her honor last night and now will go to the Kennedy Memorial in the coming
afternoon as and advisor in their “support group.” So, I had been to the Senate two weeks ago,
and have been to the Congress yesterday—I sound like a regular Washington
Lobbyist!
Next! I will be trying to sort through Derwood,
applied for a remodeling mortgage at the record low rates, and may visit Craig
Schaefer to deliver the gear that I will need for our September trip to Alaska—all
crammed into this weekend, before the postponed meetings with designers and
architects and builders occurs at the beginning of the week coming up.