Dome Tour

Kevin and Laura invited me to go with them on a tour of the Capitol Dome. It was pretty fun, if you like climbing a 30-story building before lunch. Luckily, I discovered that I do.

For background, here's the Architect of the Capitol site about the dome. A few interesting tidbits: the dome is made of cast iron, not stone, although it is made to look like stone. Cast iron is lighter, fireproof, and, in the 1860s, was cheaper than stone/marble/granite. The big outdoor columns that hold it up are also made of cast iron, and are hollow, so that some of them act as downspouts. Brilliant.

If you look at this 1859 drawing, you'll see that the dome is actually two domes, one set inside the other. The inner dome houses the rotunda. We climbed up between the two domes, occasionally emerging for looks at either the view or the pretty stuff in the rotunda.

This picture, although slightly fuzzy, gives you a good idea of the space between the two domes.


We first emerged to see the inside of the rotunda, and the pseudo-frieze that shows heroic- looking scenes from American history. Naturally, it starts with Columbus and ends with the Wright brothers.


Next we climbed up to be close to the fresco at the top of the inner dome. The acoustics up there are incredible.


The fresco depicts George Washington as a god, and the 13 original states as fair maidens. Gotta love the 19th century for shameless nationalistic melodrama.


From there we climbed up some more, and emerged outside into the wind. From up there, the whole L'Enfant plan of streets as spokes actually makes some sense. [Side note: I enjoyed this uncited little gem about L'Enfant from what looks to be an unofficial website about Arlington Cemetery: "As chief designer of the new national capital, L'Enfant quickly antagonized the three commissioners in charge of making sure the place got built. When they complained, he alienated his principal supporters, including George Washington, who reluctantly fired him. He spent the rest of his life dunning Congress for back pay, as lean and ragged as the dog that trailed him through the streets." Poor L'Enfant.]

The Mall, with Washington Monument at its other end, and Pennsylvania Ave radiating off to the right:


The Supreme Court on the left, East Capitol Street (with RFK Stadium at the end), and the Library of Congress to the right:


The U.S. Botanic garden in the foreground, a slice of the Potomac in the back left, and the beginnings of the Mall to the right:


The new [underground] Capitol visitors' center, under construction:


And finally, our view of the tholos, on top of which the Statue of Freedom (not to be confused with Liberty) stands:


We also enjoyed the graffiti scratched in the dome's windows. Some of it was dated 1861 (supposedly). Unfortunately my picture of that didn't come out. This one, however, is pretty good: you can see the graffiti in the clouds.


Dome tour: highly recommended.

Signs of flooding; eclipse

Every once in awhile it's nice to remember that the federal government does some things well. For instance, I like this site.

And then there's New Orleans. I found that two things served for me as constant reminders of Katrina and the flood. First, water lines, which are everywhere:
You can see one here, crossing the outside walls and large front window. That's maybe 3-4 feet off the ground. There was one on the doorjamb of the house we worked on, too.

Second, the spray-painted markings left by emergency workers after they searched a house. These are visible everywhere. Some people appear to have purposely left them on the walls of their refurbished houses, while others have tried to sandblast them off. Here's a graphic that explains what they mean.

I noticed these two things in just a week of being there; I wonder how many other things serve as constant reminders for people who live there.

Day 3 of work in New Orleans

Today was our third day of work here. My team (six of us, plus a staff project manager) is working on a smallish three-bedroom house near the camp (the camp is here), owned by a single mom who works at a bank. I'm not sure how many kids she has--at least two, I think. They are living in a FEMA trailer in their front yard right now. I haven't been able to meet them, since she is at work all day.

I haven't taken any pictures (stupid--should have done the before/after thing, but I wasn't thinking on Monday), but basically the house had been gutted, like almost everything has to be if it's going to be repaired. Apart from just plain old destruction, the mold is the problem--most of the homes sat in water for 2-3 weeks, in the heat, and so everything had to be thrown out. Everything--walls, furniture, floors, etc. From the water markings on her door, it looks like the water here was 3-4 feet deep at its worst point.

When we came in, there was a concrete floor and walls that had been freshly painted (probably the week before), but no appliances, no lights, and no water. We have spent most of our time on the floors--laying new tile in the two bathrooms and the laundry room, and new wood laminate in the kitchen, dining room, and living room. The project manager is a plumber, so he has put in all the fixtures and toilets and things for the bathrooms. It's clearly almost time for them to move back in, maybe next week, depending on how finished they want things to be when they move in.

I have been mostly brute labor, since I've never done any of this stuff before. I've helped to scrape the bathroom floors (they had some old glue or something on them, probably from previous flooring), cut the tile, grout around the tiles, caulk around a new back door and in the new bathtub walls, and paint. Very practical skills, compared to my normal daily activities!

Tomorrow we might finish laying the wood laminate floors, and we'll definitely finish most everything in the bathrooms.

Yesterday we had to stop work early because of big thunderstorms in the area, which caused both our worksite and the camp to lose power for a few hours. There was a tornado maybe 10-15 miles away, but we just had a lot of rain and wind. And then the internet at camp was out, probably because none of us knew how to reset it after a power outage. Tragedy! But today all is back to normal.

And yes, I am thrilled because Uno won the Westminster Dog Show, the first beagle to do so. Thanks to all of you who emailed me about this important news. :)

Tour of New Orleans, Day 1

Today we got a tour of New Orleans from Diana's father's cousin and his wife. They are 91 and 88, respectively, and she was born and raised in New Orleans. I tried to make a map of where all we went, but I am not savvy enough. Not tonight, at least. So, you'll have to settle for some photos. [And a bunch of links to Wikipedia...sorry. I'm feeling lazy.]

We started in the French Quarter, then drove west and south near the Convention Center/Riverwalk and onto the Garden District on St. Charles Avenue (where there is once again a streetcar running). We turned right on Carrollton, left on Canal Blvd, and then...

For the history geeks: we went to Metairie Cemetery, where I enjoyed the memorial to/mausoleum of members of the Army of Northern Virginia.


There was a panel that had Jefferson Davis's signature on it, but I have since determined (through painstaking research on Wikipedia) that although he died in New Orleans, he is buried in Richmond, VA.


From there we drove through some neighborhoods near the levees that were breached after Hurricane Katrina. [Here is a useful article. Yes, it's on Wikipedia, but it has nice maps.] Others in our group who have been here in the past two years said that there seemed to be fewer FEMA trailers and more work being done on many houses, but there is still a lot of visible destruction, and many, many homes still abandoned.




Some people are clearly doubtful that the levees will hold if another storm surge hits.


And there are some very sobering reminders of the flooding, and of the suffering.



But, of course, it's still a beautiful city. And it was 75 degrees today. Lots of people were out fishing.

More tomorrow, after our first day of work. Or maybe Tuesday, if I don't get to it tomorrow.

week in Missouri; knitting update

This week I've been in Missouri to celebrate dad's birthday and hang out with grandma. Tomorrow dad and I go to New Orleans to help with rebuilding; we'll be there for about a week. We're staying here.

In the meantime, though, we put grandma to work. (Don't worry, I helped too.)


I've also been knitting some baby hats, since so many friends are expecting babies this summer:


And here's a picture of the next one, in progress:


As is always the case when I get out the knitting, the cat was not far behind.


I also posted an amusing video of her fascination with yarn here. It's a bit long, but I find it amusing. I think I find her amusing because for 23 hours of the day she basically can't stand the sight of us. The other hour is spent asking for food or wanting the door to the backyard open, plus five minutes per day of wanting her head scratched, after which she bites you. She's a very odd cat.

Tea-boy

Kathy sent me a marvelous invention called a tea-boy. It appears to be from Denmark. It looks like a penguin with a top hat, but its beak holds either a tea bag or a tea ball, like so:


You carefully pour the hot water into your mug,



and then you set the timer on the penguin's side to your desired steeping time. As you turn the timer, the beak lowers the tea ball/bag into the mug.



The tea steeps, leaving you plenty of time to admire the tea-boy from all angles.



When the proper steeping time has elapsed, the tea-boy gives a nice ring and the beak automatically raises the tea ball/bag out of your mug. I wish I had a movie of this. It's great.



Now, I worried that the tea-boy would not do as well with a taller mug, or with a pot. A quick height adjustment told me that tea-boy could adapt to many environments.


This, to me, is a perfectly ingenious invention. Not only does it give you a consistent steeping time, but it is made to look like a penguin, for no particular reason. It even has a bow tie and a top hat, which is even more extraneous, but makes it even more perfect.

I assume that everyone now wants their own penguin tea-boy. Well, I don't know where Kathy got it, but I only found one site where it's sold. And it's sold out. Sorry, everybody. You'll just have to come visit me so that we can enjoy the tea-boy together.

All-purpose update

Hello again, faithful readers...

Ellen's Pie Odyssey has inspired me to restart things here at archive puppy. So, here are some assorted pictures from my comings and goings last fall.

Bo, me, Amy, and Rick, at Tom and Julie's wedding in August. It was extremely hot.



Me and Kathy serving up my birthday tart (vanilla cream with berries...delicious).



The scarlet oak we planted near my mom's grave, in October.



Jess, working hard even on her wedding day.



Helen gave the groom a good talking-to...


...while her husband indulged in a gourd-tini.



Kristen, Stacy and I crossed Lake Champlain (which is not a Great Lake) on the ferry boat.



And we ate some marvelous apple pie at Stacy and Matt's house.



Jon and Jen also visited one weekend in October, and Jen did the spokesmodel thing with the Mini-Poo.



In November, dad and I went to Maramec Spring Park. Unclear why they spell Maramec like that, instead of Meramec, which is how the same river's name is spelled closer to St. Louis. Or Merrimac, for that matter. Quite beautiful, though:



...and it also had a trout hatchery.



For Thanksgiving we were at Jon and Jen's, where Jon slaughtered the turkey. Well, okay, he just carved it. But this picture looks particularly aggressive to me. Maybe it's the angle of the fork.



In December we got a wreath to put on mom's grave. The cat found it very interesting.



Dad shows off part of his Christmas haul, a new nonstick skillet collection.


Somewhere in there I also went to Chicago for a few days with friends and family, to Nashville to finish up at the Southern Baptist Archive, and to Lexington for a weekend with Helen and Dave. But apparently I don't have any pictures of those.