Two

1. There is this thing called olive skin, or an olive complexion. I think I might have been told I have this. My question is, green or black olives??

2. People are too busy. Yesterday after work I was walking out of the metro station when I saw a little boy of about seven, wandering around, crying and moaning for his mother. He was holding a few dollar bills in his hand. I was about to stop and help him when a very capable-looking kind young woman grabbed him by the hand and marched off to find his mother. My question is, why did no one else stop? There are probably hundreds of people swarming out of the metro stop after work. Where are they going that they are in such a hurry they can't even stop for a lost child? Granted, I didn't help him either, but I at least gave them a second glance. And made sure that girl was actually going to help. What is wrong with these people?

This article is about a famous violinist who played at a metro stop here in DC (I pass it every day but haven't actually been there), as though playing for money. They wanted to see if the context in which he played affected people's reaction to him.The results were somewhat surprising. People are too busy.

I am blessed

Today I went to the National Geographic Headquarters. They had a photo exhibition there: some NG photographers had gone to a refugee camp in Uganda and taught the kids how to take pictures. Those photos were displayed, along with quotes from them for captions. Looking at them reminded me that my clothes are not dirty and ripped, I have food to eat every day, a roof that doesn't leak and walls that don't crumble. My parents and siblings are alive. Life is good.

Then I went to Alexandria, VA where we wandered around Old Town, ate at a yummy Thai place, did some shopping. We took the metro to Arlington Cemetery, but it was closed, so we walked across the bridge into DC and saw the Jefferson Memorial at night. I watched the sun setting over the Potomac River, behind the Washington Monument and the Jefferson and Lincoln Memorials. The White House and Capitol were visible in the distance. A duck was bobbing up and down in the waters of the Potomac, riding the waves. A man was fishing, and reeled in a fish just as we passed by. There were families peacefully picnicking on the waterfront in the twilight. I saw tons of adorable little kids, many of whom would stop and stare at me. I think I'm a freak or something. I was reminded of how much I love toddlers and babies, and how much I miss my siblings.

Life is good. God is good, even in this at-times-godless city. I am blessed.

Capitol Update

Yesterday was a day of adventures.

The mayor of Owasso and his family came to visit DC, and scheduled a tour of the Capitol with our office. When moderately important people from the district or friends of the Congressman come, he takes them on what is called a Dome Tour. I and another intern got to go along, and it was an adventure of adventures. The main room of the Capitol is called the Rotunda, and is a huge vaulted room capped with an elaborate painting called the Apotheosis of Washington, and ringed by a painting called the Frieze of American History. The room is 180 feet high. On top of this is the dome of the capitol, on top of which is the Freedom Statue. On this Dome Tour we got to go to the very top of the Rotunda, where there is a ledge running around the inside of the room, right at the base of the apotheosis painting, and above the frieze. We were standing there, inches away from the painting featuring figures up to 15 feet tall, and looking over 150 ft down at the tiny tourists on the floor of the rotunda. Then we went up even more steps and ended up outside, on top of the dome that is the Capitol, just below the freedom statue (below the columns, in the picture). The ledge went all the way around and you could see the entire District of Columbia. Just as we came out there it started to rain. The entire experience was breathtaking, and will probably remain the highlight of my trip. I carved my initials on the railing inside the Rotunda. Incredible.

Then, another adventure. Two in one day. Haley and I decided to have Roommate Dinner again. This time it would be tacos. So we went to Safeway to get ingredients. The sky was very dark so we took our umbrellas even though it was not raining. After buying the ingredients (and saving $7 with my Safeway card), we look outside. It is Pouring Rain. Torrential Rain. We get outside, and wait until the light turns green before we venture out from under the overhang. Finally it does and we go forth. Within seconds, even with my umbrella, I am soaked. All the way through. The wind was blowing, the lightning was flashing, the rain was pouring, and the streets were flooding. Worse than the OU campus, which can flash flood in 10 minutes. Foggy Bottom can apparently flash flood in 2 minutes, because all the streets and sidewalks were completely submerged under at least 3 inches of water.

We got home, safe, sound, and soaking. We made tacos, which were delicious, I talked on the phone with my verbose family (that takes about an hour every time), and then went to bed.

what are the chances

I went to a CVS pharmacy yesterday afternoon. I was at the counter getting some m&ms when I saw a silver coin in the candy box. I pulled it out, and it was a 20 tenge coin. The money they use in Kazakhstan. Seriously. What are the chances.

I gave another tour of the Capitol today. The group was the family of a girl I graduated with. We had senior AP english together. Again, what are the chances?

Yesterday, when I got back from the aforementioned CVS, I went to get on my internet, and it wasn't working. Several hours later, after many calls between my dad and some heavily-accented, marginally-helpful Toshiba foreigners, it turns out it's a hardware problem. I'm sending in my computer, after I back it up, and I won't get it back till Tulsa. So no internet access in the room for me for the rest of the month. Are you kidding me. I have nothing to do now. Creative ideas for killing time would be appreciated.

food

Food is an issue when you're on your own for a month in a foreign city. After five days of eating PBJs and cereal, I had had enough. At about 8 pm, my roommate for the month, Haley, and I start complaining. By the time we get off work and get home, it is 6:30 or 7 and we are exhausted. There is nothing to do in the room cause we don't have movies or good books or food. or friends, for that matter. So....we go to Safeway. Great solution, huh. There Haley gets a Safeway card, like I got a few days ago. Now we feel like adults. At Safeway I see pasta on sale. Pasta....real food....my stomach, containing only a slice of bread with peanut butter, likes the idea of pasta. Haley and I decide to have Pasta Night. By the time we get back to the room it is pushing 9.

Pasta is cooking on the stove. Sauce is warming up in the microwave. Haley makes cheesebread, and we prepare to put it in the oven on the cookie tray I providentially decided to pack. Now. We have to light the oven. I, with all my overseas-ghetto-oven experience, start by lighting a match, turning the knob, and holding the match by the place that looks like it should light up. Nothing happens, and I quickly turn the knob back for fear of gassing us out. Haley calls her dad. We try several more combinations of knob-turning, match-lighting, peering into the dark and now somewhat gas-filled oven....no luck. I call my mom, who gives several insightful but ultimately fruitless suggestions. We ask our neighbor, an OSU student interning with Sen. Coburn, if he knows what to do. Surprise--he hasn't used his oven. Haley keeps talking with her dad. Finally the neighbor figures it out. You just turn the knob and it eventually heats up on its own. Brilliant. The cheese bread goes in.

Five minutes later, it comes out, slightly burned on top. The smoke alarm kicks into gear and starts wailing.

pasta: $.67
spaghetti sauce: $2
cheese bread ingredients: I dunno, some amt of money
seeing Haley standing on the table, waving a little dish rag below the smoke detector, to make it shut up: priceless

aah, the small things in life. We didn't have to evacuate the building, as Haley is a master smoke alarm deactivator. The pasta and bread was very good. But now it is nearly bedtime.

Day 2

Thanks for your comments, everyone. I feel affirmed. I even made it onto the RUF homepage, on my very first day! What an honor. But what pressure--now I feel like I really have to write something worthwhile...

As Rachel, my sister, mentioned in her comment, I am indeed in Washington DC. I am here for a month, interning with Congressman John Sullivan, of Oklahoma District 1.

"Congressman Sullivan's office, this is Sally..." Yeah. Today was my first day and I'm already sick of the word "constituent." My basic duties are answering phone calls from constituents, entering constituent information into their vast database, and giving tours to constituents. I followed a tour around today (I dislike the very word "tour." How exactly do you even pronounce it? Tours are terrible. Especially big ones. You're just led around like a herd of animals blindly following some person putting on a fake pleasant attitude, giving you tons of random facts and information). Soon I will be expected to give them. I realized on this tour that one of the primary jobs of the lowly interning tour-giver is to take pictures of the eager constituents by Will Rogers, George Washington, Lady Liberty, etc. The lowly intern must walk across the Capitol Rotunda and demonstrate the terrible acoustics that allow you to hear whispered conversations from yards away. The lowly intern must tell you about How These Pillars Are The Only Things Surviving In This Portion Of The Capitol After The British Stormed During The War Of 1812. Look, you can even see the bullet holes in the pillars!

okay, it's really not all that bad. I'm pretty good at remembering random facts, which is what the eager constituents like to hear. So hopefully it will be okay. And really, today was mainly just trying to remember how to do everything, where to go when, what to say on the phone...I spent most of the day trying not to feel stupid. It should be better when I know what I'm doing. I'm at the Capitol! that's pretty crazy.

Washington DC....It's a weird place. I think I like it. It reminds me in a lot of ways of what I consider to be my home--Almaty, Kazakhstan. People walking on the streets, using public transportation, the absence of parking lots, the absence of the enormous wide-open spaces that dominate Oklahoma. The buildings are right up against the street. You just walk into them straight off the street. I feel like it's not like that in Oklahoma. People don't walk anywhere there. In OK they actually follow traffic laws. Why would you do that?? Just cross the street anytime! Ignore traffic lights! Look out for yourself, and don't expect cars to stop for you! At last, a city that runs the way I'm used to. Anarchy is best....right? It works for me.

Drivers use their horns much more freely in DC. That's so liberating. I decided earlier that horn-honking should be a protected first-amendment right, if it isn't already. It's such a good way to communicate.

There are lots of sunglasses and business suits in Washington DC. Also sometimes the streets smell like rotting food. That made me feel at home. So did the outdoor farmers' market.

The places I have felt most at home, since coming back to the States, are Colorado (mountains, but still not as good as the ones I left behind), and to some extent, the big cities: New York, Boston, New Orleans, Seattle, Washington D.C.

But Oklahoma is my home for now, so I'm working on it. I like it too, but you have to learn to look at it and like it in a different way.

I have written way too much. But I have concluded, from my vast, two-day experience, that the best condition in which to write blog posts, is that of "exhausted." In this state I now leave you.