WASHINGTON DC

So I know I'm a little late, and my weekly thing has taken a sluggish turn. If it were a slug it would lose the race if we raced a whole bunch of slugs. It would be able to reproduce with itself, but that skill is utterly useless in this situation.

I had to make an impromptu move back to beautiful Brooklyn, the reasons for which I will not disclose here (but if you message me, we can have a good bitch about life). My relationship with Manhattan was a whirlwind romance, fast and passionate but burnt out all too quickly like a tiny petroleum match. Our break up was necessary but it hurt none the less. It was a textbook separation, that I realised was mutual after I being dumped, as one does. It was swift, and instead of eating my feelings, I went to Washington DC!
I can't tell you how much I enjoyed it. We did all the main attractions in one crisp and beautiful day, the photographic evidence of my enjoyment is thus:

Washington Monument- crap. 

LOLJK

Vietnam War Memorial- was ight. 

Lincoln Memorial- boring. 

The Capitol- emotional.
Ella and I linked pinkies throughout the tour of the Capitol, given by an unashamedly sassy man. He was great fun and the headsets were malfunctioning, which only added to the general verve of the experience.

It's good to be back.

The only nice photo we took. Ever. 

We also all got pedicures to lift spirits even higher. Olive didn't get her paws done but demanded to be in the picture. 

Bowen and I being best friends as per usual. In stripes.

If you look closely, you can see a lone John, braving the cold. Alone. 

This is Jack. He is just magnificent. Here he can be seen resting his butt on the sofa...being majestic is tiring. 

untitled. 

SHOUTS to Sharon and Scott, (another extension of the Prince-Hick famalam) who had us to stay in their beautiful house in beautiful DC. One of the coolest parts of the visit was driving through the "Embassy Village" as I have thus titled it. Each embassy had a flavour of their country in the architecture and decor and Britian's building had a lovely statue of Churchill making the iconic peace sign in bronze by the entrance. Nice touch I thought.
Plus, I just adored the idea of all of the ambassadors getting together for dinners and yard sales, coffee mornings and PTA meetings.
"This week it's at your house Germany!"
"France, you're bringing the wine this time"
"Classic North Korea, charades is not his game"
"Brazil, put some clothes on"
etc etc.
I have decided it would be a great TV show, like Parks and Recreation meets Scrubs. But instead of a hospital, it would be government. We'd have to be careful not to be racist. I'll keep working on that one...
In short, I highly recommend DC. Very clean. Overpriced hotdogs though- be warned.


I ALSO went to St John the Divine in Manhattan on an Art History field trip. Incredible building, and they have a fab ethos of acceptance, of all religions and cultures. And they have peacocks residing in the grounds.

The glorious doors of the cathedral.
Do you feel dwarfed by the omnipotent power of God?

HIGH GOTHIC OR ROMANESQUE ?

The highly reviled and most prestigious educator, Mr Ken Rush. Since 1971.
Feel free to get lost in those mad little eyes.
*photo creds to Gemma, who instagrammed this gem*

After a tour by a guy who's haircut I can only describe as a modern day mullet, we were free to roam the cathedral. After a prompting from a friend of mine, I found myself in a chapel, having a cheeky pray when a choir started singing Amazing Grace. It was like a scene out of a soap opera! It was so extraordinary, I was moved to tears. After my dubious epiphany, I felt almost greedy having these existential moments in such quick succession.

TAMAR. Oh my days Tamar. John took Nora and I to a piece of performance art that was performed in his church- St Paul's on Clinton and Carroll- which was sensational. I mean that literally, all of our senses were tingled. It was essentially a choral concert, by Choral Chameleon but it was designed to break down our preconceived ideas of the relationship between performer and audience. So we walked around, following the performance as they sang and acted a bit round the space. The story line was incredibly confusing, loosely based on the biblical story of Tamar, who fought for peace by chatting to a river repeatedly, killing her husband and then sleeping with his father, attempting to blackmail him, failing, and yelling a lot. It was mad. However, the quality of singing was so high, it was easy to forgive the lack of plot line. Plus, Vince the director (who also directs John's church choir, and who I had the pleasure of working with once over advent) squeezed in a lighter collection of songs as a sort of epilogue at the end, so relieve our brain-grapes somewhat after the epic journey we had just taken. It was one of those moments that made me think about what other utterly insane things must be happening at that exact same time in other corners of the world.

So I really did do a lot I was proud of during these last two weeks... I was challenged but came up trumps, found out a lot about myself and the people around me, went to DC, had another incredibly emotive experience I need to never forget and witnessed some performance art I hope I will never forget.

This week, I'm proud I found peace.

I also helped Nora with her spanish homework. The illustrations are my main contribution.

"The boy holds a basket of partridges"

"The boy fights a bear" (in high heels)

"The army is small"
(We observed that it's a tiny army, or ' Just a small group of men with big ideas' as Nora put it. Genius.)