You Can Do Magic: Part One

Today I began a new project on the house: the staining of the front porch and back stairs. I had planned to start over the weekend, but the weather didn't cooperate.

Before I can stain anything, I have to clean the wood with this special cleaner that I think is the same thing that they used to kill Toons in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? You rinse the wood, slather slather the cleaner on, wait for 15 minutes, scrub with a stiff bristle brush, rinse with water, and repeat the process until the wood is clean.

Here are the stairs with the cleaner soaking in:

And here they are after I scrubbed and rinsed them:

The porch was much more difficult to clean. As you can see in this "before" photo, there were a lot of greenish spots to remove:

Soaking, soaking, soaking...

I think I repeated the process about three times (more on some areas) and I got my workout in at the same time by scrubbing and scrubbing. Finally, I got it as clean as it's going to get:

All of my hard work paid off--it looks much better. There are still a few spots, but if they haven't come off by now, they aren't going to. I'm forging ahead with the staining tomorrow once everything has dried really well and I also have some touch up painting to do on the back porch and the porch furniture.

Oh, and in the process of working its magic on the wood, the cleaner got all over my legs, so then I had to scrub myself, too.

Thankfully, what got on my leg was just some of the diluted solution that splattered off of the scrub brush, so I didn't shrivel like a Toon. As I looked at this picture, I realized that I bought these shoes when I went to college in 1999. I think it might be time for them to go.

That Was Yesterday

The Federal Express man delivered this beautiful surprise to my door yesterday:

I waited to take pictures until they opened up a little more:

Thank you (you know who you are)--I love them and they really did brighten my day. Until they start bottling Awesome Juice, these will have to do ;-)

I love you guys!

Here Comes The Rain Again

I'm back after an unexpected trip to Kansas and I've got a couple of posts in the works. Until they are finished, I leave you with this photo of tonight's sunset after a storm:

I'm so glad that we got some rain. When I got back to New York yesterday, it was in the 90s, humid, and still. The house was 90 degrees when I walked in, but I've got it cooled down to a chilly 81 now. Hopefully, we will have some more rain tonight and I can pull the cool air into the house so that tomorrow is a little more bearable.

Take It On The Run, Part II

After running from place to place for three days, Friday was a little more relaxed. We had planned to visit Monticello, but decided that we didn't have time to drive down there and get back in time for the Friday evening festivities. So, Brother of Ken started doing some research and found some recommendations to visit Hillwood, Marjorie Merriweather Post's estate on 25 acres in Washington, D.C.

We arrived on Friday morning to tour the estate and gardens and decided to tour the gardens while it was early. It was still hot and humid, but I can't imagine what it must have been like later in the day. We were allowed to take pictures in the gardens, but not in the house, so I took a lot outside.

Mrs. Post spent a lot of time and money on her gardens and, when she died, she made sure that her estate continued to support the gardens and horticulturists necessary to care for all that you are about to see. She saw each garden as a different outdoor room and each of them have a different theme or purpose.

We began our tour on Friendship Walk, which is a garden that was designed for Mrs. Post by her close friends. It was mostly green bushes and stone paths, so I didn't take pictures of it. From Friendship Walk, we went to the Putting Green, which is a small nine hole course with cool 1960s blue lawn furniture (the same lawn furniture that is placed throughout the gardens). Finally, we arrived on the Lunar Lawn, which is part of the entrance to the front part of the house. This is a cute dog shoe scraper outside of the front entrance that reminded me of Kenna:

The Lunar Lawn:


When Mrs. Post lived here and the trees weren't so tall, the Lunar Lawn provided a clear view of the Washington Monument.

This lion sculpture was imported from England:



A squirrel sculpture (for Larry):


Leaving the Lunar Lawn, you follow a path to the Dacha:

There are sculptures of dogs all over the place. This one is at the entrance to the pet cemetery, where Mrs. Post had headstones for all of her pets (even the ones that didn't die at Hillwood):

A view out into the trees that surround the property:

A view of the Lunar Lawn toward the house from the Vista Terrace:

Plants around the Vista Terrace:

One of the most incredible "rooms" in Mrs. Post's garden is the Japanese Style Garden. This is the path that leads to the garden from the Vista Terrace:

The top of the Japanese Garden with millstones that you can walk across:

The colors of the trees are gorgeous:

A view of the waterfall:

A little bridge:

Waterlilies:

The very bottom of the waterfall looking up (you can see Brother of Ken in the center of the picture to the left):

The top of the waterfall looking down:

We left the Japanese Gardens and headed toward the French Parterre, which you can see through the opening in the photo below:

On our way into the French Parterre, we passed through the Rose Garden, where Mrs. Post is buried beneath the monument in the center:

The French Parterre:

Our next stop was the Dacha (basically, a smallish Russian vacation home), which we had glimpsed earlier, but got a good view of the second time around:

This is the Adirondack house, modeled after Mrs. Post's own vacation home in the Adirondacks:

A view of the house from the Adirondack building:

This is the cutting garden. Mrs. Post requested that after she died and the estate became a museum, there would always be fresh seasonal flowers throughout the house that came from her own gardens, just as there were when she lived here. There are between 25 and 30 horticulturists on staff to take care of the gardens, cut flowers, and make arrangements:

Flowers in nearby beds:

There is also a greenhouse, which you can see a little of in the background:

The path leading to the back entrance of the house, where we entered to tour the mansion:

More dogs in the Motor Court:

The back entrance of the house, off of the Motor Court:

Mrs. Post was the daugther of C. W. Post, the founder of the Postum Cereal Company. She learned about her father's business from an early age and became the sole heiress of the company when her father died in 1914. She was married four times and her third marriage to Joseph E. Davies, who was Roosevelt's Ambassador to Russia, sparked her interest in Russian imperial art, which makes up a large portion of her collection. She lived in Russia for a year and a half with her husband and began collecting Faberge eggs, imperial portraits, and objects from the Russian Orthodox church. She also collected French porcelain and, when she purchased Hillwood after her divorce from Davies in 1955, she decided to make the house a museum for her growing collections.

Hillwood was built in the 1920s, overlooking Rock Creek Park. When Mrs. Post bought the property, she remodeled the house and enlarged it to house her collections. She had planned for a long time to allow the house to be opened to the public following her death.

If you ever go to Hillwood, I would recommend taking the audio tour and skipping the docent guided tour. The docents are quite nice, but I always like to go at my own pace and the audio tour allows you to wander around and hear as much or as little about each space as you wish.

The first floor tour includes the entry hall, the French drawing room (which looks out over the French Parterre), the Russian porcelain room, the pavillion (where Mrs. Post had dances and showed movies), the icon room, the library, the dining room, the breakfast room, the pantry and kitchen, the Russian liturgical gallery, and the French porcelain room.

The second floor tour includes the hallway (a large staircase with a lot of portraits of the Russian imperial family), the library, the Adam bedroom suite, and Mrs. Post's bedroom suite and dressing rooms.

The whole estate is extraordinary and we really enjoyed our visit. It was relaxing to wander around the gardens and house at our leisure and Mrs. Post's art collection is wonderful.

When we were done at Hillwood, we had lunch and then decided to spend part of the afternoon at Arlington Cemetery since we hadn't been in several years. I didn't take a lot of pictures, but the ones that I do have are mostly from outside of the cemetery:

A view of the city from the Kennedy burial site:

We got off of the tram to see the Kennedy grave site and just about the time that we were supposed to get back on the tram to go to the Tomb of the Unknowns, it started pouring rain. When we got to the Tomb of the Unknowns, it was about time for the changing of the guard, which we watched as it rained. If you ever get a chance to go to Arlington, take time to see this ceremony. After that, we were wet and running out of time, so we skipped Arlington House and drove to our hotel in Georgetown, where we spent Friday and Saturday nights.

The major reason for this trip was to attend the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the Episcopal Diocese of Kansas at the National Cathedral. Family of Ken came out early to do some sightseeing, but we had to meet up with the rest of the Kansas people on Friday evening.

On Saturday, we had a special tour of the cathedral and then our own Mass in the Chapel of Joseph of Arimathea (Saturday just happened to be his feast day as well). Saturday night, we had a special catered dinner. I don't even know where we went. All I know is that our motor coach pulled up to the loading dock of some building in Georgetown and we had to wind our way through the hallways of the building until we arrived in a private dining room.

Sunday, we were special guests at the 11:15 service and the Bishop of Kansas gave the sermon. Anyone who is interested can see the video of the service here.

The Cathedral staff and volunteers were wonderful and made us very welcome. They had breakfast for us at Sayre House before church and allowed us to look at the city from the observation deck after church.

We had a great week together--lots of good food, laughing, sightseeing, and quality time together. Thanks to Mother and Father of Ken for a great trip!

Take It On The Run, Part I

Last Sunday, Kenna and I drove down to Maryland and spent Sunday evening with Leah before I met my family on Monday afternoon. This is a picture of Kenna on the couch, in Puppyland, with her eyes open and her tongue sticking out of her mouth:

After Leah and I stocked the kitchen at the apartment where my family and I were going to stay in Gaithersburg, I drove to Baltimore to get Family of Ken at the airport. We spent most of the week in Washington, D.C., but our first order of business was to attend the Orioles-Royals game at Camden Yards.


Brother of Ken is a huge Royals fan (the rest of us are fans, but just not quite as passionate as he is) and he insisted that we all wear Royals shirts to the game. This was his first major league game outside of Kaufman Stadium in Kansas City and it was at Camden Yards, which is a great park to visit. As we walked in, a staff member gave us five old Royals baseball cards--there weren't a lot of other Royals fans and this guy was excited to see us. Brother of Ken grabbed his first beer about 30 feet into the park:

We arrived early enough to see batting practice and for Brother of Ken to catch two practice balls (including one from his favorite pitcher):

The game:

It was actually a pretty good game, given that both teams are kind of awful this year. In the end, we won, so that was a nice way to finish the evening. Especially since it was hot as hell and so humid that we were sweating long after the sun went down.

We got back to our apartments late on Monday night and it took us a while to get going the next day. Once we got into the city, we went to the Library of Congress to take a tour since neither of the guys had ever been there. It is a really cool building, but the tour was really long and tedious at times.

After our tour of the library, we were ravenous, so we ate at Cafe Atlantico near the Navy Memorial:

The food was excellent. We all had special drinks (fresh lemonade and limeade and fancy iced tea for Mother of Ken) and our entrees were interesting takes on traditional Latin American food. All of it was well prepared and nicely presented.

Since we were in the neighborhood, we decided to go to the Spy Museum in the afternoon. Brother of Ken had never been there and the last time I took Mother and Father of Ken, we were really pressed for time. This time, it was crowded, but we had plenty of time to look around. If you ever get a chance to go, this is a fun museum.

On Tuesday evening, we had tickets to see The Second City's Barack Stars, which was awesome. The Woolly Mammoth theatre is wonderful--a small space, not a bad seat in the house, and we saw both Arlen Spector and Dick Durbin there, so that was exciting. This was Father of Ken's Father's Day gift and, judging from the giggling coming from the seat next to mine, he enjoyed it.

The next day, we went to the Holocaust Museum--again, the rest of us had been there, but Brother of Ken had not (his last trip to DC for sightseeing was when he was nine).

This is one of those museums that I think everyone should see at least once, but I had a hard time going back for a second time.

We took so long at the Holocaust Museum that we had to skip lunch and go directly to Ford's Theatre because we had tickets to see the building at 3:00 and tickets for a walking tour after that. The last time we went was way better. This time, they shoved us into the basement museum where it was crowded and hot. Some of the information was incorrect and the whole thing was poorly organized. Once we got into the theatre, people were acting like jerks and being really loud and obnoxious while we waited for the tour guide to begin his presentation.

The President's box:

Mother of Ken with her fan:

We had enough time between our two events at the theatre to get something to eat at a nearby bakery. It was across from the FBI building where this super cute FBI dog was working with his person:

When he wasn't working, the dog slept in the shade of one of the trees in planters that surround the building.

The walking tour was supposed to be a tour of all of the important places in the city where various people connected to the assassination had been. It was about a mile and a half walk from Ford's Theatre to Lafayette Park across from the White House. The tour guide was a man dressed in period costume pretending to be a detective working on the case. I think he was an out of work actor trying a little too hard. The whole thing was pretty hokey and it was pouring off and on the whole time, so we were glad when it was over. We did get to see Marine 1 arriving at the White House, though.

Father and Brother of Ken riding the metro on the way back to the apartment that night:

Thursday, we began the day at the Newseum, which no one had seen before besides me. This is another great place to visit if you have time--lots of cool exhibits with interactives and some great audio visual material (of course).

That took most of the morning, so after we ate lunch, the guys went to the Air and Space Museum while Mother of Ken and I went to the Sackler to see this show. We met up with the guys at the American History museum, but not before taking pictures of the food carts outside:

Mother of Ken and I saw the First Ladies' exhibit, which isn't nearly finished yet, and then once the guys got there, we saw everything else: Julia Child's kitchen, the star spangled banner, the Lincoln exhibit, etc.

That's it for this post--I think I'm still tired from all of the running around. I have slept so much since I got home...

Stay tuned for the next post about our visits to Hillwood and Arlington Cemetery.