Day Two: I ate lunch at a pimp cajun restaurant called Acadiana with the head pastor of Calvary Baptist, Amy Butler. Fun. She's fabulous: smart, funny, cynical and full of love for God and the church. A real role model. How she keeps it all together is beyond me, but I thought she was fabulous. A kindred spirit. Stephen was wise to introduce us. After lunch I toured Calvary and then returned back to the center of DC to check out some museums. I lurve museums and I love Degas. Needless to say, I visited the National Gallary and saw some beautiful paintings including some Toulouse and Van Gogh. I looked at Girls in the Olive Fields and felt a twang of sympathy with a troubled artist shut up in a room trying to find himself. I remembered not only my love for Degas' reds and ballerinas but for Vincent's plea to be free. But then I turned and saw his self-portrait. My empathy turned to anger as I remembered another lover of Van Gogh who painted his own self-portrait and in my rage I pictured myself attacking the million dollar painting, ripping through it and pulling it to the ground. But I didn't. Obviously, since I'm writing this and not from a prison cell. Not even my grandparents could bail me out of that. I just sat there, wanting to write in my journal, but not having a pen. Not even a pen. Nothing but my feelings and me and Vincent all sitting in a room staring at each other. Surreal. Art. It does something to you.

I visited the Smithsonian Natural History Museum as well day two because I wanted to see the dinosaurs. Well, them and the hope diamond. The dinosaurs were every bit as cool and scary as I imagined. Huge bones connected and I was amazed that we as people are smart enough to excavate those animals without screwing up. People are so smart. I'd have totally "fresh break"ed a bone or something (that's what Itzac used to yell at us in Israel when he'd find a pottery piece that we'd excavated and broken in removing it from the ground)l. Anyway, the dinosaurs were super duper cool. The hope diamond was alright. I'm not saying I wouldn't mind wearing it once or twice, but God did a better job with the rocky mountains in my opinion.

Wednesday also brought Nationals Baseball Game Night. The Washington Nationals played the Braves and won 9 to 6. It was fun being at a baseball game, eating hotdogs and drinking beer just like Swell and Brooke, Zachy and Matt and I used to do in college. Believe it or not, this was my first professional baseball game to attend that wasn't in Royals Stadium. It paled in comparison, even if the team was (gulp... brush away tear) more impressive. Ah the Royals. What happened?