What Else Is There?

Adam's best man, Chris, and his partner Sarah (plus, their little but in the oven), are visiting for five days. Since they arrived on Thursday, we have happily toured them aound the city, visiting the National Art Gallery, Teaism (delicious vegetarian food), Takorean (my favorite food truck!), Truckaroo (a monthly event where about two dozen food trucks set up in an empty parking lot and serve hundreds of hungry people), Pentagon City Shopping Centre, our little swimming pool, the White House and Cork (where the ceiling is impossibly high, the wine is good and cheap and the food is always epic).

With all this, plus gorgeous weather and Adam laughing like he only does with Chris, what else is there?

"You Look Relaxed."

That's what Adam said to me when he arrived home after work today.

Hm, I guess it's because I've been kicking back the past two days and checking out completely from what my friend Tony Fouhse calls 'the endless business of living.'

So far, I have gone to the Takorean truck (twice!) for caramelized tofu tacos stuffed with napa-romaine slaw, lime crema, sriracha, fresh cilantro and toasted sesame seeds.

I've also visited an invitational show on American Craft at the Renwick Gallery (which is right across from the Whitehouse and about a ten minute walk from our place). Oooh! What an incredible show. There were glazed ceramic food sculptures (pale peaches and bulbous squashes topped with pink lychees) by a neurosurgeon who took up ceramics as his avocation to avoid stress. And steam-bent wooden furniture, crafted using the principles of boat-building. Also, stained-glass windows inspired by punk and postmodernism. Great space, great craft. I also saw the book 'Making Stuff' in their gift shop, which is the first in a series of DIY books by Black Dog Publishing in England. Notable, to me, because I contributed to the second one, 'Growing Stuff,' with a primer on urban root cellaring.

And then I made an impromptu visit to the Foggy Bottom Farmer's Market in my neighbouhood, loading my purse up with purple asparagus, a bunch of baby white radishes and foil-wrapped steamed Chinese buns, stuffed with slippery shiitake caps, duck fat-fried onions, spicy homemade haixian sauce and little leaves of spinach.

And now I'm off for a long soaker in our deep bathtub that has armrests and a backrest and marble surround. I'm so lucky. And yes, I am relaxed. Yes. I am.

Rock n Roll Lifestyle

We just said good-bye to Randy and Francesco, who flew down from Ottawa for the Canadian long weekend. Randy is our affable, down-to-earth, but often flamboyant financial planner, and a weekend with him is virtually non-stop! We drank much wine and ate delicious food (including an epic dinner at Cork, fancy drinks at midnight on the gorgeous patio of the Blue Duck Tavern and a pretty Parisian lunch at LaRuche in Georgetown), stayed up late, biked around the sights (courtesy of Adam, our energetic tour guide), saw the Air and Space Museum and the national gallery, shopped at J. Press, cooled off in the Phillips Gallery and talked about everything under the sun and moon.

Randy capped the weekend with an impromptu (and secret) stop into the English Rose Garden in Georgetown, leaving Francesco and I combing the block for him after we had covered a street full of antique stores. And then, out he bounded, carrying a tall glass vase full of bouncy pink peonies and white tulips. A gift, for me, which he carried all the way back to our condo.

That's Randy. And that was quite a weekend. P.S. Francesco, the cats miss you already.

Timing

Given the fact that I'm on a bit of a hiatus from work for a few weeks and also that we've now been living in the US for almost four months (1/8th of our total time here has already passed!), I think it's good timing to give a good summary of our still-new lives here.

When we arrived in DC, Adam and I were both keen to recreate the nearly perfect lives we had built up in Ottawa. We immediately began making contacts with new friends, joining clubs and taking every opportunity to go out into the city.

Eventually, we calmed down. Which is what people almost always do once they figure out how crazy they're being.

Life here isn't like life in Ottawa. It's just not.

And that's what we want. So, it's been nicer, now, that we've begun to settle into the new reality of our lives.

There are obvious changes. Some are awesome. Online shopping is so cheap and easy here. We even bought our mattress (which we love!) online without trying it in a store. Another thing that's cool is shopping in general. Things are cheap here. It's not hard to find an outlet or a discount store or a sale. Yeah, yeah, I know America's appetite for cheap consumer goods is basically tanking the planet, but it's really so nice to afford some nice things.

Some changes aren't good at all. Adam's commute is very long and involves a ten minute walk, a ten minute subway ride, a half hour train ride and another fifteen to thirty minutes on campus shuttles. He misses biking through the experimental farm to work. We also miss our neighborhood, especially the food. DC is catching up to the local food movement, but very slowly, so farmer's markets are just catching on and small bakeries, cheesemongers and green grocers are rare.

There are also changes that are a little harder to discern or make sense of. For instance, Adam now works in a very large organization where there is lots of competition and intense pressure to produce. It's different than the Canadian public service where work-life balance is valued and Adam's contribution to his organization was deeply entrenched and clearly defined.

I'm also doing different work. While the public service wasn't my life goal, it was easier on my mental health and more in line with my skills and talents than doctoral research. Moving to a new city and a new country while working from home is really weird at times.

The most interesting, and arguably best, fuel for our thinking here has been the change the move has brought about in our relationship. The timing was probably ripe for this kind of change anyway, as we're getting older and we've been together for long enough (nearly twelve years) that some kind of growth is always taking place. What's happened lately is hard to put a finger on, but the experience of moving has brought us closer together and caused us to lean on each other more. I think we're learning, as we always have been, more and more about what makes the other tick and increasingly striving to see the other person in a holistic way.

Anyway, my 'thinker,' Adam, will probably read this and wonder what the heck I'm going on about. All these feelings. All these new experiences to digest and think through. It's great fodder for the mind.

I am really, really happy we came here.

Getting Through

My brain literally feels dead. Like brain dead. Over the last few weeks, I have attempted to squeeze out of it every single coherent thought about my thesis topic and somehow shoot those thoughts down to my fingertips and out onto the keys of my laptop.

I did get a first draft of my thesis completed and submitted to my committee for comments. Now, I wait. My plan is to try to recharge myself in the meantime.

So, we went to Kevin and Sarah's beautiful little condo for the inaugural run of their new waffle maker. Also met up with Christina, Tor and Tor's brother, Steve, last weekend. The ladies were in town for a long weekend and it was good to see Canadians again, but I certainly don't miss all that talk about the public service!

But best of all, my amazing husband took me to Annapolis to visit three Dutch Amish farmer's markets for an article I'm writing. As usual, Adam planned the route and did all the driving. Props to him for always being such a huge supporter of my work. We did manage to lock the keys (and my iPhone) in the car outside one of the markets, but Adam borrowed someone's phone and called Zipcar and through the wonders of electronic locking systems, they were able to unlock it remotely within about two seconds!

This week, I'm in total slow down mode. Barely enough juice in the old brain to figure out what to eat for lunch.

Lunch Cheat

A dish I've been creating a lot lately is warm vanilla-scented pasta made with fresh grated parmigiana, pan fried mushrooms, a handful of shelled edamame, a couple glugs of organic vanilla almond milk and...Annie's Whole Wheat White Cheddar Pasta Shells. I'm such a cheat! But topped with thinly sliced scallions and a drizzle of black truffle oil, it makes an amazing lunch. Especially with a tall glass of iced white tea.

Bon appetite!

Sweet Life

Big day! We got up early and drove a Zipcar to Maryland for Sweetgreen's Sweetlife Festival at the Merriweather Post Pavilion, an amazing, beautiful, sustainable, outdoor concert venue in the middle of a cozy forest b/w DC and Baltimore. The grounds and concept were designed by Frank Gehry, so you can imagine what a unique place it is with soaring fir trees and leafy hardwood, a lush green hill overlooking a low-slung wooden pavilion, booming open-air acoustics and a paved, rambling walking path around the perimeter. Not to mention a massive barn in the middle of it all and solar panels to keep it all going.

The Sweetlife Festival itself was a really interesting mix of sustainable communal activities (like a human power generating station and top-it-yourself mini frozen yogurt sundaes), take home swag (reusable shopping bags from Mom's Organics, Stoneyfield yogurt, bite-sized Lara Bars, dark chocolate granola, white cheddar Pirate Booty), yummy food vendors (pit turkey; organic burgers; Shock Top draught) and great tunes, of course.

It did rain, I admit, and we were poorly outfitted for the weather. Plus, the two acts we really wanted to hear -- Lupe Fiasco and The Strokes -- weren't on until late this evening, far past the point when we had to leave to get back to DC.

But the pavilion was an amazing find, and no surprise that it's set in Columbia, Maryland's covertly hip group of ten planned communities. We're always intrigued by what we find when we visit.

More Soucie

Soucies, gone.

The Soucies who were here are gone. It was really a lot of fun.

Easter morning, we had an epic, fourteen course neo-Latino dim sum brunch at Cafe Atlantico and visited the sculpture garden behind the National Gallery. Next day, we loaded up the car and headed to Leesburg, VA for some serious outlet shopping and bad Burger King. Damn, my brother can shop!

The rest of the time, we stayed near our neighbourhood: strolling around crumbly, old Georgetown to stare at the architecture and stopping at Tackle Box for half price fish tacos, hush puppies, and cold iced tea; then walking up to Dupont Circle to sit by the fountain, eat lunch at BGR The Burger Joint, flip through design books at Kramerbooks (where we also saw Joe Clark!), and poke through a crowded wine store. Of course, I also had to take Jeremiah up to U Street, where gentrification is starting to ramp up, leaving room enough for Cork's gorgeous market and tasting room, hip pizza parlours, antique shops and beautiful little boutiques stocked to the artfully exposed rafters with local soy candles, skinny denim neckties and fun tools for feeding babies and kids.

Speaking of babies, Elspeth (AKA 'Fancy') kept us home some of the time, so we laid into snacks from Trader Joe's, watched bad comedies and good documentaries on Netflicks, talked until late, ate noodle bowls, and Skyped with Sarah.

I hope everyone had as much fun as I did.

Soucies, here.

3 Soucies/2 Korats/1 Binks

Starting Saturday, two of these people are visiting for a week. To do what? Sunday Brunch at Cafe Atlantico with all of us, plus Sarah Minor, Easter egg colouring with my friend Barbara and her children and grandson, coffee at Dean & Deluca, outdoor cooking demos, Foggy Bottom Farmer's Market, cooking on our cool gas stove, a road trip to Baltimore, sitting in cafes, going to Amsterdam Falafel, playing blocks, pushing the stroller.

This will be Elspeth's inaugural induction into the Soucie sibling bonding process. Lucky girl!

IN the computer?

Adam likes to make fun of my status (or non-status) as what Malcolm Gladwell called a 'laggard' in The Tipping Point. (When imagining my interest in adopting new technologies, think about the hilarious scene in Zoolander when Matilda informs Hansel that the files are IN the computer).

But I finally figured out how to get the photos off my iPhone and onto my Mac, so now I can show you the photos I've been snapping around town. 

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Brain in a Vat

Most of you have a vague idea that I once trained to be a natural nutritionist...or that I used to do yoga three times a week, meditate, cook dinner from scratch, do crafts, use the public library.

But the fun times had to end, I believed. Grown-ups need to make money, build a safety net, start a trust fund.

So, I took a large scholarship to do a degree I knew I didn't want, to help land a job in an industry I no longer believed in. I got trained to do quasi-scientific research and write long documents that are hard to read. Perfect skills for a future public servant! ;-) So, I took a position for the federal government, where there is less pressure to produce, but the writing is equally obtuse.

I often used to feel just like a brain in a vat. Typing, tapping, thinking, thinking.

But lately, I've have the space to stretch, read, eat a mostly vegetarian diet, hike, bike, tell stories, take pictures. Less pressure on myself to get published, get a promotion, have a baby, build a house. It feels good to get back to the basics.

Portrait of my psychotherapist in her office at 7:59 am.