Prince Edward County

Friday, Liz and I loaded up the car with our weekend wear and one happy baby and set off in the pouring rain to Prince Edward County to see Ellen and Diane. How ironic to be visiting American friends in Canada!

We spent two busy nights and days at their rented house in Milford where they hosted us with the most delicious dinners (wild salmon Nicoise salad, soft multigrain bread, lemon tarragon risotto and homemade strawberry pie), chilled local Waupoos wine and tours around the county. We discovered an old-fashioned bakery in Picton (plus an old school Stedman's department store), visited an artist's co-op, and had coffee at the Bean Counter Cafe, picked up a stack of second-hand books for Ella, shopped at the Milford Market, walked along Sandbanks, climbed massive dunes, popped into the Mad Dog Gallery, played with Devi, my dog-niece, and gazed out at the still water from their tidy dock.

I'm back in Ottawa now, for two more slower-paced days before heading back home to DC.

Whalesboner

This morning, I babysat Elspeth while Jeremiah had a sleep-in. He came to about noon and the nanny had arrived, so he and I drove to Whalesbone for one of their famous fish sandwiches. We split a large haddock with really delicate fish and caramelized onions and grainy mustard on soft ciabatta. Pretty delicious, but what isn't when you eat it in the car while a rainstorm beats a drum on the roof?

Guess Who I Miss?

Arriving in Ottawa

How did this happen in only 4 months? Ottawa no longer feels like home. The streets and places to which I used to feel so connected seem sort of parochial now. Food prices are higher. I'm not up on gossip at my old workplace.

Uh, but spending time with my friends, especially today with Sarah Shaughnessy, makes me feel really comfortable and loved. I visited one of my 120 Holland neighbours today, too. Jeremiah (Bartram, not to be confused with my brother, Jeremiah Soucie) is a dear, sweet friend of mine, born only three years after my father. It was so wonderful to see him.

But. Things are different now and so am I and so Ottawa feels different too. My condo is not mine anymore, my brother has a baby, everyone I know is pregnant or a new mother, my friend Robin is moving away.

Adam said that this trip, more than just being a lot of fun, would oddly make me feel more at home in Washington. I think he's probably right.

Last Weekend

Last weekend, Adam and I had a happy hour dinner at Oyamel, one of José Andrés' many amazing Penn Quarter restaurants. Oyamel is his small plates take on Mexican food: a scallop ceviche served on the half shell (the 'shell' being a halved key lime) and spritzed with a tequila atomizer; concentrated slow-roasted salsa and salty house chips; aquas frescas; Chihuahua cheese quesidillas; papas el mole (essentially, amazing salty twice-fried French fries smothered in queso fresco, Mexican creme and dark, spicy chocolate mole sauce -- a Mexican take on poutine!); and rum-soaked pineapple cake

Our whole intention in meeting for dinner was to actually hear José Andrés speak at the National Archives that evening, but we lingered too long at dinner, so by the time we got to the archives, they were full and turning people away by the dozens.

But that was a good thing because Adam's cousin, Sadie, showed up in DC that night from Chigaco, via Vegas, Santa Barbara, Hollywood, San Francisco and, before that, England. The two of them went out for a late bite and then we met her at the National Gallery of Art the next afternoon and toured her around the modern art wing before taking her to pick up some dinner for her bus ride to NYC.

Adam hasn't spent much time with Sadie, as she's quite a bit younger than us and wasn't even born when his family left England to immigrate to Canada. They recounted all their memories of each other, however. But none could top Sadie's story of visiting Adam's family in New Brunswick when Adam was just turning sixteen. He was apparently so obsessed (focused!) on learning to drive that Sadie and her mum made Adam a personalized driver's license birthday cake from gingerbread and frosting!

It was fun to get to know Sadie as an adult. She's just the loveliest girl with a soft voice and easy laugh. Having a British accent just makes her even cuter. She and I had loads of fun comparing notes on US dollars (all the cash is one colour!) and American-sized restaurant portions, and Adam was quite sad to see her off when we parted ways at the Metro.

Last Days

The last couple days with Chris and Sarah seemed over as quickly as the visit began. We had more time in the little swimming pool on our rooftop and visited the National Museum of American History (the boys were totally excited to see C-3PO and Ric Flaire's famous feathered cape), the Lincoln Memorial, Dupont Circle (where Adam got to ride some random dude's really cool fold-up bike), Cafe Atlantico (an incredible, fifteen-year DC institution that's closing down in a week!), BGR The Burger Joint, Dean & Deluca and Georgetown.

And now, we've had our fill of museums, I have to start hitting the books again and Adam is a bit sad, missing Chris. I'll still post periodic updates though and stay tuned for our big road trip in August.

More, more, more!

Another awesome day in DC with Chris and Sarah. This morning began with Adam's famous (okay, only to me) buttermilk kamut pancakes with thick Greek yogurt and dark maple syrup. Plus, Chris put on a piping pot of spicy, dark coffee from Bourbon (a small direct-to-customer chain with a location in our neighborhood).

We all put on our walking shoes again and Adam guided us up Embassy Row to The Textile Museum to see a show on green design (including a knitted leopard 'pelt', a delicate paper sculpture made to look like the undulating rhythm of moving water, a turquoise-coloured men's kimono and fourth-century tapestries). There were also lots of workshops going on in the museum's beautiful backyard gardens. Adam and Chris tried making paper from invasive plants with Patterson Clark (The Washington Post's natural history columnist whose company is called Alien Weeds). They were working with mulberry bark to make the paper and we all got to try a mulberry! Sarah and I went to another station to stencil repurposed muslin cloth. And it was a 'make and take,' so we brought our work home! The highlight was watching a black ewe get her summer shearing. There were a lot of kids crowding around and scaring her silly, but the shearer (a woman!) kept her cool and got all that hot wool off the poor thing. She was feeling pretty fine afterward!

The four of us then tromped down to 14th and U where we had lunch at Eatonville, a modern soul food restaurant with large, American-sized servings. We were starving, I think, because we inhaled everything on our table: Gruyere-rosemary grits, buttermilk biscuits, scrambled eggs, extra-sharp mac and cheese, steamed and salted collard greens, frittata, lavender lemonade and cold ginger beer spiked with capsicum.

We trundled down to the mall to check out the Air and Space Museum, but we started to flag after about an hour and decided to come home for naps, video games, iced tea, Haagan Dazs and long dip in the pool. We all strolled down to Chipolte for dinner (and everyone went back for seconds!), but Sarah and I threw in the towel afterward, walking home together for an early bedtime while Adam and Chris went out on the town to The Big Hunt, a multi-level beer bar that was taken over by an area microbrewery for tonight only.

More to do tomorrow. More, more, more!

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