Great news sports fans!  Last night we fulfilled a lifelong dream, playing softball on the National Mall. It started off headed toward a letdown but ended up being a great night. Softball on the Mall is somewhat chaotic. There  are no designated fields, no backstops, no foul lines, nothing that resembles a playing field. Essentially, people throw down bases at the approximate regulation distances and you go from there.

The greatest part is how the fields are assigned. The standard procedure is each team has to send an intern to claim a field in the early afternoon on gameday. Apparently they have to stand on the field until game time. Because the field assignments are imprecise, we had trouble locating our Missouri based teammates. We had never met any of the members of "Show-Me Assess" and didn't even know what color shirts to be looking for (The team is composed of current and former Missouri Democratic staffers, thus the creative team name). We resorted to process of elimination. We walked around nearly half of the Mall looking for anybody with St. Louis, Kansas City or Mizzou gear on. During our search for the team, we ran across another team that needed an extra player, so Ben offered his services (which meant going 2-2 with 2 homeruns including a grandslam) while Kelly continued our search for the "Asses".

Kelly finally located the team at the base of the Washington Monument. Fresh off his victory with the random architecture firm team, Ben came and joined the Asses. The field we played on is considered a bad field because it was kinda on a uphill and included mounds grass on the "infield", just waiting to divert a ground ball into our faces. Regardless of the quality of the field, the scenery was second to none.

We played at the base of the Washington Monument and had a view of the White House in left field, the Thomas Jefferson Memorial toward 1st base and the Lincoln Memorial and WWII memorial past 3rd base. As the sun was setting the memorials became illuminated. Kelly was playing 2nd base and couldn't help staring at good ole' Abe Lincoln all lit up. It was an amazing setting and something both of us have always wanted to do. Also, we won 13-4, which is a vast improvement from the 30-1 loss the team apparently took just a week ago. One could call last week's performance an "ass-kicking", excuse the pun.

Don't tread on Dexter...

East coast mornings are wonderful. Everything runs a little later in the mornings, which provides excellent sleeping-in/dog walking opportunities. Our neighbor let us know about a dog park 2 blocks from the apartment. This morning, we took Dex and Mo down to the dog park where about 5 new friends were excited to get new playmates.

Dexter was all business and wanted to play fetch until his heart stopped beating, while Mo was a social butterfly and approached each dog/dog owner for attention.

On the way to the park we passed the most beautiful iris patch. Thought we would share them with everybody.  All of DC is in bloom.  We were sad to be a few weeks too late for the famed cherry blossoms, but all of our walks have passed countless rose bushes and other flowers.

With our recent internet acquisistion, we are now able to get netflix through our Wii. This has impeded any and all productivity from either Kelly or Ben. We have become clinicly addicted to "24" season 8. It is a very addictive show that has cliffhangers at the end of each show. One show leads to another and another, its a slippery slope.  Having seen seasons 1-7, Ben tried to warn Kelly about the addictiveness of the show, but sometimes people have to learn for themselves. 

After forcing ourselves to break away from 24, we took a stroll up to the Capitol. It was a perfect evening. As we were walking around the front of the Capitol, Dex decided to commit a possible federal offense. I don't know if he was trying to make a political statement about waste in government or just had to poop, but sure enough he relieved himself right in front of the Capitol steps.

Worried that someone might 'tread on' that, we continued to be good people and picked this little treasure up. 

Internet and more...

We are back in touch with society! We got our internet setup today and are looking forward to wasting hours on the googling machine. It is amazing how out of sync you feel when you are not "connected" to the internet/world.

The last piece of our furniture puzzle came together, we found a couch. Due to our small door frame, finding a couch to get in the apartment has been challenging. We found a couch on craigslist for sale on Capitol Hill. The only problem was that it was 8 blocks away and our Mini-Cooper is no U-Haul. We went over with the intention of carrying the couch back to the apartment. Ben tried inspiring me by reminding me that if we get tired we can just sit down as we would be carrying a couch. We ended up being able to stick 2/3 of the couch in the mini-cooper and slowly drove back to the apartment. We got a few looks, but it was worth it once all four of us were relaxing on the couch.

The dogs have adjusted fairly well to the new digs. Mosely is just as lazy and docile as always and Dex is just has hyper and paranoid. We have a somewhat narrow kitchen with tile on the floor. As many of you know, those are two of Dexter's biggest fears, slick floors and narrow spaces. Watch what happens when we throw his ball into the kitchen. Watch the whole video.

Tourists

We have settled in enough that we decided to go see the town and be tourists for the day. We took off from the apartment with Dex and Mo and headed the 10 blocks to the Capitol. We took a stroll around the Capitol grounds and checked out where we stood during the 2009 inauguration. It was strange to see the Capitol grounds so empty. It was such a contrast to the millions of people that were standing on the same grounds just 2 ½ years ago. From the Capitol, we headed down the Mall to the Washington Monument and then onto the new WWII Memorial. It was a beautiful memorial, however it quickly fell to the bottom of our list because of their ban on dogs. Next on the tour was the Lincoln Memorial.

The reflecting pond along the way to the memorial was under construction. It was disappointing because the pond always seems to tie the mall together. Apparently the concrete bottom was crumbling and needed renovation. We made the quick walk to the Vietnam memorial and found Kelly’s relative, Roger D. Partington’s name listed on the memorial. It was lunch time, so we made a quick stop at the White House and then grabbed a fantastic sandwich at Potbelly’s. While the dogs couldn’t have a sandwich, they did get an ice cream cone at McDonalds. Mo and Dex drew a crowd as they wolfed down their ice cream. As we headed back to the apartment, we passed the FBI, DOJ, Capitol (again) and the Supreme Court building. After about six hours of walking and approximately 12 miles and 47 tourist attractions, the two exhausted dogs and two exhausted humans were happy to be home.

Ben is cooking for the first time in the new apartment. He is making his famous eggplant dish. Hopefully we will get a movie and stay at the apartment this evening.

Adjusting to Big City Living

The transition to “big city living” hasn’t been without challenges. The traffic congestion at rush hour, driving a rental truck in traffic congestion at rush hour, parking tickets, grocery shopping, one-way streets and picking up dog poop has taken some getting used to (we apologize in advance if dog poop becomes a recurring theme on this blog – for better or worse it has become a significant part of our lives).  

It seems like there is a 2:1 ratio of dogs to people in our neighborhood. It is almost like a dog or two is an essential accessory to live in this area. Fortunately, we have the two best looking accessories in town! As you all know, Dex and Mo always enjoy making new friends, however our upstairs neighbor dog, Buddy, has not welcomed them with open paws. Other than Mr. Buddy, the dog friendly environment has been wonderful. Everyone wants to talk about our/their dogs and everyone seems to be tolerant of Dex’s jumping, slobbering and overall bad manners. Not that we recklessly allowed our dogs to poop in public back in Missouri, but the majority of the time it was in our yard or in an appropriate area. D.C. takes poop duty serious, especially in Capitol Hill. We have struggled to remember taking bags on our walks and have had to suffer the judgment from fellow dog owners as we abandon their excrements. In these situations, we always want to make the announcement “we are not jerks, we simply forgot a bag to pick up their poop, we are good people, please don’t judge us”. When we do remember to bring a bag(s) along, Ben is always ready to hand it to me for poop removal.

Ben’s slight OCD/clean freak tendencies have made him reluctant to handle dog feces and when confronted with this type of situation he responds with “I’m not picking it up, it’s not mine”. Ben’s world all came crashing down on our walk one evening. Mo made the poops which Kelly bagged up, then Dex made a poop, which meant Ben had to go on poop patrol. He hesitantly reached down and grabbed the fresh pile and carried it 3 blocks to the nearest trashcan. When asked if he had ever carried poop this long, he said “just my own”.

Ben had a meeting at his new office Friday to get a feel for his new position. We jumped on the metro and headed to K Street. Coming out of the metro station was like a scene from a movie. The organized chaos and commotion of it all was impressive. Thousands of people in thousands of buildings all working for their respective causes. People wearing fancy suits, talking on their fancy phones and seemingly oblivious to anything but their current task. We didn’t really fit in with our Cardinals shirts, jeans and running shoes and Kelly’s hippie purse over her shoulder. This street’s population density of attorneys must rival anywhere else in the world. During Ben’s meeting, Kelly walked a few blocks south of K street only to run into a large white house that happened to be the White House. It was surprisingly close to Ben’s office and she quickly became jealous of his new office local. To pour salt in the wound, on the walk back to Ben’s office she ran into a Fro-Yo (frozen yogurt) less than 2 blocks from his office.

We both are so excited about taking up residence in DC and trying to take advantage of all it has to offer. So far it still feels like a vacation, but each day we get closer and closer to normalcy. We look forward to the day when we are sitting on our couch watching “storage wars” with Dex and Mo, we will know we are home! 

Our New Home

Signing the lease and paying our rent and security deposit sight unseen had left us a little anxious about our new apartment on Capitol Hill prior to our arrival. We were pleasantly surprised to find a spacious 2 bedroom 1 bathroom with a nice sized kitchen, and exposed brick along one wall. This is what was advertised, but for all we knew we could have been subsidizing an “elementary school” in Nigeria. The apartment is located in the heart of Capitol Hill, between Union Station and Eastern Market. Our row house gives off a great DC vibe. We have gotten a feel for the neighborhood and toured the different streets to see what they have to offer. We have a nice little coffee shop and bbq joint a few blocks away as well as a great park two blocks from the apartment. Our favorite experience so far has been to the Eastern Market. On Saturday and Sunday there is a huge open-air marketplace filled with produce, seafood, meat, artwork, jewelry and clothes for sale by local farmers and artists. We walked down to Eastern Market on Saturday and took a few hours to look at all the vendors and pick up some great produce. We also had a wonderful lemonade and tea from one of the vendors and can’t wait to go back for another. Kelly’s mother will have a field day at the market and will probably spend her retirement on all the wonderful bakeries!

The Drive

890 miles to D.C. We left around 2pm on Tuesday and were scheduled to be at our D.C. apartment at 2pm Wednesday to get the keys. Ben drove the Uhaul and Kelly drove the Mini Cooper with the dogs. 

We made it to Carthage, Ohio at 1:00am on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning and quickly checked into a Super 8 for a short night’s sleep. We hit the road around 7am the next morning with about 5 driving hours until D.C. The drive was unremarkable, with the exception of all the hills. Things really got exciting when we hit D.C. traffic. Ben was following Kelly and Kelly was following the GPS. While we did not get into an accident, we can’t guarantee we didn’t cause any. As we approached the Capitol, the GPS took us directly around it. Kelly followed the given route, however Ben was directed by a friendly police officer to go away from the Capitol. Apparently they are sensitive to people driving large moving trucks in the area. After taking a detour over the Potomac and back and through a few random neighborhoods, the maples, directionless Ben miraculously stumbled upon the apartment. With keys in hand, it meant we got to start unloading and unpacking.