You just WISH you were me.
That gorgeous babe sitting on the stone wall next to me? That's only my bestest friend in the whole wide world. My bestest friend who I almost never get to see in person anymore because we live hundreds of miles apart.
Still thinking about where my bestest friend and I met up? Just look UP.
No, I mean go OUTSIDE and look up. Way, way UP.
Yep, you got it now, I'll bet. We went to the Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, DC.
Believe me, if you've never seen DC at cherry-blossom time, you are missing out. The pink-white trees are phenomenal... and the numbers of people are astronomical... which drove us inside to my favorite building on the mall, the National Gallery of Art... where I once again got to see my favorite marble sculpture EVAR:
That's Carpeaux' "Girl With a Shell." I want to take Shelly-Girl home with me. If she ever turns up missing, it might be a good idea to check my living room.
There's also this wonderful painting by Mary Cassatt:
"Little Girl in a Blue Armchair"... isn't she just deliciously bored?
But WE weren't bored. Oh no, sirree. Not even once.
Okay, there was this once, but it was because we decided to go to a Palm Sunday church service and picked the wrong church -- that place was D-E-A-D -- but it was okay because it only lasted a little while and then we got to leave and go eat lunch.
Eat!
O frabjous day, callooh, callay, did we ever EAT. We ate some fantabulously scrumptious things like Burmese beef in coconut cream gravy, Chinese pork dumplings, scallops with roasted garlic, and Russian cabbage rolls. That's just a small sampling, believe me. I love food and so does my bestest friend. Food, glorious food! And the DC area is a super-fantastic place to sample many, many cuisines, even on a budget.
We also visited the National Cathedral, a place I'd never had the opportunity to see:
What a spectacular place:
A choir was rehearsing Bach with a period-accurate orchestra while we toured the interior, and the sound was heavenly.
We also visited Arlington National Cemetery and saw the Eternal Flame on JFK's gravesite:
Arlington is a beautiful, somber place.
We got to watch the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknowns:
I can't even begin to tell you just how great this was. I *so* needed to spend time with her, and we both desperately needed to get away like this. It was an unforgettable trip, and my companion was infinitely compatible. We shared breathless laughter, awesome wonder, and a couple of tears as well. Friends like her just don't come along very often; I pity people who never find one.
I love you, Cindy!!! Thank you for coming with me!!
P.S.: Thanks, JoeMama, for picking up the kids at school and taking them for part of the time, and thanks to hubby Rick for nursing vomiting children Sunday and Monday (yuggh -- I confess I'm not sorry to have missed THAT).
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