I'd been yearning for a thunderstorm, and last night we got a humdinger. 

Callum was at a friend's house when the storm started, and by the time we scooted across the street to grab him, the dogs had been in a fight and the power had gone out.

The lightening went on for hours.

Callum took this photo, still learning that the shutter stays open a long time when the light is low.

Checkers by flashlight ended in a stalemate, even though the lightholder gasped audibly every time he saw a jump for Callum (I'm looking at you, Neel.).  The power didn't come back on until nearly 2 a.m. Even then it was still raining, and the skies were still flickering like candlelight.  Last night's sleep reminded us of those days after Isabelle when it was so hot at night, and you'd lie in bed so carefully not wanting to touch anyone.  Nobody slept well, but I got my storm.

My work is in a funny place right now.  Sort of a "the more things change, the more they stay the same" kind of place.  We have a new headmaster at our school, and that means all sorts of sweeping changes in all sorts of ways.  He'll come in, as he should, and change things.  Already we see evidence of that, from a new desk in the office to new events on the calendar.  A new head of school means a new boss for me.  And so I'm in a weird sort of place, where everything I'm doing is almost exactly the same as I did last year at this time, almost exactly the same as I always do, but it's not.  It's different. 

I'm very lucky in my work, as I continually seem to be reminding Callum, that the projects I have over the summer I am able to do largely from home.  My laptop and I hang out together for a few hours every morning, and we're still able to go to the beach or Callum is still free to play with his friends.  Each week we go into school, and while Callum has karate, I've been meeting with my new boss.  And it's been good.  I like this guy.  So far we seem to be working well together.  But as I was chatting with a neighbor last week, I finally put my finger on just the sense I've had about these weekly meetings.  You know how it is when you meet a new person, say a new girlfriend or you and your partner meet another couple and you decide to get together for coffee or go out to dinner, and you have that "first date?"  That first time you get together where you're glad to be together and it's fun to be together and get to know each other, but still, just a little, it's taking a bit of work?  Well that's how it feels each week in these meetings with my new boss.  Every Wednesday from 10-11 a.m. is like another first date.  I think if I were there all week, working in the office every day we'd be past that, but we're not.  So our sentences stumble over each other and our conversations can veer from halting to rapid-fire in practically a breath.   I love my job, and I don't want to look like an idiot, but it's been a long time since I've come home wondering how things were going and if it were okay to tell someone when I disagree about something.  I'm sure that equilibrium will come, but it's early days yet.  And early days can be daunting.

My old boss? I could pretty much predict his reaction to any given situation.  And I was never afraid to disagree with him.  Megan, I'm assuming you'll have something to say about that.

So while all the things I'm doing are pretty much the same, everything feels like it's changed.  I'm changing too.  Thinking about doing different kinds of things.  Trying to extrapolate my favorite parts of my job and create some reason out of them.  I have a friend who is a freelance editor (Hi Cookie!), and we've been chatting about work quite a bit lately.  She feels that I'm a writer with editorial tendencies (is that the way you put it?), all the while I find myself yearning for the structure and order of editing, not the wild storm of chaos that writing seems to be. (We're both yearning a bit for those things that are other than what we are doing at present.)  It has been a big part of my job, editing and helping to frame the message of our school.  I can't tell if it's going to stay or go away.   And maybe, if I like it so much, it's time to think about it more, doing it more than just for my school.  I've been thinking about that a lot too.  Branching out.  Trying to learn some more.  Go legit.  What was #9 again?

This whole late of summer feels like a giant step into the unknown.  Must be why I so desparetly wanted some new shoes.

I know, I know, that trip was weeks ago.  Who wants to hear about it now?

I just love Washington D.C.  It's such an exciting, vibrant city.  So much is going on there, but it feels so do-able too.  Callum's been angling to go for years now, and we did it in just the right way.  A couple of half-days in the city, plenty of time in the hotel pool and the knowledge that we live close enough to come back any time.  And it was so fun to see with my young politico, too.  (Neel's convinced that Callum's destined for the foreign service.)  When we turned the corner and saw the White House for the first time, he simply breathed, "Oh my gosh."

This towering vision followed us everywhere.

There was lots of walking.

It's a pretty city that makes walking easy.

Vietnam Memorial.

Lincoln Memorial

Stepping into the darkened hallway to see this magnificent statue always brings tears to my eyes.  The low lights, hushed voices and glow from the marble all illuminate the power of this beautiful piece of art and amazing man.

There was lots of reading too.  Callum insisted on reading every word at the Linclon Memorial, of both the second Innaugural addres and the Gettysburg address.  We lost track of him for the barest of seconds after the he'd read the Gettysburg address, but I found him pretty quickly, sitting on one of the top steps looking out over the Mall toward the Washington Monument.  He looked deep in thought, overwhelemed with emotion, almost.  I was instantly skeptical.  This boy can be pretty dramatic, and if he told me how moved he was  by Lincoln's words, I was going to have to cry "BS" on that one.  When I asked if he was okay, Callum said simply, "Man that was a lot of reading."

The World War II Monument was really beautiful.  We rested our tired feet in the fountain and listened to the burbling of the water.

Next day, more walking.  A tour of the US Capitol

and her beautiful rotunda.

On a tip from a colleague of Neel's we had lunch at the National Museum of the American Indian, and it was one of the best meals I've had in a long time.  Neel and Callum had salmon, of course, and I had what's called a "plate of color," which are side dishes from the many regions of American Indians.  We sat by the window with a view of a gorgeous waterful, and the food was amazing.  So next time you go to DC, skip the pretzels and hot dogs on the Mall and go get some great food and culture.

Next stop was the high point for Neel and Callum, the Air and Space Museum, but I got sensory overload and had to sit down.  The highlight for me (and for Neel too, actually) gets its own post tomorrow.

On our last night we had dinner at our favorite kind of restaurant, a Spanish tapas house in Arlington, but I'd wager to say we all felt like this. Still, I can't wait to go again.

(from the Jefferson Memorial)

In the past week, I've stood in the rotunda of the US Capitol and viewed the Washington Monument from the steps of The Jefferson Memorial.  I've listened to the Declaration of Independence read twice, once by Callum (arduous), once by the reporters and newscasters of NPR's Morning Edition (moving).  We celebrate so much around this holiday (this year I'm celebrating how doggone tired I am), but listening to those words, so soon after standing in the shadow of Lincoln and Jefferson, I'm awed and grateful for what thoughful measured men they were.  Were they flawed?  Of course?  Is that document flawed?  Of course it it?  But to stand up and so eloquently say, "We are equal and we will be free," and to use their words before they raised their fists.  That part impresses me.

Callum and I went to Happy Hour with Neel's lab last night.  It was the one of those evenings where the last thing I wanted to do was go to Happy Hour, but where everything ended up being so fun and fascinating that I could have stayed forever, and all I kept thinking was that I wanted to come home and write it all  down.

It's been a long week.  Callum was in camp last week and now this, and in the middle we took a little trip to DC (pictures definitely coming).  I had a new boss start this week, and while that's not a bad thing, there's some ensuant stress and Ps and Qs being minded, of course!  One of Callum's best buds has been at camp with him this week and commuting with us, but by yesterday they'd spent a lot of time together.  Traffic was miserable yesterday morning.  There was a water main break in one of the main bridge/tunnel routes in town (and in this town if you block a bridge/tunnel, everything comes to a halt), and while we don't travel over water, everything is affected.  Callum and his friend argued so much in the car, all that noise coming at the back of my head, that I declared Silent Ride for the last five minutes of the trip.  By the time we left at the end of the day, traffic was still hopelessly snarled from that same water main break, now with more closed roads (!), and it took us twice as long to get home (no arguing though!).  And here's Neel, cheerfully hoping we'll come and join them.  How can we not?

The thing I love about being around scientists is that they're so dorky!  No, not really.  What I really love is the international community that crops up around medical and graduate schools.  Neel's worked with Russians, Hungarians, Italians, Indians, Koreans, Chinese, Japanese, French, Germans, Swedes, Greeks, seriously, you name it, we've met it.  Last night, two of the people we had drinks with had immigrated to the US as small children, one from China and one from Iraq. 

The guy, a Kurd from Iraq, was introduced to me as Mike, not because it's easier but because he worked for PF Changs for eight years ("too long") and liked to use different names based on the nationality of the people at the table he was waiting on.  I'm not sure I ever got his real name, but I did get a sense of immigration experience.  Maybe it's part of the Kurdish national character, but storytelling seems to be key.  The Coming to America stories flew across the table.  Jenny, a Chinese woman in Neel's lab, came to the US when she was six.  Mike told of living in a refugee camp in Guam, where the Kurdish boys beat the American Air Force at soccer but lost at basketball, and how since his family didn't have a sponsor in the US, INS randomly chose to send them to Albuquerque, NM.  We figured it was because of the hot air balloons.  

His life in Iraq interested me the most.  As a child, his father fought in the Iran-Iraq war, and they thought he'd been killed.  Funeral and everything.  His mom was three months pregnant at the time.  Since he was no longer a soldier in Saddam's army, his family was kicked out of government housing, until three years later they received a letter from his dad.  His dad was in prison for six years.  Fast forward to Mike's young adulthood, as an undergrad and the start of our Iraq involvement.  The FBI calls him up and wants to meet with him.  They did with every Iraqi-American.  He chooses a public location, where the first question he's asked is, "Are you a terrorist?"  He and his dad were finally cleared, and he says to this day his dad is the calmest person he's ever met.

Jenny, the woman in Neel's lab, says the same about her grand dad.  He survived twenty-one years in one of Mao's prisions.  Can you even believe that?  He fought in the wars and as a thank you was thrown in prison for twenty-one years.  She says whenever things seem to be going crazy in China she calls her grand dad, and if he says, "not so bad," she knows it's really "not so bad."

I could have listened all night. 

I've led a pedestrian life, and I like it that way.  I like the forward progress of my existence, humble though it may be.  But occasionally I'm touched by greatness, the wide world out there, and for that I'm terribly grateful.