I have a new blog up for your reading pleasure: SprayOnSalt.com. I'm setting myself up as something of a "cool hunter" since much of what I seem to do is notice what is new and interesting out there. I'll post about products and places (real and virtual) that I think are worth knowing about, are particular good deals, or demonstrate exceptional style. I'll take suggestions, recommendations, and requests for research, so please take a look and let me know what you think.

The Marine Corps Marathon was today and, as usual, I walked down to Rock Creek Park near P Street Bridge to clap. I really enjoy watching marathons. I know a lot of people think they are boring, but I find them fascinating. I hope I'll be able to run another one someday. The weather was beautiful and, even though the Marine Corps Marathon isn't my favorite race out there, I still had fun. My hands really hurt, though!

The afternoon I tried to take advantage of the nice weather to finish up my little personal Watergate tour by finding the Georgetown homes of Katharine Graham. It is sort of silly, I know, but it was a nice walk and it reassured me that my knee is almost healed enough to run again (although I still don't know what I did to it).

Bush just (about 1 minute ago) headed off to Camp David to hide from his administration's welcome unraveling. Coast Guard One (that's what they call the helicopter, right?)Marine One flew right over my building. Actually, you can usually tell when it is the president flying because they send 3 helicopters along the same path. I suppose the other 2 are expendable decoys with unimportant staff, cabinet officers, etc. Heh, that makes 3 dummies in the air at once. Have a fun weekend, Bush. Welcome to the world outside your bubble.

At the Dupont Circle House Tour a little over a week ago I bought four raffle tickets at $1 each in an odd burst of feeling lucky. I didn't win anything (although not many people bought tickets, I think). Well, I got a letter today explaining that they unexpectedly had prizes left over which were supposed to go to random volunteers that evening... but that didn't work out for some odd reason. That left them going back to the remaining raffle tickets to give away 6 prizes. And I won a $40 gift certificate at Pizzeria Paradiso! I virtually never win anything, especially something I actually want and will enjoy using (it's yummy pizza). It is a shame how much self-pity went to waste last week.

After a lot of nasty, rainy days lately, today was just about perfect: bright sun, about 60 degrees, no wind. Lots of people were out enjoying the nearly ideal fall weather. My right knee has been bothering me for a few days (even keeping me awake at night), so I'm not able to run on it, but I came up with an extra errand to the pet store today as an excuse to walk around some more. I also got myself a banana-blueberry smoothy from a small coffee and just-about-everything-else store on 18th. It is supposed to rain again tomorrow -- appropriate for another long work week -- so it was nice to have a little break for the weekend.

Today was the Dupont Circle House Tour; I love this event. You get to spend the afternoon wandering around a quadrant of Dupont Circle going into people's houses and looking at what they have done for renovation, decorating, art, etc. It is a voyeuristic pleasure as well as a terrific resource for home improvement ideas. I think it is so much fun to be able to put the insides of these houses together with familiar outsides.

This year the section of Dupont Circle showcased was my own and half a dozen places were within one block of my condo. In fact, there was a strange Rear Window moment when I was inside one of the condos in the tall building a block south that I look at all the time. I was looking out the window there back into my own condo... an odd sensation. There were many more smaller places and condos this year than last year when there were more grand homes. It made it easier to relate and I got some good ideas for decorating in tight spaces. For instance, using refrigerator and freezer drawers instead of a full appliance. Intriguing, I'll need to think about that more.

One of the places was a house whose back I look down on from my living room windows and which I coincidentally toured when I was condo hunting 2 years ago. It was on the market, I wandered by and stopped in to see what it looked like, without realizing that it was going for a few dollars shy of $1 million. So 2 years ago I saw it completely empty, this time it had been thoroughly decorated. Honestly, I think I liked it better the first time around. These narrow city houses can just get so cluttered when people fill them with their furniture.

There were a few period recreations, a grand mansion now owned by the Society of the Cincinnati, one industrial condo that was very cool, and a few eclectic places. I think the best ones were those that tried to do something unique, whether or not it worked very well. Those that looked like a page out of a Crate and Barrel catalog were nice, but not very interesting. The Mansion on O Street was also open and it was hideous in an impossibly crowded, kitschy, 70's flea market sort of way. A warren of clashing rooms, secret doorways, mirrors, and clutter, I was happy to finally make it out of there.

It was beautiful weather today after many days of rain so it was nice just to be outside in the sun. I'm already looking forward to next year.

I just finished up a very enjoyable visit from my parents in which they saw my condo for the first time, we walked all over, and we all ate lots and lots of good food. Here is a quick summary of events:

Day 1:

I nearly didn't make it to the airport in time to meet their plane because my Metro train on the Yellow Line broke down and there were other delays. I arrived at the area outside of security about 2 minutes before they came out. We took a circuitous taxi ride to their hotel which looked more like a construction area. It is between owners and undergoing renovation right now, but it is still open, conveniently located, and cheap. It seemed to work out fine, although it was a little noisy in the mornings. We walked the block or so to my condo where I gave the grand tour and everybody paid lots of attention to Persimmon.

The weather was beautiful so we took a long walk through the neighborhood, looking at some of the Watergate landmarks and other points of interest around Dupont Circle. We spent some time at my favorite Caribou Coffee, stopped by my local Whole Foods grocery store, and ended up on U Street in time for dinner. In order to get the full DC experience we ate chili dogs at Ben's Chili Bowl -- they were very good -- and dessert at LoveCafe.

Day 2:

We started out slowly and spent some time watching the new baby panda on the National Zoo's Panda Cam. The mother was very active and apparently much of what we saw was a first. We then headed up to see the real thing and had some really great experiences at the zoo: a mother cheetah and 5 cubs were out, close, and very active; an elephant roared (trumpeted?) when we were right there; and both pandas came outside while we were watching (leaving the baby inside for a brief time). The weather was once again beautiful. Lunch was at Baja Fresh in Dupont Circle.

In the afternoon we went to the small but fascinating Textile Museum just north of Dupont Circle in the Kalorama area. I found the exhibits to be extremely interesting. It wasn't so big as to be overwhelming, which was nice since I think we were all a little tired from walking around the zoo in the sun (which stayed out all day in spite of weather reports to the contrary).

We met Melanie for dinner at Jaleo near Chinatown. The wait was long and it was too noisy (the flamenco dancers were downright strange), but once we got seated, the food was good and the place eventually quieted down.

Day 3:

The clouds moved in on Thursday but we had planned things well: after breakfast/brunch at Kramerbooks, we picked up the Zipcar I had reserved and made out way out to the Air and Space Museum's new center near Dulles. It was a huge place -- 1000 feet by 250 feet in just the main hanger -- with a real Space Shuttle, a Concorde, and a Blackbird SR71. The visit was completely fascinating and tremendous fun. I'm really glad we took the time to go out there. I took some generally blurry snapshots with my Treo that you can see here. They really don't do the place justice; Mom might have some better shots with her real digital camera.

We navigated the traffic on I-66 successfully and returned the car in time to call Ben from my condo to wish him happy birthday.

Miraculously, we were hungry again so we walked to 17th Street and the newly opened Hank's Oyster Bar. Dinner was excellent, and the wait staff was great. Unfortunately, Hank's doesn't serve dessert (although they give you some big chunks of German chocolate at the end to make up for it), but we stopped by Kramerbooks again for some yummy desserts to finish things off.

Mom and Dad left this morning out of National (checking the flight tracking, it looks like they are already most of the way to Detroit). It was a very nice visit, and it was a lot of fun for me to show off my condo and neighborhood.

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Our timing was perfect: it is absolutely pouring today (we even have a flood watch) and any walking around would have been miserable. I just hope the flights aren't delayed by the weather. For my part, I'm going to rest my feet and spend the day on the couch with Persimmon watching movies and recovering.

All family members are here and settled into their proper places. Now we just need to figure out what to do for the afternoon.