Saturday rmorning Michael and I wake up early (yes, he set the alarm for 6am on SATURDAY! 6am does NOT exsist on saturday for me.)But alas, the alarm went screeching off at that ungodly hour.
I didn't want to wake up..Mostly thanks to Michael's hobo coctails the night before. (Hobo Coctails=Vodka & OJ. FYI: If my boyfriend EVER offers to make a drink for you...DANGER WILL ROBINSON! Just tell him you are all set. One sip of this drink, and my new yahoo chat name was Drunkee_McDrunkerson. They are potent. After the second drink, I became philosophical about Kevin Smith....)
So, the alarm goes off and I say "Nooooo. Headache. Snooooooze please!" He obliged, and me and my vintage nightie rolled out of bed in search of advil in the medicine cabinet.
I crawled back between the blankets, next to my warm man, and we did, my most favorite thing that we do... Lounge and talk.
We planned our up-n-comin' trip to Washington State. We laughed. We had a rousing debate of "Freckles..is he fo' 'em or a'gin em?" He concluded the debate with "We really should go, so we can get parking...y'know?"
Alas, the two of us got our stuff in gear and my co-pilot buddy drove us down to DC.
I snapped pictures of the ghetto-esqueness of our Nations Capital. Everytime we are going into DC, I say, w/o fail "I can't believe our Presidents call this place 'home' while they are in office."
Mike replies w/o fail "I KNOW!"
After extensive searching, we did find parking, and near the Capitol to boot! Bully for us!
Whilst (isn't that a great word?) we were strolling through a lovely garden en route to the Holocaust Museum, Mike's camera must've been miffed at us for snapping ghetto pictures, it decided to screech. Much like the sound of a 'hot mic' (I love using that term!)
And sadly, it refused to take anymore photos for the day. Maybe even it's life is over, I don't know. We thankfully used plan b for photographic mementos. My trusty phone. So, most, no wait scratch that, all of our pictures are blurry, and it looks like you need to put on your glasses to see them clearly...but they are our memories and that is what is important. Blurry or not...
Anyway, we went to the Holocaust Museum. It was the ONLY museum on our list to see this time. It amazing. I believe everyone should go. Everyone. Regardless. Everyone needs to go.
It's hard to wrap your mind around the millions of people who were slaughtered during the holocaust. Millions. It's hard to grasp that. It haunts me, and it should.
You walk into a room that is filled to overflowing of shoes. Shoes on top of shoes on top of shoes on top of...and you see this pair of baby shoes. BABY shoes. And to think of what happened to those whose feet wore these. It takes your breath. It's over powering. It broke my heart in such a profound way.
It broke my heart for the people who were sacrificed like animals for an insane man's sick perversions. It broke my heart for the people who were worked to near extinction, for the people who died on liberation day, for the babies who never got a chance, for the world, because we never got justice.
There was video footage of a child, she had brown hair in a little bob hair cut, and big brown eyes. She was blinking into the camera. I couldn't bear to even look. Mike held on to me. Rubbing my shoulder.
We agreed that we MUST bring his daughter to this museum.
He was furious that the President of Iran has the audacity to say that this never happened.
He has since told everyone he knows about what he saw, those who aren't even talking to him about the Holocaust. He lets his anger be known.
And this is what endears him to my heart.
After the museum we made our way over to the WWII memorial, watched the fountains and admired our WWII vets that were visiting the Memorial. I confessed to Mike, that I love our vets. ALL of them. And I mean it.
We walked around the mall, and as our appetites were out of control, we happily crossed the street to a hotdog stand where we paid a ransom for 2 'dogs and 2 beverages to wet our whistles.
Mike hand fed the lil' birds, and we laughed at the antics of fat squirrels.
We then headed over to the tidal basin to stroll over to the FDR memorial. Which, I have to say, if you go to DC, don't miss this. I Loved it!
Walking around the tidal basin was nice, the leaves were out en force, but I didn't realize the water comes RIGHT up to the sidewalk. Michael wanted to self photograph us and wanted to stand sidewalks edge.I resisted. No thanks, no way no how. You can't even see the bottom. before we made it to the FDR Memorial, the water had flooded up over the sidewalk, forcing us to trek through the wooded area.
At FDR, I gave him a kiss for Grandma, and made Mike stand in the breadline. Oh the things he does for me....I had to pose by the big lil' statue of Fala, and pick up some mementos/christmas gifts in the gift shop. Sue me, I like the Roosevelts.
Then we made our way to see the Jefferson Memorial. It is simply beautiful at nightfall. We gazed out at the city, as the night air began to chill and just held each other amazed at the sparkling beauty of our Capital City.
On the way back over to where we parked, the wind was blowing us all about, leaves flying willy nilly we had to block our eyes as we power walked, I was certain a storm was blowing in.
I did convince my sweet buddy to go to the WWII Memorial so we could see it at night. He obliged me. Even picking up a wreath that the wind had blown over.
Right after leaving, my darling man saved my life. It sounds dramatic and it was. We were at a crosswalk. The light changed, we got our safe to walk signal.The people across from us stepped out on the street as did I.
A car came bustling up and would've hit me had it not been for Mike's big arm pushing me hard and fast back to the side walk. My eyes were as wide as the driver's.
Mike yelled so loud at the woman in the car that the people crossing the street from the other side, jumped back onto the sidewalk. I don't remember what he said, just that he was LOUD and angry. I was trembling. Even my legs were trembling as we finally crossed the street towards the washington monument.
I kept saying "You saved my life. You saved my life!"
His mantra was that he wanted to 'Find that Woman.'
In relaying the story to my sister, Lyns offered to make him the 'biggest cake ever!'
I was jumpy at all crosswalks thereforth.We finally walked on the gravelly-ness of the mall, away from all traffic stops, gratefully, & talking about Cold Stone and how that was our next quest...ice cream..as a violinest played strangers in the night and a homeless man yelled random obscenities....
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