The Great American Vacation

Behold, it is done.

The smiling, the schmoozing, and the awarding have all been completed; the dressing up is done, and now we can retire to relative annonymity and peace. Relatively. But first, we are cruising around Virginia and D.C., remind ourselves of the awesome kindness of strangers.

Due to the fact that the National Holiday is almost upon us, staying in a hotel past the date of the convention was ridiculously pricey. Fortunately, T. has several poetry, writing and blogging friends in the immediate area, all of whom invited her to stay with them. All of them invited her. Faith in humanity renewed, we’ve embarked on a very fun vacation. We made cake and communed with teddy bears in the house of our friend Jama (Jayma), and now we’re embarking upon the Quintessential Happy American Childhod with our friend Charlotte, her mother and sister and their boys, who are our guides. So far, we’ve eaten sugar cookies with red and blue sprinkles, corn on the cob in the backyard, and we’ve poked holes in a jar and caught fireflies.

FIREFLIES. Somehow, they are the exclamation point at the end of a good day.

We’ll be flying home on Saturday night and hope to take action shots of the neighborhood 4th of July parade. We are tickled to be part of the fun.

Sometimes, truly, there is no place like home…and even though we’re on the other side of the country from where we usually lay our heads, this is, indeed, home, in a “My country, ’tis of thee,” kind of way.

We are taking photographs like crazy, and will probably be posting some as soon as we finish pawing through them. Unfortunately, no one filmed T’s speech — for which she is eternally grateful, but which upsets other people tremendously for some reason.

Tomorrow D&T take on the National Cathedral and will be let loose on the Smithsonian to make a pilgrimage to Julia Childs’ kitchen. More dispatches from the front as we can.