More on the Weekend: Day Two

It's harder and harder to find time for the family blog when we're not on the road, since I'm also blogging for work now and obviously, despite massively different subjects, the task is somewhat similar.

I already blogged a little about Saturday of the three-day weekend. Sunday we headed down to Lexington, VA, one of my favorite little towns. Lexington is a fairly small town, but Mecca isn't the biggest city in Saudi Arabia, either. Lexington is the burial place of Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Lee's horse Traveler, Jackson's horse Little Sorrel (whose skin is also mounted in the VMI museum), the library/museum of George C. Marshall, and two fine universities: Washington and Lee and VMI.

Now, it just so happens that two of my real heroes are George Marshall and Stonewall Jackson. Lee is another member of the Virginia pantheon, though I've never been as admiring of him. Still, Lexington is a little town with a huge amount of Virginia mythology burned into it.

We also stopped at the Virginia Horse Center since Tam and Sarah are both horse people, and watched a bit of a small competition and then wandered through the stables. ("Don't step in the brown stuff," Sarah noted -- always, I think, a good rule in any context --) I'm no horse expert, basically knowing there's a pretty end and an unpleasant end and you don't step in the brown stuff -- and that I haven't ridden one in so many years I can't remember where the brakes are -- but I also like to indulge my horsey ladies.

Dinner that night was at an Italian place in Waynesboro -- Scotto's -- and that was day two of the three-day weekend. I'll do day three tomorrow or soon.

Birthday Weekend

Yesterday, Saturday, was Tam's birthday. It's been a busy week, starting with the MLK holiday and then inauguration day, ending (sort of) with Tam's birthday, though Monday will be Chinese New Year (Year of the Ox) which we also note in this household for obvious reasons.

Yesterday we went downtown and, after a visit to the Chinatown Fuddrucker's (go ahead, try to imagine it), which Sarah declared "awesome," having finally discovered that McDonald's is not actually the apotheosis of the hamburger, we went to a Chinese New Year's celebration in the Smithsonian National Museum of American Art/National Portrait Gallery, which cohabitate in the great old Patent Office Building where Abe Lincoln's second inaugural ball was held. We got there in time for a martial arts demonstration and a lengthy lion dance.

For dinner, Tam's choice as the birthday girl was a local Melting Pot, the fondue chain. Sarah had never been to one, and we splurged a bit on the "big night out" or whatever they call it -- cheese fondue, then a bunch of entrees (steak, salmon, lobster, chicken, pork, etc.) to dip in the oil, then a chocolate dessert. Sarah again declared it "awesome" -- pretty much her generation's standard strong approbation -- and suggested we go there often (not, for financial reasons, all that likely).

Today was a quiet day. Sarah had a big book report project to finish and, at 11:30, is not yet in bed, still working on it. We're stunned by the level of some of the third grade homework.

More soon I hope. Happy year of the Ox.

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Second Day of the Getaway

It's past midnight but I want to get at least the basics down while the other computer is uploading videos to YouTube.

The second day of our unscheduled getaway went very well. We got off to a late start, after sleeping in, but then began with the Calvert Marine Museum in Solomons, Maryland, an old favorite of Sarah's and ours, which had opened a new Paleontology exhibit since our last visit, not to mention that they now have an "eco-invaders" exhibit including the infamous snakehead, first found just a few years ago in the Potomac. It is, as Sarah noted, "Uhhhhhgggllyyyyy." I hope that gets the pronunciation across.

We saw a snake in the water, visited the otters and other residents of the place, saw some tracks in the mud of raccoons and herons and other stuff, Sarah got a fossil shark's tooth from the "find a fossil" exhibit and we decided to go look for real fossils later on the beach.

In the gift shop/bookstore we went a little overboard. I bought some books, bought Tam as an anniversary present a little thing for one of the bathrooms, and splurged and bought Sarah a lovely enameled butterfly jewel box she fell in love with, after making her swear that she would treat it carefully, not play with it, etc. So far only half successful but at least it isn't broken yet.

From there we went into Solomon's Island, just adjacent to Solomons and on an island, if you couldn't figure that part out already, an old oystering town, now mostly for tourists, only an hour or so out of DC. We ate at Stoney's Kingfishers, a crab house on the water, and had crab cake sandwiches (except for one of us who had Kraft Mac and Cheese. Guess which one). A splurge but worth it. Then across the street to an ice cream stand on the boardwalk adjacent to a playground and called (sorry) Cone Island, which Sarah has known since she was a toddler and is a de rigeur stop in season on Solomon's Island.

Having already discussed several options for the afternoon (none of them going home and getting work done), including a sail on a cruise on the Bay, and looking for real fossils on a real beach, we decided on the latter, and for the first time visited Flag Ponds Nature Park in Calvert County Maryland. It's just a little north of the Calvert Cliffs State Park, famous for its strata of fossils that erode out onto the beach, but a specialist at the Calvert Marine Museum told us that the beach was much easier to get to than at Calvert Cliffs. It's also just north of the Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant, I believe the only nuclear plant in Maryland. It was visible from the beach.

The beach was relatively empty and, if you check our YouTube videos, quite nice; besides lots of seashells there are a lot of fossils to be found. We got there late on a Sunday when it was presumably picked over, but found several pieces of coral, and my immediate thought was, "Coral? We don't have Coral in the Chesapeake." So I asked a conservationist/ranger (or whatever) and he said no, it's old. "Is it a fossil." "Getting there." "How old do you think?" "A couple of million years." That seems a bit young for these supposedly Miocene cliffs, but it's old enough for me. (It's older than me, and these days that itself feels like an accomplishment.)

By the end of this I was tired, sore, and ready to go home, so we did. But we were grateful that we got away. I'm uploading the videos now, the first on YouTube since the fourth of July (never have put together the vacation videos). Forgive. Till I got the new laptop I had real trouble editing video on the road, and am too busy at home. If you're close kin and aren't yet accessing our YouTube and Flickr accounts send me an e-mail and I'll invite you again. It's free. Either tonight or tomorrow (depending on how slow the upload is as it's late and I need sleep) there will be five [COUNT THEM: 5] new videos on YouTube. Some new stuff at Flickr too.

UPDATE: A very late addendum. As uploading was taking longer than I hoped, I did it double-barreled, using two computers on the same broadband link. One result was that two of the shorter videos from today went up in reverse order: the "Calvert Marine Museum" video comes chronologically just before the "Family Time on the Bay" video. In the greater scheme of things, this probably does not rank with whether the Trojan War occurred (a question Sarah asked this weekend, which I answered with discussions of the recent German discoveries of the upper city of Troy VIIA, which was not a third grade answer) or certain other issues. But for the record, "Calvert" came before family time, not after.

Check it out.

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Labor Day Weekend, Day 1

Day 1 of our road trip; blogging after midnight without lights other than the screen, so Tam and Sarah can sleep. We're in Martinsburg, West Virginia, sort of midway among a variety of places we plan to visit, staying as we usually do at a Hampton Inn, as we usually do if one's available, after spending the day in Harper's Ferry, where we had lunch, looked around, managed to convey at least some of the history to Sarah, and then came on to our hotel. We've been to Harper's Ferry a number of times with her but she's starting to appreciate the surroundings (Jefferson says in his Notes on the State of Virginia that the view is worth a trip across the Atlantic to see, but then he was writing as a Virginia booster and they named the point from which he described the view Jefferson's Rock, so what do you expect? Worth driving from Washington to see, though.) For dinner, we ate at a fine little local Italian place, La Trattoria, where Sarah had spaghetti and kept saying, "Mamma Mia, this place is awesome!"

Tomorrow we hope to do a lot. More then.

Vacation 2008: Day 2

Long day. We're in Asheville, NC for one night, before heading on down to Franklin via Cherokee and the Great Smokies. The day started late: Sarah slept in, then we stopped at a Kroger's for provisions for a picnic, and by the time we got on the road from Roanoke it was past 11. We'd intended to take back roads and some of the Blue Ridge Parkway leisurely south, but the late start doomed the plan. We picnicked near Hillsville, VA, and though the park had a playground we didn't let Sarah play because we were hoping to reach the North Carolina Museum of Minerals, Sarah being a rockhound. But taking mountain roads slowed us down (I swear, Jefferson, North Carolina is the longest 30 miles I've ever driven), and by the time we got near Boone it was clear we couldn't get there before their five o'clock closing, so we retooled, shot down to I-40, and headed into Asheville to give Sarah some pool time. We had made reservations at the only Asheville Hampton Inn we could find available for an affordable price, though it was half again what we paid last night in Roanoke (being, ahem, the Hampton Inn Asheville Biltmore).. Turns out that not only does it have an indoor pool with whirlpool and sauna, but that the room we complained about being so expensive opens directly onto the pool. Sarah was overjoyed. Tam did much of the driving -- of 240 miles I might have driven 60 or 70, but no more -- because I'm the better map reader and today's route was complicated with lots of back roads. So it was good for her to sit in the whirlpool and Sarah to play in the pool, as they're doing just outside the room door while I blog this. We still have to eat and it's 8 p;m, but it's also Saturday night in Asheville, so that should pose no problems. It's not the sort of small southern town where everything rolls up at 9. My feet are hurting, and I may give them a soak in the whirlpool yet. If anything happens over dinner, I'll write about it later.

Okay, a quick plug for our dinner place: the Apollo Flame Bistro just down the road from our hotel (see earlier link). A classic little Greek/Italian place, where Tam and I ate Greek and Sarah ate spaghetti and meatballs and we all indulged in highly fattening cake for dessert. With far more food than we could eat, beer, and cake all around, the bill was $41 and the food was fantastic. Whoa.

More tomorrow.

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Joints and Greasy Spoons

I'll resume my narrative of the 1958 trip soon; as usual, the work week was too hectic to blog, so I have to wait for the weekend.

I do want to take a moment to record one of the highlights of our trip to Winchester, VA and Berkeley Springs, WV last weekend. We'd been sightseeing in Winchester and Sarah was acting up, throwing a bit of a tantrum (not like a four year old or anything, but a bit stubborn about doing things others wanted to do), so I wouldn't let her do a kid's museum she wanted to do and we said we'd go directly to lunch. We looked at several chi-chi places in Winchester's downtown, pedestrian mall, which is the old Loudon Street of earlier days. Several places looked a bit pricey or a bit slow, and then I discovered to my pleasure that the Snow White Grill, usually closed when we are on Loudon Street, was open! The Snow White Grill is the sort of place that appears to have been serving lunch since about 1934 with little change. (A web review tells me 1949, but to me it looks earlier.) (It doesn't have its own website; the link above was what I found first, but there's a fuller review here.) A dozen or slightly more stools along a single counter inside a narrow space with the grill behind the counter and a window open to the street for carryout. I've previously blogged about Fred and Red's in Joplin, which was founded in 1923 and has been in its present digs since about 1942. This is that kind of place: a burgers and hot dogs place, out of another era, but with a loyal following. Sarah loved it; she declared their chili dogs the best she'd ever had. The burgers, which Tam tried, are little teeny things of the White Castle tradition, or the late, lamented Little Taverns of Washington DC and Baltimore. You probably need several to make a meal or, as Little Tavern used to put it, "Buy 'em By the Bag!" (And, only linking to the Wikipedia article, did I learn that the very last Little Tavern on the planet closed on April 29, 2008, just a couple of months ago. An era passes, though all but a handful of them vanished 20 years or so ago.)

A true greasy spoon, except, as the name "Snow White Grill" is supposed to convey, I presume, nice and clean. And an additional stop to add as a de rigeur stop (if that's not too French for a chili dog joint) when in Winchester.

I concur with Sarah that the chili dogs are world class. Tam will have to comment on the burgers. They make them up in large batches, and they're square if I remember right (like White Castle). The countermen and women were the usual colorful sort, and apparently they get folks who come back whenever they're in this part of the country, just as I do at Fred & Red's in Joplin.

We have not been to North Carolina since I started blogging, so you have not yet had the benefit of our barbecue criticism, though quite a bit can be found from this out of date and incomplete, but still useful, homepage. Enjoy.

Oh. Since I'm pontificating about food: The best catfish in the universe (or at least the local arm of the galaxy) is at Mildred's, on a blue highway in northern Alabama not near any major town. Hush puppies are great. I'm just sayin'.

More on the 1958 trip coming.

Memorial Day in Baltimore: Day One

Okay, it's not far. But for a three day weekend, there's something to be said for nearby locales, so you don't spend two of the three days on the road (Sarah's first choices were Williamsburg and New York, which wouldn't work for just those reasons) and also given the fact that gas now costs more than some cheap wines.

So as already noted we're spending the Memorial Day weekend in far away, exotic, Baltimore! For those of you not from this part of the country, it's about 55 miles from Washington and maybe 65 or 70 from our house. It's a day trip, but we always do the same stuff on the day trips, so we decided on a three-day. It helped that we had enough frequent traveler points with Hampton Inn/Hilton to stay two nights free if we stayed in the suburbs. So, while we could have gotten one night free in downtown Baltimore, we got the whole weekend free in Glen Burnie (It's A on the link) at a Hampton Inn that is literally built into a mall (the ground floor is shops). Maybe 20 minutes or less south of the Inner Harbor, so not bad. We could have gotten one night at the Inner Harbor, but the same points got us two nights in Glen Burnie.

More on this tomorrow; it's 12:30 and everyone else is asleep. We did three major things: Lunch at Lexington Market, since Sarah fell in love with urban markets at Reading Market in Philly last November, and then after that (she had spaghetti) we went to Fort McHenry. I need to blog at greater length about this since we stumbled into a special Memorial Day ceremony where we all helped bring down a full-size copy of the enormous flag that flew there when the Star Spangled Banner was written, and Sarah was one of four kids (the only girl) to help carry the flag to storage. Also she really got interested in the place more than on previous trips, and I want to write about this at greater length.

Then we went to our hotel, and after a period of relaxation back to Baltimore to eat in Little Italy. You may recall that last summer Sarah went wild about a restaurant in Little Italy, (now alas confirmed to be closed), but this time we ate at a small but great place called Caesar's Den, which, despite the tacky name, was very fine. Sarah had (surprise, surprise!) spaghetti and meatballs. I had gamberi arrabiati, shrimp in a spicy arrabiata sauce, and Tam had veal marsala. We aren't telling Sarah about those just yet. Meatballs are cheaper.

Two quotes I want to preserve before I forget, but then more on today tomorrow (if that makes any sense):

1. We stopped briefly to pick up some beer since in MD you have to buy it at liquor stores and I thought they'd be closed Sunday. Sarah said, "can you get me some licorice?" I didn't register why, but they didn't have any, and then she said, "why would a liquor store not have licorice?" Interesting question.

2. We saw a bunch of War of 1812 reenactors at Ft. McHenry. (I know, of all the wars to reenact... why the one in which we basically only one one land battle, New Orleans, and lost all those around here, getting the White House burned in the bargain?) I asked Sarah what she thought of the reenactors. She said the uniforms were silly: the hats (shakos? the tall cylindrical hats the US army wore in 1812 and still as late as some units in Mexico I think) in particular. "You should see what a British grenadier was wearing," I said. I'll try to link to photos or paintings of these later to make my point.

More on today tomorrow or, since it's late, I guess later today.

"This Needs More Chili"

Okay, I've already noted that one of the truly great moments of being a father, up there with the first time she said, "Daddy," or "You're the greatest Daddy in the world," or "Can you teach me to..." came recently when my daughter laughed hysterically at Night at the Opera, and thus fell in love with the Marx Brothers. But tonight, she said the words that I've waited seven years to hear: "This needs more chili."

I will explain in detail shortly, but this was a great moment!

Today will also mark my father's birthday, May 21. Had he lived he would have been 97 today. I can't conceive of him at that age, or at any age past his mid-60s when he died, but it always makes me remember him.

I believe I've mentioned Hard Times Cafe before. It's a local chili place Tam and I have gone to many times. In fact, we went to various Hard Times restaurants when dating, and on certain key moments in our life, including (though we didn't tell the relatives) our wedding night, when we took a cab (our car was hidden to avoid decorations). It was where we went after our miscarriage, but also one of the first if not the first places we took Sarah.

She's always liked it, but she always ate spaghetti with cheese, not chili. But she's been having some symptoms her doctor thinks may be lactose intolerance --a huge number of Asians develop lactose intolerance sometime in their life -- so she's off cheese, milk, and other dairy products (ice cream!) for two weeks at least. So tonight at Hard Times, she ordered a chiliburger, chili on the side. She loved it. When she said, "This needs more chili,"
I knew my daughter was growing up. Along with the Marx Brothers moment and, of course, her first use of an assault weapon, I really think this ranks as one of the transformative moments.

She was, of course, weaned on one of the great chili parlors of history, Fred & Red's in Joplin, Missouri. For background, see here, and here and especially here, with the unnerving news that it may be sold (though so far as I can determine this hasn't yet happened.) (Fred & Red's does not have a website. In fact, it does not currently even have a telephone. It's always full, and reservations are not required.) It was once famous enough that model railroaders even have created a model of it in its earlier form. Sarah is at least the third generation in my family to have gone there. The photo above, taken in 2005, doesn't, I think, give enough detail of Sarah's face to invade her privacy today.

I'm pretty sure it's the greatest chili parlor in the world, and makes the second greatest chili (mine is first), but of course I'm biased.

So you can see why, "This needs more chili!," makes me proud.

The place started downtown somewhere in 1923, and in 1943 -- already an institution -- moved to its present location in the 1700 block of Main Street. Fred Herring founded it and at one time he had a partner named Grover. In the 1950s Fred and Grover had split, and Grover started his own place with a similar if not identical secret recipe. Loyalists went with either Fred or Grover; my family was a Fred's family. So were enough to mean Grover went out of business. Red Wilcoxson joined with Fred and it became, sometime in the 50s I think, Fred & Red's. Though they put aluminum siding on around the white-painted cinder blocks sometime in the 50s or 60s, they never made other changes. (They did go from paper-cone chili bowls to plastic sometime after the 60s, apparently because the state insisted for health reasons.) They are still making tamales with a press Fred acquired in the 1920s.

Fred, who was white-haired even when I was a grade-schooler, died long ago. Red ran the place through much of my adolescence, but also died some years back, and his son has owned it since, but is getting out of the business. It is truly a classic chili parlor, remarkably unchanged. The menu is what it was when I was a kid: chili, hamburgers, hot dogs (steamed in the old days and perhaps still), "spaghetti red" (chili with spaghetti, what in Cincinnati is called "chili mac"), and my own favorite, the tamale spread (tamales with chili over them). Other than the prices (naturally) and the aforementioned abandonment of paper cones, it has changed not at all since my childhood, though the neighborhood has: most of the neighboring stores are closed; the Piggly Wiggly next door is now a thrift store, and the area is somewhat depressed. But at lunchtime, last time I was there, you still had to stand and wait for a stool to come free. (The sites I linked to say there are either 22 or 23 stools: Must count next time I'm there.)

That reminds me, though, of the famous legend that no one can count the stones at Stonehenge twice and get the same number (a variant is that you can't measure them twice and get the same measurements). Despite plenty of evidence to the contrary you still hear this legend. Is it possible the 23rd seat at Fred and Red's is impossible to count? Is it a phantom seat? Fred's? Or Red's? (Or Grover's?) There's some sci-fi image I'm thinking of right now but I can't figure out at the moment what it is. (Ray Bradbury maybe? Anybody, add a comment?)

I note too that Red's son is trying to sell the place through a guy named Bob Garvin, certainly a son or grandson of the Burl M. Garvin who was a big Joplin realtor in my youth. The 50s are still making themselves felt into the new millennium, but I'm worried about Fred and Red's. It may be the canary in the coal mine. When it's gone, something fundamental will be lost.

Because This needs more chili.

And is there any one of us, or anything, of which that cannot be said?

One question I've always had, especially since the rest of the block has become full of parking lots and remnant stores: why not expand the place? This place could even be franchised! But part of its charm is its unchangeability.

I want to be there right now. I ate at Hard Times tonight, but Fred's is better.

Dad, When were the Jetsons On? And St. Patrick and such.

Huh? Where does this stuff come from. I couldn't remember when The Jetsons were on; they were a bit after my cartoon-watching time. Wikipedia says 1962-1963, when as a High Schooler I certainly had no use for cartoons. And then there were new episodes in 1985-87. But I'm never sure where Sarah acquires her cultural reference points.

Saturday we did the St. Patrick's Day parade in Alexandria, our largest local St. Patrick's Day parade, though it was 16 days ahead of Paddy's day itself. Alexandria was founded by Glasgow Scots, but has annual Highland games with guys in kilts throwing hammers and tossing cabers and such, which the Glaswegian founders would have found very weird behavior indeed. Somewhere along the way they decided they were Irish as well (and of course we Irish taught the Scots everyting they knew except painting themselves blue and eating haggis*) and this year the Archbishop of Baltimore (an O'Brien) was the marshal of the parade and the master of ceremonies was one Pat Troy, a professional Irishman who runs a pub in Alexandria (though as I look at his site to link it I see he may be trying to sell it) and who has an inordinate and unjustified fondness for the "Unicorn Song," which wears very thin on me very quickly. There are two rival Irish pubs in Old Town Alexandria; the other, Murphy's, has always appealed more to me. Still, when we go as a family to an Irish pub (not often, but it does appeal to part of me) we usually go to Ireland's Four Provinces in Falls Church. Closer, easier parking, more family friendly and less smoky, less noisy, and sometimes has Danny Doyle, one of the few guys who appears locally who sings the old rebel songs (this isn't Boston: most of the Irish pubs do very anodyne stuff or even Simon and Gafunkely stuff).

*UPDATE: This on actual St. Patrick's day. I realized that, historically, I suppose there was one more thing that the Irish didn't teach the Scots, and that was how to fight the English, since the Scots were doing that long before Strongbow. But we've both made it the national sport. Now back to the original post:

And of course I don't go to any of these places discussed above on Patrick's Day. Let the Saxons and the Poles and Italians and everybody else go drink Guinness that day of the year. I'll take my cue from Ireland: it's a saint's day so let's not crowd into a crowded pub. We'll lift our glass at home. Play some rebel songs and talk about that old Briton named Patrick, who once you strip away the snakes and the Shamrocks and the other stuff, still comes through as one of the few people of the fourth or more likely early fifth century who left us anything directly in his own hand. at least outside of Italy. Bad Latin, they tell me (not that I can tell: my Latin education ended in high school). If you've never read it you can find it here and a lot of other places, and there's nothing in it about snakes or shamrocks, But it is a relic of late Roman Britain, roughly contemporary with St. Augustine. It's a better read on St. Patrick's Day than most of the crap that's out there.

Where was I going here? Anyway, after the St. Patrick's Day parade in Alexandria (selections up on the YouTube site), Sarah had a lot of fun at her friend Alisa's eighth birthday party. Sarah turns eight in just about 40 days, so we've got to brace for our own party.

As you've noticed if anyone actually reads this, we've been busy. But there will be more to come.

14th Wedding Anniversary

I haven't written much lately because of the press of other duties, but today (or really yesterday as I'm posting after midnight) was our 14th wedding anniversary. I had known Tam for a decade before we got married, and our original marriage date was the year before, but finally, on October 2, 1993, we did it. It's too late to post a lot about it now, but Tam has expressed a desire to record some of her memories and I'll probably do the same, in coming days.

Anyway we went out to eat at Clyde's. Sarah had been balking a bit but liked it in the end. More to come, I hope.

A Fine Young Lady

I want to praise my daughter. I complain about her enough, whenever she's bad, or won't listen, or runs wild. So when she does something great I want to praise her.

One of my oldest friends, Chris Eccel, whom I've known since 1977 in Cairo, is passing through town. He's just back from Damascus, is retiring from the Foreign Service, and after heading home to Wyoming and Utah he's moving to Hawaii. Along with another old Cairo hand, Mike Albin, long the Library of Congress' man for the Middle East book-buying trade, we met at a Vietnamese restaurant (Minh's: my first time, highly recommended) in Arlington. We couldn't get a baby-sitter so Sarah came along.

She behaved perfectly. Read her books, ate her dinner (brought from home, except she ordered dessert there), didn't interrupt but talked to the grownups when they talked to her.

Not only did Chris and Mike compliment her, but a stranger from the next table came over to remark on how well-behaved she was.

Daddy's real proud of his big girl tonight.

Day to Regroup

The vacation, as previous posts may have indicated, has not been completely smooth. Yesterday was the first really by-the-book, as-planned day. Today (Wednesday, August 22, though this post will go up after midnight), at midweek, we took a down day, to get our act together, rest and recover. Tam and Sarah got haircuts, I did a laundry, Tam and Sarah spent quite a bit of time in the hotel pool, and Tam and I crashed for maybe a two hour nap in the afternoon while Sarah watched cartoons on TV. We ate at an old-fashioned hot dog joint in Newport News for lunch (Gus's Hot Dog King) and at a great, small, mom-and-pop Italian restaurant tucked into a shopping mall (Mamma Lina's) for dinner. [UPDATE: We went back for pizza our last night in Newport News.] Sarah liked it so much she asked if we could make them honorary members of our family. I'll blog about them instead. A guy dressed as a chef came out and asked if everything was okay in a sort of New York/Italian accent; Sarah asked if he was the chef and he said, "I'm the chef, the pizza guy, the manager and the owner." I guess that means he's also Mamma Lina, but we didn't ask. [UPDATE: Later I saw a review saying Mamma Lina's son runs the place now so I guess that's him.] Very good Italian food for a shopping mall. We may go back before we leave. Sarah still wants them to be honorary family members.

I know I've blogged more on weekend trips to Baltimore than I have on this week-long vacation. Mostly it's because we've been feeling poorly. We all started with pinkeye; Tam and I have some kind of coughing/nose running/eye itching thing that could be allergies, a summer cold, or a low-grade bug of some sort. I've also got diarrhea. I have an untreated hernia (I won't burden you with the details right now, but it'll be fixed soon I hope), and everytime I cough I pull bits and pieces of my abdomen apart, and it hurts.

Okay, enough about my intestines and such. We're doing okay, though the first couple of days were a washout and there've been a couple of bad thunderstorms while we've been here. The hotel pool at least, is indoors; pics of Sarah's increasing prowess at swimming are on the YouTube site. We haven't actually been at a beach yet though we did see the ocean yesterday. Tam and I like the open, bare beach at Cape Henry in Fort Story at the First Landing Site, where the Jamestown colonists erected their first cross and where one of the country's oldest lighthouses still stands, but Sarah says she wants an urban beach, so we'll go to Virginia Beach tomorrow and re-visit the Virginia Aquarium so she can pet the stingrays some more. It amazes me that she loves it so much; when younger at most touch tanks/petting zoos etc., she insisted Tam or I do the actual touching while she watched. And the stingrays are amazingly friendly for creatures not as far evolved as sharks: they seem to like being touched, stick their noses (if that's the right term) out of the water and flap their wings against the side of the tank.

Sarah wants one as a pet, but for that, I think, we can cite the laws to say we can't do it.

More tomorrow.

UPDATE: Belatedly it occurs to me I should record for the record where we're staying: it's here.

County Fair!

The Fair, originally uploaded by michaelcollinsdunn.

Tam and I, being Midwesterners, have always wanted to make sure that Sarah, despite her urban East Coast upbringing, understands the rest of America as well. So we try to take in such things as county fairs, complete with blue-ribbon pigs and prize pies. Today we went to the Prince William County (VA) Fair, just south of Manassas, VA. It's one of the better ones in the area that still has an agricultural side to it. Pic of the Midway above. If you have access to our Flickr and YouTube family accounts you'll be able to see more pics of Sarah enjoying it.

Some observations: A county fair that is ride-intensive can be pretty expensive. Now that Sarah's over 6 and I'm not yet 60 (only about a one-year window) everybody has to pay $7 a head to get in. Only $21. But tickets are $1 each and most rides require three or four tickets, whereas for $20 you can get a ride-all-day wristband. I bought wristbands for both Sarah and Tam since often Sarah wants one of us with her on the ride. So before we'd done anything we'd managed to spend $61. Then, of course, there are the games: the sort of thing where for anywhere from $2 to $5 you can win your kid a poorly made stuffed animal worth maybe $1 max. And of course, the food. One of the stands was actually called "Fry City": I guess they're not even trying to pretend to be healthy. Actually Tam and I ate at a stand from one of the better barbecue joints, Dixie Bones of Woodbridge, VA. (As those who've been following us online for awhile will recall, we take barbecue seriously. See our The Search for Barbecue pages for more on this.) Anyway, by the time you've bought this stuff plus ice cream and popcorn etc., a mere county fair makes you wonder why we cringe at the idea of King's Dominion or Hersheypark, which tend to charge $80 to $90 to get in. but may be higher class on the rides, most of which are included.

Anyway we visited the animals, both the petting zoo (Tam and I are both having bad allergies tonight, Tam especially, perhaps because of the petting zoo), and the competition animals, and Sarah enjoyed looking at all the crafts, cakes, knitting, embroidery, and other competitions. She is shown in some of the pics and video doing this.

I think we all had a very good day. We did some Wal-Mart shopping after, so it was also an expensive day, but got us out of the city.

More later, perhaps.

Baltimore, Moron Eels, Sharks, Spaghetti and the Seahorses' Wedding

In all the Internet, in all the blogosphere, I wonder if that exact title has ever been used before? Especially the Seahorses' Wedding part. And the Moron Eels. Read on.

The Aquarium

Anyway, this weekend proved to be a really great one. Last weekend I was out with gout; this weekend we hit two homeruns. Both days were gorgeous: 80s, low humidity, Mediterranean/California sort of day. Yesterday, as noted earlier, we went out to Great Falls Park. Today we headed to Baltimore to visit the National Aquarium there. It's truly one of the great aquariums, and Sarah is very interested in marine life of all kinds. She did an extra credit report on green sea turtles last year.

We finally joined as members. If a family of three goes and wants to do the dolphin show as well as the main aquarium the whole thing can run close to sixty dollars, whereas a family pass for a full year is only $124 and you don't have to wait for timed-entry tickets, so if you go only twice a year -- and we're in Baltimore more often than that, it's only 45 miles away -- you might as well be members. We're also members of the Science Museum in Baltimore, and (in the marine life line), the Calvert Marine Museum in Solomons, Maryland, and the Virginia Aquarium and Marine Science Center in Virginia Beach. In different ways the Baltimore and the Virginia Beach aquariums are both tremendous. Tam and I are both midwesterners -- she a Nebraska Cornhusker and me an Ozark ridgerunner, so neither one of us exactly grew up around oceans. We're glad we have these resources so close. (Washington does not, really, have an aquarium as such, except for some fish in the basement of the Commerce Department (really). So it's pretty much Baltimore and Viriginia Beach and Solomons.)

Sarah loved it. She loves sea turtles, as I noted, and sharks always give her a certain thrill though after a while she starts to get a little scared. When she was a toddler we first took her to the Baltimore Aquarium, paid (then, when she was younger and rates were cheaper) something like $45 and then halfway up the second level (of five or six) she announced she was finished and wanted to go home. No more: we can't pry her away.

We saw quite a lot, though we skipped the dolphin show. She's seen it before but says she doesn't remember, though I think she would if she went. Then we wandered about the Inner Harbor for a bit, had ice cream (well, she did), and at 5 pm (after insisting all day she didn't want to go on any of the historic ships, take a water taxi, or even ride a paddleboat: "No way," was the comment) she announces maybe she'd like to go on a boat after all. Okay, next time. Or we'll be in Norfolk for vacation. (Earlier she had been hesitant to say why she didn't want to go on a boat. I assured her they were perfectly safe. "That's what they thought about the TItanic," she responded. Well, true, but I would be absolutely dumbfounded to see an iceberg in Baltimore's Inner Harbor in July, I commented. "How was I supposed to know it hit an iceberg? I'm only seven."

The other great line of the day came even before we left. There's a new Australian exhibit at the Aquarium, which is quite interesting (have you ever seen a blue crayfish? The Aussies call them yabbies. They look like something you'd see after too many Fosters at the local.) Anyway, one of the TV ads for this features a Moray Eel. This morning Sarah says, "And did you know they have a Moron Eel?"

One of the breakthroughs in the past year is that museums, aquariums, and such are not just places to buy new stuffed animals (though we still do that: see below), but places she actually looks at everything (tries to read what she can), watches videos, etc. She is really becoming engaged with learning. Okay by me.

Spaghetti in Little Italy

But today we also had a breakthrough in a new direction. When Sarah was a toddler, and small enough to just tell what to do, we ate out where Mom and Dad wanted. Now she usually wants to eat at home. On the road, McDonald's. Or Hard Times Cafe, also a comfort food place for Mom and Dad. Or if McDonalds is out, she has become adventurous enough to try KFC or Burger King, though the latter alienated her by giving her the wrong order. We really have to bargain to get to go to someplace nice, and she insists she doesn't like Mexican (which she won't try). The Hunan Pepper Genes just haven't kicked in yet, despite her being from Hunan.

She does like Italian as long as it's 1) spaghetti, 2) pizza, 3) ravioli, 4) various other pastas so long as the sauce is marinara or you just pile a lot of parmesan on top. But last night (Saturday after Great Falls) we managed to get her to a Bertucci's pizza, and were talking about planning to go to Baltimore today and noted that real Italian cooking is the sort you get in Baltimore's Little Italy. Little Italy is just a few blocks east of the Inner Harbor and we decided to have an early dinner in Baltimore before driving back to DC. She was fascinated by the idea of Little Italy and once we parked and set out we passed a nice new restaurant, then went on up to the older strip of restaruants Tam and I were more familiar with: the old family places, the sorts where you figure Frank Sinatra might drop in or there might just possibly be a hit one evening (Michael Corleone going into the bathroom for the gun, you know the type of restaurant we mean). But Sarah wanted to try the newer place we had passed. Okay: you aren't going to survive in Little Italy in Baltimore if you don't do good Italian.

It was a new-looking place called Petalo's. [UPDATE: SEE NOTE AT BOTTOM. I hope it's not gone.] It had a lovely terrace but Sarah insisted on eating inside, despite it being a perfect day. (Have I mentioned yesterday and today were both in the 80s and low humidity? Those of you who know Washington know that's not normal in July. This would have been a great day in California. Or Greece.) But the boss had spoken and so we ate inside.

It was an interesting menu: not only high-end Italian, but also kabobs and other Middle Eastern (they called it "Mediterranean," but trust me, I know Arab: they even had foul mudammas) stuff. (Perhaps "Arab" is too politically sensitive. Anyway we had the Italian so I can't judge the Arab.) Sarah got as far as Kid's Spaghetti and Meatballs and looked no further. Tam and I -- who don't get to good restaurants as often as we'd like but know all the varieties of Happy Meal -- decided to splurge on the house special: $25 bucks a shot, but a veal scallopini in a very rich cream sauce (up the dose of lipitor) topped with pepper rings stuffed with crab meat. Whoa. It's the "Petalo's Veal" on page four of the online .pdf menu, [UPDATE: This link has failed twice and I don't know why. If you get a generic ad page, go back to the Petalo's link above and find the menu there.] and I heartily recommend it, provided you other high-cholesterol folks eat nothing but lettuce and carrots for a week afterwards. (In case my doctor is reading this.)

Sarah announced that the spaghetti and (one very large) meatball was the best spaghetti she had ever had. Then she got apologetic and said that she hoped Mom wasn't offended. I noted that, whereas Mom makes sauce by opening a jar from Safeway (though she does usually throw in some extra basil and oregano), I was pretty sure this place made its own sauce. Impressed (doesn't everyone get it from Safeway?), Sarah actually asked the waitress, who assured her the chef made the sauce and she would pass on the compliment. At one point Sarah announced this was the best weekend ever. Photos of Sarah with the spaghetti appear on our Flickr site for those with access.

The Seahorses' Wedding

Well, I guess I have to get to the seahorses' wedding and it's midnight and tomorrow's a work day so I'd better do it now. Sarah has one of the largest collections of stuffed animals imaginable. Dragons are her favorite (she was born in the year of the dragon), and unicorns are big, and she has a fair number of pandas (people can't resist giving them to her), the usual teddy bears, etc. Sea animals are also big: one huge turtle, several smaller turtles, even some stuffed jellyfish (yes), and a fair number of seahorses. Today she wanted another sea horse. I said I'd get her one animal and after weighing the seahorse against a dolphin, she chose the seahorse. Driving home to DC she decided that she would marry the new seahorse to one of the older seahorses, and as we made our way back over an hour or so's drive she cranked up the libretto for this wedding. Once home she dressed the bride-seahorse in a bridal outfit not designed for a seahorse, got out necklaces (no rings: Seahorses don't have fingers) and so on. A video of the bridal gown and a full video of the ceremony are at our private YouTube site if you have access. It is possibly the only video on YouTube with the tags "seahorse wedding," but I haven't confirmed this. When I posted "Rats Playing Basketball" I not only discovered how many Rats Playing Basketball videos there are on YouTube, but how many rat fanciers then start asking to exchange videos. I don't respond.

The ceremony is elaborate and well-staged, but the officiant (Sarah) tends to dissolve into hysterical giggling while trying to lead the seahorses in their wedding vows. Wouldn't you?

The happy couple eventually went on a honeymoon in a carriage (which is either a Barbie carriage or a Cinderella carriage, but I'm not sure which: Barbie and Disney Princesses seem to be slowly merging together). But I didn't get video of that.

UPDATE: As of mid-September, 2007, the Petalo's links aren't working at all. I hope it didn't go out of business, and will try further updates later.