If there is one lesson I've learned during this holiday season, it's that I'm not essential. Thanks to the federal government shutdown, I've been furloughed until funding for the State Department is restored. I was overseas during previous shutdowns and still reported to work, as the duties carried out by Consular officers are considered vital, and Consular Affairs is basically self-funded through fees received from visa applications, passport renewals, notaries and other services. Being a language student during the latest closure is a different matter, however, meaning there is no reason to for me to report for work. Not that there is much to do at the moment, anyway - there's a weeklong break in classes, and students were given the opportunity to take paid leave, do independent study at home or (as in my case) a combination of both. Christmas Day is already a federal holiday, and this year the president issued an executive order giving federal employees a day off this Christmas Eve as well - that is, until the money run out at midnight last Friday. So now I'm on an unpaid break until fiscal sanity is restored in Washington. On the bright side, while a long period of budget acrimony might wreak havoc on the family finances, I'll have a good excuse for when I fail my Amharic exam next summer - "everything was going well until my studies were forcibly interrupted around Christmas!"
"So this is Christmas, and what have you done? Another year over, a new one just begun". So John Lennon famously sang. As you can see below, my daughter appeared pretty content with this year's haul of goodies, especially the Switch that was at the top of her wish list:
I did pretty well also, having received a much-needed case for my iPhone, along with a pair of wireless headphones. Even my wife, who tends to exhibit Scrooge-like symptoms around this time of year, seemed pleased with her Macys gift card.
For Christmas dinner, thanks to a minor comedy of errors sequence, we ended up having Taiwanese food at the Jumbo Jumbo Cafe in Rockville, a city in Maryland known as "Little Taipei" thanks to its large Taiwanese expat population:
Munching on sausage fried rice and Taiwanese fried chicken on the 25th was fine as we had enjoyed a much better feast the previous evening at the Arlington home of some friends of ours, who graciously invited us to dine with them on Christmas Eve:
"At Christmas I no more desire a rose
Than wish a snow in May's new-fangled mirth"
Love's Labour's Lost (Act 1, Scene 1)
So wroteth (?) the Bard of Avon back in the mid-1590's, but it's likely he would be more enthusiastic about the end of the year holiday season were he to be around today. In any event, Amber and I visited the Folger Shakespeare Library, an independent research library on Capitol Hill (and thus not subjected to any government shutdowns, unlike the National Christmas Tree), and home to the largest collection of Shakespeare's printed works in the world. Regular readers of this blog may remember that we stayed a night in Stratford-upon-Avon in July of last year, so a trip to the library seemed like an apt though belated coda:
The current exhibition at the library is "Churchill's Shakespeare", focusing on the relationship between the Bard and Britain's wartime prime minister:
Churchill typed many of his greatest speeches, but my daughter struggled putting her thoughts on paper thanks to the limitations of 20th-century technology:
A photograph of Churchill's mother posing as Olivia from Twelfth Night, taken when she attended a Shakespearean Ball in 1911:
Shakespearean imagery played a role in British propaganda efforts during the Second World War:
Churchill, of course, consciously evoked Shakespeare when giving his famous wartime speeches. These are his typewritten notes for his "This was their finest hour" speech which he gave in the House of Commons on June 18, 1940:
And here is yours truly being inspired by Sir Winston giving said speech:
A commemorative plate issued at the time of Churchill's death in 1965:
In addition to being a library, the Folger is also a performance space. While we were visiting, a concert of English seasonal music was being staged in the theater. At least we could watch some of it on the closed-circuit TV outside:
We weren't able to go inside the Reading Room, but the curtains had been opened by a tour guide, so we did get a look:
While the Elizabethan Garden was closed due to renovation (which meant the exterior of the building was covered in scaffolding), it was a still an interesting visit, helped in great part by the lack of an entry charge, and a pleasant way to spend an afternoon after a morning of last-minute Christmas shopping.
Speaking of the run-up to Christmas, having rented a vehicle for the holiday period, on Christmas Eve I drove out into the Virginia countryside for the purpose of reconnecting with nature. Virtually all of my hikes in this area have been loops, but one trip in my AMC's Best Day Hikes Near Washington, D.C. guide requires a car shuttle between two points - Bull Run Regional Park in Centreville and Hemlock Overlook Regional Park in Clifton. Seeing as I only occasionally have one car, the plan on Monday was to start the hike at Bull Run, walk for exactly two hours (as the total length of the hike given in the book is four hours), and then return to the car, leaving the rest of the hike to be completed beginning at the other end for another time. The waving bear (there for a seasonal night light show) which greeted me as I set off on foot at Bull Run was a promising omen...:
...but the closed-off boardwalk was another matter. Seeing as the only way to continue was to wade through muddy water, I returned to the car and drove a half-hour through some pretty countryside to the end point (and now new start point) of the hike at Hemlock Overlook:
The remains of the first hydroelectric plant in Virginia, built in 1925:
A bend in the river:
A tricky set of stone pillars, the only way to cross Pope's Head Creek:
A railroad bridge of the Norfolk Southern Railroad, also used by Amtrak and Virginia Railway Express trains:
Looking up as I passed under the bridge, it wasn't the two pairs of shoes that caught my eye. Rather, it was the rustiness of the trestle that had me wondering how much longer it could bear the weight of the passing trains:
Eventually the trail left the riverside and made its way up and down the hills:
At the two-hour point into the hike, I turned around and retraced by steps back to the car. On the way back I passed a toy of some kind that somebody had left on a log by the path:
All in all, it was a pleasant if somewhat muddy walk through the woods (there had been a brief but heavy downpour the previous evening). The only sounds of civilization were the planes flying overhead as the Bull Run-Occoquan Trail is close to Dulles Airport:
Back at the ruins of the power plant. This is Cody, who apparently is cooped up at home much of the time, for he was racing at top speed along the trail, so excited to be outside (and much to the consternation of his owner, whose exasperated calling after of his dog reminded me of Fenton, except that there were no deer involved):
And so another Christmas is almost in the books as I get ready to post this entry. Here's hoping yours was merry!
A few other moments in the run-up to Christmas:
A post-concert meal at Sweet Rice
Enjoying the cocoa and admiring the owner's collectables at Lil City Creamery
Enjoying crispy chicken on a bed of white rice at Pho 88
A bit of public art on the streets of Falls Church
No comments:
Post a Comment