Zellie learns to stop worrying and love the laptop.

For the last week or so, I've noticed that my laptop keyboard has more cat hair on it than usual. Since this coincided with a cold and dry streak in the weather, I attributed it to static.

I got home from grocery shopping this afternoon to find this...




This must be her way of getting back at me for keeping the thermostat on the low side. Or maybe she knew I had a Northern Exposure DVD in the drive and she wanted to see what Joel and Maggie were up to. Is it time for me to install Pawsense?

Audi caravan to DC Auto Show

Last week the DC Auto Show was going on, and a bunch of us Audi folk made a sporty, progressive, and sophisticated caravan downtown to the show before it opened to the public. We started out in a group of about 20 cars, but we didn't keep together that well on the tollway. People should have been intimidated by our glowering LED headlights!




Our route took us through DC's Chinatown. The street sign is for 9th St. NW, taken from I St.




Oh yeah, and there were some cars once we got there.

National Museum of American History

This weekend Rob and I went to the National Museum of American History, located right about where you would probably expect it to be. I had never been there before. They re-opened last year after being closed for two years for remodeling.




Look, it's Infinity! It rotates once an hour.



When entering the building from the National Mall, this flag sculpture is the focal point of the lobby.




We were there for about 3 hours but definitely saw less than 25% of the exhibits. We went through the General Motors Hall of Transportation for trains, Car Talk, and adorable kiddie cars. Notice the name on the kiddie car. Reminds me of the John Deere AMTeeny!




We saw more historical history too while we were there. This is a very old and special drum from the Lincoln exhibit. The sign reads "On this drum Maurice A. Graves of the Tenth Veteran Reserve Corps sounded the first call to arms following Booth's attack on President Lincoln. Just a few days later, Graves attached a black crepe ribbon to his drum and participated in the funderal events held in the capital."



The Smithsonian also has over 8,000 antique musical instruments in their collection, making it one of the largest collections in the world. Some of them are on display in the American History Museum. This is a flute from 1770. Since tuning of musical instruments had not been standardized at that time, the center section of this flute could be changed out with a longer or shorter section to enable the player to more easily adjust to local pitch. Thank goodness someone decided that A above middle C is 440 Hz!

Vic Firth makes what?!

I am on the road in Indiana today, and I found this rolling pin in a cooking store. Percussionists will recognize the Vic Firth name from the ubiquitous sticks and mallets. I guess it's good to diversify, and his company has mastered making smooth and sturdy round wooden objects. I wonder if he has considered making baseball bats.

Addendum...

Look at that! He makes pepper mills too. http://www.vicfirthgourmet.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?

Nanny Goat Trail

After being cooped up indoors for what felt like weeks, I finally got out for an afternoon this weekend to hike section B of the Billy Goat Trail. I wanted to do something more strenuous but we got kind of a late start, it still gets dark kind of early, and I wanted to have time to take some pictures and enjoy the scenery along the way.

We haven't had much snow or other precipitation to speak of since the Big Snow, but there was a lot of ice left behind. We saw a lot of ice ledges was still frozen onto rocks where the water level used to be a couple of weeks ago, but it has been dry and now the water level has fallen. Didn't see many 4-legged critters other than dogs, but we heard lots of chickadees and woodpeckers. Today was the first warm afternoon in a while and the air smelled like spring.




Even though the rocky parts remind me of the U.P., this place still looks like an alien landscape to me sometimes. I walk along the trail and can't stop saying "Wow..."

Mmmm, pizza.

Rob and I made a pizza from scratch, including sauce and crust. I can't take any credit for the pineapple, tomatoes, and onions on top of it though. Or the cheese -- sorry Ms. Cow.

I hope the shape does not offend any pizza purists out there, but I didn't have any round pans. Rob made the sauce from fresh tomatoes the night before, and I made the crust from scratch. The crust is a yeast-leavened crust and not the biscuit-type crust that most crust mixes produce. Yeast crusts are so worth it, and they don't have to take that long to rise!

Wintry Beetle Bling

This is how the Beetle got her Christmas on this year. It's less extravagant than last year, but I think I was still sweeping glitter off of the dash this spring.

Knock-Knock

I already showed you the packaging that the beasties so greatly enjoyed -- Giselle still viciously defends her box against all comers be they Pumpkin or be they her sparkle toy.

This is the contents of said packaging, an adorable woodpecker door-knocker that my sister sent me from Elk Rapids. He's pretty self-explanatory, but here's a visual run-down of how to notify me that you are at my door. Give the cord a good pull for best results; I think I used long enough screws.

I don't know whether he makes me more homesick or less.