Update Central

Today started the our second SSEAT Academy, this one about Biodiversity. It has been interesting so far. We spent the day at the Natural History Museum, got a behind the scenes tour of the bird area (with approx 65,000 specimens, apparently). We checked out some of the owls, all stacked in several drawers on top of each other. I never quite realized (or thought about, really) all the different types of birds, and what makes each bird unique. We also did some stuff with the mammals, which was a lot cooler to walk through without about 300 children running around, like the first time I checked it out. The teachers did a lab IDing feathers and also with bird calls (the highlight of this was my boss, David, with a blindfold on, and his eye glasses over the blindfold. Somewhere there is a picture, I'll see if I can get my hands on it sometime soon). We got a talk from the director of the museum, who was actually relatively young, and seemed to make the teachers think that they could suggest things and he would actually listen. What seemed strange to me was that the teachers were making suggestions about how the museum should reach out to more teachers, but didn't seem to have any concept of how much this outreach might cost, especially at the level they were suggesting. Oh well. Anyway, before this week, I never really did the update after the last conference. Kiyomi arrived on Saturday morning, bright and early, and we immediately took naps. This was a good call on our parts, and made the rest of the day much more enjoyable. We then did the normal "what you do when you visit Deb" routine. Well, actually, first, we went to the movies. Yup, all the way to DC, and we go to the movies. Don't worry, we went shoe shopping as well. Then we became the tourists you know we are (and there are no pictures to prove this, since we decided early on that it was too humid and we were both looking and feeling gross, so no pictures would record this). We did Alexandria, road the boat back, walked to the Lincoln Memoral, then down the reflective pool, taking in Vietnam and Korea memorials, the WWII memorial (which is new since I was here 9 years ago, and has George W's name inscribed right into the front of it...lovely), and then up to the White House and to my favorite hotel restaurant that looks right over the white house grounds. Had a late dinner, then back to bed...or at least that was the plan, until I found this great show on the Food Network, about thsi Haagen Dazs contest to make a new flavor. It was the world premier of the show, so eventually, at 1:30am, we checked the wesbite, found out who won, and then passed out, never really watching the end of the show. In case you are wondering, the new flavor is Sticky Toffee Pudding (or something to that effect), and it is damn good (of course we specifically looked up the closest scoop shop and checked it out the next day). We went into downtown DC on Sunday, and then went to Old Navy and Targey, and just had a nice girly afternoon. We met Kiyomi's friend Carly and her coworker Jay for dinner (had my first and probably last Ruby Tuesday experience in DC... Joy, I know you are proud). And then we went home, and hit the bed, so Kiyomi's 5am pickup wouldn't be too painful for either of us. The rest of the week was pretty much normal, nothing exciting, just work and home and the gym (sometimes). Yea, nothing else to report. This weekend I am going away for four days to the mountains, to have a fun road trip and see some of the sights of small town east coast. There will be plenty of nice pictures from this trip, so get ready...!