MERRY CHRISTMAS!

 

This is the City of Fairfax Christmas Tree that was just lit last night in Kitty Pozer Garden in Old Town Fairfax.

 

It's the most wonderful time of the year.

A New Venture

A new venture didn't pan out.

EEK!

White House Holiday Tour 12/1/12

 

 

I had never before toured the White House. I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to do so this past weekend.

 

This is one of the first trees I saw, on the lower level in the West Wing.  The face peeking out behind it is a bust of Lincoln.

 

 

This is still on the lower level, in the hallway. The picture doesn't really do it justice. You can also see how crowded it was. Difficult for a 5'2" person to get ANY photos!

 



 

This is the State Dining Room, with Lincoln's portrait over the fireplace.

 

This is also in the State Dining Room. The replica is made of white chocolate. Hard to see in this photo, but Bo the dog is at the left front side.

 

I think this is a great shot of the "front" of the House.  My guest took it with her camera, which was much better than my Blackberry that doesn't even have a flash.

 



B'day

The Mansion on O Street

Recently, some friends and I toured the Mansion on O Street. In a word...AMAZING.  61 hidden doors...30,000 square feet of funky, beautiful eclecticism! Like falling down The Rabbit Hole. Seriously! Rooms within rooms, tons of Rock-n-Roll memorabilia, bathrooms not to be believed...SENSORY OVERLOAD!  And everything's for sale, except for the signed guitars -- and there are plenty of those. There are artists-in-residence, one of whom was our hostess. She has lived there for 30 years. There are many photos/paintings of "H" (how she's known) throughout the Mansion.  Clearly, she was a beauty back when.

We were there for more than 2 hours and could have remained longer except that we were truly overwhelmed and simply couldn't take any more in. I plan to return for another tour, because I know I missed a lot. The few pix I am posting barely scratch the surface.  They were taken with my smartphone, on the fly.

BRAAAAAAC ATTACK!

Everyone who commutes in northern Virginia has long been aware of the monolith that DOD planned to build in the Mark Center area to house 5,000 employees as a result of the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC). Personally, I've been dreading it, especially knowing that no measures have been taken to adjust the roads surrounding this monstrosity in order to BRAC-commodate the huge influx of traffic (or "Braffic," as I now refer to it).

Even though they're not dumping all 5,000 BRAC-ers on us at once, Braffic is already having an impact on my daily commute. Until a couple of weeks ago, I was able to leave my home in the City of Fairfax at 6a.m. and reach my office in Pentagon City in 30 minutes via Route 50 and Route 27. I purposely changed to an earlier work schedule to try to avoide arriving at work every day stressed out and pissed off because of the traffic. Now the commute has increased to 40 minutes. I'm either seeing BRAC-ers heading to the Mark Center via the back way, or I'm seeing folks who used to take I-395 and are now avoiding that Braffic cesspool all together. And it's just the beginning! I do not see myself ever becoming fully BRACclimated to this.