More visitors, and some DC Christmas Cheer

We've had a few more visitors that deserve a blog mention. First up was our friend Cullen who is on tour with "Avenue Q". We haven't seen him in a few years, but like most of our long-term friends, it feels like we'd never been apart. He also has great hair. He has always had great hair, now that I think about it.

Hmmm, I needed a quick moment, but I'm over hating him for that now.

He is up for a big role in a musical that I haven't seen but everyone seems to like, so lets all send him good energy!

Then last week our friends Zane and Wendy came. Everyone calls them Zane and Wendy, but for some reason I like to call them Wayne and Zendy. I've only done this once to their faces. I honestly don't do it on purpose either, but that is how I refer to them almost every time, which started out kind of embarrassing but now just makes David laugh at me. I had to work both days they were here, so I didn't get to do any of the fun sightseeing with them, but still it was fun to hang out while I could. Our house loves having Albuquerque faces inside! Sadly we were lame and didn't get any photographic evidence of their trip.

Last night we had a nice Christmas moment. We walked over to the Botanical Gardens, which we could do because the weather is happily cooperating and staying in the low 40s, which is completely tolerable as long as the wind stays out of it. Anyway, they have this big train set up outside, which usually isn't really my thing, but somehow it was extremely compelling and I sort of lost myself staring at it, until two little kids biffed it to my left and started crying and some random crowd guy just kept making that "ohhhh!!" sound you make when you see something that hurts, but he kept making it over and over even after the parents were busy consoling the kids, so it must have been a pretty spectacular biff.

So, the moment broken, we went inside. They were supposed to have live music playing, and walking through the botanical gardens at night with Christmas music playing live sounded pretty sweet. When we get there, it turns out to be a little folk band, and they are playing some Yiddish song. (I say that without the faintest idea of what "Yiddish" actually means, but it sounds appropriate to what I was hearing.) Which, hey, I'm liberal, I'm all for including other faiths into the holiday celebrations, even if it wasn't even the dradel song, just some random thing with no words. Worse, when that song was finished, they start playing a Beatles song. Listen, I came for Christmas music, not "Eight Days A Week", ok? Anyway, the music was a big bust, but that didn't stop us from enjoying the garden, which is still totally cool. They also had these sculptures of many of the famous buildings/memorials in town made all from plants. It sounds kind of silly, and is, but in a cool way. Then we sat down because one of my favorite smells in the universe is of plants and earth and green, and this completely adorable little girl, just barely walking, entertained us by continually licking a tree. Not really licking, more like open mouthed kissing. It was so adorable that when I said to David "C'mon, you want to have kids, right?" he admitted "Maybe if ours could be like that one". Score! I'm breaking down the wall a little at a time. Thanks anonymous cute baby girl that likes to taste trees!


On the way home we stopped by the Congressional Christmas tree. Dang I love this time of year.