Always keep your dendrology flashcards handy.

Jerritt decided that every time he visits we should eat beets. This time, he made borscht.



He's thinking of moving here--does that mean we will have to eat beets every day? I mean, I do like them, but...

Ross and I finally went to Rainier National Park. There aren't many roads through the park. Edward Abbey would maybe almost approve.


It got snowy!

We got out and looked around.

But then drove down the other side to find a snow-free hiking trail.



















On the drive back to Seattle we stopped to see one of the smallest churches in the country.



Once a year, the bishop arrives by bicycle for a special service.

Tea and Whiskey

We met up with Molly for a round of whiskey.

And her old friend Liz. Before the two became friends, Molly once said Liz didn't seem like the sort of girl who would like to sit around drinking tea all afternoon, which was a very important quality in Molly's potential friends. Then the two spent the rest of that year drinking tea together.

Molly took us to the Pink Pony for a bite.



Ross and I only took the wrong subway train once. Too bad it happened to be very late, and we were sort of tired by that point.

On my last day of the WEX tour, we ate lunch at the top of the Rockefeller Center.



They made Andres wear a jacket that was way too big for him.

But the lunch was delicious, and it was fun imagining all the late great musicians playing on the bandstand, and the dancers swishing all over the floor.




That night Andres and I gave a reading at Housing Works Bookstore and Cafe.

Housing Works is a great store--and they donate their proceeds to Homeless New Yorkers living with HIV/AIDS. The reading was actually fun--a little less nerve-wracking than usual.





We took a final morning walk to set foot on the neutral soil of the UN Headquarters before flying back across the country to Seattle.

Cartography, Caissons.

Ross flew in on a red eye and arrived Saturday morning. Ross being a future librarian, we scoped out the library first thing.



Painting: Blind Milton dictates Paradise Lost to his daughters.









I forgot to take photos in most places--there was just too much to look at, taste, listen to... We spent a lot of time in Union Square eating cheese and apples from the farmer's market. I bought super cheap books at the Strand. Then we took a trek across the Brooklyn Bridge.



The man who designed the bridge, John Augustus Roebling, died after his foot got smashed at the site and he contracted tetanus. His son, Washington, took over, but eventually got the Bends from working in the underwater caissons. Washington's wife, Emily, helped him see the project through to the end, learning engineering in the process. Would the Roebling family say it was worth it? (According to Wikipedia, Washington Roebling rarely visited the site again.)




St. Patrick's Cathedral was filling up for mass when we stopped in.









And at MOMA, workers were dissembling a huge Serra piece. We saw one piece of it on a trailer, zooming down a street that had been cordoned for a parade. It banged into overhead signs.









MOMA is incredible, and after cramming our eyes and minds with so much, it was a relief to stand in the atrium and look out at white walls.

Outside, a convoy of trucks waited to take the Serra on its way.