The Visible Woman...January 2, 2004

Left to our own devices we will: wander around in search of coffee and food; go through shops we would ignore at home; buy something for FFP like a tie or a fragrance; visit any available independent bookstore and buy something 'just to support them' (and our book habits). Given the opportunity for a tour or something, we will jump at it.

So, yeah, we had coffee and food at the (no matter what the city) chaotic, frustrating but with good food La Madeline. We ate at a restaurant called J. Paul's attracted by the oysters on the half shell on display although we didn't have them. We wandered through Restoration Hardware (the Austin version of said store which I haven't been to in months). We bought FFP some new after shave after he got a handful of tester strips. We looked in Ralph Lauren and even considered a sale tie. (And FFP brought four on the trip and has a hundred more at home.)

The bookstore was called Bridge Street Books and we bought a collection of aricles called Writers on Writing many of which I had read when they appeared in the NY Times. And another book, a memoir.

We had a dinner scheduled with our tour but there was an impromptu offer of a tour of Kennedy Center and we jumped at that.

In between, we had naps on the comfy beds at the Ritz, looked in shop windows.

We are so predictable when we travel.

	away from home We are predictable when we are away from home. Left to our own devices we will: wander around in search of coffee and food; go through shops we would ignore at home; buy something for FFP like a tie or a fragrance; visit any available independent bookstore and buy something 'just to support them' (and our book habits). Given the opportunity for a tour or something, we will jump at it. So, yeah, we had coffee and food at the (no matter what the city) chaotic, frustrating but with good food La Madeline. We ate at a restaurant called J. Paul's attracted by the oysters on the half shell on display although we didn't have them. We wandered through Restoration Hardware (the Austin version of said store which I haven't been to in months). We bought FFP some new after shave after he got a handful of tester strips. We looked in Ralph Lauren and even considered a sale tie. (And FFP brought four on the trip and has a hundred more at home.) The bookstore was called Bridge Street Books and we bought a collection of aricles called Writers on Writing many of which I had read when they appeared in the NY Times. And another book, a memoir. We had a dinner scheduled with our tour but there was an impromptu offer of a tour of Kennedy Center and we jumped at that. In between, we had naps on the comfy beds at the Ritz, looked in shop windows. We are so predictable when we travel.
unbussed food at La Madeleine with car and passersby on M Street
JUST TYPING On vacation. We embrace the freedom to shop and eat. Maybe it's easier to buy things when you are reliefed of the responsibility of sitting at home surrounded by them.l
		Food Diary. *breakfast* potato galette lunch [J. Paul's] crab soup seared tuna salad pretzel, mustard, butter, bread glass of Pinot Noir *snacks* another Jack Daniels dinner [Oval Room] salad with goat cheese gnochi cheese puffs bread butter creme brulee Jack Daniels red wine...several glasses Today I - just ate and drank as I pleased and that was, of course, too much.
Meta: I'm not posting these entries until I'm back from the trip. So, yeah, they suddenly appeared. I could have posted them sooner except I don't like to advertise that I'm out of town and also I didn't get them done in real time.		Time flies.... We thought we had the whole day until a dinner and reception in the evening to ourselves. An opportunity to get an insider's look at the Kennedy Center, though, was too good to pass up and we assembled to do that. Still we spent a lot of the day relaxing and goofing off. The evening was a bus trip to a restaurant which went as well as such things can possibly go after the bus was directed to the correct hotel. We sat with a couple we know and like and another couple we just met and had a great conversation and a good meal. The madhouse cocktail party in the hotel lobby after was kept in check by the fact that we were entertaining ballet dancers who had four more shows to do in the next two days.

		Reading. Dawn of D-Day: There Men Were There 6 June 1944 by David Howarth Michelin Green Guide to Washington, D.C.; The Best American Essays 2003 edited by Anne Fadiman. Newspapers. Always fun to look at out-of-town newspapers. The Washington Post called Stephen Mills "the bard of the ballet."
		Yeah, right.
		Exercise nothing
	. .	Mood was good and pretty relaxed.
	It's a Tangled Web we weave...these days of our lives.	One year ago "I hear that you need to change the machine you use if you do stuff almost daily but I'm hooked on the recumbent bike. I like the rowing machine but you can't read while using it. Riding the bike and reading is helping me catch up on reading." Two years ago "We go to Rockefeller Center and take the obligatory pix of each other with the background of the ice rink."