Washington Fat Cats: Sunday

Sunday morning we woke up at 5:30 and wandered the city in rags, wailing at homeless people just to let them know how it feels.

After a nice long shower, a fine cigar, and a nice money burning, we stopped in at the Pavilion Café, where Jessie dined on a croissant garnished with the blood of a large Caribbean woman.

We were rather unhappy to learn that the Smithsonian Museum of American History was closed for renovation until November. Therefore, I didn't get to see the Seinfeld puffy shirt, Evel Knievels' motorcycle, or Kermit the Frog's corpse.

Instead, we headed next door to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, where they have various dinosaur bones (or, more appropriately, what dinosaur bones would have looked like if dinosaurs actually existed) and a bunch of sedated animals placed in various supposedly natural poses:

A tiger falling from a pull-up bar (no opposable thumbs).

A pangolin just … hanging … out. Ah-thank you!

A fennec fox coked out of its mind and freaking out.
An orangutan conquering shit. I could respect that.

A prairie dog singing "All I Want for Christmas Is You," which is weird because they're usually overtly atheist.
A koala transmitting gonorrhea to a glass case. It's their curse, you know.

A triceratops rocking out with a contemporaneous human.
I pretended to get eaten by a T-Rex, while Jessie pretended to be happy elephant poop.


Next, we went to the National Gallery, first starting in the West Building, which has the older collection. Again, the Italian Prime Minister was there.

After looking at some old art that looked like real stuff, we went to the East Building to look at crazy-ass modern shit. The East Building was designed by the same dude who designed the IU Art Museum and apparently some other shit too. Jessie posed for a glamour shot in front of the East Building and then for several introspective shots on the inside that really came to life through my creative vision, inspired by Jessie repeatedly shouting, "Look at that big fucking mobile!"




After we got the art out of Jessie's system, it was my turn to choose a museum, so I went with the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. It was pretty cool because it has rockets and space ships and planes and astronaut ice cream, which I bought because I'm five.

Perhaps coolest of all, though, are the simulators. You can choose to either go on a simulator ride, which has four options (WWII plane, F-18, and a couple space-related options). Or, for a dollar more, you and a wife can go on an interactive F-4 Phantom II fighter pilot mission, pretending for six minutes that you are a fighter pilot and gunner, respectively, and controlling all the action. You are required to remove everything from your pockets because, as explained by posters and workers, the simulator does 360-degree barrel rolls. Somehow this did not signal to Jessie that the simulator does 360-degree barrel rolls, as she was more than surprised when we flipped upside down the first time. I cackled like a hyena for most of the flight. My piloting skills were surprisingly fresh, given that I have not flown a simulated plane since Top Gun, the Nintendo game. Even more of a surprise was Jester's gunning. Despite her constant threats of vomiting, she managed six kills. I'm not sure I've ever been more proud of her. She felt sick for several hours.

After that, we headed to the Metro and up to Foggy Bottom. Damn that's fun to say.

Our walking in the morning and early afternoon was fairly weak: only about 1.5 miles.

Upon our arrival at the Foggy Bottom/GWU Metro stop, we headed up Pennsylvania Avenue to M Street, which is the main drag that goes through Georgetown. There are a wide array of stores and restaurants on M Street and Wisconsin Ave., if you're into buying food and goods.

We were both in the mood for pizza (Midwest withdrawal I suppose), and we found a place to cure our shakes. It's called Pizzeria Paradiso, which is also a Birreria, which is not to be confused with "Beerarrhea," an condition that has been known to afflict Dan Weeser*, where excessive amounts of alcohol completely prevent him from controlling how many words spew forth from his mouth. Anyway, Paradiso was excellent. Great pizza. Great beer selection. It gave us the stomach and the fortitude for our next stop.

The entire reason I wanted to go to DC was to make a pilgrimage to the Exorcist steps. Some dude was doing pull-ups like a man possessed at the bottom of the stairs. We traversed up the steps to look at the house.
Jessie started acting weird, screaming over and over again "High Five! High Ten! Stop! Stop! " and then screaming incoherently and rather gutturally.


A man on a bike stopped after we took some pictures of the house. He was not a Catholic priest, but had been around for the filming of the movie (and apparently was an extra). He explained that a false wing was added to the house, so that the window from whence Father Karras was thrown would back up against the now-infamous steps. As you can see from this photo, behind that BMW is where the false wing had been added.

Sensing that this man may have simply read the IMDB trivia page about the film, Jessie became indignant and told the man that "[his] mother sucks cocks in hell." Then she spit up the split pea soup she had for lunch all over the man, and then, for some reason, she threw me down the steps and took a picture, turned the man into a pumpkin and threw him down the stairs.

Interestingly, the Exorcist house is across the street from The Tombs, which served as the bar in Brat Pack stalwart St. Elmo's Fire.
Being a huge John Parr fan (although, admittedly, having never seen the film), I could barely contain myself. In fact, I was on such a high that I convinced Jessie that we needed to be "men in motion" and that we were to walk from Georgetown to the Vietnam Memorial.

On our way over there, we passed the home of a Tory, soon after alerting the local cobbler, who serves as a militiaman.
We also passed the Watergate Hotel, which I conquered, but did not break and/or enter.
We stopped at the Lincoln Memorial for a quick piss and picture of the Washington Monument again. To the right of the Monument, you will see one of Earth's moons.
Eventually, we got to the Vietnam Memorial, which I suggest visiting if you're in town. As I'm sure you know, it is two walls that come to a point, each covered with the etched names of American soldiers who died Vietnam, with bronze statues of a couple soldiers looking at the wall from about 50 yards away. People leave letters, flowers, and memorials. It's pretty depressing.


After that, we walked through some of the parks in the Mall. There were ponds, a non-depressed duck, and a squirrel who was, in fact, the devil incarnate.



On the way to the Metro, we passed in front of the White House and Old Executive Building from afar.

We managed to walk another five miles in the afternoon.
We had no plans Sunday night, and we were more tired than the Mac vs. PC ad campaign, so we just stayed in and watched some True Blood.

Rather than waste your time talking with a separate post about Monday, rest assured, we flew home. Special thanks to Thor Svensen, our travel agent, for setting up the whole trip.

Washington Fat Cats: Saturday

We awoke around 9:23 Saturday morning and were out the door around 10. Breakfast proved harder to find than anticipated, so we ended up walking to the Pavilion Café (or, as Jessie pronounced it, "pavalon") in the National Sculpture Garden, which proved to be an ample backdrop a traditional Washington breakfast: a Cuban sandwich.

Meanwhile, Jessie got a croissant. After the purchase -- and that's the key -- she asked the woman behind the counter whether there was any jelly. By the way this woman said "no," you would have thought that Jessie asked this woman if there was any placenta. Pressing her luck, Jessie asked whether there was any butter. Same result. This woman was incensed. How could anyone possibly think that there would be condiments to spread on the croissants that this restaurant sells? I shudder to think what would have happened if Jessie had asked for Nutella. Upon further questioning, the reason for a lack of available jelly or butter is because "people might steal them." Jessie asked what I thought was a reasonable question: "So then, do you have any behind the counter?" The woman didn't really know how to answer that. And so Jessie ate her croissant in silence, standing five feet from the woman behind the counter, staring at her -- or, more appropriately, through her. When we left, Jessie had one more thing to say to the woman: "If I ever come in here again, you had better pray to whatever voodoo god you worship that you are not behind that counter because I will be ordering a croissant, on which I will, in fact, spread a condiment. And that condiment will be your blood."

After being escorted out of the National Sculpture Garden, we headed down the Mall towards the Washington Monument, which looks nothing at all like George Washington. I conquered it from near and far.

A lot of people don't realize that just to the north of the Washington Monument, there is an authentic Apache reservation.
There were no tickets available, so we were unable to ride up the Washington Monument or walk up or bungee catapult up (I don't know because we didn't get in there). To get revenge, I forever captured the Capitol on digital media and held the White House between two fingers. I know -- very awesome.
I put it down, then we went to the WWII Memorial. Illinois was both on my shirt and on limestone. There was a group of WWII veterans from South Carolina, a man who appeared to be a War of 1812 vet, and an insolent sparrow named Gregory.

From there, it was to the Lincoln Memorial. As we walked along the Reflecting Pool, I gave birth to a duck, which promptly committed suicide.

After that, I just stood there and thought about a lot of shit, until some drugged-out hippie chick started running through the middle of the pool trying to get the attention of a mildly retarded soldier, who I believe is a former All-American kick returner.

Upon my arrival at the Lincoln Memorial, I conquered it, then immediately took a seat. I'm kind of weird.
The Lincoln Memorial is pretty cool because you get a nice view of the whole Mall.

Feeling inspired, I staged a sit-in to protest American support of the presence of Spain in Hispaniola. As you can see, several others followed. Not wanting to be worshipped as a false idol this early in my life, I promptly declared "art is dead," ended the sit-in, and approached President Lincoln with a combination of solemnity and fear I haven't felt since I found out the chocolate-covered Pay Day was discontinued. My fears were realized, as he continually stared at me with his steely eyes no matter what I said to him. Then he started hitting on Jessie. I had to get out of there.

On my way down the steps, I came across the marker that indicates the exact spot from which Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his "I Have a Dream Speech."

Sensing some discord amongst the Memorial's visitors, I took the opportunity to showcase my oratorical skills with my hilarious satirical take on Dr. King's speech, which I entitled, "I Have a Pene."

Much of the crowd was in tears -- mostly of sorrow -- by the time I ended 17 minutes later with "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, it is free at last!" My performance apparently caused a bit of a buzz, as current and former Caps stars Alexander Ovechkin and Mike Gartner arrived to offer me a job as public address announcer at the Verizon Center. I was flattered and accepted immediately, only to later learn that neither had the authority to offer me the position. Lawsuit pending.

From the Lincoln Memorial, we walked past the Korean War Memorial, where some of those giant silver mimes were creepin'.
Then it was onto the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. As you can imagine, it was fairly depressing. Every visitor gets a little booklet with information about a Holocaust victim. You learn where they were from, their ethnicity, about their family, where they were taken, and whether or not they survived. The museum itself is excellent, and I would highly recommend it.

From there, we headed across a manmade bridge to the Jefferson Monument. I like that dude. He didn't try to creep me out like Lincoln. We had an educated discourse on the two-dollar bill, his selection of Aaron Burr as his first Vice President (we both agreed that Burr was "kind of a dick" and had a good laugh at Burr's expense), his rousingly successful choice of P-Funk as his second Vice President, educated masses, dipping your pen in the company ink, Shays' Rebellion (really not that bad), inalienable rights ("banging" was one that he kept coming back to), alienable rights (for some reason, DNA testing popped up), aliens ("we're the fucking aliens, man"), and sedition. Whatevs. I conquered that shit.
Both Jessie and I agreed that we hadn't walked enough yet, so we made our way up to the White House. On the way there, we came across several ice cream carts. Hopefully this picture will, once and for all, settle the heated Bomb Pop vs. Astro Pop debate.
When we got to the south side of the White House, I didn't want to conquer it quite yet, so for some reason I pretended to look like I was getting held up.

We then made our way to the Corcoran Gallery of Art, where they had a Richard Avedon exhibit. Unfortunately, it was 4:30 and the museum closed at 5, so it was not worth the $6 price of admission. We smudged the glass doors on the way out and headed up the street to the Renwick Gallery, which is part of the Smithsonian family. It's a pretty small museum that looks like it could have been someone's house back in the day. Probably Renwick. It was a nice, quick, and easy museum. I did not conquer it.

From there, it was to the Old Executive Building, which is across the street from the Renwick. It is a completely awesome building that used to house the President. Frankly, it looks cooler than the White House. Making things better, there was a giant Italian flag adorning the OEB. I conquered it on several generational levels.
It turns out the Italian Prime Minister was in town. He was just walking around outside the OEB and White House. Tutti bravi!
We headed down the street to the north side of the White House.

Finally I felt comfortable with the idea of conquering the White House.Apparently they're raising douchebags younger these days.

Finally sick of walking, we decided to head for the Metro to go back to the hotel. On the way back, we stopped in front of the Treasury to conquer that … again! Take that Paulson! (And yes, those are five dollar bills in my hands.)

Here is our approximately 7 miles of walking.

After a nice bath, we headed up to the DuPont Circle neighborhood to meet up with my friend Josh from law school and his wife Lauren, who is also a friend from law school. We ate at a place called Darlington House, which may very well have been someone's house at some point. Probably Darlington. For an appetizer, I had some chestnut soup, which, surprisingly, isn't a sexual metaphor. It was delicious. For my entrée, I had some salmon with spaetzle, which was also delicious. Unsatisfied with our state of intoxication (or lack thereof), we went downstairs, which has a "cantina" and pub, which very much resembled a Chicago neighborhood bar (exposed brick, dark wood, lamps made from deer antlers, railroad spikes in the wall). More drinks were consumed. Several of Josh's peeps showed up. More drinks were consumed. Topics of conversation included emaciated males, the prevalence of fake deer heads on walls of bars in the Washington, DC area, bailouts, intimidation of nerdy co-workers, and how much better the NFC North and NFC East are than the remaining NFL divisions because of the length of the intradivision rivalries. Here's Josh and me looking far too giddy.

As the night wound to a close, Jester and I headed to the DuPont Circle Metro station, which was located several thousand leagues under ground level. Seriously, that's a hell of an escalator.

Upon exiting at Union Station, we saw a homeless ghost, which is a first for me.