IN defense of cherries as Cherry Blossom Time

As a Forensic Nurse one is always talking about Hymens, AKA cherries.  So it is a bit ironic that I went to Washington to talk to our legislators about Sexual Violence and IPV during Cherry Blossom time.

We left very early on Sunday to explore.  I have had the privilege of visiting Washington DC a few times before, my friend Cathy had not.  My only agenda was to see the cherry Blossoms, but I had heard various status reports, "blooming and beautiful" to "not going to happen" because of the flukey weather.  We arrived, found the shuttle to the Hotel, the Sheraton Old Town Alexandria, dropped off our luggage, shuttled back to Reagan National, and then metroed to the Mall.    

There is an omnipresence of the Washington Monument, similar to The Eiffel Tower and it takes my breath way.  We walked around the Monument, I showed Cathy the Trump shunned White House, in the distance.

'We visited the WWII memorial, found the Indiana column and moved on to the Vietnam Memorial  There  a bystander told me about a site to find folks on the wall. Last time I was in DC, I fruitlessly searched for Mom's cousin Howard Vendenacre.  This time with the assistance of  the App, I found his name on the wall!   

Managing a picture was a challenge with the sun and the surface of the "Wall" The nurses memorial always moves me, and this time was no different, we were both on the verge of tears.  

Humans were swarming the Lincoln Memorial, all of the diversity present seemed a fulfillment of Lincoln's work.  From there we walked to the memorial for the Korean Conflict.  Sometimes it seem that one can be  a day late and a dollar short ant this was my moment.  There was a bent elderly man in a wheel chair that family had rolled up in front of the memorial sign to take pictures.  By the time I got my act together and phone out, they were moving, but what a powerful picture.  The men who so bravely served our country are dying off at an alarming rate.  

We veered around to the Tidal Basin to see the Martin Luther King Memorial and not only did we get to see this new memorial, but also there were the Cherry Trees in  FULL BLOOM!  I was not sure which to be most impressed with.  The memorial has quotes from King on a granite wall that faces the basin with a large statue of him "coming" out of  granite.  The Cherry trees, a gift of 3000 trees from Japan in 1912 surround the Tidal Basin and are not only lovely, but also loved.  

Walking the path in an attempt to enjoy was almost a chaotic as driving around the Arc de Triomphe  in Paris!  From there we decided that a trip to the art museum  was in order and it was no chore to agree!  After "culture"we were both worn out but French was on the menu which of course kept me going.  So we headed to Bistro Du Coin for dinner.  IT was a hard choice between the house steak and Steak Tartare, but I was cold and Paris in looming on the horizon so I chose the house steak with béarnaise..  It was delish!

Day of Love 2017 ( and sacrifice)

A storm chased us all the way from Indianapolis to Cincinnati, we would get a bit ahead, it would rain on us, we would get a head again and it would catch up again.

When we arrived in Cincinnatti it was dry, much to my relief,  becasue my hair does does not do well in the rain.  I had started out with "bad hair" on a day I wanted to be cute at our Valentines's day celebration at the "Sensational Sonoma Wine Tasting" hosted by Le Petite France.   We got in, got our wine and the natural fireworks began and it was lovely!  At one point the rain was coming down almost horizontally. I was glad to be safely ensconced inside.  I have written before about our wine tasting dinners at Le Petie France, and a little grumpily, but this time was pretty stinking good.  Attendance was down, but the company was good.  We were at a table of 9 and conversation was rampant.  I may even have a date with one couple when I am in Paris in May! 

On arrival we had Copain, Tous Ensemble, Rose. The label was beautiful in its simplicity but this is the sort of wine that gives wine a bad name.  I think most folks think this taste, flavor, or "Twang" if you will, is dry wine.  This wine was not dry nor very good, and YET I did swill down 2 glasses, to my dismay much later.

The first course was a Dry Creek Vineyards Chenin Blanc and it was devine!  The fruity, floral honeyed nose was almost enough for me.  But drink it I did!  It was served with oyster chowder, & was a  very good pairing.

The next wine was a Landmark Overlook Pinot Noir served with smokey morel brandy linguine. When I first lifted the glass to my nose I was very disappointed, and tasting was not much better.  But it opened up like a rose and as the linguine and pinot went down, it became amazing.  One just had to be patient with it.  The pasta was good too!

Next was Goldschmidt Kate's Cebernet Sauvignon, it was served with salmon in a red wine beurre blank,  with crispy goetta  (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goetta), a meringue like dolop of whipped potatoes and roasted oregano carrotts.  By now, I have been trying not to diet but REALLY cut back, I was stuffed and a bit tipsy.  The entree was delicious, the salmon cooked to perfection, the sauce was perfect with it and the wine was nectar

The last wine was  Alexander Valley Vineyards, Homestead Red Blend. I am a sucker for Mouvedre and this blend contained Mouvedre so I was in tipsy heaven and about to get tipsier! it was acoompanied by what they called triple chocolate ecstasy.  It was a slver of thier delicious marquise, with some chocolate mousse on top and, tilted just so, was a chocolate covered strawberry.  It was sitting in some sort of sauce, but that was pretty forgetable.  

Jodi drove back to the Wingate up the street, where we got surprise, we had been upgraded to a suite! A satisfactory ending to a lovely evening.

You may wonder where the sacrifice comes in.  Well Jodi HATES fish, the look of fish, the smell of fish & two of the four courses was fish.  SO this was a pretty big sacrifice for her, to endure a whole three  and a half  hours of fish effluvia! 

Where is Golden Colorado?

So this Sheraton has been an interesting situation. It seems that IAFN has a proclivity for this hotel chain, however in the past it has at been a reasonable experience.  It should be as good as home if not better for me to spend my hard earned dollars.  This one has toilets that shock and startle me every time I flush.  That would be worth the "Green" of it if they actually flushed everything down.  But let's just say they don't and leave it there.  Then there is the dog who chooses to bark at all hours of the day and or night.  Not constantly but just enough to wake a person up.  Oh and did I mention the strange sound I also hear at all hours of the day and night, also enough to wake a person up, coming from the room next door.  And then there is the vile office shop downstairs that sells LUGGAGE, WITH FLOWERS!  

Vile because this may just be a battle I am not going to win, or will win, depending on how you look at it.  O.K. I have pretty much decided to buy the darned thing.

I woke this morning to the barking dog.  Made some coffee, good coffee, well at least after I figured out what to stir it with! It just should not be this hard. 

We lazed around much of the morning, and then we did go down and buy that darned luggage, after that we went  ZOUP across the street, it was on my list and it was yummy!  I had a Southwest Chicken, chicken, cheese, red peppers and some onion on delicious bread sandwich and Hamburger Cheeseburger soup,

Jodi had a 3 cheese sandwich and cabbage tomato soup, we were both pleased!  

The plan was to go see the Unsinkable Molly Brown House and as we were finishing  up our soup I looked at the website for directions and noticed that it was closed on Mondays, now what?  I was fairly resigned to missing it, but Jodi suggested that we go to Golden today and see the museum tomorrow.  

So, after a quick trip back to the room for water and a preventive nose powdering, we took the tram to Union Station.  We bought tickets, it feels fairly confusing because we bought what we thought we needed and were told we bought too much.  We seem to have some frenicity around trains as the darned thing stopped but the doors wold only open on the opposite side of the train, so we scampered behind the train, and got on.  Only to be scolded by the conductor because we were not supposed TO GET ON YET! LORD, give people a  little power and it goes straight to..... 

The train ride was pleasant, it seems a nice set up, we got to Golden and I was already beginning to wonder because we did not seem to be in a city or town of any sort,but by a big ( quite nice) government center).  We looked at each other and sort of laughed, where is Golden Colorado?  How were we to get there.  But there were these little short buses that kept come with some regularity so I asked one guy and he said you need the "B" but it will take you into Golden.  So we stood there and before long here came this nice older man with pretty blue eyes that sort of took pity on us.  Took us where we needed to go and told us when to be back so we did not miss transportation.   The city has a lot of history relative to the Gold rush.  There is a visitor center and beside it a long paved path beside Clear Creek which is very nice to wander.

First we walked into the town centre, lots of shops, dining establishments and a few bars.  Jodi wanted something to drink, really she wanted more BRISK, a tea she has found here (at least this is the first time I have seen her drink it) and likes, but it was mostly "sit down a spell" kind of places.  So we walked back across the bridge, which was interesting as there was a lot of information about the bridge  on it.  

Once, in the early days,  too many cows were on the bridge and it collapsed, another a guy had his heard of 200 sheep on the bridge and it collapsed. Pieces of the news paper articles from the times were on the placards and were crotchety about the destruction of the bridge.  They were pretty funny, hence a weight limit!  

The pathway (actually the city) is strewn with bronze sculptures, a Cowboy fly fishing, children on a horse, a native American woman,  

a momma bear and her cubs,  it was pretty.  But best was simply the sound of the water splashing and dancing over the rocks.

After enjoying that we had about an hour and we went for refreshment, I tried to talk Jodi into a Coors,

this is its home, but she preferred a White Russian, and who am I to grump as I didn't want one either.  We had some fried zucchini and another opportunity to powder my nose.  

Our guy was there at the time he said he would be and we caught the bus back to the train and were back in the city lickety split.  It got cold while we were on that train, a portent of things to come I think.  When we got back we went for more of those lovely fries at the Burger bar we had dined in the previous evening.  Then back home to listen for a few to the chaos of pre election blah blah blah and off to sleep.  

Double Duty

Today as a long day learning about strangulation.  Coffee and crummy croissants started the day,  I wold have passes but I was hungry.  It interests me that a place that can do good food for lunch does breakfast bread so poorly.  Regardless,  I not only learned some more info about strangulation and the lethality of it, but I also got good news about a colleague of mine.  That was worth the use of my day!  I used up every drop of yarn to knit, I am not sure what I am going to do tomorrow, I don't sit well.  

Lunch was a spinach salad with fresh berries and cheese (feta?), followed by pork, polenta and grilled asparagus draped in a pan sauce.  Very nice!

Dinner was a long walk looking for soup, and then Italian and we ended up at Grimaldi's Pizzeria.  Maggianos (and I am not fond of chain food) was an hour wait and I was thinking "no, thanks"!  Grimaldi's was pretty good, maybe a 7 out of 10.  

Today was started by a follow up to the Human Trafficking lecture from the first day, not as much practical info as I had hoped.  A bunch of us from Indiana sat together.  

Then a relatively boring lecture on Mentoring followed by a cancelled session.  So I dropped in a DFSA, GHB lecture.  I picked up a few tidbits from it, so it was not a waste.  I was, however,  really looking foreword to the lecture that got cancelled.  Mother always says that "No Education is ever a waste".  So there.  HOWEVER,  no knitting did just about kill me!

Jodi and I walked to the Delectable Egg, very near the hotel, and I had Eggs Benedict with the best hash browns ever!

 Jodi had her usual egg sandwich with hard eggs and cremated bacon.

Then we just wandered, by the State Capitol Building,

the Denver Art Museum and

ended up touring the Byers-Evans house (http://www.historycolorado.org/museums/byers-evans-house-museum), I really enjoyed it..  I enjoy the history and all the antiques!  

We wandered by countless homeless people, I understand that the current "Gold Rush" is in form of Mary Jane, rather than elemental Gold.  The effects of that are that there is a building boom, the cost of living has climbed and there are hundreds of visible homeless persons. As you walk down the street I flash black to nights in an  Emergency Room full of drunks, or I flash back to driving out in the county and smell a skunk, which I have been advised is poor quality pot. It is really unfortunate, I don't think I have seen so many homeless folks anywhere that I have ever traveled.  

We went to the Church Of All Sinners and Saints this evening. We had read a book by the pastor, Nadia Bolz-Weber, at our book club at church and I wanted to attend her church.  Conveniently the service was at 5 PM so I could attend my lectures this morning and we could go to church this evening.  I was all excited as she was there and I hoped she would preach, she did not, but the young man who did delivered a credible sermon.    

We walked back to the hotel and then went to 5080 burger.  It was on my "list" and I saw Italian Wedding soup on the placard!  I had that soup and a slider of the day, a chimi-churri burger.  

The soup hit the spot, and burger was just o.k, it had a bit of a kick and I did not finish it.  Jodi had fries (they were delish) and onion rings and slaw.  Her slaw had a bit of a kick too, I am thinking that the owner likes a "kick" For a bit of dessert I tried their ( there was a small ice cream parlor attached) salted Carmel ice cream, Jodi said it tasted scorched!  Bien Sur!

Squeaky 9-30-16

This morning I got up earlier for a Chapter Officers breakfast meeting.  We had scrambled eggs, bacon, hash browns and bread, accompanied with orange juice and coffee.  A little ketchup made my eggs and hashbrowns heaven!  The meeting, well not so much.  The business meetings ostensibly are well planned and well timed, but they leave no time for official networking.  It is frustrating, to be here with my peers in a forum where we are brought together because of specific issues, and we can not address them together.  Note to IAFN:  plan longer meetings with built in tiems for discussion.

My morning sessions were Certification and Injuries.  The Certification was a very well done lecture, the Injury one was problematic for me and I wondered who vetted her lecture.

Lunch was  a speaker on The Internet and Teens and it was actually very good.  The food was good too!  A salad of greens and string carrots with a surprisingly good dressing, chicken and rice pilaf with some orientalish veggies, and bread, followed by coffee and cookies or a brownie. 

My afternoon session was good, wounding and healing, but this speaker is usually excellent!

Dinner tonight is at the Squeaky Bean (http://www.thesqueakybean.com) and is a "Indiana Dinner".  We had a healthy show and it was fun.  Got to meet some new people and have fun with those I know.

Dinner was a shared bottle of a French Wine!  

Steak with soubise sauce, yams and salas verde.

 And for dessert Chocolate Almond Cake, strawberry milk powder, strawberries, and dulce de leche ice cream.  Delish, I would certainly go back!

The walk there and back with friends was just what I needed after a long day of learning. 

Lots  of activity in the streets on a warm fall evening. 

Hangry 9-29-16

There is a recurring theme of huger on this trip.  I guess it is a cheaper way to go.

I woke up hungry last night, and was hopeful for the Continental Breakfast this morning, but it was muffin, muffin or muffin. So I had a muffin and coffee. The keynote speaker on Human Trafficking was amazing.  and my morning session was inspiring.  I ran back up to the room to check in with Jodi, and saw a refrigerator in the hallway so I suggested that she ask about that, she did and we now have a fridge in the room! I went back down to find food, and there was no place in this building to get a bag of food to take to the Business  meeting.  Grr, no lunch makes me a crabby girl.  NOTE: to IAFN either feed me or have a space where I can grab some food if we are going to schedule the business meeting like this! So lunch was 2 Canada mints and water. 

Jodi chatted up the hotel staff, while she relaxed.   The young lady who made up our room is from Burma, she has been here for about five years and Jodi thought she was delightful.

For dinner Stephanie, Jennifer, Stephanie Jodi and I started out walking and settled on Marlow's.  I had a house salad, greens, dried cherries, raisins, tomatoes and croutons and a house vinaigrette which was excellent.   We Both had a filet setting on roasted potatoes ( no Bernaise available and and the house peppercorn sauce was a red wine base) and a side of fresh asparagus with parmesan cheese. For dessert We shared a Cree Brûlée, but honestly mine is better.   We walked a bit up 16 St. which is a pedestrian street, well policed, and some bummed.  

Hrumph 9-28-16

Today was another leisurely morning until 11, the time we had to check out of our most excellent accommodation.  

This is a place that exceeded my hopes, let alone my expectations!  They have raised the bar for Hoteling!  Breakfast was delivered in the usual manner, and enjoyed in my usual manner as well.  I am sorry to leave! 

We had reservations at the Dusty Rose Tea Room in Georgetown at 11:30, so getting our act together to check out was not so very hard.  Jeannette the owner met us and shared with us that she had a family illness so the Tea Room was closed but she was keeping our reservation.  It nearly broke my heart, rarely do who do not love me, treat me that selflessly.  The Tearoom (http://dustyrosetearoom.com/index.php?main_page=page&id=2&chapter=1) is one of those places that makes my heart sing, it is decorated with plenty of lace, antiques and lovely china.  

Our High Tea started with picking out tea, I picked out Back Bear Jasmine, a berry and vanilla blend, which was heavenly.

Jodi picked out the Georgetown blend (mixed berries) and she liked it as well!  Next we got to pick between an orzo salad, or potato soup, which of course we choose as we liked it first time around!  It was excellent again, but maybe even better.  Served in shallow china bowls with silver soup spoons, how can it not be better?

 Then it was followed with a three tier tea server with a layer of ( more- yippeeee!!!!) meat pies, tiny spinach quiche, cucumber and green pepper tea sandwiches, salmon and cream cheese tea sandwiches, and deviled eggs.  No one make better deviled eggs than my momma, so loyal daughter that I am I can not rave about the eggs, but the rest was heavenly!  The second layer was filled with Apricot scones (with Lemon Curd) Raisin Scones (with cream), iced spiced madeleines and black walnut cookies ( these looked like Linzer tart cookies and were amazing!) , the top layer was a lemon and rosemary muffin, tiny chocolate hazelnut brownie and a tiny piece of chocolate pecan pie.  Overall it was a wonderful experience!

From there we drove though Guanella pass and had one last gander an God's grace in sharing beauty with us mortals!  

The aspen trees are yellow with some  orange amidst the pines and it is a lovely sight!

So now time to come back to reality, we had laundry to do.  Water is so scarce in Georgetown that we had to drive to Idaho Falls to do laundry, where we found ( thanks too the staff at the hotel) a laundromat.  So much quicker than I hoped, we had some clean clothes to take with us to Denver.  The trip back across Denver was busy, stop and go , but relatively uneventful.  We took a taxi to the hotel from the airport and the driver was a immigrant from Ethiopia 25 years ago and a very nice fellow.

So the Sheraton Downtown Denver had a high bar to meet, but so far it is mot measuring up, not even close.    There is no refrigerator, little storage space and we have double beds in spite of asking for a queen or king bed.  In addition there was 2 sugars and 2 creamers to add to Starbucks coffee, seriously?

We got here so late that dinner was cheese and crackers and a glass of wine.  The glasses here are a little broad in the bottom, so good for red wine.  I am looking foreword to an  early morning to find out who to give the auction items for the Foundation Auction to and get registered for the conference.