Crafty Bastards

This weekend was quite a bustle, it's hard to believe that it is Sunday evening already. But alas, it is; and I want to stave off the cleaning a bit longer, so here I am posting.

Actually, You're Scottish.
Friday night found Tommy playing Charlie to our trio of Angels as we all went out to Benihana's in Georgetown.
I don't know if I would rank it up there with Takeya, but maybe I'm just a little more attached to that place; regardless, it was delicious and we had a really fun time.
On the walk back towards Foggy Bottom we stopped at Marshal's to check it out. This is about when Emily became the magnet that attracted a lot of strange people to us. Some young, well intoxicated, college kid was trying so desperately to hit on her, it was shameless. He even used the lame pickup lines we were feeding her on a napkin as a joke. Then he got on an Ireland kick, telling her how he's always over in Ireland and he's really Irish. Until Tommy kindly informed him that his last name was actually Scottish, not Irish. He said oh, and we left.

Crafty Bastards.
Saturday the Crafty Bastards came to Silver Spring and it was glorious. Kelsey, Sean, and Trish made the trek down from Baltimore and met up with Emily (Emily's mom and brother), Vara, and I to enjoy the show. We walked around for hours, checking out all of the amazing stuff. Lots of jewelry. Lots of repurposed objects and reused items. Lots of fun.
At the end of the journey we plunked ourselves down on some chairs that happened to be in front of the music stage, on which an AMAZING group was performing. Aligning Minds, you should check them out. They're these two guys up on the huge stage, just chillin and jamming out with their laptops and control boards.
The rain came briefly as we were leaving; but we decided to brave it and head into the Mall.

DC to Bhutan.
It turned out that this weekend was Smithsonian's Folklife Festival, celebrating Bhutan, Texas, and NASA.We took some time to check out eachother's Crafty Bastard loot while enjoying a lime fizz. Here is some handspun and dyed bamboo yarn I got:
Red Prairie Press is a great tshirt designer that we all got stuff from at the craft fair back in the winter. They were here!!! So Kelsey and I each got some more of their fashions:
Some cute little buttons I picked out:
Evidently they use Basic acrylic paint in Bhutan as well :)
And have a DSW:
There were a lot of really adorable children running around in traditional attire:
The festival had tents set up all over the place to show off different areas of the culture: medicine, food, clothing, architecture, weaving, painting, dancing, etc. We tasted a little of the food and rested in the shade. Sean told a story, or pretended to ride a horse. It's hard to tell:
Kelsey and Trish giggled:
And I referred to my bible to figure out the best way to get up to the National Portrait Gallery/Museum of American Art, our next destination.
The atrium area is a space that I've returned to many times since I've been in DC; I find it to be a beautiful and tranquil space, especially in the wintertime. Well it has another charm in the summer: a really cool floor fountain that basically created a large rectangle of moving water in the middle of the space. Trish and I dabbled our feet in for about 2 seconds before Security came over. Woops.
I wish I could give the information about all of the following pieces, but I just grabbed my DC moleskin to refer to my gallery notes and discovered, to my horror, that it was destroyed today. There was a water issue in the car today on the way back from tubing, and evidently it got to my book; blurring or completely dissipating all of the notes about various places and events that I've made since my move up. Ouch. So I'll take some educated guesses on what these pieces are.

Umm. A piece by Nam June Paik. It has each of the states sectioned off with neon lights and then tv's filling in the state. The TVs display something that relates to each of the respective states (ie. Alabama: a MLK Jr. speech, Hawaii: Gilligan's Island, etc):
Louise Nevelson; a huge piece with table legs, base boards, chairs, etc all painted black:
A painter from the abstract expressionists/post-war . The colors are amazing in person:
This piece is made from nylons and is the piece that I've been drawn to the most each time I've visited this section of the gallery:
This one was called Swing. It's a canvas suspended from the wall/ceiling:
Happy Pre-Birthday Kelsey!
As a pre-birthday celebration adventure, a group of us went tubing at Monkton on the Gunpowder Falls. I might have messed up that information, but it was some river up in the boonies about 50 minutes outside of Baltimore. As cameras and water don't mix well, I have no documentation. But here are some of the highlights of the day:

• We lost a tube off the back of the truck while driving to the drop-spot. I think the people driving behind us probably pooped their pants.
• Sean stayed true to his promise of fending off the wildlife and keeping us all safe as he guided us past deathtraps and rescued each of us in moments of distress. "oh my god, spiders, spiDERS, SPIDERS!"
  
• Nick found an unopened can of beer on the river and threatened to drink it. We recommended that that wasn't a good idea.
• A record number of "...that's what she said" responses.

Happy short work week to all!

Happy Birthday Kelsey!