Mellow Monday

Last Monday I realized I didn't have to work all day -- things were under control and I could consider taking a day off.  When we were envisioning the season, months ago, Carrie and I said we were going to take real days off. I would take Mondays and she would take Thursdays. My Mondays would be non-farm days with all kinds of choices. Her Thursdays would be devoted to Zoey, her baby.  It has not happened that way for either of us. Part of the reason is that because she has a baby, sometimes this means that one of us needs to be available to cover for the other so one of us can get something done.  Not all day, but at odd times when the babysitter is gone for the day. Sometimes we just need to keep farming, one way or another. I am technically not the babysitter in any way, but if I really want Carrie to get out there and plant beets before the rain, and it is 5 PM, then the simplest thing is for me to take Zoey and let Carrie work.  This is not a burden for me, as Zoey is a pleasure and I like having a baby to play with.

But back to Monday.  It was the only day that I might be able to spend some time with Benjamin. He has been visiting for a while, but I don't see him much since he is working on projects or hanging out with a friend who was here for a week, and he hasn't been in the fields. We are not a family that intentionally spends time together except at dinnertime.  We seem to assume we will see each other enough just by being in the same house.

So, I came in from morning meeting, where I had said I didn't want any jobs for myself, and I announced to Benjamin that we could do something, go somewhere, if we wanted, and so could Jon.  After a moment of surprise, Benjamin got on the computer and looked around for activities that would match our needs.  He decided we should go to the Library of Congress.

Of course we layered some errands onto the trip, so there were several stops to make before we got into DC.  Benjamin was jammed into the tiny back seat of the truck because the air conditioner doesn't work in our car -- so he was grousing about the temperature (too cold) and the lack of space (justified).

The Library of Congress is historically interesting, the building is recently renovated, with paintings and sculptures and literary quotations all around the walls and ceiling. It was built in the late 1800s.  There were some exhibits to wander through. We looked at some maps, learned about a journalist/activist Jacob Riis and his mission to show everyone how the other half lives (in tenements) in the late nineteenth century.  The three of us have some practice at going through historical museums together.  This one was pretty lightweight.  We saw the Gutenberg Bible but it didn't come with a lot of background information.
Anyway, after not very long we were finished with being amongst a bunch of tourists.  Benjamin wanted to get into the Reading Room so he could touch some  books.

We crossed the street and he and Jon went into the Madison Building to get the proper documentation to be allowed into the Reading Room.  I sat outside with Benjamin's camera which uses real film -- he didn't want to send it through another X-ray machine.  They got their identity cards, but by then we had lost momentum and we were hot and ready for lunch.

There is a restaurant that has been on Jon's list for a while, a fast casual place created and owned by Jose Andres.  We didn't know much about it, but it's called Beefsteak and it is a vegetarian restaurant.  So we drove to Tenleytown and got lunch.  You choose from a big variety of pre-chopped vegetables, they steam them, you choose a sauce and a grain.  After we had eaten most of our bowl of healthy vegetables, we began the critique.  Benjamin didn't like the lack of a flavor theme. They give no direction about how to make something coherent.  You get to make all the choices and they don't necessarily go together.  We like sauces and flavors and this place was missing a flavor path.  So it was not a success. Also, to my picky taste in vegetables, these were nothing special.  I feel like they were sort of supermarket quality vegetables.  Whatever.

Our last errand was picking up seven bags of chicken feed from Nick Maravell in Potomac.  He grows certified organic grain and is also the father of Benjamin's past girlfriend (who is lovely and we all still love her), so when we just dropped by unannounced, Nick's wife whose-name-I-cannot-remember was gracious and gave us a tour of her brand new art studio.  That may have been the highlight of the day.  She has a spacious, beautiful building where she can paint and store all her materials and keep her paintings in a safe environment.  New buildings fascinate all of us, so we took a long look at all the choices she made. Lots of big windows and light colored wood and a big deck and so much storage space.

At the end of the day, Benjamin's assessment was that we had not learned anything.  Well, he learned how to get a card so he can go into the Library of Congress Reading Room anytime in the next two years.  He learned not to go to Beefsteak again.  But it wasn't like one of the days we spent in Spain, that's for sure. It did feel familiar and nice to be wandering around together but we are spoiled by our international venues. The next time we have a day to spend with just the three of us, we will probably be in a foreign country, and the food will be better.