How to get tickets to go up the Washington Monument

Even though I've been to Washington, DC a million times as a kid and have been living here for two years, I've still never gone up the Washington Monument.


For a couple years it was closed for renovation, but I do believe it's been opened for while since. You have to have a timed ticket to go up as I learned this weekend when I took this photo. Apparently you have to arrive on site at 8:30AM in order to get tickets to go up. Ha. Yeah right. On a day I would have time to go the monument (namely Saturdays), there is no way I'd wake up up at 8:30AM let alone be waiting in line for a ticket at 8:30AM. I love sleeping in on weekends. So what are those of us who are not early birds to do?

Well, we can order tickets at Recreation.gov. If you want to go on a weekend, it's likely you'll have to order yours a few weeks in advance. Or in the summer a few months in advance. The tickets are free, but there is a nominal fee per ticket for shipping and whatnot ($1.50 each when I checked), but the extra couple of hours of sleep is worth it.

I'm going to order my tickets soon, because it's about time I check out this DC from the best vantage point--within!

Un-translatable

As much as language shapes our reality, it is also largely inadequate. There is so much that language can say; but there is so much more that language cannot say.

So many times I have wanted to express a feeling or thought, but was unable to do so because words just couldn't fully grasp the nuance of the concept. I find this problem most often occurring to me when trying to express certain feelings or when trying to give accurate descriptions. I still love words though and think they lie at the essence of our being. Yet sometimes words can't suffice. And sometimes words must be twisted into artistic forms to more accurately represent the human experience.

All this thinking came about by stumbling upon these 20 Awesomely Untranslatable Words from Around the World . 20 words that don't have English equivalents. I know there are many many more out there, but I enjoyed this selection, which included:

Jayus
Indonesian – “A joke so poorly told and so unfunny that one cannot help but laugh”

Duende
Spanish – “the mysterious power that a work of art has to deeply move a person.”

Ya’aburnee
Arabic - “You bury me, a declaration of one’s hope that they’ll die before another person because of how difficult it would be to live without them."

Wabi-Sabi
Japanese – “a way of living that focuses on finding beauty within the imperfections of life and accepting peacefully the natural cycle of growth and decay.”

Schadenfreude
German – Quite famous for its meaning that somehow other languages neglected to recognize, this refers to the feeling of pleasure derived by seeing another’s misfortune.

and my favorite from the list (I can't imagine why don't have this one in English...):

Tingo
Pascuense (Easter Island) “the act of taking objects one desires from the house of a friend by gradually borrowing all of them.”

Trick or Treat?

Boo!


All trick, no treat.

Enjoy your Halloween.

Scary Glowing Pumpkin Faces

Yay. Nothing like carving pumpkins and turning them into jack-o-lanterns.


Students from my ESOL (English for speakers of other languages) conversation class managed to stump me. They asked why we call them jack-o-lanterns, and I had to answer, "I don't know." The best answer Wikipedia gives is the origin from the latin phrase ignis fatuus which is sometimes translated "will-o'-wisp, corpse candle, jack-o'-lantern, friar's lantern, gunderslislik, and wisp, a Folklore depiction of ghostly light sometimes seen at night or twilight over bogs, swamps, and marshes." Meh. That hardly helps. And the History channel will tell you a folk tale, but I think the common thread is that we don't know.

So why are you called jack-o-lanterns, scary glowing pumpkin faces?

Birthing Tent Spectacle

Awhile back at the great Frederick fair in Maryland, they had a very unusual event for fair goers to experience. That being the birthing tent. Yes, that's right. A fun filled tent full of very pregnant animals ready to pop out baby animals.

Right before we got there, a calf had been born and another cow was is in the process of giving birth. I have never seen such a thing, and I'm even from the country. I found the birthing tent to be a very bizarre spectacle. Why would people want to stand around and watch such a thing?

The poor cow was losing blood left and right. And the people there before us told us in great detail how they had to attach chains to the calf to help the mother push it out of her ealier. At one point, the cow started turning around, and the farmer had to announce that some on-lookers were in the "splash zone," and it was then that I decided this birthing tent was really not for me.

Does anyone else think that a birthing spectacle is distasteful? Sure, the babies are cute once they're born, but I like my baby animals the way I like my steak--wIth no knowledge of how they got there.

Some More S'mores Please

Graham cracker.
Toasted marshmallow.
Hershey's chocolate.
Graham cracker.

Assemble.
Eat.

Yum. It's s'more season. Get to having campfires people!

Falling for Fall

Even though I'm not too found of fall, because it represents the death of summer, I do appreciate autumn leaves (apple cider, campfires, fall fashion, and pumpkin carving).


There is no better place to experience fall colors than than in south central Pennsylvania. A drive through the mountains reveals stunning natural scenery at every turn. The photo above is from Laurel lake at the base of an amazing hike, Pole Steeple, that looks over the whole valley. So despite the dropping temperatures and shorter days, I still have a soft spot in my heart for fall foliage.

You may now Kiss the Bride. Not.

I want to take this post to reflect on weddings as one my best friends of all time got married this weekend. Congratulations Emily! You were soooo beautiful!

You know, I was thinking with her ceremony that it was the perfect balance between tradition and modernism. Sexist traditions were replaced with more female-friendly phrases. For example instead of the pastor saying, "you may now kiss the bride" he told both the bride and groom they could kiss each other. Instead of the bride's father giving her away alone, he referenced the bride's mother as well. She struck a perfect balance between the tugs of traditonality and modern sensibility.

I also enjoyed some of the other innovative things she incorporated into her wedding. Instead of throwing rice or blowing bubbles as the couple walked out of the church, the guests unraveled colored ribbons. Instead of lighting a candle, the bride and groom poured sand into a glass container; the grains of sand never to be separated again. She also had a great color (eggplant--purple for the color dummies among us) for the bridesmaid's dresses. And it didn't have any foo foo frills or ugly poofy sleeves. Emily is the model bride. Really, all brides should be like her.