Catching Up

So Jamee's out of own in Charlotte for about a week. So I'm here with Tilda by myself for a couple of days. Well, technically not really, because dad come up for the weekend and watched her last night while I went to a concert with Emily.

So, since Jamee was out of town I Netflixed a couple of things that I knew she would want to see. The first night of bacc'ing it I watched Right at Your Door, a low-budget flick about a guy who gets stuck in his house when a series of dirty bombs get set off in Los Angeles. It's pretty good. Small-scale and scary, but it kept bugging me trying to figure out where I'd seen the male lead before. Turns out it's Rory Cochrane, who played of my favorite characters in Dazed in Confused. I thought he'd disappeared after that one, but he's apparently been working steadily since. Which is nice.

My dad and I watched Breach on Friday night. It's the one about Robert Hanssen, the FBI agent who was selling secrets to Russia for twenty-something years. It's a solid picture, and It's weird seeing DC locations in movies now that I've been living up here for eight years. Which brings me to a quibble with the flick. Hanssen was arrested the weekend Jamee and I moved to Ashburn. And unlike in the movie, there was no snow. Because if there was, I'd be even more pissed at the people who bailed on helping us move (None of whom read this. I think.)


So, on Saturday Dad and Tilda and Emily and I went to DC. Technically, Emily was already there. We went to the Natural History Museum where Emily is now doing an internship (a picture of her with her lunch can be found here is you scroll down to the R's). We walked around for a good six hours, taking a break to get lunch at the American Indian Museum, which we walked to. And Tilda did not tire. At all. She also did very well with the escalators. To my knowledge it was her first time riding one and she did great. Older kids were freaking out, but not Tilda.

She saved that for the dinosaurs.

Apparently dinosaur skeletons, like the Joker, freak her the fuck out. We'll try that again later.

She did like the new mammal exhibit, which is like a big zoo where all the animals are dead, and she seemed to really enjoy the bones exhibit, which is a long hallway lined with glass cases filled with skeletons. She's freaked out a bit by human skeletons, but she didn't have a problem with the one there. It's a pretty cool exhibit, too, and goes to show that context is everything. A hall full of skeletons in glass cases in a museum is neat. In your neighbor's basement, not so much.

We also found out this weekend that Tilda likes snakes and bugs. There was a display of a couple of snakes and according to Emily, Tilda pointed at them and labeled them "Mommy 'nake, Daddy 'nake, Tilda 'nake." Which is unbearably cute.

And I could not drag her away from the Insect Zoo. Which would horrify Jamee.

There are things that Jamee does not like. One of them is in the following picture. It is not me.


It's kind of hard to make out, but that big black thing halfway up my forearm is a Madagascar Hissing Cockroach. They had a petting zoo portion of the Insect Zoo and the thought of letting a four inch long cockroach crawl up and down my arm horrified and repulsed me.

So I did it.

It was cool.

Tilda would not allow it. We shall save that til next time. Oh yes.

We then went to the gemstone exhibit that Tilda loved because I think she thought it was a store. So she likes skeletons, snakes, and bling. We are not warping her at all. Maybe I should play her more Alice Cooper.

We're going to have to go back to the Natural History Museum in the fall when the Ocean exhibit opens up. All you can see of it now is the giant whale they have suspended from the ceiling. I showed it to Maddy and said, "It's a whale, just like 'Find Him'."

Which brings us to the next post, which I will hopefully have up tomorrow.

But no promises.