Summer's End

August 25, 2013 – Summer’s End

The GMU fall semester starts tomorrow.  Teachers in FCPS report back tomorrow.  Wow, it didn’t hit me until this morning that summer break is just about over.  I wasn’t counting down the days, as I’ve done in years past.  Perhaps this is a sign of progress.  As I settle more and more into retirement, the academic schedule is loosening its hold on my psyche.  However, I’m truly excited about the upcoming class that I’ll be auditing at George Mason: Topics in 20^th Century American Art.  The professor has already posted the syllabus and I see that we’ll be focusing on the first four decades.  Among the artists we’ll be studying are John Marin, Edward Hopper, Georgia O’Keeffe, Edward Steichen and Alfred Stieglitz.  I always get Steichen and Stieglitz mixed up.  Both were photographers, both had galleries, but only one of them was married to Georgia O’Keeffe – and I never remember which one. 

This class promises to be a perfect blend of my dual interests in art and history.  It covers some fascinating times in U.S. history (Ragtime at the turn of the century, World War I, the Jazz Age in the 20s, the Depression years in the 30s), which I always enjoyed teaching to my ESOL students.  We’re even going to be reading and watching The Great Gatsby to gain a better understanding of the era.  I can hardly wait for class to begin. 

This has been a wonderful summer break, and Washington Summer Restaurant Week helped make this final week especially festive.  Three lunches out in four days!  Rasika West, sibling restaurant of the original Rasika, lived up to my expectations with its creative take on Indian cuisine.  Don’t miss the crispy spinach chaat, with its incredible combination of flavors and textures.  And the mango shortcake was pretty special, too.  Le MediterraneanBistro, a new French-Moroccan restaurant in Fairfax City, showed promise with its robust approach to familiar favorites.  And finally, I got a chance to try Wolfgang Puck’s Asian-inspired fare at The Source.  The velvety corn soup with tiny shrimp dumplings was delightful.  But the highlight had to be dessert.  Their carrot cake (15 layers!) was simply the best I’ve ever eaten, light and subtly flavored with a variety of spices, served with a scoop of ginger ice cream. 

Spinach chaat at Rasika West

Elliott digs into steak frites at Le Mediterranean Bistro.

Enjoying DC Restaurant Week in Fairfax City

Without a doubt, the world's best carrot cake, at The Source

I spent most of this last day of summer break outdoors to take advantage of the beautiful un-August-like weather.  First, I took a late morning hike across the Key Bridge with Marshall and my friend Cheri, followed by lunch at Tackle Box (mmm, grilled squid and fried green tomatoes) in Georgetown, and then window-shopping along M Street and Wisconsin Avenue before walking back across the bridge to Arlington.  Marshall was marveling at the cloud formations.  According to Marshall, who lived in California for 30 years before moving back to the DC area last February, you don’t see clouds in the sky on the West Coast.  I guess it’s either solid blue or solid gray, something I never would have imagined.  It gave me a new appreciation for the constantly changing vistas in our skies.  

Lunch at Tackle Box in Georgetown

The Potomac looking north from the Key Bridge

Kayaks at the boat house on the Potomac in Georgetown

 

Elliott kept himself busy this weekend with a new mini-project, i.e. hacking apart an old office worktable that we’re discarding.  It was a monster of a piece of furniture, unbelievably heavy as well as hideous-looking, that he had originally gotten at a government warehouse sale.  Rather than just putting the intact worktable out for the trash collectors (or for anyone else who wanted to pick it up), he decided to cut it into pieces.  First he removed the top from the legs.  He spent most of Saturday in the backyard trying to saw through or break apart the desktop.  He tried a variety of tools without any luck.  There seemed to be a layer of some impervious material bonded to the surface of the top.  So he decided to soak it in a homemade bathtub that he built in the backyard to see if that would loosen the top.  It didn’t.  Next, he went off in search of power tools he could borrow.  Finally, on Sunday, with the help of one of neighbors, Elliott triumphed over the desktop!  The dismembered top now sits forlornly on the side of the street, awaiting Tuesday’s trash collection.  But most importantly, this activity kept him outdoors and occupied for a good part of the weekend.