for your reading enjoyment

(This story is a old, but I haven't told most of you about this incident yet, and it's hilarious).

A few weeks ago I went to visit Bob in DC. So I had just left his place, when my little brother called on my cell phone needing help once again with his English 101 papers. I'm chatting with him and driving down Constitution Avenue near the Washington Monument. I was just pulling up to an intersection when the light turned yellow. I debated for a moment whether I should try to make it or play it safe and stop. I decided at the last possible second that I was going to see if I could make it through before the light turned red.

This, evidently, was a poor choice in the eyes of the officers who were parked at the corner of the intersection. Unfortunately, I didn't see that they were there until they had turned their lights on. Oops!

Like a good citizen, I pull my car over right away, get off my cell phone, and begin digging in my glove compartment for my insurance and vehicle registration cards. Up walks one of the fine DC police officers to tap on my window. (side note: I hate that cops come up to the passenger side window b/c then I have to lean all the way over to crank the window down. This would be so much easier if I had electric windows. But I digress...). The DC police officers, by the way, are also secret service (at least this one was).

Officer 1: Do you know why we pulled you over?
Me: Umm... because I blew that red light back there...
O1: [does not confirm reason why I was pulled over] Can I see your license and registration please?
Me: [hands over the papers he wants] I'm really sorry about that. I guess I thougth I could make it through the yellow light before it turned red.

Officer 1 goes back to his patrol car to do some very important cop things.

To talk to O1, I had to lean way over into the passenger seat to see him, so I sit back up to wait only to find that Officer 2 is standing right at my driver's side window shining a flash light in my face. He totally scared the crap out of me.

Me: Oh, hi. I didn't expect anyone to be standing there.
Officer 2: Yeah, we always work in teams.
Me: Oh. Nice.
O2: Do you know why we pulled you over?
Me: [thinking: didn't I already answer that question?] Because I tried to make it through the yellow light and it turned red on me.
O2: [still no confirmation as to reason why I was pulled over] So what are you in town for?
Me: Oh, I was just visiting a friend who lives in the District for the weekend. I'm on my way home.
O2: So you were visiting a friend?
Me: Yeah, a good friend of mine lives here and works on the Hill. I was just visiting him and am heading home now.
O2: I see. Where are you heading?
Me: Harrisonburg, Virginia - I'm at James Madison University
O2: What year are you?
Me: Umm... I'm a faculty member.
O2: Really? [very surprised]
Me: Yeah, I'm a librarian.
O2: A librarian, huh?
Me: Yup
O2: Say, could you recommend a good book on the depression?
Me: On the depression?
O2: Yeah, a buddy of mine recommended that I read up on the depression. You know, on some of the companies that helped to pull the country out of it...
Me: I'm not really good with recommendations. I could recommend something off the top of my head if you were looking for something dealing with 19th century Britian, but the depression is a little outside my area of expertise. [what does he think that I have a library catalog in my head?]

About this time O1 comes back to grace me with his presence. He simply hands me back my insurance card, registration, and license, and instructs me to be more careful.

O1: I don't know how they have the lights set up in South Dakota, but here, they're all along the sides of the street instead of over the top.
Me: Oh, OK - I'll pay closer attention next time.
O1: Drive more carefully now.

And that was it - no ticket, no warning citation. Whew.

So then I'm waiting for traffic to let up so that I could pull back onto the road. Evidently the officers felt that I was being hesitant in pulling back into traffic b/c they asked if I needed help and totally stopped traffic for me so that I could pull out. How nice of them :) I suppose they thought I was some country bumpkin from South Dakota who had never driven in city traffic before.

At least they didn't ticket me :)

the weekend in brief

The purpose in going up to DC, other than visiting Stacy & Nate, of course, was to go to the Cherry Blossom Festival on the National Mall. I made it too the Mall, but the weather kind of threw a kink in the festival part of the plans. Earlier in the week it was quite windy and rainy in the DC area, which had knocked most of the blossoms off of the trees. If there were any left, I didn't bother to look because all day Saturday it poured and poured and poured some more. Now you might think that put a damper on the day, but it didn't.

Instead of doing the outdoor festival & monument thing, we went through a few of the Smithsonian museums. We started with the Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden, which has a huge collection of modern art. Now I'm not a huge fan of modern art, but right now the Hirshhorn as an amazing exhibit featuring the photography of Hiroshi Sugimoto. He's done these beautiful black and white photographs that play with perceptions of reality and time and space.

We attempted to go through the National Museum of Natural History, but the rain seemed to have forced every junior high kid in the DC area into that particular museum. It was an absolute zoo. We stayed just long enough for me to see the Hope Diamond, but then we high tailed out of there to find a quieter, less chaotic museum. Oh, and the Hope Diamond...so much smaller than I had envisioned.

We ended up at the National Museum of African Art. Three of the major exhibit spaces weren't open because they're in the process of putting in some new installations, so I want to go back after mid-June to see what they'll be displaying then. We did go into the Castle briefly and walk by the White House, but with all the rain, we didn't feel like spending any more time outside than we had to.

On Sunday afternoon, I met up with Bob at the Great Falls Park. We rambled around the park for a while and had a chance to catch up with what's going on in each others' lives. It was the perfect way to end the weekend.

It was a great weekend, and it ended all too quickly. While I loved going to the museums and seeing bits and pieces of Washington, the best part of the weekend was spending time catching up with good friends.