To be fair there are a couple of exhibits worth your time. The Star Spangled Banner is super cool and well worth it. This exhibit is nicely designed, you see the flag and then read the history on the way out. Nice. I also enjoyed seeing Julia Child’s kitchen. It is her actual kitchen from her Cambridge, MA. home. Though I can see it only being of interest to a certain age of visitor. You can hear many parents telling their kids who Julia was. A lot of blank stares and “uh huhs” ahead. “Bon Appetit!” indeed.

The other exhibit worth mentioning is The First Ladies. The docent told us the exhibit will get larger, though it’s worth the time now. Take a look at all of the First Ladies portraits around the room and see if you can tell who the first one was to actually smile. As we sport 2 daughters, the First Ladies Inaugural gowns was a big hit. By-the-by, can someone take a better portrait of Michelle Obama? It may have been updated since we were there, but it looked like someone took Michelle’s pic with a cell phone. Come on.

So that’s it. It has a few things worth seeing but I’d skip it if I had a time crunch. I recommend the Natural History Museum, especially with kids in tow. A tip on parking: The Ronald Reagan Building. Located only a block away, you can park on weekends for $10 a day. Very convenient to the museums as well as the Washington Monument. Plus, it has super clean bathrooms and decent food court. It’s a nice place to stop for a drink or food and relax.

Erin, “I love the salad at school.”
Us, “Oh yeah, why?”
Erin, “Cuz it’s always fresh, there aren’t any tomatoes, hardly any lettuce and lots of croutons.”

“But that (3,000lb) scanner (that I paid thousands for) still works,” puled I. “Honey, you can buy a better scanner for eighty bucks these days, who will want that old dinosaur?” sez my smart wifey. “Well . . . “ that was the best I could come back with, lame-o. So I finally caved and loaded all that old computer shit into the XT and off we went to the Montgomery County Division of Solid Waste (Recyling Center).

What a cool place. I implore you to load up your “can’t-bare-to-part-with-these-I’m-going-to-fix-them-up-and-sell-them-on-EBay-treasures” and take them to be recycled. They take electronics, batteries, metals, wood, paint, kids, paper, books, on and on. Okay, they don’t take kids, I was just seeing if you were paying attention. We dropped off all of our computer stuff in a big box labeled, “Computer stuff.” Simple. TV stuff went into the “TV stuff” box. There are people at every station to help you. Did I forget to mention we also chucked about 10 old cable boxes? Where did they come from? There are signs near the electronic drop-off targeted especially for me, “ABSOLUTLEY NO SCAVENGING!” I gotta admit, I was looking through the box of other people’s old used shit and was actually saying to myself, “damn there’s an old Mac LC, why with just a few parts I could . . .” Let’s all say it out loud together shall we. “I could sell it on EBay.” Do you know how close I am to being on Style Network’s “Clean House” ? Actually, that wouldn’t be so bad, “Hey Niecy, how’s it going?”

I also need to admit how great it felt to just junk that stuff and move on. I now know it will be taken care of properly and that’s a much better outcome than I had planned. Plus, I now have way more room for any new projects I can scavenge! Let’s see, shoot on over to Craig’s List, and search for “used Macs.” Yeah baby, gotta run.

I wrote about it last year after the fact. I hoped to get the word out sooner this year, oops. :-) Been kinda busy.

Anyway, Camden Yard (even if the O’s play in it) is always a great place to see a game. We had to park on the other side of the Inner Harbor, but once again it was just gorgeous weather today so the walk was nice. The O’s had 2 separate ticket lines going for cash only $20 tiks on the upper level. It was a great deal, in and out of the ticket line in no time and our seats were in Sec. 348, right between home and third. Of course anytime you take kids to a ball game you feel like a mother bird because every time you look at your fledgling peeps their mouths are open. Tickets, parking, and food for 4 probably ended up being $160. I had 2 beers, my limit. Can’t miss on having Boog’s BBQ, and we didn’t. The Nats have Ben’s Chili Bowl, the O’s have Boog’s. Both are sure bets.

The Yankees hammered the O’s but good, 11-2. The newly minted Yankee, Mark “I’ll take the money and forget my hometown Baltimore” Texeira hit one out much to the dismay of the O’s faithful. It was a great old day at the ballpark. Now if my Natties will just come home.

One place we always visit is the Candy Kitchen, I recommend it.  Freshly made fudge and other goodies, sugar-free items as well.  Also, this time we went to a place some friends told us of, the Frederick Coffee Company and Cafe. We had a simple nice lunch, just what we were looking for, ie: it wasn’t McFatty’s. Give the Chicken Salad a try, it was great. We didn’t have coffee, but our friends say it’s very good. A favorite restaurant for lunch, (white table cloth) is Firestone’s, made even better by the fairly recent Frederick County smoking ban. There are a couple very cool toy stores in town. We like Dancing Bear Toys and Gifts, pop in there you won’t be disappointed. They have a fantastic array of interesting and fun toys as well as nicely chosen books.

As we’re strolling along, we come to a place I’ve wanted to investigate, the National Museum of Civil War Medicine. Or, as Lisa and I affectionately refer to it, “The Chopped Limbs and Blown-Off Chins Museum.” I should have known better than to take a 7 and 11yr old to a Civil War Medicine Museum. Hey, it’s a museum, it’ll be educational . . . plus admission was free that day. So what if they’re scarred for life, pays ‘em back for all the antique crap we got earlier in the day. Piss and moan about walking through an antique store and we just may make you look at a pile of amputated limbs. Oh, wait, they already saw that.

The museum is a small one, easily done in 30-45 minutes.  We learned that ambulances and hospitals got their start in the Civil War as did some early practitioners of what is now termed “plastic surgery.” We also learned what size saw you need to hack off a leg. :-) There’s a wall with pictures of  men with gruesome injuries/maladies . . . I steered my little one by that gem, 1 point for me. Most interesting was talking with the docent on the various surgical instruments. That’s where you learn about the “right tool for the job”, Civil War med style. My advice is to limit visits to this museum to kids 13 and up.

The entire time in the museum I kept thinking of my dear father-in-law, Milt. He left us a few years ago, much too soon . He was an Orthopaedic surgeon in Chicago AND a Civil War buff. We talked of going to this museum but we never made it.

With nicer weather days in our future, take time to visit Frederick. I think it’s time well spent.

*I actually love Aeropostale because it saves me so much fricking money it’s not funny. The girls love the shit from that place and it is so cheap. Don’t get me started on how great the Aeropostale outlet store in Rehoboth, DE is . . . plus no tax.  It’s sad I know this stuff.

As the van is skidding, the driver oversteers and the van flips over onto its top and is skidding toward the man walking. Fortunately the man was aware of what was coming and nimble enough to move out of the way. The van skidded to a halt, half in the street and half on the sidewalk.

Lisa immediately pulls her cellphone and starts to dial 911. I drive through the green light and pull over in front of the overturned van. I run up to the van and hope for the best. As I get around to the drivers side, the driver is already being pulled out by the guy that was walking on the sidewalk. The driver looked completely fine, shaken but fine. (As far as my non-medical eye could tell.)

I looked into the van to see if anyone else was in there. The walker told me the driver was the only one. I went back to Lisa to tell her that so far so good. She was on the phone with 911 and they gave her instructions for the guy, which I relayed to him. I don’t think he understood English, but he did understand my motion for him to stay seated on the curb.

The ambulance was there in a matter of minutes. We left him in their great care. Upon our return from bagels, incredibly we see the driver standing with a friend who had come to pick him up, the van still upside down. Jesus, this guy just flipped his van and he probably, don’t know for sure, refused a ride to the hospital and a much needed check-up.

Lisa was shaken pretty good. She said before we left the house she had a bad feeling. Whoa.

As I’m pulling into the drive-thru Erin pipes up from the back seat:
“What are we going to McFatty’s for?”

“My name is officer Johnny Low, PG Police, this stop is being recorded. License and registration please . . . “ sez he.
“Uh huh” sez me.
“Your brakelight is out.” sez he.
“Uh huh” sez me.
“Lot’s of accidents here on University” sez he.
“Uh huh” sez me.

So he walks back to his car with my ID and reg to do what they do in their cars. At this point I gotta admit I’m kinda gangsta leaning/scrunched down in my car. “Yeah yo, broken brake light and shit, that’s right. What’you looking at?”

I can see people driving in the opposite direction looking over at me. Hhhmm . . . they look like I look like I’m guilty of something more than a brake light. Damn, so that’s what I look like when I’m “tsk tsking” at that obvious perp the thin blue PG line has accosted. Good, another “one” off the streets. That look I’m getting only grows when PG cop number 2 pulls up behind Johnny number 1 lights flashing. Man, my street cred is through the roof. “Yeah, took 2 of dem bitches to stop me yo . . .”

“Here’s your work order for the light. You have 10 days to get it done. Have a nice day. You’re free to go.” sez he.
“Uh huh” sez me.