dave clearly has two passions in life:

it is nice to see that he could blend them both into a career.

yup.

i guess they do.

what to do when there is nothing to eat for dinner? turn to the back yard, of course!

pick some tomatoes and basil which are in full bloom in the garden:

gather some stuff:

mix it up in a pan:

change your mind about the type of pasta you want and…
ta da!

gorgeous and yummy pasta a la tom:

(i never think to just throw things in a pan…pretty nice that he is so willing to feed me, huh?)

the smithsonian national museum of american history had a jim henson exhibit while we were in dc. the exhibit was a bit too small for us, being huge henson fans, but getting to see these few wonderful creatures in person was pretty moving.

one note before showing you the pics: everything was behind glass which made them very difficult to photograph. we did our best but please excuse the glare and fuzziness.

and now…the muppets!

kermit and a jim henson look-alike puppet:

dr. teeth:

rowlf:

the sweedish chef:

and one of the kitchen rats from the muppets take manhattan (it’s not rizzo, though):

puppets from sam and friends:
(on the left you can see the very first kermit, made from jim henson’s mom’s coat)

ahhhh! skeksis!!!
(from the dark crystal)

a mystic:
(from the dark crystal)

and now, take a deep breath, and get ready to feel all mushy inside…

that’s right it ’s ma otter:

and emmet otter:

and their little boat:

just wonderfully lovely, right?

while in dc we went to the wonderful national building museum with j&l. (it is also tom’s favorite-ist museum, surprise, surprise)

it is a fancy building. check out those pillars:

we saw cool architectural photos that were smaller than we expected, an ok-but-not-great sustainable architecture exhibit and a huge interesting but overwhelming exhibit about washington.

j taking in some info:

tom and L, um, look at and talk about…um, i don’t know what:

ok, so this post seems a little boring as i am reading it but, seriously, it was a great trip to the museum followed by a tasty dinner (mmmm…chips) and the movie who killed the electric car? a fantastic day in my book!

ok…just one more post about the sleater-kinney show.

for posterity’s sake, right? ok.
the tickets (they took the stubs away from us on the second night):

the stamp that got us in, not long before we were told to get out:

the stamp that actually saw s-k:

it is also the stamp that witnessed, with us, our very first real encore. everyone is used to the planned encore where the house lights don’t come on and everyone just waits for the band to return and do the next 4 songs as expected. yawn. however, after the first encore, the lights came on and the club turned on the recorded music but everyone….just. stayed. and clapped until s-k returned to the stage and played a few more. that’s how an encore should be.