We walked out of the zoo and rented red bikes with our iPhones. Rode to Dupont Circle so we could make it to The Phillips Collection in time for a reservation. It’s this private art museum where some wealthy family has been collecting art for 100 years or something. Biked across the bridge that goes over Rock Creek. Lots of trees down in the bottom. I saw a white horse in a ring.

Parked our bikes and wandered through this old neighborhood with beautful townhouses (turrets, wooden, is that considered Victorian? idk) smoking a joint and look on the map to see that we’re standing in front of the Embassy of the Republic of Bulgari.

Saw some good art. I have grown up in a place where talking about art is pretentious. My blog uses a serif font which might take it up a step.

  • I almost tripped over backwards Hollow Egg by Alexander Calder
  • A quilt by Malissia Pettway, and other quiltmakers from Gee’s Bend, Alabama
  • Linear Contruction in Space No. 1 by Naum Gabo
  • Egg Beater No. 4 by Stuart Davis
  • Recovery Drawings by Alfonso Ossorio, and Excelsior
  • Maman Calcule by Aimé Mpane
  • The Repentant St. Peter by El Greco
  • Transversion by Irene Rice Pereira
  • To the Right, to the Left by Paul Klee
  • One I should’ve written down that had the colorful musical blobs moving along the horizontal lines, early 20th century ?
  • Matisse, a lunch by Renoir, Joan Miró, Van Gogh, Matisse ripping off Van Gogh’s lines, etc
  • Southern Monument XI by William Christenberry
  • The Migration Series by Jacob Lawrence
  • Trail of Tears by Benny Andrews

We didn’t spend as much time as we should have because we needed to eat lunch before our reservation at another museum (everybody requires tickets now and there are less people, pandemic). Left and walked down a street with mostly old Ginko trees.

Smithsonian American Art Museum. Kinda went through it quick. Tired, too overstimulated.

  • Mourning and Dreaming High by Sandra C. Fernández
  • Michel Menchaha
  • Lonnie Holley
  • Thornton Dial from Alabama
  • Alexander Bogardy
  • Emery Blagdon
  • Sam Gilliam, born in Tupelo, Mississippi

Landscape section needs some Theora Hamblett.

Got to see the Electronic Superhighway again and other Nam June Paik stuff.

We ate a lot of good food. One server came to our table and asked if everything was okay, and we told him, “It’s great. So good.” He came to check on us another time and we would say exactly that again and think while the words came out of my mouth that I’m not expressing how good it was, not using the right words. Then we said it a third time.

I’m not qualified to write about food but at this one meal I ate duck on top of pureed parsnips, with some sweet vinegar-y quick pickled cucumbers and charred green onions. Simple and good. Also had an appetizer with pickled ginger pink peppercorn cream cheese.

Tried to find a bar after dinner. It’s weird how this place shuts down after 10pm. Walked down another street lined with Ginko trees.

Supposed to eat dinner at Le Diplomate. The reservation is at 9:45pm. We want to go but also feel guilty about not hanging out with Zoe’s family. Family said they heard that President Joe Biden ate there yesterday. We ended up overdressing because we were nervous it’d be full of old white people like Joe Biden and can’t afford it. (If somebody would like to pay for me to go on vacation and write about it, please email me at smcalilly@gmail.com.)

Sitting on the street at their outdoor dining area. It occasionally smells like sewage, only for a moment. Cheese board. Food was great, so good. French.

Asked a stranger for a lighter. A third Ginko-lined street.

Zoo

The early morning zoo, walking alongside children and their parents.

Clouded Leopard curled up in the corner platform yawning.

Giant Panda leaning back against a tree eating bamboo. A family takes a photo with the Panda.

Asian Elephant, flapping ears, swinging tail. It seemed uncomfortable then peed like two gallons of urine.

Saw the ears and eyes of a Maned Wolf peeking out of it’s cave. We made eye contact then it continued to nap.

Ruppell’s Griffon Vulture, perching on a rock, cleaning its feathers with its beak. White bird poop splattered rock.

Red River Hog eating the dirt. Tail moving like the elephant but much smaller and quicker.

Cheetah, laying in the grass, licking itself, yawning. Companion cheetah sleeps in the grass.

People, parents, children, gawking, making the noises that crowds make, laughing, talking, yelling, crying.

The Bison pen smells like a cattle farm or the Tupelo Buffalo Park.

Cicadas brood, constant whir. Birds chirping but the bird house is closed. Zoe asked if the bird noises are real or from hidden speakers.

Przewalski’s Horse, a wild horse. They recorded that song in Muscle Shoals, Alabama.

Another Elephant with tusks. Younger elephant hesitating to step into the pool of water. The pool has a large step and the elephant looks scared to take the step. It doesn’t use the ramp into the water. It walks to the metal feeding contraption and eats grass. Makes me thirsty for water. Cages like Jurrasic Park or something.

Deer in the Elephant ring, browsing on some White Oak leaves. Looks like it runs free throughout the park because it can easily fit through the Elephant fence. At least I assume that because that’s how Deer navigate the world in some places. (In Oxford, Mississippi, you can apply for a permit to bow hunt in the city limits because the deer population has crept into the city.)

North American River Otter, playing. Looks like fun gliding through the water. Doing laps back and forth, body shaped like a torpedo. American Beaver with it’s wide flat tail. Cute. Some ducks swimming around with them.

Bald Eagle. In first grade we went to the zoo and they said it’s bald because it has a white head. I asked my cousin Caroline, “Does that mean Granny is bald?” Caroline thought it was hilarious.

A Harbor Seal and a Gray Seal in the same container as the Eagle. Much more interesting than the Eagle. It moves through the water like the Otter. It came up to the top of the water and popped its nose out to breathe. Whiskers! Looks fun to swim around like that and not have to worry about predators.

California Sea Lion. Smells fishy. More whiskers! And a nose. Chasing each other under water. Brown Pelican looking over the scene. The Sea Lion underwater swam up to the kids standing by the window. An older child traced their finger along the window and the Sea Lion swam around following it. A curly haired boy said, “That’s how they play!”

Andean bear up in the tree. Curly haired blonde boy, no older than three, said, “There’s the bear! Up in the tree! See it mommy! It’s the bear! Why is he up there?”

“She’s eating the berries,” somebody said.

“Why is it eating berries? I eat them.”

The sign says that they make nests in the tree for sleeping. They also eat the leaves and berries.

We somehow ended up in the kid’s farm. Goats on a playground. Smells like a Cow farm. A woman feeding the Goats. Donkey taking a poop. Black and white Cow licking its leg.

Dead Cicadas smooshed on all the walking paths.

Prarie Dogs smelling each others’ breath to know whether or not they’re strangers.

Tigers! Looking at us in the same way we’re looking at them. It looked at me and I blinked at it. I borrowed Zoe’s glasses to make sure it’s looking at me. It’s not.

Oh my gosh a Lion! Mostly napping, maybe depressed. Zoe said, “Just a pile of hair up there.” Ducks swim in the Lion’s pond.

T. Rex fossil, juxtaposed next to the Great Cats.

Allen’s Swamp Monkey jumping through the rafters trying to catch a Cicada. The Cicada escapes the cage. I squatted down and monkey came up to me and looked at me through the glass. We blinked. Zoe told me a story about looking at the monkeys at the Jackson Zoo. Apparently they freaked out but I didn’t believe it.

They built a network of towers with metal cable linking the towers, so the orangutans can swing outside of the cage. We see an orangutan swinging around looking at tourists.

Walking by the Crocodile cage and a woman says this about Florida: “I wish we could cut the whole thing off and let it float into the sea.” Dare I ask her how she feels about my home state of Mississippi?

Massive centuries-old looking Aldabra Tortoise eating clover.

Western Lowland Gorilla, sitting on a rock with its arms holding its knees like a person might sit on a rock, doing I guess what is “thinking.” It looked at me! We blinked at each other. Some repetitive noise pops in the Gorilla’s environment, like somebody is breaking some sticks, but it sounds mechanical with a cadence. Maybe the electric fence. The Gorilla glances at the direction of the noise.

We went back to the Wolf on our way out. Still asleep.