Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Letter to My Sister 4-1-2008

Hi, Nancy—

We took the dogs to Rock Creek Park on Sunday. It was not at all like spring—cold and damp without actually being rainy. The dogs of course thoroughly love this kind of weather. We walked along Beach Drive, which is shut down to motorized traffic from Pierce Mill to the Ranger Station (a mile and a half). About half way up to the Ranger Station, we crossed over Rock Creek on a footbridge and let the dogs off the leash on the trail that parallels Beach Drive. They were in puppy dog heaven, running at the top speed their little legs would take them. Fortunately, they don’t like to get too far from Nick and Jim, so Manny would tear off, Jamie in hot pursuit, go about 100 yards, check up on the old men, run back to us, and then repeat. They only took one wading session in the creek, so they weren’t as filthy at the end as we feared they might be (and I’m afraid most of the mud and sand rubbed off on our clothes on the way home). Nick snapped this picture of me and the pups about 1/3 of the way up on the trail—he’d stayed back to photograph and the dogs were keeping me company.

Nick was out of commission today so I took the animals for their midday walk. I keep saying I should bring the camera along and today I did.

I made my theme of the day the Victorian Mansions of Logan Circle, cherry trees and neighborhood front gardens.






I suppose I've said a hundred times that Logan Circle was nothing but drugs and prostitutes when I moved to DC. Now it is very upscale (reminds me of the neighborhood you lived in in Savannah—like Savannah, Logan Circle was too poor to tear down). Mostly the blog has consisted of political rants, so pictures of the neighborhood will be a change.



I think the one I like the best was of a white flowering fruit tree (apple?) set against a dark blue wall. Unassuming house (unlike the row houses on Logan Circle) but the limited color palate and the diffuse lighting (it had been a drizzly day—this morning reminded me of the trip Nick and I took to the Lake District) made for a nice shot.














It is now bright sunny and 74 degrees (my computer says). I sat in a chair in the sun in the garden for about 15 min. It looks like it will be a race between the growing power of the perennials and the digging power of the dogs. Little Jamie had chewed the spikes of a hosta down to the nub, but now the hosta is trying to stage a comeback and Jamie might not be interested the second time around. We’ve made makeshift cages to protect the peonies we rescued from Nick’s family house in Annapolis.

You asked about the Federal program to save the financial system. My guru for economics is Paul Krugman in the New York Times. He says that the most regulated part of the financial system, the traditional banks, have done ok in this current crisis. The most unregulated parts of the financial system—the investment banks, the hedge funds, the private equity—are the ones that have gotten us into this mess. So of course, the Treasury wants to relax regulation on the traditional banks and engage in a lot of wishful thinking on the rest of the financial system. There is nothing so bad that this administration can’t make it worse. (Bet I sound like my brother.)

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