Books I've been reading lately

This past week and a half I've read some books that I never would have read if I wasn't married to a political science major doing an internship in Washington DC.  The first book is America, the Owner's Manual: Making Government Work for You by Senator Bob Graham.  It was required for Cody to read this book for an assignment that is due at the end of the summer.  Basically what the book outlines is the process whereby regular citizens can get involved in the government, the feelings that prompt an individual to get involved, and why it isn't as scary or meaningless as we seem to believe it is when our definition of civic engagement is to vote for president every four years and nothing more than that.  It was an interesting, easy to read book.  I'll be taking some of the principles that I learned about into my third grade classroom this next year, I think.  What better time to get involved then when you're passionate about something at 9 years old?

The second book I've read (and just finished) is entitled, The Anatomy of Peace: Resolving the Heart of Conflict by the Arbinger Institute.  While America, the Owner's Manual is good for Americans to read, The Anatomy of Peace is a book that every person should read.  It goes through how we invite conflict with others by the way that we view them--as objects or as people--and that even if we're offering to do something nice or cutting them a deal, if they know that we view them as objects, they will fight back, they'll respond with sarcasm and be unfair because they can feel that we don't view them as a person.  After learning about how we view people, the book goes through the reasons why we view people as objects: the boxes we're in (basically, different versions of pride: looking down or looking up pride), and how we can get out of those boxes so that we can begin viewing everyone as a person and stop the conflict that we are constantly inviting when we view everyone as an object.  This book is written in narrative form, much like The Peacegiver by James L. Ferrell, if you are familiar with that book.  I love that it's written in narrative format, instead of an instruction manual, because that's how humans learn! We learn through stories.  It gives you a lot to think about, and if you're brave enough (which I'm still deciding if I am), to discuss the things you learn about yourself with others (when do I view people as objects? Which boxes am I most comfortable in and that I use to justify viewing others as objects? etc.)  Very good read, highly recommend it.

Now I am about to embark on reading John Adams by David McCullough.  After reading 1776 in January, I'm really excited to read this biography. I like McCullough's style and I like biographies. Plus, I watched the movie they made based on this book a few years back with my Dad and really enjoyed the movie.

Air & Space Museum and American History Museum (plus, Founding Farmers)

On Saturday, Cody and I went to visit the Air & Space Museum and the American History Museum.  We spent a full, engaged two hours at the Air & Space Museum.  However, by the time we got to the American History Museum we started feeling tired, especially knowing that we wouldn't be able to have lunch until 2:30, since we had a reservation at Founding Farmers with our friends at that time.

This was my second visit to the Air & Space museum; I first came two years ago with my friend Amanda on my graduation-present-to-self trip.  On this second visit, I was able to be not as overwhelmed by the sheer amount of history and displays as I was on my first visit.  The part that I liked most about this visit was seeing Cody's reaction to everything. I learned some new things about my husband, such as his fascination with drones and his project in middle school on satellites in which he even fabricated a model of a satellite.  I didn't realize how cool he thought planes and rockets were, but where else would I learn those things?  Needless to say, I handed the camera over to Cody for the pictures in this museum.

Trans-Antarctic Flight plane, Polar Star

An early racing plane

The evolution of flight

Cody and a fake astronaut

American-USSR Space Station

Original Wright Brothers plane

Drone, Predator

At the American History museum, Cody and I first explored the exhibit displaying the original flag from which the Star-Spangled Banner was inspired.  We couldn't take pictures of the flag since it is fragile, but it was neat seeing it.  We also meandered through the America at War exhibit and Presidency exhibit.  By that point we had reached our saturation point and our exhaustion point. We were tired, very hungry, and our legs hurt from walking and standing around all morning and early afternoon, but also probably a little bit from our walk to the Jefferson Memorial on Friday evening to watch the sunset.  We sat down on a bench by the stairs down and played one game of tic-tac-toe, several rounds of Hangman, and then walked slowly to Founding Farmers for our lunch reservation.

American whip Philadelphia that was sunk during the Revolutionary War.
It was found intact under water and brought up.

Me and Cody sitting on our bench in the American History museum being exhausted.

Founding Farmers. How do I describe this restaurant? Fresh. Delicious. Not cheap but not too expensive. Definitely needing another visit.  Cody and I really enjoyed our meals at this restaurant. We also had fun catching up with our friends from our previous ward in Provo. They moved out here to DC about a month before Cody came, and two months before me.  They're planning on staying here until they have to move somewhere else. It was nice getting their perspective on things and further restaurant suggestions.

Insight on stuffy noses

As I've been fighting the Battle for De-Congestion this week, I did some research on what makes a stuffy nose, well, stuffy.  My inspiration for this highly scientific research question came from my observation that I had been blowing my nose all day, nothing was coming out (or hardly anything), and I was still stuffy.  It seemed to me that mucus was not the cause of my stuffy nose. And guess what? I was right!

According to Medline Plus, nasal congestion is not the result of thick mucus; it is from inflamed blood vessels. Inflamed blood vessels?! Then why have I always just blown my nose? Blowing your nose is actually one of the things that can make a stuffy nose stay stuffy for longer. It continues to inflame your blood vessels. Interesting.

Once I learned that I was exacerbating the problem by blowing my nose every ten minutes, I put my Charmin toilet paper squares away, and did a Google search for how to clear a stuffy nose, since obviously blowing your nose does not do anything to clear it.

I fell upon a useful wikiHow site: 3 Ways to Clear a Stuffy Nose.  Since it was about 11pm at this point and I didn't want to do any of the more complicated remedies (salt water, warm washcloth, etc.), I did the first recommendation after 1) Stop blowing your nose, which is "2) Before you buy anything, try breathing in deeply, then slowly exhaling all of your air. Hold your breath until you are empty.  Pinch your nose to avoid accidentally breathing out.  Rock your head back and forth slowly taking 2 seconds from looking at the sky to looking at the ground.  Repeat until you absolutely have to take a breath. Your nose should be decongested."  And hallelujah, it worked!

Why on earth would such a strange thing work? The wikiHow explains, "The way this method works is that your brain realizes that you need to breathe, so it opens up your nasal passages by lessening the blood flow to your nose.  Typically the congestion is caused by increased blood flow to that area-that's why you can blow your nose and nothing comes out."

Then I experienced the second most annoying thing about nasal congestion: I can breath out of one nostril but not the other. Why?  I did another search and learned that our nostrils are almost always "taking turns" so to speak. One nostril works harder than the other and then they switch so that our sense of smell is more complete (something about scent molecules breaking down at different rates from each other...), and so that our nose stays nicely filtered and humidified.

In conclusion: The nose is more cool than I thought. I don't need to ever waste my time with blowing my nose when it's congested again and I hope you won't either.

Art Museum of the Americas & National Museum of Women in the Arts

The first museum I want to share my experience is the Art Museum of the Americas. I was going to visit but then I needed to wait for them to finish installing their latest exhibit: Fusion. Fusion is an exhibit about the Asian influence in Latin America and it's art and artists. I took some photos from some of the information sheets about different artists and I'm just going to include those in their fullness because I found them really useful.

Result of this museum visit: I think that Arturo Kubotta is a new favorite artist and the series done by Tomie Ohtake on the creation are among my favorites. Why? I really like Kubotta's portrayal of the universe. I think it is beautiful--a lot more beautiful than my non-professional camera will allow me to show you.  With Ohtake's painting from the Creation of the World series, I love how there is light appearing in the darkness.  I know it looks mostly brown in the photograph, but it closer to black in real life, with a slight rim of red and orange appearing around the circumference.

Las Palmas (The Palms), 1973, M. P. Alladin, Trinidad

Another view of Las Palmas by M. P. Alladin

Interior wall leading from one room to the other in the Art Museum of the Americas

This wall is a work of art in itself! It is so beautiful! And blue! Loved it so I took a picture.

View of the "backyard" of the museum, standing in the blue mosaic hallway

Solemn Pact, 1980, Manabu Mabe, Brazil

Untitled from the series Creation of the World, 1994, Tomie Ohtake, Brazil

Another view of Untitled by Tomie Ohtake

Endlessly Spacious, 1962, Arturo Kubotta, Peru

Another view of Endlessly Spacious by Arturo Kubotta

Cosmic Sedimentation, 1963, Arturo Kubotta, Peru

Another view of Cosmic Sedimentation

Now begins the second art museum visit: the National Museum of Women in the Arts. First of all, can we just appreciate how lovely the building is?

First floor interior of the National Museum of Women in the Arts

Second floor interior view of the museum

Now, here's some of the art pieces that stuck out at me as I wandered.

Still Life of Fish and Cat, after 1620, Clara Peeters, Flanders
Peeters is the only Flemish women known to have specialized in still-life painting as early as the 1620s.

This piece was painted in the early 1600s and looks like a photograph! The detail on the fish, shrimp, and cat are astounding!  The fish look so real, especially with the light that she painted on reflecting off of their scales.  I'm just amazed at the beauty and realism of this still-life.

Portrait of a Young Boy, 1817, Elisabeth Louise Vigee-Lebrun, French

Plain and simple: I liked this one because his smile reminded me of my nephew's smile.

4 Seated Figures, 2002, Magdalena Abakanowicz, Poland
From the information sheet: "Known for her innovate off-loom sculptural techniques,...these handless figures may relate to the artist's personal experiences; she witnessed her mother being shot in the hands as soldiers stormed their hom in Poland during World War II. Abakanowicz notes, however, that the figures are genderless and do not suggest any particular race: 'They are naked, exposed, and vulnerable, just as we all are.'"

Whether or not these four seated figures in any way represent the experience that the artist witnessed during the Holocaust, I like the artist's own statement about how they reflect everyone in our naked, exposed, vulnerable state.  How many times have we sat down feeling like these creations look?  Hoping no one would notice us but hoping they would, at the same time?  I also think that the way she manipulated the fabric and made it sit up is really neat. I would never think of doing that!

To Kiss the Spirits: Now This Is What It Is Really Like, 1993, Hollis Sigler, American

I like this artist's rendition of death: climb up a twisting staircase in a pillar of light and slowly turn into an angel. Also, the brushstrokes reminded me of Van Gogh's Starry Starry Night.

After the Storm, ca. 1876, Sarah Bernhardt, French
From the information sheet, "She based this image of a woman cradling a child on a scene she witnessed on France's Breton coast. Bernhardt's composition also recalls Michelangelo's well-know Pieta sculpture, where the Virgin Mary holds the dead Christ.

I love France. I love sculpture. I love the Pieta. I love this sculpture and the story of grief that it so plainly is telling.

Lady With a Bowl of Violets, ca. 1910, Lilla Cabot Perry, American

For anyone who has seen BBC's Bleak House, doesn't she kind of resemble Lady Deadlock? That was my first thought. My second thought as I examined the painting more closely is that I like the impressionist leanings, especially in the light landing on her clothing, yet still results in a recognizable portrait.

Allergies or Sick?

Yesterday after walking around town with sporadic rain, I came back to the Barlow Center, plopped down on the couch and began reading my book.  Shortly thereafter I began sneezing and having a runny nose.  This continued for the next five hours until I decided I was done with it! I took my sorry-sneezy-runny-nose-self and walked down to CVS (wishing the whole time that I had a car even though it was a 7-10 minute walk away), bought some Benadryl and popped two of those pills into my mouth right there in the store.

(Side note: I think the last time I took Benadryl was in high school, probably about 8 years ago. I knew it would make me tired but I hadn't predicted the effects it would have on me, personally.)

I didn't start to feel the drowsy effects until the last 20 minutes of Institute. Then it took all I had to keep my head up off the table. As soon as the closing prayer was said, I handed my stuff to Cody, stumbled upstairs, tore of my clothes, and thought how glad I was that I'd planned ahead enough that I'd brushed my teeth before Institute so that I could then just crawl into bed.  I have a vague recollection of when Cody came back into the apartment, but I remember thinking, "I can't move my body if I tried."

Grand total of how much I slept last night? Probably about 12 1/2 hours.

However, even with that half day's worth of sleep, I am still coughing and I have a stuffy nose now, not a runny one. Perhaps I'm still getting the Benadryl out of my system, but now I don't know if I'm sick or if it was just allergies...

**I wrote a guest post for my friend Kensie on her blog gracefullykensie.blogspot.com. She posted it today and you should check it out.**

Valley Forge and Philadelphia

This past weekend the whole Washington Seminar group + Elder & Sister Fulkerson (senior missionary couple assigned to the Barlow Center + Professor Goodliffe's family went on a bus ride, first to Valley Forge, and then on Saturday to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Here are some of our photos from the trip. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. I'm not really in the mood to write down everything we did.

Murray, our guide at Valley Forge 

Outside a replica of the hut that George Washington made the soldiers build during their time at Valley Forge 

Arch built in memorial

Washington's Valley Forge Headquarters 

Outside Washington's Headquarters

Standing in front of the George Washington praying statue 

Independence Hall in background in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Posing with the Liberty Bell

The Liberty Bell

The bell and me

View of Independence Hall from the Liberty Bell

Standing on the court side of Independence Hall--essentially the first Supreme Court in the US

Court side of Independence Hall

Declaration of Independence & Constitution writing and signing side of Independence Hall 

The famous side of Independence Hall

Famous side of Independence Hall--even with the seat George Washington sat in with the rising sun

A cool statue I saw on our walk through Philadelphia dedicated to the Holocaust