Blogging on the Powwow

As readers can see, I'm testing out a new "theme" for my blog. I love the picture of the Powwow River at the top and the dark colors, but I'm not crazy about the layout. I welcome feedback from my readers! There's a young man in my office who, as he says, is "low man on the totem pole." As the last one added to the staff, he has to be ready to do anything in order to move up. I think he'll do fine. He's bright and even-tempered and from what I can tell, a highly competent person. He's also funny as hell. But, he is sometimes the focus of jokes in our office "pod" - or our small cluster of work spaces. Last week he was working on his first bill. I think he was the first one to actually say, "baby's first bill," and then probably regretted it. He was lightly harassed about it for the rest of the afternoon. I suspect it was something akin to what goes on in junior high school locker rooms, but with a bit more soph...

Well, we're going to start today's blog post with a lesson on spelling. Readers might think that I have misspelled capital  in the title of this blog post, but indeed, I have not. CapitAl,  with an "A" is used to refer to the official seat of government for a state or country. CapitOl, with an "O" is used to refer to the building occupied by a state legislature. I had to remind myself of this when I moved to Washington. You can look it up here . Okay, back to Stella. Stella , the blizzard, that is. She visited the capital. In truth, she also visited the capitol itself, but more generally speaking, she visited the capital of the United States. It was my first adventure with snow in the city and probably the only one that I will have given that it's the middle of March and the cherry blossoms are (or were?) in bloom. Yesterday there was quite a bit of hoopla about what would happen in the event of snow. Would it be all snow? Would there be rain? Would ...

I'm back in Washington. Despite the frigid weather, I had a wonderful trip home, with many lessons learned. Never Underestimate When Being a Runner will Come in Handy Last Friday, I was on a flight that arrived at Logan Airport in Boston at 5:03pm. It was my goal to make the 5:10 C&J bus that would bring me to the Newburyport bus station, which is just five or so miles from my house. In theory, the bus arrives  at the airport at 5:10, but then starts making the rounds to each terminal, A, B1, B2, C, etc. As long as one does not fly into terminal A, one can count on a small cushion to catch the bus. I did some trotting inside the airport, because I knew it would be close. When I neared the exits I saw that it was 5:14...not likely that I would make the bus since I was in terminal B1. I got outside and hurried in the direction toward the C&J stop. Then I saw the coming toward me. I tried to flag it down, but failed. I felt defeated. Then a man who had witnessed my eff...

No, that's not a typo. It is  cr aa zy on "the hill." Actually, it might even be cr aaa zy! What an insanely busy time for everyone here. Even my workload has ramped up and I find myself rushing to carry out my tasks before the clock strikes 6:00pm, which is when I turn back into an academic for a round of evening work. This morning I took my usual route on my morning run, down North Capitol NE, straight into the U.S. Capitol. It's stunning, no? But, as soon as I arrived on the grounds I could see that things were different than usual. There was a significant police and Secret Service presence around the Capitol. I couldn't quite figure out what was going on, but then I remembered the president's first speech before the Joint Session of Congress tonight. As I ran around the National Mall I saw that fences, gates, and barricades had been put back in place, as they were for the inauguration. That's a lot of security to take care of in this one city. Stagge...

I'm sitting at Logan airport as I write this, headed back to Washington. A combination of meetings near home and the long holiday weekend kept me away from Congress for about a week. Somewhere during this time I realized that this is half-time for me. In about six months, I'll have completed my fellowship and I'll be getting ready to add another 500 miles to our Toyota Camry as I transition back to life on the Powwow River. (Is this where I point out that our 2007 Camry has more than 315,000 miles on it or should this information come later in this unstructured post?) Half-time. How did I get here so quickly? And, what do I think I'm doing writing a post that is titled "Half-Time" anyway? Let's be clear, I'm not even sure what half-time is. I know that it is the halfway mark in a football game. It is also when entertainment is available for spectators. But, that's pretty much it. I don't think that other sports have half-times, do they? B...

I think this past week in the Senate went by more quickly than any other week of my fellowship so far. There was a lot happening in the White House, in the Senate, and I was still trying to shake that chronic cough that had settled into my lungs. Let's face it - has there ever been this much excitement around a president? I'm sure there has, but not in my lifetime. That, I am sure. A week ago today we were learning about the ban on immigrants from seven Muslim majority nations. Lawsuits were being filed, protests at airports were taking place, and last Sunday I participated in a White House protest-turned-march to the Capitol over the ban. If I've said it once, I've said it one-hundred times. Richard Nixon never looked so good. I'm not even sure what happened on Monday; it's all a blur now. Tuesday morning I gave a video presentation for a colleague at the University of New Hampshire about fatal child maltreatment, so I got into the office late that morni...

Anyone who reads my blog or who knows me in person know that I am serving as a Congressional fellow this year, living and working in Washington, D.C. In my "real life," I am an academic - a profession that, when it is not killing me, I dearly love. I am also a community-level oboist who still practices giving a tuning pitch, just to make sure I've got it right before I head to rehearsal. And, of course I am many other things, too...spouse, step-mother, aunt, daughter, and so on. But, today? Today I was a social activist. It started with an email that I received last night that was sent to all of the current AAAS policy fellows . It contained a Facebook link to a protest today at the White House, in response to our new president's actions banning Muslims from seven different countries, from entering the United States . I opted not to attend the Women's March last weekend and I could see that I missed out. I didn't want to miss out again. So, even though I...