Things I'm Really Liking about DC at the Moment:

So the Cherry Blossom trees apparently peaked a couple of weeks ago, but I like them best right now, when the blossoms have fallen and blanketed the sidewalks and it looks like it's been raining pink confetti for days.

There's a Whole Foods on like every block.

Walking around on an average day I hear about five different languages.

Kibibi, the baby gorilla at the zoo. Whenever I take human baby to the zoo we go visit her (and if you need proof of evolution just compare a human baby and a gorilla baby, there is not much separating these two). Kibibi is almost always on the lap of one of the bigger gorillas. She is tiny and adorable and looks like this.

On a related note I like the lady volunteer who works in the Ape House at the zoo. She's there every time I go. I'm assuming she doesn't get any sort of payment. But she'll talk for days about the gorillas and orangatangs with an enthusiasm and love that is both endearing and contagious.

I giggle silently whenever I see a woman wearing business clothes with tennis shoes. I know this is the norm in big cities where people take public transportation. But it always make me think of Melanie Griffith in Working Girl. And that makes me think of Harrison Ford in Working Girl. And that makes me very happy indeed.

Whenever I go out in DC I feel like such a bumpkin. I've lived in Paris and the suburbs of Bangkok, but something about this city makes me feel like I'm wearing overalls and have a toothpick dangling out of my mouth at all times. And yeah, you'd think that would be a negative, but sometimes it's nice to feel completely out of place. Maybe it just reminds me of Thailand, where walking down a street was always a lesson in trying and failing to fit in. I think it's good for humility's sake to feel like a bumpkin from time to time.

I like that every time I go running I go past the National Cathedral and right in the middle of this oh so American capital of ours, in a neighborhood brimming with the preppriest of prep schools, is a building that would exist comfortably in the middle of Paris.

DC is a wonderfully weird city.