Three Beautiful Things 02/07/17: Light Knock on the Door, Diving into Pho, Ana Knows Animals

1. I was nearly finished with my soft cooked eggs over 7 grain crunch toast and cup of black tea with milk when I heard a light knock at the door. It was David from upstairs. He'd missed his bus. He'd awakened once, but said it was too early to get up and the next time he woke up, it was too late to catch the bus. He asked me for a ride to school. I crated the dogs, ate my last bite of egg and toast, put on my shoes, and drove David the five minutes or so it takes to get to Greenbelt Middle School.

2. I took a drive into D.C. today. First, I wanted to locate a neighborhood pub on Rhode Island NE called Public Option. It's only open Friday-Sunday and they brew their own beer and I wanted to check out exactly where it sits on Rhode Island and see what the parking around there looked like. Then I decided to drive on Rhode Island all the way to Logan Circle, navigate it, and see what it felt like to drive to the ChurchKey on 14th and Rhode Island NW. I succeeded. I drove to the Brookland neighborhood next and parked in a residential neighborhood that reminded me, in part, of the Eugene neighborhood I lived in and a little bit of the Whitaker neighborhood. I walked to a Vietnamese restaurant I've read about, Pho 12, and, departing from my usual chicken pho order, dove into an excellent bowl of seafood pho, my first ever, and tried to make each bite or each spoonful of broth taste different, randomly adding bits of basil, jalapeno, lime, and bean sprouts that accompanied the soup and by selecting which seafood I ate -- crab, scallop, shrimp, or fish ball.

3. Molly and Hiram asked the Deke and me to watch Olivia, David, and Ana while they went on a date commemorating the 25th anniversary of Wayne's World by driving up to Hanover and seeing the movie in a theater. We did it. When it was about time for the Deke to help Olivia and David get ready for bed, Ana and I sat together and read books and Ana demonstrated her ability to point to and identify animal pictures as I asked her, "Where's the duck?" "Where's the dog?" The cat, frog, bear and others. We had a lot of fun.