Darth Vader gets religion and DC libraries

It's been a tourist and tasks week for us. Our tourist experience started Monday morning with the grand opening of the first new library in DC in years.

Ginnie Cooper and her friends, notably June Garcia who consulted with Ginnie and the Library Board, put a plan in place to build 11 new libraries in DC, creating attractive, interesting public spaces, not using the cookie-cutter boxes approach DC was planning before Ginnie and June got here. The Benning Road Library, opened on Monday, is a tribute to every one's vision of what community libraries can be. It is light, open, airy and decorated with a wall of locally created art. It was wonderful to be there to watch folks ohh and ahh as they entered the space.

Tuesday was a tasks and tourist day. I treated myself to a visit to a local needlepoint shop while Jim took the Metro out to Montogomery County Maryland in search of Jack Daniels. The price of liquor in the District is so high it makes sense to leave town to buy booze. That night we celebrated our 8th anniversary with dinner out.

It was very warm here this week with the temperatures nearing 90 every day. We decided visiting an air-conditioned location was important. Since our friends the Boswells had recommended we see the National Cathedral, we figured out the public transit and went there. We arrived in time to hear a demonstration of the 10,000+ pipe organ, then took a tour of the cathedral itself. Although it is an Episcopal church, because it was built as the US National Cathedral the art, particularly the stained glass windows, tell the stories of US history. My favorite was the space window. This picture doesn't begin to do it justice. The colors are too washed out in the picture. Look in the middle of the red circle at the top. You'll see a small white circle with a black dot. That black dot is a rock from the moon. Buzz Aldrin, an alumnus of St. Albans School, one of three schools associated with the National Cathedral, gave it to the Cathedral to incorporate into the window celebrating Apollo 11.

But the best part of the National Cathedral is Darth Vader. Yes, Darth Vader's image has been carved into the Northwest Tower of the National Cathedral. You need a set of binoculars to see it which we didn't bring. But I may take our binocs back just to actually see Darth. Darth is a "grotesque" which means he carries rain water away from the building. He is up there as a result of a contest sponsored by National Geographic World magazine. School children were invited to design decorative sculpture for the National Cathedral and a young boy in Nebraska submitted a design of Darth as a futuristic representation of evil.

Being in Washington encourages me to get my exercise. Wednesday morning I circumnavigated the Washington Monument. This morning I walked around the White House and watched the Secret Service bomb-sniffing dogs check out the West Wing employee's cars. Tomorrow I think I'll walk to the Lincoln Memorial, past the WWII memorial. All in all, a lot more interesting than cruising the neighborhoods of Cleveland.