I've wanted to come here for a long, long time - aside from being a history buff (and being part of a campaign), I missed my eighth grade trip to DC because my mom and I had stayed up late watching pro wrestling the night before and we overslept. So this one's for you, Mom!

I mostly wandered around the National Mall and surrounding areas, and only bumped into people 15 times gawking at the Washington Monument and other nearby landmarks. There was a group of protesters who had worked their protest into some kind of dance routine. Given my history with dancers, I kept my distance, but I did strike up a conversation with a guy who was also watching the dancers. "This is a new one, even for me, and I see this all the time," he said, a bit haughtily. "Where do you work in town?"

"I'm just visiting," I said, and he took a breath, expecting me to ask where he worked. I didn't, but he told me anyway. "I'm at State right now, but I could see myself at DHS down the road. That is, if I don't run for Congress first."

"Okay."

"I saw Secretary Rice last week," he carried on, enjoying an audience. "My boss, really."

"I saw a bowling ball with a skull in it last week," I replied, "but I don't work for it."

The people I do work for, though, are in DC, or at least some of them - Viva Bread has a small Washington office. I didn't get to meet Otis H. Basketry, our presidential candidate, as he was speaking in Madison, Wisconsin at the 14th Butter and Margarine Tasters Expo. The staffers I talked to said they had high hopes for the trip. "They're a natural constituency for us," said Greg, who was a senior adviser of some sort and had sent me an e-mail once about how to get campaign buttons. "We go together like... ready... bread and butter!" He said some in the campaign want to make the talking Parkay butter tub Otis's running mate but that it "wasn't a done deal." He also said "don't blog about this yet." Oops.

Now listening to: Leonard Nimoy, "If I Had A Hammer"

(Photo by merfam)