I never tire of the simple charms the hometown has to offer. Late in the afternoon on Friday, I delivered 1000 letters from people in Michigan to President Obama, encouraging him to keep pushing for stronger vehicle standards. After dropping my box off with a capable and polite young White House employee who looked like he hasn't slept in 22 months, I snapped this picture from the south steps of the Old Executive Office Building (Eisenhower Executive Office Building since 1999.) The OEOB (really now the EEOB) is apparently the best example of French Second Empire architecture in the U.S.
Next, I stopped at Swing's coffee shop at 1702 G Street. Swing's has brewed coffee in DC since 1916. Their legendary shop on E Street closed in 1986, but they somehow survived the Coffee Dark Years and opened the G Street shop in 1994. Their coffee is served and sold in various places around town. On G Street, they make a latte worthy of the best Italian counters in San Francisco, and one of the few properly made ones of which I am aware around here!
Said latte was consumed on a park bench in Lafayette Park, where you could feel the relative calm of the White House complex given that POTUS was wheels up to India. Across from me in the park was the most interesting street character downtown - a guy who walks around wearing barely there cut-off denim shorts and a walking stick. This tall dark, buff and blondish/grey dreadlocked man may be a street person, or maybe he just likes dressing like Tom Hanks in Castaway.
Such a Friday afternoon in our Nation's Capital made me wonder why I don't do it more often, since my office is a mere 2 blocks from Lafayette Park. Try it yourself sometime.
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