DC Spinster

I called a friend today, a former running buddy who got married and moved out of DC; he asked me how things were going. I said, "Everything sucks." 

I was losing money in my retirement fund, down 45% this year alone despite this month which was the most robust in 30 years, I ate my Thanksgiving dinner alone (oh, doesn't that warm your heart Sharon!) and the holiday season was upon us which keeps me depressed from Veterans Day till March. You see, I have 3 children, all now in their early thirties, who threw me over and ceased all communication with me or any Lamberton due to the divorce two decades ago thanks to her insidious, invidious utilization of PAS back then when they were tender children and my three children all have their birthdays in January or February.

This makes me sad every holiday season. So my friend, a very smart man, embarked upon an enlightening discussion thinly disguised as a quest to find the winter of my discontent and he asked me to list three things that were good in my life now.

I was hard pressed to say what made me feel uplifted currently but I finally settled upon the very important and blessed situations that a) I have enough food to eat (no food insecurity); b) I have enough liquids stored to drink for several months if necessary; and c) all of my five siblings are alive (which is more than I know about my three children). We simultaneously decided that I wished I knew more about the welfare of my real family (my kids) during this lugubrious season; and I decided further that it would be decent or human to know not if I have any grandchildren, but how many I have, and how they are.

Besides Christmas or Thanksgiving, which cause the heart to bring forth images of family and longing memories of missing loved ones, Columbus Day is the holiday I most dislike.  Nineteen years ago during The Divorce  I brought my children back from a lovely trip to Ohio to visit their cousins and aunt and uncle and that night their mother called Dr. Victor Elion, a charlatan court-house-lounging psychologist who acquired visitation overseeing powers over my visitation thanks to the careless writing of an order by my dreadful then-divorce attorney, to complain that I had brought the children home "tired."  He completely suspended my visitation privileges that night, ex parte, and I wasn't able to restore my rights until after a hearing scheduled two months later and by then, the children had turned against me by application of PAS, a form of brainwashing which immature tender children are especially sensitive to, by their mother and her coterie of agenda-driven hired gun social services "professionals" no better than Dr. Elion.  I remember thinking at the time that 60 days of no communication with my children was heartbreakingly cruel and painful.  What did I know then in my ignorance, I haven't seen nor heard from any of my children in 15 years.

But you don't have to take my word for it.  You could google my name and the name of my oldest son, James Bradley Lamberton, before he changed his name to her name on his eighteenth birthday, and find an opinion by the Virginia appellate court on how that divorce went, which contains phrases like "reprehensible." a "harassment petition" and "unjustified" in describing the actions of the mother during the litigation.  She was assessed sanctions and my costs of just under $50,000 finally which ended the litigation finally after several dreadful soul and money sucking years.

So I hate Columbus Day, it immediately conjures up memories of my lost children and the unfairness men mostly face these days in heartless domestic law courts.  For years I have maintained a public outreach to my children on this very venue, letting them know that on any holiday during which I am home that I would be at a nearby pizzeria to where they grew up during the noon hour and inviting any or all of them to join me so we could, as adults in a loving family, could pick up the threads from this day going forward.  After all, until each one turned 18, I was always at their curbside every other holiday or Friday at 5 pm to undertake my court-ordered visitation and partake in the custody order (full joint legal custody), although they (nor their mother) never answered my cellphone calls to the house and after ten minutes I would drive away to return on the next holiday or twice-monthly Friday.

No one besides a forlorn fellow sufferer in the Arlington Court who I didn't know (I thought she was serving me a subpoena when she approached me in the restaurant as I ate) who was undergoing the very same PAS applications that I suffered from.  She described the same unfair and dreadful undertakings  by the same cast of characters in the case she was associated with, like, in my opinion, the odious and unprofessional Meg Sullivan, LPSW, that in my opinion in conjunction with other hired whore "professionals" extrajudicially cost me my fatherhood.  But I persevere.  Today, even during the pandemic, I parked at noon within sight of the front door of the Lost Dog Restaurant in Westover, donned my mask and checked out the inside quickly and ordered a Polynesian Pie, spent the time it was cooking in my car watching people entering or leaving the front door of the premises, received a text at 12:33 that my pie was ready, watched for a few minutes more then picked up my pie and a few minutes later drove home to enjoy it.  I am sorry for those three, as the fatuous Dr. Elion used to refer to them as, lads, now all adults in their thirties.  What men they should be, that they so easily cast family members out on temptations offered to them by others, even though as young children but now mature adults! 

Happy Presidents Day.  The greatness of Abraham Lincoln is even recognized in London, as he holds down a section of Parliament Square opposite Disraeli

The British also recognize the greatness of the Father of Our Country.  A statue of George Washington is in Trafalgar Square, outside of their National Gallery, which also houses a Stuart Gilbert portrait of Washington.

FDR has a corner of the Tidal Basin all to himself, tucked away between the Jefferson Memorial and the MLK Memorial.  He shares its expanse with Fala, Eleanor, a barefoot person huddled around a radio set listening to one of his uplifting weekly addresses that is addressed to all Americans and not just his base, and Hooverville people lined up on a food line.

After those towering Great Presidents (one gave us our country, one saved our country and one saved the world), I'd say the slightly lesser pantheon of great presidents starts with Teddy Roosevelt, the Trust Buster who addressed to some degree the obscene wealth inequality that had crept into our capitalistic society during the Robber Baron era, and that has regrettably insinuated itself back into our current society even worse, especially after the democracy-wrecking Citizens United supreme court decision.  I think I'll go get a pizza for lunch on this holiday and ponder our fork-in-the road future, with portentous November coming up.

Tomorrow is the President's Day holiday.  Perhaps in a few years, or as early as next year if the 40% aided by foreign interference have their way, it'll be moved to Trump's birthday for the holiday.

But in the meantime, the District is full of reminders of real presidents.  Monuments, memorials, portraits and hidden away statues, like this statue of a kneeling Lincoln in the Washington National Cathedral, tucked away in a little alcove on a stairway.

The Washington Monument is the most significant and noticeable of all the presidential tributes here.  I use it to check on the arrival of bad weather from the west, and to try to orient myself if I'm lost on all the diagonal streets in the District, so long as I can see it.

Sometimes I catch a nice shot of a memorial that is a result of the wet weather in the District, like this photo I snapped of the Jefferson Memorial shrouded in fog from across the expanse of the Tidal Basin, maybe a half mile away.  Tomorrow being a holiday, I'll celebrate by enjoying lunch at the local gourmet pizzeria as usual on holidays and special days and who knows, maybe my oldest child, whom I haven't seen nor heard from since, I think, about 2009, will show up to enjoy sharing the meal with me; after all, he has a birthday a few days later and I'll be there then too, looking forward to seeing him then also, or for the first time in over a decade.  ;-)

The Martin Luther King weekend holiday this year was pretty eventful.  The weather turned bitterly cold and it snowed briefly after a spate of unusually warm weather.

 On Sunday I went to the evening wedding of the daughter of a friend and former colleague of mine down on the new DC waterfront on the Anacostia River. The bride and groom made for a handsome couple, and we danced into the night and I made the last Metro train for the night back to Virginia by a bare 4 minutes.

On Monday, being the actual holiday, I went to the local gourmet pizzeria for lunch, where I had a tasty Cheese Steak pizza, which tasted much like a Philly cheese steak sandwich, and enjoyed an excellent Allagash Curieux draft, brewed by a Portland (ME) brewery in a process that ages the beer for eight weeks in barrels formerly used to age bourbon.  The place was busy so I ate at the bar and planned my next three lunches there next month, on President's Day and the two birthdays of my February babies.

After lunch I went down the street a short way to the Stray Cat Cafe, a sandwich, draft and hamburger place that had recently undergone a makeover to add all-day breakfast, Mexican food and shakes and floats to its menu and renovated its interior.  Inside I made the acquaintance of a retired scientist and we had a fascinating conversation about sound waves, mudslides, political assassinations, reading and writing, GIFs and, wait for it, divorce and its deleterious long-lasting effect upon children deeply affected by a parent suffering from a narcissistic personalty disorder (NPD).

I started off the new decade with a run in the morning.  Then later I went out for lunch at a nearby pizzeria.

I ordered a draft and a Greek Pie pizza.  It arrived with plenty for anyone and everyone to eat.

The pie was a delicious combination of homemade pizza sauce, sliced tomatoes, feta cheese, olives, onion and spinach and I had soon enjoyed some slices.  Leaving some leftover fare behind as a talisman for my next visit for lunch, I paid the bill and left.

One of my now-fully mature sons has a birthday later this month.  See you there then, son (hahaha)?

Happy New Year!


A new decade!

A new dawn.

We're gonna restore America's greatness this decade.

My New Year's resolution is to do anything I can to work towards effecting the removal of our faux corrupt and dangerous president.

The District is full of beautiful Christmas Trees at this time of the year if you know where to find them, like this one in the Library of Congress, easy to get into, no ID required, there's almost never a line and the restrooms are good.

Take a self portrait on the giant ornaments gracing the outdoor tree on the porch of the Canadian Embassy.

Stop by the Peace Officer Tree outside the municipal DC Courthouse on Indiana Street NW, where many of the ornaments specifically memorialize slain police officers.

Union Station has a spectacular tree in its rotunda, presented each year by Norway, and there is a busy, expansive food court down below and inside access to the Red Line of the Metro.

The Botanical Gardens at the foot of the Capitol has a tree with a Thomas the Engine train running around its base.

You could imagine this largely unadorned evergreen outside its entrance as a Christmas tree if you're in the proper holiday frame of mind.

Or this potted evergreen tree near the Mary L. Ripley Garden by the Smithsonian Textile Museum next door to the bigger Enid A. Haupt Garden.

Inside the Willard Hotel, which has fabulous bathrooms, there are public alcoves decorated with little trimmed trees where upon glancing up at a portrait on the wall, you'd see you are in the presence of Abe Lincoln and his sons.

About two weeks ago I set up, upon request, a Christmas Tree Run around the Mall for today at noon, but that person couldn't make it at the last minute, so I went alone.  I had done a precursor run last week to scout out some promising locations already, like to Trump Hotel, here's how it looked today with a view upward towards the open glassed in ceiling.


A nice touch was a real person sitting in a chair by its base wearing a Trump 2020 hat, as though he was auditioning for a spot in the White House or maybe at Justice.  He had bought a bowl of cheez-its, after all.

Going across the street I viewed the beautiful tree in the Willard Hotel.  It always feels welcoming to stop in that venerable fabulous hotel.

I looked for the National Menorah on the Ellipse but I couldn't find it so I don't think it's been erected yet, although it's supposed to be lit in three days so maybe it'll be erected on that day.  The National Tree was memorable, as usual, especially with the Washington Monument as its backdrop.

Heading over down Pennsylvania Avenue towards the Capitol, I went over to the Hotel Monaco, the old Patent Office Building turned into a posh hotel, if you can call tiny offices with marble floors and granite walls converted into hotel rooms posh.  The hotel didn't really have a tree, rather it had a series of small lit evergreen trees which did create a holiday effect of sorts.

Nearby was the National Portrait Gallery which didn't have a tree but there were a series of Nutcracker figures outside in an outward sidewalk Christmas mart.

Continuing towards the east, I went by the beautiful tree at the Canadian Embassy.  Every year it presents the most beautiful outdoor tree on Pennsylvania Avenue, including the National Tree which is, in essence, a tree covered in a shroud which houses the ornaments, they are not hung on the tree itself.

The Congressional Tree was spectacular, as usual.  The 2019 Christmas Tree Tour over, I returned home.

Today was a cold but bright and dry day, perfect for going on my annual Christmas Tree Run on the Mall.  This year's run was a short one, only about three miles with lots of lengthy stops at the various sites; I took Metro to the District and here's the Christmas tree at the place I started from, inside the Smithsonian Castle.  I am so addled by old age though that although I carefully placed in my vest pockets a credit card and what I thought was my Senior Half-price metro card, when I ran to my local station from where I parked my car at the last free spot where it was free parking 3/4 mile away, when I arrived at the station I discovered I'd pocketed my lifetime free pass to National Parks for seniors instead of my Senior Metro card so I had to use my lunch money, a twenty-dollar bill, to purchase a regular metro card and thus spend twice as much on transportation, about nine dollars there and back.

The day actually started before that at my local blood donation center where I gave a unit of plasma, platelets and spun red blood cells (they withdraw the blood into a machine, spin it I guess, and return it about a million times until they get the amount of concentrated particles they want), a process which takes 95 minutes and is very boring as you just lie there on a gurney, hooked to a machine by a needle in your arm, and I whiled away the time by admiring the Christmas tree in the blood-draw center.  That was my 129th time donating blood or blood products (110 times of whole blood donations--a process that only takes about 18 minutes); how's your donation schedule going?  They like my blood because it's O+, a universal blood-type that can be given to anybody except persons with O- blood, which is the true universal blood type that any body can accept, and I get blood donor calls daily, almost hourly, from the Red Cross which I never answer (I give to Inova in Northern Virginia) and even, occasionally, from blood centers as far away as Cincinnati, where I donated a unit of blood once after a marathon in 2008 as I was passing through the airport (I have tried unsuccessfully for years to get myself taken off that list--but how can you yell at volunteers calling even from a thousand miles away trying to address a continual blood crisis?).

Once in the District I ran around downtown near the White House, stoping for awhile at the National Tree on the Ellipse, and then having a fascinating conversation at Pershing Park across from the Willard Hotel, which I then subsequently forgot to go into, where they always have a beautiful tree.  In Pershing Park (named after the WWI American Expeditionary Force's commanding general, Black Jack Pershing), a film crew was shooting the vacant mostly concrete park and IT-type guys were "digitizing" the statue of General Pershing so they could put a 3-D recreation of it on a WWI Centenary internet site (commemorating 100 years since the end of the war, only a years too late) because ground-breaking was going to be done later this very afternoon on a project to reconstruct the park to create an interactive site there where, now that ALL veterans of the war have passed on, the public can finally learn something about the sacrifices and heroic achievements of the Doughboys who were Over There winning the War To End All Wars.  I like to question people when I see things going on that I run by, I learned this is an ongoing project already five years old.

I went on from Pershing Park to the Trump International Hotel which was filled with eye-candy  exquisitely dressed mature women and fat-cats in natty dark business suits, but they always have a nice Christmas tree in there.  Then I ran past the Washington Monument on this stark but beautiful day, ducked into a couple of Smithsonian Museums where they have small but well-lit Christmas trees somewhere in the premises like at the Museum of African Arts inside the Enid Hauptmann Garden Plaza and ran to the Constitution Center in L'Enfant Plaza where my former agency is located and dialed the four or five persons there for whom I have numbers in my cell phone to see if they, impromptu, wanted to have coffee but everybody either eschewed picking up my call, or picking up a 202 (the area code for the District) number they didn't immediately recognize or expect or were busy or out.  So i happily had a guilty-pleasure late lunch of noodles and mushroom chicken at the Panda's across the street in the food court and returned home tired but relaxed.

This Veteran's Day holiday weekend, I got a lot of things done.  I toured Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park with a friend and was shocked when the officious Park Ranger held her Senior Lifetime Pass granting us free entry, checked the signature line on the back as though she could read a signature anyway, and then carded her!

I also drove a neighbor home from a medical procedure.  These days the medical personnel won't let you leave their premises without somebody you know coming to get you, imposing quite a burden on persons living alone, after they perform today's ubiquitous drive-by surgery--as soon as you wake up they want you outta there!

I went for a nice neighborhood run.  I went out for breakfast with a friend.

And I had lunch at the Lost Dog pizzeria in Westover in Arlington.  I ordered a draft and a large Greek Pie (plenty for any drop-bys) and from my spacious booth I could see anybody entering the restaurant but nobody I recognized came in while I enjoyed my meal and then left, leaving some left over as a talisman for the next time.

Summer's almost gone.  On my run yesterday I passed by the local high school just as school was letting out and I watched all the students walking down the street excitedly talking amongst themselves, catching up after the long, hot summer.  Wistfully I thought about the long holiday weekend just past, about how the passage of Labor Day signifies the traditional end of summer and return to school for students, and how I had lunch at noon on Labor Day at the Lost Dog Pizzeria as is my won't on holidays.

On that Monday several days ago, I took a seat at a table by the window where I could see people entering and leaving the restaurant.  After I ordered an Italian Pie and a draft, I walked around the restaurant to see if I recognized anybody in the establishment beyond the wait staff but I did not.

The pizza pie arrived, a savory medley of ham, pepperoni, onion and genoa salami in a savory tomato pizza sauce.  Over the next half hour, I consumed two of the eight pieces of pizza and drank half my draft, left the rest as a talisman for the future, paid my fare and departed.  I hadn't seen anyone I thought I might know during that time.
Summer's almost gone.  Former family is gone.

The Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday dawned windy and bitterly cold, a full month into the Trump Snit Shutdown.  As is my won't on holidays, I had lunch at the Lost Dog Cafe in Westover.

I ordered enough for a guest.  I had a table where I could watch the door for anyone coming or going who might seem vaguely familiar but while I was there I saw no such one.


Usually I order a pizza but this time I tried the spinach and artichoke dip with pita bread and chips.  Next  month when I go for lunch there, for the last time on the birthdays of my oldest and youngest sons, I 'll stick to pizza.

My three sons will all be over 30 by then and I'll suspend my futile efforts at rapprochement thereafter; these men as boys were brought into the frightfully expensive, years-long divorce by their mother and experienced it in their immaturity as an exciting fight against their father which only ceased when the Arlington Court imposed sanctions and costs against her of almost $50,000 for harassment petitions, basically, and I guess they're all still in a snit about losing "their" case.  You could look it up on the internet.