working on building a coffee table.  It's nice to have a project.

Maybe bake some bread too.  It's a good day to hunker down inside.  Downtown DC is a good place to avoid today and this weekend.

You know, my wife works at a local bakery here, and it's a sanctuary from the world for a lot of people.  A real feel good place, where the regulars come in, and my wife and the owner know them by name and ask how they are doing with genuineness.  It's a pretty liberal community.  The big secret is the bakery got a large order of cookies for an inaugural ball and it's all hands on deck to get them ready.  Presidential seals and red hat designs.  But they are trying to be super discreet about decorating the cookies in the back so they don't offend the sensibilities of the regular customers.  It's tricky though, because it's a hole in the wall place and they sometimes need to take over a table up front to work on cookies, and customers always love to watch.  How do you explain to the liberal customers that you are taking money from these guys and it's better than the money comes here than goes over there?

mmm cheese.

Amusingly cheesy anecdote:

I had been a student (DLIFLC) up on the Presidio of Monterey, CA for just a few days of my six month term when I decided to go down into Monterey for lunch. Right near the base of the Presidio was a bagel shop. I stopped in and a nice lady took my order. I named a few items that were displayed and added “Monterey Jack” cheese to be put on the bagel. She gave me a funny look; then, politely said “You can just say ‘Jack’ cheese.” Embarrassed, I replied “Of course, can you tell I’m new here? She smiled. She had probably done that with dozens of DLI students already.