Wasabi

I was looking forward to “crazy” on Tuesday, but didn’t expect so much of teh stupid.

Up until late Monday, Laura and I planned to head down to the Mall at a not-too-unreasonable hour and see what we could see of the swearing-in. We are, after all, just ordinary folk. But a former neighbor (and extraordinary guy) stopped by Monday evening, offering two tickets to the standing-room area of the Capitol lawn. The tickets had a nice purple border, corresponding to the area designated for our humble presence.

But like a one-way sign that is no guarantee you won’t be run over by a car going the wrong way, this pretty ticket—signed by Senator Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies (JCCIC)—didn’t mean we’d actually get to stand in the purple area and watch Barack Obama be sworn in from a few hundred meters away. Due to a complete breakdown of crowd control and security management, we were among the tens of thousands of ticket holders who never made it through the purple, blue, and silver gates.

The details of this mess are now being sorted out in the proper places (e.g., within minutes a Facebook group was created, “Survivors of the Purple Tunnel of Doom”) and in the mainstream as well. So I’ll spare the details. Just Google it. I’m tired of the whole thing. As I said in a comment I dropped somewhere, I don’t feel sorry for myself. Despite the subfreezing temperatures and idiocy of standing around for three hours (some stood around for twice that and didn’t get in), I’m glad we went down there. We met some great people from all over: Michigan, Florida, New York City (Queens); even a guy from my wife’s hometown in Wisconsin—a quiet gentleman in an impressive black fur coat, who works for Racine’s most renowned and community-conscious employer, Johnson Wax. Those are the folks we felt bad for, people who were our guests in the District of Columbia and who were treated so shabbily. Unfortunately it’s a moot point whether those in charge will learn a lesson from this fiasco: the inauguration of Barack Obama was a once-in-a-lifetime event, and they blew it: the JCCIC, Capitol police, and Secret Service (which unpredictably closed off streets that were supposed to be clear, creating a fluid maze and ensuring that lines would turn into mobs—although, as I said elsewhere, these were the most docile, genial mobs I have ever been part of).

At a little after noon, after hearing the distant cheer of an unseen crowd and the echoing booms of a 21-gun salute, we left the area near 1st and C Streets NW, but not before Laura banged on the temporary fence and got one of the cops to come over. (It must be said, they did a most excellent job of ignoring us for three hours.) While she tried to get an explanation from the guy, I leaned against a tree with my eyes closed. When I opened them, one of our new friends from Michigan was taking my picture. I smiled wanly, and she said, “To help remember the day.” Earlier she had gently scolded me when I called out through the fence: “Thanks for nothing!” She said they were just doing their jobs. I said, if that’s true, their jobs were pretty pointless. I said I was letting them know I’m disappointed since I’ll never be face to face with whoever designed their “plan” and set it in motion (or did neither). She said, rightly: “That’s not what this day is about. Let’s be grateful and enjoy that.” How could I disagree with this lovely African American woman who had traveled so much further than I and whose feelings about the new president most likely run deeper?

Laura and I started walking toward a Metro station, encountering hundreds of vendors hawking tacky memorabilia and noticing the trash collecting like snowdrifts against curbs and buildings. We started down into the Gallery Place station, took one look at the crowd at the turnstiles, and turned around. We walked up to Faragut Square and had lunch at a place Laura has wanted me to try for some time, Wasabi. As the name implies, it’s Japanese, but with a twist: little plates of food move along a conveyor from the kitchen to the other end of the restaurant and back. There are booths along one side and bar seating on the other. The plates are color-coded* by price and labeled; if you see something you like, you just take it off the conveyor. When you’ve eaten your fill, they tally up the plates. Delicious and fun.

When we finished, we kept walking north on 18th, which was basically taken over by pedestrians north of K Street. It’s always a liberating feeling when the people take over the streets, so my spirits soared a bit a this point. We ended up walking all the way home, sparing Metro two additional riders on their record-breaking day. (We had taken the Metro from Tenleytown to Judiciary Square in the morning—a crowded but boardable train appeared within two minutes. They actually were running on the rush-hour schedule, as advertised.) We watched some of the TV coverage and called it a day.

And that’s the way it was, January 20th, 2009.
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*Color-coded! The irony just now hit me.