Meeting A Friend Whose Phone Won't Call Out
1:32 PM 3/7/2009
I'm meeting Jo at the Hirshhorn museum this afternoon, but she emailed to say that her iPhone won't place calls anymore. Supposedly she can receive calls, but I don't have a mobile, so I won't have many opportunities to try. If things get really screwed up, maybe I can find a "Pay Phone"... Gather 'round, children, and let me tell you about the lost world of the pay phone.
Oh, never mind... Just look at the photo.
Jo will be riding her bicycle today, but I won't be riding mine. When I tried to replace the inner tube in my back wheel, I transplanted a different wheel with a quick release. That might have worked, but then I noticed that the derailleur was bent out of shape - it had worked passably well, but messing with it was not a good idea. Now I can't re-seat it: The flange is bent up, too. It stayed in place only because the wheel's axle prevented it from moving. It is possible that I can take another crack at it, but for now, my hands are torn up from the first attempt.
How The Day Went...
Things didn't get screwed up. I considered riding a bus, but I had time and nice weather, so I walked the whole way. I read and walked - I have and old paperback copy of David Shumway's "Michel Foucault" - explanations far easier to read than the original texts.
I got there a little early... And, so did Jo. But, we had to wait for her friend Kate to meet us in front of the museum. We had a snack from one of the carts and watched people take pictures of each other with the enormous spider sculpture. Kate tried to call, but Jo's phone didn't always ring. Did I mention that she bought it second-hand from a co-worker? I saw it work once, but then it was crippled. People really love their iPhones.
At Hirshhorn, we saw the Louise Bourgeois exhibit, then browsed the museum store.
Read Jo's Account of the exhibit.
After the museum, we walked to Chinatown. For a double dose of irony and caffeine, we got coffee from the Starbucks at 7th & E that used to be DC Space. Three people and one bicycle were difficult to sneak past the Verizon Center, which had something big going on inside. Kate wanted something from Urban Outfitters - Was it shoes, maybe? - and, we went to one of the last Chinese stores left in the neighborhood, where we had a fascinating conversation with a super-sketchy fellow searching for some Chinese herb that I might be confusing with an illegal drug from southeast Asia. Jo and I were trying to be helpful, but he became progressively weirder throughout. I found Kate in the corner trying to stifle her laughter at the absurdity of it all. As we were unlocking the bike to continue on our journey, the guy found us out front and asked me - we must have earned his trust by taking him seriously - "Do my pupils look big to you?"
Yeah. A little bit.