Today’s venture to Friendship Heights

While in Amsterdam three years ago, I saw this embroidered nightgown created by an artist who intends to wear it for her burial. It is covered with the names of all the people who have been important to her during her lifetime. It was so stunning, that it was the first reason I whipped out my camera.

In a couple of weeks, we are having a baby dedication for Lucy at church. It’s essentially a small proclamation at the end of the regular service. As Baptists, we are baptized by choice. So this is not a christening. It is a liturgical ceremony where the church promises to love and care for Lucy as she grows in the church. Oh, and I guess that Henry and I make some promises to be good parents, too.

This idea of embroidering the dress has always stuck with me. I decided to embroider Lucy’s name and date of the event on her slip, leaving plenty of room for other babies, mine, her’s or whomever’s. Who knows at this point.

A couple of days ago as I was gathering my supplies, I realized that I didn’t have any embroidery floss. Lauren suggested several places that might have some. All of which involved driving. After Sunday night’s dinner with Ike and Denise, I may never drive again. We might as well have burned Lucy’s feet with hot coals. But she immediately went to bed from exhaustion.

So I found The Point of It All in Friendship Heights. We took off on the Red Line despite the morning fire on the tracks. That’s where we met Connor, a six-year-old, heading home with his father and sister. They had just been to a Bach concert.

He was quite chatty and said, “We have a nine-month-old at home” as he hung on to the pole above her stroller. He may as well been 36. I learned that he was the oldest of four children. I’m guessing that since he had “finished school early that day,” he was homeschooled and they were taking advantage of the city’s cultural offerings.

I told him that my name was Caroline. He responded, “Like the movie?” I said, “Well, I came around a long time before the movie.” I assumed that ge was talking about Coraline, which is a variation of my name. But with my Southern accent, what’s the point in trying to correct him.

I asked him if he had seen the movie. He said, “No.” He paused. “And I don’t want to.” I told him it looked scary. It seems a bit like an animated children’s version of the Stepford Wives. He agreed.

Then he said, “Can I tell you a secret?” I nodded (and now look at me telling the entire Internet). He said, holding the back of his hand up to the side of his mouth shielding his lips from his family, “I scream like a girl.” I told him that was okay; sometimes my husband does, too. (Kidding… sort of.)

We went on to discuss the Metro map and where we were both headed. I told him that I lived in Chinatown and he exclaimed “China!?!” No, Downtown.

As we approached my exit, he asked where I was going. I told him a store to buy something. I thought why get into the whole embroidery thread story. Besides I would miss my stop. In all seriousness, he looked at me and said, “Are you going to buy dinosaur donughts?” What? Not what I was expecting. I told him I had never heard of such a thing. Then he said longingly, “I miss them.”