Today, I took the day off and we took ZP out for his first Metro ride and then to his first museum visit to the recently renovated and reopened National Portrait Gallery. My favorite exhibit was William Wegman's Funney/Strange exhibit (yes, the guy who does all of those dog photos and no, I didn't spell "funney" incorrectly). ZP's favorite part was probably the stained glass window in the ceiling.

After the museum, we treated a friend of mine to some birthday ice cream at Haagen Dazs where I tried the new flavor, Mayan Chocolate: dark chocolate with a hint of cinnamon. I'll give it an B+ because although I liked it very much, (a) it was no gelato and (b) I could only have a small amount before my tongue felt completely coated in thick sugar. Still, it was inifinitely better than that Naga - Sweet Indian Curry and Fresh Young Coconut in a creamy custard ice cream I got from Vosges in NYC. Blech.

Now that I'm commuting again and need new reading material, I'm open to suggestions. The last few books that really wowwed me were Italo Calvino's If on a Winter's Night a Traveler , The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, and The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. I tried this program to figure out What I Should Read Next (which I discovered via Bookblog's site), but didn't really find anything that attracted me. What are you reading these days?