Hotel Musings, after which we will return to tourist updates

• I am indeed sharing this hotel with lots of CPAC attendees, evenly divided between fresh-faced eager Ron Paul fans, and retired couples. The retired couples, every one of them, have permanently clenched jaws. Didn't see any CPAC'ers between 25 and 65 years of age.


• These beds are comfortable, but they're incredibly high. When I sit on the bed, my feet don't touch the floor. I know I have stubby little legs, but there's about 8 inches drop. Oddly infantilizing.


• Turned on the hot water to take a shower yesterday afternoon, and it came out brown.  Orange County well water in the 1960's brown. I'm not showering in that. I told the desk clerk last night when I got back from Mother Courage and he was imperturbed. "We haven't had any complaints about that before." Gritted teeth keep me from replying, you're getting one now. Ah, well. Tried it again last night, and hot water was still a little tan but much less dark... this morning, clear. Probably a rust deposit had broken off the pipe. Meanwhile, the cold water was clear and pure.


• There's a soda machine on my floor but it's Pepsi. All the more frustrating because, in the closed-off courtyard, there's a Coke machine plainly visible but unreachable. It took me until my third night here to wonder if the other floors might have different machines. I got off on the 7th floor instead of the 8th, and, yep, there's a Coke machine! It's sold out of Coke. Tonight I try the 9th floor. If I don't come back, avenge my death.

You've got the Key to the City, if you know how to avoid the crowds!

I seem to be leaving the hotel room later every day! Thursday at 9, Friday at 10, and it's 10:52 today and I'm still typing away.

If Thursday was about boxes more interesting than their contents, Friday was about the unloved, the underused and the unappreciated. To wit.

• the Heurich House, just off Dupont Circle. I picked this from one of those "5 things in DC you must see" and it was an amazing treat. I'd made a reservation ("some tours sell out!" bellows the website), but I ended up being the ONLY person there for the 11:30 tour. Adorable guide Rachel gave me a private showing, peeking in corners normally not shown off (she said), going into way more detail on the history than she'd be able to with a group. I felt a little guilty but not much. The house also pleases because it's on a weird lot (thanks to DC's stupid diagonal State Streets), and the architect cut all the rooms into weird and delightful shapes. If I was Uncle Moneybags, I'd much rather have this place than, say, the Breakers.


• Freer and Sackler Galleries -- the Freer is half amazing Aisan art treasures, and half hackwork from G.M. Whistler, remembered today for a handful of accidentally great paintings, but mostly a lickspittle for the snooty elite. The good stuff -- the Asian stuff -- continues in the Sackler, a very new (to me! it's only 32 years old) building just south of the red brick castle. Most of which is blocked off for new exhibits. Oh well. But it's right next to


• the National Museum of African Art, rather cooler, but again largely getting ready for the next show. But free postcards! FREE!


• Oh, but on to my main Smithsonian destination of the day, the Hirschhorn. Current exhibit is "Damage Control: Art and Destruction since 1950." Mostly movies of people setting fire to things, blowing things up, dropping things from high buildings, etc. etc. It sounds stupid... and it is stupid... but an odd thing happened -- as the imagery piled up, and I was exposed to one act after another of 50-year-old vandalism... it started to make sense. So I bought a magnet.


• Theater for Friday was Mother Courage at the Arena Stage, the main draw being Kathleen Turner in the title role. This was strange. It's nearly the end of the run, and it felt like she didn't have all her lines down; and she was surrounded by some truly great actors including Jack Willis and Rick Foucheux, who were on their game and seemed to keep her in line. But, still, she has a presence... not quite Killing of Sister George, but great to see

Today, walking around the west end of the mall, memorials, monuments, and then off to the Kennedy Center for Moby Dick: the Opera!, which, sadly, does not include the exclamation point in its official title.