surreality
The last couple of days I've encountered several situations that remind me just how surreal it feels to be living in this city, for however short it may be.  Right now the farm bill is a huge deal, and everything seems to be happening all at once.  So the one piece of legislation that directly and measurably affects my family is being written right now, right in front of me.  NFU's legislative staff is going around to all of the house ag committee members' offices this week and explaining our viewpoints to their ag staff, and I get to sit in on all the meetings.  I love it because I am learning both how influential NFU is--with rural members of Congress, anyway--and also how things actually get done in the legislature.  Super interesting.  Anyway, I usually am walking to and from the Hill with other NFU staff and talking with them the whole time, but yesterday Anne went back to the office after her meetings but I went to catch the tail end of a hearing and pick up some information, so I walked back by myself.  Our office is pretty much directly north of the Capitol so we usually walk on the Capitol steps on our way to and from the House office buildings.  Yesterday, though, was the first time I actually thought about the fact that I was casually walking on the Capitol grounds, and have done the same thing at least once a week since I've been here.  This is a normal part of my almost daily routine.  And this was the first time I'd really thought about this fact, other than my initial few days when I spent the whole time being like, "Oh my goodness I'm in Washington, DC and this is amazing and I can't believe it..."  Then today we were, again, walking by the Capitol on our way to the Cannon building and John McCain got out of a car right behind us and walked into the "members only" entrance of the Capitol.  Then we went to a hearing about plug-in hybrid cars, and Rob Lowe was testifying on the panel, using his celebrity status to promote renewable energy, I guess.  So that was weird as well.  And then today we had a meeting with Representative Tim Walz's agriculture aide, but when we walked into his office Walz himself just happened to be there, and he met with us for a few minutes.  So these were all very interesting, very DC moments.