As I've mentioned, my office is on Capital hill - so, our mail goes through the dreaded (and deadly) infected Post Office. As a result, we have not gotten any mail in over a week now. I think they are simply burning some of it. Which is fine because I don't want it. What is amusing, is the powers that be are just now deciding that maybe, just maybe, they should also test the mailrooms of the Dept of Labor and BLS. Seeing as how Anthrax is turning up everywhere, you'd think this would be of at least medium priority. Oh yeah - my building actually houses the DC post office (which is different from the post office that handles all Capital Hill mail) So they have decided to also test this facillity, but the results haven't come back yet. That would be amusing - that I've been coming to work for 2 weeks while the post office below me was infected.

Walking around the Capital is getting more "fun" every day. In our little "up yours" to the terrorists, Kathleen and I continue (bravely) to "attempt" to walk around the Capital Building (which is only 2 blocks away), which is now a lot harder than it sounds. It's actually pretty stilly - they have jersey barriers and these 6 foot concrete legos, sometimes stacked two and three deep, and then just yesterday they started to semi-randomly string up cheap plastic fencing. Now there's plastic "fantasy" fence everywhere, Humvees, sniffing dogs, cut up concrete sewer pipes - yes they are as attractive as that sounds - police officers, more barriers. Just a nightmare. So we are constantly walking around barriers and stuff. Talk about a ghost town! Some parts were under construction anyway, so now it seems like the whole Capital is under construction or heavily armed. I am like - when people come to the capital city of the USA, they should NOT have the same experience as if they were in Beirut. It's totally crazy. This is the capital of the free world? It feels like Lebanon or something. You need grappling hooks and a map to take a walk around the Capital.

An you should see what they have done to Union Station - which is the building next to me. Lots of ugly concrete legos. And they've re-routed traffic and made getting a cab rather difficult. Which is pretty funny since the trains are overflowing given how hard it is to get a plane to go anywhere on the east coast. Even before the extra security measures, taking the train from Union Station to New York was only a half hour slower than taking a plane. So now it's actually faster. So everyone walks off the train and mills about because where all the "Get Taxi" signs point to an area that is now 'protected' by jersey barriers.

Of course, Union Station is the Amtrak train station (and it's huge) and has several restaurants and shops and such. It used to be that large trucks would simply drive into the loading dock. Now, it seems that a lot of the trucks have to stop out on the street and unload their items by hand. This is most seriously NOT COOL because the road between Union Station and my building is only about 2 car widths wide. So a truck pulled over to unload items can make it impossible for another truck to pass. Lots of fun in the nation's capital!!

Oh yeah - there are no longer any garbage cans in the Metro stations. Now, this would be great, but since the train, bus and airports are all Metro accessible, there are a LOT of people with LOTS of luggage. So I'm thinking, given that these people don't have a problem killing themselves while attempting to kill us, the availability of garbage cans are not the problem.

Lots of nonsense here on Capital Hill. I can't believe those two postal workers died! Can you believe the one guy went to the doctors Tuesday *a week ago* and they sent him home without antibiotics? Screw the little guy, to be sure! Meanwhile, the whole congress shuts down when they think there is some tiny chance they could get it. I mean, hello? The workers that handled the other letters in New York got Anthrax, why did we not think the same thing could happen here? And in a disturbing development -- guess where the displaced Senate staffers are? That's right, in my building now, on the 6th floor. Great, glad you are here, just don't bring your mail.

(10/29) Pentagon metro station now has an alarm system - it's a huge contraption that tests the air and sends out an alarm if any chemical agents are found. You can imagine this was the hit of the morning as the 10 of us still brave enough to actually use the Pentagon metro stood around this thing wondering if our bad breath could possibly set it off.

Lots of heavy military aircraft over our house again last night. For some reason it makes me very nervous. I don't know what they are doing, and since we never ever used to have any aircraft, it is unnerving to hear that heavy muffled roar overhead all night long. For about an hour from 9 to 10 flights were going over head every 15 minutes. I wonder what is going on. I hear them when I get up to go to the bathroom - We are talking about 8 hours worth of constant air plane traffic.

Finally, something is up. There is very low key military housing by my church. Basically you either turn right into the church parking lot, or go straight into the apartment complex. We are talking a small subdivision in the middle of nowhere here - I didn't even notice it was anything other than normal suburbia until the 9/11 attacks. For about a week after the attacks of 9/11 they had an armed officer in the middle of the road. Then it went away. On Thursday of this week, the armed guard and concrete barriers were back. Hmmmmmmm.

In a sick way, it's really interesting living in DC right now.