Friday--Free Day? Yeah, Right!

Friday was going to be our free day for sight-seeing and hanging out.  Our only obligation was going to be meeting up with my cousin Greg who lives in D.C.  What is the saying about the best laid plans?  Well, anyway...we ended up with tickets to go into the Gallery for the U.S. House and Senate (thanks to Robin Wright from Senator Jon Kyl's office).  And we were also told we'd be put on a guest list for a special reception for the National Walk for Epilepsy (thanks to Dr. David LaBiner who attended the Capital Hill meetings with us).  And luckily Greg could meet us for a late dinner because the reception was from 6-8pm. 

And maybe all those plans don't seem like a lot, but considering how tired we were from our amazing and exhausting day on Capital Hill...we didn't get out the door in the "morning" until after 11am.  We read about all the restrictions if we were going to visit the House and Senate Galleries, so we left nearly everything back at the hotel.  You will just have to believe me that we sat there in the two Galleries, because we weren't even allowed to take our phones in and snap a low-quality camera phone picture to prove we were there.  

We went into the House of Representatives Viewing Gallery first.  The most exciting thing going on was some one who looked rather young was reading a newspaper.  I still enjoyed my time taking in all of the history of the room we were in.  In fact just the day before was the final voting on the momentous Health Care Reform Bill.

Viewing the Senate was slightly busier.  We watched as one or two Senators hung out and one at a time made a fairly unimportant speech to very few interested people.  It was still interesting to listen and look around.  

After we left the Capital for the last time of this visit to D.C. we went over to the Holocaust Memorial Museum.  We only saw the exhibitions that didn't require a ticket (you have to show up earlier in the day to get a pass to come back later in the day to see most of the exhibits).  I really wanted Brennan to understand the depth of what happened during the Holocaust.  We decided we'd come back Saturday to try to get tickets to see more. 

We headed back to the hotel to get ready for the reception for the National Walk for Epilepsy.  Here's why  we were invited:  Brennan really loves the show Heroes.  And one of the stars of Heroes, Greg Grunberg, was the chair of the Walk was going to be speaking at this reception.  We'd heard Greg speak briefly on Thursday during a Capital Briefing, but we had to leave before he was done talking in order to hoof it to Senator McCain's office.  And David LaBiner, the guy who went with us to our Hill visits, felt bad for the poor kid who came all this way and did all this work and should get the joy of meeting an actor from his favorite TV show.  Dr. LaBiner wanted to make sure that Brennan would get to meet Greg Grunberg.  Wasn't that sweet?

We took our first cab ride of the trip to the reception.  It was fun watching Brennan "hail" us a cab from in front of our hotel.  Other people at the reception were some NFL players who also have epilepsy, and Miss District of Columbia (I was in awe of her because she gets to wear a crown every day!).  Just before Greg Grunberg showed up we saw his son, Jake, who has epilepsy.  It was not hard to miss Jake because he had a cast on his foot (one thing Greg mentioned at the Hill Briefing was being excited that the injury was not epilepsy related).  Brennan spoke to Jake a bit.  They have a few things in common.  Epilepsy.  Brennan is 12 and Jake is 13.  Both have had brain surgery.  Brennan and Jake were comparing scars when Greg showed up.  I have one picture of Brennan with Greg Grunberg and it's blurry!

Aside from being star struck all night long, I really enjoyed talking to Greg Grunberg's wife and mother-in-law.  Elizabeth Grunberg was so nice to talk to about parenting a child with epilepsy, and her mother and I discussed everything from epilepsy to bar mitzvahs...and she gave me a hug before I left.  Such nice people.  And I haven't even mentioned the great website that Greg Grunberg has about epilepsy.  Everyone should see it, but especially kids.  It has great information that is easy to understand.  Go to http://www.talkaboutit.org/ and make sure to watch the section about First Aid--it's very easy to remember stuff.  

We also met Debra Josephs with the Anita Kaufmann Foundation and also an supporter of  Purple Day.  Debra is a bundle of energy and enthusiasm for education the entire world about epilepsy.  And I hope she does.  The more people who know about seizures and seizure safety, the better I will feel about sending my son out in the world.  

Friday had a great ending as well.  We met with my cousin, Greg Chavez, who lives in D.C.  He picked a great place to eat dinner, Georgia Brown's.  I don't get to see Greg often, but whenever I do I enjoy our time together.  And it was funny to find out that he works so close to the really cool blue things that play music when you touch them.  We ran around them the night before trying to touch as many as we could to get them all to make sounds.

After dinner it was time to pretend we'd get a little rest before the BIG 2010 National Walk for Epilepsy. 

If you think this blog post is long, you should have been with us for the day!  Exhausting, but wonderful.

Thanks so much to Dr. David LaBiner for making it possible for Brennan to meet one of his "Heroes" and to Greg and Elizabeth Grunberg and of course Jake Grunberg for being so nice to us, and to our own Greg, Greg Chavez, for waiting to eat dinner with us and taking us for some great Low Country Cuisine!