After spending a little time in the doctor's waiting room, went downtown to see a couple of exhibits at the Smithsonian. There are some great behind the scenes photos of the Beatles at the Museum of American History, some by LIFE photographer Bill Eppridge, others by Paul McCartney's brother Mike.

At the National Gallery there's an excellent show of realistic paintings by the Danish painter Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg. A couple of his nudes look like they could have been painted yesterday, in a very realistic, unidealized style. Also checked out the prints in the Colorful Impressions show, an exhibit of some of the earliest color prints from 18th Century France.

I usually can't resist visiting the Freer Gallery and Whistler's etchings known as the Amsterdam Set. The Freer website has a good online exhibit in which one can choose to view works by Whistler, choose either a medium or subject for three stages of his career.