A typewriter pin from National Portrait Gallery in Washington.

Kim Sajet, Director of the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. and I became friends the first week she was on the job.

Since then she’s batted it out of the park with major exhibitions.

She invited me to come back for one this month, but I couldn’t get there… she had a perfect gift for me, though, that she wanted to have Vin bring back for me from his Smithsonian Board meeting.  Lindsay, her head of Development, told me that Kim carried the special gift (a typewriter pin made of recycled books) all week long, hoping to run into Vin to give it to him.

When they never connected, she and Lindsay sent it out to me in Los Angeles.

Which is where I opened it — and much to my delight — found the ultimate accessory they’d thoughtfully found me.