Oh, right. Cleaning.
Well, let’s pretend I did that today.
No? You don’t believe me? Well, you’re right.
Instead, I slept in, watched a vegetarian cooking show, bought yarn at a cool shop in Rockville, Maryland, and bought some more storage containers at Ikea.
Tonight? We’re heading to see Thank You for Smoking with Susan and Phillip as soon as we’ve eaten our pasta.
Maybe tomorrow I’ll have a tidier day.
With the D.C. Film Fest having snuck up on me, I thought I’d better make plans now for Screen on the Green, D.C.’s free movies on the Mall.
I’ve never seen any of the movies they’re showing this year: The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Band Wagon, Bullitt, To Have and Have Not, and Rocky. (No, I’ve never seen Rocky.)
While I probably won’t be home for The Band Wagon (which is disappointing, since I do enjoy a good musical), some of the others do seem to have potential, particularly Bogie and Bacall in To Have and Have Not.
No one else seems to have their summer movies scheduled yet.
It’s hard not to find beautiful things when it’s spring. So today I share three of the ones I’ve stumbled over in the last few days:
1. Jason and Essia are visiting his folks this week and came into D.C. yesterday to take care of some paperwork at the Algerian embassy. Afterwards they came down to Dupont and met Rudi and me for lunch. When we arrived, they, Nina, and Lylia were already camped out at one of our favorite restaurants waiting. Nina has grown up and is tall and thin, her curly blonde tresses of babydom now brown and straighter. If I were going to cast Ramona Quimby, I would pick her. Lylia is now talking, although she remains understandably shy around people she last saw on her first birthday. Although more little girl than when we last saw her, she is still decidedly a chubby toddler, chasing after her older sister to copy exactly what Nina does. Rudi was in charge of the office and had to get back quickly, but I had told my boss I was taking a long lunch and did, stretching my hour to 2 3/4. We went to the park and they climbed on statues and slid down plaques. Essia and Jason and I caught up and reveled in a beautiful afternoon outside.
2. I remembered to take my library book back to the library before it was due this week and took along my list of three books I was hoping to find: Bernard-Henri Lévy’s American Vertigo (which I’ve been hearing rumblings about for months), Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (which comes highly recommended by Dianna), and Geraldine Brooks’ March (which tells the story of The Little Women‘s father, Mr. March, during the Civil War and which just won a Pulitzer). Wicked and American Vertigo weren’t at the main branch, but I did manage to come home with March, as well as Julia Child’s My Life in France, a knitting book, and a decorating on a budget book. Now let’s just cross our fingers that I don’t amass too many late fines by keeping them past their due dates!
3. Today was the first Thursday market I’ve had a chance to get to since it opened for the season and I came away with a cherry muffin, the first asparagus of the season, and a bunch of lilacs. Lilacs and lilies of the valley and vanilla are my favorite scents in the world, and I walked back to the office awash in its heady scent. I parceled out the stems, keeping half for me and sharing the others amongst coworkers.
Why is it that in order to make a home tidier, it is necessary to totally mess it up first?
I have been feeling down of late. This is nothing new, as I have gone through periodic bouts of depression for as long as I can remember. Usually it’s caused by the need to make some changes in my life that I’m resistant to making or don’t know how to go about putting into action.
The advantage of being an adult is that when I was a teenager, when I hit a depression, I thought it would last forever. Now I know that although I don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel, it is, in fact, there and I just have to wait it out. Waiting is not easy, nor is it comfortable. But I can do it and knowing things will seem better eventually makes it bearable.
The waiting seems to have paid off because while I was asleep last night something seems to have shifted in my brain. I woke up this morning feeling … alive. I still haven’t resolved the things in my life that I need to alter. But I know that I will figure them out and that now I can push those thoughts to the side and focus on other things (like cleaning up the Burrow or spending more time outside (and, yes, I do know those are two contradictory things I need to accomplish)) for a while. Sometimes you can only find clarity by not looking at things too intensely.
Dear Red Line Girl,
You and I rode the Red Line together yesterday, but you don’t know me. I don’t know you, either. But following you in your short shorts up the Dupont escalator caused me to worry about you.
You have the skinniest legs I have ever seen. Skinnier than super models. Skinnier than professional marathoners. Skinnier than cocaine addicts. Skinnier than some of those starving children in Africa.
As an FYI, you should not be able to see someone’s bones. Not only could I see yours, but I could see where each one widened at the ends.
Perhaps I am hasty. Since I don’t know you, it’s possible you have a grave genetic condition that causes you to have no muscles. Or, in fact, that you are in recovery from an eating disorder that took you nearly to your grave. If that is the case, I apologize and you are clearly working through things without my two cents.
But, RLG, if I’m not wrong, please eat something. Your legs are seriously scary!
Truly,
soe