This coming Saturday, four coworkers and I will be getting up early and heading out to work in D.C. as part of an annual community service marathon. The event, Servathon 2008, is hosted by Greater D.C. Cares, a nonprofit that matches volunteers up with community service projects year-round.

Servathon 2008 is focusing on improving the D.C. schools and buildings this year and more than 3,000 area residents will pitch in to paint, landscape, and make general improvements to school facilities.

My friend John likes to refer to this sort of event as “Painting over the Problem.” In a way, it’s true that this is literally a cosmetic feel-good effort. You aren’t making a substantial contribution to the schools or their students in any meaningful way. On the other hand, when you walk into some of these school buildings, it can sometimes be hard to imagine that the infrastructure problems don’t interfere with the learning process. So I’d like to think that it does make a tangible, if small, contribution to education in D.C.

Our team, Science Serves, will be up at MacFarland Middle School in Petworth, which is 85 years old this year. If you live in the area and are free Saturday morning, we welcome additional hands. If you aren’t able to pitch in personally, but would still like to make a difference, Greater D.C. Cares has asked each participant to raise funds.

My donation page can be found here.

According to the Servathon website, small donations still make a big difference:

• $10 buys the landscape materials to revitalize the grounds of a high school
• $25 will help paint an elementary school classroom
• $50 will help restock a D.C. Public School library

A fresh coat of paint won’t fix D.C.’s schools. But it will help D.C.’s students focus on what they should be learning — and remind them that an awful lot of people care about their success.

Thanks for any assistance you’re able to offer.

I’ve taken lots of pictures of RFK over the years, since I’ve seen both soccer and baseball there since moving down here. But over the last month, I’ve had the chance to see the unveiling of a spic and span new ballpark.
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Three beautiful things from the past week:

1. I’ve spent the past two nights up through the wee hours working on some editing/proofreading. At 3 a.m. or thereabouts, certain birds wake up and start calling to one another.

2. I arrive home from today’s farmers’ market (fewer veggies left when you arrive at the end, but I still brought home cake and gelato, as well as some healthier items) tired and crabby (probably from #1 above). I lie down in bed with the cats and sleep for an hour and awake feeling sooooo much better.

3. Charles arrives at the pub on Sunday more than 90 minutes after his wedding shower was due to start. (Apparently his fiancée had a tough time keeping him on a schedule without giving away why she was hurrying him along and wisely opted for surprise over punctuality.) You can tell from the adorable look on his face when he crests the stairs that he totally was not expecting to find a room full of his friends awaiting him.

Let’s say you’re going to make custard as a midnight snack.

Let’s say you’re going to use Bird’s instant powder.

Let’s say you’re going to opt for a snack-sized bowl (so as to save on the washing up).

Let’s say you’re going to adjust the Bird’s recipe to account for the fact that you don’t have quite two cups of milk in the older container and don’t feel like opening the new one.

Let’s say you’re going to think this is just as well because aforementioned bowl does not hold two cups of milk.

Let’s say you know to be aware of this problem because you’ve made instant custard in a too small bowl before.

Let’s say you’re going to have a very big mess to clean up and very little pudding left in your snack-sized bowl to eat.

Let’s say you’re a bit of an idiot.

Empire Magazine has revealed its list of the “50 Greatest TV Shows” ever. Below is the list and here be the rules:

1. Bold the shows you’ve watched every episode of
2. Italic the shows you’ve seen at least one episode of
3. Post your answers

50. Quantum Leap
49. Prison Break
48. Veronica Mars
47. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
46. Sex & The City

45. Farscape
44. Cracker
43. Star Trek
42. Only Fools and Horses
41. Band of Brothers

40. Life on Mars
39. Monty Python’s Flying Circus
38. Curb Your Enthusiasm
37. Star Trek: The Next Generation
36. Father Ted

35. Alias
34. Frasier
33. CSI: Las Vegas
32. Babylon 5
31. Deadwood

30. Dexter
29. ER
28. Fawlty Towers
27. Six Feet Under
26. Red Dwarf

25. Futurama
24. Twin Peaks
23. The Office UK
22. The Shield
21. Angel

20. Blackadder
19. Scrubs
18. Arrested Development
17. South Park
16. Doctor Who

15. Heroes
14. Firefly
13. Battlestar Galactica
12. Family Guy
11. Seinfeld

10. Spaced
09. The X-Files
08. The Wire
07. Friends
06. 24

05. Lost
04. The West Wing
03. The Sopranos
02. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
01. The Simpsons

What do we learn from my annotations to the list? I watch a lot of different shows, but not a lot of each of them.

What do we learn from the list itself? That people at Empire Magazine have questionable taste in tv and that their tvs didn’t work before 1968.

Seriously? Where’s MASH? The Cosby Show? The Mary Tyler Moore Show? The Dick Van Dyke Show?

What would appear on your lists if you were writing a similar list?

When you get up early in the morning, totter out of bed to throw on clothes to beat the rush to the farmers’ market, and find yourself outside still essentially asleep in the pouring rain, expect that you aren’t going to be making the clearest of fiscal choices.

I admit that after a long winter of eating apples (nearly every day) and beets, I was ready for spring veggies. But my resolve was weakened by the rain and the sleepiness and I totally just ran from stand to stand exchanging my cash for beautiful edibles.

By the time I came home, the market basket contained:

• Morels (mushrooms only found for a month or so this time of year in our area)
• Ramps (ditto)
• Spring garlic
• Spring onions
• Garlic chives
• Broccoli
• Carrots
• Grape tomatoes (greenhouse-grown; we aren’t that far ahead of the Northeast!)
• Cheddar
• Milk
• Blueberry scones from Dani and Eric
• A croissant (to sustain myself while I walked around)
• Pea vines
• Green rhubarb
• Asparagus
• Lilacs

(Forgive me; I meant to take a picture, but I was more concerned with getting out of my wet clothing when I got home.)

No, it wasn’t inexpensive. But I’m going to bet that the omelets Rudi makes with the morels, spring garlic, and ramps tonight to be served with a side of asparagus in lemon butter are going to make me grateful for every penny I spent.

Five hours of hoeing and mulching and planting in the garden on a warm, sunny day + four hours of sleeping curled up in weird positions on the couch as the rain dripped down and thunder crashed = a very sore sprite. Plus I have a cold lodged in my sinuses and I can’t imagine that’s helping.

On other fronts, I went to a Ravelry party this evening where I managed to part with two garbage bags’ worth of yarn. Granted, most of it was a very thoughtful find of Rudi’s mom that I’d never intended to add into my stash. I mean, it was fluorescent worsted weight wool. Electric purple, lime green, neon pink. Okay, a little bit was Christmas colored, but still… I didn’t need it and couldn’t imagine what to do with it. It has been collected and will probably go to Girl Scouts who are learning to knit and who will be over the moon to play with the fun colors. I’m glad.

The other wool I gave away was several gigantic balls of bulky weight grey-green yarn that a friend had sent me when I first started knitting. Her friend had knit a sweater, been frustrated by it, and frogged it, leaving the unknit yarn with my friend. My friend hoped I would be able to make a sweater with it, but I just don’t think I’m meant to wear a bulky-weight sweater. I come with my own bulk and I just can’t see that adding to it does a lot for me.

But I do feel a lot better for having given all that yarn away. I’m eager to get into my stash and see what I actually have in there and to get some new projects underway. I have some linen that I’d like to make a summer sweater with and lots of gorgeous sock yarn that is just begging me to pick a pattern and to start carrying them to work with me for lunchtime knitting. Sweetpea is talking about knitting a lot of single socks between now and midsummer and it strikes me that might be a fun way to go about things.

D.C. has a strong legacy as an African-American city, but in some areas of the city you have to go hunting for the remnants of it.

The Charles Sumner School was built in 1872 as one of three public elementary schools for African American children in the city and graduated its first class five years later.

Named for abolitionist Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner, the building was designed by noted D.C. architect Adolf Cluss. Noted for his use of brick, Cluss also designed Eastern Market; the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Museum and Arts and Industries Building; Foundry Methodist Church; and, possibly, the Marine Corps Barracks. The Sumner School won a design award at the 1873 Vienna Exposition.

Sumner School, which stands at 17th and M streets in Farragut, was built on the site of another school for African Americans, which itself was constructed only in 1866 by the Freedmen’s Bureau. When it opened, Sumner was the city’s most modern school building.

By the the time it closed in 1978, the school had fallen into disrepair and was slated for demolition. A community effort saved the building, and a $5 million renovation allowed it to become the multi-use space it is today. The Sumner School now houses a museum on public education, the archives of the D.C. Public Schools, and meeting space.

Check out the others playing along: Sweetpea, Ms P, Rudi, and Hillary in D.C. and Mia in Frederick, Maryland.

I’m sniffly and a little grumpy tonight, but thinking about beautiful things always makes me feel better.

Here are three from my last week:

1. Good news for three friends. John’s bid on a condo was accepted and he is going to be a homeowner. The ad copy for his Cap Hill condo described it as “geeked out” with “killer rooftop views.” Elspeth got the new job she’d been hoping for which will take her back to the former Soviet nations. [E, is the job in Ukraine or Azerbaijan?] And Sarah’s boyfriend’s job is almost certainly taking them to Peru for three months at the end of May. Such good news for everyone! (But I will miss you all!)

2. Gramma and I sit. We talk some, but there isn’t a need for it. We’re comfortable in our own skins and with each other. We read, we watch the birds, I knit, she does crossword puzzles. We drink tea and eat cookies. But mostly we’re just together and that’s enough.

3. Karen and I had a late lunch in Sturbridge and ended up at the East Brimfield Dam. We explored the dam and marveled at the lofty black clouds overhead before hurrying back to the car to avoid being caught in a downpour. When I pointed out the neat way the evergreens stood out against the deciduous trees in that light, Karen realized we were getting an even better show — a double rainbow!

(Click to enlarge the shot.)

What’s beautiful in your world?