Ahem, is this thing on?

I still haven’t unpacked from my vacation, so rest assured the blog isn’t the only neglected thing in my life this week. Rudi will be away this weekend riding up yet another mountain, so I will have plenty of time then to tell you about the adventures of the last week. But there is time now to share some of the little details of the past seven days. Three beautiful things:

1. A man wearing a baggy t-shirt and exercise pants walks past me walking the tiniest terrier I’ve ever seen. It was maybe the size of my hand, and a D.C. rat would have required three or four of it to make a satisfying lunch.

2. I returned home to find a small package waiting for me. My dentist had sent me a compilation cd to thank me for referring Rudi to him. I’ve had doctors thank me for referrals before, but never actually had them offer a gift. It was a classy touch.

3. Irisa, Shelley and Mike’s seven-year-old daughter, is growing up. The night they arrived, she explained to Rudi how she’s been practicing rolling her eyes. My mother will assure you that I am the queen of this skill, so I was sure to offer my expert advice over the weekend. Shelley was delighted, I’m sure, but this is the role of aunties everywhere — to help with valuable life skills that parents would prefer you not acquire.

When you live in a city, you get big buildings. But sometimes you forget just how big.

This building, which is located on Dupont Circle between Connecticut and 19th Street, is huge!

It’s a whole city block long, and because it’s on a diagonal street, it’s a particularly long block.

Although the building wider at its south end, at its northern end, it’s quite narrow. Probably just wide enough for two offices and a hallway.

But it has nice detailing.

If you look at the narrow shot again, that’s the decoration between the top two levels of windows on the end.

I’m away, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get reading material. Here are three beautiful things from the past week:

1. I walk into the bathroom after Rudi leaves for work. I’m greeted by the smell of coconut lemongrass soap, which Rudi picked up because he knows how much I love coconut. It always reminds me of the beach and makes me so happy.

2. My festival-bought sundress has yards and yards of fabric and the skirt billows around me in what seems like a romantic way as I trot down the Metro escalator.

3. A sparrow bathes in some loose dirt, wallowing in the dust.

i can’t believe they left us here by ourselves. i like music. couldn’t they have asked the folk festival people to come over to our house? what do cows have over me, anyway? can they purr?

grumpily yours,

della

So, I’m heading out on vacation on Wednesday morning and won’t return home until late Monday night. During most of that time I’ll be camping on a farm in upstate New York, hanging out with my friend Shelley and her family as a folk music festival goes on around us. I’ll also be heading to a ballgame and to visit the family for a night.

When I asked Shelley how many books she thought I should bring, she promptly answered: “Four. Something funny, something thought-provoking, something non-fiction, and something else.” I’m not sure I agree with her categories, but I definitely agree with the number. I could, however, use some help narrowing down my choices.

That’s where you come in. Leave me a comment and let me know what you think I’d enjoy most while I’m away. Here are your choices:

• The Chronicles of Chrestomanci, Volume 1 (This book contains two stories. I’ve read one and still have The Lives of Christopher Chant to go.)
• Sorcery & Cecilia, Or, The Enchanted Chocolate Pot
• Let’s Go France (This is a library book, so if I take it, it will have to live in the car, because I’d hate to ruin a library book if it rains while we’re camping.)
• Strong Poison
• Murder on the Orient Express
• The Mysterious Benedict Society
• Momo
• Animal, Vegetable, Miracle
• Three Bags Full (I’m about a third of the way into this book, but I don’t think it will hurt it if I leave it behind for the week.)
• Something else entirely that I can acquire easily

A mild stomach bug confined me to the house most of yesterday, so many of this weekend’s plans failed to materialize. I did manage to:

• Go to Costco (although I didn’t get to pick up my contacts) and go grocery shopping for some supplies for our trip
• Reorganize the kitchen so that it’s more user friendly, particularly regarding our cookbooks and what’s kept in the oven
• Work on two socks, although I didn’t finish any!
• Back up this year’s photos onto cd and clear space off the camera’s memory card
• Watch a couple episodes of The Muppet Show
• Finish The Book Thief and read this week’s chapters of Sense and Sensibility

We leave on vacation Wednesday so my plans this weekend partly have to do with that and partly have to do with just doing weekendy things:

• Pick up contacts from Costco
• Tidy the apartment enough that I’m not horribly embarrassed that someone will have to stop by to look in on the cats
• Pull out the camping gear from the closet
• Ride the bike
• Finish two socks (thus completing two different pairs) and work some more on a third
• Bake a cherry pie
• Make granola
• Write a belated My D.C. post
• Back up this year’s photos onto cd so I can clear space off the camera’s memory card
• Visit the garden
• Watch a movie or video or two (I’m thinking more along the lines of Mamma Mia! rather than Dark Knight, which Rudi confirms is way too disturbing for me to watch)
• See the new Jim Henson exhibition at the Smithsonian
• Finish at least one of the books I’m reading
• Pay bills
• Go swimming

Hmmm… methinks I’d best get to sleep so I can get up early and get started on this list! G’night!

Three beautiful things from the past week:

1. Sarah and I went to see the Indigo Girls perform at Wolf Trap tonight. We’ve been talking about doing this for something on the order of three years, so it was great that the stars finally aligned tonight. In addition to it being a girls’ night out, listening to the Indigo Girls always reminds me of our college sing-alongs and of Kim and Rebecca in particular. I was thinking of you tonight as I lay under the stars.

2. Okay, so the end result was not what National League fans were hoping for, but I don’t think anyone who stayed up for the entirety of the fifteen-inning All-Star Game couldn’t have asked for for a more exciting game. Whether it was the AL comeback in the 8th or the NL saving the game again and again in extra innings, it was definitely one for the history books — and for the memory bank.

3. Over the couple weeks I’ve acquired several new fibery skills in order to continue work on the Summer of Socks. Two weeks ago, the new skill was short-row heels (for the non-knitterly amongst my readers, that means heels that have a diagonal line running along the side of the heel like most store-bought socks have). Last week it was starting a sock from the toe and working up toward the cuff. Last night it was working a crocheted-trim edge along socks I began optimistically for St. Patrick’s Day back in March. It’s all very exciting to have these weapons in my sock-making arsenal.

The mail has been good to me recently. A package arrived at the beginning of the month, containing goodies from my Libris Swap on Ravelry, where folks were supposed to send themed reading material and yarny goodness to another knitter.

Cate from down the road in Richmond had me and put together the best package. Shall we look inside the box?

What could be inside?
(more…)

Screen on the Green, the weekly, free movie night down on the Mall was held tonight for the first time this summer. After starting out as a very grey day, the afternoon cleared, leaving us with a crystalline sky for the evening.

Yesterday evening was filled with torrential rain, dropping so much water on the area in a fifteen-minute period that Rudi and I watched as the edges of the streets filled and then overflowed the curbs, leaving people to hurdle a raging river of water on R Street. It filled an abandoned drinking cup left on the wall outside the gallery. It poured with dark determination.

So Rudi and I had considered skipping tonight’s movie, since it was bound to still be damp. But it was a Bond movie — the first Bond movie, to be more specific — and Rudi really wanted to see Dr. No. After determining that grass closer to home was drying, we decided to take our chances and head down to the Mall.

Because no one wanted to join us, we were able to take our camping chairs, which is wholly what made the evening. The ground was still damp, even if the grass had dried, and because we didn’t have to sit on it, we were able to just hang out and snack and watch the movie. I knit on one of my socks. I’m sure the dampness seeping through blankets is what drove off a number of our neighbors during the show.

The Capitol loomed large behind the screen and the Washington Monument stood stately behind us. A pregnant, waxing moon beamed down upon us. The air grew chilly, even, making us glad for the long sleeves we’d brought with us. I couldn’t have imagined a more perfect scene.