The All-Star Game is this coming Tuesday and will take place here in D.C. There’s lots of hoopla all over the city right now and in the plaza across from our municipal center, they’ve set up life-sized banners of all the players who’ve been named to compete.

I’m a National League girl and the Mets are my team (despite my season-ticketholder status with the Nationals). This is pitcher Jacob deGrom, the Mets’ sole representative to this year’s All-Star lineup. I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed that the National League plays well on Tuesday.

The Relief Pitcher Throws A Sonnet
     ~E. Ethelbert Miller

You have to forget the last election.
The blown save.
What matters is now, not tomorrow, just now.
In every inning there is the possibility of something going wrong,
the way sunlight blinds or the way a ball skips towards
the wall or through and under a glove. You stand on the mound
of your imagination and imagine nothing except your own breath.
In your hands the roundness of the world.

How do you feel? Is this what you’ve always wanted?
It’s not about the score or getting out of the inning.
It’s about saving whatever needs to be saved. It can be nothing
more than one’s reputation or helping a child crave the memory
of magic and something to believe in. There is nothing more
human than baseball.

This is from Miller’s latest collection of poetry, If God Invented Baseball, which came out just as pitchers and catchers were reporting back in February. I’ve borrowed this copy from the library, but I will buy my own because it is a near perfect collection.

This will be a busy weekend without a lot of down time for us. Saturday, as many of you know, is the March for Our Lives here in D.C. There are also sibling marches all over the country, from dozens across New England to all the way out in southern California and everywhere in between (and also around the world, from Mozambique to Manitoba, Canada). In other words, there is likely one near you. You can join us to call on your legislators to make it so there is not one more death in our country due to gun violence. It’s never been more possible than today, but we need your voices demanding your elected officials’ votes.

While that doesn’t start until noon, D.C. teens have decided they would like residents to come together independent of the national rally, so they’ve planned a rally starting at 9 a.m. on the other side of town. Painfully early, but I understand and it’s a good cause.

Saturday night is Earth Hour, the annual call to cut down on electricity by turning yours off, no matter where you live, from 8:30 to 9:30 p.m. Rudi and I usually spend the evening by candlelight, talking or knitting and playing the guitar (me the former; him the latter), but who knows what we’ll end up doing this year.

Sunday is the farmers market, followed by the annual get-together for our baseball season ticket holder group, where we pick the games we want to go to. A bunch of us are friends, so we might go out for food or drinks afterwards. I also want go to the library; hopefully I’ll have finished A Gentleman in Moscow by then, since it’s overdue.

And in between all that? Life. Laundry needs doing and we really need to do some cleaning. We have a couple dvds that are due back to the library that we haven’t watched yet. I’d like to check on the garden and to wind some yarn and to eat some actual vegetables. And it would be great to take some books to one of the Little Free Libraries around the area. And sleep. Which I think I’d better start doing now.

How about you? What are you doing this weekend? Marching with your kids or your grandkids?

To accompany the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympic Games, I had a Korean feast tonight. I stopped at one of the local bibimbop shops and bought myself a vegetarian bowl, a Choca Pie (which is similar to a moon pie), and a Sac Sac Grape, which turned out to have real grapes in it! (I was really relieved what bumped into my lip when I took my first sip turned out to be a grape!)

The ceremony was lovely, as expected, and I cast on a Ravellenic Games project, which I’ll tell you about tomorrow.

Coffeeneuring Ride #8: Cleveland Park Library (4340 Connecticut Ave., N.W.) and Baked by Yael (3000 Connecticut Ave., N.W.)

Sunday, Nov. 19; 3.3 miles

Hot chocolate, everything bagel, raspberry cake pop (more…)

Coffeeneuring Ride #7: Juanita Thornton Library (7420 Georgia Ave., N.W.) and Ten Tigers Parlour (3813 Georgia Ave., N.W.)

Saturday, Nov. 18; 11.9 miles

Keemun Tea

Next on my list of libraries to visit was the Juanita Thornton branch in Shepherd Park near the northern border of the city. Thornton was a retired teacher and neighborhood activist who helped convince the city to build a library on this spot instead of a Wendy’s. (This is particularly relevant since there is a McDonald’s literally across the street from the property.) The library opened in 1990 and was rededicated in her honor after her death two years later. (more…)