When people asked, I told them I was “a riot of color.”
I might have a lifelong fondness for Halloween and its trappings:
(I’m the clown.)
This was nursery school, October 1978. I believe it’s my second Halloween costume ever. (Mum and Dad, feel free to correct me on that if I’m mistaken.) Mum made it, as she did all my costumes between this one and 4th grade (I think). Yes, I was really lucky.
Amanda usually wraps up her weekend with a bulleted list and invites others to do the same. This week, with three days in our weekend hopper, I accept:
We begin the weekend with new life. Susan and Phillip have a healthy baby girl.
Our typical summer Friday evening picnic at the Yards. It starts in daylight with feet in the pool, chatting, and watching the jumbotron in the distance after the baseball game begins. It carries on into darkness, through our supper (complete with macarons courtesy of Sarah) and a blue moon.
Sleeping in.
Watering the garden. A tomato and a pepper to pick. Squash to mourn. The pool looks crowded, so I carry on to elsewhere.
Off to Georgetown. There’s a “new” pie place. Pricey, but tasty, with cupcake-shaped pies. Blueberry lemonade pie was excellent, as was coconut cream. Skip the lemonade itself.
I finish my book at the waterfront park. A toddler wonders why I’m crying.
Drama in the sky before me. Race the thunderstorm home. I win, although I admit to being nervous when I had to cross Rock Creek.
Homemade tomato soup with tomatoes we picked.
No berries left at the farmers market. Peaches are dwindling, as is the corn. Apples abound. I buy a fiery flower and paw paws.
Knitting on my Olympic Affection once again. I’m back to virgin wool!
A last swim at the pool for the season.
Baseball vs. the Cubs. The Nats win their 82nd game of the season, guaranteeing them their best season since moving to D.C. and a winning year.
More importantly, it’s Cora’s first baseball game.
Homemade popsicles after a sweaty bike ride home from the ballpark.
Cooking out on the stoop. We grill veggie hot dogs, corn on the cob, a pepper (for Rudi), and a peach. The perfect end to the summer season.
TV shows I’ve been watching this summer:
1. Inspector Lewis: The quality of the writing on this BBC buddy cop show isn’t always outstanding, but the chemistry between the intergenerational leads is.
2. Psych: ION airs this dramedy in a marathon Saturday nights, and it’s everything I like in a show: ultimately underneath the crime-solving, it’s about how you cobble together a family out of your friends. Plus, ’80s and ’90s pop culture references and guest stars.
3. Leverage: This is another cable show re-aired in marathon sessions on ION. While it’s best if you don’t think about how court cases are going to hold up when the evidence is obtained in questionable means by witnesses who disappear, it’s hard to dismiss the appeal of the ensemble cast.
Activities planned for this week:
1. All’s Well That Ends Well: The first Shakespeare Theatre Free for All production we’ll have seen since they left Carter Barron.
2. My final grass court volleyball match(es) of the season.
3. Paranorman
Things I did this weekend:
1. Spent the day at the beach
2. Had tea in the rain
3. Relaxed by the river with a picnic dinner that included homemade peach crisp and tomato-peach salsa
This was harder than I thought it was going to be, because I kept thinking of shows I liked. Interestingly, I also thought of shows my brother really liked. Ultimately, I picked ten shows that I watched first-run and that aired before I turned ten, since that age seemed to herald a different type of tv watching for me.
Sesame Street: I am an old-school Sesame Street aficionado. No Elmo for me, and Mr. Hooper’s store belongs to Mr. Hooper and is run by David when Mr. Hooper’s not around. Oh, and grown ups can’t see Mr. Snuffleupagus. (Incidentally, I have photos of myself with Gordon and with Susan as a kid. I also have a picture taken with the woman who plays Maria, but we’re both adults in it. At the moment, I can’t put my hands on any of them.)
The Muppet Show: This was the first nighttime show I ever watched. So many songs from the 1960s and 1970s are set to animal puppets in my head. Plus, “Pigs in Space” and the animal hospital sketches.
Davey and Goliath: This was a religiously themed, claymation, stop-motion tv show that aired on Sunday mornings featuring a boy named Davey and his faithful and wise dog, Goliath. “Oh, Davey!”
Super Friends: My favorite Saturday morning cartoon show growing up. I was particularly fond of the Wonder Twins and their purple monkey, Gleek. “Form of an ice dam!” “Shape of a mountain lion!”
Fame: I loved it from the very beginning with Doris, Danny, and Bruno through Nia and Jesse to Carrie and Reggie. I used to record the songs off the tv onto a tape, and I can still sing a lot of them.
Little House on the Prairie: I loved the books and then I loved the tv show. I started watching it in the afternoon during syndication and then kept watching all the way through the made-for-tv movies when Albert died and when they blew up the buildings. I liked best the shows where they’re back in Walnut Grove and Laura and Albert are teenagers, but I also particularly like the Christmas special where they’re grown and reminiscing about their favorite holiday memories. I think Pa Ingalls was the 1980s version of Judge Hardy or Jim Anderson.
CHiPs: Ponch and Jon. Motorcycles. Spectacular crashes where no one ever really got hurt. Lessons learned. The beach. So much fun.
The Dukes of Hazzard: Uncle Jesse, cousins Luke, Bo, and Daisy, and nemesis Boss Hogg. It’s so easy to forget in the fun of watching the General Lee fly over an embankment and land safely on the other side, that really the Dukes were breaking the law, delivering moonshine. I’m unclear now as to why they were doing that in modern times, but whatever. All you really knew was that Boss Hogg was corrupt and Roscoe was corrupt and the other two deputies were inept and clearly the Dukes were always in the right because they were against all that corruption. Plus they had the cool car and got all the girls, so obviously they were the good guys.
and The A Team: Another fight the man show. This time our protagonists were ex-soldiers who’d been set up as war criminals and they had to find a way to clear their names, evade the authorities, and fight for the good of the American people (in a more individual sense now than when they were in uniform). A clear predecessor to one of my favorite current shows, Leverage, each person had their own role: Hannibal was the brains, Face set the con, Murdoch flew the helicopter and drove the van, and did a number of crazy things that suggested his undercover role as a mental hospital patient might not be such a challenge, and B.A. was the muscle (who was afraid of flying).
Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood: He had his very own Land of Make Believe, people! And miniature sculptures of them. And Trolley. And a stop light in his living room. And Picture Picture. And Mr. McFeeley (with whom I also have a photo) stopping by for a speedy delivery. And it seems like in real life he really was that good of a guy. I stopped watching the show for a long time, thinking I had outgrown it. But then when I graduated from college and started working, I’d watch him in the morning before going to work because he just set the right tone for the day.
If I weren’t sticking with shows I watched first-run, M*A*S*H would definitely have made the list, since I’m pretty sure I have seen every episode of every season it was ever on, but I’ve seen the entire series in syndication.
Sarah used this prompt yesterday and I’m stealing it because I’m just too tired to write a proper post:
I began this morning by watching Olympic cycling on tv.
This afternoon, I finished the novel I was reading about Olympic track cyclists. It was really good, and I will get you a review before the weekend.
I wore a shirt to volleyball today that proclaimed “No such thing as a rain day.” I was totally hoping today’s game would be rained out.
Our volleyball games have been moved from being conveniently just over the river from me to being half an hour away by Metro. The only consolation is that the central branch of the Arlington County library is adjacent to the new field. This means I now have an Arlington County library card. I feel like I should try to get one for Montgomery County next.
The humidity level must have doubled between when I went out to grab a sandwich this afternoon and when I came home from volleyball. This meant that I actually took advantage of the free “transfer” between the orange and red lines at Farragut. (By transfer, Metro means that they won’t charge you two fares if you get off at Farragut West and get back on within 15 minutes at Farragut North.)
I fell dead asleep on couch when I finally got home.
My nail polish collection has grown yet again. Today I added black.
I bought a skirt online today. It is supposed to be reversible — one side hot pink and the other an orchid purple color. This guarantees it will not fit me properly and I will have to return it.
The corn on the cob that was only so-so last night was delicious tonight in Rudi’s succotash adaptation.
Olympic knitting has fallen off the uneven bars, but has gotten back up, hoping to salvage the routine. I’ll update more in a few days.
Sometimes I feel the need to do unexpected things. Generally, these surprising things are just off-beat, but sometimes they get a little wild.
Like on Sunday, when I headed up to Savage, Maryland, to do a ropes course — on my own.
If you’re wondering what a ropes course is, think Outward Bound. Think awkward team building exercises on sitcoms. Think slightly nuts three stories in the air.
Essentially, you put on a helmet and a harness and then you climb up to these platforms and then walk across a variety of ropes/cables/logs/seemingly insubstantial items to the next one. Eighteen times.
Or, if you’re me, you do the first level fine, and then the second level okay, right up until you get to the final crossing on that level — the ship rigging part.
It will be at this point (or, rather, halfway across it) when you realize that you did not eat breakfast or lunch before heading out on this crazy adventure (because you were running late) and you’re feeling a little light-headed because it’s sunny and humid and 90 degrees outside, and, gosh, you should really have worked on upper-body strength exercises, because this is a lot of work, and maybe you should wrap your arms around the ropes, because you aren’t all that sure you aren’t going to fall (or, at least, dangle from your safety harness and force someone to come rescue you). I did not fall. I did tell the girl running that section of the course that I needed to rest, and clearly I looked like I was going to pass out, because she suggested rather urgently that she’d like me to do that from inside the platform, rather than draped over the top of it like I was when I said it.
Realizing that food was in order, I became possibly the first person in the history of ropes courses to pause during the process for a tea break.
Refreshed, I returned to the course, and climbed back up to the third level to finish it off. I ran into a few problems on this top section, such as where I picked the wrong rope to walk on and had to switch to a different one halfway across the biggest drop. Also, the top level shakes quite a bit, which is disconcerting, even though intellectually you understand what’s happening and why you’re safe.
Next up was the giant swing, where you get winched 40 feet up into the air and then the winch lets go and you slingshot dooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwn and foooorrrrwaaaaaaaaaaaaaard before you head back uuuuuuuuuuupppppppppp. This was fun, except that I had to pull the cord that disconnects the swing from the winch, and I was not expecting how long it takes to grab back onto the bar with that hand. I don’t think I screamed, but, honestly, I couldn’t swear that I didn’t.
And, finally, on to the zip line. You have to cross another cable to get there, but this one is only 15 feet off the ground.
My apologies for all the deserted pictures. By the time I finished, the zipline was the only thing still running, and they discouraged you from taking a camera out on the course with you (for fear you’ll drop it), so I had to wait to snap shots until I got back to the car. And anyway, since I was by myself, you wouldn’t have recognized anyone in the shots anyway.
I don’t know that I feel any more self-confident (a claimed side effect), although I suppose I am proud of myself for heading back out after I ate, when it would have been easy to skip the top level. And I do have this rather fetching set of bruises (and lots and lots of aches today) on the inside of my arm from where I hugged that rigging.
I’m not ruling out doing a ropes course again, but I probably wouldn’t bother doing it by myself again. It seems like people who had a buddy with them were enjoying themselves a lot more than I was. Also, don’t skip meals before you go, no matter how late you are running!
Finally, I leave you with this video. It has nothing to do with me, except you can see the swing in action and some of the high ropes course I did.
