The Connecticut Senate is slated to vote on the DOMA-amended civil unions bill tomorrow. The session should start between noon and 1 p.m.

The senate is likely to pass the bill as amended. The governor is likely to sign it. I don’t support the bill as is, but feel powerless to stop it.

As you all know, I’m frustrated with the process.

I feel strongly that equal rights will be achieved eventually. I feel just as strongly that this bill does not grant equal rights. Separate but equal has been proven over and over to be unequal. All of us suffer when some are left behind. And when we tie marriage rights and benefits (and responsibilities) to sexual orientation under the auspices of trying to prop up a flagging institution, I can’t see how any of us are served.

I’m a little slow about posting on the Nationals’ home opener…
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Well, we were there for their first home win…. Why shouldn’t we be there for their first home loss?

Tonight’s game just was not as good as Thursday’s. It’s bad when the highlight of the night is seeing Senator Chris Dodd walk past.

The crowd was lackluster. The folks who run the canned organ music (it’s probably too much to hope that there’s an actual organist) just didn’t understand that it was their responsibility to help create an atmosphere to get the fans energized.

The defense was off from the very beginning. Pitcher Tomo Ohka pitched a ball for his first throw (and, from what I could tell, threw balls during his warm up as well) and seemed more interested in getting his batters to first and then throwing as often to first as to home. Catcher Gary Bennett threw four runners out at second, but also threw one late and high, allowing the first run to score. Infielders were flopping all over the place, but they were slow to throw themselves after the ball and then slow to get up. And at one point they were so shifted to the right, that a routine foul pop fly over the third base coach went uncaught because the third baseman was playing where the shortstop should have been. Outfielders (with the exception of one leaping catch by JJ Davis in center field) couldn’t seem to get anywhere near dropping balls.

And the offense just wasn’t connecting tonight. The exception was the bottom of the seventh, when I went out to stretch my legs. Someone hit a homerun while I was in the ladies’ room, so I decided to stay out in the concourse while they ran their course. And they managed to force the Marlins to pull their starting pitcher and the first reliever before ending the seventh.

I had hope when we managed to keep anyone from scoring during the eighth or ninth innings, but, despite a run in the bottom of the ninth, it was unfounded. The end score was 9-4.

The crowds starting thinning out in the seventh, so we didn’t need to fight to get on a train at Stadium/Armory, but we did have to wait about 15 minutes for a Red line train at Metro Center.

No red cap yet, but a pennant to hang on my office door. =)

Just returned from a mini lunchtime concert.

For those of you unfamiliar with him, Ellis Paul is one of the folk revivalists who came up in the early ’90s. This group included Dar Williams, John Gorka, Shawn Colvin, The Story, and The Nields, among others. Ellis’ “The World Ain’t Slowin’ Down” is my personal anthem, the song I dial in on the iPod when the morning’s start has been grumpy and I need a pick-me-up on the walk to the Metro. It never fails to leave me dancing on Q Street and maybe hitting rewind back to the beginning to dance me down the Metro escalator, as well.

I learned last week Ellis would be playing at the Borders by my office. I scooted over there for the last three songs of his set (work ate into the first half of his show) to kickstart my lunch hour.

I came in during “Bad, Bad Blood,” one of his new songs from American Jukebox Fables. It was standard Ellis fare, with emphasis both on storytelling and on melody.

Ellis thanked everyone for coming, saying he had been a bit concerned that he would outnumber the audience. And then he took requests.

The first came from a girl who requested “Nine Months to Fix the World,” a song he penned when he learned he and his wife were expecting their first child and which does not appear on any of his albums. He hemmed and hawed a bit, saying he wasn’t sure he could remember the words.

Another girl asked for “Maria’s Beautiful Mess,” an Ellis standard. He agreed to sing them both and started with “Maria,” during which he was plugged in. And then he unplugged again and wandered into the audience, managing to remember all the words to “Nine Months” without prodding.

I wish I’d been able to make it a few minutes earlier so I could have heard the other songs from the new album, but I remain confident from the tidbit I heard it will stand up to his previous efforts.

Earlier this week, a friend invited Rudi and me to go sailing today. An exciting prospect — especially when this morning dawned clear and blue (not that we were up at dawn, of course).

Unfortunately, someone forgot to tell the beautiful weather that we needed a bit of a breeze to billow our sails, and Phillip called to say his boat renter had called to say the water was “like glass” and that he should cancel. A very nice boat renter — it would certainly have been in her short-term financial interest to get us out on the water, anyway!

Rudi hit the farm market while I was getting dressed for sailing (rose a little late — what a shock!). He brought home the milk we needed, purple asparagus, four stems of ranunculus (very pretty!), and blueberry scones for us to eat en route to the marina.

Since we no longer had to race out the door, we settled in with the morning paper (I actually read a surprising amount of it today), the news pundits (CBS Sunday Morning‘s Bill Geist had a hilarious piece on Lawrence, Kansas, and their post office’s party for the late-night tax filers on April 15), and the scones. These were not the best scones Country Pleasures have given us, but the blueberries were very sweet and yummy.

Eventually Rudi and I managed to tear ourselves away from the Nats game on tv (baseball games are so addictive!) and out on our bike rides. After last week, I didn’t really want to go out for a long ride, so I headed down to Hains Point with my book and my knitting (and a radio in case the game was still going by the time I made my way down there).

It was beautiful — and a great choice for a warm spring afternoon. Hains Point is directly opposite National Airport, so you get amazing views of airplanes landing and taking off (although plane-spotting isn’t as good without Dr. Pepper and Wendy’s french fries). Boats were out sailing on the Potomac and the Anacostia (by this point the wind had picked up a little bit, so there were even some sailboats! :() Families were out picnicking — as I was packing up I almost got run over during a touch football game.

I got in a few chapters of the book (still plugging away at The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay) and a few rows of knitting in before heading home with a little bit of a tan (not enough to eliminate last weekend’s funny tan line, but maybe enough to blunt it so I don’t have to think about what shirt to put on in the morning) and 11.3 miles of riding under the belt.

All in all, a good day even without the fun of sailing.

A busy week is planned:

• Monday: Nats game
• Tuesday: knitting group (Suzanne and I might finally tackle the next stage of our socks), volunteer at DC Film Fest
• Wednesday: volunteer at DC Film Fest
• Thursday: Sneak preview of HBO’s Warm Springs
• Friday: David Wilcox concert?
• Saturday: wedding shower (I think it’s this coming Saturday, but it might be next week instead), DC Film Festival showing (I get to watch a movie for free in exchange for volunteering and it’s suddenly looking like Saturday is my only free day for seeing it
• Sunday: farm market, DC Film Festival closing ceremony (a Judi Dench/Maggie Smith film)