As I write this post, Rudi is already in bed asleep. Or at least pretending quietly that he is. I won’t ask. Inevitably I do and he was and then he wakes up (at least for a little while) and I feel bad.

It did rain during the ball game, but only during the first half of the first inning.

They played the emperor’s theme from Star Wars when they introduced the Marlins. They played the theme from Indiana Jones when they introduced the Nats. I’m not sure I equate Florida with legions of the white clone soldiers, but it made me giggle anyway. Partly because I actually recognized both pieces of music, although I misidentified the IJ theme as being the Star Wars theme. Shhhh… Don’t tell Rudi. He’ll be so embarassed.

Our players did not play well, particularly in the early innings. I felt like we didn’t get down on a couple of balls we could have fielded in the infield, but perhaps the grass was slippery and the players felt unsafe. Certainly that seemed to go away as the night went on, so the charitable thing to do would be to blame it on the field surface.

Livan Hernandez threw 150 pitches over nine full innings. He only struck out three and gave up seven hits, two runs, and five walks. He left the game with a no decision for the game.

Left fielder Marlon Byrd had the defensive play of the game when he hit his cut-off man on his throw home. Shortstop Cristian Guzman was able to fire the ball home in time for catcher Brian Schneider to block the plate from the go-ahead run.

Center fielder Ryan Church had the offensive play of the game when he hit a deep ball to left field in the bottom of the 11th inning, allowing second baseman Jamey Carroll to score the tie-breaking run, sprinting hard from third.

I was disappointed we didn’t pull a squeeze play in the 11th, since we had the bases loaded and no one out. We discussed it at dinner afterwards and the guy sitting across from me looked at me, snorted, and said, “You don’t have [third baseman Vinny] Castilla bunt! He’s got too much power!” Yeah, which is why he popped the ball up to the second baseman. I would have had him lay down a bunt and would have simultaneously sent the runners at third and at second (especially since the infield wasn’t in to prevent an effective execution of the squeeze). My way definitely would have been more dramatic. Unfortunately, manager Frank Robinson didn’t seem to agree with my take on things.

We were lucky to have fellow DC for Democracy pals Michael and Julia as our seat mates for the game. They were lovely company, and I hung on their every word as they talked about their upcoming trip to India.

After the game, we went out with them and DC4Der Raj and Raj’s co-worker (from Cleveland Park). We tried a place on Potomac Avenue, but its kitchen had just closed, so we ended up at Marty’s on Barracks Row with DC4D chair Charles. Marty’s isn’t very good, but it is smoke-free, which I appreciate. Since I ate mediocre pizza and an excellent, hot pretzel for dinner at the stadium, I ordered the homemade bread pudding for dessert. It definitely was homemade, but it just okay. And the “whipped cream” tasted like CoolWhip they had applied with a decorative piping tool. But the conversation and the company more than made up for my $5 of unexciting food and soda.

On tap for tomorrow is rising early to join the throngs waiting for free tickets to the penultimate performance of the Shakespeare Theatre’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Carter Barron Amphitheater. So I’m off to bed. Good night!

The rain seems to have gone on hiatus, so keep your fingers crossed for us (and for the Nats, who have yet to win against the Marlins)!

Rain, rain, go away.
Come again some other day,
We have a baseball game to play.

(No word yet on what they plan to do about tonight’s 7:05 p.m. game vs. Florida. Our seats are covered so we’re fine if they want to play in a drizzle, but you hate to head all the way over there just to get sent home…)

This week’s Three Beautiful Things is tardy because I’m feeling grumpy and did not particularly want to look for the beautiful out there in the world. But this is a passing phase (an insight I’ve gained over the years), so I will delay no more:

1. Today’s late lunch trip to the farm market netted me, among other things, a bouquet of pink sweet peas that are now making my office smell nice and a pint of shelling peas, which I shared with two co-workers. Betty said she hadn’t had any since she was five and had had her photo taken on her stoop happily eating some. And Sarah squealed with joy that I had left some of her favorite veggies on her desk.

2. I lost my sunglasses on the bike trip Sunday when they bounced out of my pannier sometime on the Ross Drive detour. Today’s gray weather means I’m not sitting outside squinting into the sun.

3. Normally I leave dirty dishes in the sink until there’s a whole sinkful of them. (For the record, this is not how I was raised.) And then I do a huge load all at once, but there are always more dishes than there is room in the rack so it doesn’t really seem like I’m making any headway. But yesterday morning I had the foresight to just finish off all the dish washing before I went to work, so I came home to an empty sink. It was a surprisingly nice feeling.

It’s hard to believe that this week marks two years since D.C. became bearable.

It was two years ago that D.C. for Dean came into being. We had our first outreach event (Pat, Alex, Anne, Rudi and I handed out flyers at the Mt. Pleasant Fest). We had our first Dean rally (at the Take Back America conference).

I had had a rocky first three months in D.C. I hadn’t wanted to move here. I was broke. I was underemployed, subsisting on crappy temp jobs as a receptionist while waiting for a real job that seemed like it would never be found. I didn’t know anyone here, and I missed my friends back home. In short, I was miserable.

Rudi didn’t know what to do with me. So when I told him there was a get together of people who liked Howard Dean (a presidential candidate we’d been following for months) across town and I was interested in going the first week of May, he jumped at the opportunity to do something I actually seemed excited about. We went. I didn’t have a good time, but we’d gotten our names on a list of local people who were interested in volunteering.

Pat, who was organizing the local Dean group, scheduled a follow-up meeting two weeks later, at which we formed some ad-hoc committees. He asked for a volunteer to head up the “visibility committee” I’d sat in on, since he was heading up the whole group and couldn’t devote sufficient time to the committee. Silence. You could have heard crickets chirping.

It felt like the silence went on forever. Looking back, it was probably five seconds. Maybe ten. But somehow, within that silence, I forced myself to raise my hand and say, “I’ll do it.”

Without a doubt, that was the best decision I’ve made in my life. Well, okay, maybe not in my whole life. But definitely in the last five years.

Because what came out of that impulsive, guilt-induced volunteer job (in addition to a wearying year of sleepless nights and 40-hour weeks devoted to Howard Dean) was a whole social group. United in our desire to change the world (initially through a Dean presidency, but later through other means as we morphed into D.C. for Democracy), we formed bonds that have sustained even outside of the political world. We celebrate birthdays, promotions, moves, births, holidays, and sporting events together. We’ve become a community.

So three cheers to the D.C. for Democracy/Dean groups that made D.C. seem a bit more homelike. We will celebrate with you tonight at Ben’s with our monthly Meetup and some tasty burgers and fries.

And, now, special shouts out to special friends:

• Pat and Heidi (and now Jack), who brought us together in the first place and keep us together still
• Susan and Phillip, who provide fun Saturday nights and enjoyable conversation
• John, who offers up deep insights and delightfully snarky comments without aiming them too personally
• Gail and Chris, who left but who are not forgotten
• Kathie, whose laughter is contagious

Thank you all for making life here so good for me and Rudi.