Dear Red Line Girl,

You and I rode the Red Line together yesterday, but you don’t know me. I don’t know you, either. But following you in your short shorts up the Dupont escalator caused me to worry about you.

You have the skinniest legs I have ever seen. Skinnier than super models. Skinnier than professional marathoners. Skinnier than cocaine addicts. Skinnier than some of those starving children in Africa.

As an FYI, you should not be able to see someone’s bones. Not only could I see yours, but I could see where each one widened at the ends.

Perhaps I am hasty. Since I don’t know you, it’s possible you have a grave genetic condition that causes you to have no muscles. Or, in fact, that you are in recovery from an eating disorder that took you nearly to your grave. If that is the case, I apologize and you are clearly working through things without my two cents.

But, RLG, if I’m not wrong, please eat something. Your legs are seriously scary!

Truly,
soe

We’re back in D.C. after three days of vacation. While in Connecticut, I:

• Ate pizza at Modern Apizza (easily the best pizzeria in the state, possibly in the country) with friends, the most recent of whom I’ve known for six years now, the oldest of whom I’ve known for half my lifetime. The gathering also included Rudi and both my ex-boyfriends.
• Bought pastries at Libby’s Pastry Shop for Easter Eve dessert. Cannolis and eclairs are almost always good dessert choices, but Libby’s takes them to another level. After 84 years, though, they ought to have it down. Plus we got to eat Italian ice. Can’t beat $1.25 for a squeeze cup of frozen sweetness…
• Had brunch with another friend who couldn’t make it the night before for pizza. She is the storyteller amongst our group of friends, and she did not disappoint. Although we had to wait forever for the waitress to bring coffee refills, that was not the real reason the meal lasted 2 1/2 hours.
• Found and bought two pairs of the sandals I loved last summer so much that I wore them to death. Note to self: treat these better so they are useful for more than one season.
• Made scones with Dad.
• Ate a delicious turkey dinner with chocolate torte for dessert prepared by Mum and Gramma for Easter. Mum packed up a ton of food for us to bring home (over my protestations), which made a tired, PMSy Monday night much more bearable. As usual, you were right, Mum.
• Birdwatched. My folks live on a great piece of property nicknamed Turkey Ridge where they attract birds of all ilk to come eat at their feeders. The turkeys are nesting for the season, so they didn’t make an appearance, but we did see gold finches, purple finches, several varieties of woodpeckers, titmouses, cardinals, blue jays, snow birds, chickadees, and others flitting around.
• Wound my 500 yards of yarn into a reasonable facsimile of a center-pull ball. Usually I just wind into a ball that rolls around while I knit, but when my ball reached the size of a softball (which is about as large as is comfortable to hold for long periods of time) and it didn’t look like I’d even started winding, I knew I’d have to come up with a revised plan. I had brought the size 17 needles that the yarn’s project is going to be knit on with me and decided I could use one of them to wind the ball around. It took two days to finish, but it is very pretty to look at. I’m somewhat loath to mess it up by starting the shawl that it will eventually become.

The weekend was not without its hitches. I didn’t spend enough time outside. We didn’t get to meet John’s fiancée because she was suffering through a nasty case of strep. Another get-together fell through at the last minute, much to my disappointment. And after an abrupt about-face at the end of Easter dinner designed to get us moving homeward in a timely fashion brought a sudden end to a relaxing family meal, I ended up in tears, which just made everyone unhappy, grumpy, or uncomfortable.

I guess it can’t all be smooth sailing, can it?

But could we have another long weekend soon?