Paula tagged me with a meme:

The rules
1: Each player states 8 random facts/habits about themselves.
2: People who are tagged write a blog post about their own 8 random things and post these rules.
3: At the end of your post you need to tag 8 people and include their names.
4: Don’t forget to leave them a comment to tell them they’re tagged and to read your blog.

1. I do not like soggy cereal. Because of this, I’ve eaten my cereal dry since kindergarten.
2. I have a running dialogue going through my head almost all the time. Rudi says he can tell when I’m writing things I find amusing because I smile as I type. I also hold fights in my head, which I’ve been told is unfair to the other person participating in them.
3. I once went to a WIC office pretending to be a new single mom to do research for a paper. I once went to the mall pretending to be deaf just to gauge people’s reactions.
4. I do not like the taste of mint candy, gum, or toothpaste, but I like it paired with chocolate, particularly in my grandmother’s mint sticks and in mint chocolate chip ice cream.
5. I learned to whistle from listening to the wind blow through the trees at my grandparents’ house.
6. It wasn’t until college that I could tell my right hand from my left without instinctively having to raise one over my heart as if to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.
7. I don’t like the taste of alcohol, so don’t drink it.
8. My senior year of high school, during a visit to the D.C. area, I was approached in a suburban mall by a man who asked if I wanted to star in “adult movies.”

I’m not tagging anyone, but if you’d like to play along, I invite you to do so either on your own blog or in the comments.

I did this

and this

and this.

Oh, and I went to the farmers’ market, played wiffle ball, gardened, baked bread and muffins, knit, read, cleaned, and did laundry. But the picnic was definitely the most fun part.

I’m ready for the weekend so it’s great to have it be Thursday already. To celebrate, let’s look back at three beautiful things from the last week:

1. Last night, we saw the cow-colored dogs I’ve mentioned before coming up the street. Rudi suggested we loiter outdoors until they passed, so we got to meet them and their owner. They are two waist-high Great Danes named Leo and Babe.

2. Sunday, after the ball game, we headed to the garden. Rudi did the back-breaking digging to put in the plants we’d bought, and I pulled up all the grass seeds that had come up from the horse manure we spread on the garden earlier in the season. By sunset we had empty pots and a weed-free plot.

3. Saturday night, we had a thunderstorm in which it poured sheets of rain. They’d been predicting rain for days, so it was a relief when it finally showed up and put on such a lovely show for us.

Rudi and I have known each other since we were sophomores in college — more than a third of our lifetimes now — and I’m more in love with him now than when we first started dating our senior year.

He loves to bike and ski and excels at both. I frankly think he’s crazy to want to strap boards to his feet and hurtle down a hillside at 30 miles an hour or to ride a bike up any sort of incline for excruciating distances, but I’m delighted that he finds such joy in it. I know Rudi wishes I would share his love of these activities, so he’s always happy when I suggest he accompany me on a ride, even when he knows that he will have to ride backwards and with only one leg in order to keep up with my slow pace and tendency toward “Sunday riding.”

To relax, he likes to cook and I am the lucky and eager taste-tester for dishes he whips up in the kitchen. He is gifted in that he can taste (and identify) individual flavors and can often reconstruct dishes I’ve enjoyed in restaurants just by playing around in the kitchen. He loves almost all types of food (except untoasted marshmallow) and I know that he limits his culinary scope by omitting the meats that I don’t eat.

He loves music. Rudi’s tastes are eclectic and he enjoys lots of different types of music, although the Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, and (to a lesser extent) Pink Floyd remain favorites. He loves concerts and would attend as many as his budget allowed if he had the time. His cd collection is extensive (and his digital download archive is growing), and he’s happy to recommend new artists you might like or even to lend you his cds to take home. He was an early proponent of the iPod, buying us a pair to celebrate our both finally being employed here in D.C., to the envy of all my new coworkers.

Rudi also loves politics. He likes watching talking heads, reading tracts, and dissecting theories. He’s not afraid to argue with anyone and, indeed, is really now the political one in the family. (Stop laughing, guys. I’m serious!) It’s been fascinating to watch his interest in international affairs turn toward domestic policy over the last decade.

He laughs with gusto and his amusement is apparent to anyone who shares a comedy with us at the movie theater. It makes my soul skip with joy whenever I say something witty enough to make him chortle.

Kind and loving and sweet, Rudi’s a loyal friend (even when exasperated by behavior he doesn’t understand). He’s far from perfect, but he is wonderful and I’m lucky to have him in my life.

Happy birthday, dear. I hope you have lots of fun today on your day off. May the hills come easily and may the tunes truly rock.

(Birthday salutations can be left at his blog. I’m sure he’d be delighted to hear from you.)

I am happy to report to those of you who were wondering that I did, in fact, get to eat some nice European delicacies at Saturday’s celebration of the 50th anniversary of the E.U.

The best food came at my first stop — Cyprus — where they had an almond brittle, a coconut-filled date (yum!), some jellied grape juice thing, and cheese. I brought home two recipe booklets for their cheese, which I figure I might be able to find at the local Whole Paycheck.

I also got to snack in Bulgaria, where they were serving their homemade yogurt, as well as some other hors d’oeuvres. They also had a display of posters of old maps showing how the borders of their country (as well as the names of their cities) have changed over time. I overheard one man suggest that perhaps they had an inferiority complex as it seemed like they were trying too hard to convince us they existed. The best part of visiting their embassy was that they had a folk band to entertain the crowd that snaked down a whole city block. They were also kind and brought us bottled water to drink as we waited in the muggy heat.

In between those two embassies, I hit Luxembourg because their line seemed to be moving briskly. Once inside, it was obvious why because they didn’t really have a lot to offer, other than a few brochures that seemed to promote their hedge funds. They did have some nice paintings of birches in their living room and the ceiling in the dining room had insets painted different colors. (Mum, something to consider for your dining room?)

The last embassy for the day was the Netherlands, which Rudi joined me for. Holland offered us a glimpse at some nice artwork, including a van Gogh. They were schedule to close for the day shortly after we arrived, so it was not a big surprise that the cookies were gone before we came back downstairs.

So we headed to Georgetown to Leopold’s, a German/Austrian restaurant tucked into Cady Alley, to fill our European food fix. Rudi had cheesecake and a beer and I opted for an apricot and cherry torte and an elderberry pressé.

I hope embassies take the success of this event under advisement and open their doors to the public more often. I’d love to visit some other countries to see what they have to offer (and to eat).

This weekend looks to be another busy one:

• Eat snacks from as many European nations as possible
• Attend Nationals game Sunday afternoon
• Buy airport card for new-to-me computer
• Ride bike
• Garden (my entryway does not have the best growing conditions for the five tomatoes plants currently residing there)
• Go to farmers’ market for more strawberries and asparagus
• Get to post office to mail packages (I won’t share how belatedly)
• Clean apartment (the horror!)
• Do laundry
• Catch up with friends Sunday evening
• Knit
• Read
• Relax (why does this one always come at the end of the list?)

Also, don’t forget to leave some perishable goods by your mailbox today for your postal carrier to take for Stamp out Hunger. The food banks in your community — and the people who use them — will thank you.