We leave on vacation Wednesday so my plans this weekend partly have to do with that and partly have to do with just doing weekendy things:

• Pick up contacts from Costco
• Tidy the apartment enough that I’m not horribly embarrassed that someone will have to stop by to look in on the cats
• Pull out the camping gear from the closet
• Ride the bike
• Finish two socks (thus completing two different pairs) and work some more on a third
• Bake a cherry pie
• Make granola
• Write a belated My D.C. post
• Back up this year’s photos onto cd so I can clear space off the camera’s memory card
• Visit the garden
• Watch a movie or video or two (I’m thinking more along the lines of Mamma Mia! rather than Dark Knight, which Rudi confirms is way too disturbing for me to watch)
• See the new Jim Henson exhibition at the Smithsonian
• Finish at least one of the books I’m reading
• Pay bills
• Go swimming

Hmmm… methinks I’d best get to sleep so I can get up early and get started on this list! G’night!

Three beautiful things from the past week:

1. Sarah and I went to see the Indigo Girls perform at Wolf Trap tonight. We’ve been talking about doing this for something on the order of three years, so it was great that the stars finally aligned tonight. In addition to it being a girls’ night out, listening to the Indigo Girls always reminds me of our college sing-alongs and of Kim and Rebecca in particular. I was thinking of you tonight as I lay under the stars.

2. Okay, so the end result was not what National League fans were hoping for, but I don’t think anyone who stayed up for the entirety of the fifteen-inning All-Star Game couldn’t have asked for for a more exciting game. Whether it was the AL comeback in the 8th or the NL saving the game again and again in extra innings, it was definitely one for the history books — and for the memory bank.

3. Over the couple weeks I’ve acquired several new fibery skills in order to continue work on the Summer of Socks. Two weeks ago, the new skill was short-row heels (for the non-knitterly amongst my readers, that means heels that have a diagonal line running along the side of the heel like most store-bought socks have). Last week it was starting a sock from the toe and working up toward the cuff. Last night it was working a crocheted-trim edge along socks I began optimistically for St. Patrick’s Day back in March. It’s all very exciting to have these weapons in my sock-making arsenal.

The mail has been good to me recently. A package arrived at the beginning of the month, containing goodies from my Libris Swap on Ravelry, where folks were supposed to send themed reading material and yarny goodness to another knitter.

Cate from down the road in Richmond had me and put together the best package. Shall we look inside the box?

What could be inside?
(more…)

Screen on the Green, the weekly, free movie night down on the Mall was held tonight for the first time this summer. After starting out as a very grey day, the afternoon cleared, leaving us with a crystalline sky for the evening.

Yesterday evening was filled with torrential rain, dropping so much water on the area in a fifteen-minute period that Rudi and I watched as the edges of the streets filled and then overflowed the curbs, leaving people to hurdle a raging river of water on R Street. It filled an abandoned drinking cup left on the wall outside the gallery. It poured with dark determination.

So Rudi and I had considered skipping tonight’s movie, since it was bound to still be damp. But it was a Bond movie — the first Bond movie, to be more specific — and Rudi really wanted to see Dr. No. After determining that grass closer to home was drying, we decided to take our chances and head down to the Mall.

Because no one wanted to join us, we were able to take our camping chairs, which is wholly what made the evening. The ground was still damp, even if the grass had dried, and because we didn’t have to sit on it, we were able to just hang out and snack and watch the movie. I knit on one of my socks. I’m sure the dampness seeping through blankets is what drove off a number of our neighbors during the show.

The Capitol loomed large behind the screen and the Washington Monument stood stately behind us. A pregnant, waxing moon beamed down upon us. The air grew chilly, even, making us glad for the long sleeves we’d brought with us. I couldn’t have imagined a more perfect scene.

Here it is Sunday night again. Someday I’m going to learn how not to fritter my weekends away because it seems like this time each week I look back on the previous 48 hours and think, “Really? Couldn’t I have done better?”

The weekend, as with all weekends, was not without its high points: Friday night, John, Sarah, Rudi, and I headed to the Sculpture Garden for jazz and a picnic. The weather wasn’t totally disgusting, which in July is always a blessing. The evening was nice — good friends, good food, good music.

And last night instead of accompanying Rudi to a cookout/welcome back party for one of his cyclist friends (with all the rest of his cyclist friends), I called up Susan and the two of us went out to dinner. Susan was my first friend in D.C. and she remains a dear one, so it’s always good to see her. We ate Lebanese food and talked and I felt better for having gone out with her.

Otherwise, I didn’t do a lot. I cleaned some (but not enough). I went to the farmers’ market. I knit. (Okay, I did learn a new knitting skill and that will be a post later in the week.) I watched Tour de France coverage.

I didn’t ride my bike. I didn’t go swimming. I didn’t read. I didn’t call any of my faraway friends to catch up. I didn’t make a cherry pie (although I did leave some cherries out on the counter overnight to become an accidental science experiment/fruit fly-mold incubator). I didn’t go to the garden. I hardly left the house.

The good news is that we have a vacation coming up in ten days. We head to New York for a final Mets game at Shea Stadium before they sell their souls to a banking behemoth. And then we head further north for our annual folk music/camping trip with Shelley and her family. We’ll also spend a night with my folks and with Gramma and maybe see some of our New York friends. Even if I’m pathetic that weekend, at least I’ll be pathetic with other people.

In the meantime, maybe next weekend will be better spent.

One of the major frustrations of urban life is the broken escalator.

Over the last two weeks, at least one of the three 188-foot-long escalators at the north entrance to the Dupont Circle have been out of service nearly every day. On several occasions, all three have been out, forcing patrons to hike up and down 154 steps between the station and street level.

While it might seem that a broken escalator is identical to a staircase, unfortunately it’s not quite true. Stairs are built with a rise-run ratio factored in — the up vs forward motion a person must make in order to climb; a comfortable ratio is figured to be between 30 and 35 degrees. An escalator is built (obviously) to be used while it’s moving, so its speed is calculated into the rise-run ratio. That’s all a very complicated way to say that stationary escalator steps are steeper than a standard flight of stairs, which is why it can be tiring to climb up the escalator when it’s broken.

Others who play the My D.C. game are Hillary, Sarah, Rudi, and MsP.