Remember the book The Saturdays, by Elizabeth Enright? The main idea was that Saturday afternoons, which ought to be the jewel of the week, so often are not. In the book, four young siblings combine their allowances and work together to give one of them an adventure each week that they weren’t likely to forget.
Well, that was kind of what my today was like.
I slept away the morning. I’d say I’m not sure how that happened, but that would be a lie. My sleep schedule is all backwards right now and I’m waking too late and staying up too late and the cycle continues… Hopefully a weekend with Gramma next week will put it a bit more to rights.
After Rudi left for his bike ride and I toddled over to the computer to break in the day slowly, my friend Susan called and invited me to join her for lunch. I practically bounded out of my pjs and out the door in my excitement at having A Plan for the afternoon. We ended up eating at Raku, an Asian diner with a patio in Dupont Circle because the afternoon was (mostly) warm enough to sit outside. Opting for a veggie bento box and a passionfruit limeade, I was delighted with my food. The drink was sweet without being cloying and responded well to the ice melting. And my lunch box, preceded by a generic bowl of miso soup, was full of light, but tasty morsels: a cucumber-avocado roll, veggie tempura, a veggie egg roll, seaweed salad, and a delectable asparagus-parmesan-portobello dishlet. Ahhh, me! Susan and I ate and talked, and after we could eat not a bite more, wandered around the neighborhood for a bit and then sat on the front steps of her building to talk some more.
In and of itself, that would probably have tided me over with happiness for the week. But I was struck with inspiration and called Rudi, who had recently returned from his ride, to invite him to join me for an ice cream cone. I love Larry’s and, as always, my scoop of Paradise was … well, you know.
A short while later, Rudi was heading out to an evening bike meeting, so he suggested that he could drop me down at the cherry blossoms en route, and I took him up on the offer. I spent three hours wandering the Potomac banks, the FDR Memorial (my favorite in the city), and the Tidal Basin before the sun set. I parked myself at a picnic bench with my knitting (I’ve reached the stockinette foot of my sock, so it was fine for nighttime knitting) and waited for the dark to grow black enough for the Cherry Blossom Festival fireworks to begin. The lower fireworks were obscured by the cherry trees, but those launched higher up were cheery and colorful and all one could hope for in such a show.
I concluded the day with plain and chocolate salty oat cookies from Teaism, a compliment on my t-shirt, and a pot of tea (Ceylon OP from the Porto Rico order that arrived this week).
Really, who could ask for a nicer Saturday afternoon?
Sounds lovely! I loved The Saturdays along with other classics like All of a Kind Family and the Boxcar Children – thanks for the pleasant memory jogger. I enjoy your blog, think I found it through Girl with the Orange Hat. As a bonus, turns out I may be moving to DC so I get to learn from the fun you have. Hope you have a wonderful Sunday as well.
Comment by MJ 04.06.08 @ 7:31 amOh my god, I’m just flabbergasted! I read that book as a child, and loved it so much that I have been trying to find it again all my adult life! I thought it was called The Saturday Club, though, which explains why I couldn’t find it. I thought it had just gone out of print or something. But my library has it! I am so incredibly excited! THANK YOU! And I’m glad you had such a pleasant Saturday yourself.
Comment by dew 04.06.08 @ 11:31 amMy Saturday involved going to a Toyota dealership to tell them exactly which Solara convertible color and options I wanted, prepared to wait weeks if necessary to get what I want, and armed with Internet research to fight for the best deal.
They found a car with everything I want at a dealership in LA. It will be brought down either today, or Monday at the latest. As for haggling, maybe there’s more to come, but there wasn’t anything like the epic struggle over every dollar I was expecting. It was actually rather pleasant.
Even though the inclusion will probably set off your spam filters, here’s a picture of what I am getting (stock photos from a google search):
Blue Streak Toyota Camry Solara Convertible
Apparently, the blue color is hard to come by, but not more expensive like the white. I find that car colors are typically very bland.
I get that when it costs you 10s of thousands of dollars to make a product, you don’t want to take huge risks in colors people just won’t buy. But it seems that even when manufacturers make different colors, dealers only stock black, white, gray/silver, and red. Then, because people tend to accept what’s on the lot right now, they collect sales metrics and determine that people really want black, white, gray/silver, and red cars, and that other colors aren’t that popular.
I like bright colors, as evidenced by the socks I wear.
David is also looking at trading in both his 2000 Seville and his 96 Roadmaster to get a more modern version of the Cadillac STS or perhaps DTS or maybe the Buick equivalent. Unfortunately, the dealer we went to yesterday to test drive some of those to get a good comparison closed at 6. I guess they figure Cadillacs are mostly sold to elderly people who get up early and are in bed by 8? No early morning risers here. It’ll be interesting to see if David gets ready to go back out and test drive today before we get close to their closing time again.
On book reading progress, I’ve gotten through Warriors, book 4; Ranger’s Apprentice, book 4; and started on Dark Tower, book 5, Wolves of the Calla.
Warriors is an interesting series. The author is listed as Erin Hunter, but Wikipedia will tell you that no such person really exists. It’s a pseudonym used by multiple authors. The first two were written by Kate Cary, then the third by Cherith Baldry. The editing is all done by Victoria Homes, as well as the overall plot creation, but the sudden change in style was a little jarring when I got to book three. It’s a subtle change, with characters handled ever so slightly differently than they had been in the previous two books. Book 4 is back to Kate as the author, and I liked that. Characters who acted slightly off in Forest of Secrets are back to behaving as expected in Rising Storm.
The stories are short, perhaps limited by the size limit that crippled YA genre until Harry Potter demonstrated that children can have attention for a longer story. At this point, 2/3 through the first series, I am tempted to say that it would be better to think of the entire first six novels as a single large volume. The stand-alone power of these middle books is only fair, I wouldn’t recommend reading them out of order.
Wikipedia states that they chose Hunter as a pseudo-surname because they wanted the books to be close to the Redwall series. Geographically on the shelves, they accomplished that, but stylistically – they are quite different. Redwall is a much sillier series. Warriors is a fantasy story with elements of the mystical and magical, but grounded with a more realistic vision of wild forest cats’ lives – they don’t build castles or wield tiny swords, or dress up in funny kitty clothes. It’s closer to Watership Down, really, though not nearly as depressing.
Ranger’s Apprentice: The Battle for Skandia was a delightful read. Fourth in a series, it could be read alone, but of course is much better if you’ve read the first three. The abilities of our heroes being well above average (well, that’s what makes them heroic, isn’t it?) is established in the previous installments in the series, but might seem overdone if you start in the middle. As the title suggests, this is a book about a battle. The Skandians are fierce warriors, but their tactics mostly involve hitting the enemy with their pointy things until he is dead. Not so much in the tactics department. The enemy they face is cunning, and full of brilliant tacticians. Our heroes come in to help with the thinking parts. There are a number of plans and counter-plans put into effect. If you are interested in war games and battle tactics, it’s a fun – if perhaps oversimplified – read.
Comment by Grey Kitten 04.06.08 @ 3:07 pmI haven’t thought about that book in years. It just brought back a ton of happy associations. Thanks!
Comment by Bridal Bird 04.07.08 @ 8:28 am