On the IJ Side of Life
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October 16th, 2009
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| I'm about to fly home for my cousin's wedding this weekend. It promises to be a good time with nice fall weather. Hopefully my sister has sufficiently recovered from H1N1 to not get the rest of us sick and to be able to enjoy herself at the wedding. This past weekend I met up with Natalie, Judith, Judith's sister, Judith's sister's boyfriend, and Judith's sister's boyfriend's posse at the Equality March in DC. It was great to see them, but I only stayed for a couple hours before I had to leave for my drumming class. I also ran into another woman who dances at Sahara, and she hung out with us during the march. I wish I had been able to stay for the rally after because there were some pretty interesting people speaking. I also wish I could have seen the Daily Show camera crew that was filming. Maybe some other time. I finally got around to reading Sherlock Holmes vs. Dracula: The Case of the Sanguinary Count. This book was completely unnecessary. It's a retelling of Dracula as though Sherlock Holmes had been involved in the case and had really saved the day instead of Van Helsing. Except, Holmes didn't really do much to defeat Dracula. He doesn't even follow Dracula back to Transylvania deciding that his work is done since Dracula's not a problem in England any more. It's written in the style of the Holmes stories with Watson narrating the events and contains an abundance of references to other Holmes stories, as though the author wanted to make sure you knew that he knew his Holmes canon. If anyone really enjoys Dracula and really enjoys Conan Doyle's stories but wants to not care about either, I highly recommend this book. Otherwise, you might want to read it out of morbid curiousity. In future good news, Amanda Palmer of the Dresden Dolls and Neil Gaiman's girlfriend (only relevant in that they are both cool people who increases each other's coolness factor) is playing in Falls Church November 19! The club is actually across the street from my doctor's office, so I know I won't get lost driving there. If anyone is interested in coming to the show with me, let me know. Tickets are $20, and for an extra $5 per group, we can reserve a table for dining and sitting purposes. | ||||||||
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October 2nd, 2009
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| So things have been going really well for me lately. Yay! ( Job ) ( Mt. Vernon ) ( Book Festival ) ( Zoo ) ( Nano ) For future awesome things, I will be home October 16-19 for my cousin's wedding. I'm looking forward to it as I am particularly fond of this cousin, and I know the reception will have good food, good drink, and good music. Any Baton Rouge people want to try and get together Friday night or Sunday, let me know. Saturday's fully booked with wedding and other family stuff, but I'd like to see friends if I can. Brooke and I are going to NYC for Halloween. We're staying with Natalie and Judith and plan on having an awesome time at the Greenwich Village Halloween parade. I'm pondering costumes and welcome any suggestions on the matter. | ||||||||
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June 6th, 2009
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| I'm leaving for Portland tomorrow early and coming back late on the 14th. While most of my time there will be spent working at the Oregon field office, I will have most of tomorrow, all evenings, and all day Saturday free to check out Portland. Here is my current list of things I really want to do if at all possible: Drive to beach and check out the Pacific coast Christian Kane (aka Lindsey on Angel, aka Eliot on Leverage) show Sunday, June 7th at Dante's See the Sinferno Cabaret at Dante's before the Kane show Pride Festival Saturday, June 13th UFO Museum Powell's book store Rock Bottom Brewery If anyone (like Ell who told me at least two other things to do that I forgot about) has other suggestions, let me know! I'm bringing my laptop with me, so I'll be able to keep up with the internets while I'm gone. Unrelated to Portland, we are having visitors soon! Natalie and Judith are coming to visit again June 19-22. We will probably spend some quality time at the Smithsonians and maybe the zoo. Then my uncle is going to be in town June 21-24 for a work thing, and he's taking me to a Nationals-Red Sox game. Yay! | ||||||||
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April 28th, 2009
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| So I've taken another of my month-long breaks from posting. I think I should just accept that I'm going to do that sometimes and not feel bad about it anymore. Back in March, I had a conference for work at the National Harbor, a more inconveniently located and cheesily pretentious conference center I've yet to see. (Pics here.) The opening speaker was Dave Barry who was just as funny in person as you would expect from his columns and from watching Dave's World with Harry Anderson. The conference was interesting, and I got some good programming ideas the talks I went to. Earlier this month, our friends, Natalie and Judith, visited us for the Cherry Blossom Festival. We had a great time going around the Tidal Basin and seeing the special events for the festival. The Asian Art Museum had a really cool exhibit on the Shuten-doji with incredible comic style drawings and stories. The American Indian Museum also had a comic exhibit focusing on representation of American Indians in comics and the works of American Indian artists. (Pics here.) A couple weeks ago, I made another trip out to Mount Vernon to see the new blacksmith shed. They have also added a new blacksmith. (Pics here starting with the blacksmith's shed.) He has a red beard, and his name is Eric. I refrained from making any Viking jokes as he was working with hot metal objects. He is going to be the estate's full-time blacksmith. Apparently they've always contracted the work out to either Williamsburg or other free lance blacksmiths. I think it won't be so pleasant to visit the area in August as it was on the 50F day in April. They have also added short wagon rides by the river. Belly dancing continues to be fun. I have taken a couple of the weekend workshop classes to check out other teachers. For the summer session, I have decided to take two classes, one for technique and one for performance. The performance class is Hula Belly Fusion, so I will be in a dance during the school's August show. Anyone who's in the area August 15 should come. (I'll remind you again closer to time.) I volunteered to help out backstage for the spring semester show this weekend which should be fun. I've missed being involved in theatrical things. I started doing volunteer work again. I'm doing clerical work at the National Zoo one or two Saturdays a month to help the volunteer organizers (paid workers) keep up with all their filing and data entry stuff. They don't usually have people request to do office work, so the organizer I interviewed with kept asking me if I really wanted to do it, especially after she found out I've done theater and improv. I reassured her that I really didn't want to deal with kids I wasn't allowed to be mean to. Also, I'd rather do something isn't getting done for lack of volunteers than something that people are scrambling to help with. Work's been going well. New Boss has finally arrived. It's taking me some time to get used to being supervised again. We went almost 6 months without a direct supervisor, so it's hard for me to view her as anything other than an interruption right now. Probably I'll be used to it again within a month since she has the same laid-back management style as Old Boss. I'll find out in a couple of weeks if I get to go home for work in the beginning of June. It's mostly definite, but I need to call the office down there to make sure they request me. As some of you already know (because Brooke's been better about posting than I have), we're going to Disney World May 7-10!!! Brooke's dad will be there with MathCounts and invited us to share his hotel room free of charge. We are looking forward to all the rides and the swimming pool with water slide at the hotel. The Arlington County libraries had their semi-annual sale this past weekend, and I racked up. My best find that would have made the trip worthwhile all on its own: Sherlock Holmes vs. Dracula, or The Adventures of the Sanguinary Count. My copy has a way more hilarious cover, a blurry image of which can be found here. I want to put off reading it for a while, so I can savor the possibilities that exist for this book. I also got a Debbie Gibson cd and a book on the 1928 coast-to-coast foot race along Route 66 (main prize $25,000). Life is pretty good these days. | ||||||||
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October 26th, 2008
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| The library had their annual sale this weekend. So many books!!!!! I also got several CDs, including Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? It is totally as much fun as I remember. I also got a dvd of The Last Starfighter. I look forward to laughing at it hysterically. Boss got a promotion to another department at work, so we'll be without direct leadership for a few weeks until they decide who will be New Boss. Office gossip says it will probably one of the guys down the hall. I think he's a bit creepy, but everyone else thinks he will do a really good job. Maybe he will be less creepy if I get to know him better. I'm not going to worry about it until I know for sure that he'll be New Boss. In awesome news, I voted on Friday!! Go Obama! An important reminder to anyone voting in Virginia, no hats, buttons, stickers, bags, shirts, etc. that explicitly promote one candidate, party, or cause (ex. funding for schools, property tax change, etc.). The poll workers will ask you to remove these items or turn a shirt inside out. I know some polls will have baggy shirts (no idea how big) for people to wear as cover ups if they do not feel like inverting a shirt. | ||||||||
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October 19th, 2008
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| We have some. Yesterday, Brooke and I went out to a pumpkin patch with adjacent corn maze. The corn maze was not as impressive as the one outside Baton Rouge, but it was still fun. We found a deer corpse in the pumpkin patch. It was pretty awesome (pictures to come eventually). There were also a number of pigs wandering about being fed bits of pumpkin and corn cobs by other visitors. They has tomatoes and berries which could be picked as well, but we decided it wasn't worth the trouble, especially since neither of us likes tomatoes. I went to a book sale today at one of the State Department buildings. The money goes to some good cause, but I forget what it is. I got 4 paperbacks and 3 hardback books for $25! I've already finished Coraline by Neil Gaiman, but it will probably be a while before I get around to American Gods which I also got. I found the 4th book in the Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde. Now I need to read the second and buy and read the third book before I touch that one. The sale has everything half price on the last day which is Sunday of next week, so I might go back to see if there is anything I missed. Work went really well this week. My presentation was well received, and I was able to answer all but one question asked during my presentation. I stayed for all of the presentations though because I thought I might need to answer other questions which I did. There were a few things that I couldn't answer then, so I'll be working on writing up answers to those this week. Another good thing about staying all day for the presentations was the food. Donuts and bagels for breakfast, rice with salmon and chicken and mushrooms for lunch, cookies and brownies for afternoon snack all made the day go by fairly quickly. ETA: Official birthday party day and time is Sunday, November 9 at 12.30. There will be barbeque, dobage cake, and ice cream. | ||||||||
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September 28th, 2008
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| The forecast said rain all day, so I left my sunglasses at home, didn't wear sunscreen, and brought my umbrella. It sprinkled 3 times throughout the day, and I ended up sunburned. This was all totally worth it. First talk of the day, I heard Judith Viorst who has written adult fiction and non-fiction, poetry, and children's fiction. Perhaps you have heard of Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day? She is an energetic and humorous speaker, and I think her talk was good for kids and adults. She read her new children's book, Nobody Here but Me, about what a boy gets up to when his parents are ignoring him. (Hint: Nothing good.) After that I wandered around for a while collecting free stuff until it was time for her book signing. I got her to sign my copy of Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. I like that book because sometimes you just need to be reminded that bad days happen, even in Australia. One kid at the talk asked if Alexander, based on Viorst's son Alexander, ever did go to Australia. Answer: No, but he almost did once. As Viorst's line was longer than I expected, Neil Gaiman's talk had already started by the time I got my book signed. I decided it would be a better idea to go ahead and get in line for Neil Gaiman's signing than to only hear half his talk since the Library of Congress is going to put up videos of all the author talks later this week. This was a very good idea. I was in line over an hour before he was supposed to start signing, and I didn't get my books signed until almost an hour after he started signing. Now I'm not a very good judge of crowd size, but there were probably well over 500 people in line for Neil Gaiman. The only other author that even came close was Tiki Barber whose line looked about half the size of Gaiman's, and that's only because he used to play in the NFL. Neil Gaiman signed books with a fountain pen which he had to refill just before it was my turn for book signing. I got Fragile Things signed for Ru and Good Omens signed for me. Terry Pratchett signed Good Omens for me at last year's festival with "Burn this book." Neil Gaiman laughed when he saw it and added "* Apply holy match here." after Pratchett's note. I am still very gleeful over this. I wanted to get Katherine Paterson to sign Bridge to Terabithia, but the volunteers said she was only signing her most recent book. Boohiss. I understand a limit on the number of things an author signs, but I don't understand limiting what those things will be. I hadn't even heard of her new book. It has zero sentimental value for me. So I used the time I was going to spend in Paterson's line resting in the shade before I got in line for Immaculee Ilibagiza. She's a survivor of the Rwandan genocide in the 1990s. Her book Left to Tell is about her life in Rwanda. Mom read it as part of Baton Rouge's Big Read this summer and passed it on to me. I didn't like it nearly as much as Mom did, but I do respect Ilibagiza's current work with the UN. I got Mom's copy of Left to Tell signed which should make her happy. Since it started actually raining soon after that, I decided to head home. The pictures I got of the day are here. When the Library of Congress does post the videos of the author talks, they will be here. I'm pretty sure it will be sometime this week. | ||||||||
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On the IJ Side of Life
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