Scattered Thoughts

This weeks menu - January 15-20

2012-01-19T23:37:00.001-05:00

We went around the world this week:

Sunday - Italian salt cod and braised kale
Monday - Chicken with lemon and ginger (Jaques Peppin so I will deem it French)
Tuesday - Tamales (Mexican)
Wednesday - Fusili in mushroom cheese sauce (based on Greek recipe)
Thursday - Norwegian curried herring on rye toast and cauliflower soup.
Friday - Spaghetti

January 19 - Norwegian food day

2012-01-19T23:33:00.001-05:00

We went around the world this week and tonight I made some Norwegian food--cauliflower soup and curried herring toasts. We have aquavit so we had a skåle toast.

January 18 - Lunch with Hans

2012-01-19T23:32:00.001-05:00

I miss you buddy!

January 17 - Making Tamales

2012-01-19T23:20:00.001-05:00

I found a recipe for tamales in Cooking Light so I decided to try it. You would figure in my area finding the fixings for tamales would be pretty easy. Well, it was not. No ordinary grocery store had the main ingredients of masa and corn husks. Way to serve the Latino community Giant and Whole Foods! So I ended up going to a Latino store in Wheaton. I was asking the guy behind the counter if I needed masa or if I could use corn meal. I am not sure he understood but he said masa. The guy stocking shelves laughed and said something in Spanish about tamales. I looked at him and said, you think I can't make tamales?" He said no no no, I didn't say that. Uh huh. Listen bud, I can make tamales. It's not rocket science you know."

Much like the salt cod a few days before, this was going to take some time. The recipe was vegetarian--black beans and sweet potato stuffed tamales. I had to bake the potato and then mix it with jalapeno peppers, onions, beans and cilantro. Separately, I made the masa mixing broth and the corn meal and baking powder into a soft dough that had to sit for a while. The corn husks had to be soaked. That all took about an hour.

Now it is time to make tamales. Basically, tamales are corn pone stuffed with something--meat or vegetables, that is then steamed in a corn husk wrapping. So I laid out the corn husk, spread a spoonful of the masa into a square and then spooned a bit of the potato beans stuffing. You then fold the husk so that the masa envelopes the stuffing. The result is little pockets of stuffed dough wrapped in the husks.

These are then steamed in the oven for an hour. To do so, I layered them in a steaming pan fully covered with damp towels. I had to keep my eye on them. At one point I very nearly caught the towel on fire because it had dried out from the heat. The end result was delicious. They were served with Frontera Tomatillo salsa and if you have not had that, get it. Hot, spicy but seriously addictive.

January 16 - Caffeine haze

2012-01-19T23:17:00.001-05:00

When I went out and about today I forgot to take my tea and I spent the day in a caffein deprived haze.

I have heard tell of people who stopped drinking caffeine or never drank it. Yeah, I am not going there. I am too busy collecting articles about how good caffeine is for your health. True!

January 15 - Cooking Salt Cod

2012-01-19T22:34:00.001-05:00

Love it! That is a giant piece of salt cod I bought at the Italian deli. Filipo loves seeing me come through the door.

I spent all day cooking that salt cod. Actually you have to start days in advance because the fish needs to be soaked for a few days to get the salt out. I put it in water on Thursday night. Then I changed the water regularly until the fish had a nice saltiness but not too much.

I prepared a Lidia Bastianich recipe for creamed baked salt cod. First, the cod is cut into pieces and lightly sauteed in olive oil. Then you caramelize onions. When they are nice and brown you put the cod on top and then cover with milk. The fish cooks at a simmer for two hours as it slowly breaks down and absorbs the milk. Then you cook it another hour, the liquid slowly evaporating until you have thick sauce. The cod is then put into a baking dish, covered with grana padano cheese and baked for an hour until it is a lovely crusty cake.

While the cod was cooking away, I braised tuscan kale in tomatoes and borlotti beans.

Four hours later, dinner was ready! It was heavenly.

Menu for the week - January 9-13

2012-01-19T22:22:00.001-05:00

This was a particularly interesting food week here at the Schmidt household.

Sunday - Fresh Sardines stuffed with arugula and tomatoes, and a frisee salad with a poached egg and prosciutto

Monday - Five Spiced Duck Breast with poached quinces and roasted radicchio

Tuesday - Chanterelle Risotto with roasted brussel sprouts

Wednesday - Indonesian beef coconut curry soup (!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Thursday - (disappeared)

Friday - Spaghetti night

Saturday - Buffalo chili

January 9 - Men's Dolls

2012-01-18T00:45:00.001-05:00

I don't know why but I bought some dolls of hockey players. I thought they were kind of cool. According to Matt they are sports action figures, but we all know they are dolls. Two Crosbys and one Malkin.

January 6 - Growing a potato

2012-01-12T22:38:00.001-05:00

I bought fresh potatoes at the local farm stand this summer and they were heavenly. So I want to grow potatoes.

Recently, I opened my bag of potatoes and found one had sprouted. Not just a little eye, but an actual green leaf. So I decided to plant it in a pot and see what happens. (That brown lump you see is a rock, not a potato. I put rocks in pots to keep the cats (and squirrels) from digging. The potato is under the soil.)

I read up on it and it seems that they are one of the most disease prone crop we have. This means they are treated heavily with fungicides. I have also read that if you grow them in your home garden, and they develop a disease, there is a fear it will mutate into a new contagion and get into the commercial crop. So they really don't want people messing with potatoes.

I promise to be careful, Girl Scout's honor, if I eventually have a garden.

January 5 - My war against the word "AMONGST"

2012-01-06T14:53:00.000-05:00

I absolutely cringe when I hear someone use the word "amongst." This word is creeping in to our normal speech and hey folks, amongst is considered archaic and British. Americans say among because we can.

Next time I'll discuss "reach out."

January 4 - House Inspection

2012-01-06T14:42:00.002-05:00

We put an offer on a nice house and we did the inspection today. Well, we won't be buying this one. First, I have had mixed feelings about the neighborhood. Then we discovered that the house has some "moisture" issues in the basement. And oh, by the way, giant rat traps all around the perimeter of the house. There were things we knew we had to fix, but these two issues were a bit beyond the pale. So we walked.

January 1 - 2012 Q & A

2012-01-04T22:49:00.001-05:00

I thought I would do a Q&A to sum things up:

So, glad to see 2011 gone?

Yes.

Did you find a house yet?

No.

Will you ever find a house?

[sobbing] [I miss having a yard!]

Do you and Matt still dance?

Well, yes and no. We have not danced in a while because there are few venues to simply do social dancing. We still go to Waltz balls but even those are disappearing. Because we have no where to go out dancing, we are starting to forget everything we knew.

Did you get your degree in health education?

Yes I did. Then I found out that it is not that useful because it does not qualify me to take the certification exam.

What will you do?

Well, looking for a house has taken up a lot of time. But when I have time, I hope to start a business teaching people how to eat right and cook healthy.

Are you going to get certified as a personal trainer?

I'd like to. But alas, the house situation needs to be resolved first.

Do you miss being creative?

Yes yes yes. School took up a lot of time in my life and I had to set it aside. I hope to get back to being creative when I can. Writing helps. Cooking is creative too. That is why I do so much of it.

How are your cats?

Spoiled. Boo is losing her teeth and Izzy is just a guy.

Do you still watch hockey?

Yes. Go Pens!

Where are you going on your next vacation?

Hawaii. Marriott sucked us in.

What else is new?

I am changing my hair style. I get bored very easily.

What are you reading?

"The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford"

Who is your favorite new band?

I don't have one. New music just does not do it for me. (recommendations welcome)

Who is your favorite old band?

Foo Fighters

Tell me something else.

Matt and I have concluded we are collectors and we like our stuff. No apologies.

What would you like to learn?

How to scuba dive

What would you like to try?

Zip lines. No, I do not think I can jump out of a plane.

Where would you like to go?

Mongolia, Svalbard, the Amazon, Italy, Iceland and Greenland, Botswana or South Africa, Croatia, Peru, Japan, Australia, Costa Rica, Jordan to see Petra, (really the list is never ending)

Do you still have a closet full of coats?

Yes. But I was good and I did not buy one this year. (Not yet anyway.)

What is the last movie you saw?

The Muppets and we also saw The Descendants. We miss going to the movies but we never seem to have time. When will they deliver them to our t.v.?

Is there justice in this world?

No really. But I'd like to think so.

What else do you need to accomplish?

I'd like to be arrested on civil disobedience charges but I will probably get hauled away when I go nuts at the airline security checkpoint.

Who is the funniest person on t.v?

Stephen Colbert. Bar none. I nearly peed myself when he was dancing a ballet.

So you watch t.v.?

Only Colbert and Project Runway and the news.

Why do you watch the news?

I don't know. It has been bloody depressing.

On that note, on to another year.

December 31 New Year's Eve

2012-01-04T22:19:00.001-05:00

We went to Jaleo for New Year's Eve. All the tapas we could dream about for a fixed price. Pile on top of that a mean sangria and cava and well, needless to say, we over did it.

They had a dj and we expected to dance. But no one was dancing. Stupid old people. As the night went on I was getting ants in my pants so we got up to dance all by ourselves. It took two tries but we finally got people going around 11:30.

The Spanish tradition is to eat 12 grapes at midnight, one for each chime, to get your wish. I managed to stuff them in and gulp them down and then I thought, man, I need to try that hotdog eating contest.

Matt made me take the metro to Penn Quarter. On the ride down, everyone was so nice and fresh. The train ride home was very different. The cars were packed with very drunk people, some not looking quite so good. They were all trying to pretend they were not drunk but the eyes show it in detail. You cannot hide that bleary red eyed stare. Thank goodness no one puked on our train (Although I did see someone throwing up as we waited on the platform. Nice. I am sure his girlfriend was thrilled.)

Anyway, so long 2011. Good riddance.

Izzy Yoga

2012-01-04T00:43:00.001-05:00

December 30 - Fort Necessity

2012-01-04T00:35:00.001-05:00

Fort Necessity is a National Battlefield in the Laurel Mountains near where I grew up. It was a key site in the French and Indian War. George Washington got clobbered there. He was overrun by the French when the Indians abandoned him and he had to sign a surrender agreement in which he admits to killing Jumonville, a French general, in an ambush. (A place called Jumonville is preserved too.)

He was young and had no real idea what he was doing. So we forgive him. Matt is a big Washington fan so we stopped to look around.

The French and Indian War, a war in which France and England fought over the domination of America, much to the Indians dismay and frustration, is long forgotten but it was pretty important. Without it, we'd all be speaking French right now. They call it the Seven Years War and it was the first global war, stretching all the way to India.

The Fort is also along Route 40, the first National Road, something that Washington envisioned as a way to connect settlers to the coast for trade. It did get built over a series of years and still exists today as a scenic highway in the backroads of Pennsylvania and Maryland. Its a nice drive if you have the time.

After our history lesson, we drove home to Maryland. We missed the cats.

December 29 - Michele's Birthday

2012-01-04T00:00:00.001-05:00

The first of we siblings to reach the Medicare plateau, I crowned my sister Michele Miss Medicare 2011. Don't tell anyone. (Ha ha. I'm last!) We ate pierogis and kielbassi and sang happy birthday and partied too much. Well, why not.

December 28 - Hanging out in Pittsburgh

2012-01-03T23:53:00.002-05:00

We stayed for another day on a whim. We walked around the Strip District which is the old warehouse district turned into bar crawling and food shopping area for the hip and the foodie. We, of course, bought food.

Then we visited the Heinz History Center and learned all about the history of Heinz ketchup and other food products. There were other exhibits but, by far, that pickle measuring kit was the most fascinating thing I saw.

Went to dinner at Lidia's. We adore their sommalier, an Italian with just the best enthusiasm and not a hint of stuffiness. He loves us. We love him.

December 27 - Penguins at home

2012-01-03T23:50:00.002-05:00

We drove to Pittsburgh to see the Penguins play the Carolina Panthers. Matt bought great seats in the club section. The weather and traffic caused us to arrive in the city very late and we had to run to the game and eat at the arena. The food is not bad but its not great either. I had a pork sandwich and I asked the server to not put so much meat on the sandwich. He looked puzzled and said that was the first time he had ever had that kind of request.

Thank goodness we won. I miss Sidney. But Malkin was fantastic.

December 26 - Where goest the Yule Log?

2012-01-03T23:47:00.001-05:00

Here is a letter that I sent to the Washington Post in my job as amateur investigative reporter. If I were a conspiracy minded person, I would think that the NPS is hiding something.

Wither goest the Yule Log?

Visiting the Yule log on the Mall is one of the highlights of Christmas for me and my husband. Part of the larger Christmas celebration, the Yule log is located at the back of the Christmas pageant area in a large room size pit. A roaring fire, with logs the size of small cars, is there to warm all those who visit the National Christmas tree.

As late as 2007, there was a sign that explained the Yule log. When I read it, I was proud that the National Park Service gave a pretty accurate history of the symbols of Christmas. So I took a picture of it. It read: "The burning of the Yule Log is an ancient custom ante-dating the Christian era by centuries, it was part of a gay Festival celebrating the mythical God Thor. Later, the English made it an integral part of the Christmas Eve festivities, even as the beautiful Christmas tree, tho' likewise of Pagan origin, is so dear to our hearts as a Christmas symbol."

My assumption was that someone would be offended by the suggestion that a Christmas symbol had pagan origins. And sure enough the next year, that sign disappeared. I asked a ranger about it and he told me that the sign was being rewritten. It seems that someone complained. But the complaint was not the reference to pagans. It was, he told me, the reference to "gay" festivals. Doing a Google search, I located a discussion at Heathen News, a Yahoo User Group, in which a user noted his letter to the NPS complaining about the sign's inaccuracies including the use of the word "gay." He lamented that the sign had not yet been replaced.

The 2011 Christmas season has now passed and that sign was still missing. Even worse, when we visited this year, the fire was poorly tended. When we arrived there were a few logs, with little fire, just some burning embers. When we pointed out to the ranger that the fire needed wood, we were greeted with some serious attitude. He said, "Thank you" in peeved a manner that suggested we should mind our business. This was someone who clearly should not have been dealing with the public. But we persisted and the logs were finally added to the fire. Using a forklift to heft hundreds of pounds of stumps into the pit, this is an event that should be seen if possible.

But as we stood vigil at the fire, more than one person came up and said, "Oh look, a fire pit." Of course they would think that since the fire is completely unexplained. The NPS needs to get that sign back and the rangers need to tend that fire as one of the many symbols of Christmas that we as Washingtonians have come to love.

Marsha Schmidt

2012-01-02T23:34:00.000-05:00

December 25 - Christmas in Rockville

2012-01-02T23:29:00.002-05:00

Santa Claus was very good to me this year. This was my guy stuff year. I got tools--a ratchet set and a really cool ratchet screw driver. I got a bottle of Chateua Jihua from Dogfish Head Brewery. Plus, I got cooking stuff--a bread maker, some fun whisks, a Le Creuset casserole and a dish from Portugal.

I bought Matt a meteorite and some other stuff. But that was the cool thing.

We had Matt's mother over for dinner and I made quail stuffed with chestnuts, Bhutanese red rice, and pan roasted brussel sprouts. For desert we had salted caramel gelato (sinful!) with persimmons.

After dinner we went to the Mormon Temple to see their light display. (I heard a young guy ask, What is the Church of the Latter Day Saints? He did not know.) It was not as elaborate as we have seen in the past but still fun.

December 24 - Christmas Eve

2012-01-02T23:27:00.001-05:00

We spent the day trying to finish up or we were going to be celebrating Christmas in February. We wrapped gifts, cooked, ran a few last minute errands and then went to Suzanne and Carl's for dinner. They made us a lovely rib roast with the fixins.

Random Thought

2012-01-02T23:25:00.001-05:00

I have never been to Iowa and I am sure it does not matter.

December 19 - 23 Trying to get it all done

2012-01-02T23:22:00.001-05:00

I didn't. No cookies were forthcoming. We barely got the Christmas cards out and the presents were not yet under the tree.

December 18 - Got a tree

2012-01-02T23:19:00.001-05:00

Our apartment is too small for a real tree. Or perhaps we have it packed with too much stuff. Whatever the reason, we had to go out and buy a mini-tree and mini-ornaments because, guess what, most of our Christmas stuff is in storage.

Oddly, because we had no real opportunity to decorate outside we really really missed it.

December 17 - The Muppets

2012-01-02T23:15:00.002-05:00

We saw the new Muppet Movie. Oh Kermie and the gang, how we miss you. Disney needs to stop suppressing them. In case you did not know, Disney owns the Muppets. They bought them after Jim Henson died. Then they decided the Muppets were not 3-D enough for today's techno audiences and just stopped producing television or movies. This movie is supposed to be their comeback. So get out there and buy tickets folks. We need the Muppets! Plus, it was hilarious. (Dave Grohl, you kill me.)

December 14 - Arena Stage

2012-01-02T23:12:00.002-05:00

When I go to plays, my rule is that if I do not like it, I leave at intermission. Life is too short for bad plays. I will not remember this a year from now but the play You Nero was so bad, we left. Arena Stage has three separate venues. As we were leaving we saw people leaving the other play, Equivocation, in droves. I stopped a couple who was leaving and asked them if they were sneaking out at intermission. They admitted that they were skipping out on what was a very boring play. That was good for us to know because we had tickets to see it and this just bought us a free night. So we exchanged information on our plays and encouraged them to skip that one too.

December 11 - Hillwood Russian Christmas Celebration

2012-01-02T22:11:00.001-05:00

Hillwood was the home of Marjorie Merriweather Post, a very wealthy socialite, heiress to the Postum cereal fortune, and later the founder of Bird's Eye and General Foods. To say she had lots and lots of money is really an understatement.

She married four times and one of her husbands was an ambassador to the Soviet Union under Stalin. Stalin needed cash and she had it. She spent a good part of her money buying Russian treasures that belonged to the Romanovs. She bought Faberge eggs, jewelry, glassware, furniture, and china. Arguably without her much of that treasure would have been lost. Because of this affiliation with Russia, Hillwood, now a museum complex, celebrates Russian Christmas complete with balalaika band and appearances by Father Frost and the Snow Maiden.

It was a beautiful sunny day so we decided to see what Hillwood had to offer. We started with Father Frost and the Snow Maiden.

The story we heard was about a childless couple who wants a daughter. Father Frost convinces the Snow Maiden to be their daughter. She would come to life, from being a snowman (or woman) and be their daughter. Come spring, she will melt and go back to live with Father Frost at the North Pole. But she will come again the next year. That seemed like a very sad story to me. Who wants to see their child melt?

Anyway, that was all very interesting but on to the balalaika band. They played Russian folk songs and everyone clapped. That large guitar looking instrument is only the second largest string in this array of instruments.

After the folk music we toured the greenhouses and the main house. It had been quite some time since I had last visited. It is still pretty amazing. Here are some pics.

Tree with Antique Russian ornaments

The main staircase. That is a portrait of Catherine the Great and other Russians.

Fantastic chandelier

View of her bedroom through a glass screen decorated with gold

Orchid in the green house

A kiss under the mistletoe

From the library. These are a multi-volume set of books entitled "Pills to Purge Meloncholy."

I guess even rich people get sad.

December 9 - José Andreas

2012-01-02T00:28:00.002-05:00

I love José. His enthusiasm is infectious and we frequent his restaurants. So when I learned he was signing cookbooks, I was all about being there. Matt and I talked his ear off. At first, I think we was kind of surprised then he got into it and the line of people waiting to get a signed book was getting long. I thanked him for America Eats! his pop up restaurant that is his love letter to American food. It is easy to wonder, what exactly is American food? He figured it out with his collection of first edition cookbooks going all the way back to Colonial days and a lot of research. When we told him we loved the food, he immediately engaged and said he had critics.

We discussed at length the issue of using the same recipe or improving a recipe to get to its essence. He also discovered that catsups were very important in Colonial cooking. But they are really simple sauces made from various ingredients like berries. He was criticized because they were not thick. He said something like, "Just because people ate shit 300 years ago we have to keep doing it?" Agreed. His catsups are interesting and add a nice flavor. Plus, there is the bastardization of the recipes. For example, we love the peanut soup. But it is not that thick puree that would be considered usual in the South. It is a sublime cream, like a voulette.

Anyway, we went on and on until we realized that we were monopolizing him. So we got our picture taken. He hugged me, offering his cheek. So I kissed it. Love him!

December 7 - A Merry Tuba Christmas

2012-01-02T00:21:00.001-05:00

Every year the Kennedy Center has the Merry Tuba Christmas, where tuba players from the area get together to play Christmas songs. To see a song, click here. This event actually takes place all over the country. We enjoy it and we had not been for a while so off we went.

It was pouring rain and Matt insisted we take the Metro so we would not be stuck in traffic. I hate the metro and prefer to drive but I agreed. We walked through a driving rain with winds turning the umbrella inside out more than once.

The concert lasted an hour. When it was over it was time for dinner so we walked through more driving rain to Circle Bistro. They have good food and we enjoyed a nice dinner while we dried out.

December 3 - Italian Embassy

2012-01-02T00:17:00.002-05:00

We are so sick of house hunting and not having fun, we have decided to put more effort into it. We went to the Things to Do Christmas Party at the Italian Embassy. We had been to it once before so we knew what to expect. Well, it was not what we expected. We tried to talk to people but the conversations were strained. No one was dancing for most of the time we were there, so we just gave up and went home.

December 2 - Waltz Ball

2012-01-02T00:09:00.002-05:00

We went to the Austrian Viennese Waltz ball in at the ARmy Navy Club in Virginia. But Matt is on the injured reserve and we were not able to dance all night. he gave it his all but after about half dozen dances, we had to stop. So we ate and drank champagne and socialized.

There are tremors in the Viennese waltzing community. When we first started, there were numerous balls. Unfortunately, the International Club ball is no longer one we want to attend. The dance is in the Women in the Arts Museum and the marble floor just kills our feet and knees. Even worse, the dancers have stopped going and all that is left is amateurs that really are clueless. My toes have decided they do not want to be stepped on with spike heels.

The National Society of Arts and Letters did not have dance in November this year due to lack of funds. Then we received a letter from the American Austrian Society in Wilmington, Delaware that announced they would not be having a ball and the Society would be dissolving for lack of membership.

So the next ball is not until the OAS Ball in February. That is pretty much it.

We are fast losing dancing venues. The same is true of our dance clubs/societies. The Big Band Society is gone, the members slowly dying off. Hollywood Ballroom started out interesting but is not really much fun and has not been for years. Other dance venues are specialized to certain dances. If you want to salsa all night and do nothing else, then there is a place to go. But if you like variety, forget it.

From all of this, the lack of interest in clubs by younger people is so readily apparent. We are not joiners. My dad belonged to numerous clubs. It was the way people socialized. No longer. It is sad but I am not really a joiner either so I am to blame as much as anyone else.

December 1 - Lincoln

2012-01-02T00:05:00.000-05:00

Well, Lincoln is dead. I finally read Team of Rivals and no matter how many books I read about Lincoln, the story always ends the same. It is hard not to believe that he really was the greatest President we ever had and perhaps one of the most extraordinary people to have lived. What I find most interesting is how so few people had anything bad to say about him. No matter if they agreed with him or not, they still liked him and admired him. You can argue that since he was killed no one would ever speak up. But you would think that with so much study, someone somewhere would turn up someone who thought he was less than a great man. Setting aside McClellan, who was a putz, and that is my own historical analysis, really no one had anything bad to say.

November 30 - More foods Matt does not like

2012-01-02T00:03:00.001-05:00

Matt is out of town and I am once again eating food that he does not like: tuna and peas on toast. Matt hates peas so this is perfect for me. I make it a little differently than my mom did but I still love it.

November 23 - 25 Thanksgiving in Wildwood

2011-12-22T01:02:00.001-05:00

Oh, Wildwood days. When I was in college, I spent a summer in Wildwood trying to earn a buck. Unfortunately, it was the summer of the gas crisis and no one went to the beach. I was a terrible waitress and there were no jobs anyway. So I ended up getting a job as a maid in an ocean front hotel. I needed some more funds so I got a job working as a dishwasher. I actually liked that job. It was mindless work. It was an exciting summer of beer drinking and making beds and washing dishes. I lived in a one bedroom apartment with my college roommate Ria. We actually shared a bed because we had no choice. We were poor. (I hope I did not snore then.)

My sister Michele and her husband John own a house there and we visited for Thanksgiving. The place was empty of course since it is not season. I did not remember much of it. It certainly does not look anything like it did when I lived there.

We started out driving on Tuesday night. You figure that would be safe--two days before Thanksgiving. Not. The traffic was so bad it took us two hours to get about 20 miles up the road. We gave up. the next day we left around noon and headed for the Lewes, Delaware to Cape May Ferry. The weather was not good. Skies were overcast and the wind was whipping. The ferry was really rolling. Matt is not the best sailor so we sat in the car where you could not feel it so much.

On Thanksgiving, we went for a walk on the beach in Cape May to look for sea glass and shells and to just absorb some sun. It was a nice but windy day.

for dinner we had Cornish hens and then played Scattergories.

The next day we shopped in Cape May in the morning and then got back on the ferry for the ride home. Now that's better--good weather and sunshine.

On the way home, we stopped for lunch at Dogfish Head Brewery in Rehobeth Beach. Love the Ancient beers.

November 21 - First Prize

2011-12-14T01:06:00.001-05:00

I won first prize in the Share Our Strength Cooking Contest. Share Our Strength is an organization started by chefs to help low income families with food issues such as hunger and affordability. I participate in the Cooking Matters classes offered by the Capitol Area Food Bank. The class offers nutrition and healthy cooking lessons with an emphasis on budget and affordability to those in need. I have taught three courses (about 18 classes) as the chef. I have a great time doing it since healthy cooking is my purpose in life. The adults I teach are generally African American and I am always looking for ways to lighten up and make the food they like healthier.

For my last class I developed a recipe for Hoppin John. I submitted the recipe to the Soul Food category contest and it won. See the blog post. I was really honored since these classes are usually taught by chefs. I talked my way in several years ago even though I was not a chef in the classic sense. Hey, I'm a cook and I know something about nutrition. That should count for something. It did and here I am today. The winner of the Soul Food recipe contest. You have to admit that is pretty hilarious. But for those who know how much I love food, totally believable. Oprah, here I come! Darn, she doesn't have a tv show anymore.

November 19 - Dinner in the Old Neighborhood

2011-12-14T01:03:00.001-05:00

We had dinner with Jeff and Sharon, Elaine and Steve, in our old neighborhood. It was great to see everyone. We parked in front of our old house and I am sure when people saw out car they were wondering. There was the house in all of its glory. But, of course, lacking the Schmidt aura. And by that I mean, the doodads and froofrahs that we had all over the yard.

We stayed out way too late, drank too much wine but we all had a great time talking.

November 15 - Massage and Facial

2011-12-14T01:01:00.001-05:00

I promised myself when this was all over I would go out and get pampered. Well, it may never be over so no time like the present. So I spent the afternoon getting a facial and a massage. It was great. I just wish I had it in me to schedule this kind of thing on a regular basis. Gosh knows my neck appreciated it.

November - In general House Hunting

2011-12-14T00:58:00.001-05:00

I do believe we have seen every house for sale in Montgomery County this month. I have holes in my blog, my own life diary, days unaccounted for and those black holes are filled with house hunting. That is all we do with our spare time and it is really, really boring. I want my life back.

November 12 - Getting Old

2011-12-14T00:57:00.001-05:00

Remember back in the old days when you could go out to a concert, drink beer, have fun, dance, jump around and get up the next day and do it all over again? Yeah, I feel like I've been hit by a bus. My neck is aching, my ears are ringing. Ouch! Oh to be young again.

November 11 - Foo Fighters

2011-12-14T00:53:00.001-05:00

What does every girl want for her birthday? Wrong!

Tickets to the Foo Fighters! Oh Lord. Three hours of head banging and air guitar playing. My poor neck. My poor ears. But Dave Grohl, I love you man! You are the best showman around these days. I am old enough to remember when Bruce Springsteen impressed everyone with a two hour show of non-stop rock. Well, honey, you got him beat by an hour and while you may not have horns, but you got guitars and you rock. You made this old lady very happy.

November 10 - Capital Area Food Fight

2011-12-10T00:13:00.001-05:00

Every year we try to attend the Capitol Area Food Fight, a fund raiser for the DC Central Kitchen organized byJose Andres and hosted by Anthony Bourdain. This is our one charitable event of the year. It's a lot of fun because restaurants from all over the city, and hand out samples of their food. We get to try everything. As foodies this is much appreciated. We always discover someone new. This year it was a gelato store from Bethesda, dolcezza. they make artisinal gelatto. They were giving out samples of salted caramel gelato. It was fabulous! Salt, sugar, caramel, and it was creamy and cold. What is not to love? Here we are enjoying it. Yummy! (Does Matt look like he is having a great ime or what?)

November 2 to 5 - Colonial Williamsburg

2011-12-05T00:27:00.001-05:00

November 2. Needing a much needed break from reality, we drove to Williamsburg to immerse ourselves in Colonial days. We stayed at the Williamsburg Lodge, which is within the historic area so we could walk everywhere. The place struck me as a bit stuffy. It all seemed so very fox hunt and country clubish.

Matt kept obsessing about a beer called Old Stitch that they serve at Chownings Tavern. So on the first night, we ate there. We had a bit of Welsh Rarebit, with the most awesome cheddar cheese and pickled water melon rind with our fried chicken. What a pairing! And we had the Old Stitch. Now I know why he was obsessing. Even though it was dark, this has to have been the most drinkable, refreshing beer I have ever tasted. Oh, Old Stitch how we love you. Alas, there was no way to buy it to take home. We tried. We searched, we asked. You can only drink it on tap at Chownings. Honestly, it is worth the trip.

November 3. The next day we immersed ourselves in the Colony of Williamsburg. First, we went to see Thomas Jefferson, the Republican. The audience wanted an answer--was not Jefferson against Federalism? Did he not want to stick with the Articles of Confederation, which had stronger states rights? Yes. And so everyone in the audience got the clarification.

I will explain it here and now so listen up. Sorry but Federalism does NOT mean states rights. In fact, it is just the contrary. Federalism, as championed by Alexander Hamilton, Adams, John Jay, Washington and others means a strong central government with weaker states. The experiment in strong states rights was the Articles of Confederation and that did not work. On some weird Orwellian twist the "Federalist" Society, that group of conservatives who favor states rights, adopted that name in honor of James Madison. Madison was a staunch Federalist who drafted the Constitution. But by the time he became President he had been turned by Jefferson into a devout Republican. Let us also be clear as to what we mean here because this gets confused too. Over time the parties swapped names and core beliefs. The Democrats used to be the state's rights group--Andrew Jackson was the typical Democrat; Southern by birth and a believer in small government not interfering with the State's rights to most notably have slaves. Abraham Lincoln, the father of the Republican Party was a strong federalist who believed that only a strong central government could keep the country together. He believed in national investment in infrastructure and a strong central bank. That is a completely Hamiltonian view. Democrats were the party of the South until this century when President Johnson began advocating for civil rights. All of those Dixiecrats ran to the Republican Party, took it over, and here we are.

But I digress. Upon repeated questioning Jefferson agreed with all that I outlined above. Federalism is a strong central government, a national bank, a core control of commerce and land out West.

Once we got that problem solved, we headed to the coffee shop for sustenance until we could participate in the living theater that is The Revolution, a play. Reenactors give us scenes of what led to the Revolution as it occurred in Williamsburg. The stamp tax, lack of representation, and ultimately, the failure of the British to listen to the colonies. Matt refused to be drafted into the Colonial army.

The Tax Collector was nearly tarred and feathered in vigilante justice (here is the hanging post) but cooler heads prevailed.

The finale was the reading of the Declaration and the firing of muskets and cannons. I love a good cannon firing.

That evening we ate at the Williamsburg Inn. If the Williamsburg Lodge was stuffy, this was a time warp back to the 50's. The place was virtually empty. It was us and three older couples. Waiters in tuxedos stiffly bowed to us as we were seated. We whispered to each other because if we spoke in a normal voice, everyone was going to hear us. We are loud people and I have a big laugh, which I had to suppress. An elderly gentleman entertained us on the piano and by that I mean he helped us to not fall asleep from boredom. We were getting close to slumping over our plates, so I went up and asked him to play My Blue Heaven. Well, that got the place jumping. A couple from another table took to the deserted dance floor for a swing dance and we joined them because well, there was no other option. And then the party was over. The music slowed back down and we all got bored again. The food was good, not great. But it made us realize how used we have become to fine restaurants that have a lighter party atmosphere. A place where the food is excellent but you don't feel like you have starch in your shorts. That was not the Williamsburg Inn.

November 4. The Wigmaker. Today we spent our time focusing on the tours of the buildings. By far the wig maker was our favorite stop although the gaol was not far behind. Actually, it was all good. The re-enactors were really very good and knew their stuff. We learned a lot. Ladies, I am not sure if you knew this but the rich women shaved their heads and wore wigs. I always knew they wore wigs but I had no idea they had bald heads underneath them Only the poorer women had hair. The wigs were fashioned from the virgin hair of Northern Europeans. Young girls grew their hair, tending to it carefully and then at the right age, they sold it to a trader for gold jewelry or something useful. (that is a block head)

At the gaol we learned all about the lack of police in America. There were no police until the 1850s. Until then the local people took care of justice. There was one jail and if you committed a serious crime you were transported to the court and held in the jail until the trial. There was no option for prison. Punishment was meted out, death or leniency and that was it.

We went to the tavern and had some chocolate and talked about trade with the locals. It was an extremely brisk and windy day so it was appreciated. That evening we did the ghost tour, hearing stories about modern ghosts that are said to haunt the buildings. Dinner was at the Blue Talon, a French bistro in Williamsburg proper, next to William & Mary. We shared salt cod dip with truffle oil and frogs legs. I had pigs feet that were to die for. Roasted and then mixed with a sauce, it was like a very rich barbecue. It was delicious. Matt had a French sausage platter. We left there pretty stuffed.

But we found time and space in our bellies to go back to Chownings for more Old Stitch. After 9 they have gambols where everyone gets to play games, sing songs and generally drink beer just like they did in the old Colonial taverns. We had played a game and chatted with our table mates, and drank as much Old Stitch as we could after that big meal.

November 5. Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel. It was time to leave Williamsburg. Our first stop, Williamsburg Alewerks to see if we could buy Old Stitch. Sorry, no luck. We bought some other beer including a growler of their lighter ale.

Then we headed off for the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel. I have never been across it and we were so close. The Bay Bridge Tunnel connects Norfolk with the southern tip of Virginia and Maryland across the Chesapeake Bay. Is is quite an engineering feet, a series of bridges and tunnels crossing thirteen miles across the Bay. Normally, you would drive through Southern Maryland to get back to DC but I determined that it was actually faster to cross the bride tunnel, then turn around and go back to Norfolk to catch 95 home.

There are a series of "islands" along the way, that hold the tunnel entrances and exits. The purpose of the tunnels is to allow ship traffic to pass freely through two deep water channels without having to go under a bridge. Instead we go under the water. We stopped at the island to look around. The wind felt like it was hurricane force. We could barely walk and we certainly could not get out the pier. Even with that weather, there were guys fishing. I truly thought they were idiotic. It was cold and the wind was almost unbearable. After some picture taking, we hopped into the restaurant/gift shop that also occupies the island. No surprise that there was not much going on there.

(Container ship going through the deep waster channel and over a tunnel.)

We continued on our journey across, reached the other side, turned around and headed home.

November 1 - Contract Cancelled

2011-12-05T00:19:00.001-05:00

Okay folks. Here is the big news. The builder told us that the house would most likely not be ready until May of 2012. While they had initially promised the house would be ready in December, the date kept slipping. We had some hope because in August they announced they had a road built into the development. Yeah, funny story. They did not build the entire road system, and by that I mean two roads. They just built one. And it was not the one to our lot. The sales rep told us that they "hoped" to get the road built before the season was over and if they did, then the house would be ready sometime in late Spring.

Before season? Lady, it just snowed! And what if the road did not get put in before season? Then when would the house be delivered? I was furious. But more importantly, this was not a confidence builder in this developer. This brought us to the point that we simply did not trust them. So after some reflection we decided to cancel the contract and move on.

Yep. We are without a house. This has been such a trying experience. Selling a house was difficult, moving was upsetting and overwhelming. Now we are just numb. I feel like I am in a weird limbo. Why is God punishing us? I guess it could be worse. I could really be homeless like thousands of others. I am really just being inconvenienced. (See that session with Thich Naht Hahn really did work!)

Random Picture - Marsha and Matt at home

2011-12-05T00:18:00.007-05:00

Thanks Norway Store at Epcot!

October 31 - Halloween

2011-12-05T00:18:00.005-05:00

We ignored it this year.

October 29 - SNOW!

2011-12-05T00:18:00.001-05:00

Snow in October? Unheard of. But fun.

October 28 - Gravy

2011-12-05T00:16:00.001-05:00

When Matt is traveling I make all of the foods I love that he dislikes. Matt is a gravy hater so I cannot make it for dinner. He was gone tonight and I make round steak with mashed potatoes and gravy. It was yummy. My mom used to make this dish regularly and it brought back Mom and Dad and cooking for the family.

October 26 - Diwali

2011-12-05T00:15:00.001-05:00

Nema and PK invited us over for Diwali. We had a fine time and ate way too much food.

October 25 - Thich Naht Hahn

2011-12-04T23:51:00.001-05:00

I like the writing of the Buddhist monk, Thich Naht Hahn. I am not a Buddhist per se but I like the ideas and he is really the best at making them clear. So when Matt saw he was coming to town, he asked me if I wanted to go to see him. Sure, why not. I've never been to a Dharma talk, and why not have my first be with Thich Naht Hahn. When we arrived, his followers were already on stage leading a meditation. We all did our breathing and brought ourselves into the now. Then he was finally brought out as the enlightened one that he is. He is getting older and he seemed a bit frail.

He had a list of topics that he referred to as he spoke. I can't decide which was my favorite but these examples can give you an idea of why he is such a prolific author. He was talking about everything that we are made of--all of our emotional and mental characteristics--happiness, joy, love, but also suffering. He noted that we should embrace our suffering as a necessary part of our lives. For we must remember, without mud, the lotus will not grow. So too without suffering, we will not grow.

Another topic had to do with how we are all part of the universe. We are one with ourselves and we also carry with us pieces of every person who means something to us. Matt is part of me and I am part of him. His illustration for this was "there is a cloud in my tea cup." In other words, the water forms the cloud and soon falls to earth filling our rivers and streams. That water eventually makes it to our homes and into our tea cups. We drink the cloud and it finds its way out again. It is an endless cycle as we have to recognize that everything is the same thing, but in different forms.

After the talk, we came away telling ourselves that we have to be better people and see the light in every person. We have to practice our breathing and make sure that we are in the present moment. The funny thing was that Matt came out being better at it than me. He told me he was practicing his breathing (which you can do anywhere). I was so jealous. Oh, how un-Buddhist of me. I was not jealous. I admired his practice.

October 23 - Freer, Sackler, the Peacock Room, and MLK

2011-12-02T00:42:00.001-05:00

I had a procedure done on my elbow to decrease some pretty bad inflammation so exercise was verbotin. This meant I was under doctor's orders to take it easy. We took advantage of this order and this beautiful day to gambol about the museums and monuments.

I had never seen the Peacock Room in the Freer Gallery of Art. What a room! The short story is that a rich merchant had a room constructed to showcase his collection of Chinese porcelain. He asked James Whistler to do a little touch up painting to highlight his collection. Leave an artist alone with a paint brush and free reign and look what you get. A room painted in deep teal and golds, the color of peacock feathers, with portraits of peacocks adorning the walls, and peacock feather patterns covering the ceiling. The room is dramatic and the details are so intricate that you could spend hours examining each brush stroke. This is one stop I highly recommend to anyone who likes to see art on walls.

We wandered around the Freer and Sackler and found a craft room. It was set up for kids but we went right on in. We sat down with our craft scissors and glue sticks and worked on making our own cut and paste version of the peacock room. We inspired other adults and before we knew it we had tables of adults all pretending to be ten. The fact is that cutting and pasting and chatting is a relaxing way to spend an hour. Why should kids get to have all the fun. We all enjoyed it.

Seeing as it was a lovely day, sunny and breezy, we decided to visit the newly opened Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial. That is one heck of a statue.

View from the memorial grounds.

October 20 - Trouble in Mind

2011-12-02T00:26:00.001-05:00

We are starting our new season at Arena Stage. Our first play was Trouble in Mind, a play about segregation and discrimination in the acting community in the 50's. The protagonist was an actress tired of being stereotyped as the maid in every show. She needed a job but resented the limitations on the roles she played because of her race.

After the show, there was a discussion with the cast. The question was whether the play was still relevant today. I noted that there were a lot of young people there who probably did not know that this is how it was 50 years ago and there is nothing wrong with reminding us all. One woman said she was shocked to see white people in the audience because she could not see that we would understand how they felt. She wondered why we were there. I was really hurt by this. Why would we not be able to understand discrimination? We get it. We may not have experienced it in the same way, but that does not mean we do not understand the issue. Also, I am a woman. I have been dealing with stereotypes all my life. The discussion kind of went on like this and I felt that we were all talking past one another.

I then got into a deep discussion with one man about Sidney Poitier and the image of African Americans in movies. Whatever happened to the Poitiers of the world? We have Denzel and Morgan. But it is not enough to stop the Big Momma movies. He blamed the movie studios. I blamed everyone who buys tickets to movies that simply enforce stereotypes. Poitier would never have put up with that. We agreed that no matter what things needed to change. We did not solve the problem but we had a good time.

October 16 - Roosevelt Island

2011-12-02T00:22:00.001-05:00

It was a beautiful day but I was not feeling well, so we decided to take it easy and go for a walk on Roosevelt Island. It is a tiny National Park in the middle of the Potomac in downtown D.C. Often described as a oasis, I had always wanted to visit but in all my years here, had never done so. Well, we went and our reaction was, eh!

Planes flying overhead for a landing at National, traffic, and a lovely line of garbage lapping in the water along the shore, it really had not much to offer. I suppose if you live in the city and need to see a tree, this would be a good place to go. But for us, it was just an urban park with not much interesting to see.

It was all made better when we visited the Lebanese Taverna store in Arlington and picked up some Lebanese food and wine.

October 15 - We Need More Pictures

2011-12-02T00:20:00.001-05:00

For anyone who has visited our home, you know that we are Victorian in our devotion to filling every nook, cranny and inch of wall space with art. As we try to get comfortable in this apartment, we keep thinking, we need more pictures!

October - Apartment Living Sucks

2011-11-15T23:15:00.001-05:00

I knew that I moved out of a condo for a reason but this really reminds me how much I hate living in an apartment.

The people downstairs have been smoking on their balcony. The smokes wafts directly into our apartment because we have the doors and windows open. Nice. I have to complain to the management.

We need stuff to be fixed in our apartment and rather than do it ourselves, we have to wait for maintenance. That takes a week when I could have just taken care of it. Yes, it is nice to have someone else to call, but you forget about the waiting.

We are just night owls who suffer through mornings five days a week. Being a night owl in an apartment does not work. You have to be quiet. We are very loud people. We talk, we laugh, we play the ukulele. We clean at all hours of the night--vacuuming and doing laundry. I am cooking or fussing at any time. When you live in an apartment, that all has to change. People can hear you, you can hear them. There is a loss of privacy. There is a need to adapt to a multi-person environment.

This has really convinced us that we should not live in a condo. Matt would dream about living downtown in a condo, being in the city. But now he remembers. And so do I.

We moved here because it is like a resort. Here are the problems with that. First, it is also like a dorm. Lots of young people who like to party outside on the patio and we get to listen in.

Second, we have no time to play pool or darts and when we want to--sorry the pub is closed. The fact is we have little time to take advantage of the amenities.

Third, we have a concierge and while that sounds great, she is not too bright and we just have so many problems with packages. Here is a hilarious story. I ordered bacon from Vermont. Lucious corn cob smoked bacon from Dakin Farms. It arrived in a box that had the words "Perishable. Refrigerate immediately" on each side. Yeah, funny thing. They proceeded to leave it in the package room for two days until they got organized enough to notify me that I had a package. Grrrrr. I am convinced the conceierge had not a clue what the word, "perishable" meant. They agreed to pay for the lost food but I resent having to wait for someone to vet my packages. Living in a house means freedom. Living in an apartment means having rules.

October 9 - Apple Picking

2011-11-14T00:24:00.001-05:00

Oh, my aching head. Too much Belgian beer, Too much dancing. We were out way too late. Remember back in the day when you could party all night and then jump out of bed the next day with not a second of pain. Yeah, those days are long over.

But it was a beautiful day and we promised ourselves that we would get out for some sunshine.

We headed out to Homestead Farms for some apple picking. Picking apples is not as much fun as picking blackberries. Blackberries are small and it takes a very long time to pick a gallon or two. There is a lot of zen involved.

A bushel of apples can be picked in five minutes and then what do you do? But it was a gorgeous day. We found a ladder so we could reach the top of the tree that had the best looking apples, braeburns I believe. Much to Matt's dismay I tasted each variety to see if I liked them. Hey, I'm not picking apples I don't want to eat and I was going to buy plenty of apples.

The bucket is not full yet. But it will be.

After gamboling on the farm, we took a walk on the canal. I found a wooly worm and he told me that the winter would be mild.

One day I am going to find a croc in that canal!

October 8 - Robert Randolph

2011-11-14T00:13:00.001-05:00

I have been so frustrated about not having any fun, that I spontaneously bought tickets to a concert for a band I had never even heard of.

And it worked out just fine.

I got an email from the 9:30 Club advertising Robert Randolph and the Family Band. I was intrigued so I went onto their website and listened to some of their music. It sounded like fun. He is a steel guitar player and tends toward funky or bluesy rock. I was in. I ordered tickets and when Matt came home I told him we were going to a concert.

We oldsters still like to party. The show started at 9:00 and they were awesome. We danced and boogied until midnight. My ears were ringing but I had a smile on my face. We were out way too late and drank way too much beer. I cannot remember when I last did that. It felt good to just have some fun.

October 7 - Me Day

2011-11-14T00:12:00.001-05:00

I am taking my poor bruised arms and legs and sore back to get a massage. Why don't I do this more often?

October 1 - Pisco Sours

2011-11-13T18:42:00.001-05:00

Fed up with organizing, we went to La Canela for a fine Peruvian dinner and drank pisco sours. The restaurant lived up to its reputation. The only minus was so many beef dishes.

Oh, pisco sour, how you amuse me. Pisco is a grape brandy made in Peru. Mixed with lime juice and whipped egg whites, it is a heavenly cocktail.

September 24-30 - Getting organized

2011-11-13T18:33:00.001-05:00

We are living at the Container Store. Luckily, Lebanese Taverna is next door so we can stop in for dinner after we load up our car with baskets, boxes and shelves. Thank God for their hummus and Lebanese wine. It really makes life a little sweeter.

We are emptying boxes and NOW we are getting rid of stuff. Well, it all looks different on the other side. Many, many trips to the Goodwill store.

It was a big day for us--we made a trip to the storage pods to visit our stuff and get more stuff out of the apartment.

We are in serious need of apartment storage. We are building furniture, shelving, cabinets, anything to just store our stuff.

All work and no play make Matt and Marsha very unhappy people.

September 23 - You missed what?

2011-11-13T18:30:00.001-05:00

We are up to our ears in boxes and I just could not justify leaving the mess and the cats to go to Pittsburgh for a concert. Who did I miss? The FOO FIGHTERS! oh the tragedy! It made me sick to think I missed them. But we have been missing so much in all of this chaos--concerts, movies, events, parties--thatI swallowed the bitter pill because my Dad always made me work before play. Darn you Mike!

Sept 21 - FELA!

2011-11-10T00:37:00.001-05:00

Well, we just need a break. Six months ago, I bought tickets to see the musical Fela! and I was determined not to miss this. Fela Kuti, musician and African activist, took on Nigerian dictators and eventually lost his mother and his home in the fight. His music is a mix of jazz (lots of horns), African beat, and long, long jams. I like to play Fela when I am cleaning or just puttering. It is great background music. Upbeat and yet easy to listen to despite the words of war. The lyrics are political, much like Bob Marley. The show was fantastic. A vibrant mix of African dancing, singing, and horns. They used his music, of course, and so we got a huge dose of Fela. Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra played the music and they did Fela justice. Love them! I already had their music, too.

Before the show we ate at Jaleo for their tomatina festival, all things tomato. We drank sangria and just indulged. Boy, life can get really boring with all that moving stuff. I really miss having fun. Isn't that what we are all about in the end?

Famous Person ALERT: We saw Anya, Project Runway winner at the Fela! show. She was standing in the lobby alone playing with her phone. We did not know she would win at the time but we ran up to her and told her we loved her clothes and that we were rooting for her. Little did we know. Yea Anya!

August 14 - Race to the Pole

2011-11-09T14:54:00.000-05:00

(Enjoying a squash blossom cocktail)

Lord, don't get me started about Scott and Amundsen. I am a huge supporter of Roald Amundsen, the first man to reach the South Pole in January 1912 (100th anniversary coming up!). He beat R.F. Scott by weeks, and the ill-prepared Scott and his three companions died on the way back to their camp. Even though he did not reach the Pole first, Scott is the one people remember, not Amundsen, probably one of the greatest explorers in history.

We went to National Geographic to see the exhibition, "Race to the Pole." It was yet another exhibit extolling the virtues of Capt. Scott and making Amundsen look like a thief. I am very passionate about this topic, and I really get upset when Roald Amundsen is not given the credit he deserves. They say that history is written by the winners. But in this case the winner was from Norway, a small and developing country. So the loser, Britain, the dominant world power at the time, was able to rewrite history so that the loser looks like the winner. It infuriates me that the British were able to revise history in a way to make the most organized and successful person look less than "heroic" because he relied on dog sleds to get there. Well, Scott had dogs, motorized sleds, and ponies. He had not really planned on walking but when he was unable to execute, he ended up having to man haul the sleds hundreds of miles, and well, it all went downhill from there.

Amundsen, on the other hand, knew what he was doing and he did it well. The men skiied--the Norwegians invented it--and the dogs pulled the stuff. Amundsen was smart. He learned from the Canadian Inuits how to survive in the Arctic. He was not too proud to learn from those whom everyone believed were uncivilized people.

Not the Brits. They did not need guidance. They had pluck! You know where that got them.

This exhibits main thrust was that Scott had a higher purpose for his journey to the South Pole, science. While Amundsen, it posited, was in it only for the fame and the right to say he got there first. When we went to see the lecture I nearly got into a fight with the person who had put together this exhibit and was spouting this theory. But I held my tongue because I didn't want to act badly. Matt, on the other hand, thought I should've caused a fuss. The reality is that the Arctic explorers used a scientific purpose to get funding. It would be like saying, we want to go to the moon for science. But the reality is, we went to beat the Russians. So too with Arctic exploration. Amundsen was just honest and said, my goal is to be number one. If I learn anything along the way, great. If not, oh well. Scott was so attached to his scientific purpose that they were hauling hundreds of pounds of rocks, making their journey all the more difficult, as they were starving, and slowly dying of scurvy.

Even though the exhibit was skewed, there were some really great artifacts including many items that were used by Amundsen and his trip to the Pole.

After the exhibit, we went to Oyamel for the yearly Squash Blossom Festival. Every year the restaurant has a celebration of squash blossoms at the end of the summer. They make squash blossoms in many different ways as appetizers, salads, soups, and of course, we had to have lots of margaritas.

September 20 - Still unpacking

2011-11-08T23:55:00.001-05:00

The apartment is piled so high with stuff it looks like we are hoarders. We have made small walking paths through the boxes and pieces of furniture. Finding anything is nearly impossible. I wish I could take a picture but good luck finding the camera. I had it at one point but cannot find it now.

We consider it small triumphs when we locate something. At one point, Matt announced he had found his pants. I just wanted to find my shoes. These are the little victories.

I am one of those people who will not rest until I have brought order to my surroundings. This is going to take some time. We plan out the trip to the Container Store. We have a lot that needs to be contained.

We have no cable so we have not seen the news or Colbert. We have no routine.

I have lost five pounds in all the work of packing, moving, and not eating enough to sustain the calories I am burning.

The apartment complex is like a resort. They have a gym, a pool (now closed), a patio with community grills. There is a "pub," which is a place to go and play pool or darts with your friends, BYOB. There is a "theater" where you can take your DVD and watch on the big screen. These places can be rented for parties too. There is a coffee spot and free wi-fi in the common areas. Thank goodness for that last because Verizon is not coming for a week and we need access.

September 19 – I feel like I've been hit by a bus

2011-11-08T23:42:00.001-05:00

My arms hurt, my knees hurt (those stupid winding stairs!), my legs and arms were pounded into black and blue blots from hefting boxes up the stairs. Ooof! Getting out of bed hurts. I feel awful.

It was such a hard day yesterday moving hundreds of pounds of stuff, getting to bed at 4:30 AM, and just being in the middle of amount of boxes and chaos. We really just need to take a deep breath and try to figure out where to begin. We can do that after we take some Tylenol and down a lot of caffeine. The problem is that the dishes are packed and hiding under a pile of boxes. There are no pots or pans. We can barely figure out where we put the food. So we go to breakfast at Silver Diner and we have an awesome breakfast. I had sweet potato pecan pancakes, which were terrific. Then we head back to the apartment and try to figure out where to put all the stuff.

I've moved before and I don't remember it being this difficult. Perhaps I am not remembering it correctly. Maybe moving is like having a baby. They say that women are flooded with a hormone so they will forget how terrible and painful it was to have a child. Moving (or any bad experience) might be the same way--we just forget the bad part. It's easier that way.

But, by the end, even though I tried to guide the placement of the boxes and furniture, the movers were simply dumping everything anywhere they could dump it. Now trying to sort through the mound of stuff required us to do more lifting and more moving. Furniture was not where it needed to be. Boxes were in places where furniture needed to be. To get rid of the boxes, they have to be emptied or moved. I am now spending another day moving boxes and furniture and thanking God that I am healthy and strong. But after six hours, well, if I wasn't tired before, I am now exhausted.

September 18 - The Day from Hell - We Move

2011-11-07T00:06:00.001-05:00

I am an idiot. My agent told me she had a moving company. This was going to save me a ton of money, so I agreed. Then I learned that by moving company, she meant, four guys and a truck. We are effectively moving two bedrooms, two offices, a living, dining room and kitchen with guys who do this for some extra money. This is a difficult move and we can see right away this is going to be a problem but it is too late. They are coming.

Since we are moving two offices, there is even more than one would expect for a short term move. Not just your basic sofa and dining room table but also boxes and more boxes--files, supplies, books, etc. There are desk, chairs, computer equipment. We packed everything and we know it is going to be a long day.

It is true that you do not realize how much you have until you have to move it. We also realized a very important point--Matt and I are both collectors. Not just one of us, but both of us. We like our stuff and we are loathe to part with it. So while we did give away a lot of stuff, we still have a lot to pack.

I also made the choice that if we are going to be displaced for awhile, we are going to be comfortable. No spartan living and I am taking some of my favorites pieces just so we have them around. So I admit, we are moving a lot.

Our first realization is that their truck is nowhere big enough so the day before the move we rent a larger one. It is twice the size of their truck.

8:00 a.m. I am still packing the kitchen.

9:30 a.m. We figure it will take about four hours to load the truck and we ask them to get to our house at 9:30. We have the loading dock from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. Our plan is to shuttle the fragile stuff in our cars, while the larger stuff can be handled by the movers. The guy in charge is a slow mover and his help is even slower. He takes so much time trying to figure out how to load the truck efficiently, considering each piece over and over, that hours are wasted.

1:00 p.m. The house cleaners have arrived. I am not sure why they are here so early but there they are. The real estate agent insisted that they come before the walk through. We later learn that the walk through will not take place until noon the next day. All that arguing for nothing.

3:30 p.m. The house is not yet empty. Matt is beside himself trying to get these guys to move. He is pitching in with moving as much as he can. We have to get to the loading dock and these folks need to pick up the pace. Good luck with that. We get to the apartment loading dock and discover that the dock is in a different building. Our stuff needs to go out of the truck, onto the dock, through a parking garage, up a another dock lift to another level of the next building, then into an elevator and then to the apartment. It is a long way to haul stuff. Even worse, we discover the lift is broken. That means that everything has to be carried up a flight of stairs into the next building.

4:30 p.m. They start to unload the trucks. Matt asks for mercy and the building management says to take as much time as we need. We are relieved. But hours are passing and nothing has been moving into the apartment yet. Everything is being moved to a waiting room next to the service elevator. The room is bursting with boxes and furniture There does not appear to be any organization. The loading dock is full of our stuff. It is literally everywhere.

7:00 p.m. I am getting really irritated that nothing is being moved into an elevator. I am convinced the guy who is in charge has not a clue how to move anything.

9 p.m. I am starting to panic. Most of our stuff is still in the waiting room. It is Sunday night and getting late. The building says the trucks have got to be moved from the dock. I call the real estate agent and tell her we need help ASAP. She tries to find some day laborers but there are none to be found on a Sunday night. She drives over and starts cracking the whip. She gives them a lecture and tells them this stuff needs to move NOW! God bless her. The stuff is starting to flow into the apartment. We have rented two bedrooms and a loft so that we have enough room for work space and storage. The loft is reached by a winding stair case and that is where my office will be. I stand in the apartment directing the placement of our stuff and I start waving desks, boxes, files, cabinets and the like to be carried up those winding stairs. There is so much to move in so little time that even I am carrying stuff up the stairs. I am hefting hundreds of pounds of paper. The weight of the law.

11:30 p.m. It is heading toward midnight and the movers are just dumping stuff anywhere. It looks like a tornado has gone through. I tell the mover he is not leaving until he gets our bed together. I am not sleeping on the floor. He took it apart piece by piece and by golly, he is putting it back together. He is peeved and starts the process. He disappears with the bed half constructed. I start to work on it but I cannot figure out why it is not staying together. He gives me a dozen excuses about why it was not together. I realize he has no idea how to put the bed back together. He will not admit it, so I help as best I can. I don't care. I just want them gone.

12:30 a.m. The building is telling us we need to quit for the night. We are disturbing the neighbors. Luckily, we are pretty much done.

1 a.m. We say goodbye to the movers. They are exhausted and we are completely frazzled. We have barely eaten all day. We have moved hundreds of pounds of stuff. I hate all of my stuff at that moment. (It will pass.) If it is possible to believe, we still have to go to the house, pick up the rest of the stuff that we did not get into the truck, and then bring the cats back. Those poor traumatized cats who do not understand why their house is empty.

1:30 a.m. We lock the cats in the bedroom so they are can get used to the place. We now have to return the moving truck! Yes, we have to drive the truck back.

2 a.m. We are starving and low and behold, we see a 24 hour McDonald's. I have never been so happy to see a McDonald's in my life. I tell the young woman at the drive through that she is an angel of mercy. We eat cheeseburgers and fries, the best damn burgers and fries we have ever had in our lives.

3 a.m. We are back in the apartment, stepping through the stuff trying to find anything that can give us some comfort. There are our babies--the cats. They give us hugs. I have to take a shower just to make myself feel better. I have to find sheets, pillows, and blankets. By 4:30 we are sleeping in our new home.

September 1 - 17 Can I get my life back?

2011-11-06T23:55:00.001-05:00

No.

I started school. I enrolled to finish my personal trainer certification and it is not going well. It is even worse than before. I simply do not like hanging around young boys who lift weights. I puzzle-scare-intimidate them. They help me to remember why I would never be that young again.

The woman who bought our house is being a royal pain. We had asked for a 30 day rent back knowing the amount of stuff we have. She agreed to a week. We argued and argued and we finally got two whole weeks. Then we had an argument about the time for the walk through. We said we wanted it at 8 p.m. to give us time to get out and have the house cleaned. She wants a walk through at noon on the day we are moving. We fought about it for hours and days. On the day of settlement, we finally agreed on 8 p.m. The settlement is signed on September 7.

It has been raining and raining. The dreariness is depressing.

We are packing our stuff into pods for storage. The plan is to take with us what we need, store the rest until the house is done and have the pods delivered to the new house when we move in. We fill six small pods. They come to take our stuff away. The packing continues until it is a blur of boxes, wrapping paper, and bubble wrap.

Goodbye stuff!!!!

The cats want to know what the hell is going on?

We are so busy that we are missing everything and for people who live to have fun, this really sucks.

We missed Virgin Fest.

I quit school. These boys drive me nuts and I do not want to waste any more of my time. Frankly I simply do not care enough to go to school when I can get a certification without it.

August 30 - Started School

2011-11-02T01:23:00.001-04:00

Well, I figure if I cannot become a certified health education specialist, I can still finish the personal trainer certificate at the Community College. So off I go to school again. It does not make me happy. I have to take a weight training class with young boys and a PE lecture class on fitness training with, you guessed it, young boys.

I have to say, listening to young boys who are pumped up on testosterone talk about working out is really, really boring. And tedious. Did I mention tedious? You would think they were the only guys who every worked out in their lives and gosh it is just fascinating... to them. Honestly, I just do not care about what they care about. I want to train women who need me. I have zero interest in training other boys, or even young men. I do not want to be a coach of the soccer team, I do not want to be a football trainer. I do not want to run a marathon or build gigantic muscles. So yes, I am afraid it is all I can do to keep up my interest in this.

August 26-27 - Hurricane Irene

2011-11-02T01:19:00.003-04:00

We are all in anticipation of the huge hurricane that is coming our way. I picked grapes to save them from destruction. In the end it was not that bad here. It was very destructive but we squeaked by.

Oh and by the way--we are packing.

August 25 - Brasserie Beck

2011-11-02T01:19:00.001-04:00

Rob and Amanda were in town and we went for dinner at Brasserie Beck. Next time it is Korean food. Promise. Woo mi.

August 24 - Uke Fest!

2011-11-02T01:03:00.001-04:00

(My Nastasia Kinsky pose)

Here we are ready to break the world record for the most people playing the ukulele in an ensemble. We already have the world record as part of a group playing the ang klung as an ensemble. (See blog entry for July 9.) Now the ukulele. Damn, life is fun! (Matt thinks he is Pete Townsend.

It was a gorgeous evening and the lawn was

crowded with people in anticipation of the moment.

Some really, really good uke players performed. That's our teacher.
She is really good.

Then the old folks ensemble played some tunes. (One day that will be us.)

Then is was our turn. And we did it!!! 951 people participated in playing "This Land is Your Land" and "Aloha Oe." Whoo hooooo!!!!!!! Being in group world records is fun. We need to find some more. Maybe we can set the world record for the most number of group world records. Now we have a goal.

August 23 - Earthquake!!!

2011-11-02T00:59:00.001-04:00

August 23 was momentous, not just because I learned to play the ukulele, but also because we had an earthquake, a real one. The ground rolled under us, the Cathedral shook, the Washington Monument swayed. And when it was over, we all had something to talk about.

I was in my car sitting at a stop light. My car started bouncing up and down and I thought someone was playing a joke on me by pushing my car up and down. Then I started wondering if I was on top of a sink hole about to collapse. I kept looking around to see if anyone was sensing the same thing. Then it stopped, the car stopped bouncing the light turn green and I drove on. When I got to where I was going, someone stopped me and asked me if I had felt the earth move. Indeed I had!

August 23 - Uke Lessons

2011-10-31T00:35:00.001-04:00

By golly, my life might be turning upside down, but I am going to try my darndest to have fun! Since we were going to play in the Ukulele Festival, we had to take a lesson. Our teacher, Marcy Marxer was terrific. She took us through the chords very slowly and by the end we knew five chords as we learned how to play, "This Land is Your Land" and Aloha Oe."

You know, I have never played an instrument in my life. I cannot tell you how much it means to be able to play something. I told the teacher that. I can make music even though it is simple.

In the movie, Harold and Maude, Maude gets very mad that Harold does not know how to play and instrument. She said, everyone needs to know how to play something! She goes around her house looking for just the right instrument and pulls out a banjo. Well, I am not that talented. But that it is the ukulele just makes it sweet. It can be sad, it can be fun, and George Harrison loved it!

(Look at everyone learning how to play. Awesome! There must have been fifty people in the class. Many of us, just picked it up.)

Week of August 15

2011-10-31T00:31:00.001-04:00

The week of August 15 we spent this week packing. We tried very hard to amuse ourselves with other things Armand came to dinner, we went to the wine store, but mostly it was packing, packing, packing, and packing some more.

I got a call from the CHES exam people and learned that even though I earned a health education degree, I would not qualify to take the exam to be certified as a health education specialist. To say that I was upset is an understatement. I wandered around for a few days, just stunned. I have worked for four years toward this health education degree only to be told that I now cannot become a certified health education specialist he cause I didn't have the right bachelor's degree. I have two bachelors degrees and a J.D., but it is not enough. I need to add these health education credits to a degree in a related field, say nursing, so I am told now. My advisor gave me completely contrary information when I started this process. I have an email from her. When I reported to her the CHES denial of my application, she denied ever having advised me that I would qualify. However, the woman at the testing agency knew my advisor and told me that she had given other people the same wrong advice.

So now I'm at a loss as to what to do. I need to think.

August 13 - Ramayana

2011-10-28T01:01:00.001-04:00

We have been so busy with packing, packing packing, that it is just a joy to get out of the house. I bought tickets to see the Ramayana, a Hindu story about Rama, his love for his wife Sita and and his battle with King Ravana who has taken Sita and is threatening to bring darkness to the world. Here is a summary.

The best part of any story about Rama is that there are always talking animals involved, particularly the monkeys. I have never quite been clear who they are. But I used to watch an Indian t.v. series they showed on public access television, epic Hindu stories about Rama, Krishna and the rest. In the Rama tales, there is a tribe of monkeys who help Rama.

The play was interesting, but the costumes felt kind of high school amateur. Maybe we are just too used to the larger stages. I am not sure I learned anything from it. But I saw it and now my life has one more experience.

August 11 - I love a whim: The ukulele

2011-10-13T01:04:00.001-04:00

I got an email today that encouraged me to sign up for the ukulele festival at Strathmore. They were going to try and break the world record for the most number of people playing ukulele at one time.

Another world record? I am in.

Understand, I have never played an instrument in my life. I had no idea if I could play a ukulele. But if I can learn the ang klung, I can learn the uke.

When Matt came home I gave him the news--guess what we are going to do? He always looks at me warily when I say something like that. When I tell him we are going to learn the ukulele, he says, huh? When I say it is so we can help break the world record he says, "I'm in."

The next day we are off to Chuck Levin's to buy a ukulele. The sales person is mystified that suddenly everyone wants a uke. He is nearly sold out but we buy two very nice starters. Back home, I sign us up for lessons. But Strathmore has very kindly posted lesson videos so we begin right away. Marcy Marxer is her name and she is a lovely, soft spoken ukulele musician who really knows how to teach. We are playing This Land is Your Land before you know it. Even I can play a ukulele and I have five thumbs. But playing I am. It is just the right size for my small hands and tender fingers.

This is going to be fun.

August 9 - The Design Center

2011-10-13T00:47:00.001-04:00

What a horror story! I suppose that some woman somewhere enjoys the process of going to the "design center" to pick out all of the details of her house. Well, that woman is not me. It might have been fun but for the fact that everything, and I mean everything, they offered as options I did not like. When did brown and black and tan become the norm? I am a color gal but that is not the style for home decorating. Did people learn nothing from the 70's? It's like everyone has gone color blind. You will all regret these choices one day and you will look back and say, I cannot believe that I had a brown house.

First stop, the kitchen. Choices? Brown cabinets, brown or black granite, or tan or brown courian, or brown or black formica. I was so angry. I said to our designer, what if I do not like any of the choices? Well, I have to pick something. Picking something forced me into an upgrade. At least I got white cabinets, which was really the only other option. Counter tops? I was stuck with black and white speckled courian. Not one color option. Not even as an upgrade. No granite for me. We want something easily changed with my whim and that can be abused accordingly. Appliances? Black or white, upgrade steel. I hate steel. It is cold looking, uninviting and messy. I was absolutely not putting black in my kitchen. So white it is.

On to flooring. Hey, guess what? Options included vinyl in tan or brown, carpeting in tan or brown. Colors meant upgrades. When I investigated the cost of getting wood flooring I just laughed at the blatant gouging that was going on. So we ended up putting in junk carpeting and plan on replacing it all once we move in.

On to the bathroom. No really? Only tan and brown options for tile? I am shocked. One option for white? No other colors, styles or options. I'll take white. Yes, of course white cabinets. No brown! Can this get any more depressing? Of course it can.

Did you know that houses are no longer built with overhead lighting? If you want a light fixture or a fan, that is an option you have to pay for. When did people stop wanting lights over their heads? So we got the house wired specially for lights that will come on overhead when we turn on a switch. Sounds revolutionary.

This took four hours and it has to have been one of the most unpleasant experiences of my life. I felt like a prisoner and I wanted to run away.

August - Will I ever sleep?

2011-10-13T00:29:00.001-04:00

While August was interspersed with some fun, which I will get to, it was mostly spent packing, worrying and not sleeping. I was worried about Matt, worried about moving, getting it all into storage, finding a place to live temporarily, and did I mention packing? Matt said that he wished he had bought futures in corrugated card board and indeed, we spent a small fortune on packing boxes. It seems that there is money in recycling boxes and you can't just wander to the grocery store to get some boxes. They do not have them. They have been broken down, packed up and taken by the recycler for bucks.

Our goal was to pack up most of our stuff into pods that would be taken away for storage. We would take with us whatever we needed for the few months we were in temporary quarters until our house is finished. It sounded like a plan. But boy, you never understand how much you have until you start breaking it all down. Here's the thing. your stuff is packed in things, like cabinets and shelves and such. When you have to pack it up, you take it out of its place, move it to a box and then you have a box and a cabinet or shelf. It all grows exponentially. And, of course, no one could accuse us of living sparingly. So we packed and packed and packed, day after day, weekends, evenings. It was bloody boring!

Even so, my brain just kept focused and I could not sleep. I kept thinking of things we had to get done, which led to lists, which led to doing the things we had to do in order to get it done. Packing means getting boxes, means getting to the store, means I need to run out on errands, means I need gas, when will I have time? My poor brain was completely over loaded.

America Eats - And so do we

2011-09-08T23:57:00.001-04:00

Jose Andres opened a temporary restaurant to partner with an exhibit at the National Archives about the history of food in America. He put his all into this restaurant and did an enormous amount of research into American food. There were items like mock turtle soup. crab cakes, Eisenhower stew, lobster Newberg, bison steaks, oysters in a dozen ways, shrimp and grits, clambake. It just went on and on.

We had a blast. I started with a "punch." Apparently everyone in Colonial American was soused most of the time because they drank punch all the time. Heavy on the rum, I had the Philadelphia Fish House Punch. Matt had George Washington's beer.

We both had the peanut soup which was based on a recipe from the Pullman Railroad company. Not thick like glue, but a lovely, creamy rich soup. Then we went on to oysters. Matt had Buffalo wings and we shared the pickled sturgeon with caviar. Lord, I love things that are pickled. I also had the abalone, which is a rare treat but used to be a staple in Colonial America. We ordered hush puppies of course. They were okay, not great. We also has fried chicken with home made catsup. The point is that we were completely stuffed and happy by the time we left. But I will not forgive them for being out of the mutton. Also, some menu items were only available on certain day so we missed the mock turtle soup and the Kentucky burgoo, which is stew that was originally made with blackbirds and squirrels. Mmmm. This version was made with rabbit, squab, and lamb. But, alas, it was only available on Wednesday.

There is one thing I can say about American food that was clear from the menu--it can be very heavy. There was a lot of meat and a lot of cold weather rib sticking food which was not enticing in the summer. But what we had was for the most part, pretty good to excellent.

July 30 - SOLD!

2011-09-07T16:52:00.001-04:00

Well, that was quick. The house was put on the market on the 15th and by July 31, the contract was signed. We are out of here.

July 27-August 5 - What Does a Leaking Spine Look Like?

2011-09-07T16:52:00.000-04:00

On Wednesday, I took Matt to Baltimore for a fairly routine CT test that required injecting a dye into his spinal column. We had read about side effects from the test but assumed those were rare. The next day, Matt came home from work with a splitting headache. He felt nauseous and dizzy. We followed the instructions and he laid down flat on his back, which caused his symptoms to subside. Unfortunately every time he got up, his headache returned. Not just a little headache but a vise gripping the head pain. By Friday, the pain was still there so we called the doctor who assured us that this would all stop. He just had to take it easy. The next day he was the same.

I investigated on-line and became convinced that his spine was leaking from the hole where they injected the dye. Cerebral spinal fluid cushions the brain and the spinal cord. If cerebral spinal fluid leaks, it causes enormous pain in the head because of the change in pressure. While the body produces spinal fluid continuously, if you have leak, it cannot keep up and there will be a change in pressure. The advice was clear to lay flat, completely horizontal and no pillow, and the fluid would level off so as to decrease the pressure and therefore decrease the pain. The problem is that CSF does not clot. So the hole has to close completely in order for the problem to go away. It is not a life threatening issue but it is excruciating.

Exasperated, on Saturday, I called another doctor on call who assured me that leaks were rare and Matt had to be having a reaction to the dye, dye that should have been absorbed days ago. I thought he was full of it. But we tried to wait it out. On Sunday, Matt was still in pain so we called the doctor who ordered the test to discuss the situation. He advised that I take him to the emergency room immediately to get a blood patch. They take some of your blood and inject it over the hole. The theory is that the blood clots, stopping the leak until the hole can close itself.

Incredibly, the hospital refused treatment. Their position was that since they did not cause the leak they did want to be responsible for fixing it. Our attending physician was just floored by this. He was not qualified to perform the procedure and when he asked for an anesthesiologist who could do so, they all declined. He was as peeved as we were so he worked up the ladder of the hospital administration. We met with someone in charge who assured us that they would act even though it was not their normal procedure. Honestly, if we had been tourists, would they really have told us the same thing? And we had picked the hospital because we really trust them. But they were really pushing our patience. After about six hours of administrators conferencing, they finally located a doctor who would perform the procedure.

And then he talked us out of it. We had a long discussion about evidence based medicine and he advised us that the long term studies of this procedure indicated that it did not always work and there could be complications. Matt was on serious pain killers at this point and they assured us they would keep him on the medicine until the hole had closed so he would not suffer any more. We agreed to wait it out again.

This time though he really had to remain completely prone for hours at a time, limit getting up, no pillow, not even a little. He spent four days on his back listening to books on tape. I swear I would have lost my mind. But he soldiered through it. I guess the pain pills helped but still, I was impressed by his ability to tough it out. By Thursday he realized that he needed the pain pills less and less and by Friday he seemed better. They said the pain would just stop and that seems to be what it did. He recovered and, as it always does, life went on.

.

July 26 - Art Tiles

2011-08-26T00:27:00.000-04:00

I have tiles that I made in pottery and everyone always says I should have them reproduced to sell. Amazingly, there is a website that will hook you up with Southeast Asia and Chinese manufacturers of just about anything. But Matt had an idea. Why not see if we can get our friends in Sri Lanka to make them So we met with the Embassy staff to discuss finding a manufacturer in that country. You never know.

July 25 - The week gets started

2011-08-26T00:24:00.000-04:00

Everyone is waiting for a resolution of the debt ceiling crisis. No political talk here but needless to say, being in the process of buying and selling a house, it is a little unnerving.

July 24 - Pickling Green Tomatoes

2011-08-26T00:22:00.000-04:00

I am in love with a new dish. I found a recipe for instant pickling of green tomatoes. Basically, you make a pickling sauce of vinegar, water, and sugar. Add in some garlic and rosemary. Let it stew for a while until the flavors have melded. Then pour over freshly sliced green tomatoes. Let sit for at least 24 hours and then eat. Delicious on sandwiches. Better than pickles for sure.

July 23 - Korean BBQ

2011-08-26T00:20:00.000-04:00

We spent the day house hunting. We need to find a place to stay until our new house is built. The plan is to buy a condo to live in for the short term and then rent it out. It is simply exhausting and time consuming to look for housing. I do not remember it being this way, but it takes up a lot of valuable time.

Exhausted, we decided to try the Korean barbecue for dinner. Woomi, a Korean restaurant in Wheaton, is the place for authentic Korean. For the Korean BBQ we had bulgogi. They bring a grill to your table and fire it up. Thin slices of marinated beef cook right in front of you, sizzling away with an aroma of the mouthwatering Korean bbq sauce. They also add some vegetables to the grill and once it is all nice and cooked, you make little sandwich rolls, wrapping in fresh lettuce leaves the beef, rice, kimchi and whatever else looks good. If you like you can add some spicy sauce to the mix to liven it up even more. Here is Matt working on his bulgogi.

We also had bibimbap (in the bowl next to Matt). This is essentially a kitchen sink salad with thinly sliced and barbecued beef, vegetables, rice and a fried egg on top. All these ingredients come in a huge bowl. You top it with some spicy sauce and toss it all together until it is one big mess. It creates a melange of flavors and textures that just burst in your mouth. Really, really good stuff. We topped that off with some Korean beer, that was incredibly light and refreshing, and there is it. A good ol' Korean dinner for two. (Check out that broad's biceps=)

July 21 - Swimming

2011-08-26T00:18:00.002-04:00

I have felt very powerful lately and I moved up to swimming 50 laps in about an hour, not quite a mile and a half (54 laps). I could do more, I just get bored after an hour. I am not the fastest swimmer by a long shot but I have been feeling strong as a bull. Hard to imagine that a year ago I was recovering from rotator cuff surgery.

July 19 - Belgian Ambassador's House

2011-08-26T00:18:00.001-04:00

We went to a Belgian beer and food tasting at the Belgian Ambassador's House in celebration of Belgium's independence day. Interestingly, their independence day, July 21, is a celebration of their own revolution that resulted in their separation from the Netherlands in 1831, a separation that had to be approved by the other European powers (those monarchies are so quaint).

Of course, the most important point about Belgium is that they make the best beer in the world bar none. Sorry, that is the truth and no other country comes close. There are several Belgian restaurants in DC and their chefs put together a menu with beer pairings which was fabulous. The velouté (a classic French sauce, one of the five mother sauces, made of butter, flour, and stock) with potatoes, bacon and oysters was absolutely to die for (thanks to Robert Wiedmaier).

The Venison filet with truffle mashed potatoes in a Trappist beer sauce disappeared after this photo. (Thanks to you Bart Vandaele and Jan Van Haute)

Oh, and here come the Belgian chocolates. But perhaps the best part of the meal was our discovery of my new favorite beer--Straffe Hendrik Quadruple. Lord, I could die happy after drinking that brew.

This is what we look like after tasting Belgian beer and food!

July 16 - OKLAHOMA!

2011-08-26T00:18:00.000-04:00

We saw Oklahoma! at Arena Stage for a second time. We had to take family and friends. This is the kind of uplifting experience you just have to share. Days are spent singing through the songbook, oh what a beautiful morning, ducks and chicks and geese, surrey with a fringe on top, Oklahoma is okay. The lyrics go around and around in my head and I cannot stop singing.

Week of July 11 - The Transcript

2011-08-26T00:17:00.000-04:00

Why me, Lord? So I thought that I graduated and it was all okay. Not so fast. I am trying to take a certification test and in order to apply, I have to have a degree in "health education." I also have to provide a transcript that says my degree is in health education. I order my transcript and it says I have a degree in "Health," not "Health Education." So I have to go back to the incompetent person at the records office who insisted that my transcript said what it did not say. After much back and forth, I wrestled her to the ground yet again and forced her to change my transcript to say I had a degree in "Health Education." That probably took a week out of my life that I would like to get back.

July 9 - Breaking a World Record Playing the Angklungh

2011-08-19T00:33:00.001-04:00

I get interesting emails about things to do around town and sometimes I respond. This time I got an email that suggested that I join with others on the Mall to help break the world record for the number of people playing a song in an angklungh ensemble. Not sure what it means, but I am in.

The angklungh is an Indonesian instrument that plays one note. It is made from bamboo and the tone depends on the size of the bamboo. It is played by shaking it. Since it is one note per instrument, you have to play in an ensemble in order to make music. That makes it a kind of sharing instrument. The Indonesian Ambassador has the idea to bring people together as one by inviting us all to learn how to play the angklungh and then go for the record. (see instrument below)

Our fearless leader was Indonesian angklungh maestro Daeng Udio who has devised hand signals to tell us when to play our note. There was an instrument for everyone. I got a note. Matt got a note and then we had to learn the hand signal. When we saw it, we shook our instrument. We practiced by playing John Denver's "Country Road." Who knew West Virginia and John Denver were so popular in Asia. (Our friend in Bhutan loved that song too.)

The record breaking song was We are the World. Once we had the hand signals down, we practiced that song a few times then the moment of official Guiness Book of World Record auditing was at hand. They told us that everyone had to be playing. No cell phones, no just standing. Everyone had to participate. And drum roll...WE DID IT!

There were 5180 people tucked into an area cordoned off next to the Washington Monument and we played it loud and clear. Huzzah!!!! We got certificates to show that we participated in breaking the world record. Do we look like we are having fun or what?

July 7-8 - Vitreous Humour is not very Humorous

2011-08-19T00:33:00.000-04:00

I woke up on July 6th with a lightening storm in my eye. If I moved my head, I was dazzled with flashes and streaks of light. This kind of freaked me out and I thought, am I having a stroke? Then I thought, no, this is an eye problem. I had a suspicion that it was my retina but I decided to wait and see if it would go away. The next day, the flashes were still there and my eye was filling with floaters. I was worried enough that I did not go swimming. I had a sense that jumping off the diving board would be a bad idea and moving my head back and forth was just going to stir up the flashes. Then an odd thing happened. I went to the mall on an errand for Matt and I ran into my eye doctor. I kind of joked and said, can you look at my eye? But I knew that I would be seeing him soon if this did not stop. It didn't. The next morning I called his office and asked if I should come in right away. The answer was, yes, get in here.

My doctor was surprised at what I was telling him. You are too young for this he insisted. Too young for what? A vitreous detachment. Our eyes are filled with a gel-like substance called the vitreous humour. This gel is what gives the eye its shape and keeps the eyeball from collapsing. The vitreous humour is attached in spots on our retina. It seems that as we age, the gel starts to deteriorate until it is virtually liquid. As it deteriorates, it shrinks. For some people, that shrinking is not noticeable. The vitreous just pulls away from the retina and slowly liquefies. This is called a vitreous detachment. For others, the vitreous humour sticks to the retina and pulls on it. This causes the flashing. If it tugs hard enough the retina can tear. And then you have trouble. For near sighted people like myself who have mis-shapened eyes, a detached retina is quite common. So the first thing the ophthalmologist did was check to see if I had torn a hole in my retina. Just to be safe, he sent me to the retina specialist.

The conclusion was not retinal tear but clearly the vitreous detachment was not going well and there was a possibility that it could still occur. So I had to take it easy for a week. No straining, no lifting, no exercise, nothing. My eye was so full of floaters that it was like looking through a dirty fishbowl. But for once I did as I was told.

The flashing eventually dissipated but alas the floaters still float. It is as if my eye is constantly full of gunk. They tell me it will go away but it could take a while. So I wait.

July 4 - Crabs are a lot of work

2011-08-16T23:25:00.000-04:00

We got the idea that we would eat crabs for the 4th of July. Matt got up early and went up to the crab shack up the street. He got the last bunch and the store threw in whatever they had left so we had about three dozen crabs, which is a lot for two people. I had forgotten how much work they are for so little reward. They are good but I was still hungry before I ran out of the attention span to finish.

We did not get to see the fireworks because Matt was still suffering from his boogie boarding accident. He sprained his toe and walking is painful. We walked over to the mall to watch the local show.

Odd and ends

2011-08-16T23:22:00.000-04:00

Went for a bike ride in Rock Creek Park. I faced the pavement. It is really weird but it just makes me nervous to ride my bike in traffic on pavement.

Shout to Carol Barbero! I am so jealous that you are retired. But now you are my role model and hero.

June - Another month that disappeared

2011-08-16T23:20:00.000-04:00

This month was a blur of work and getting the house ready to sell. That means painting everything to look shiny and new. I was so busy that I did not even have time to plant a seed. I had to buy tomato and zucchini plants. That is pathetic. But that is really all I had to report. It was just a month of stress and more stress.

Special Report - Swimming with the Fishes

2011-08-16T23:09:00.000-04:00

We have not been to Sunset Beach for a summer vacation in a few years and we really needed a break. Life was beginning to overwhelm us. We have gotten to the point where is is harder to go away than to just stay and work and work and get it done. I do not like living that way. But that is the way it is. So we fought to get out and we had a day or two of trying to get detached.

Perhaps the most unique part of this trip was our encounters with nature. We like to boogie board. You can barely keep us out of the water most of the time. This time we were boogie boarding with friends -- manta rays. One day we looked over and there was a ray jumping up through a wave near us. We were cool with that. Matt kept insisting it was huge but he gets so excited I just did not believe him.

But then the next day it was a little too close for comfort. I go further out into the water than Matt does. As I was standing waiting for the next good wave, I heard Matt screaming at me. Rays! I looked down and there were large manta rays swimming and circling all around my legs. They were not threatening. It was just a school of rays at what appeared to be dinner time and I happened to be standing in their spot. Matt was freaking out but I maintained my calm. I did not want to get stung so I slowly backed up, dragging my feet along to avoid inadvertently stepping on one. Whew! Okay, that was a little too close for comfort. We watched them from shore, swimming in a narrow channel where I had been standing. There must have been a dozen. Other people went into the water and when they realized they had company, they did the same thing I did--slowly backed out.

For the next encounter, I was not as composed. I was standing with my boogie board facing the waves. I sensed a large round body next to my leg. It was an odd sensation and my brain did a quick analysis. I thought, hmmm, that seems like a dog pressed against my leg. Well, dogs are not usually in the water. Hmmm. Suddenly, I was upended. And then it occurred to me--SHARK!!!!! It knocked me right over. Or maybe I tripped over it. Whatever it was, it was certainly big enough to fall over and over I went. My brain knew right away what had just happened. I could only conclude it was a sand shark. They are everywhere down there and there is no other fish that big in that water and if there is, boy, I sure would not want to see that thing on the end of a fishing line. I did the backstroke so fast, I never swam so hard in my life. Matt had no idea what was going on. He just saw me kicking furiously as I tried to get back to shore, legs flailing, hoping I would scare the shark enough to make it go away. That was a real adrenaline rush. I was laughing and shaking all at the same time.

To add to our discomfort, the jelly fish were out in force. We could not go into the water without feeling that slight sting on the skin. By the last day, I just gave up. I was tired of jelly fish and rays and whatever else was lurking out there. I had had enough of nature. The boogie board lay idle as I soaked in the last of the sun. But I have to admit, it was an adventure.

When we are at the beach I still cook because that is what I like to do. We like to eat. We enjoy good food and good wine and the fact is that, at the beach, those options are pretty limited. We spent the days at the beach, the evenings enjoying dinner and a movie. Redbox is a great resource at the beach. We watched a movie every night. Quick movie reviews:

"Red" Bruce Willis as his cheeky, kooky self and who knew John Malkovich could be so funny. Awesome. Power to the old people! That is a movie I need to own.

"Inception." Honestly, I did not care. And I do not get Leonardo DiCaprio. I just do not think he is a good actor. I can never suspend my disbelief with him. I always see him acting.

"Somewhere." Another lovely Sofia Coppola movie. The story of a girl and her dad who happens to be a movie star.

"The Fighter." I love a good boxing movie. As a convincing crackhead from South Boston, Christian Bale deserved the Academy Award. He had the accent down. He was emaciated. Pretty impressive. (Unlike DiCaprio, Bale is a great actor. He gets so far into a role that I never have trouble suspending my disbelief. )

"127 Hours." I kept my eyes closed every time he started cutting his arm.

On the drive home we stopped at Flips in Wilmington NC for what is supposed to be some of the best NC BBQ in the State. It was. We gobbled down our sandwich and bought a jar of their homemade BBQ sauce. At various market stands we bought a crate of strawberries, green peanuts to boil later and pointy headed cabbage. (You have to see it to understand but gosh, is it delish.)

May 2011 - How can you not love this month?

2011-08-16T23:04:00.000-04:00

This month was spent primarily working, exercising, looking for a new house, working on selling our house and doing a few other things. The biggest question was whether we would we go back to Florida to try and see the shuttle. We had tickets and we could get in. But it would have cost more money, and we would have had the same logistical problems--finding a room and finding a flight this time. It just seemed impossible, so we gave up.

I also spent a good deal of time fighting with Montgomery College. I needed to graduate in order to sign up for a certification exam. My goal has been to become a certified health education specialist. I need a degree in health education before I can apply. I first learned that I had to apply to graduate. Who knew? I have no recollection that I had to do that in my prior lives. Doesn't the college know if I have met my prerequisites? The failure to apply put me behind by months. They told me that I missed the cut off for a May graduation and I would not graduate until August. That was too late and I would miss the certification application deadline. I made my case to the higher ups and they agreed that they could make an exception if I did not want to actually attend graduation. Hey, okay with me. I hate ceremonies.

Then they told me that I could not graduate because I did not complete my course work. According to them, I had not finished my speech requirement. I was furious primarily because I have a B.A. in Speech and Communications. I transferred all of my credits and I know that I am done. But for some reason the computer kept saying I was not done. There is a woman in the office who is in charge of graduation issues and she is a dolt. I mean that kindly. She is actually incompetent. She insisted that I could not graduate. I went over her head again and she corrected the error the computer system kept making.

So they finally declared me graduated and I got my diploma in May. The next step is to get a certified official transcript. God help me.

We saw Werner Herzog's film, "Cave of Forgotten Dreams." It was not his best work. It felt rushed. But it was classic Herzog. His Teutonic tinged English narrating his thoughts and feelings about ancient cave drawings. My goal in life is to meet Werner. I love this guy. As Stephen Colbert said to him, "I want to party with you cowboy."

We went to the Beer Tasting and National Geographic. Some of it was good, some not so good. What is up with the love of IPA? Sour bitter, long lasting disgusting taste. Hate it! We celebrated our 16th anniversary. On Judgement Day we went to Makoto for dinner. I got the chef to smile! Here we are waiting for the rapture.

We put a contract on a house. At the end of the month we went to North Carolina for a vacation.

Special Report - Space Shuttle Launch Part 2 - The Waiting

2011-08-14T23:38:00.000-04:00

So the shuttle launch is scrubbed. Now what. We drive to Daytona Beach to wait it out. We absolutely hate the hotel and the town. We are sleep deprived in a lousy hotel with clogged drains and noisy plumbing. We spend a few hours trying once again to locate a room in Cocoa Beach. By this time we are punch drunk and cranky. We finally locate a room in a condo building. They have a pool and it is ocean front. Sold! We pack up and make our way back to Cocoa, another two hours of driving. We spend the day on the beach and we get sunburned. Still no word on the shuttle launch. Will it be tomorrow? The next day? The next? We can wait but only so long. We simply cannot sit here with no idea of what the plan is going to be.

Special sub-report: The next day we give up and go to Disney World. I did not really want to go. I really have no interest in Disney. Matt says he is willing to go by himself but I cannot let him do that, so we get in the car and take off for Orlando to spend the day. Of course, we get going late and by the time we arrive it is already afternoon. Well, we will fit in what we can. The cost for a day long visit to Disney World and related parks is astronomical, something along the lines of $250 for two people. We had really wanted to go to the water park but we are advised we simply cannot fit it all in and besides that would cost us $80 more. So we gave up and opted for the basics. At Magic Kingdom, we ride Splash Mountain. We ride another coaster and another. But it is really not all that exciting.

Let me tell you what I hate about Disney World. It is an "experience." They keep saying that over and over again. Welcome to the Disney Experience. And they mean it. Everything is highly controlled, like some weird episode of The Twilight Zone where the characters are saying what they are supposed to say and we are being guided into feeling what they want us to feel. There is constant background music, the sound track of the ideal world. Main Street is that ideal place that never existed. The "cast" is all smiles, but really it is all business. There cannot be any slip ups. The machine must run smoothly. I just feel oppressed by the corporate overlords.

The day goes on and I am not really into it. We have to get timed tickets to jump the lines. That means our options are limited. As we are wandering around, someone hands us timed tickets for Space Mountain. We take them and go in. No lines. We jump right on and Wahooo!!!! That was a great roller coaster! It was dark and curvy and Wahooo!!!! All is forgiven Disney! I had a great ride. Now I am feeling a little more pumped up. We take the bus to Wild Adventure.

There is a roller coaster there called Expedition Everest. While we wait in line we learn all about Nepal and the Himalayas. Some of it is wrong, but they tried. We get in and like a rocket we blast off. Up up up and then backwards NOOOO!!!!. Okay, that was the BEST roller coaster ever. We have a little time left. The park is closing. We go to see the Komodo Dragon. We ride the wild river and get soaked. We visit the tigers. Now we are having fun. The park closes and we head to Epcot to get some food. The French restaurant is sold out. We end up eating at Morocco. Not bad but not great. We buy Viking helmets at the Norwegian pavilion. Mine has fake blond braids. I wear it and it feels hilarious. We stay for the fireworks. They are okay but you know, we are pretty jaded about fireworks. Finally, the show is over. And I give in. I give Disney my money. I buy a Grumpy t-shirt. They had completely sucked me in. Stupid roller coasters. The rest of it, you can have. But give me a thrill and a Viking hat and you've got my attention.

In what could not have been a more surreal moment, when we got back from Disney World, we found out that Osama Bin Laden had been killed. The yin and yang of America.

As for the shuttle, we finally gave up after three days and drove home.

Special Report - Space Shuttle - Part I

2011-08-14T23:35:00.000-04:00

I got it in my head that I had to see a shuttle launch before the program ended. Yeah, me and about a half million other people. I also decided if I was going to do this, I wanted to be as close as possible. There is only one way to do that. Watch from the Kennedy Space Center. Unfortunately, the program had become so popular since the end of the program was announced that NASA was forced to allot space by lottery. If you were selected in the lottery you had a chance to buy a ticket to see the launch. Getting selected in the space shuttle lottery is like winning the lottery. And I did not get in. The next option is to purchase tickets with a tour company. NASA allots a certain number of tickets, thousands actually, to tour companies who will bus you into the launch viewing sights. The number one sight is called the Causeway, a road crossing water that faces the shuttle which is about six miles away. That seems like a lot but it is really big and you can see it perfectly from there with nothing in the way. After going back and forth about whether we should just drive down and watch it from wherever or get the tickets, we decided the tickets would at least get us to the best spot and we would not have to think about it.

Here was the plan. Kennedy Space Center requires the buses to arrive twelve hours before the launch. This launch was scheduled for around 5 p.m. So we had to be there at 5 a.m. That meant we had to be on the bus at 4 a.m. Yes, that's right, 4 a.m. Yeah, I was not getting much sleep on that night. The reason for the early arrival was, of course, security. We had to go through security and the buses had to go through security. So we would spend the morning at the Space Center. Then having cleared security and after touring around, we would get back on the bus to go out to the causeway to wait for the launch. We would be on the causeway for about five hours.

The Space Center also has very strict rules on what you can and cannot bring in. As you can imagine, there was going to be a very long wait and no place to sit on the causeway. So they recommended that we bring folding chairs. But we could only bring umbrella folding chairs. They recommended hats, food, bug spray, cameras and whatever else you would need to survive in the Florida sun next to a body of water for six hours while we waited for the shuttle to go off.

Now begins the adventure. We decided we needed a road trip so we would drive. We figured a day and a half of driving. We might have been able to make it in one shot but there was really no need. We would stop somewhere in Georgia for the night. Then we had to find a hotel near Cape Canaveral. Well, good luck with that. There were no hotel rooms within 25 miles of the place. Our plan was that, if necessary, we would just get a hotel anywhere and drive to the bus rendezvous. But I kept at it and I finally found one room, for one night, in Cocoa Beach. They were absolutely gouging us on the price but at least it was a mile from the bus that we had to catch at 4 a.m. Then we would go up to Daytona Beach which was the only beach within any distance that had a room for the next night. From there we planned on winging it.

So we were set. On April 27 we set out for the shuttle launch that is going to occur on April 29th. On the way, we stop at Jekyll Island in Georgia. Nice place. We need to go back. But we have to keep moving on to Cocoa. We finally get there in the early afternoon. We do our logistics, bags packed, gear ready and then head out for dinner at Rubio's, a wonderful Cuban restaurant. I have the idea to get Cubano sandwiches to take with us to have for lunch while we wait for the launch. Good call. Then it is back to the hotel to turn in early. 3 a.m. wake up calls hurt.

We head out into the night and there is a lot of traffic, everyone heading to the same place -- Port Canaveral -- to get the bus. There are thousands of people milling in the parking lot. There a lot of kids that are pretty cranky and antsy already. I don't know if dragging your four year old out in the middle of the night to wait twelve hours for a rocket to go off is a great idea but who am I to judge. We thought we had a lot of gear. No. People are carrying giant back packs, chairs, numerous camera bags. I even see luggage carts and roller bags. On the other hand, some folks are there with absolutely nothing. Women in dresses, skirts, high heels. Okay. It's a free country.

They finally called us on to the buses and we are off. We pull into Kennedy Space Center just as dawn is breaking around 5:30 a.m. The place is already in full gear.

We tour the rocket garden, check out the rockets and shuttle exhibits. By then, the sun is up and the new day is here. So far the launch is a go. The weather is perfect. We are loaded down with gear that we had to carry around with us until it was time to get back on the bus to go to the causeway.

We get tired of carrying around our stuff and load it into a locker while we go on the Shuttle Experience, a ride that should give us a sense of what it is like to go up in the shuttle.

A streaming video of various astronauts talking about their flight experiences on the shuttle keeps us company as we snake through the very long line. There are signs everywhere warning us about what an intense experience this ride is going to be and if you have any health problems, turn back. Honestly, it is making me kind of nervous. They are very adamant that this is going to be the thrill of a lifetime.

Yeah, it wasn't. As I mentioned in an earlier post, we just rode a bobsled. Now that was the thrill of a lifetime. Everything will now be compared to that 48 second sled ride. In comparison, the shuttle simulator was ho hum. We kind of went on our backs and there was some juggling and noise, but inciting a heart attack? Motion sickness? Come on people. Maybe I am jaded but it did not live up to the hype.

By this time, we are bored. We have been at the Space Center for four hours. We have done pretty much everything. We have to line up for the buses at 11 a.m. and that is an hour away. We decide to try the gift shop. It is stuffed with nearly all of humanity. I feel like we need the people rammers from the Tokyo subway to shove us through the doors. It is nearly impossible to move. We try to pick up merchandise over heads and arms also reaching and grabbing. There seem to be lines for the cash registers but it is hard to tell because the bodies are so condensed and the lines are so long. We push our way upstairs where the books are. It is a little quieter and there is a line for the register that we can actually see. It is about a 50 people deep but at least we know it is a line that is moving.

As we wait and wait and wait, I consider throttling a bored kid who keeps singing loudly and off key the Spider man song. Not the whole song. Just the first two lines. Over and over again. Here is my inner monologue. I am going to kill this kid if he does not shut up. Where is his mother? Do you know I have had four hours of sleep? Do you know that you are the most annoying child ever to roam the universe. The line is moving like Heinz ketchup. We take turns venturing out to look at stuff, the other holding the line. Soon our arms are full of stuff but the line goes no where. We are starting to get worried because we are supposed to be lining up for the bus. I make a reconnaissance run and find that the bus line is a mile long and is not really going anywhere anytime soon. So I go back to the store confident that we have time to get this done. Another half hour goes by another look at the bus line. Yup. Has not moved. This goes on and on until we really start to panic that we are going to miss the bus. After over an hour in the check out line, we run out the door, shoving people aside. We grab our gear and head for the line. We walk and walk and walk and, for Pete's sake, where is the end of this line? It really was a mile. We luck out. An employee from our tour grabs a bunch of us at the end of the line and walks us to the front, breaking us right in at the quarter mile marker. We are sent through a building and out the back door and finally, there is the bus. We get on board. Huzzah! Let's move! Not so fast. We have to wait for the NASA okay. We wait and we wait another hour. The Cubano is gone, our water is gone. Everyone on the bus is sleeping. We have been at this for nearly eight hours.

Get this bus on the road! Finally, finally we are off. We are on the way to the Causeway. Yes! We are on the causeway. There it is! The shuttle on the launch pad.

The guy next to us is listening to the local radio communications. He hears a crackle and looks at us. The mission is scrubbed. 'scuse me? The mission is scrubbed. That astronauts don't even know it yet. We start to tell everyone on the bus the launch is a no-go. No one believes it. I get on my iphone and find the space mission website. Sure enough there comes the latest announcement. Mission scrubbed. NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

We are here. [Matt is pointing to the shuttle.]

They have us deboard the bus because no one has given them the official word. There it is. We can see it. Puleeze, let it take off. No go.

There is much confusion. What happens now? We have tickets. They get us back on the bus. The announcement is that NASA has to figure out what is wrong and when the next launch might be. The tickets are good for the launch no matter when it occurs. As we are driven back to the Port, we are sharing stories with the guy sitting next to us who has tried four times to see the shuttle go off. We are laughing and lamenting in that punchy way you get when you have had no sleep and life just threw you a curve ball. He howls, NASA you have all of my money! What more do you want? He has spent thousands of dollars on plane fares and hotels all in vain.

We now have to decide if we want to wait it out.

April - Spring at Last

2011-08-14T23:16:00.000-04:00

We saw a play called "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs." A one man monologue by the actor Mike Daisey, a computer and Apple nerd who comes to discover the slave labor that is used to produce Apple products in China. It was funny but really a downer because we do not want to know how the Chinese people suffer for our products. If we did really, really know, and that was his point, we would be horrified and not want to buy the products. Supposedly, Steve Jobs knows about the play and his response is that it is complicated but they try to monitor conditions. The problem is that factories are warned when the inspection is due so they can get rid of all the unhappy workers.

In the most dramatic note of the month, we decide it is time for us to move! You may wonder why. I am sick of pouring money into this house. I am in a rut and I need a change. Matt feels the same. That is pretty much it.

Watched "Secretariat"and cried. I loved that horse. I was in Burlington and met an artist whose work I admire--Eric Rehman at a gallery downtown. He does clay sculpture. I have one of his pieces. Very shy fellow but very insightful. Started looking at houses. We decide to look at foreclosures and short sales to see if we can find a deal. [separate essay about that] Went to DC film Festival. Went to Oyamel and had too many margaritas. Gorgeous full moon. More house hunting. Began the search for tickets to see the Space Shuttle. [See special report] The house is overrun by ants. More house hunting.

Here goes March

2011-08-14T23:14:00.000-04:00

Watched Invictus. Don't you just love Morgan Freeman? We watched the space station and the space shuttle fly by in our evening sky. (We won't ever get to see that again.) Fat Tuesday we had jambalaya and King Cake. It rained and rained and rained and rained. There was an earthquake in Japan. We went to see the Penguins in Pittsburgh. We made friends with the sommalier at Lidia's in Pittsburgh. He loved us so much, he kept giving us free glasses of wine. We had dinner with my family in Uniontown. Japan is the focus now. Nuclear meltdown 24/7. Spring came and my focus left. I get Spring fever. Matt got sick. We missed the India fest. We did see Mercury, a rare sighting in the suburban sky. We attacked Libya. I gave Matt a flag pole and flags for his birthday. We went to Belga for Belgian food and beer. Horrors, they served us cold beer! Cold Belgian beer. Ridiculous. We complained and they brought us the right beer from their private stock. We saw Elton John in concert in Baltimore. We went to the sushi fest at National Geographic. The topic was sustainable seafood, an issue I fully support and the sushi was all made using sustainable fish--by that we mean stop eating raw tuna, yellow tail and eat mackeral. While the food was great, we got lectured about sustainable fish and they made us feel so damn guilty for loving sushi that it really took the fun out of it.

Let me pause for Dumbarton Oaks Gardens. I had a vague sense of the existence of Dumbarton Oaks gardens but I wanted to go to see an art exhibition by Patrick Dougherty, who creates large sculptures from branches and twigs. There are some artists who just get my attention and he is one of them. The forms are interesting, the concept is natural and physical and I just like the feel. This is is the installation itself. It survived the winter and although it was a bit weathered, it was still interesting to explore.

In making the effort to see this installation, I got to see the Dumbarton Oaks gardens. Who knew? I sure didn't We were there in early spring so only the earliest blooms were out. I am sure this place is spectacular in every season. [Note to sister Michele--you have to see this garden.] Here are some pictures.