In which the Virgin performs a miracle

On Friday night those of us who had never been to A Day in Rock City before were awarded Virgin candles from the Mexican store.

On Tuesday I was late to the airport. I'm somewhat notorious for being late to the airport; when leaving from DC I arrived 50 minutes before takeoff. But I had the impression that it took 45 minutes to get from Niffer-bur's to O'Hare on the El; in fact, it took an hour. A very long hour, involving many stops and much inching along. I hadn't had anything to eat that day, and given my love of breakfast, by the time I got to O'Hare I was quite irritable and worried. More than missing my flight, I was worried about not having time to grab a bite to eat before boarding.

I arrived about 40 minutes before takeoff and speed-walked through the airport to security, which I found wondrously line-free. Relievedly, I took off my shoes, put my bag on the conveyor belt, and heard those dreaded words: "bag check!"

I searched my conscience and, hoping for quick redemption, confessed my sins to the middle-aged TSA employee assigned to my bag: "I know, I forgot to take my liquids out."

"Which pocket are they in?"

I pointed to the front pocket, where he found my carefully-packed quart-sized zip-top bag of quasi-contrabands.

"It looked like you had a spray can or a bottle..." he said, replacing the baggie.

I thought, and realized what it must be. If he searched the packed main compartment of my bag, it would take forever. But I felt calm, resigned to my fate of missing my flight. "I have a candle," I said.

"You have a candle?" he said, handing my bag over. "Ok, thank you."

I took my bag slowly, unable to believe this stroke of luck. As I hoisted it onto my back and headed through the terminal, I glanced at the clock: still enough time to hit the bathroom and a fast-food joint. I was saved.

Komodo

When Niffer-bur and I got to the Chicago aquarium on Monday we found a line that went out the door, down the front steps, and halfway across the courtyard. A clue to the reason for the madness was the giant blow-up lizard whose mouth the line disappeared into: There was a temporary lizard exhibit going on, including a Komodo Dragon.

While I was impressed with the aquarium, I thought the Komodo was nothing to wait in line for 40 minutes for. It's kind of goofy-looking. Maybe I'd feel differently if I'd seen it flick its tongue or lumber around its enclosure or something.

A Day in Rock City: Swiss Canoe Races

Much as I didn't come to Illinois expecting to rollerblade bewigged and half-naked in the Rock City Day parade, I didn't go to the Swiss canoe races with the intention of competing: I was just going to sit on the bleachers and take pictures. But Niffer-bur's team that needed a fourth, and apparently I can't say no to potentially humiliating physical feats--at least not when I'm in the Midwest. So I joined 0ne of the two all-female teams (there were about seven teams overall).

When my team's name was called, I attempted to climb off the bleachers and fell... and fell... and fell. My feet were perhaps four feet off the ground when I started falling, but I managed to hit every possible bleacher component on the way down. When I finally stopped falling I sensed that all conversation in that section of the bleachers had stopped, and that all eyes were on me.

"I'm ok," I said to no one in particular. In fact the bruises on my right leg stretch from mid-calf to groin, and there's a bruise on my left thigh that's about five square inches. (This was particularly ironic, given that I hadn't fallen once during my roller blading escapades.) But I got up and got into my fireman's boots behind Niffer-bur.

Swiss canoing, I learned that day, doesn't actually involve any water. Rather, four pairs of fireman's boots are nailed to two parallel boards, and four team members attempt to move in a synchronized way to move forward, around a cone, and back to the finish line.

It's truly a cold day in hell when I triumph in any sporting event, so it was shocking when our team beat the only other all-female team to the finish line. Particularly since our team was composed of 75 percent Rock City Day virgins. When we crossed the finish line we stopped, cheered, and promptly fell over.

A Day in Rock City: Parade

There are certain moments in my life that have caused me to reevaluate some part of my concept of who I am. I start to wonder who this person is who made the decisions that put me in this situation. I had such a moment when I tried to sneak out of my Turkish dorm room and found myself hanging from a windowsill over a 12-foot drop onto concrete; another just before jumping out of a plane with a parachute strapped to my back.

Both of those incidents of minor physical peril pale in comparison to what I was doing at a little before 11:00 on Saturday morning, though: namely, rollerblading alone past small-town Midwesterners who'd gathered outside to see a parade. In addition to the rollerblades, I was wearing white fishnets, a short, yellow, sequined skirt and skimpy top to match, long black gloves, huge sunglasses, a wig, and a cardboard car.

The first decision that led me down the road to this moment of public weirdness was coming to A Day in Rock City, a festival put on each year to celebrate the founding of this village of 300 near the Illinois/Wisconsin border. Each year friends of Nell, a friend from my Ithaca days who's from Rock City, converge for the occasion, and this year I thought I'd see what the fuss was about.

Nell and another Rock City Day veteran picked me up in Rockford on Thursday in the midst of a shopping trip. As we drove between craft and thrift stores hunting for costumes and float decorations, Nell explained that the theme of this year's float would be Gas Guzzlers for Global Warming, and she ran down the available roles: the Arab oil sheik, George Bush, gas station workers, the oil company worker, the Texas oil tycoon and his wife, ghoulish dying people. The role of a polar bear drowning in a wading pool was already taken. "And if you have any interest in rollerskating, you can be a car," she said. The cars would skate in front of the float in a traffic jam; each would have a designated color and a costume purchased by Nell in Thailand.

This didn't seem like the best option, given that I hadn't roller skated in years, and had no roller skates. But when I found a box full of $2 roller blades to choose from at Goodwill, I became more receptive to the idea. I bought a pair and practiced skating around the bank parking lot that night, but I grew worried when I saw the costumes, which I thought would look fine on a six-year-old at a dance recital, but not so great on me.

As far as I could tell, nothing got done on the float on Friday, including my own goal of finding someone else to be the yellow car. Work seemed to begin in the middle of the night; when I woke up in the morning, Nell was already hard at work on the seemingly impossible job of getting the float ready for the parade's 10:30 commencement. I went to work on my car with the over-worked hot glue gun, quickly resigning myself to driving the most pathetic car of the group. That was the point of no return: having built the car, I had to drive it.

We were late to the parade, and being accomplished skaters, the other cars reached the starting point blocks ahead of me. Which was how I came to be all alone on my $2 blades, behind the other cars but ahead of the float (ably pulled by G.R. as the Arab sheik on a three-wheeler), on a later stretch of the parade route where the spectators were already gathered.

We had a great time, though. If you don't believe me, believe G.R.'s Picasa album.

Ha! Ha! Ha!

Behold: My feelings about called laughter have been brilliantly captured by The Onion.

Randomness and the nature of The Ninth Floor

This morning I went with N.Lu to see Al Gore speak outside the Museum of the American Indian, part of the Live Earth concert series today. Turned out we didn't actually see the man -- ok, I didn't, but N.Lu claims to have seen his back as he took the stage. Then we heard Garth Brooks an Trisha Yearwood sing "We Shall be Free." Then we met TOWWAS at the Folklife Festival.

I'd been the week before, but it was fun to go again. We saw some great performances from southern China, and N.Lu interrogated a Belfast scientist about his renewable energy plan involving sewage, willow trees, and sustainable heating. There was some time devoted to shopping, but I managed not to spend a thing all day except for metro fare.

To me, though, none of this seems to make for a very interesting blog entry. I've come to realize that, whether true or not, I tend to believe that pictures of surprising and random stuff are the gold standard of blog-able subjects. So here goes:

This was stuck into the ground next to a tree I saw on the way to N.Lu's place. I don't know why, or whether, the tree needed saving. The sign was still there when I came back this afternoon.

And the "most random item in a Smitsonian gift shop" award goes to:

It was published in 2002 -- when, perhaps, it seemed marginally more tasteful. In addition to quotes, it contains such jokes as, "Q: What do Michael Dukakis and Saddam Hussein have in common? A: Neither can believe they lost to Bush."

100%

I heard a McDonald's commercial a few nights ago that ended, "With 100% beef, nothing beats a Big Mac." I'm no expert on burgers, but isn't being 100% beef really the least you'd expect? Do the other fast food restaurants cut their beef with, say, horse? Soylent green? A "secret ingredient"?



As a side note, this is my eighth post to carry the "food" tag. I guess this is marginally better than blogging about my cat all the time, which is what I feared when I started this adventure. Still, perhaps I should try harder to develop my other interests... like drinking.

Tourists III

These are the kinds of food we ate this past weekend:
Afghani
French
sandwich (Potbelly, such a hit we went back the next day)
Ethiopian
Turkish (ok, only so E97 had the Turkish breakfast, but I'm counting it)
sushi

I also introduced Joey to the wonder that is the mojito.

On Sunday afternoon Joey and E97 walked up the Exorcist stairs in Georgetown. Then Joey pretended to fall down them. Then they raced back up them. I had to stay at the bottom because, well, that was just the sacrifice I had to make in order to record the whole ordeal.

Tourists II

I've had out-of-town visitors for the last two weekends, and much fun has been had. In the case of Joey (from Colorado) and his high school friend E97 (who lives in Baltimore now, but whom I had not seen for nine long years), I felt kind of like I was in a Kevin Smith movie. Except that the dialogue was nerdier (in a good way), and, on E97's part, much less crude.

I'm a long way from getting tired of doing touristy things here--there are always new things to discover. Take this comment card at the National Archives, which I found quite entertaining.

A few blocks away, I spotted this work of art in the women's room at Potbelly:

Editrix

A big congratulations to M.M., who informs me he's been accepted to the University of Maryland's M.B.A. program. He was nice enough to give me some credit for editing his essays (but do admissions people really read these things? I have my doubts). It's great to know his work paid off, including my making him re-write two of his three essays. I find editing other peoples' stuff to be oddly fun, but sometimes I think I get a little carried away...

I've been busy this past month, and also uninspired, blog-wise. Let's have a moment of silence for some of the topics I thought about writing about, but just never got around to:

• How hard (and unpleasant) it is to adjust to a style of tae kwon do where you can hit people in the face, when you're used to a style where you can't
• How lightening struck so close to my building on Friday night that it set off the fire alarm, which turns out to emit an adorably quaint clanging sound
• How G.R. and I threw a surprisingly kick-ass dinner party on Saturday

Also, congratulations to TOWWAS, who finally has Internet access in her lovely and conveniently-situated IKEA-furnished new apartment, and thus can go back to blogging far, far more regularly than I. (Now there's a sentence in need of editing.)

Posted

A few weeks ago, on my way to work, I noticed this sign. I've walked past here every day for 10 months now, but hadn't seen the sign before because it's about a foot off the ground. Conveniently, it's at eye level for dogs. It says "Please do not walk on flowers."

Three movies, two Twists

I saw three very different movies this weekend: The Host, Spider-Man 3, and Infamous. Oddly, the second two both included scenes of people doing The Twist in their Manhattan apartments. What are the chances? I thought I remembered The Twist also featuring prominently in Ferris Bueller, but of course, that was Twist and Shout. Can anyone else think of a movie where people do The Twist?

On the off-chance that one of my five readers is considering Netflixing one of these movies (or joining the hordes at the theater), here's what I thought of them: The Host is good, but strange. The CGI monster is excellently done, the characters are great, and it's funny. Just don't expect an American monster movie with subtitles, because that it is not.

Spider-Man 3 wasn't great, but not as bad as I'd feared. Its main problem is that it has way too much going on--I mean, save something for Spider-Man 4, Raimi! Also I saw it in a theater that, though great from an aesthetic standpoint (it's old and art-deco, and has a balcony and a giant screen), has no legroom, but did include free commentary by fellow audience members. I came to the realization that I shouldn't watch movies over two hours in length at any theater, much less that one.

Given its timing, and the fact that Phillip Seymour Hoffman won an Oscar for Capote, Infamous was doomed to be regarded as the other Truman Capote movie. It doesn't lack for stars, including Gwyneth Paltrow in a brief and seemingly gratuitous cameo. I thought it was interesting, and there were some really hilarious moments in the first half of the film (it got darker as it went along). There was a bit too much reliance on talking heads to explain it all to us, as though the writers couldn't figure out how to get their points across with dialogue and acting alone, or thought the audience would be too dense to get it. But I enjoyed it.

Unlucky

Lest you think my life is all free art and decadent California breakfasts, here are some unfortunate things that have happened to me recently:

• I got a $35 parking ticket in Del Mar while M.M. and I were off hunting for quarters to put in their ridiculously overpriced meters.
• The bottle of vintage Nicaraguan rum I picked up in Tijuana broke in M.M.'s checked bag on the way back (curses to Homeland Security and its inane liquids ban!).
• I skipped tae kwon do and came straight home from work today intending to do some much-needed laundry, only to find that a water main had broken. I didn't have water until just minutes ago--that is, 11:20 p.m.

Speaking of tae kwon do, here's something good that happened last week that I haven't blogged about: I got my brown belt. I'd been a red belt since July, what with switching schools and being rather lazy about learning the new curriculum. My next test will be for black belt. Yikes.

Now that's a breakfast

Breakfast (or brunch) is my favorite meal of the day to eat out for. There's something very decadent about being able to go to a restaurant for breakfast: It's a signal to myself and the rest of the world that, hey, I don't have anyplace to rush off to. I can go out for breakfast. At 11:00.

So, although I took plenty of pictures at the wedding I went to this past weekend in San Diego, and at the beach, and even a few (technically) in Mexico, it's this one I'll share. Because this, readers, is an exciting breakfast. In the foreground is a hash of potatoes, artichoke hearts, sundried tomatoes, and mushrooms, topped with two poached eggs. In the background is an espresso drink called a cinnamon bun a go-go.

Magic word

This is an excerpt from the instructions on my Trader Joe's organic whole wheat pasta. It seems so Trader Joe's to include the word "please" in cooking instructions, as in, "We at Trader Joe's care deeply about our pasta and about your experience thereof, so although we don't like to be bossy, we respectfully request that you not overcook this spaghetti."

Joey (no relation) had a different interpretation:

Is it like in gremlins when you weren't supposed to feed the fuzzy guys after a certain time? Does your pasta turn into a monster? Please don't overcook!

Free stuff week

Two free things I got recently, but didn't mention in my last post because they weren't art:

1.) a glass of wine at Artomatic, courtesy of Zipcar
2.) a Ben & Jerry's ice cream cone yesterday, which happened to be Free Cone Day

The kicker, though, is the Zipcar mouse pad and a Not for Tourists Guide to Washington, which it turns out I won in the raffle I entered Saturday at Artomatic. Awesome.

Free art weekend

A painting by the nostalgic Turkish guy

Well, once again it's my bedtime and I haven't yet blogged, so I'll make this quick. I soaked in a ton of culture for free this past Saturday without even going to the Smithsonian. MM and I started off with the Japanese Street Festival, which concluded this year's Cherry Blossom Festival. While the bastardized pan-Asian cuisine and landscape architects from Portland did not get me feeling very Japanese, we did see some interesting displays of dancing, drumming, and swordsmanship.

Next stop was a temporary exhibit of Turkish paintings just down the street from The Ninth Floor. Unfortunately the name of the artist escapes me--it's something fairly long and, well, Turkish-looking. The paintings were surprisingly nostalgic. I liked the colors.

All this was very family-friendly; for the hipster free art experience we had to travel far--almost to the airport, in fact, to a place called Artomatic. It's an annual showcase for local artists that takes up two floors of a large office building in Crystal City, one of the Virginia suburbs. The artists each get their own little space to take over, which lends itself to an almost dreamlike experience. In a few steps I went from something involving a large circle of live grass, to wax sculptures resembling sea anemones, to symmetrical black and white photos of naked breasts. There was a ton of art, so much that I eventually gave up on seeing it all. I did make a point, though, of seeing all the Peeps dioramas.

Blooming

I like DC much better now that the trees are in bloom. Here's a picture I took a few days ago on my way to work. Even the pathetic triangle of dirt on 17th and New Hampshire that passes for a dog park was bedecked with beautiful white blossoms.

Yesterday half of our office went down to the Tidal Basin (where the famous Japanese cherry trees are) for a picnic lunch. The famously ephemeral blossoms were near their peak, and breezes sent blizzards of little white petals swirling around their throngs of admirers.

Last night brought an impressive hour-long thunderstorm and hard rain, and on the way in this morning most of the cherry blossoms had been washed from the trees, revealing new green leaves.

Tourists

One nice thing about living in DC is that it's easy to impress out-of-town visitors.

A few weekends ago NSCV came down for a festival involving Flogging Molly, a pseudo-Irish band we both like. M.M. came out with us, and I introduced them both to Turkish food one night and Ethiopian the next, both at restaurants within walking distance of my place.

This past weekend G.R. made his first trip to our nation's capital from his new home base in Delaware. G.R. is naturally enthusiastic, and actually pays attention to things like the Supreme Court, so he was like a kid on a sugar high. If kids on sugar highs kept dropping the F-bomb and talking about evolution.

So what could have been a somewhat brutal post-St.-Patrick's-Day slog around the mall actually turned out to be quite fun, with stops at the Botanic Gardens, the Canadian embassy, and the Museum of Natural History. I may have even learned some things about evolution.

Australians

In my ongoing desperation for content, I've resorted to telling other peoples' stories. Here's an email a Virginian colleague of mine (I'll call her V.C. for short) forwarded me yesterday:

>>> <> 3/14/2007 4:47 PM >>>
Subject: Fwd: "Slug" loses umbrella...

Colleagues,

From time to time on the Front Desk we receive calls that are a little out of the ordinary; one follows:

Earlier this morning (14 mar 2007), I received a call from a lady named [V.C.], who had a query she described as one you probably don't get every day. Ms [V.C.] had ridden into the District this morning utilising the "Slug" system most Washington workers/Virginia residents use. Ms [V.C.] advised she had had a thoroughly engaging conversation with the driver, and wished she had asked for her name; a wish that became all the more urgent when she realised she had left her umbrella in the Embassy staffer's car. The only info Ms [V.C.] had was the lady worked here; was Australian; drove a shiny red car, and was (today) wearing a yellow pants suit.

I promised I would keep an eye out for such an ensemble, but have been unsuccessful so far.

Minister/Counsellor (Management) and Consul-General, with an eye to the impending weather, has graciously allowed this e-mail to go out to all staff throwing Ms [V.C.] on your collective mercy.

Ordinarily, I would ask the staffer to call me, and I would then connect her with Ms [V.C.], but as we are about to close (and given the somewhat random nature of Slug encounters), Ms [V.C.] has agreed that her contact details can be published, and the staffer can contact her direct:

[contact details]

Again: Australian Lady; Shiny Red Car; yellow Pants Suit (today, at least) carrying an umbrella she can't readily account for.

Regards,

[friendly Australian embassy front desk man]

Within minutes of this email being sent out, V.C. was chatting on the phone with the now-famous yellow pantsuit lady. Not only was she reunited with her umbrella, she got a ride back to Virginia at the end of the day. And you know what? It didn't even rain yesterday.