fauxklore

The main reason I am so far behind on writing here is that I’ve taken a couple of semi-local trips, each about a three hour drive away, this month.

Shenandoah Valley: The first trip was to the Shenandoah Valley the first weekend of the month. I drove out to Clifton Forge (a bit west of Lexington, VA) on Saturday, November 5th for the first Allegheny Highlands Storytelling Festival. The drive wasn’t too bad, even though I still hate I-81, which tends to have too many big, slow-moving trucks. Also, there were some rain showers off and on. The festival itself was worth going to, especially as it had been way too long since I’d seen Kim Weitkamp (who was headlining, along with Donna Washington). There were also a few regional tellers performing. It was, in general, quite entertaining. There was a story swap, too, which I emceed. Fortunately, everyone pretty much stuck to the time limit and I didn’t have to strong-arm anyone off the stage.

I stayed overnight at the Travelodge in Low Moor, about 4 miles away, which was adequate. There was heavier the rain the next morning, when the Virginia Storytelling Alliance annual meeting (including brunch) was held. If the weather had been better, I would have walked over to the Coffee Mill Museum to check that out. Maybe next year, since it looks like this festival will happen again. Fortunately the rain had let up by the time that was over.

I drove up to Staunton to see the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library and Museum. The $15 admission fee includes the museum and a guided tour of Wilson’s birthplace. My feelings about Wilson are complicated. I admire his intellectual abilities and think he has the primary responsibility for bringing the U.S. onto the world stage. But he had some repugnant positions, particularly regarding race. The museum displays have some level of apologistic tendencies there, but I can agree to some extent that he was a person of his time and place.

Anyway, the highlight of the museum is his car (a his 1919 Pierce-Arrow limousine.



Other exhibits include an underground reproduction of World War I trenches, Wilson’s office at Princeton, a number of displays about the times of his presidential terms (e.g. a lot of material re: women’s suffrage). I’d say it’s worth an hour or so.

The house tour really has more to do with his parents than with the President himself, since his family only lived there for 2 years and he was born during that time.



The tour guide did not seem particularly knowledgeable. For example, when I asked where they had moved there from, she didn’t know. (It turns out that Wilson’s father had been a professor at Hamden-Sydney College, which is roughly between Lynchburg and Richmond, before becoming the minister of the Presbyterian Church in Staunton). And there was a room with musical instruments (a guitar and piano) and she didn’t know if he played any instruments, though his mother and one sister were very musical. I’d say it was worth a stop, but as much because downtown Staunton is a pleasant place for a stroll than for its own merits as a museum.

I spent the night in Harrisonburg. The next morning, I went to Shenandoah National Park. I’d been to a little bit of the park before, but only briefly. Going early in the day was wise, as there were few cars on Skyline Drive. Also, this finally gave me a chance to get a lifetime Senior Pass for the National Park system. The weather was excellent, though a bit windy in a few places. I stopped at several overlooks and went to the visitor center, including hiking a couple of trails from there. It would have been prettier a few weeks earlier, but the fall foliage was pretty much gone. Here, have some pictures anyway.











I spent about 5 hours total at the park, at the end of which things had gotten more crowded. It’s only an hour and a half away, so I really have no excuse for not going there more.

Ocean City Knitting Retreat: A while back I saw an ad for a knitting week somewhere but the schedule didn’t work. It prompted me to do some googling and I found a retreat in Ocean City. Maryland the week before Thanksgiving. The hotel price was very good and it seemed to be a pretty informal thing - mostly time to sit around and work on projects and chit chat.

The drive was reasonably pleasant, except for the first mile or so from my house to the Beltway, which crawled due to construction. I’d gotten a later start than I’d hoped to, so I didn’t really have time to stop at any of the historic towns on the Eastern Shore. It would certainly be intriguing to spend a week or so driving around them, though, particularly some of the sites associated with Harriet Tubman.

Anyway, I had no issues finding the hotel. When I got up to my room, I saw this lovely view of the Atlantic. Alas, it was rather too cold and windy to enjoy sitting out on the balcony.



I found the ballroom where the retreat was and soon found that things were sort of weird. There were only a couple of other knitters there, while there were about 20 scrapbookers hard at work in most of the room. Oddly, there was another, (unrelated) scrapbooking event going on in the adjacent ballroom. Anyway, I had a bunch of yarn to get rid of (mostly from a friend who had been clearing out her stash of novelty yarn) and I put that out on the flea market table. Then I set out to spend some time knitting and crocheting and talking with the few knitters. I spent most of my time working on a Tunisian crochet afghan. In fact, I worked the same few inches of it twice, because I’d screwed up the edges the first time and had to frog it. A few more people arrived for various periods of time over the next few days. There were also a couple of people selling nice yarns, one of whom I would have bought from but she had only one skein of the colorway I liked.

I did take some time to walk around a bit of the town, which is really dead by mid-November. Walking on the boardwalk is a mixed experience - pleasantly uncrowded, but cold and windy for the most part. (I had brought enough warm clothing to make it reasonably enjoyable.) Still, I think Octoberish would be a better time to go to Ocean City - past peak crowds, but with more places open. I don’t feel the need to go back to this event in the future.

On the plus side, I won a very good door prize - $50 in gift cards for Joann.

And, as I said, I did have a nice view. Here, have a sunrise photo.

Celebrity Death Watch: Chuck Barris was a TV producer, responsible for The Dating Game, The Newlywed Game, and The Gong Show. Dallas Green played for several baseball teams (mostly the Phillies) and managed a few, including some success with the Phillies and remarkable lack thereof with the Mets. Lola Albright was an actress, best known for her role in the TV show, Peter Gunn. Pete Shotton played the washboard, but is better known for his friendship with John Lennon and for founding the Fatty Arbuckle’s chain of diners in England. Sir Cuthbert Sebastian was the Governor-General of St. Kitts and Nevis, but I wouldn’t have heard of him were it not for a couple of my ghoul pool rivals having him on their lists. (My picks are thriving, alas.) David Storey was, appropriately, a writer, and won the Booker Prize for his 1976 novel, Saville. Bernie Wrightson drew horror comics and is best known as the creator of Swamp Thing. Ahmed Kathrada was an anti-apartheid activist. Darlene Cates played the mother in the movie What’s Eating Gilbert Grape. William Powell wrote The Anarchist Cookbook, though he later tried to have it removed from circulation. Roland Schmitt was an executive at GE and president of RPI. Gilbert Baker created the rainbow flag as a symbol of gay activism. Richard Bolles wrote What Color is Your Parachute?, a frequently recommended book on job-hunting, though I never found it particularly useful. Lonnie Brooks was a blues singer. Gary Austin created the improv theatre troupe, The Groundlings. Yevgeny Yevtushenko was a Russian poet, best known for his work Babi Yar, which was set to music by Dmitri Shostakovich.

Quarterly Goals: I have been working on various projects, but haven’t finished any. I have not been reading things from the goals on my life list, alas. I treated myself to a pedicure, perfume, and a couple of extravagant meals out. And I have gotten in touch with the daughter-in-law of a cousin twice removed (in Israel) and a couple of the descendants of my great-grandfather’s brother.

MIT Reception: Monday night was the reception for MIT student in their policy internship program. It is always good to corrupt young minds, er, try to persuade students to: a) get involved with space policy and b) take advantage of all the non-work things to do in the D.C. area. Overall, it was a pleasant evening of decent food (heavy hors d’oeuvres) and intelligent conversation.

Loren Niemi House Concert: Storyteller Loren Niemi did a house concert in an apartment in Adams Morgan on Tuesday night. It was a nice intimate setting and he is always interesting to listen to. I particularly liked his story about re-encountering a woman he once knew under unexpected circumstances, which evoked a lot of memories for me about how life circumstances change. He also told an excellent ghost story.

Book Club: Wednesday night was book club. It was interesting because the person leading the discussion really disliked the book (Someone Will Be With You Shortly by Lisa Kogan, which is not really a typical book club type of book). I didn’t think it was a brilliant book, but it was typical women’s magazine humor and an entertaining enough read. The other news is that the person in the group who has annoyed me (because of not so hidden racism) is gone. I knew she was moving but it has happened a bit faster than I expected. I’m sure somebody else will grate on me – and that I irritate some people, too, but I’m still pleased.

Rasika: This modern Indian restaurant is generally considered one of the best restaurants in D.C. and, therefore, it is next to impossible to get a reservation there. A friend had managed to get a reservation for Friday night, with the catch being that it was on the decidedly early side. Alas, she got ill and couldn’t make it, but I decided it was worth taking advantage of the opportunity, even alone. The famous dish there is palak chaat, which is crispy spinach with yogurt and date and tamarind chutney. It is amazingly good and lived up to its reputation. That was followed by lamb achari, which was decently spicy and very tender, but felt a bit heavy. It came with rice and a mint paratha, which was good, but the flavor of the mint was kind of drowned out by the spices of the lamb. I also had a champagne cocktail, which was okay, but did not have as much ginger flavor as the menu had led me to believe. For dessert, there was excellent gulab jamun with amazing cardamom ice cream. Overall, it was a good meal, though I would order a different main course if I went again.

Out of This World: I had never actually been to the Ringling Brothers / Barnum & Bailey Circus and, this being their final tour, suggested this to the group of friends for whom I am Chief Entertainment Officer. So Friday night (after Rasika) found me with a couple of friends at the Verizon Center for the circus. The show is space-themed, which was a nice plus. There were impressive aerialists and superb horseback riding, but my favorite act was the guys riding motorbikes in a metal orb, with seven of them at one time. The lowlights were the clowns, who were mostly at the far end of the arena, so I couldn’t see what they were doing, and the big cats, who just looked too unhappy. I found myself wondering what has to go wrong in somebody’s life for them to think that a career yelling at lions and tigers is a good life choice. (Yes, I do know most circus performers are born to the life. Still…) I’m glad I went, but, overall, I’m not really sad that it’s ending.

Midwestern Gothic: This is a new musical at Signature Theatre. The book is by Royce Vavrek, who I was unfamiliar with, and Josh Schmidt, who wrote Adding Machine, a show I didn’t know quite what to make of. And that was more or less my reaction to this show. The plot centers around a sociopathic teenage girl named Stina, ably played by Morgan Keene. She sets up her friend to be St. Sebastian, tying him to a tree and shooting him with an arrow. She flirts with her creepy stepfather, Red, who takes semi-pornographic photos of her. Her mother is mostly absent, running a bar. Red picks up a woman, who Stina kills. So she and Red run off to an old, condemned house, where there is more blood shed. The music is a mixed bag, some of it operatic and some of it livelier. Overall, the show just didn’t work for me – and I like dark humor. I think the problem is that the likeable characters are nothing more than victims. Oh, well, it’s always worth seeing something new.

Knitting Group: And Sunday was knitting group. I am finally past the part of an afghan square that I'd had to tink because I'd forgotten the border on the sides.

Whew! What a hectic week. (And things had been busy at work, too, with a couple of big meetings to deal with.)

I’ll write up my weekend trip to New York separately, but here is the rest of the catch-up.

Celebrity Death Watch: Al Molinaro was a character actor who, among other things, played Murray the Cop on The Odd Couple. Fred Thompson was an actor and senator. Helmut Schmidt was the Chancellor of West Germany in the late 1970’s. Allen Toussaint was a major New Orleans musician.

New Job: For anyone who hasn’t heard yet, I am going to be moving to a new job (within the same company) in a few weeks. I will be working on early development activities for the next generation Navy communications satellites. It should be a good challenge.

I should note that this wasn’t a matter of any particular dissatisfaction with what I’ve been doing. While I hate the building I work in, the people are fine and the work is fine. It’s just that I’ve been here over four years, so was ready when an appealing opportunity came up.

Girlstar:This new musical at Signature Theatre had a talented and energetic cast and an interesting concept. There’s a fairy tale sort of opening which gives the back story of a pair of twins (boy and girl). The girl is immensely talented, but a jealous older sister uses a magic liquid she’s found to steal that talent and store it in the belly of her pet snake. And, of course, without talent, one dies. But not before having a daughter, who is then raised by the brother and protected from music by him. Now that daughter is all grown up and ready to seek her aunt, who is the music producer, responsible for the careers of every major star.

What doesn’t get explained is why the aunt can’t use the talent herself, but needs to put it into her girlstar. There are two other stars who mysteriously die to give the girl her voice and her dancing moves, making her ready for a big concert. Everything goes bizarrely wrong, but maybe there is a happyish ending after all.

The problem is that the story doesn’t quite follow the way fairy tales are supposed to work. Overall, a lot of stuff happens out of sheer convenience, instead of making even a limited amount of sense. That’s a pity because there’s some enjoyable music. It’s really a waste of a particularly talented cast, with Donna Migliaccio giving an excellent performance as the evil aunt and Desi Oakley as the sweet niece not sure of what is happening to her.

Halloween: We had a house concert / swap for Halloween. It was a lot of fun. I told "Ida Black," which went over okay though I don’t think I told it especially well.

Knitting Group: I am officially a quarter of the way through this afghan I intended to finish by about March.

Book Club: This session’s book was Euphoria by Lily King, which is a fictionalized story about a thinly disguised Margaret Mead, Reo Fortune, and Gregory Bateson. I think having been to Papua New Guinea (and, specifically, the Sepik region – in real life, Bateson worked with the Iatmul people) did help with it. The ending of the novel, however, annoyed me.

Lost Keys: Somehow, my house keys disappeared. My best guess is that they fell out of my bag when I was pulling out my badge for the bus. And, of course, I got home from book club after our complex office was closed. The weather was dreadful, so it took a while for the locksmith to get there. Not the end of the world, but it’s annoying.

I’m leaving for Recouvery tomorrow, so I wanted to get caught up before then. Here is what I’ve been up to.

Las Vegas: Vegas is a good destination for mileage running as: a) airfares are reasonable, b) the distance is enough to be worth accumulating PQM but not so far as to be punishing, and c) you can entertain yourself there easily between gambling and people watching. So I did a quick trip over the holiday weekend, flying there on Friday and back on Saturday. The down side of the trip was that this is summer and the temperature was roughly like walking on the surface of the sun. My key people-watching observation was that it is apparently a thing now for young women to forgo carrying a purse and, instead, tuck their phone into either a bra strap or their cleavage. I feel old.

Knitting: I was home on Sunday so went to knitting group. I finished another of the large afghan squares, but I am still well off the pace I had intended. There was also lots of entertaining conversation.

Metro Woes: Monday morning was a mess, since Metro does not know how to handle irrops. I don’t blame them for the selfish person who decided that being struck by a train would be a good way to end his miserable life. But if you announce you are single-tracking through a station, you should not then send one shuttle train in 40+ minutes, have that train go one station and then sit another 40 minutes, and then offload everyone to wait for a train that is then too crowded for people to get on.

Thinking suicide?
Please find some other day to
Do it – not by train.

Aside from the impact to my commute (which, let’s face it, is what really matters), it isn’t very nice to inflict that trauma on a train driver.

Also, my experience on the overcrowded train I squeezed onto suggests that the residents of Fairfax County have stopped spending money on deodorant, using it instead to buy garlicky food for breakfast.

Story Slam: Last night I went to the Storyfest Short Story Slam in Silver Spring. I’m not really crazy about the competitive aspect of story slams, but I do like to know what is going on with all storytelling in the area. The theme was "Song and Dance" so I told my ballet story. Or, more precisely, an abbreviated version of it, since the slam has a 5 minute time limit.

The event was better than I had anticipated. The stories that had problems had the usual sort of problems with personal stories, e.g. no real idea of what the story was about, leading to a lack of a real ending. But, overall, there were several satisfying stories. From the standpoint of a teller, I thought the audience was a good, highly responsive one. I should also note a particularly high level of diversity among the attendees, which is (sadly) all too rare. I will definitely go again, schedule permitting.

Books about organizing often say that one should never have a filing category labeled "miscellaneous." You are supposed to, instead, actually make more folders or just get rid of stuff or something else that I don’t understand. My goal is to have just one "miscellaneous" file. Consider this entry the electronic equivalent.

Celebrity Death Watch: Mary Stewart wrote romantic suspense. Jerry Vale was a singer. And Jeb Stuart Magruder was a Watergate conspirator. Most of the obituaries I saw omitted his middle name, but it is how I think of him. I have to admit to feeling vaguely guilty about not having paid enough attention to Watergate at the time, but I was a teenager and the crush du jour was always a higher priority in those days.

Dinner at Jaleo: I went out for dinner at Jaleo in Crystal City on Friday night with friends from flyertalk. We ate all sorts of good things, as one does at a tapas place. And I drank sherry, as I do when eating tapas. The service, however, was underwhelming. There were a dozen or so of us at a long table and we had sort of ordered in groups of 4. The waiter auctioned off dishes, not making any attempt to get things near the part of the table that had ordered them. Several people got talked into ordering the strawberry ice cream for dessert and got raspberry sorbet first, though it was corrected afterwards. (This did not impact me – I am a coffee and brandy person with such a meal.) Still, the food was tasty and the conversation was enjoyable.

Story Swap: This month’s story swap was Saturday night. I would normally have taken metro since it was in the city, but there was the inevitable weekend track work on the Orange Line, so I drove. Surprisingly, I did not get lost and found parking quite close by. The swap was fun, with a good mix of stories and several newcomers, most of whom just listened.

Knitting Group: I don’t get any knitting or crocheting done other than at knitting group lately. So, despite the great weather on Sunday, I did go for a couple of hours and crocheted a couple of afghan squares.

Dream Geography: I spend a lot of time in my dreams on trains. But dream geography does not match real world geography. For example, in a recent dream, I was taking a train north from California to Canada but ended up in Brazil. I wonder how many frequent flyer miles I would get for that routing.

Shoe Failure: I had a catastrophic shoe failure at work today. The front seam on my right shoe just disintegrated. I suppose that is a lot better than other things that could fail, since someone at the office had a stroke last week. But it is still annoying.

As usual, I have a bunch of catching up to do.

Used Bookstores and Spices: I finally got around to doing a used bookstore run last weekend. It was a particularly successful one, in that I left the house with 65 books and came home with only 4 of those (plus 18 new to me books, but that is to be expected). I also took advantage of the last store on my route being in that general vicinity to stop into Penzey’s and buy saffron. I will note, however, that they had no true cinnamon, at least not in stick form, but only cassia. (My issue is not the coumarin, as I don’t use it in huge amounts, but cassia is harder to grind and has a harsher taste.) They also don’t carry rosewater, so I still need to make a trip to one of the Indian stores (probably Aditi) to stock up. Actually, I should check first to see if Shopper’s Food Warehouse in Fairfax has it, since they carry some seasonings other supermarkets around here don’t (e.g. star anise) and do have a Middle Eastern section.

Game Night: My Chavurah had a game night on Saturday night. It was kind of weird, but I realize that most people would consider what I think of as a game night as weird. Basically, there was no interest in strategy games at all and complete distaste for anything that suggested actual competition. It was still reasonably fun. We played Balderdash, which I am very good at because: 1) I have a good vocabulary, meaning I don’t consider words like "succubus" to be the least bit obscure and 2) I understand what dictionary definitions sound like and can, therefore, snooker other people into picking my definition. We also played Sour Apples to Apples, which adds a silly penalty thing if your choice is considered least appropriate. In my opinion, that adds nothing to the game.

I should try to make time to go to real game nights, i.e. ones where people are more amenable to playing things with some level of complexity, thought, and feigned malice.

Knitting Group: Sunday involved knitting group. I finally found the needles, yarn, and pieces in progress for a particular sweater I’ve been working on. I even found my notions bag. So, of course, the pattern went missing. I worked on something else instead, but this is extremely annoying.

Weather: Monday was decent out, but we got 4 or so inches of snow on Tuesday, leading me to work from home. That’s a reminder that I really need a new desk chair. It’s been extremely cold since and I am feeling a certain amount of cabin fever.

Do Not Analyze This Dream: I had a dream the other night in which I stopped at a semi-rural resort / retreat center for dinner on my way to somewhere in Pennsylvania and found that several of my friends were there at a storytelling workshop. They talked me into staying for the night, during which I discovered that I had forgotten to bring my Volksmarch books with me. Much of the dream involved whether or not I should drive back home to retrieve them.

Notes to Myself: I scribbled the following in the front of a crossword book:

102 Loon Lake

105 (?) Yellowhead Lake

I am reasonably sure that there is no significance to this being in a puzzle book and that was just a handy piece of paper, suggesting I most likely wrote it on a plane or a train. If it were not for the question mark, I’d think it had to do with Volksmarch events. But, as it is, I am befuddled. Any ideas?

Make the Punishment Fit the Crime: When I rule the world, anyone who submits a document for approval without an acronym list shall be subject to drowning in a large vat of alphabet soup.

Now that June is over, maybe I should write something about it. It was a relatively unbusy month, but unbusy for me just means that I didn’t go out on weeknight, other than one happy hour for a former colleague whose contract was not renewed. That should probably have been called an unhappy hour. But, anyway, much of the month was spent recovering from jetlag.

Celebrity Death Watch: Frank Lautenberg was a senator from New Jersey. Iain Banks wrote science fiction. Richard Ramirez, better known as The Night Stalker, was a serial killer. Gary David Goldberg created Family Ties and, more significantly to me, the short-lived Brooklyn Bridge. Alan Myers was the drummer for Devo. Marc Rich was pardoned by Bill Clinton for various financial crimes. The most bizarre story of June (well, in this category) was that of Bollywood actress Jiah Khan who committed suicide by hanging herself from a ceiling fan.

Crafty stuff: June 8th was International Knit in Public Day. For attending the event in a local park, I got a gift card from the sponsoring yarn store. I also made it to knitting group once and resurrected a UFO. (That’s knitter talk for an unfinished object.)

Not Quite the Beatles: I went out to dinner with a group of friends and then to see a Beatles tribute band at a free concert. I mostly enjoyed the music, but I really wish Americans would not attempt to speak in accents they haven’t mastered. I also have deeply mixed feelings about the whole concept of tribute bands.

Company: The final show in the Signature 2012-2013 season was Company . This was an excellent production of one of Sondheim’s greatest works. There is a lot that is dated in the book, of course, and I’ve never figured out how Bobby actually knows all these people. But who cares when there are so many delights in the score and such sparkling wit in the lyrics? The gimmick in this production is that the married couples were all played by actual married couples. Matthew Scott was very good as Bobby, but the real highlight was Erin Weaver as Amy, whose rendition of “Getting Married Today” stole the show. My one (very minor) disappointment was that Carolyn Cole as Marta could have enunciated better in her performance of “Another Hundred People,” which is, by the way, one of my all time favorite Sondheim songs.

Baltimore: The Red Sox were playing the Orioles, so I couldn’t resist a trip to Baltimore. I drove up a few hours before the game and walked over to the Lexington Market to have lunch at Faidley’s, a classic Baltimore experience. Lexington Market is allegedly the oldest continually operating market in the U.S. and the neighborhood is a bit sketchy (though not nearly as bad as some people make it sound). Standing up at a market table to eat well-prepared seafood is what it’s about.

Then I walked down to Camden Yards and visited Geppi’s Entertainment Museum, a pop culture museum next to the ballpark. There’s an interesting collection, largely organized by decade, but not many of the individual items are labeled. The 60’s and 70’s rooms were of the most interest to me for obvious reasons. But the real delight was the comic book collection for a different reason. See, for years, I have told people about this brief period in the early 1970’s when D.C. Comics tried to be relevant. That included things like Wonder Woman giving up her powers and studying martial arts and Lois Lane having herself changed into a black woman (via some machine). The ultimate attempt at relevance came when Green Arrow (who shared a comic book with Green Lantern) arrived home to discover his ward, Speedy, shooting up heroin. Nobody ever believes me about that. But there it was right in that display case – that classic cover with Green Arrow lamenting that his ward was an addict. I am vindicated.

As for the baseball game, the Red Sox won but it was weird. There was a highly dubious call in favor of Dustin Pedroia, for example. And, while John Lackey recovered from a slow start, Andrew Bailey nearly blew it in relief in the 9th. Still, they did win, so I was happy.

Storytelling and Minor League Game: The Workhouse Arts Center had a summer arts day event and I was part of a storytelling program at it. I thought it went well and enjoyed the other stories / tellers on the bill. A couple of friends had come along (independently of each other) and one of them stayed around afterwards to join me on a crawl through the galleries and a quick look at the museum which discusses the facility's former use as a prison. I’d like to do some research on the suffragettes who were held there when I get some time.

I took advantage of being only a few miles away to go to the Potomac Nationals game that evening. One nice thing about minor league baseball is that you can walk up at the last minute and get a seat behind home plate for 11 bucks. Of course, you still have the opportunity to pay way too much for mediocre junk food to eat during the game, but so it goes.

Colorado: The final weekend of the month featured my periodic pilgrimage to a big party given by friends in Colorado. It also ended up featuring the worst domestic travel experience of my life, which I will write about separately. But all worked out in the end – I got there and had a good time, with lots of good food and lots of good conversation. My contribution to the former was a box of chocolates from a newish place near where I live. My contribution to the latter included travel recommendations and literary recommendations. But when the talk turns to computer programming, I have nothing to say.

I spent last weekend mileage running. Star Mega Do 4 had this challenge for bonus miles if participants fly to or through 20 different airports on United. While the miles involved are realistically not worth it, its the type of challenge that appeals to the obsessive side of my nature and I decided to go for it. I'd already had three airports in January (since I flew JFK to IAD on United after my return from Israel on El Al and I flew to/from LAX on a business trip). Last weekend was close to a pure mileage run. I flew DCA to ORD to SFO to RNO on Saturday. Things were slightly risky because it looked like the first flight might get delayed, but they went with a shorter turn around time for the late arriving plane and I actually got to Chicago slightly early. I got to Reno about midnight and was flying out (RNO to DEN to IAD) at 6 a.m., so just got a taxi to the Atlantis and killed four and a half hours at the casino, easily staying within my gambling budget). Then there was a mechanical delay with the RNO to DEN flight, leaving me with about a 2 minute connection time, but United held the connecting flight for the 15 or so of us who were on it, so it all worked out.

This weekend was focused on errands. I did a used bookstore run, selling 31 books and acquiring 15. (Part of that was because I wanted to use up some previously acquired credit.) A couple of those books were even ones I had been looking for. I also had to run over to another bookstore to drop off flyers for an upcoming event. And there were less interesting chores like grocery shopping.

Today was knitting group and we were doing a destash sale. The idea was to bring yarn (and books and notions) you no longer wanted and try to sell them to other folks there. In the course of looking for things to destash, I uncovered a baby sweater that I think my mother must have knitted and given me for finishing. (I believe that because I have no memory of having knitted it myself. And because it is pink, though not a horrible pastel pink. And I have no idea who else would have given it to me.) I brought that along and did finish it, as well as finishing crocheting an amigurumi piece. I also knitted a hexagon for the Artisphere yarn bomb, mostly because I wanted to see how a particular pattern would work. I'd brought three skeins of yarn to destash, sold 2 of them, and donated the third (lime green muppet fur) to the charity pile at a local store. I did buy one skein and a pattern book, however.

I still have a ton of things to get done, but at least I had some productive activity. Which makes up for a work week where I felt like I was spinning my wheels, largely because of a couple of long meetings.

I actually had a quiet week last week. That is, quiet for me, meaning I only had things to do on four days.

Restaurant Week: On Tuesday night, I went out to dinner with friends from flyertalk. Greg always makes a couple of reservations for Restaurant Week and, even though it was the less exciting menu, the one at The Prime Rib was the one I was free for. The food was about as expected (classic American food, prepared well), the atmosphere is nice (albeit a bit stuffy) and the restaurant week deal is good value. But the service was indifferent. For example, they didn't ask if we wanted drinks and, in fact, did not bring a wine list until explicitly asked to. More egregiously, they didn't ask if anyone wanted coffee or tea with dessert. Overall, things felt rushed. On the plus side, they did offer us separate checks. Still, we tend to remember the service deficiencies and they certainly influence our decisions on where to go in the future, including non-restaurant week meals.

Women Who Changed Things and Died Last Week: That drink I practically had to beg for was a Campari and soda, which I ordered in memory of Helen Gurley Brown, who had once recommended it as classy. (It is something I get from time to time, more often at Italian restaurants.) I have mixed feelings about the her. I think that making people aware that women actually like sex was a good thing. And some of her work emphasized the need for women to take responsibility for various areas of their lives, including finances. But I also think she (via Cosmopolitan) never challenged too many aspects of gender roles in our culture.

I also have mixed feelings about Phyllis Diller. I recognize that she was one of a very few women who were successful as stand-up comics in her day. But so much of her comedy was self-deprecating. I'm not a fan of insult comedy and it can be painful when the person being insulted is the one telling the jokes.

The Men of Celebrity Death Watch: Harry Harrison wrote science fiction. Ron Palillo played Horshack on Welcome Back, Kotter. William Windom was a character actor who starred in the much funnier sitcom, My World and Welcome to It which was based on James Thurber's work. Scott McKenzie performed San Francisco (Be Sure to War Flowers in Your Hair), a song I am vaguely embarrassed to admit I like. I also like Kokomo which he wrote for the Beach Boys.

The death of Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, raises interesting questions about the political future of that country. Mr. Meles had initially helped Eritrean rebels and then, when in office, pursued the border war with Eritrea, so there could be some more turmoil in a region that has plenty already.

Finally, Johnny Pesky was a Red Sox hero, as much for his continued support of the team after he was no longer playing as for his performance during his career. That kind of association of a baseball player with a single team is rare in this day and age. And, by all accounts, Pesky was a true gentleman. Times are sad enough at Fenway this season (sigh).

Speaking of Baseball: I went to watch the Nationals play the Mets on Friday night. This was a case of divided loyalties for me, as I grew up an ardent Mets fan but I live here now and I am happy to see the Nats doing well. The game wasn't brilliant on either side, frankly, though I was pretty favorably impressed with Ryan Zimmerman's fielding. I had a good time and most of the rain held off until the game was over. It was also retro cap night, allowing me to add to my collection of ballpark gimmes. By the way, I am leaning towards getting season tickets for next year.

As If I Am Not Busy Enough: Speaking of season tickets, I ordered a subscription to the Washington Ballet. Those of you who have heard my rant on the subject of Swan Lake, the most nonsensical story ever to be immortalized choreographically, may now faint. Those of you who have never heard my rant on Swan Lake will have an opportunity on September 19th when I am performing the story it is part of at Friendship Heights Village Center in Maryland. Note that the series I subscribed to does not include any Tchaikovsky.

Story Swap: I hosted this months story swap on Saturday night. That meant spending most of my spare time during the week and all day Saturday cleaning up my place. Amazingly, it is possible to fit 20 people into my living room. We had a good mix of stories, including a lovely Ethiopian version of The Lion's Whisker told by Chris, who came all the way from Baltimore. I told Sawing Off Manhattan for the first time in a while and I think it went over fairly well. As always, storytelling continues to be fun.

Knitting Group: Finally, I went to knitting group on Sunday. I worked a little on each of two projects. I also showed off the pearl yarn and the merino I'd bought in Australia. The conversational highlight was the rather diplomatic statement regarding one person helping another which ran, "You didn't screw it up. You just didn't do it right."

Working (A Musical) After the science festival, I walked over to Dupont Circle to see Keegan Theatre's production of Working (A Musical). I'll admit to some skepticism about how the Studs Terkel book would transfer to the stage. While I am not normally a big fan of either Stephen Schwartz or of revues (and this is sort of a revue, consisting of vignettes by a number of people, talking and singing about their jobs), I was charmed by the sincerity and strong character development. While none of the songs was particularly memorable, I found the score pleasant enough. I also want to note the choreography by Kurt Boehm, especially for the song "Millwork."

Knitting Group: Sunday afternoon was knitting group. I showed off the completed amigurumi uterus (see previous entry) and worked on Frankensweater. As usual, a good time was had by all.

Shopping: I needed to run over to REI after knitting group, because the rain jacket I bought in 1996 had finally breathed its last. They didn't have exactly the same one, but I found something acceptable enough. While I was over at Fairfax Corner, there was an art show going on and I bought a photograph of peppers for my kitchen. I also stopped in at Comfort One and bought a pair of cork shoes. All in all, that made a surprisingly productive shopping trip.

The Tannahill Weavers: Finally, I drove to darkest Maryland (okay, just Rockville) to see The Tannahill Weavers perform at St. Mark's. As always, they put on a good show. The entire audience was singing along (when appropriate) and tapping fingers or toes. It was a great example of the energizing power of music.