Posted by barb on Jul 4, 2003 in
Biking The forecast for today was 95 degrees (F). So, Andrew and I decided that we ought to get started pretty early on our little bike trip, to avoid the worst heat of the day. I was bustling around the kitchen at about 8 AM to get our water bottles filled and ready to go, when something occurred to me:
Setback #1: Andrew’s bike was still at the bike shop.
They had promised us the bike by Friday (today), so we rearranged our plans to arrive at the bike shop at 10 AM (when they opened) and pick up his bike. I made Andrew drive me around in the new (to us) car, to give him some more practice, and we messed around the house for a bit. Then we headed off to the bike shop.
Setback #2: The bike shop had no paperwork on his bike, and consequently didn’t know what state the tune-up was in.
The guy behind the counter asked us to give him an hour to give the bike a once-over to just make sure everything looked good. In the meantime, Andrew and I walked around “downtown” Vienna — passing through the crafters setting up for the 4th of July doings and grabbing a small lunch at Whole Foods. At about 11:15 AM we returned, picked up Andrew’s bike and headed home. From there, we biked up to the Vienna Metro stop.
Setback #3: Bikes aren’t allowed on the Metro on the 4th of July.
Well, that one was a deal-breaker, so we decided to just bike around Vienna. Of course, the road we picked was probably the most hilly road in town, but I’m proud to say that I actually made it up each and every hill without dismounting (though I may have slowed to a crawl). We ended up back by the “doings”, so after grabbing a frozen chai drink from Starbucks, we walked back through the crafts, and I picked up a couple little somethings.
When we got back home, we had put about 7 miles on the bikes — my longest ride so far (though that’s likely to change later this weekend).
Posted by barb on Jun 26, 2003 in
Biking I finally made it up to Vienna this weekend on my bike! Yay!
Andrew and I set off about about 10AM to downtown Vienna. We started at the library so Andrew could drop off his previous batch of books and pick up a new one. I decided to read at a bench outside the library, not wanting to sit my sweaty body on the library’s cloth chairs.
Then we headed up to Once Upon A Time, a toy store on Church Street, where I picked up a few more dollhouse things (a bunk bed, two dressers and a toy chest, all for the kids’ room in my dollhouse). I dragged Andrew into Terra Christa, a new-age-y type store not too far from the toy shop.
I was getting nibbly for lunch by then, but feared that eating too much would prevent me from riding the 3 miles back home. We decided to try the Knossoss restaurant, where we each had a panini — mine was quite yummy.
Once home, I was quite exhausted, but happy that I’d finally made it into town. Oh, and I was able to make it up the hill on Courthouse both coming and going, which is amazing for me. Yay!
Posted by barb on Jun 8, 2003 in
Around DC,
Movies I wanted to see Spellbound, so as a reward for working so hard yesterday with such spectacular results (see yesterday’s entry), Andrew took me up to Bethesda to see it. He also took me to lunch (yummy portabella fajitas at the Austin Grill) afterwards.
One of our favorite used bookstores is in that area of Bethesda, too, so we poked around there for a while. I found a pop-up book of the Universe (cool!) and an oversized book on celestial maps. Unfortunately I did not find Beyond the Blue Event Horizon, the second in Frederik Pohl’s Heechee series. Of course, the state of the sci-fi section was such that if you weren’t very motivated, you would never find a single book (lots of books on far too little shelf space).
Overall a very good day, making yesterday all the more worthwhile.
Posted by barb on May 25, 2003 in
Around DC This was my first time going along Church Street in Vienna — I had no idea there were any cute shops in Vienna! (Other than the antiques shops along Main Street.) While looking at the booths setup for the festival along Church Street, I found Once Upon a Time, a toy shop in an old General Store building. The toy shop has all the toys that I wanted as a kid, including Bryer horses (I’ll probably go back and get myself one sometime). They also had a huge room full of doll houses and accessories! I finally have a close resource for my doll house!
Up the road a bit was a New Age-y type store, but I decided not to go in this time. There was also a house wares/garden shop, which I did go into. They had a lot of fun things, but most of it was out of my price range.
The festival itself was also fun. I mainly went to see what crafters were there, and to get a big bag of kettle corn. The Usborne book people where there, and I picked up a nicely illustrated astronomy book for my nephew.
Posted by barb on May 18, 2003 in
Around DC I got a doll house from Santa when I was in 3rd grade (or so). It was one of those kits that your Dad has to put together. Unfortunately, my Dad didn’t get around to finishing it for several years. By that time I was less interested in the doll house, so it stayed in the basement.
Sometime when I was in junior high, I decided to pull it out again and think about decorating and furnishing it. However, by then I was expected to pay for much of the decorations and furniture myself, but I wasn’t very good at saving money. I didn’t get much further than wallpapering the kitchen and getting stuff for the bathroom (toilet, tub and sink).
I’ve decided that it’s time to resurrect the doll house. I have a real job, so $20 here and there for wallpaper and carpet or a dining room set isn’t much of a set back. Dad has agreed to fix it up structurally, and I’ll start getting things for decorating.
To that end, I went to a doll house and miniature show in Tyson’s Corner this weekend. It was just a couple meeting rooms at a local hotel, but it was a lot of fun to see what’s out there for doll houses now. Several vendors had “out door” things — shrubbery, pool stuff, loungers, etc. I don’t think I’ll need any of that, but it was all very well designed. Another vendor only did miniature flower arrangements. Holy crap! They started at about $65 and went up. The family in my house isn’t that fancy 🙂
I did find several things to buy. I got some wallpaper for the girl’s room, and some carpet (though I’m not sure if the carpet will look good with the wallpaper — still deciding on that — but no matter, I’ll just use the carpet in the living room if I don’t like it in the girl’s room). I also got a few things for the attic playroom — a toy box, kids’ table and an assortment of toys. I decided that I can’t really buy furniture without getting the room dimensions from Dad — it would be way too easy to buy too much.
Oh, I need to remember to ask Dad if he thinks we can put electric lights in the house.
Posted by barb on May 12, 2003 in
Biking Man, I am so out of shape. I’ve known I’ve been out of shape, but getting out on my bike is really driving the point home. Andrew and I went out on the bikes yesterday morning, and our little 3.5 mile trip just killed my legs. I’m a little embarrassed riding with him, since I know that he could 1) go much faster and 2) go much further without me.
He seems happy, though, to go out with me. He’s proud of me for just getting out there. Plus, I’ve been prodding him to get out on his bike. The past couple summers, he kept saying that he wanted to get out on his bike Saturday and Sunday mornings, but he rarely did. My goal is for us to get out every Saturday and Sunday that it isn’t raining (or scary-wet from a night rain). We started last weekend (May 3), and have met the goal so far (Saturday, 5/10, it was raining, so we didn’t get out).
Besides being out of shape, I’ve found that I’m completely terrified of riding over anything remotely sandy or gravelly. I’m also white-knuckle scared of riding on wet roads/sidewalks. My sand/gravel fear comes from two accidents I had long ago.
When I was a kid, sometime before I was 12 (because I got a 10-speed bike at 12, and this incident happened on my “Desert Rose” bike), I rode through a large sandy patch just to see what would happen. Well, a big, huge boo-boo on my right knee is what happened. Fortunately I was just a couple driveways away from home; unfortunately my parents had just left for the evening, leaving me in the care of my brothers. Now, they actually did a good job of getting my boo-boo cleaned up, and lovingly tried to get me to stop crying, but it would have been nice to have Mommy or Daddy there — they are just better with boo-boos. Lest you think the boo-boo was small, I actually had a scar from it for years — until my second bad accident on sand overwrote the scar.
The second accident happened sometime between August and December 1995, while I was living in the dorms at New Mexico Tech in Socorro, NM. Since my car was still in Minnesota with a broken clutch, I spent my summer earnings on a scooter (named Skippy) to get me around town. While making a turn onto the main street through town at one of the four traffic lights, I accidently went through a sandy patch, which was no match for the thin tires on Skippy. Of course everyone at the traffic light stopped to make sure I was okay — please, people, just let me die in peace. When I got back to the dorm, I found a big cut on my right knee (erasing my earlier scar, but later replacing it with a new one) and some scratches on both of my arms. I remember that I was wearing one of my favorite sweatshirts at the time — a brightly colored, vaguely tie-dyed thing. I was able to keep wearing the sweatshirt for a few more years, but there were several small holes from the scooter accident to serve as a constant reminder.
I’m scared of the wet roads because the two times I’ve had my car out of control have been in the rain — once the first time I took my parents’ car out by myself (no damage to the car or me, but I did do a 180 in it), and the second time in Albuquerque.
I’m going to try to overcome these fears slowly. Afterall, my tires are much, much better than those on my old Desert Rose bike and Skippy.
Posted by barb on Apr 28, 2003 in
Biking It was beautiful weather this afternoon, so I decided to get on my bike with my PhD thesis proposal and stacks of AGN variability papers and head up to Starbuck’s. I know it’s a yuppie kind of place, but they have a very yummy frozen chai drink that I just can’t resist. Plus it’s the closest place that has outside seating (besides Famous Dave’s, but as a vegetarian, that just doesn’t work for me).
The ploy worked — I went through the first several pages of crap I’ve pieced together from other proposals and papers, and made it sound more coherent. This may not sound like much, but I’ve been trying to work on this proposal for three weeks now, without much success.
However, after I’d been working for about half an hour, a smiling young man (early 20s, I’d guess) dressed in black pants and a white button-down shirt came over to my table and struck up a conversation. I already knew that he was a Mormon (is that the same as Seventh Day Adventist?, which I think is what his shirt said), because I’d heard him and his friend talking with another man at a nearby table. I’ll admit that I wasn’t very polite at first (though I am from the midwest, so my idea of “not too polite” is still fairly polite by East Coast standards). I don’t want someone coming up to me, and witnessing to me cold. It’s different if I was an acquaintance who showed some interest in their religion, but to just come up to me on the street? Or knock on my door? No.
Anyway, we discussed my thesis a little, and his friend came over. They asked if I knew what they were, and I said yes, in fact I know a mormon at work. So they asked if I’d talked about their religion much with this friend at work, and I said no, since he knew that I just wasn’t interested. I must give them some credit at this point. They didn’t pursue that line any further. Instead they asked if they could sing me a song, and then be on their way. Why the hell not? So they sang “Children of God” to me, and they did a nice job of it, too.
Okay, so they weren’t too bad. The thing I hate most, though, is their fake smile. I know it’s fake. I know that they want me to think that they smile all the time because they are living in the love of God, but I know that it’s just an act. This friend I have at work also has that fake smile. I’ve seen him genuinely smile, and it blows the fake one away. These two young men who accosted me at Starbuck’s had the fake smile down. But I knew better.
But the thing I’m going to remember most from the encounter, is that the first young man had a spot of white in the corner of his mouth. I found it absolutely captivating. I know this is not what they want me to remember, but I can’t help it. I wonder if it was toothpaste that he just didn’t wipe off his face. Or maybe it was a bit of spit that had dried there. Maybe he was rabid…
Posted by barb on Apr 5, 2003 in
Around DC We got up relatively early today to head into the District for the Cherry Blossom Parade. It started at 9:30 AM, so we wanted to be down there at least a half hour early, requiring us to leave the house by 8:00 AM. (Okay, so that’s not that early, but it’s a Saturday, so give me a break.) It was a miserable morning — cold (40s) and spittling — which might sound bad, but I think it kept some of the crowds away. We were able to get a plot of sidewalk right next to the street for a pretty good view.
There were marching bands from all over: Maine, Georgia, Indiana. The Navy band was near the front of the parade, and sounded pretty cool. They got a huge round of applause, too, as did all of the armed forces and police. That’s quite a switch from just a few years ago.
They also had some of the big balloons. Not as big as the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day balloons, I imagine, but still it was the first time I’d seen them in a parade. I mused with my mother about why we didn’t have them in Minneapolis, and she reminded me that they would have to navigate the downtown’s skyway system. That’s okay, the Minneapolis Aquatennial parade usually has a lawnmower brigade, and the Hollidazzle parade usually has a snowblower brigade — not many big cities can say that. (Can they?)
I don’t want to sound un-American, but does 9-11 have to be brought up at every big event from now until the end of eternity? I’m not saying that we should forget it — we absolutely can not. But there has to come a time when we can celebrate without throwing the pall of 9-11 over it. I bring this up because there was an old fire engine (very cool) in the parade that was blasting the Proud to be an American song sprinkled with speeches about “We’re going to get these terrorists”, etc. It would have been fine without the speeches sprinkled in — it might have evoked a feeling of patriotism, but as it was it seemed to be a cheap, sentimental trick.
Enough ranting.
After the parade, we went to the National Air & Space Museum for lunch and a bit of shopping. I also took my parents through the relatively new Explore the Universe exhibit. I was impressed with this exhibit because they include a bit on high energy astrophysics — they have a spare module from the EGRET instrument on the Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory; they also feature the Chandra and ROSAT X-ray missions. This is the first time I’ve seen much of anything on high energy astronomy in any museum.
(One rant about the exhibit, though. They had an astrophysicist design a stained glass window depicting the electromagnetic spectrum. However, he included cosmic rays!! Ugh. Cosmic rays are not light! They are particles and are completely separate from the electromagnetic spectrum. They are likely made in high energy parts of the Universe, like supernovae or supernovae remnants, but that does not make them light.)
Finally, we walked down to the tidal basin to see the cherry blossoms. Wow! They were at their peak bloom, and they were quite lovely. Hopefully some of my pictures turned out. It was very crowded, but worth it.
Posted by barb on Apr 2, 2003 in
Around DC The last time my parents visited in 1999 (?…I need to double-check that), they did many of the Smithsonian Museums and drove down the Maryland coast looking at lighthouses. This time, I decided that they needed to see a bit of Baltimore. The National Aquarium seemed like a good choice. Andrew also joined us, even though we’ve already been to the aquarium — we both enjoyed it the first time, so looked forward to our second visit.
The aquarium was much as we remembered, but the last time we went, it was on a federal holiday (i.e. schools were closed). It was probably just as busy as the last time, but today there were lots of school groups, so the adult-to-child ratio was much, much lower. It’s hard to pick a favorite thing at the aquarium — we enjoyed the dolphin show (and the little ones have grown quite a bit since the last time Andrew and I had gone), we also watched the sting rays for a long time, and I was creeped out (in a good way) by the sharks. Perhaps, though, the highlight was still the sea horses. My favorite was the leafy sea dragon, near the end of the exhibit.
I rediscovered the types of people I hate:
- Stupid people with cameras. There was one guy who would not look at any of the exhibits except through his camera. He was quite rude about it, too. One time he shoved the camera right between my mother and I.
The other type of “stupid people with camera” are the clueless ones with digital cameras. I have nothing against digital cameras, mind you; in fact, I’m thinking about getting one myself. However, there was one group crowded around one of the small tanks who waited several minutes to take “just the right picture”. Then, as if oblivious that they are not the center of the universe, they sat in front of the tank checking out all of the pictures they had taken that day. I started to shove the girl in the group, and they finally got a clue.
- Clueless parents. Ugh. We got behind one mother and daughter walking down the stairs in the rain forest exhibit at the top of the main building. We just needed to get down about ten steps, but that took forever because the mother was letting her 2-year-old daughter walk down the stairs with her hand-in-hand. This meant that the entire width of the stairs was taken up by the pair, and we were going at a snails pace. Come on lady…pick up your daughter. She can practice going down stairs in a place where there aren’t already ten people behind you.
After the aquarium and lunch at The Cheesecake Factory (yum), we went to the USS Constitution, since Dad really wanted to go through the ship. They are still restoring the lowest deck, but there is still plenty to see and learn. After we had finished the audio tour, one of the “sailors” was giving a talk on food on a ship in the American Civil War. It was a good talk — featuring hard tack, salted junk, coffee and ale. I, however, started to get seasick during the talk, and had to run out as soon as he had finished. As a result, I don’t think I really heard the last half of the talk. My parents and Andrew claimed that they couldn’t feel the ship moving much, since it was docked, but I assured them that it was, indeed, moving.
We parted ways with my parents at that point. They were staying at a bed and breakfast in the Federal Hill area of Baltimore, while Andrew and I needed to head home so we could get to work tomorrow. Before going back to the car, though, we did stop at the big Barnes & Noble near the Hard Rock.
Posted by barb on Apr 1, 2003 in
Around DC This is the first day that Andrew has joined us. He decided not to take Monday off, since he was at the Python conference last Thursday and Friday. He thought he should make at least an appearance at work. Over the weekend, he wasn’t really interested in our activities (and with the cost of the Figure Skating show, I was kind of glad he didn’t want to go…)
We started the morning with the requisite vacation bad-breakfast at IHOP. Too bad we don’t have Waffle Houses around, or we would have taken Mom and Dad there. At least one breakfast on a vacation has to be the kind that leaves your stomach feeling like you’ve just swallowed a tub of grease. As a kid, we would often make the mistake of having that breakfast on the same day that we were going to an amusement park like Six Flags over Georgia.
After that, we drove down to Mount Vernon. It is about 10 miles outside of Alexandria. The drive, down the George Washington Parkway (affectionately called the G-W Parkway by those of us who live here), was quite nice. I can only imagine how lovely it would be with the trees in full leaves, or in the fall when the leaves start to turn.
I’m a bit surprised that the Ladies of Mount Vernon have been able to first of all keep the estate and restore it without the encroachment of “society” and secondly been able to keep the view of the Potomac fairly pristine.
We first toured the mansion. There were seven guest bedrooms to accommodate the over 700 overnight guests per year the Washingtons saw. My favorite room, though, was Washington’s study. It would have been fun to peruse the books on the shelves to see what kind of things Washington read. Of course I drooled over the lovely secretary he had, as well.
From there we went down to the old tomb, stopping to see the horse barn and sheep along the way. The pioneer farmer exhibit was running today, so we walked down to that. There, they had replicated one of the seven (?) farms that Washington had. There were several crops that were rotated according to a fairly complicated-looking schedule. In addition, there was a replica of a 16-sided barn that Washington had invented to take care of the wheat.
We walked back up toward the Mansion, through the forest trail. This was a beautiful walk, even without leaves on the trees. I got a bit nervous walking over the bridge above the creek bed, but that’s just because I’m a bit afraid of heights. We stopped at the new tomb on the way.
Finally we went to the gift shop (of course), and headed to the Inn for lunch.
We had thought about doing a walking tour of Alexandria afterwards, but we were all a bit tired (myself most of all, I think). Instead we stopped at A Likely Story, a children’s bookstore in Alexandria, and then went back home.
Dad fixed our oven in the evening. (The oven has needed a new circuit board for several months, but the repair guy wasn’t able to get it out from the wall. We could have hired a handyman, but were too lazy. Then when we heard my parents were visiting, we decided to see if Dad could help out. It took a bit of work, and I heard several “What the…?” and “Hee hee hee”s, but he got it done. Yay!)