Dancing with WonderBred

From the Clique League tournament a few weeks ago. Fun!

92°F

As Paul says, "Je-Zus, it's hot." I concur, and I love it. I just stepped out for a photocopying/mailing/lunch excursion, and it felt so good. Days like today make me glad I'm a woman who works in a casual office and gets to wear sleeveless sundresses. And I'm glad my office has a shower, because I took a nice cold one after I got to work pretty sticky.

Ballet, Take 3

Alright, Scott just bought tickets for us to go see Sleeping Beauty in June. I've never seen Sleeping Beauty in its entirety. And it's being performed by the Royal Ballet, one of the best companies in the world. This will be the third Tchaikovsky ballet we've planned to see in the past six months, so wish us luck!

Enter Pirates.

A lovely weekend, punctuated by pirates.

1. Chris and Alissa arrived on Thursday night, bearing gifts of french roast coffee, fresh produce from a Maryland farm stand, and a Jolly Roger that Chris picked up from "The Flag Guy" in New Haven. So exciting! I've never owned my own Jolly Roger before! We had a quiet night at home - cooked dinner, met Ross the New Subletter, bought a video at Blockbuster (because they only rent DVDs nowadays), and enjoyed cantelope and champagne.

2. We'd planned on a picnic dinner and live jazz in the sculpture garden for Friday, but a bunch of rain canceled those plans. Instead, we had a Chinatown Express fresh noodle dinner and saw X-Men. And I got to see the preview for the next Pirates of the Caribean movie! This time, there are not only ghost pirates. There are fish-ghost-pirates. Can't wait to see it! X-3 was good - I haven't seen either of the first two, so Alissa filled me in on what was going on and who was who.

3. On Saturday, the weather was nice, and we managed to get our picnic dinner/Shakespeare in the Park in. The play was Pericles, and one of the (many) absurd plot twists was a band of pirates kidnapping a girl who was about to be killed. A fun moment in a really fun production.

No pirates on Sunday, to my memory. Chris and Alissa took off in the morning, and I went to church - my last chance to see my pastor who's resigning in June. I'm not sure what the conflict is, but I wish she weren't leaving. I think she's great. I wanted to do a track workout but couldn't find an open track, so I went to yoga instead, which was pretty nice. A little violin, and then up to Delafield.

Social networking

I joined Facebook last week *, and my sister added me as her friend this morning. I looked at her profile, and she has all these really nice photos of the two of us posted there. It was really sweet to see - I was just expecting a few shots of her friends and teammates, but there are a bunch of our family in there too. I'm not sure why it was a surprise; maybe I forgot that we love each other? We're really good friends, and really good roommates, but we're also sisters.


- Fall '04, the picture we ended up using on our Christmas card

I guess I'm being kind of sentimental. But that's OK sometimes, right? I mean, I do have strong sentiments for her!


- Winter '06, the night of the Minnesota party, recreating a photo taken when we were 4 and 6

Exactly 2 weeks from today, I'll be back home in Duluth, getting ready to celebrate young Fred's graduation. Definitely looking forward to it.


- Spring '06, at the joint birthday party for Margaret and my mom and I. Margo made the excellent carrot cake.

See you soon sis!


* I've been doing social network research at work, so I joined all kinds of cheesy "add me as a friend" sites. Have you seen MySpace lately? It's HUGE! Jeez! I had no idea! I'm so glad I play frisbee and have a strong offline social network.

10,000 Sheep

Along the same lines as yesterday's post. Hours of entertainment!

Infinite detail!

A really cool use of a fractal-concept in art. Just keep zooming in on any part of the picture.

Good tools make a big difference

Margaret and I cleaned last night. A nice, deep, summer-is-coming (along with weekend guests and a subletter) cleaning. It's kind of like Christmas - if it happened all the time, it wouldn't be special. The most exciting thing about this Cleaning was the vacuum cleaner. We borrowed our landlady's, which is eleven times more powerful than ours. It glows red when you turn it on, so you can see how powerful it is. And it has a hose attachment. For someone who lives with a cat and a carpeted kitchen, it is a godsend. I cleaned the bathroom, and for the first time in my life wished I had a mop. A mop would have been eleven times more effective than the kitchen sponge I was using to clean the floor.

Bell Crack tournament recap

It was a great weekend! LT and Sasha and I got off to a late start on Saturday morning and missed the first game... but after that it was great. We won one game that day and lost the others, but played well as a team - definitely improved over the course of the day. Sunny, windy weather. Absolutely gorgeous fields. Pizza and beer provided by the tournament at the end of the day, so we hung out and consumed, stretched, played games, napped, generally enjoyed each other's company. Eventually went back to the hotel, showered, made our way to an Italian place for a 9:30 dinner. I didn't get to bed until midnight, but I was up at 5 on Sunday morning with images of Ultimate already flashing through my mind - too impatient to play to be able to sleep, I guess. We lost both our games on Sunday, but continued to play really well.

I'm so excited to be on this team. At the last tournament, I was still a little nostalgic for Ono. But this weekend, I felt much more integrated into the BRDM family. And that was wonderful.

I'm mostly happy with how I played. My legs felt really weak, for some reason, like I couldn't get them out of first gear. Sprinting took a lot more effort than it usually does - I'd come off after a point and feel completely drained of energy. I'm not really sure why. But it's amazing how much energy I got from my teammates - watching them play hard and hearing them cheering on the sidelines. They made a huge difference. Thanks guys! In terms of my goals from last Friday: I didn't layout. I dropped the disc more than I should have. I wish I'd been able to sprint more consistently, but I'm glad I was still working hard at it during the end of our last game. My cuts were alright, not spectacular. I'm definitely impatient for practice this week and for our next tournament (Easterns, in Boston, June 3-4).

52 hours until Scott gets home!

One more list...

10 hours until the first game
5 days until Scott returns
3 weeks until I go home
1 month until Kate and Jaime's wedding

Good luck Paul!

Paul's running a marathon this weekend! Go Paul!!

Lists

Things to do after work:
- Pack for the tournament
- Make a batch of energy bars (for the tournament)
- Meet Margaret for dinner at the Diner

Things to pack
Field things:
- Cleats!
- Socks, socks, and more socks.
- Shorts, or a skirt and spandex. Hmm.
- Dark and white jerseys.
- Sports bra.
- Pants, long-sleeved shirt, rain jacket.
- Ibuprofin, sunscreen, nail clippers, sports tape.
- Nalgene, apples, energy bars, ginger snaps.
- Cowbell.
- A frisbee. An orange or blue one, so I'm less likely to lose it.
Other things:
- Pajamas, toothbrush, shampoo.
- Jeans, t-shirt, hoodie.
- Directions to the three Dairy Queens located within five miles of our hotel.
- CDs for the car: The Wellesley Whiptails mix, and the Duluth Ultimate Soundtrack, volumes 1 and 2.
- Phone, charger, wallet

Goals for the weekend?
- Don't drop the disc.
- Make real cuts.
- Layout. (Yeah right!)
- Sprint hard, from the first point of the first game Saturday until the last point of the last game Sunday.

Not too much to report. But I'll report it anyways.

Sunday.
The great room cleaning of May 2006 was a success! I told myself that I couldn't call Scott until the place was shipshape.

Monday.
A great pilates class in the morning, a productive day at work, and an enjoyable evening at the climbing gym. Liz came along for the first time and did fabulously. Margaret was home by the time I got back, so I got to chat with her for a few minutes.

Tuesday.
Woke up thinking it was Wednesday, which means BRDM practice. Alas, practice was still 36 hours away. A sort of productive day at work. Went to the gym and had a decently hard workout. Wrote haikus to Scott, who is out of phone and e-mail contact until Friday night. Sometimes it's fun to be pining, you know? Tonight I get my first taste of The Vegetable Garden, where Liz is celebrating her birthday. My gift to her is The Gotan Project's new album, Lunatico. I just downloaded it this week, and I love it. Dad, I'm sending you a copy too - it reminds me a little of Talking Timbuktu and Laurie Anderson.

A messy room on a rainy day.

I'm sitting in the middle of a very messy room, mine, contemplating the next step of cleaning it. I've already dragged everything out of my closet, packed away the winter clothes, thrown away the dead running shoes, and reorganized the remaining items. It's sort of funny how much my wardrobe needs have changed since I (a) started riding my bike everywhere and (b) stopped working at Walter Reed. I don't wear "nice" clothes anymore. My uniform used to be a neat Italian skirt, a black top, and a scarf. Now it's jeans (the loose ones that I can bike in, not the tight Saturday night ones) and a tank top. Maybe a necklace if I think of it. I only miss my dressier clothes a little bit. As in, it might be nice to have non-casual Fridays.

I've been working on this mess on and off since I got up this morning. I took a break to go to church, and then I did a track workout. And sometime during the afternoon I got to talk to Scott and my mom. My mom is in the car with Dad and Fred, in the early stages of a 10-hour drive from Kansas to Minnesota. They had gone down on Friday to see Margo race in collegiate nationals. She had really strong races on both Saturday and Sunday... except she got a flat tire right at the end of Saturday's race, and she had a pretty bad crash on the last lap of Sunday's crit. Bad enough that she had to go to the ER for her road rash. I feel so bad that she wasn't able to complete either one; my parents said she probably would have finished in the top 10, which is SO cool. I'm definitely proud of her for being a competitor!

But apart from church and my phone calls, I really haven't talked to anyone today. It's good though. I need to get my room organized - there have been piles on the floor for months and months and months now. And the next 5 weekends are going to be super fun, but not super restful. I feel like it's a little day of meditation before summer sets in. I get to sit on my floor, lotus-style, listen to the rain fall and Elsa sneeze (she's exceptionally sneezy today, which is strange and pretty cute), and sift through papers - last summer's calendar, recipes, bank statements, birthday cards, lots of memories of what I've been up to. I'm pretty bad at organizing this stuff. I mean, I let it pile up for so long before doing anything about it, and then when I DO sit down to do something about it, I end up just blogging about it.

Right. I'll get back to work.

Happy Birthday Minnesota!

From The Writer's Almanac

On this day, in 1858 the state of Minnesota was admitted into the Union. It's the home of the world's largest Paul Bunyan statue, and it was from Minnesotans that we got the stapler, water skis, and roller blades—not to mention Scotch tape, Bisquick, and Spam.

A nice day so far. In fact, the past 15 hours have been lovely. BRDM practice was good and productive, despite my legs feeling super tight. I stopped at home to say hi to Elsa and then headed up to Delafield for one last dinner with Scott before Guatemala steals him away. We got up at 5 am. He left for the airport, which gave me an hour's worth of coffee, breakfast and New Yorker before a really wonderful 6:30 yoga class.

Elsa the Cat

Cats and Dogs

I don’t entirely trust people without pets. Sure, they may have allergies, busy schedules, an aversion to fur balls on the white carpet or suspicious paw prints across the kitchen counter. But caring for an animal gives a person something unique, a centered balance that affects each aspect of life.

My sister and I have been fostering Elsa, one of the animal victims of Hurricane Katrina. She's a wonderful little thing, affectionate and playful and surprisingly vocal, and we're happy to foster her as long as she needs it. But she deserves a permanent home. If you know of anyone who could use a cat, let me know!

From the adoption website:

Elsa is a curious and friendly cat who came to 4Paws after surviving Hurricane Katrina. After spending the first two days hiding in the tiniest of places, Elsa relaxed and became very open and affectionate.

Elsa likes plenty of human contact although she is too young to be truly a lap cat—probably less than a year old. The bedraggled cat has developed into a healthy one with an appetite for wet and dry food and now looks sleek and well nourished.

Elsa likes to play with anything that rattles and that she can bat about. Although she seems happier to be the only cat in the room, she has spent several months in one room with her step-sister, Heather, from Mississippi so she could certainly co-exist and probably befriend another cat. Elsa demands plenty of petting, and wants to sleep on your chest or even share your pillow. If you’re looking for a second cat to keep your cat company because you’re not home enough, she’s not the cat for you.

Elsa is spayed; tested negative for Feline Leukemia and Feline AIDS; and current on vaccines.

(I beg to differ with the "not a lap cat" comment. She loves sitting on our laps!)

a brief reprieve

Guess who missed his flight and has to spend one more night in DC before heading down to Guatemala?

It's a good day for other reasons too... like the burrito lunch Paul and I had on the grass at McPherson Square, and the BRDM practice coming up in an hour and a half. I'm still sore from Monday's track workout, but I can't wait to get out and play. It's gorgeous out today!

Adieu!

Margo leaves tonight. She'll be gone a week, first heading to Duluth for a fellowship interview and then down to Kansas for collegiate cycling Nationals. Good luck sis!

Scott leaves tomorrow morning for a two-week trip to Guatemala.

I miss this!

Here's a NYT slideshow and article about girls in New York who have cerebral palsy and who are learning ballet. I got to help teach a similar class when I was in high school, and it was wonderful. I wonder if there's anything like this in DC. I'd love to do it again.

Here's a short article from Boing Boing about a Dairy Queen ukelele!

Climbing last night was fantastic. Finally met up with my friend Adrian and his friend Aaron - we've been talking about climbing together for a year now. I felt like I learned to move more slowly and deliberately, which is good. 5.7's are still challenging, but I know that I can finish them. 5.8's are almost attainable, depending on how tired I am. Wish I were going back tonight!

Weekend plans - Cinco de Mayo margaritas with the Wellesley ultimate alums tonight, and then some violin I think. Tomorrow a bunch of us are heading to Baltimore to watch the Kinetic Sculpture Race. After that, we'll go to Blob's Park where they have traditional German food, hundreds of beers, live polka music, and a big dance floor. I'm most excited for that last item. Sunday = BRDM practice, which I'm definitely impatient for.

I'm such a sucker for tournaments.

Just bought tickets to Boston for the weekend of June 3rd. I couldn't help myself. It will be a busy month, but what would I rather be doing with myself? I also told Jeremy and Jerry that I'd play in the Clique C League tournament in a few weeks. I'm excited - WonderBred is a super fun team that I haven't seen enough of lately.

On the Fred Front, he told me today that his classmates elected him to be the student speaker at their Baccalaureate this June. He'll be great. What's really cool is that he also spoke at my Baccalaureate seven years ago. The fifth graders, the youngest students at Marshall, wrote down their hopes and wishes for the graduating seniors. Fred was the one who got to read them to us.

On the Job Front, here's a NYT article about being able to withdraw cash from real world ATMS from a virtual world. And here's an editorial about it.

On the Things That Make Me Happy front, Scott and I are going climbing tonight! I haven't gone for a week and a half now, which feels like forever. BRDM practice last night felt wonderful, depsite being sore from Tuesday's track workout. I caught things that I usually don't. Scott and I had dinner at Astor afterwards. Kebabs and greek salads. Mmm.

I have tickets to Potlatch!

I got to play in a tournament over the weekend, and I just bought my tickets to go out for Potlatch in Seattle in July. It feels like summer (i.e. the Ultimate season) is really starting now!

The tournament this weekend was a little frustrating because it was so windy. It's just demoralizing when basic things like throws and catches don't work as well as they're supposed to. Nonetheless, our team had fabulous spirit from the first point on Saturday morning to the last one on Sunday afternoon, it was sunny and dry, and we got to hang out in a gorgeous, enormous beach house. Highlights – walking down to the Atlantic with Aaron and Charles on Saturday after our games and inspecting the horseshoe crabs; coffee and pancakes from the little deli in town; a nice little inside-out forehand I threw to Shamik (I have an awful memory for plays, but for some reason this one stuck in my head.); playing with Ono on Sunday afternoon (I love my current team, BRDM, but that doesn’t mean I don’t miss Ono!); and, because I really am this sappy, getting to watch Scott play.

Pretty impatient for another tournament. Hopefully I’ll get to go to Bell Crack in Philly in two weeks! Probably won’t go to Mixed Easterns in Boston, as there are already a bunch of women going. No Poultry Days (Versailles, Ohio) this summer because it’s the same weekend as Fred’s graduation. But then there’s Potlatch in Seattle at the end of June, Wildwood (New Jersey) at the end of July, and maybe Chesapeake Open (here) at the end of August… unless I’m in Minnesota then.

Not much other news. But here’s a picture of my brother on his way to Prom! He’s second from the left, in the bowtie.