Sublet with a catch

Had the most fascinating conversation yesterday afternoon with a guy living in D.C. on a temporary assignment at NIH. I met him at the bar of a mediterannean restaurant in my 'hood.

Having the day off, I went to the spa for an afternoon facial and manicure (thanks Groupon). Feeling all relaxed and shiny clean, I decided to stop in for a glass of red wine on my way home. This restaurant has a great selection of South American red wine and I knew I could grab a mezze or two if I was hungry. I love afternoons like this and I don't have them very often.

Shortly after I sat down at the empty bar and started sipping my glass of Argentinian Malbec, in walks a regular. Ann, the bartender greeted Ron by name and uncapped a Yuengling. There was some small talk, he lives in Seattle, going to Hawaii next week for vacation with his wife who is living in Seattle, blah blah. Then Ann brings me up to speed in Ron's living situation and the sitcom they have been planning over the many weeks that Ron has been visiting the bar.

He is subletting a studio apartment in NW from a psychologist. The psych lives in south Florida, but three days a week she comes to D.C. to see patients. On those days, Ron has to put all of his "stuff" away and stay out of the apartment from 8AM to 8PM. Oh the story lines this TV show could have! We were on a roll, I just hope we can remember them all after all the wine and beer.

I love this sort of stuff. And of course he found this apartment on Craigslist. Where else!

New project for fall

After browsing the Summer Knitty, I found a scarf that I love - Coquille. It looks pretty quick, too. I really like the way to yarn stripes, it will really enhances the colors in the yarn. I will be using Mochi Mini in Violet Garden.

There is a meetup group that knits at the Smithsonian's American Art Museum that I have been wanting to join, but I have not had an easily transportable project! (One small detail.) Once the yarn arrives in the mail, I will be all ready.

I don't knit very much in the summer because the yarn gets so hot and scratchy. Do you have the same problem? I can't even imagine wearing a wool sweater when it is in the 90s and humid. Ugh. So my desire to knit is gone. This is also the time to start on Christmas knitting. Dad needs a new scarf. I made him one a few years ago, which really did not turn out all that great, too short, not wide enough, but he still wears it! How flattering.

Bird-be-Gone

I found a new use for knitting needles


There is a pigeon, or more specifically a Mourning Dove, who is trying to build a nest among my herbs. I scared her off the other day and dismantled the start of the nest. But she came back! So I stuck a few pencils in the area near the lemon basil that she was nesting.

And she came back again, resting near the oregano and sage.

So I was thinking, What will repel the bird?

Knitting needles of course!

I quit my community garden plot a few years ago because I was tired of fighting the deer because they won every time. Now I am fighting off birds in the window boxes! Sheesh.

No Democracy for D.C. Soldiers

Bluegrass at the Birchmere

I saw a great show last night at the Birchmere in Alexandria.

Chatham County Line, The Infamous Stringdusters, and Crooked Still formed the the pseudo-Folk Festival. It was great fun! I love bluegrass, surprising for a northerner, and these 3 bands were fabulous.

Chatham County Line was the closest thing to old fashioned bluegrass so they were my favorite. They are good looking, young, very talented guys who are having a lot of fun. "One More Minute" is a beautiful song.

The Stringdusters was another bunch of good looking, talented guys, a whole bunch of them, but they were more country-pop. Enjoyable but not really my kind of music. Many of the band members play other types of music and play in other bands, including a gospel singer, so they had tremendous range in style.

Rounding out the bill was Crooked Still, yet another bunch of good looking people, girls included, talented musicians. I would characterize them as contemporary bluegrass. The cello was a big surprise and added a hint of meloncholy to the music.

Wonderful live music. They are in Philadelphia tonight and then on to NYC.

Artomatic

It's Artomatic season on DC again. It's a great event if you have never been. Lots of painting, sculpture, mixed media, photography, ceramics, glass. 9 floors I think, music, poetry...and it's free. But only through June 15.

Warning if you are traveling from NW DC, the directions are wrong. Turn right on M St. NW, not left. Follow the directions from the 14th Street Bridge.

A little of this...

In the knitting category, I recently joined the Auburn Camp Shirt KAL.








FilmFest DC continued last night with "Fados" and "Late Bloomers." These movies could not have been more different, but in a good way. "Fados" was a look at all of variations of the Fados tradition in Portugal, Brazil, and other Portuguese-speaking countries. It consisted of vignettes of singers and dancers performing. I enjoyed the singing, Fados is so melancholy, but live performing never translates fully to the screen, be it a movie or TV. It's like taking a picture of a sunset, unless you saw it yourself, it does not have the same impact on the viewer.

"Last Bloomers" was in the same tradition of "Calendar Girls," some older woman who are depressed with their lives buck up and make a change - one that shocks their friends and neighbors. Martha lost her husband and prays that God will take her, too, in her sleep. No such luck. But a conversation with her friends reveals that when she was much younger she was an accomplished lingerie designer and sewer. A trip to a fabric shop brings back the fire and she decides to make the sundries shop she and her husband had run for many years in their little town in the Swiss Alps into "Petit Paris," a lingerie shop. The town is scandalized but the women prevail. It was cute.

Before the movie, Carol and I ate at Poste, in the Hotel Monaco. Have you been?

It was the menu was what hung us up. It is categorized by where the food comes from (The Garden, The Pasture, etc.) which was clever but not very helpful. More importantly for me, The Washington Post's description of the prices at $$ is too low. The entrees were $23++. But the menu was mainly appetizer-type dishes, a ratio of at least 3 to 1, at $13-$24. Is the intent a tapas menu? And it was heavy on cheese. I love good cheese, but I am not going to order ricotta and goat for dinner. My friend and I got 2 apps for dinner (the squash blossoms were excellent), no drinks or dessert, and the bill was $51. A little steep for what we got. The food was fine, the ambiance, too, but I was a little let down. There are better places to eat in DC with more ambiance and more food for the $$.

Jury Duty … Again

Lock clockwork I got my jury duty summons in the mail a couple of months ago. Criticize DC government all you want, the court system works. Every other spring I get called, I can mark my calendar to it. And it is starting to suck.

This year, as I did 4 years ago, I am serving in the District Court. Which means I call in every evening for two weeks to see if they need me to report. I reported on Monday as required and about half a day later I am sitting on a jury for a trial that the judge estimates will run for the next 3 ½ weeks. It is so defeating knowing that my life if not my own, I have to find a way to keep up with work, and pay attention to the mind-numbing details of the trial. The only good thing I can say is that is not murder or drugs.

And I did see the DC Madame in the courthouse today! I just saw in the news that she was found guilty on all counts. I wonder if she knew that when I saw her this morning?

Send me your good thoughts and pray that these two morons settle out of court. I don’t think I can take 3+ weeks of this, on top of which the Pope is sleeping about a mile from where I live, at the Vatican Embassy, smack-dab between me and the Dupont Circle Metro. The traffic tomorrow and Thursday is going to be very bad. Maybe I will head for the Tenley Metro.

Do you think they would notice if I brought my knitting into the jury box?

New Projects

I have a couple of projects I am working on.

The first is the Auburn Camp Shirt found in the Spring 2008 issue of Interweave Knits. I found this beautiful yarn (at left) at Charlotte’s Web in Epping, NH, a couple of weekends ago when I made a quick trip up north for my friend Heather’s 40^th birthday (more on that later). The yarn is Olympic from Artful Yarns. It was the color range that caught me – deep pinks, a little purple, melon, and the strands are really different, too, giving the yarn a lot of texture. The pictures don’t do it justice, unfortunately.

The second is a simple pullover sweater from a pattern in Ann Budd’s The Knitter’s Handy Book of Patterns. I am adapting the pullover with a rollband color and cuffs, but I tried to give it a little shape at the waist. We’ll see how that worked. The yarn is TLC Cotton Plus, a cotton and acrylic blend that is really nice for inexpensive yarn. I like the stretch the acrylic gives this yarn because cotton can be so stiff to knit. I bought it quite a few years ago because I really liked the color combination, very springy, with blues, purples, greens, yellows, all tempered by white.

The big birthday

Most of my college crowd is turning 40 this year. Myself included, although I am the last to turn that corner because my birthday is in December. I guess that makes me the baby!

Heather’s birthday was supposed to be a surprise but her family had to tell her because they feared they would not get her over to the Inn. She did not know who was going to be there or any of the details so I think she was surprised. It was so much fun seeing my friends, yarn shopping with Deb, the complete change of scenery I needed so badly.

When the party was winding down, we got a group together to go to a small club nearby to hear some live music. Heather’s older brother was leading the charge as we were not that excited to go out, but out of support for Heather, Deb and I soldiered on. The club was jumping, surprising for a beach community in Maine in late March, packed with people. We squeezed our way through the crowded bar and dance floor to an open space to watch the band. And it slowly started to dawn on Heather, Deb, and I that we were in the movie “Cocoon.” Everybody, including the band, was 60+, dressed up, coiffed, metroed out, on the dance floor, singing along from their tables. I haven’t laughed so hard in a long time. God bless the baby boomers. It was poignant with Heather turning 40. I realized that age is relative and it was kind of fun looking like high school kids crashing the party. (And I met the mother of a blogger that Heather told me about a couple of years ago, so if you’re reading, HI!)

I truly believe that my life gets better as I get older, but there are some milestone birthdays that make me cringe. Well, maybe that word is too strong. They make me stop and think about where I am. (And then I cringe.) Twenty-five was the first one, then 30, and now 40. I surely don’t feel anywhere near 40. When I turned 39 in December I decided this was going to be the Year of Sarah. Nothing is holding me back, and it is all topped off with my trip to Turkey in June.

Just yesterday, a new colleague, Melanie, mentioned that she is turning 25 in October and she is a little bothered by it. I could so relate, I remember how hard it was to turn 25 because I did not feel as mature or accomplished as I thought I should be. I remember now how desperately I wanted to get away from my life at that time. I felt so trapped in my job that I loved but was going nowhere and trapped living with my parents in RI. And that winter was a record snowfall so that was making me miserable. Alas, there were lots of good things too, like I had room to quilt at my parents house, I really miss that, and I had a car so I drove all over to see my friends far and near. And it was that desperation that got me to move to D.C. and that is all good.

Around DC

It is Yoga Week in DC so here is your chance to try yoga for the first time or to take advantage of a bunch of free or $5 classes around the metro area.

FilmFest DC starts in a couple to weeks, too. I spend way too much time making a spreadsheet of the movies I want to see.

Brush with fame

Yesterday I was volunteering at the Constitution Ave. information desk at the Museum of Natural History. The place was mad, people, the tourists are back with a vengence.

But it is always fun to meet people from around the country and to help them enjoy the Smithsonian and their trip to DC. No, I really mean that.

At one poing there was a lull in the crowd pouring in the doors. I happened to look up and who was coming through security but Jennifer Garner, Ben Affleck and their adorable daughter. (She is cute as a button.) I did a double take for sure when I saw Jennifer, who was looking straight at me. It took few seconds for me to put it all together - I looked at her, then I noticed hubby, and then I got all flustered. I made eye contact with Jennifer Garner!!

It was so exciting to see them, and I am not big on celebrities. She is very pretty, much cuter in real life than on the big screen, and not as tall as I thought. And Ben has mastered the art of hiding his face under his ball cap. I would not have even given him a second look had I not seen Jennifer. They completely blended in with all of the other families in their jeans and sneakers. Unfortunately they did not come to the desk to ask me any questions, like where the butterfly exhibit is or where could they buy IMAX tickets.

I did not blow their cover but I did tell the woman who was working the desk with me. She darted off to catch a glimpse and then returned to text her friends. We were grinning ear to ear the rest of the shift. They are in Washington, D.C. because Ben is shooting a movie. Word on the street is that Russell Crowe is in town, too. Now THAT would be cool to see him.

What is this fascination our society has with celebrity? I was surprised by my giddy reaction, even a little disturbed by it.

Speed Cameras on Conn. in MD

Beware of the traffic cameras on Conn. Ave. coming in the District. I have gotten 2 speeding tickets the 2 times I was on that bloody stretch of road in the past 6 weeks. What gives? I am not a reckless driver, I am simply keeping up with the other cars. So if everyone around me is also getting these tickets, cha-ching Montgomery County, Maryland. Kripes. I am ticked off.

Here's where they all are.

So side-tracked

Gosh, I get so side-tracked. I haven’t really been knitting in a couple of weeks mainly because I don’t have a new project to work on that excited me. I started a sweater that I am not all that thrilled with. Do you find starting a new project daunting? I have so many things I want to make I get overwhelmed with where to begin. And then finding the yarn. And then swatching.

I am so impressed and inspired by the knitting blogs I visit. Keep is going, knitters! I will back with you soon.

My niece Madison is coming to visit me today. She is flying here from Maine, all by herself, and we are going to do Washington, D.C. I love playing tourist in my hometown. I am blogging here.

And I booked my trip to Turkey! I am so excited. I am leaving on June 9 for 13 days with Rick Steves, to guy from PBS. The tour is just my speed, a little rugged, lots of walking, eating in local places, “through the back door” as Rick’s traveling style is.

On the sticks

This is a fun scarf I have been working on here and there. I bought this yarn (Koigu Kersti Merino Crepe) in Asheville over the summer knowing I wanted to make a scarf. I thought that would have been something along the lines of this Zig-Zag scarf, minus the color change, or something similarly diagonal. I did not really like the way the color of this yarn was working, but I did want something more daring than a straight rib because I really like this yarn and wanted to do it justice.

This pattern is called open wave lace, from The Complete Book of Knitting by Barbara Abbey. I found this book a few years ago at a used bookstore for $2.00 and it is such a great resource.

On a completely different note, I was downtown shopping today after my volunteering gig at the American Art Museum and saw a shockingly ugly cross dresser. It was like your father put on a pretty turquoise flouncy skirt, matching sleeveless blouse, the sneakers he wears when he mows the grass, your mother's ugliest pink lipstick, his handbag, and he's ready for a day downtown. If you want to dress like a woman put some effort into it please! Besides my freight, I had a very good shopping day.

NYC Weekend

I tried out the newest cheap bus to NYC, DC2NY this weekend. It was comfortable, only $40 round trip, the stop is a block from my office parking garage, so it all worked out beautifully.

My friend Del moved to Conn. for a new job so I went to go see him for about 24 hours. We had a blast tooling around the city. I think I finally figured out the subway which is such a bonus. We hit the Metropolitan Museum and the roof deck where there is some art and drinks! And a great view. We had dinner at an African restaurant in Harlem that night. He was thrilled to see so many Africans around, being from Nigeria and all.

On Sunday we did not get a very early start so it was a little rushed. We stumbled upon Artie's Delicatessen in the upper West Side for some breakfast and then rushed around the Natural History Museum for about an hour before having to get back down to Penn Station so I could catch the bus back.

New York is such a wonderful place. Activity abounds, and the culture of the people who live there is amazing. So much fun. We are already planning my next trip when we will explore Soho, Tribeca, and Greenwich Village.

Happy 4th and a day off in the middle of the week

A day off in the middle of the week is weird. Last night I kept thinking it was Friday.

I got my fill of George, Brad, and the crew last night when I went to see Oceans 13 in Georgetown. And the added bonus was Julian Sands! I remember falling in love with him watching “A Room With a View” at the Copley Place movie theater in Boston when I was in college. The strong silent type gets me every time. Throw in an English accent and I am putty.

I had heard that O-13 wasn’t very good, the story was flat, the acting was OK. But I really liked it. Granted, if the actors were all average looking I probably would not have liked it so much. There is something about a well-dressed man, you know? Even an OK looking guy can ratchet it up a notch by wearing clothes that fit and are stylish.

I am headed down the The Mall this evening to see the fireworks. In the 12 years I have lived here I have never been. Crowds are not my favorite thing. But I also feel like I need to do it once in my life. I will just do my yoga breathing and I should be fine.

I can actually see the fireworks across the street from the St. Alban’s church property. There is usually a pretty good crowd over there every July 4th at 9 o’clock. But it’s so far away, it is nothing like being there. And I love fireworks.

Vida is muerta.

Or at least crooked. The needle layed across the front shows how crooked it is. Yikes!

How did this happen? Could it be the reverse stockinette? I am scratching my head. I rinsed it in water and blocked it but I am not convinced that will solve my problem. I am going to query the KnitList. They know just about everything about knitting. (Amazing wealth of knowledge on that listserv.) And I really don’t want to start the front if I have to change something dramatic to make it symmetrical.

I bought some sale yarn from elann.com this week. This Highland Peruvian Wool (in Dusky Purple and Wisteria) is for my first French Market Bag (free pattern here). I have been wanting to try felting for a long time now, but I think my block has been a lack of a washing machine that I can control (I use the machines in my condo).

I know I can hand-felt but the machine looks a lot easier. So in a couple of weeks I am going to R.I. to see my parents, and celebrate my mother’s 70^th b’day, so I am going to try it out on her machine. Now the pressure to get the back knit in time. I also hope the colors aren't too subtle. I didn't want to the obnoxious color-scheme route because this bag is kind of large.

There is a nice gallery of finished bags here. Too bad the blog owner isn't still posting finished pics.

I also bought Berocco “Hip Hop” on sale for $5.25 a skein. I love the colorway of this yarn, my pictures don’t do it justice. I might try felting a swatch of this to see what happens to the colors, if they melt together in an interesting way, or not.

Fun in D.C.

Yesterday was Smithsonian day. It’s Folklife Festival time here in D.C. and I had more fun than I thought I would. I did my regular volunteering gig in the morning at the Freer Gallery and stuck around, got some lunch – ugh, 30 minutes in the Mekong Delta food line – which took the edge off the maddening food line, and hung around to listen to some live folk music.

I heard some great bluegrass (Whitetop Mountain Band) and got my fill of all types of Irish music including my favorite Highland pipes. Robert Watt was great and very dramatic with his bald head and funky glasses. Four Guys and a Dog were great, too, go see them if you can. Fun, lively, toe-tapping, people out on the dance floor, they had the tent rocking.

One of DC's hidden treasures

I have found one of DC’s hidden treasures, the tower at the Old Post Office Pavilion at 11^th and Pennsylvania NW.

Corey and I were eating lunch there today after visiting the National Gallery. Corey noticed a sign for a Tower Tour so we checked it out.

First of all, and most importantly, it’s FREE.

And the view is amazing. You can see so much of the city. I bet it rivals the Washington Monument. We saw the Shrine, the new baseball stadium, the airport, Roslyn, a gorgeous view of the Lincoln Memorial, all along The Mall. It was awesome, you must visit.

In other news

A man after my own heart, the Mayor of San Francisco is cracking down on single-serve water bottles:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19378595/site/newsweek/

Welcome Summer

It was a beautiful night to welcome summer at Alliance Française La Fete de la Musique. Can you get over this weather? Three of the C-list girls and I went to sip wine and listen to a wide range of music. It was fun, mixing with French-speaking people from around the world. Two of the acts played outside which was lovely.

Knitting

I am still ripping out the Tivoli top. All of the decreases are now causing me to pull all of the ripped out yarn through on stitch. It’s maddening so I only do a few inches a night.

Elann.com is having a sale on some wool, $2.25 a ball, so I am going to knit up a French Market Bag (free pattern from Knitty) and bring it to R.I. when I go in July to felt in my mother’s washing machine. I don’t have control over the cycles on the machines in my building. Amanda’s squatty sidekick is another cute (free pattern) bag I might try - and I am also thinking Christmas gifts. I am dieing to felt! And the color selection of this sale yarn is huge.

Young Dave Follow up

When you last read, Ellen McCarthy, writer for the Post, responded to my request for Dave’s email, after I saw him in last week’s Weekend Section. She did not have his email address so she called him, above and beyond the call of duty, and told him I had gotten in touch with her and she gave him my email. As the days drifted by I thought I would not hear from him. Et viola, yesterday he send me a sweet message. So it was good to hear from him and my goal was completed, simply to say hello, glad you are doing well.

Young Dave?!?

So I was flipping through the Weekend section of the Post a few minutes ago and I came to the feature story about all the ways to meet people in D.C. when you are feeling at a loss for friends or people to do stuff with. I can relate, that is how I met the Craigslist girls (we have our second date tomorrow, btw). I glance at the picture of the two outdoorsy looking guys and read the caption, “A few years ago, Dave Connolly, left…”

What?

Young Dave!?! Yup, that’s him alright. In all of his youth and cuteness.

I got back up off the floor, caught my breath, wiped the tears from by eyes and dove into the story about Dave’s quest to meet people in D.C. I could tell the story myself. He had these two friends that recently had married and moved to Seattle and he talked about them all the time. He really missed them – I wish I could remember their names. I think they started w/the same letter.

A while back I met Dave on Craigslist and we dated for a little while. He was much younger than me, about 10 years, so I dubbed him Young Dave so my friends could remember who I was talking about. I remember watching “The Ring” with him. That is the last horror flick I have watched. He was so sweet, but the age difference was pretty evident. He was probably 25 at the time.

But I would love to say hi to him, see how he is doing. I emailed the Post reporter who wrote the story and asked for his email address. What do I have to lose?

Another small-world DC story.

You know DC is a small town when

you see the same tourist-family at the Millennium Stage that was getting on your bus the evening before, most likely headed to the National Cathedral.

We were at the Kennedy Center last night enjoying

Melody Gardot
Part of the VSA arts 2007 Start with the Arts Family Festival
This 23-year-old award-winning singer and guitarist—whose multifaceted musical talent has drawn comparisons to Cole Porter, Billie Holiday, and Nina Simone—performs music with her quartet from her debut album Worrisome Heart.

Click here to watch the video archive.

She and her band are so talented. I would call it lounge jazz, moody, soulful, melancholy. Unfortunately all of those you-will-never-understand-or-deserve-me love songs got me thinking about Gabriel. Shake it off, girl!

They got a standing ovation, something I have never seen before at Millennium Stage.

Knitting

World Wide Knit in Public Day is June 9^th. The Creative Knitters Guild will be at Glen Echo Park, in Maryland, from 10:30AM to 3:30PM, celebrating. Sounds like fun, I will try to get over there.

I was in NH and Maine this past weekend of the annual Simmons Girl Reunion Weekend. It is always so much fun to get together with my college chicas. We have been friends since our first week at Simmons. We all lived on the same floor and have maintained this bond for more than 20 years now. It was like God had a plan to bring us all together.

So I made a stop at Charlotte’s Web in Exeter, NH, and bought this yarn (Tahki Stacy Charles “Bunny Print,” merino, alpaca, acrylic). The shop was so nice, and completely overwhelming. It happens to me all the time! I bring some ideas of what I want to knit and the gauges of the projects and my head starts spinning. So many options! I never know if I should pick the yarn for the project or a project for the yarn.

My plan was to knit Clapotis using this yarn, but I think it is going to be to heavy. We'll see how that works out.