| Poem for Sunday and Chinese New Year |
[Jan. 29th, 2012|12:40 am] |
( 7 )
Saturday was yet another ridiculously warm January day. Younger son needed dress shoes to wear to my niece's Bat Mitzvah next month, so we took him to Lakeforest Mall, which was opening their annual Chinese New Year celebration with a ribbon-cutting and lion dance just after we arrived. We watched a bit of the martial arts and dancing, then went to three shoe stores where we eventually found shoes for him (though not for me, though I did threaten to get black patent leather boots with blue-and-green plaid insets and eight-inch heels). Then we went to the extremely crowded food court, where I had half of a fabulous spinach stromboli and we watched music videos on the overhead screens.
( Year of the Dragon )
After looking at the photo and art displays, we left the mall and went to the ruins of Black Rock Mill in Germantown, which is part of Seneca Creek State Park. The mill is open to the sky and there's a gate where the door once was, but there are large signs inside explaining the history of the mill and of the area, plus a walking trail up the steep hill behind the mill and across Black Rock Road following Seneca Creek. It was muddy and somewhat slippery but it felt absolutely gorgeous out, and we didn't go home till after sunset since we had to stop at the grocery store.
In honor of the Chinese New Year festivities, we had General Tso's tofu and veggie dumplings for dinner. Then we were going to watch some more X-Files but while we were trying to figure out what we had, Paul put on FX, which had 2012 on, and Adam sat down to watch it, so the rest of us watched too. I had thought that Anonymous was probably Emmerich's most ridiculous movie but 2012 surely must rival it, and even though I still can't figure out how they intended to feed people after the Bad Stuff or ten million other major plot points, I knew exactly who was going to live, who was going to die, who was going to kiss, etc. because the movie is entirely formulaic in that regard. |
|
|
| Poem for Saturday, Farms, If Wishes Were Horses |
[Jan. 28th, 2012|12:03 am] |
( Human Atlas )
It has not been the most relaxing week around here, but there were a couple of compensations: ![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) emynn gave me an invitation to Pinterest, which is freakin' addictive, and sfaith alerted me to the fact that the Colin Firth-Keira Knightley short film Steve was finally on iTunes, so I got to see it. Why do I prefer Colin playing a neurotic loser so much to Colin playing a Beautiful Person? (See yesterday's post.) Anyway, on Friday my compensation was going to the mall looking for a longer chain for the pendant I want to wear with my dress to the Bat Mitzvah and getting to play with beads in Brighton, since they're doing a promotion where if you make a wish list you can win the whole thing. I couldn't do this till I finished and posted my review of Deep Space Nine's "If Wishes Were Horses", which is not one of the greats nor even one of the very goods.
We had dinner with my parents and discussed various extended family matters, including the upcoming Bat Mitzvah, my mother's upcoming birthday, and relatives coming to visit each other. Then we came home for Nikita, watched the Caravaggio episode of Simon Schama's Power of Art because the Mammals episode tonight was about mammals who eat each other, then we caught a few minutes of a show about the Bermuda Triangle that mentioned aliens and I got an overwhelming urge to watch The X-Files' "The Unnatural" which most delightfully is on Amazon Prime. I haven't seen the episode in over a decade and it holds up in every way...the baseball, the aliens, the Mulder/Scully shippiness. Here are some photos from the Frederick Festival of the Farm last fall that I only just am getting around to posting:
( Sheep, Alpacas, Fowl, Pigs ) |
|
|
| Poem for Friday and Dress Shopping |
[Jan. 27th, 2012|12:03 am] |
( Water )
I had a very nice Thursday morning and early afternoon, getting a bunch of paperwork done so I could go meet twistedchick for lunch (to which I was a bit late because my elderly neighbor tripped and fell on the sidewalk just as I was walking out of my house, so I ran back in to get her ice and band-aids and make sure she was all right). Twistedchick brought me a Tarot deck and we had vegetarian Chinese food and a long conversation about family, politics and fandom that continued past lunch and on to coffee and hot chocolate, at which point we decided we should just have lunch again next week.
Then I had to commit the ongoing atrocious act of trying to find a dress for my niece's Bat Mitzvah in two weeks. I'm sure you all know my policy on fashion for myself, which is: unless it's for a play or some other theatrical-type event (Star Trek convention etc.), I refuse to be uncomfortable, let alone in pain. If I ever got invited to the Academy Awards, I'd be going in flats. So I ruled out 3/4 of what I looked at/tried on purely on the basis of comfort, because a Bat Mitzvah not only isn't a theatrical event unless you're the celebrant, but generally involves two hours plus in synagogue followed by several hours at a party that includes dancing. Pretty much everyone at this particular Bat Mitzvah comes from an area where dressing to the nines is the norm for such events, so I'm going to be in the cheapest dress there anyway -- why would I want it to be an uncomfortable cheap dress? ( Ranting on clothing. )
</center> |
|
|
| Poem for Thursday, Robbie Burns, Botanic Garden |
[Jan. 26th, 2012|12:28 am] |
( A Bard's Epitaph )
I have eaten far too much because of the man who wrote that poem, whose 253rd birthday was Wednesday. Paul decided that we should have Vegetarian Haggis (made mostly of lentils, nuts, and veggies, and so vastly better than I imagine actual haggis is though I've never tried it and I never will). Since he was on a roll, he also made Tatties & Neeps (I am not an enormous turnip fan but they were pretty good with all the spices) and just to finish things correctly he made Tipsy Laird with pound cake, vanilla cream pie filling, lots of raspberries, and more Drambuie than I suspect was strictly necessary. So I am as blobby as my cat at the moment.
Otherwise my day involved a bunch of writing, a bunch of laundry, a bunch of e-mails exchanged with my sister since the Facebook alumni group for our elementary school has suddenly exploded with stuff from people we grew up with, discussing colleges with Adam who is being inundated with e-mail and brochures from schools now that he has PSAT scores to get their attention, and watching the Maryland-Duke game which the Terps basketball team has just tragically blown -- or not tragically, as the university sent out messages to students ordering them not to riot joyfully should Maryland win. Here are some photos from the US Botanic Garden's new Plants in Culture exhibit:
( Incense, Spices, Ropes ) |
|
|
| Poem for Wednesday and Capitol Seagulls |
[Jan. 25th, 2012|12:02 am] |
( Winter )
I spent a delightful Tuesday afternoon with thistlerose, whom I have known online for many years but never met in person before now, since she has moved to my state! While she was getting herself here, I went out and got us Indian food, which we ate quickly (with help from my cat who wanted to get in our laps) so we could go see Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, since she hadn't seen it yet and I agreed to see it again, heee. It was the perfect day for it since my morning started with learning that Gary Oldman had received an Oscar nomination -- a bright spot amidst really boring nominations, mostly for movies I hadn't seen, in which neither Benedict Cumberbatch nor Alan Rickman turned up in the Supporting Actor category. My goal for Oscar night is to watch Colin Firth hand Best Actress to Viola Davis...and if she must lose, let it be to Glenn Close, who is so overdue it isn't funny, even though I haven't seen Albert Nobbs.
Anyway, we spent lots of time at my house after the movie yakking while Rosie attempted to plant herself permanently in thistlerose's lap and trying to decide whether we wanted to watch a movie and talking about our past fandoms. We ended up deciding that we should watch some Voyager, so we watched the generally well done two-parter Year of Hell and then, because I'd been going on about producers who abuse shippers, we watched "Resolutions." It has easily been a decade since I saw it and oddly I enjoyed it quite a bit; all my residual Janeway/Chakotay rage seems to have dried up. apaulled made us all black bean soup and corn bread and Adam told us about his second semester schedule, which he prefers in all ways except that he has all his academic classes in the morning so he can't finish his homework at lunch.
Adam had to watch the State of the Union for his AP Government class, so this year the whole family watched (Daniel was on Gchat). I shall not bother analyzing the speech though I will say that I was impressed with how hard Obama tried to be bipartisan and was therefore surprised by a Republican rebuttal that simultaneously accused Obama of being rabidly partisan while making many of the same exact arguments that Obama did. Sigh. At least Colbert's interview with Maurice Sendak rocked utterly. Here are some photos of one of my favorite aspects of Congress, namely the seagulls that live in the reflecting pool outside of the Capitol Building where Congress convenes:
( DC Birds ) |
|
|
| Poem for Tuesday and Chinese New Year |
[Jan. 24th, 2012|12:23 am] |
( Orchard )
The Year of the Water Dragon began here on a cold, rainy Monday where we alternated sleet and heavy patches of fog. We had to take Daniel back to College Park, so Paul came home after his morning phone conferences and we all packed up Daniel and helped him carry his stuff up the four flights of stairs to his dorm room, just minutes after his roommate arrived back as well. I was sad but we'll see him again in a couple of weeks for my niece's Bat Mitzvah and then again a month after that for my mother's birthday, so it's not like he's gone for half a year, at least.
Adam had wanted to go ice skating in the afternoon with his girlfriend, but due to the weather we persuaded them to postpone and picked up the girlfriend to bring her over here (she made me a duct tape purse that is awesome!). We all watched Castle in the Sky together -- well, some of us were working on computers at the same time while others were snuggling and eating popcorn -- and had sweet and sour tofu for dinner in honor of the Chinese New Year. Then we caught up on the last three episodes of this season's Merlin, which I enjoyed enormously (and no one is going to convince me that a canon het couple is ruining the show, I'm quite fond of pretty much everyone with everyone on Merlin).
Since the Lunar New Year festivals at our local libraries and malls are next weekend, I have no actual celebratory pictures for the day. Instead here is my Superpoke penguin celebrating in various Asian settings, since this will be the last Lunar New Year before Google shuts down the game:
( Red Envelopes ) |
|
|
| Poem for Monday, Football and Flowers |
[Jan. 23rd, 2012|12:46 am] |
( The World Below the Window )
Sunday was Daniel's last day of winter break and he felt like spending it hanging out and packing rather than going on an expedition and having to rush things later, so we finished off a quiet weekend. Adam had gone to work at Hebrew school and then home with my mother for lunch, so we took Daniel to California Tortilla -- then, since Daniel's laptop bag was ripping, I gave him mine and dragged the rest of the family to the last day of Tiara Galleries' 75% off Vera Bradley sale, where I had valiantly resisted buying the Metropolitan laptop bag during the spring pattern launch and now had an excuse (hey, it was under $25 at 75% off). So now he has a nice sturdy laptop bag (which I got from ngech's place of work a couple of years ago) and I have a pretty one in Buttercup!
We watched most of both thrilling NFL championship games, and though the Ravens-Patriots game did not end the way I wanted, at least it came down to the final 30 seconds (and if the Ravens had to lose, at least they did not lose to Tebow and the Broncos). I rooted for the 49ers but the NFC championship was a very close, very exciting game too, and I'm not sorry the Super Bowl will be a New England-New York rematch. We interrupted the second quarter to watch this week's Downton Abbey, which was okay -- I enjoy the show on a very superficial level, though in a lot of ways I think it's mediocre -- and after the overtime ended we watched a couple of Deep Space Nine episodes since son and I can't do that together again till spring break! Here are some flowers from the conservatory at Longwood Gardens last December:
( Orchids and Lilies ) |
|
|
| Poem for Sunday and Ancient Masonic Tradition |
[Jan. 22nd, 2012|12:04 am] |
( January )
We had a quiet Saturday morning due to the tiny amount of snow that fell on Friday night, which left ice on the street and walks until around noon when the temperatures went above freezing. Older son slept very late, since he goes back to college on Monday and presumably his days of sleeping till nearly noon will be over; younger son got up to take photos of the snow and to visit friends. After lunch, very much against his will, we dragged older son out to get him a suit to wear to my niece's Bat Mitzvah next month and to get some more pants, since he had perhaps three pairs that fit. He was woeful and when we ran into my oldest friend in Target, I was afraid she was going to call child protective services for the torture we were inflicting on son in the sportswear department.
I have to find a dress for this Bat Mitzvah and am so discouraged by everything I've seen in local stores that I think looking at vintage is in order. Son wanted good pizza while he was home, so we got pizza from the local place he likes and spent the evening watching Blackadder -- the end of the Regency series and most of the WWI episodes. Here are some more photos from the George Washington Masonic Memorial, this time not Washington souvenirs but Masonic symbolism like faux Egyptian relics and things from King Solomon's Temple (including the Holy Grail) as well as some Crusader and Templar items:
( Masons and Templars ) |
|
|
| Poem for Saturday and Masonic Washington |
[Jan. 21st, 2012|12:50 am] |
( The Witch )
I had both kids home on Friday as well as Adam's girlfriend visiting most of the day, so it was a pretty quiet day of me trying to look industrious and failing to persuade them to let me take them clothes shopping (they both need clothes for my niece's Bat Mitzvah next month). The weather reports got worse as the day went on -- first a sleet warning, then a slow warning, and now we have about a quarter inch on the ground with threats of snow continuing on and off for most of Saturday -- so I didn't feel like driving anyway. I posted my review of Deep Space Nine's "Progress" and older son kept linking me to news about SOPA, the Supreme Court copyright decision, Microsoft demanding that the state of Washington legalize gay marriage, Gingrich poll numbers, Obama's support for birth control and various other political issues.
Adam and his girlfriend went out to dinner in downtown Rockville and the rest of us ate with my parents, since older son is headed back to college on Sunday (fabulous Greek food from Ambrosia). Then we came home, fed the cats, retrieved Adam, and watched The Life of Mammals: "Plant Predators" on PBS, which had adorable capibaras and dik-diks and pikas and bats and kangaroo mice. Now we are watching the news, which is forecasting too much snow for some of our preferences and not enough for others. Here are some more photos from the George Washington Masonic Memorial:
( Masonic Pride ) |
|
|
| Poem for Friday and B&O Railroad Ellicott City |
[Jan. 20th, 2012|12:34 am] |
( Prayer for My Unborn Niece or Nephew )
I had a lovely Thursday morning -- I slept a bit late, got up to read the paper and go through my e-mail, then went to two Vera Bradley spring launch parties at local stores. The Cottage Monet was giving out Mini Kiss coin purses in the new patterns while supplies lasted -- I got Camellia -- and Tiara Galleries was serving bagels and muffins plus they had their clearance items 75% off for one day only, so I got a Quick Draw bag in English Meadow for under $20. I had planned to pick up lunch while I was out but I ate enough lunch at Tiara Galleries.
Then I got home in time to rouse Daniel, who was going out to lunch with my mother, and to greet Adam, who took his last final of the semester in the morning and arrived with his girlfriend. We discussed SOPA and Rick Perry dropping out of the Republican race, then Daniel came home and we discussed the MegaUpload shutdown and how one of our senators had dropped his sponsorship of PIPA. Adam's girlfriend stayed for dinner and in the evening I watched the DS9 episode I need to review on Friday.
Here are some photo from the B&O Railroad Museum in Ellicott City, which we visited over the weekend with our kids and in-laws, as is becoming an annual pilgrimage. They have a permanent model train display of local railways, a massive model train display updated yearly, and several smaller models put up for the holidays, plus a recreation of the station master's quarters and some historic train cars:
( The Station ) |
|
|
