2000-08-21 - 15:34:42

On the internal soundtrack: Nirvana's "Come As You Are".

Ugh. I have a headache that started last evening and continued all night despite multiple ibuprofens. I tried some caffeine (it's one of those blood-vessel headaches, not a tension headache), but it has yet to work. Ugh.

ON THE SKATE FRONT

So the weather has been utterly gorgeous. Dry with highs in the 70s. Yesterday I went on the 11am Sunday skate and it was absolutely marvelous.

It was so neat -- there were three kids on the skate, all under 14 years old. We don't get too many kids. The youngest looked to be about 8, tops, and had one of those new scooters instead of skates. He was a maniac on that thing; completely fearless, zipping around and angling sharply. When I first saw him I thought he was too young to go on the skate, but he kept up the whole way (close to 10 miles). I would imagine some dire threats from his brothers helped keep him going.

Their parents dropped them off. I saw them with their mother first, who appeared to be of European and Caribbean descent. She had an accent, so I wondered where she was from. Then I saw her saying "D'accord" a few times, so I assumed some French Caribbean country. Then along comes Dad, whose face just screamed "FRANCE!". That was it, yes. Coincidentally, I was sitting next to a girl who was also from France. She was of Asian descent and I had assumed she was American like the rest of us, but it turned out she was une Francaise, in DC on vacation. She kept an eye on the kids and made sure they got back to their parents okay.

At Dupont Circle, by the fountain, there was a little boy who was completely enamored of a large dog, some sort of retriever type. You know how toddlers run? They look as though they're about to fall flat on their faces, and this falling-forward motion is the momentum that keeps them going. Anyway, the little boy was completely taken with this dog, and kept fall/running around chasing it. The dog started barking repeatedly right in the kid's face, big huge loud woofs, and the kid started violently every time, but didn't lose his big grin.

Kids are wonderful that way, getting so excited about the littlest things.

Last night I dragged Poindexter out for a skate. I went to CVS first, on skates, to get peanuts and Viadent (not for simultaneous use, of course). The manager chased after me, yelling (he must have called me quietly first and I didn't hear). I turned around, said, "Excuse me?" and he said something in an accent so thick it was unintelligible.

I was sorely tempted to plead inability to understand him, which would have been the absolute truth, except that I knew exactly why he was stopping me. I said, "Well, I'm about to leave, can I just buy these and go?" He made some sort of gesture of reluctant agreement, and said something about not coming in here "like that", gesturing at the skates.

Sigh. I wasn't rolling around like a crazy person (in fact, was skating slower than I would have walked through the store). I need to get some of those things that cover my wheels and let me actually walk on skates. Skates are so good for transportation but there's this annoying problem with anal-retentive store managers.

Fortunately, most of the time managers are hiding in the back somewhere. The cashiers don't care if I skate in the store, since it's not their problem if I fall and break my neck (or someone else's).

MISCELLANEOUS

We had dinner at Bilbo Baggins in Old Town on Saturday. It wasn't bad. The bread and salads are fantastic, although the main courses left something to be desired. I had salmon/crab tortellini (which turned up as ravioli) in a ginger-apple-chardonnay cream sauce. The ravioli were good, if a bit doughy, but the sauce was nearly tasteless. The salad was great, though -- I have to re-create that at home. Leaves with julienned apples, walnuts, and orange segments, with a rasberry vinagrette. Mmmmmmmmm.

Poindexter is all finished: The thermostat is now on the top floor. Last night I was too hot, so I got up and turned it down without having to walk down to the third floor. Amazing.

EVELYNNE GETS ORGANIZED

All right. I've been a lazy sack of shit for long enough. I have to make a list of things I need to do that I keep talking about and not doing. Perhaps my imaginary readers (well, I seem to have one real one that I know of, Terry) can nag me about it. Here's my list:

- Make an appointment with Maria to get my best maid dress altered [CHECK! -- Sept 2nd, 1pm]

- Get the ten-speeds fixed so Poindexter & I can go biking this fall

- Find out whether I can pay someone to mix good dirt in with my clay in my 2-foot strip so I can plant bulbs this fall

- Crazy-glue the knives, forks, and spoons so they don't fall apart in mid-bite

- Put up the 15 or so framed family pictures that are sitting on the floor in the storage room

- Go through the boxes of miscellaneous papers that have to be filed.

Blah. I'd rather read my book.

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