Teacher, Inspiration, Friend

I wrote about Frankie here. I was honored to organize his 82nd birthday party back in 1997. I am deeply humbled, extraordinarily honored, and profoundly grateful to have called him my friend for the past 20 years.

God speed, Frankie. A one, a two, you know what to do...

An Interesting Morning

Unlike, say NYC or Chicago, you won't find a subway stop every couple of blocks in the Washington area; instead, DC's subway was built on a "hub and spoke" system. It's great for moving ppl into the center of the city, but not necessarily for getting from point A to point B outside of that central area.

One of the results of that design is that the Washington subway system is, on average, a bit less...um...colorful than some other big-city subway systems. For the most part, my fellow passengers during the morning rush hour are also your professional 9-5ers, all heading into their offices for the day. On average, it's pretty quiet in the subway car, as ppl tend to doze, read the paper or a book, do a crossword puzzle, etc.

Then there are days like this morning. There were delays on the line, which meant the car was much more crowded than normal. Then, a (most likely mentally-unstable) woman got on, lugging a cartload of stuff with her, which wouldn't be much appreciated on a regular rush hour, but was even less so given the overly crowded conditions. She started telling everyone w/in earshot how she had taught herself to play multiple musical instruments, never had a lesson, etc. She then decided to show us with a little performance.

Let's just say, you haven't lived until you've heard both the US Marine Corps anthem ("from the halls of Montezuma....") and the Star Spangled Banner played on the harmonica in the middle of a crowded subway car during your rush hour commute.

Let's hope tomorrow's commute goes back to being quiet & not very colorful.

By the Numbers

Tiburon's "By the Numbers" post got me thinking I should do one, too. All in all, today was a pretty productive day:

• # of stores visited & from which I'd already checked out before 9:00 am: 2
• # of bags of lawn trim currently waiting to be set out for pickup: 8
• # of additional bags it'll take to get rid of all of the trimming done: another 6-8
• # of tomato seedlings planted: 5
• # of sweet peppers planted: 2
• # of broccoli seedlings planted: 6
• # of strawberry plants planted: 2
• # of feet of push-in garden "fencing" set up to prevent dogs from getting plants: 16
• # of dogs currrently in residence: 5
• # of dogs who are permanent residents: 3
• # of dogs I'm fostering for rescue: 1
• # of dogs staying with me while friends are away: 1
• Combined weight of dogs currently in residence (in lbs): 262
• Largest dog's weight in lbs: 82
• Smallest dog's weight in lbs: 4
• Weight of human in residence: yeah right! like I'm posting that!!
• # of times I've almost stepped on the littlest dog today since I'm not used to having such a small creature around: way too many to count
• # of dogs who like to chase bumblebees: 2
• # of those dogs who have gotten stung: 0 (but I'm afraid that's going to change)
• # of dogs currently asleep: 5 (yay!)
• # of those dogs sleeping w/in 1 ft of me: 2
• # of muscles that are going to hurt tomorrow due to all of the yard work today: all of them!!

Thankful Tuesday

Some things are just too good to wait for Thursday to roll around. This is one of those things:

My SO's most recent PET scan was clean!! There is currently no evidence of cancer or cancerous activity!!!

Despite the fact that rain is actually physically falling outside, it seems like a very sunny day from where I'm sitting!

Thankful Thursday

Things I'm grateful for this week:

• Thursday -- only one day left until the weekend, yay!!
  


• Pandora -- I know, I'm late to the party. I've actually known about pandora.com for a while, but until a recent upgrade to our computers/network at the office, we couldn't get to or use it. Now that we can, I've had it playing in the background nearly every day. Of course, I've been grooving to lots of old favorites, but the best thing is the new-to-me songs or artists I've discovered when it's given me things that are similar in nature to those songs I told it I like. If you aren't already using it, check it out!!
  


• Spring flowers -- Between the cherry blossoms & the magnolia blooms, DC is pretty much busting at the seams. Add in the daffodils and tulips blooming in my front yard, and it's pretty hard not to smile or not to be in a good mood.
  


• Getting a major vote of confidence from the higher-ups at work. Even better was being able to back up that vote of confidence by taking the ball & running with it/finishing the project within the time frame in which it was needed. Something like that is always nice, but it's especially satisfying given the current economy. Every little bit of extra job security is a good thing as far as I'm concerned!
  


• My foster puppy FINALLY being out of heat. She was scheduled to be spayed so she could move on to her permanent home, but came into heat just before, which meant the surgery had to be postponed. She's now out of heat (and acting/feeling more like herself again), which means that a) we can reschedule the surgery, and b) I can take her out for walks again. Being able to get her adequate exercise will certainly help evenings be calmer around my household until she moves on to her forever home!!!
  


• Good friends who have rallied around me these past couple of weeks as I've had to deal with a difficult person and the resulting drama said person likes to cause. While such things are just a part of life & we all have to deal with them from time to time, it's great to know I've got people who have my back and make such unpleasantness more bearable.

How bout you? What are you thankful for today? (Thanks to Tib for the super-fly, retro-inspired new graphic.)

April Fools II

Apparently, Facebook is also having a little fun today, too. I found this amongst my notifications:

Spring in Washington

Spring is one of the most beautiful times in Washington. Ppl come from all over to see the famous cherry blossoms. They are most concentrated around the Tidal Basin, near the Jefferson Memorial & that area is usually very crowded during peak bloom, but there are other areas with beautiful blooms as well.I'm still learning what my camera can do, what settings produce what shots, etc. The best way to do this is to practice, so I brought my camera to work the other day & planned to go over to the Tidal Basin to take pics after work. Unfortunately, I had to finish some stuff up & didn't get out as early as I'd hoped. Thus, I decided to skip the 2 mile walk to the Tidal Basin in favor of spending the time (and the good lighting conditions) shooting near the US Capitol, along the Mall, and near the White House instead.These are some of my favorites from the shoot. (If the weather conditions cooperate, there will be more coming, but the forecast doesn't look too good for the rest of the week.)

April Fools!!

I love a good practical joke. As long it's not in any way mean-spirited and no one gets hurt, then bring it on!! And, I say that as both an occasional perpetrator of pranks & as the one being pranked.

There's a fine tradition of the British press pranking on April 1st. Probably the most well-known example is from the 1980s when they reported that Big Ben was going digital. Classic!! (and amazing to me how many ppl fell for it.)

This year's Guardian report of how the paper will cease paper publication & go entirely to Twitter feeds is pretty good. I particularly like the effort to retrofit the major historic events to the format (e.g. the start of WWII would become "OMG Hitler invades Poland, allies declare war see tinyurl.com/b5x6e for more") . Not to be outdone, the Telegraph reports on how swimming fish could be the key to generating electricity.

Except for the famous full-page ad that said that Taco Bell had bought the rights to the Liberty Bell, I can't remember the American press ever joining in on the fun (and does that really qualify since it was an ad, not an article?).... Until now, as this was in today's Washington Post.

Even the usually-stodgy Economist has gotten into the game: "As part of a strategy designed to broaden the revenue base, leverage content over new platforms and promote The Economist brand to a young and dynamic audience, The Economist Group is delighted to announce the development of a public-entertainment facility that combines the magic of a theme park with the excitement of macroeconomics..." I can't wait for Econoland to open!!

How bout you? Seen any good ones today to add to the list?