The weather in Washington has been just about perfect this last week or so. After the miserable heat of the previous couple of weeks, it's been so nice to enjoy 80-degree days and 60-degree evenings. People are out enjoying the weather and having fun, like this guy:
The weather was a perfect backdrop for a nearly perfect weekend. Friday I saw Little Miss Sunshine, which is too funny and you should definintely check it out. Saturday, The Journalist and I hung out in Silver Spring, where she lives. The last time I spent any real time near the Silver Spring metro stop was seven years ago, and it was sketch-vegas. No more. The developers got ahold of the place, and it has turned into what The Journalist lovingly refers to as Chain City. Borders, Baja Fresh, Pier One, American Apparel - it's all there. The funniest part of all, though, is the green space Silver Spring set aside in the middle of all this to have a place for concerts and movies and such. Because it is, in fact, astroturf. That's right. Soulless modern America, where everything looks exactly the same, now even has fake grass for children to play on. Ugh.
Sunday after church, I went to Baltimore with several friends. We went to Fells Point, which is a cute little historic neighborhood with lots of shops and restaurants. First stop was a crab shack, naturally. It was good, but we ordered a bit too much, which inevitably led to someone posing leftovers in various scenes:
(I did not participate in this madness, just took pictures.) After that, we explored a cool antiques fair in the little plaza there. And, wow, was there some serious kitsch. Members of our group acquired a painting of Pope John Paul II, a Schlitz radio, a Carter '76 bumper sticker, and a needlepoint Jewish blessing. It was quite the antiques fair.After that, we headed over to the Inner Harbor. The last time I was there, we were on a family vacation and I was 13. My sister and I went paddleboating in the harbor by ourselves. My parents have refused to go paddleboating since an incident circa 1984. Daddy would have been pleased to know that electric boats are now an option. I think.
But if I were still 13, I would've insisted on going out in a Chinese dragon paddleboat:
We walked around the inner harbor as the sun sank lower in the sky and had crabcakes for dinner. It was such a fun day. The sky was blue, we went out on the water, and everything was nearly perfect.Except. In the middle of everything, someone's phone rang and we got the news that a friend had passed away. I don't have the energy to write about that right now. But it was a reminder that life is not simply deliniated between good times and bad. Wonderful days and awful days are sometimes one and the same, whether the sky is grey or an unimaginably brilliant blue.