QOTD: "To be good is noble, but to teach others how to be good is nobler and less trouble." - Mark Twain
Reading: Pat Willard, Secrets of Saffron
Listening to: a couple of mix CDs
Decluttering accomplishments: did laundry, did lots of household paperwork
As you can imagine, the entire Washington, D.C. region is breathing a collective sigh of relief over the capture of the sniper. Along with a few sighs about how close the police came to getting him earlier. I am mildly gloating about the white van being a red herring. On the other hand, I thought that the last couple of notes and phone calls were an opportunist, not the real sniper. Incidentally, it was very weird watching the denouement from a distance. I was in Boulder on business and, while the story was obviously big news there, it didn't have quite the same impact.
To get other sad subjects out of the way, I heard the news about the plane crash that killed Senator Wellstone this afternoon from our congressional liaison at work. While I disagreed with some of his positions, Wellstone always struck me as a decent person and a man of conviction.
The celebrity death watch also notes Richard Harris, who I will always think of as King Arthur, even though the movie version of Camelot is a bit silly. But the even bigger loss to musical theatre fans is Adolph Green, who was, along with partner Betty Comden, one of the greatest lyricists of all time. Actually, I have to admit that I hadn't realized he was still alive, but that doesn't diminish his accomplishments. It occurs to me that Comden and Green must have been awfully young when they wrote the lyrics for On the Town (which, of course, featured a wonderful score by Leonard Bernstein and classic Jerome Robbins choreography).
On a cheerier note, despite a refresher course in winter driving, my trip to Boulder was reasonably productive and provides an opportunity for some food pornography. I had a decent enough stir fry (lots of ginger!) at Spice China in Louisville one night, when exhaustion and weather made driving back to Boulder inadvisable. Another night involved the Indonesian peanut noodles at the Boulder Dushanbe Teahouse. I have to admit that the relaxing atmosphere there (thanks to the Central Asian architecture and the central fountain) is as much of an attraction as the food. The best meal of the trip, though, was at Zolo. I am pleased that the ahi is as good as always. And they've changed the dessert menu, adding a blackberry sopapilla sundae that I had to try since I couldn't imagine what it would be like. it turned out to be three warm sopapillas, heavily dusted with cinnamon, arranged on a platter in a sort of Y shape. A scoop of ice cream topped the point where they met, with whipped cream on top of that. The whole thing was covered with blackberries and a not too sweet thin syrup. It was very nice, but far too much for one person.
I'm off on another trip tomorrow - to Houston for a conference, so this will have to suffice for updating this week. At least this trip will be a change of pace, especially as I've never been to Houston before.
Copyright 2002 Miriam H. Nadel