Areas of Unrest

QOTD: "Democracy is the art of running the circus from the monkey cage." - H. L. Mencken

Reading: John Richards, Inter-Office Male

Listening to: nothing

Decluttering accomplishments: sold another 62 books to a used bookstore

7 September 2003 - Key to a Birthday

I am planning a bit of a redesign, but the new color scheme is as far as I've gotten. It won't be anything major, anyway. What I really need to do is update the FAQ and the links pages, but that takes actual thought.

The big news of the week was, of course, my birthday. The weather was too awful to go out to lunch, so Kelly bought a cake. Fortunately, we had a couple of visitors, making it easier to get rid of most of it. I didn't want to be impolite about it, but chocolate cake from the supermarket is hardly my speed. Come to think of it, cakes in general aren't ever going to be my favored form of dessert. But they are the traditional birthday thing and easier to share than, say, creme brulee.

I'm finding it rather hard to believe that I'm 45. The real issue is that our ideas of what is appropriate at what ages have changed, so there's a real conflict between how I feel and how I think I'm supposed to feel. I suppose that merely being concious of that is a good enough reality check.

I took advantage of a major improvement in the weather (sunny, but not very hot) for a nice little excursion this weekend. My major excuse was getting rid of the books that the more local used bookstores had rejected. Wonder Book in Frederick, Maryland claims to buy nearly anything. They do - though they don't pay as well as the more selective stores. They sell a lot of the lesser stuff by the foot to interior decorators, so they can afford to be bottom feeders. On the other hand, the store is an interesting mix of trash and treasure. Actually, they have three stores and I can only comment on the one on West Patrick Street in Frederick. (There's another in Frederick and a third in Hagerstown.) I was tempted by several things - Trixie Belden paper dolls, for example. But, in the end, the one purchase I made was a copy of The Department of Dead Ends by Roy Vickers. It was a bit expensive, but I've been looking for it for several years, so it was worthwhile.

Having driven nearly 60 miles, I wasn't going to confine myself to the bookstore. So I drove over to the historic center of town and did a Volksmarch that covered much of the more interesting parts of the town. The thing that Frederick is most famous for is the poem, "Barbara Fritchie" by John Greenleaf Whittier. ("Shoot if you must this old grey head/ but spare your country's flag" she said.) Not great poetry, but everyone learns it in school and the entire poem is on a plaque outside her house. There are a number of attractive historic houses, mostly early 19th century. The walk also included the campus of Hood College, a couple of parks, the Community Mural bridge (a concrete underpass that is painted with a lovely design of ivy and medallions), and the Mount Olivet Cemetery. The latter includes a row of headstones of Confederate soldiers killed during the Antietam campaign (including a monument to the unknowns), as well as Barbara Fritchie's grave and the Francis Scott Key memorial. All in all, it was an enjoyable walk and a good way to take advantage of the weather. There are several museums in the area, too, so one could easily make a reasonable day trip even if one didn't want to walk 11 kilometers.