Work has, once again, turned insane, though most of what I have to do is wait and watch things swirl around the bigwigs. While I went out two evenings this week, most of my coping strategy has been a fit of distracting domesticity. The evenings out were, alas, consecutive, which is exhausting, but that's how things happen sometimes. Tuesday night was Speakeasy (the open mike that Washington Storytellers Theatre does at HR-57) and I told "The Three Sisters" to a great reaction. I left at intermission, though, because it takes me an hour to get home from the city and I was tired enough already. I was at an all-day meeting near where I live on Wednesday, so it was way weird to go into the city afterwards. In that case, it was to hear Paris Combo play at the Museum of Natural History. Fortunately, that didn't go too late, but I was still in zombie-mode on Thursday. It was a good, but not great, concert, mostly because the acoustics of the auditorium were sort of odd. They really deserve a more intimate, loungier setting. In fact, HR-57 would be the perfect environment.
Anyway, Monday night had been enforced domesticity because I'd found out that Tuesday was Alex's 40th birthday and I figured we needed to mark the event. I guess I hadn't baked a cake in quite some time, as I had to search for where I had put the mixer. In fact, I have two hand mixers precisely because of a previous time when I couldn't remember where the mixer was and concluded it must have broken and been discarded. The bigger challenge was figuring out which blades went with which mixer. The cake was successful, though transporting it on the Metro was mildly challenging. I'd also found a musical candle shaped like a tombstone, reading "Over the Hill," and playing the funeral march. Our group also went out to lunch, along with Alex's wife who is lively and personable.
But it's the weekend that is where real domesticity comes in. I cleaned, did laundry, knitted, cooked and may even bake bread before it's over. Not that I'm about to turn into Martha Stewart, but at least the freezer is full of tuna casserole and vegetable curry and chili. About all I went out for was a quick used bookstore run and the normal grocery shopping. That was enough to discover that it has finally turned into winter, at least as far as temperatures are concerned. Is it evil of me to wish for bad weather for the coronation, er, inauguration on Thursday?
Copyright 2005 Miriam H. Nadel