I forgot to mention a minor bit of food pornography last week. One of the challenges with traveling with a colleague and sharing a car is going out to dinner together. It can get hard if you're traveling with somebody who isn't particularly adventurous about food. So it was a bit of a victory that I managed to talk Andy into eating Cuban food at Versailles one night. I'd actually sort of forgotten that they had a branch in Manhattan Beach, but had looked at the restaurant section of the phone book for inspiration. The main point of going there is garlic. The garlic chicken is the most popular, but I'm more of a fish eater and went for the salmon. Everything comes with black beans and rice and fried plaintain. When Andy asked me what the latter was, I explained, "it's like bananas, but edible." At any rate, it was a good meal, even if I later heard that Andy told his wife that I'd made him eat weird food.
Celebrity deaths of the week were primarily voices - those of Fred Flintstone and Tony the Tiger. I think there are fewer people now who are known only for doing voices. Nancy Cartwright, who voices Bart Simpson, perhaps. But most of the animated films have stars who are "regular" actors, as well.
This was pretty much a routine week, so nothing exciting to report. I spent yesterday trying to catch up on decluttering and made some progress, but there is still a significant backlog of stuff to go through. I should have done more today, but it was very nice out and I needed to get out for a bit. So I drove to Purcellville and did one of the year-round Volksmarch walks there. The town walk was largely through residential neighborhoods, with a couple of stretches that had some historic buildings. This qualifies as yet another moderately cute Virginia town. It was a pleasant enough walk, though a bit lacking in shade in some sections. It was also my 50th Volksmarch, so I can finally send in the book for the next award, as well as my first 500 kilometer distance award.
I got home in time to watch the Indy 500 on TV, but first I had to have my peace disturbed by a local ice cream truck. I have nothing against ice cream trucks, actually, but this one plays a tune that is the worst ear worm known to mankind. For hours and hours the damn tune keeps running through my head. I think I'm particularly susceptible to this phenomenon and what I really want to know is why it's so rare that tunes I like get stuck in my head. Instead, it always seems to be these bloody irritating jingles. The worst part is that just about when I cleared my head of it, that ice cream truck came back for an evening round.
As for the Indy 500, I hadn't watched it in several years, but I had to watch Danica Patrick. Back around junior high, one of my ambitions was to be the first woman to win the Indy 500, a goal which didn't fade until years later when I realized that I was basically too much of a wimp. Back then I memorized all the names of the winners and read books about race car drivers and cheered for my favorite, Lloyd Ruby, who always seemed to lose in more and more bizarre ways. On my first trip to Indianapolis, I insisted that we had to visit the Speedway, which was actually pretty cool, especially the part where you get in a bus and they take you on a lap around the course.
Danica did quite well, despite losing at the end. She certainly fought her way back from the trouble she had at one pit stop and from a near accident. I have to admit that I was a bit weirded out by the starter who said, "Lady and gentlemen, start your engines." It reminded me a bit too much of a professor I had my senior year of college who would start his lectures by saying, "Gentlemen," before taking a slow look around the room and adding, "and Miss Nadel." I'm also far more impressed by the pit crews than I was as a teenager. I'm lucky if I can get my gas cap unscrewed in the time it takes them to change all four tires, refuel, and tweak odds and ends of the car.
Copyright 2005 Miriam H. Nadel