Celebrity death of the week is, of course, Robert Goulet. His performance as Lancelot was definitive, particularly in the song "If Ever I Would Leave You."
There was an actual metro scrolling announcement this week which read, "Due to speed restrictions, trains will be traveling at a reduced rate of speed between Judiciary Square and Gallery Place." They did update it later in the week to refer to a switching problem, but I swear this is what the displays at the stations said for at least two days.
The metro is a little on my mind this week because I got to be a sort of Nielson family of transportation. That is, I got chosen to be part of a transportation survey being conducted by the local council of governments and had to keep a journal of all my trips on Monday. That was probably not the most interesting day for them to choose, since I was in post-World Series euphoria zombie mode. (For anyone who missed it, John Lester pitched brilliantly. who'd a thunk it?) So basically, I went to work, went over to the hardware store and a sandwich shop at lunchtime, and came home.
Thursday or Friday would have been more interesting. Thursday I went over to Rosslyn to have lunch with Kim. We'd intended to try the Afghani restaurant, but discovered that it had closed. So we ended up at Kenpai where I ran into two former colleagues. Had I thought of it, there's another sushi place in the area, which I've never tried. Then I went back to Crystal City for a meeting in a building other than the one I work in. And I made a trip to my storage place to bring over folding chairs.
Friday was fairly routine during the day, but I did a bunch of errand running after work. I picked up a theatre ticket at the National Theatre box office (for Avenue Q, in case you were wondering). And then I walked back to Foggy Bottom to run another errand. I do enjoy walking around the city, despite having to dodge the tourists around the White House.
I had a much less satisfying walk today in Baltimore, where I did one of the year round Volksmarch events. The instructions for the first part of the walk, through the Johns Hopkins campus, were very confusing. My knees were balking at the hills and, overall, I just didn't like the walk as much as I usually do. The rest of my weekend was basically errandy, including dropping off a donation at the Book Thing, which was the real reason for my drive to Baltimore. I also made several excursions over to the condo to bring stuff there (and to let in the carpet cleaning crew). I've been ferrying books over, which is a task that feels more or less endless. But stacking them in the closets is a useful thing to do, as it will make it relatively easy to fill the bookshelves again once the furniture is moved. I've also bought a new mattress, which is something I've needed for a long time. Being self-indulgent is bloody expensive though. I have two more major purchases in the near term (a futon and a new computer) and I think any other furniture is just going to have to wait until the spring. (Well, I will buy a couple of floor lamps and a desk chair for the study nook, but those are not horribly pricy.) Between that and having had to actually buy my plane ticket for my trip to Fiji as nothing was available using miles, I think I've spent more money this week than I normally do in three months.
By the way, on the way back from Baltimore, I noticed that the odometer on my car is not working. Either that, or I teleported back. I had noticed the trip meter not working after the last time I bought gas a couple of weeks ago, so the odometer has probably been dead for at least a couple of hundred miles now. One more thing to get taken care of, sigh.
Okay, back to packing and sorting out stuff to get rid of.
Copyright 2007 Miriam H. Nadel