December 2005 Archives

I'm sitting in my sister's Capitol Hill apartment. It's way too early for me to be up, considering I'm on vacation, but no bother, sleep can wait till later. Anna's presently at work and maybe I'll meet her for lunch before visiting the "Newseum" with Andrew and Andrea. It dawned on me, yesterday, that somehow I always end up in the DC area this time of year. No better place to be.

Christmas had a different flavor this year. Most of my immediate family decided to crash my cousins' Dutch Wonderland house in Baltimore (a place my dad quickly rechristened "Holiday Inn"). My cousins, the Smallman family, were gracious enough to share their own space for the weekend, but we all had a blast, making music and eating cookies and Asian food and watching Seinfeld and playing with their new yellow lab puppy, Zissou. (They said I was the first person to recognize the origin of her name.)

On Monday and Tuesday we helped the Reed family renovate their grandmother's house in Southwest Washington D.C. Doing a project like this with my family was much more enjoyable than with a short-term missions-type group. I felt relaxed and sure that I was accomplishing something worthwhile. The three sisters who were moving in were grateful. So grateful, in fact, that, during our lunch break, one of them broke out into an Italian aria she had learned at the Duke Ellington School of Fine Arts. Now that's not usually part of the service project script, is it? And as an added bonus, I learned how to put up sheetrock on a ceiling, though I'm still convinced I did a subpar job. As we kept reminding ourselves, "This won't win any awards, but it'll have to do."

Yesterday I saw Catholic University where Andrew's getting is PhD, and tomorrow I fly back to Boston and Tami, who is returning to us.

And I can't believe the Red Cross was there, too.

Lucy is sad when Laura temps at a low-income-housing company and receives unwanted designs from "the new guy," who brazenly gives her his phone number before she leaves.
Lucy wishes "the intern" had given Laura his number.
Lucy refers to Laura's acupuncture school co-workers according to their race and sexual orientation.
Lucy is excited when Laura gets hit on by man dressed as Paul Revere next to the Old South Meeting House.
Lucy stays home while Laura goes by herself to a Beck concert, with Tami to a Sufjan show, and with the whole gang plus John to an Iron and Wine/Calexico extravaganza.
Lucy watches as Laura loses to Hope twice in an arm-wrestling match - with both arms.
Lucy can't believe that Laura goes into alcohol-wrought laughing hysterics at every church party she attends. So much so that she embarrasses her friends and has to retreat to kitchens and upstairs bedrooms.
Lucy understands when Laura also laughs when one of the tenors at the Messiah sing-along bleats like a sheep in the middle of "All We Like Sheep."
Lucy suspects that Laura is a lesbian when Laura shows up at her work party with Keri.
Lucy misses Laura, who flies home twice in November.
Lucy pees on Laura's rug. Laura subsequently wants to hurt Lucy.
Thus Lucy is surprised that Laura is also a very peaceful, loving person - as indicated by her designation as a "duty-fulfiller" on the Myers-Briggs personality test.
Lucy gets really excited when Laura promises to take on her walk, but when Laura can't find the leash, yet again, Laura gives up, and Lucy is depressed.
Lucy begs Laura for some of her chicken in sage-vermouth sauce, but Laura won't hand it over.
Lucy loves Laura unconditionally. Laura loves Lucy only part of the time.
Lucy will miss Laura a lot when Lucy leaves.

when it snows. Walking in the snow here is like learning a new breed of walking. The clear pathways are few and far between, and when I find them, I feel like I'm strolling through little snow villages, thanks to the piles of uneven, multi-shaded mounds surrounding me. You have to leave things to the imagination after a nor'easter like the one we just experienced. All day at work I watched the snow and freezing rain blow furiously in every direction, heard the lightning and thunder and saw traffic inch along. Then when I stepped out, the skies were clear, the sun was setting in front of me, and all the world was a winter wonderland. Raptured by this sight, I had to ignore my first step as my foot plunged into the then unadulterated depths. Trusty Target boots, I love you.

Such snow made our viewing of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe that much more exciting last night. When we came out of the movie, we expected it to be summer but quickly had to come to terms with reality. So we engaged in a massive snowball fight, making our walk from the theatre to the Uno's restaurant tolerable. We could not exclude the innocent passersby, for after all, they were in our way, and sometimes needed to be used as shields or decoys. Craftiness, surprise attacks, and hits from behind - no strategy was left out. I'm sure the folks at Uno's appreciated us bringing in a bit of the weather with us.