I’m hungry and it’s Tuesday. Tuesday means a farmer’s market across the street at the Department of Transportation, and I have not been yet this summer. Time to rectify that oversight. I go down the elevator and out the office building doors, hang a right to stop at the ATM just a few feet away, and then backtrack, cross the street, and walk down the block. It’s early for lunch – around 10:30 – so there are only a few people wandering around. There aren’t many stalls, and I wander past them all before deciding what I want.

Though I’m only there to acquire food, I like looking at the non-food items. I stop at one booth to peruse the jewelry. A pretty purple and cream bracelet gets my attention, and the guy puts it on my wrist and tells me all about the beads and where they’re from in South America and why they’re environmentally friendly. If I hadn’t just opened a letter from my insurance this morning telling me about more root canal/crown charges they won’t cover, and thus if the $350 bill I am now expecting from my dentist wasn’t on my mind right then, I might have bought it. But I’m feeling poor today, so I take the bracelet off and continue on my way.

I stop at another booth to peruse the teas. I actually wasn’t going to stop at that one – it’s tea; there really isn’t that much to look at – but the guy starts talking to me, so I pause. He offers me a sample of iced tea and I pass. He asks me if I’m a tea drinker. I tell him I like the concept of tea and want to be a tea drinker, but that I’m just not that into it. He asks if there is a kind I like. I tell him I only drink herbal tea, but otherwise, nothing in particular. He opens jars of loose tea for me to smell. Unarguably, they smell very good, but smell and taste are two different things. Sure, I like tea once I’ve added enough sugar or honey, but it just seems so pointless to consume all that sugar. Still, one citrus tea smells really, really good. He again offers the iced tea sample and clarifies that it’s herbal. I accept the sample and swallow a swig. It’s unsweetened, of course, and it tastes like… herbal tea. But not bad. I’m tempted by that citrus tea, but decide to pass for now. I ask him if he comes every week, and he does. Maybe next time.

A wander past all of the booths and then backtrack to one that had some strawberries and raspberries. I get a canister of each, as well as a few veggies. And a small loaf of zucchini bread. I move to another booth to get some chicken marsala for lunch. I leave the market and return to my office.

The berries are sitting on my desk now and smell heavenly.

I am consumed by guilt.

This morning I walked outside, locked the door behind me, and turned to go up the stairs. I stopped short when I saw before me a large and quite lovely spider web. Quite large. And a spider right in the middle. As long as bugs are outside, I’m generally content to ignore them as we go about our separate lives. Unfortunately, the web spread across the entire stairwell, and unless I planned to never leave my apartment, the web had to go. I grabbed a brick laying nearby and brushed the web aside. And felt guilty.

The poor spider clearly spent all night working on that web, and there he sat, awaiting the arrival of breakfast. He was probably tired and hungry after all that web weaving. And I brushed it aside in two seconds, destroying his breakfast-catcher.

So guilty.

I’m also not entirely certain I didn’t step on him on the way up the stairs. He sort of blended into the brick and dirt and leaves.

So guilty.

I came home from work to find two packages for me, both from Amazon.com. I wasn’t expecting anything, so I searched my brain trying to remember ordering something. I grabbed the packages, brought them and the rest of my mail inside, and dropped my work bag on the floor near the door.

I opened the first box to find… a stuffed camel! I’m on a serious camel kick right now (also: octopus), and I remembered adding the camel to my Amazon wish list, but I didn’t remember ordering it. I tried to think of reasons this came in the mail. The package had no receipt, no indication of why it was sent. I started fearing for my sanity. I reviewed drugs I’d taken lately, but the strongest thing I’ve taken is Aleve and ibuprofen. Hmmm….

I opened the second package to find… a book! And a book that I just added to my wishlist less than a week ago. Okay, now I really feared for my sanity. Forgetting about ordering one thing is, well, one thing, but forgetting about ordering two things is a whole ‘nother thing.

Confusion.

Then I noticed a receipt from the book package that had fallen on the floor that I hadn’t noticed. I picked it up and saw that the purchaser was my mom. I figured both packages were from her. I need not fear for my sanity after all.

But… why would she just randomly send a couple gifts? I mean, my mom’s awesome and all, but she doesn’t have a history of just randomly sending gifts for no reason. Wait… then I remembered. Oh yeah! My birthday is next week! And I’d totally and completely forgotten!

What a happy way to come home from work on a Friday.

1. The dentist. Again. This, however, is the end of The Saga of the Broken Tooth (And Its Necessary Repair). The final crown is on. It feels good to have the temporary crown off; I really hated the feel of that thing. This crown feels like a real tooth. The installation and cementing of the crown was mostly painless (only mostly), and no numbing was required (so no painful shots). I am relieved. The dentist told me she understood if I needed a month or two away from them, but that I really shouldn’t wait longer than that to schedule a cleaning and checkup. Whimper. She is right, but… whimper.

B. It feels odd to be sitting on metro – an end car, no less, though it was a 6000 series and not a 1000 series car – and reading an article in the paper about Monday’s crash.

iii. The humidity today is horrible! Miserable! I walked out my door this morning and immediately wanted to retreat to the cooler, drier air of my apartment. Ugh. The half-block walk to the bus stop left me sticky. And that was at 6:30 in the morning. This morning I wandered around the Navy Yard (less than half a mile of walking) to talk to some people who had information I needed, and got all sweaty and gross. It’s just nasty out there. And it’s hard to breathe in all that moisture! Surely the founders of the nation could have found someplace a little less swamp-like to declare as the capital. It’s going to be a long, miserable summer. And this is (so far) a very mild summer. Yep, summer may kill me dead. I kind of want to go to the Folklife Festival this weekend, but the thought of spending much time outside is… not a happy thought.

4. I do not like sun-dried tomatoes. I LOVE chocolate-covered strawberries.

E. I’m writing an article for a Navy magazine (no guarantees it will get published, but I like my chances) about this thing at work (a gun was placed on the ship and it fit and was connected and everything worked; it sounds boring and routine, but it’s actually a really big deal), and so I’m gathering details. Since it’s a magazine article, I’m trying to make it interesting (as opposed to most of the documentation I work on which is… not), and I thought a bit of humanizing of the experience might be interesting. So during a call with a couple subject matter experts I asked them how people reacted when they first installed the gun. Excitement? Emotion?

“Well,” said one guy, “we’re engineers… so we don’t really get excited or emotional.”

vi. When I shared the above on another blog, a friend shared this joke (which amused me greatly):

An engineering student was talking to another engineering student, telling him about an experience he had on campus one day.

He said, “I was walking to class when this girl rode by me on her bike. All of a sudden she jumped off her bike right in front of me, ripped off her clothes and exclaimed with arms held wide, “Take whatever you want!”

The fellow student said, “What did you do?”

He replied “I took the bike, of course. The clothes wouldn’t have fit me.”

7. I LOVE FIREFLIES!

Okay, I’ve been driving to work most days because it’s faster (10 minutes or less from home to work and vice versa) than bus or train, though sometimes I do public transport because, hey, I like variety, and also sometimes public transport is easier depending on what is happening before or after work. As an added incentive, for right now, parking on the street for free is easy since I work in the same zone I live in. I don’t know how long that will last as it is dependent upon when they start building new buildings where I’m parking, but for now it works.

But I have a complaint. The drivers on M Street SE are driving me insane! I realize it’s a wide road, but the speed limit is 25 MPH, and they do have cameras that actually monitor that and give out tickets. I know this because I know a couple people who’ve been ticketed. Now, I will be the first to agree that 25 MPH is too slow on that road specifically because it’s nice and wide (6 lanes in theory, but even though people aren’t supposed to park on it during rush hours, there are usually cars parked or stopped, thus limiting it to 4 lanes, but that’s still pretty wide), and I’ll also be the first to admit that I don’t drive 25 MPH either. I tend to keep it around 33 MPH figuring it’s slow enough that I’m not worth ticketing (fingers crossed) but fast enough that I don’t feel seriously put out by having to limit my awesomeness with such a slow speed limit. Or something.

But it makes me want to scream when a significant number of cars are careening down the road and around me on both sides at high speed, dodging cars that are turning (or trying to move into a lane to turn, but the careening cars PASSING ON THE RIGHT are making that tricky), dodging a million pedestrians (‘cause, hey, it’s a city, and there’s a metro station nearby), and generally making a menace of themselves. It’s annoying! Dear horrible DC drivers: it would be a real treat if you could avoid hitting my car, and as an added bonus, I’d really rather not see you slaughter the pedestrians. It would really ruin my day.

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My officemate is mumbling to the walls. I make out, “This doesn’t make any sense….” I ask him if it was something I wrote that doesn’t makes sense. He laughs and says no.

“Oh good,” I reply. “Then I don’t care that it doesn’t make sense.”

My drive to the airport (BWI¹) was completely painless. I left my house during the tail end of rush hour, but I was going the opposite direction than most everyone else – fleeing the city – and I didn’t encounter even a hint of slowing the entire way. I easily found my preferred off-site parking place and quickly stuffed my iPod and GPS in my backpack and popped my trunk while the shuttle waited patiently behind my car. A few minutes later I was at the airport.

I’d never flow AirTran before and for some reason when I think of their name I also think, “We break apart mid-air all the time.” Absurd, sure, but there it is. However, they were significantly cheaper than anyone else, so I figured I’d give them a shot. The lines for checking in or checking your bags were confusing, but they had a minion there whose sole purpose seemed to be to direct people to the right line. My line wasn’t long, but it moved annoyingly slow. However, I’m quite neurotic about getting to the airport unnecessarily early, so it wasn’t a problem. My bag was checked and then I made it through the very short lines of the farcical security theater quickly. (By the way, AirTran seemed about the same as any other airline, so I’d fly with them again.)

The flight was fine (and nicely short – only about 80 minutes), and I finally made it to Maine! Sweet, lovely Maine! A state I’ve pined over for many years! The airport is tiny – only 10 gates – and I easily grabbed my luggage and found my cousin. We first went to get lunch: seafood. The place also had some other stuff, but I decided to try the seafood since, you know, I was in Maine. I liked the haddock and, to my surprise, the fried clams were actually my favorite as long as I didn’t think too much about them (which is the same approach I take with sushi; I love sushi, but I can’t think about what it is). The shrimp was… shrimp. I’ve never liked shrimp. The texture is unpleasant. The scallops were the only thing I really disliked, though. Very slimy.

No longer hungry, we set out so I could be introduced to the lovely state of Maine. She showed me around Portland, a lovely little city (population: 64,000; the Portland metro area has a population of 230,000, about a quarter of the population of the state). She took me to the Portland Head Light, the lighthouse that is featured in pretty much every Maine photo that involves lighthouses. It really was quite lovely.

We drove to Kennebunk and Kennebunkport and saw the achingly cute main streets. We drove by the Bush compound (okay, I can see why they like it there), and as we drove by, Jeb Bush’s son and the son’s wife came jogging out of the complex, out for a bit of exercise.

After that, my cousin needed to pick up a U-Haul so she could pick up a couch and loveseat so we would have something to sit on (she’s been a bit slow about furnishing her house; all her stuff is still in Dallas). She drove the U-Haul and I drove her car. Initially I panicked. Driving unexpectedly in a strange area?! What if I lose her?!

Then I rolled my eyes at myself and got a grip. Note the population listed above. There really was not much traffic, even in the city part. I’ve been driving (and getting lost) in the DC metro area, an area with a much larger population, infamously horrible traffic, and some of the worst drivers I’ve ever seen, for almost a year. Somehow, I’m pretty sure I can manage to follow a U-Haul though Portland traffic. And if I somehow lost her due to a t-rex suddenly crossing the road and separating us (or some other unlikely scenario involving black helicopters or an attack of killer cucumbers), I was armed with a cell phone and GPS.

But we made it to her house without any vegetables or men in black or cloned dinosaurs separating us.

Lovely house. It’s sort of middle of nowhere-ish, surrounded by forest and water. You even have to drive down a dirt road to get to her house. Awesome views.

We ate. We crashed.

The next day we went up and down the coast, hitting a variety of towns, seeing the adorable main streets and enjoying the beautiful shores. We then headed south, to New Hampshire. Her boyfriend² lives there, a mere 45 minutes from Salem, Massachusetts, and we spent the night at his place. Most kind of him.

Saturday – the only day it didn’t rain during this trip – was very cool. How could it not be cool? It’s Salem! It’s infamous! My cousin found a great parking space³, and we started at the Salem Witch Museum. The museum has a little reenactment thing that was insanely melodramatic, but fun and fairly enlightening. Then they take you into an area to learn just a little about witchcraft the ages. That part contained some mind-boggling inaccuracies, and as soon as we left the museum, I ranted to my cousin about them. I do enjoy a good rant, and that museum deserved every eye roll and flailing arm.

We then took a trolley tour around the town. It was good, though it too contained inaccurate information, though we didn’t know it until that night when we were back at my cousin’s house and she looked up something they said about the game Clue. The trolley tour guide was wrong. It was NOT based on a murder that happened there. So if you go, believe nothing anyone tells you. But it’s still cool to see the place and be a Salem tourist. I did have a lot of fun there.

We had lunch and wandered around a bit (I must link to my favorite headstone), stopping to chat with a tattooed man missing a lot of teeth about some of the inaccuracies of the museums and about the maritime history of Salem (really, there’s more than witch trials to the place). He recommended a good ghost tour, but the ghost tours are in the evening and we weren’t staying that long. I love ghost tours, though (did one in Rome and quite enjoyed it), so that just means I’ll have to go back sometime. We also chatted with a psychic who was wrong about both things she tried to read (or whatever) about us. Oh, yes, Salem is crawling with psychics. Pretty much every other storefront advertises a psychic within.

Salem definitely was fun. But it was time to flee and we hit a couple coastal towns in Massachusetts before heading northward back to Maine.

Sunday was more wanderings around coastal towns. I’d list them for each day, but alas, I don’t know them all so I’m not even going to try. They were all lovely. I think this was the day my cousin took me to see the area where she will be building her house. We couldn’t go see exactly where because she has to build a road first. It will be right on the edge, looking over the crashing waves. Awesome.

Monday, the final day, we went back to Portland. We were going to do a boat tour, but it was too rainy. That will have to be saved for a later trip. We did take a trolley tour of Portland, though, and that was fun. It took us back out to the lighthouse where I started the visit to Maine – an appropriate bookend.

After that, we went to Walmart and my cousin had a couple keys copied. She gave me a key to her house so I can come up again whenever, even if she isn’t there. Is she not the most awesome cousin ever? We went and had a late lunch at a Chinese buffet (ah, now I see it is a genetic thing to love Chinese food), and then she dropped me off at the airport.

The flight home was as painless as flying in the U.S. can be, and I arrived home and actually found a spot to park on my block. Alas, my time in Maine was too short. I really loved it there. I also loved hanging out with my cousin and getting to know her better. I grew comfortable with her quickly and really loved talking with her. It really was an awesome trip.

³Actually, it wasn’t hard because, even though it is now tourist season, there were not a whole lot of tourists. Even in Maine. Dead. Bad for the economy of those areas, where they rely on tourists for a lot of their income, but great for me. When we were driving around Maine, my cousin marveled at how little traffic there was, how the routes we were on were normally bumper to bumper with very slow-moving traffic at this time of year, and yet we moved along swiftly, encountering no crowds at all. So if you want to hit New England and avoid crowds, now is clearly a good time.

My photos from the trip are now online: http://albums.phanfare.com/4486087/4083094

The dentist. Again. It hurt, though definitely not as bad as the fun of the root canal. There was quite a bit of blood though, because the dentist had to drill below the gum line. That hurt. She numbed part of the gum, but not all of it. I thought of asking for it to be numbed more, but then decided the shot and numbness would actually be worse than the pain of the drill.

Though they can do a final crown in their office sometimes, it turned out they couldn’t for this one. At first the dentist thought she’d be able to, but once she started drilling she finally found the problematic crack in the tooth, and that meant more of the tooth had to be drilled away. So I have a temporary crown (which feels unpleasantly weird) and have to go back in 2 weeks. Again. Though at least that should be the end of the torture.

And it all (root canal + crown) only cost $3600. Ugh. Hopefully my insurance will cover $1500 of that.

In a couple weeks, I will hit the one-year mark since my last check-up, but I just can’t quite work up the desire to make an appointment for that. I’ve had enough barbaric torture for a while. I do like that this office has 7 AM appointments, though. It nicely minimizes the time I miss from work.

But it’s over for now. And by this time tomorrow I will be at the airport waiting to board my flight to Maine! Squee! I’m not taking my laptop, so I’ll probably be unplugged until I return on Monday. It will be good for me to get away from the computer screens that dominate my life.

Last Sunday the bishop announced that there would be a baptism this week. Two, in fact! One baptizee is the son of a member of the ward. The bishop married him and his girlfriend a couple weeks ago so he could be baptized. I don’t know how the other baptizee found the Church, but I’m assuming the missionaries found him fairly randomly.

Once again, as I have each time a baptism has been announced (there have been around half a dozen in the almost-year I’ve been here), I thought, “I really want to go.” Each previous time, however, I didn’t go for a variety of lame reason.

But this time I went. And it was wonderful!

First I had to find the building. Each time a baptism was announced I mapped the address of the Anacostia Ward building. Very easy to get to even without using a GPS. Go down Pennsylvania Avenue for about 3 miles and hang a right at Southern Avenue. That’s it. Still, I’m nervous trying to find new places.

But I found the building, and it was as easy to find as it possibly could have been. It’s kind of a weird design: it’s round. I’m guessing it originally belonged to some other denomination. I like its weird design, though. This building definitely had personality.

I went into the building and, to my relief, immediately saw a couple friends from church, so went to sit next to them. We chatted until the baptism finally got underway, and it proceeded much as baptisms everywhere seem to proceed: a talk on the Holy Ghost, a musical number, a talk on baptism (the talks were reversed because the baptism speaker was late), the actual baptisms, and then a welcome into the ward by the bishop and (since these were both men) by the elder’s quorum president. (They’ll be confirmed in the next sacrament meeting.)

Let me take a quick diversion to explain the baptismal font. I’ve never seen anything like it in an LDS church, which further confirms my assumption that this had to belong to some other denomination before. The font was in the chapel (most LDS fonts I’ve seen seem to go in the Relief Society room, though I’ve also seen them in the back of the chapel of the smaller-designed churches), and it was up high, quite a ways above the stand (I’d guess 10 feet above the stand floor). It was behind a projector screen and curtains, which the missionaries raised and opened, respectively. Odd design. But it clearly works fine.

The baptisms themselves, of course, were the important part of the event. As each man entered the water and was baptized, the Spirit was intense. I must admit, I teared up. It was wonderful to see the happiness on each of their faces. They each had a missionary baptize them, and the missionaries also glowed with happiness. I haven’t been to an adult baptism since my mission, and it brought back so many memories of how I felt on those rare, special days – so incredibly happy and so filled with the Spirit.

Now that I know where to go, I’m totally going to attend more baptisms. They really are wonderful things.

Weird nightmare last night.

One of my hobbies is LDS apologetics, and I am on an email list for an apologetics organization, FAIR. I got behind on reading emails, so last night I was catching up. I also watched the movie 1408¹. I love a good scary movie.

And then I went to bed.

The nightmare involved me editing an apologetics-related book for FAIR. Now, I often dream about editing since I edit a lot for work. Usually I dream about editing government documents, though, and I tend to wake up from those dreams really annoyed because they are always incredibly boring dreams. What a waste of a REM cycle. But editing the apologetics-related book was more interesting: it involved a lot of monsters. The abominable snowman (and he wasn’t the friendly one at the end of Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer) had a prominent role.

There was this huge high school that was pretty much gutted and open in the back. It was trashed and looked more like an enormous abandoned warehouse. I and several other random FAIRsters were editing the book by fighting (and being chased by) the monsters so we could ensure we had the correct monster-slaying information in the book. It sort of seemed like the monsters were winning, though, so looking back on the dream while awake, I can’t say it was a particularly useful book. There wasn’t much plot in the dream, just a lot of running and being freaked out and… editing.

Yeah. Weird. And it was scary, too.

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¹1408 was pretty good, but I’m still waiting for another movie that will make me cry like The Ring did. Man, that one scared the crap out of me.

The weather, though warmer than I prefer, is nice today, so I headed out to be one with the city. Cultural Tourism DC hosts WalkingTown DC, a chance to explore various areas of the city. This weekend is the spring WalkingTown, and I decided to join one of the tours: Saint Mary’s Episcopal Church. Saint Mary’s was built in 1866 as the first Episcopal Church for African Americans in Washington, DC, and was a former Civil War Chapel donated by Lincoln’s Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton.

The tour met at the Foggy Bottom metro station. I was about 20 minutes early, so I sat in a little park area in the shade near where everyone was gathering. I haven’t been to that area before, but it was very easy to find the group.There were about 20 of us - a nice size. George Washington University surrounds the metro station. I noted that GWU hospital is right above the metro stop, and so if I need a hospital I’ll have to see if my insurance covers that one. When I used Howard University Hospital last year, I wasn’t thrilled: their computers were screwy, they lost some blood results, and then they totally screwed up the billing. I was displeased. That’s the closest hospital, but it didn’t leave me wanting to return. With GWU on the blue/orange line, which I use most frequently, it would be convenient. Anyway, I’ve made a mental note, just in case it comes in handy.

But back to the tour…. I love churches (and synogogues and mosques and other religious buildings). I love the beauty. I love the sacred space. I love the architecture. The church is a block south of the metro station, so we learned a bit of the history of the area as we walked down to the church. We went into a Sunday school area and learned about the history of the church. It was a bit dull. History almost always is dull. I often think I should care, and get annoyed with my wandering mind. But why should I be annoyed? I like many things, but history isn’t one of them, and that’s fine. Why must I like everything? Why must I force the history down?

But then we moved into the church itself, where we learned about the architecture and history of the building and a bit about Episcopalianism. These I found very interesting. It’s a beautiful church. I loved stained glass windows. The one in the photo below is a Tiffany. It was my favorite one. It was very beautiful, of course, but I also have a thing for angels. Love ‘em. You can’t really see it in this photo, but it is a memorial to Edwin Stanton who, as I mentioned above, was the Secretary of War, and the bowl that the angel is holding says “PEACE” on it. It’s really a beautiful window.

The tour lasted a couple hours. Definitely a good way to spend the morning. The fall WalkingTown DC is in September, and I definitely plan to join more tours.

After that, I headed up the street to catch a bus to Georgetown, which was nearby. I needed shoes. Sadly, no shoes were purchased. I couldn’t find anything I liked that were comfortable enough. I’ve bought shoes online for years because I was in the middle of nowhere and it was just easier that way, but I thought that I’d try 3-D stores now that I’m living in a city. But… meh. That didn’t work too well. Back to Zappos.com.

But though the shoes were a bust, cupcakes were a success. Georgetown has two cupcake places: Georgetown Cupcake and Baked and Wired. I know, the cupcake craze is achingly pretentious, and I don’t even really like cake much, but I wanted to try them. So I bought a couple cupcakes from each store. I haven’t tried them yet, so I don’t know which I like better. They’re cute, though.

While wandering around Georgetown, I grew hot, hungry, and really thirsty. Why am I incapable of remembering to bring water with me when I know I’m going to be walking for a few hours? Why do the brain cells refuse to make that connection before I leave the house? Why?! I have a lovely bottle purchased specifically for water when wandering, and in the 8 months or so that I’ve had it, I’ve remembered to bring it once. Maybe twice. Alas.

Anyway, I was considering stopping for lunch in one of the many restaurants that I passed. However, I hate eating alone in restaurants. I don’t mind hitting museums or, well, pretty much anywhere else alone. I’m quite happy to explore cities - even foreign cities - without fellow travellers. It works well for me. I love doing things on my own schedule. But I hate eating in restaurants alone. I feel… conspicuous.

But just then I passed a Häagen-Dazs. Perfect. Less conspicuousness and likely to have smoothies. So I got a smoothie and water. The smoothie was was cooling and filling (and quite yummy) and the water quenched the thirst. The Georgetown shopping continued in comfort. And then I returned home.

A lovely day.

My officemate has a telecon this morning, and so he’s got his phone on speaker. I’m not sure what time it starts, but people are just phoning in now, and it’s quiet except for the occasional “joining conference” the system says as people phone in.

One person joined the conference and it was quiet for a minute. And then we heard this amusingly sad and lost voice say, “Is… anyone there?”

Photo credit: soldiersmediacenter

…[W]e can not dedicate… we can not consecrate… we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government: of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address

It’s the start of a 3-day weekend. Yay! I have no plans, but I’m okay with that. Actually I want to read a lot. I haven’t been reading much lately, and I miss it. I was thinking of hitting a museum or two, but then I realized that was a stupid plan; they’re going to be packed this weekend.

But the long weekend started well. Last night I went to a birthday party for my cousin and her husband – both turned 40. It was fun. I didn’t know anyone else there because everyone else was friends from their ward, but they were all cool and I had fun talking with them. And we ate absolutely delicious barbecue. Yum! ‘Twas a lovely evening.

One thing we did at the birthday party was have a root beer taste test. They had six kinds (a generic, A&W, and four high-end brands including one diet). They’d been poured into little cups labeled A through F so we testers didn’t know which kind we tasted. We marked down our favorite on a paper. The winner (and the one I liked best as well): the generic Safeway root beer. Huh. A&W was my second favorite.

I don’t drink much soda (I don’t like carbonation), but I do once in a while. However, the next time I want some root beer, I’ll get the cheap Safeway kind!

I just took a survey about a website I visit sometimes. They’d recently redone it and sought feedback. The answer options for one of the questions was a bit odd:

How well do the main headings offer adequate descriptions of the content in each section?

Delightful
Excellent
Satisfactory
Unsatisfactory
A Failure

I’ve never taken a survey with the option of “delightful”. I think it should show up on more surveys.

On Wednesday I went to the first DC area FMH^a snacker^b. It was fun! Six of us came. We met at a restaurant in Alexandria for food and conversation. Cool women, all. The food… meh. (We went to Le Madeline Cafe.) When we were just getting to know one another, asking what each person did and where each person lived, I found out that one person lives just around the corner from me, about a block away. And another person is also a technical writer. And two of the women have husbands who also work for the Navy. Anyway, we talked, we ate, we decided we definitely have to get together again. I know of four others who wanted to come but had scheduling conflicts, so hopefully they’ll be able to come to the next one, whenever it may be.

^a FMH = Feminist Mormon Housewives, an LDS-themed blog.

^bWhat the heck is a snacker? It’s short for bloggersnacker. The LDS blogging world, termed the Bloggernacle, coined the term. Bloggers and commenters of a particular blog sometimes set up a snacker to gather for food and frolic. Most snackers seem to happen in Utah and Idaho since, well, that’s where a lot of Mormons are. Duh. But several weeks ago, on some random thread on FMH, several of us DC readers discovered one another and decided a DC snacker was definitely needed.