Read It!

The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism by Megan Marshall.

http://books.google.com/books?id=7RyZi29r0GsC

It got great reviews. They are all correct and then some. The three are Elizabeth, Mary and Sophia, of whom I only knew about because she married Nathaniel Hawthorne. Stephanie and I learned of her when we visited the famous house in which they honeymooned. The more I read the more angry I become that although Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, et al...are ensconced in the hall of American literary fame, the only one of these three I had heard of to now was Sophia...and then only in relationship to Hawthorne. Argh.

Two Allman Concerts in One Week

The big news around here is two ABB concerts in one week...Tuesday, the 14th, at Nissan in Virginia and last Saturday, the 18th at Mountain Laurel Center in East Stroudsberg, Pa. We met Howie and his friend Eileen in Pa at the motel we all stayed in, the Shannon Inn. An interesting place, that....an Irish name, a Mexican restaurant (which turned out to be pretty good), and run by Indian immigrants. The U.S. at its melting pot best, I guess. The concert was great, though the place was goofy, and we were totally exhausted by the time we got home on Sunday, late afternoon. Probably the stop at Cabella's on the way didn't help. I'm still trying to recover.

Very Important Breaking News of the Day

The City finally filled our pothole..it isn't pretty but it shouldn't threaten to break your axle any more.

The library is closed due to lack of air conditioning. It was already 95% at the Starbucks on Connecticut Avenue an hour or so ago...and a bit like a steambath outside.

I did my 400th circuit at Curves this morning....I've actually done more because I've done some at other Curves when I was out of town, but 400 at the Idaho Avenue Curves, the one to which I belong.

Too Predictable

So I couldn't sleep very well last night, kept waking up and so tried to finish reading "Middlesex." It's very good up until the last section, which starts to sound way too much like the Human Sexuality text I used in my course (and so I presume is very interesting to everyone who hasn't had a similar class) and becomes too predictable in terms of plot...so I'm doing a very unusual thing for me and giving it up...well, I skimmed it...I'm not sure when Oprah will be talking about it on her show, but I'm hoping I luck into it anyhow, just to see what others have to say.

Broken English

We hadn't seen Tammy in awhile so she came in yesterday afternoon and she and I went to see Broken English (http://movies.go.com/broken-english/d872935/comedy)" at the Avalon and then the three of us went to dinner at Lia's. The movie was cute...billed as a comedy and really was fairly funny...unlike "Waitress" which I had seen with Lila and Jay a few weeks ago. Not much to it, but that was okay for a tired Sunday afternoon. Making plans to stay at our Fairfax "country home" some week-end this fall and play some golf out there.

Late Nights for the Old Fogies

It's been a bit of a whirlwind the last few nights.

Wednesday we went to see "Bluegrass Journey" at the Avalong and stayed for the short live blue grass performance afterwards.

Thursday our friends Paula McKenzie and Elaine Melo, whom we hadn't seen in several months, came over. They arrived around 4 and by the time Jim got home around 6, the three of us had had plenty of wine already, but nevertheless we drank a little more, had some dinner, then walked up the Parthenon for rice pudding and baklava, and stayed up a little too late watching music videos - Traffic and of course ABB - before Paula went home and Elaine crashed on our basement couch.

Last night I met Jim at his office with a picnic dinner and then we went to the Nationals game...which ran quite late but was quite thrilling...a perfect game. Up and down through the 7th inning, tied in the 8th. Then the Nationals held off the Cardinals at the top of the 9th and scored big in the bottom for the win! Thrilling. Really. The stadium went wild. It was fun as all get out. We're very tired today, but the Goofy One went off down to the office and I'm catching up with things here, and we're going to have a quiet evening at home and early bedtime tonight.

Yum Yum

I met Jim in Cleveland Park for dinner last night. We were going to go to Lavandou so I could get the Tuesday night all-you-can-eat steamed mussels and french fries, but they were closed so we took the opportunity to finally try Ardeo (http://www.ardeorestaurant.com/).
They had great bread from a bakery we hadn't heard of before, Lyon Bakery, and a lovely steamed mussels appetizer that was very tasty. We followed that up with a Salad Nicoise and the Linguine. We were really glad Lavandou wasn't open. :)