He's baaa-aaack!

$%&*%#$!! 

It's back.

The mouse, that is. 

It want scampering across the living room floor, straight into the closet, as I watched The Closer last night.  The closet WHERE A TRAP IS ALREADY SET, WITH PEANUT BUTTER AND EVERYTHING.  JUST IN CASE.  The trap did not catch it. (Me, aloud: "What kind of cheap-ass trap IS this?!")

This time, however, I stayed calm.  I was only paralyzed for maybe two minutes, rather than twenty.  I did not summon reinforcements.  I did not hightail it to get traps.  (I did, however, put on my boots.  The calmness would've promptly disappeared if the interloper had gone dashing across my foot.)

This time, it wasn't so gross.  Having more of a profile view of the mouse, rather than birds-eye, it looked more like Stuart Little than a yicky gray rodent.  It was more of a gleeful scamper than a surreptitious scurry.

Then I started wondering whether this was the same mouse who made the brief appearance last fall or a different one.  Which would be better, less creepy/gross?  Is my apartment just a waystation on a rarely-used rodent Underground Railroad?  Or is one mouse (ONE MOUSE.  Not a family of mice.) residing in a cozy mouse-house under the floor somewhere?  I can't decide which I'd prefer.

Anyway, at some point I shall go retrieve more traps and set them all over the damn apartment.  But for now, I may be residing with a mouse.  God help us all.  

Friday roundup

I'm on deadline and consequently just a tad busy today, but I thought you might enjoy these two excellent posts popped up in my Google Reader:

Over at Finejulery, Jules reflects on what we were up to four years ago yesterday--marrying off our bestie Ash out in yonder Missouri.

At Camels and Chocolate, intrepid travel writer Kristin's weekly Photo Friday post explores one of my favorite parts of East Tennessee: historic Jonesborough, where our family first lived when we moved to Tennessee 25 or so years ago.  

Happy Friday, everyone!

Old friends, bookends...

June was a busy month, beginning with my cousin Carissa's high school graduation and ending with a week in the North Carolina mountains and my cousin Elliott's wedding near Atlanta, plus a whole lot of work-related stuff thrown in there in the middle.  And aside from all the festivities with both sides of my extended family, I managed to shoehorn in some quick visits with some old friends.

**********

In North Carolina, I reconnected, pretty much by accident, with my old pal Sarah Ellen.  We were camp friends who saw each other for exactly six days each year during a church music week we attended with our families from the time we were tiny until we graduated from high school.  We kept in touch for a while, but as life progressed, we lost touch.  In recent years I scoured Facebook--no luck--and Googled her periodically, but got nowhere.  But I ran into her sister at music week this year, and lo and behold, Sarah Ellen was coming up later in the week!  And wow, was it good to see her--reunited after a full ten years.

Reunited, and it feels so good

**********

Mo was my best friend in high school.  She was a year older, and when she graduated and headed off to the University of Tennessee--along with a sizable majority of my other good friends--I was a bit lost.  Her family moved to New York City partway through college, making visiting opportunities limited, but we were a regular presence in each other's email and voicemail boxes, I was her maid of honor when she married her awesome husband Justin, and we remained close.  A few years ago, Mo and Justin had a baby, and somehow our friendship sort of....fizzled.  I don't remember exactly how or why. Suddenly, it had been nearly four years since we'd had any contact, though I'd thought about her many times in the interim, and it just seemed stupid.  

I have this theory that there comes a point in your life where you sort of stop making new friends. Not stop entirely, as though you suddenly become a hermit and don't meet new people, but there comes a point where you're done making those BEST friend kinds of people--the ones who remember when you cracked a raw egg on your head in front of 60 of your sixth grade peers, or with whom you spent an evening rinsing orange juice out of an entire suitcase of clothing in your hotel room at senior band clinic, or who suffered through countless nights of fire alarms with you in college.  The ones for whose weddings you'll travel to random midwestern towns, requiring a layover, a rental car, and multi-night hotel stays. Those are the people with whom you develop a friendship shorthand, and there comes a point where starting those kinds of relationships becomes rare. (Or maybe it's only me.  If so and I'm just antisocial, please, let me live with this delusion. It'll be better for everyone.)

Anyway, based on this theory, it seemed like letting one of those people go without a fight was a pretty dumb idea.  Mo lives a mere four hours away from me.  In a city where part of my family lives.  There was no excuse. This could not, nay, WOULD not, go on.

So, a few days before I went to Pittsburgh for Carissa's graduation, I sent an exploratory Facebook message.  How about, say, lunch?  She was game.  And so, on my way back to DC after graduation events, I made a detour.  And voila!

Old friends, plus one

Mo and Justin met me for brunch, I met their hilarious son, and we caught up on as much of the last few years as we could cover over a two-hour meal.  A month later, I got a two-word response to some comment on my Facebook page and burst into laughter.  It wasn't anything outwardly funny, but there was that friendship shorthand again, sending me straight back to high school and our hijinks in the French horn section of the wind ensemble.

How I spent my summer vacation

Home sweet beach house

View from the porch

Sun, sand, somethin' to read

Stormy weather

Sebastian?

Pity the fool who tries to breach those defenses.  (We did not build this.)

Cousin Caroline came down for the day from Charleston.

No caption needed

Beach. Books. (Battlestar Galactica.)

Last night, I commenced my official pre-beach countdown, because as of next Sunday evening, that is where I will be for a week, along with my parents, grandparents, G, and G’s boyfriend Ryan.   It can’t come soon enough. 

For many people, a week at the beach includes activities like spending hours in the sun, perhaps some fishing, maybe the consumption of quantities of frosty beverages.  Mom, Grandma, and G usually have some sort of project going on—painting or necklace-making or knitting or what-have-you.  My dad and my grandfather nap a lot.  As Dad says, “The biggest decision I have to make today is whether I should read now and nap later, or nap now and read later.”  Many books are read.  Many games of Michigan rummy are played.  Many of Dad's made-to-order milkshakes are consumed.

I, however, take the reading thing to a whole other level.  The whole point of the beach is to see how many books I can devour in a week, and a highlight of my summer is the careful cultivation of my beach-reading pile, stocked through leisurely ambles through the stacks at the library and the perusal of summer reading lists compiled by everyone from the New York Times to NPR to Entertainment Weekly to Glamour.  Unless Harry Potter is involved (or, God help me, A Suitable Boy), I tend to average one book a day. 

As such, I’ve been assembling on my beach-reading pile for the last two weeks, requesting books from the library; monitoring waiting lists in the hopes that the 17 other people in D.C. who are ahead of me on the list for The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake will, I don’t know, get tired of waiting and buy it (which I refuse to do) or for SOMEONE to return How Did You Get This Number, because I’ve been #1 on the waiting list for three weeks; perusing the catalog for audio books on cassette (because Lola is old school and doesn’t have a CD player) for the endless hours on I-81.  But that’s necessary when I spend an entire week moving from here...

… to here … 

... to here … 

...to here … 

... to here. 

Usually with this ...

or this.

It is glorious. 

Anyway, suffice to say that the countdown has begun, the book pile currently numbers 11, and I’m itching to load up Lola and hit the road.  Unless… does anybody know of a flight from D.C. to Charleston, SC that doesn’t cost $500?  Or some frequent flyer miles that they’d like to unload?  Because that would be excellent, too.

Let's talk about babies!

Apparently many women experience this thing where they have a sort of, I don't know, yearning for a baby.  Like they see babies and feel their biological clocks ticking or whatever.  While I would like children someday, I do not have that Baby Need.  


Show me a golden retriever, however, or any commercial involving dogs, and I immediately start googling animal shelters.  I want every big dog I see, all the time.  I nearly ran a red light on Monday because I was distracted by a pair of Great Danes walking down Wisconsin Ave.  And I cannot get enough of this commercial, which I tried to embed, but it's showing up ginormous: 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krBOmq7c4BI&feature=player_embedded


I LOVE IT.  Anyway. To recap: I want a dog now.  I want babies later.  


But then today, I did this: 

That's Emma, brand new daughter of my dear friends Ryan and Becky.  She was born yesterday at noon, and I went to the hospital over my lunch break today to visit.  And I tell ya what, I could hold her all day long.  I considered smuggling her out in my purse, though I would've been caught, because the nurses check visitors' bags on the way out.


So I've amended my previous statement: I want a dog now, but I am available to snuggle or otherwise entertain your baby any time.  Dogs, too.  You know where to find me.

Having my (Fabergé egg) cake and eating it, too

So.  A month or so ago I promised to tell you about Opera Ball, so I suppose it’s about time I do that, eh?


Anyway, Opera Ball was on May 21.  It was my sixth one, which…I KNOW, right?  Six seems like so long ago, like, I used to be able to say “Six years ago I had braces,” or “Six years ago I fell off the carousel at Six Flags and broke my camera.” Those occurred in 1994-95 and 2000 respectively, thus no longer fitting the “six years” requirement…. Where was I?  Oh yes.  My point is that although I only worked for the Opera for three of those balls, for some reason they keep inviting me back.  Possibly because I am Reliable and A Hard Worker.  Also Very Fun To Have Around, as well as a Kick-Ass Dancer.  And modest, obviously.


This year, though, I didn’t attend as a volunteer.  I was a guest!  On the list and everything!  Technically, yes, I was the plus-one of one of my old coworkers, Ryan, who as a member of the company’s senior staff was an invited guest.  I was not required to guard a punchbowl or anything for the evening, so I considered it a win nonetheless.


Opera Ball is always an unbelievable, over-the-top amazing event, but this year took the proverbial cake.  The Russian ambassador hosted, and there was an old world glamour this year that the previous five, at least, lacked.  On the outside, the embassy is an austere, gray block, but inside it looks like the Winter Palace (I mean, I would imagine, not having been to Russia), with tall ceilings, sweeping staircases, and a huge, tapestry-laden ballroom.  It was magnificent.  Most years a huge tent is erected out behind the embassy residence to accommodate the main ball venue, but not so at the Russian embassy—because it has a BALLROOM.  For, you know, balls. Like this one.