A Mass Transit First For Me

 Picture the scene:  Last Monday, I hurried into the Metro station to start my commute to work.  My rolling backpack somehow didn't make it through the gate with me, and in frustration, I picked it up to lift over the gate without putting my SmarTrip card away first.  And then I hear the loud crack of cheap chintzy plastic...

The whole thing didn't seem to bode well for the rest of the day, or even the rest of the week.  I was also bummed because I had had my previous SmarTrip card from 2007 until 2021 when they started replacing the fare gates and everyone had to get new cards.  At that point, I was already inside one station, so my best hope was to ride to my destination station and hope my broken card would let me out.  It wouldn't, but I guess the station manager decided that I didn't look like a fare evader because he let me just walk through the gate when I told him what happened.  I bought a new SmarTrip card for my trip home and stewed about the amount of money that was left on my broken card.

Then, it occurred to me.  I had registered my previous SmarTrip card in order to receive transit benefits.  I wasn't sure if I had registered this one, but since I had the pieces with the identification number still on it, I probably still could register it and then recover the funds.  This took some time since, of course, I didn't remember any of my log in information.  But I managed to register both the broken SmarTrip card and the card I bought to replace it.  (Public service message to anyone riding DC Metro or any other transit system requiring a fare card:  Make sure you register your card.  You never know when your card will be lost--or broken--at the critical time when you've just reloaded money onto it).

There didn't seem to be a way to transfer the funds from the broken card to the new card.  I ended up calling the SmarTrip card customer service line.  I'll admit that I wasn't very optimistic, but the person who helped had the funds transferred from my old card to my new card by the time I went home in the afternoon.  All's well that ends well for this mass transit first, but I'm being much more careful with my chintzy plastic SmarTrip card now...

Thoughts On Power Outages

 During thunderstorms following unseasonably hot weather, we lost power last night.  This power outage lasted several hours.  I've experienced longer power outages before, but I realized while sitting in the dark last night that it had been a number of years since a power outage had caused inconvenience for me beyond having to reset the clocks.  With that, I bring you the various epiphanies I had last night, with the (possibly unrealistic) hope that I won't be repeating the experience anytime soon.

1. In spite of my hopes, I (and you) might experience more frequent power outages.  I'm no meteorologist and I know next to nothing about electricity.  However, I do know from life experience that power outages often happen during storms, which are increasing in both frequency and severity.  Having grown up in North Carolina, I'm no stranger to summer thunderstorms, but I'm often struck and how much more violent storms seem now than they did when I was a child.  So in my mind, it stands to reason that more frequent and severe storms may lead to more frequent power outages.  Yet one more reason--on top of so many already--to take meaningful action on the climate.

2. Hand-cranked devices rule, battery-operated devices drool (and leak battery acid).  I connected some dots last night.  We've had battery-operated flashlights we've had to throw away because they've gotten horribly sticky, apparently for no reason.  The same thing happened last night with a hand-cranked radio with battery back-up.  I hadn't used it since losing power during Hurricane Sandy.  Well, we tried to use it last night, but it was incredibly sticky (and also had stopped working) and I had a lightbulb moment that the stickiness was probably coming from batteries that had long ago corroded.  Fortunately, we had one hand-cranked flashlight and one hand-cranked lantern, which were delightfully un-sticky and worked quite well.  If you're considering an impulse purchase today, one of those wouldn't be a bad way to go.

3.  Pets aren't happy about the power outage, either.  At least Stella wasn't.  The last apartment we rented before buying our condo had one of those climate control systems where heat and AC couldn't coexist and they had to switch back and forth with the seasons.  Of course, with weather patterns becoming less predictable, this invariably led to lengthy spells of discomfort while the management tried to decide if the hot/cold spell was some sort of anomaly or a true change in seasons.  Stella used to get pretty grumpy during the hot spells when we didn't have AC, so it's not surprising that she was unhappy last night when we had no AC to alleviate three days of temperatures over 90 degrees.  She spent much of the night meowing loudly, possibly thinking that Scott and I were just being dense and if she could only be loud enough we might turn on the AC so we could all be comfortable.

4.  Sitting in the dark makes you tired.  I was struck at how early I became drowsy, sitting in the dark, even with a couple of light-emitting devices.  Of course, falling asleep in bed was another story, due to it being hot and stuffy and certain cats complaining bitterly!

The Downside To The Cicada Merriment

 Earlier this summer, I wrote here about the emergence of cicadas in the DC area. They were a fairly polarizing insect in this area, I believe with many more people hating them than loving them.  I actually like them, but am now experiencing an unforeseen (at least to me) downside to their emergence:  oak mites.

I had never even heard of oak mites before this summer.  Evidently, they are very small insects that eat cicada eggs (hence their large population this summer in the DC area).  They can be carried by the wind, land on people, and bite.  Though I have no way of definitively proving it, I believe both Scott and I have been bitten.

Scott was bitten first. He had a bite from something on his back. It didn't quite look like a mosquito bite, and he said it was much itchier. Then I saw a post on our community's nextdoor.com that described similar bites and advanced the theory that it was oak mites. I subsequently saw news coverage of oak mite bites and how people were flocking to urgent care clinics and dermatologists for relief.

More recently, I had two bites on my back which were much itchier than mosquito bites. I tried using hydrocortisone cream, but I didn't get much relief.  I was having a fairly uncomfortable night of sleep, punctuated by the cat stretching next to me and clawing my itchy bites. Fortunately, I remembered that someone had who had posted on nextdoor.com mentioned getting relief from putting gel hand sanitizer on the bites. I have no idea why that would work, but I tried it, and fortunately, it helped. So, consider this a public service announcement to anyone else who is similarly afflicted.

Not that I get any say in this at all, but I did enjoy the cicada emergence enough to think it was worth the oak mites now. That being said, seventeen years from now when this brood emerges again, I might consider enjoying the cicadas but then taking a long vacation somewhere else until the oak mites have had a chance to come and go.

Happy 272nd Birthday, Alexandria!

 I've always enjoyed seeing fireworks displays, but in recent years, have only rarely gone to see them.  What usually holds me back is the idea of heading into large crowds with parking and/or mass transit scrums.  I made a happy discovery about our new home this year, though.  While I was researching if there was a way I could view DC's July 4th fireworks without actually going into DC and getting involved in the aforementioned scrums and crowds, I discovered that Alexandria celebrates the anniversary of its founding with fireworks!  Best of all, the park where celebrations were held is an easy walk from our home.  There are things I still miss about Silver Spring, MD, where we lived before moving here last summer.  However, the promise of annual fireworks that I can walk to is definitely a point in Alexandria's favor.

The Potomac River at night

My one fireworks photo that is recognizable as a firework

Cicadas!

 Much to the envy of bug watchers everywhere, the DC area was recently a focal point for the emergence of Brood X cicadas!  This brood of cicadas emerges only once every 17 years, so for a bug event, this one was big.

As anyone who has ever lived with me can attest, I'm not really a bug person.  Cicadas, though, are one of the few bugs I actually do like.  They don't bite or sting, they're too big to fly into your eye or up your nose, and I'm fascinated by the varieties that spend years at a time underground.

The coverage of their 2021 emergence started many weeks ahead of time.  There was much hand-wringing by people who lived in the area in 2004, when they last emerged, and didn't enjoy them that time.  They were delayed in emerging due to a snap of unseasonably cold weather, and when they finally did, I was pretty underwhelmed and disappointed at first.  For all the coverage, I was expecting a Big Event, and I felt like I was mostly seeing a few stray wings on the ground.

They picked up as time went on, though.  I never felt like they were that numerous where we lived, but they were very thick on the ground (and in the sky and the trees) near one of the schools where I worked.  Walking to the bus stop at the end of the day made me feel like I'd gotten a true cicada immersion experience, between the deafening humming as I walked under trees, and cicadas actually landing on me from time to time.

Here are a few pictures to commemorate Brood X of 2021, along with a cicada necklace I made to welcome them in style!

Pandemic Daze: Getting Back On Mass Transit

 I may have mentioned this on the blog before, but if not, I'm an adult who doesn't drive.  I got my license when I was 16, and I know the basic motions of driving, but in terms of driving safely on a highway, or even crowded surface streets, I'm not sure I'm the best person for the task.  I've had brief periods of picking it up again, but the skill has never really stuck.  I typically use a lot of mass transit, and then use Uber for times when mass transit is too inconvenient or if I get into some sort of a jam.

As a result, it has felt very strange to have not taken any mass transit since mid-March, on the last day I went to my internship during my last semester of grad school.  We lived near a Metro station at our old place, and we are even closer to one now.  But I haven't been going to all that many places since the pandemic started.  Also, at least initially, Metro was practically begging people to stay home and not take their trains or buses unless it was absolutely necessary.  I knew I would be back one day, though.  I'm definitely not one of those people who is glibly predicting the demise of mass transit; after all, before the pandemic consumed all of our attention, we were discussing the disastrous impact of climate change.

Today turned out to be my day.  I took a basic life support class this morning.  Scott drove me to my class, and I thought I would take an Uber back home.  But then I saw how walkable the area was between the building where my class was being held and the nearest Metro station, and decided to go for it.

I ended up getting somewhat of a Metro double whammy.  When I arrived at the station, I discovered that it was closed, but that they were offering free shuttle bus service to the next station.  So I got to rejoin the world of mass transit by taking both a bus and a train.  It felt strange because in the pre-pandemic days, I would have been on top of things like weekend station closures.  When you take Metro all the time, you usually see signs telling you about upcoming station closures or delays.  But not having ridden Metro since March, I was thoroughly out of the loop.  I had plenty of money on my SmarTrip card because I had lots of places to go in early March, before life shut down on us so suddenly.

The train itself was fine.  At least late morning on a Sunday, there were few enough passengers that it was very easy to socially distance.  Everyone I saw was wearing a mask.  I don't know how many opportunities I'll have in the near future to take Metro again, just because I don't have that many places to go right now.  But it was nice to experience a tiny piece of my pre-pandemic life again.

Pandemic Daze: Making Decisions

An interesting feature of life in general is that we often have to make decisions--sometimes life-altering ones--without anywhere near enough information.  Unsurprisingly, this has also been true during the pandemic.

The US has been a real patchwork of regulations since the pandemic started, but depending on where you lived, many decisions were made simple in the beginning.  When non-essential stores, restaurants, gyms, movie theaters, museums, and hair salons are closed, the decision is made for you because you can't actually go to any of them.  For a while, we really went very few places.  We had a weekly grocery store trip and an almost daily outdoor walk.  We ordered food a couple times a week to break up the monotony.  As time went on, and public health experts became less concerned about outdoor transmission, encountering other people on our walks made us less nervous.  We started making occasional trips to restaurants to get take-out instead of ordering in (both because food delivery has been a very imperfect process and so that our money would go to the restaurants themselves instead of the delivery services).  But that was pretty much it for our venturing out.

Now, more options are available in our area.  Restaurants, salons, gyms, and non-essential stores are allowed to reopen under certain conditions (greatly reduced capacity, mask-wearing, etc.).  And so in a sense, some decisions are still easy.  We don't have to decide whether to risk eating in a crowded indoor restaurant, for example, because indoor seating capacity has been capped at 50% for the time being.  But we do have to decide whether we want to risk going to that restaurant (or gym, store, salon, etc.) in the first place.  

This weekend, we decided to make a couple of these decisions.  First, we went to our local farmers market.  This had stayed open with modifications throughout the pandemic, but we hadn't been since before the pandemic started because we had been trying to minimize non-essential outings.  We decided this was probably a safe outing to make since it's outdoors, and besides, I wanted some plants for the balcony.  We could see decisions being made at the farmers market itself.  Some vendors had elaborate systems for socially-distanced lines and the employees handling your produce.  Others were more relaxed and let you wander around and pick your own stuff.  On the whole, I found the farmers market much more enjoyable in the pre-pandemic days, but that's probably not much of a surprise.

We also decided to go to a restaurant and (gasp!) actually eat there.  Our 14th anniversary was on Thursday, and we were talking about how to celebrate it.  Since the pandemic started, we celebrated both Scott's birthday and my graduation at home.  And now we actually had the option to go out.  Ordinarily, we would have gone somewhere in DC (I keep a mental list of restaurants I want to try there), but we decided to choose someplace within walking distance this time in order to skip taking Metro to get there.  And while the whole experience felt very different from pre-pandemic times, it was still pretty great!  Time will tell whether this was a wise decision, but I'm hoping that some of the regulations in place will help us all to get a little taste of our previous life without putting undue risk on anyone.

More decisions are coming.  My gym is reopening in early July (with only two people allowed to work out at a time).  I also haven't had a haircut since February, and am sorely tempted to get one now.  I'm thinking I might spread these "pandemic firsts" out a bit to see how my area's reopening goes and to not force myself into too many decisions at once.

Pandemic Daze: Exercise

One interesting aspect of staying at home and having non-essential businesses closed is how it changes your exercise patterns.  Under normal, non-pandemic circumstances, I get a fair amount of walking each day to and from mass transit.  Now, I'm hardly going anywhere at all (and I'm heeding Metro's pleas to not ride unless absolutely necessary), so that's gone.  I also typically did more formal workouts a few times a week.  Up until winter break, I was using my apartment complex's fitness center.  Then, after deciding that I needed to up my fitness game a bit, I joined a kickboxing gym.  As the public perception of the pandemic began to change, my apartment complex closed our fitness center.  The gym I joined voluntarily closed hours before our governor ordered all gyms to close.

One of the first things Scott and I did when it started to look like we'd be hunkering down for a while was to order some hand weights and a kettle bell.  It took a while for them to come in and Scott mentioned that he thought the hand weights would normally have been less expensive, so I suspect others had the same idea.  On my last "normal" day (i.e., the last day I ventured more than a couple miles from my apartment), I saw a Peloton bike (of the ad fame) being delivered in a ritzy neighborhood, so maybe there was a run on higher-end fitness equipment, too.

My gym has been creating daily workout videos for people to do at home.  None of them require equipment, although you can sometimes incorporate things like hand weights if you have them.  We've been trying to do three of those workouts per week, and while it's not exactly like going to the gym, they're pretty good.  I do miss the uncluttered padded floors of the gym, though--no furniture to rearrange there, and no rough carpeting for floor exercises!  Also, at home, we sometimes get a feline interloper who wants to know what all the commotion is about.

We're taking long walks most days, too.  We usually walk through a nearby residential neighborhood to a trail and then walk on the trail.  The problem is that the trail is sometimes pretty crowded and there's not a lot of room to avoid other people, but we do our best.

Playgrounds here have been closed; the ones near us are surrounded in that orange flexible fencing.  This doesn't directly impact us, but I do feel sorry for the kids, especially ones who don't have yards to play in.  I'm starting to see more kids on the trail we walk on, possibly because it's one of the few places left where they can let off some steam.

I'm glad that the existing restrictions have still allowed for people to get exercise outdoors.  It'll be interesting to see what happens as restrictions ease up--I kind of doubt gyms or team sports will be among the first restrictions to be lifted, and I think most people are fearful enough that there won't be too many volunteers to be first to go into a non-essential crowded situation.

Pandemic Daze: The Long Wait Begins

Plenty has changed since I last blogged about the covid-19 pandemic.  My gym made the decision to close early on Monday; later in the day, our governor ordered all gyms, movie theaters, bars, and restaurants (except for drive-through, carry-out, and delivery functions) to close.  I'm also staying home from my hospital internship for at least the next couple of weeks.  I'm sad about that, but it was the right decision for everyone involved, and I actually feel less stressed out now that the decision has been made.

So now there will be a lot of time at home.  I have work to do, which I ignored today in favor of cutting out fabric for my next sewing project.  I have plenty of fabric to sew, beads to turn into jewelry, and books to read, so if I can stay healthy, I have a chance of staying reasonably content.

Scott and I are still taking long walks outside; we feel that there isn't too much risk in that since we're not getting very close to other people.  Plus, it's important to try to maintain our  baseline level of health.  My gym has promised to post workouts we can do at home, and I'll plan to do some of those exercises, too.

Wishing everyone good health and at least a tolerable stay at home!

Pandemic Daze: Wading Into Uncharted Waters

I'll admit I've been feeling a little uninspired to blog lately.  I just feel like there hasn't been much material because life has mostly been a cycle of classes, internship, household chores, and angst about looking for work.  If there is anything the covid-19 outbreak has brought us, however, it's a departure from the routine.  I've decided to write about pandemic life, not because I expect our situation to be particularly special or unique, but because this chaotic and uncertain situation is much different from other chaotic and uncertain situations I've experience previously, and I'd like to document at least some of it.

I feel like last week was when everything started to change for us.  Last weekend when we went grocery shopping, I wasn't particularly concerned, and didn't buy more than I normally would.  Then my university announced that classes would move to online after our spring break.  That's when I started to think that life really would be different for a while.  I made two (very uncharacteristic) mid-week grocery store runs and went again yesterday.  Some items had already been picked clean from the shelves.  I'm grateful for the amount of food, cleaning supplies, etc. that I normally keep around, and I'm glad I made two mid-week grocery runs when there was still more selection.

One thing that's been in the news recently is the toilet paper shortage.  I was lucky on that account, as well.  I normally order 24-roll packs from Target, and had already ordered one just in the natural course of things.  By the time I learned that there was a run on toilet paper, I had a large package of it en route to me.

As of now, the school where Scott teaches is closed to both teachers and students for two weeks.  It will be closed for students for two additional weeks after that, during which time I suspect they'll have online classes, although that hasn't been made clear.  One feature of having had only one snow day this year is that there is more flexibility for the schools to just give everyone some time off.

My university has decided that classes will be online through early May.  I have an internship (at a hospital!) for the clinical part of my requirements.  As of now, I'll still be going there, but I have a feeling that will probably change.  It'll be disappointing if I have to end the internship early, but I realize the pandemic has brought all sorts of disappointments, on top of the tragedy of so many people dying.

We've been trying to live a fairly normal life until we can't.  We took a long walk this afternoon.  The gym I joined this winter is still open (albeit with some additional precautions).  Assuming it's still open tomorrow, I'm planning to go get a workout.  I have a feeling we might all be spending a lot of time at home in the near future, but I haven't wanted to settle into that prematurely.

Georgetown Glow

I'm several weeks delayed in actually posting these, but here are my pictures from Georgetown Glow!  Georgetown Glow is a free outdoor light art exhibit in Georgetown, and this year was its sixth year (and our second year going to see it).  It's a great excuse to take a walk outside and see something fun, and since it takes place around winter break, it's a good opportunity to enjoy Georgetown when it's not super crowded.

End Of A Commuting Era

As a longtime mass transit commuter, I am very sorry to report that Thursday was the last day for the Washington Post's free paper, Express.

For those who do not live in this area, Express was a paper that was distributed on weekdays at Metro stations and some other locations in the DC area.  It was a mix of news stories reported in Washington Post and entertainment news of different sorts (wacky stories that you might have missed, celebrities, local personalities).  At the Metro stations, you could usually find people handing out the Express papers during the morning rush hour.  We all know that the morning commute to work is not always a lot of fun, but the Express paper was something I could look forward to.

Its demise was very sudden.  I believe employees (both writers and hawkers) were told on Tuesday; I learned from another news source on Wednesday that Thursday would be its last day.  I've read that the hawkers were given no severance (I believe they were contracted through another company).  I'm not sure about the details with the writers, but I've read that they were not under the union agreement that regular Washington Post writers had. I've also read at least a couple of stories about writers who moved to the area recently specifically for that job, who are suddenly scrambling in an expensive area to find something else.  (Not to employers:  If you're wondering whether sudden layoffs are a kind, compassionate way to terminate employees, they're not).

Anyway, I feel very sorry for the people whose jobs ended this way.  And I feel sad that all of us DC-area commuters are missing out on a very nice free paper.  One of my many worries these days is that there are too many competing narratives on major news stories, and that these competing narratives are deepening divisions in our society.  I'm fully aware of the problems of going too far in the other direction, of course (state-run media in totalitarian states, anyone?), but I was always grateful for a source of news that anyone could access, even without a TV, computer, or phone.  We can use all the common ground we can get these days.

Life's Little Triumphs: Scavenging Season Is Upon Us!

There is definitely a money-spending side of me, but there is also the side of me that loves getting something for free.  And in the summer, that free something could be berries!

Earlier this week, I was taking a walk with Scott when I noticed ripe berries on some mulberry trees.  Very fortunately, I had a plastic bag with me so I wasn't confined to just gobbling up what I could on the spot.  Mulberries can be tricky to pick since they're on trees and there are a lot of high branches, but I'm tall enough to be able to get some of them.  I went picking again today, and got a pretty decent haul.

I have special affection for mulberries because even though I'd probably seen them plenty of times in the US without realizing it, I first became aware of their potential as a food the first time I visited Syria in 2001.  I bought some juice from a street vendor that I thought (from looking at the source fruit) was blackberry juice.  It was delicious, and much sweeter than I expected it to be.  Someone told me later that it was probably made of mulberries.  I also saw some big, beautiful mulberry trees in Uzbekistan.

Later this summer, I'm also hoping to score some free wineberries and blackberries (hence the need to carry plastic bags with me).  Summer has its limitations, what with the humidity and the mosquitoes, but berry-scavenging is something I can get behind wholeheartedly.

Random DC Picture

Just because I'm happy with how it turned out. 

The Shutdown

When Scott and I took a walk on the National Mall yesterday, I noticed something interesting:  numerous kites stuck in trees. 

Maybe they've always been there.  Maybe the bare trees of winter showcase kites to their best advantage.  But the first thought that occurred to me was that maybe the person or people who ordinarily remove kites from trees are not currently working due to the government shutdown.

In an area where I'm spoiled for choices in activities, quite a few options are closed right now, namely the Smithsonian museums and the National Zoo.  At this point, even the public restrooms on the National Mall are closed.

I feel terrible for the people who are either having to hold out waiting for back pay or who likely will never get paid at all for the duration of this shutdown.  As someone who has worked both for the federal government and for a center that relied heavily on government contracts, I feel I can imagine the worries some people have right now.  It's not easy to have your livelihood in the hands of people who don't care and are happy to make you a pawn in their power struggles.  I'm sure for anyone who knows me, it will come as no surprise that I'm against the border wall, and have been since the first time I heard the idea.  Giving financial insecurity to countless federal employees and contractors is not making me warm up to it.

At this point, it's hard to see when or how this shutdown will end.  I hope it will be before this already bad situation becomes financially ruinous for too many people.

Things That Will Make Next Week Easier

One week of graduate school is down!  Yay!  I'm not going to count how many weeks are left in a five-semester program.

Just like every new experience, the first week seemed pretty rough.  There are a lot of new skills I'll need to acquire.  There is a lot of class work to do.  And because of the nature of this program, I'll have responsibilities in the onsite clinic. 

It has also been somewhat rough emotionally.  I'm thrilled to have such a good opportunity to break into another field, but I'm also in my late thirties and have been working for years.  Leaving the workforce for two years to do something new is scary. I've thought a few times that it would have been nice if I had thought I could have the sort of life I wanted without retraining, if I had felt like I had a secure future at the job I just left.

But!  I have at least two reasons why this week will almost have to be easier than last week, and that is something to celebrate.

1.  I broke down and bought a tablet.  When I was working full-time and taking night classes, I carried an ancient--but fairly lightweight--laptop with me.  Its battery didn't stay charged for long, but hey, I didn't need it to because I had one class per day.  With much longer class days, I spent last week toting my newer--but extremely heavy--laptop with me.  I could tell after about the first day that two years of lugging that thing along with my lunch and even one of my textbooks every day was going to do serious damage to my back and shoulders.  I had been curious about tablets for years but had never purchased one because I wasn't sure I would use one enough to justify the cost.  After a few days of agonizing over how much money I had already spent on textbooks, I decided to bite the bullet and order a tablet.  It arrived today, and so far, I'm very pleased with it.  I think there will be occasions when I have to drag the laptop to campus with me, but those will be few and far between, and will likely remind me to appreciate my tablet.

2.  Metro will be restored to its usual level of functionality tomorrow.  Two metro stations that lie between me and my campus have been closed since late July(!).  I've been fortunate that this particular phase in Metro's improvement plan didn't inconvenience me much until last week, but I will say that I found it quite inconvenient over a short span of time.  I'm lucky in that I have a commuter train option where I live.  However, the trains don't run frequently on the line closest to me.  Twice last week I found myself running for the train because I knew I would have a long wait for the next one (or in one case, it was the last train of the evening).  I am not a graceful runner, and I had that abovementioned laptop on my back.  I won't miss the joint pain that resulted.

Wishing everyone a great week, even better than last week!

Breaking The Blogging Silence With A Few Pictures

So.  Blogging has been a challenge for me lately, which is a pity, since it's something I enjoy.

There are a couple reasons for this, I think.  For one thing, I'm taking two science classes in an eight week period of time.  These are the last of my prerequisites before going back to grad school in August.  On the one hand, this is pretty much an exercise in checking off boxes at this point.  I'm already in a graduate program, and there isn't much pressure to ace these classes.  On the other hand, since it's two of them in a compressed time frame, there are lots of little boxes to check off along the way.  This leaves me feeling pretty busy and like there's always some task I need to finish.

The other reason is that I've fallen into a transition mentality at this point.  I find transitions stressful--even ones that I think will ultimately be good ones--and it's hard to think of blogging material when I'm stressed out about what's coming next.  I'm starting school again--what will it be like to be a full-time student in my late thirties?  I'm leaving a job I care about--what if I regret doing that?  And how much notice should one give when you've actually been pretty sure for months that you would leave?  On top of that transition, we're looking down the barrel of a possible local move to make Scott's commute more manageable.  Local moves are not the end of the world, but any sort of move is expensive and disruptive.  Plus, we would need to find someplace to move to.

All of this is to say that my mind has been mush lately, but I still want to blog.  So in the interest of putting something in this space, I'll put in a few pictures that I like!

Heh heh.  I took this one back in April, but I like it enough that I'm adding it to the blog now.

This was possibly the prettiest chocolate bar I had ever seen.  But, since it was chocolate, I ate it anyway.

I always love seeing turtles.

Groundhogs are pretty cool, too.  You can't really tell from this picture, but these were babies.  I had never seen such tiny ones before.

And for something that makes no sense at all...what sort of cat drops her toy mouse in her food bowl?!  This happened this morning, and I'm curious what will happen when she rediscovers it later.

I Think The Calendar Misled Me

I thought it was spring, but this is by far the most snow we've gotten this year.  I won't complain, though, since it gave me a day off.  My rule for winter weather is that it either needs to be eventful enough to get me out of doing something (usually that something is going to work at this point in my life), or it shouldn't happen at all.  I've never really bought into the idea of snow being beautiful, and spend a lot of time griping when it makes my commute cold and slippery.  It's been a very odd winter here, and I wouldn't necessarily rule anything out, but I have to think this will be our last major (I am fully aware that this term is relative) snowstorm of the year.

The Spectacles We Create For Others To Enjoy

I lost my gloves on Tuesday.  Usually, when I lose something, I don't know how I lost it.  I do this time, though.  I was making a mad dash for the Metro, and after the doors closed behind me, I realized my gloves were no longer in my pocket.  My mad dash was all for the lofty goal of...getting to work five minutes earlier?  I don't understand myself sometimes.

It occurred to me later that I was probably a pretty entertaining sight to people on the platform.  Imagine me doing a completely graceless sprint toward the closest open door, leaping onto the train, gloves flying out of my coat pocket.  I hope I at least gave someone a good laugh on a workday morning. 

And I hope someone is making good use of those gloves.

Pretty Things In DC

We took a walk in DC yesterday to celebrate my first day of winter break.  With all the drama in my work life over the past six months, classes, and grad school applications, I'm very grateful for a chance to catch my breath. 

First we visited the Christmas tree on the Capitol lawn.  I'm always fascinated by the scale of ornament needed for such a large tree.

Then we visited the US Botanic Garden (where we experienced the corpse flowers over the summer) to see what sort of holiday decorations they had.  In addition to Christmas trees and poinsettias, they had a display with model trains running past models of various "roadside attractions" found in parts of the US.  Where else can you see Mt. Rushmore and Mr. Potato Head at one time?

It was also fun seeing DC in the evening.  We got to see the Washington Monument at sunset and the Kennedy Center with rainbow lights.  There is always something nice to see around here, and I'm so glad this area is my home.