(no subject)

[figment]

After my period of being a shut-in (which really only lasted a couple of days), I've actually been pretty social. On Friday, I met up with the incomparable Jenny Brav, who's in town for a week. I never know where or when I'll see Jenny next (although Rome, next summer, is a strong possibility), and I love our conversations. It was great to have dinner with her and just... catch up.

Saturday I ran some errands and then met up with my friend Kelly from work; we went to the Smithsonian American Art & Portrait Gallery and spent several hours wandering around, looking at art and wishing we knew a little more.

We got dinner at a little restaurant in Chinatown, and then I headed home for the night. My upstairs neighbor Yvonne came down and we hung out and watched a movie and talked and finished off a bottle of white wine.

Sunday I met up with D&A, had far too much delightful food to eat at Woodlands, and then we went to IKEA. It is never possible to spend less than an hour there - I think we made it out in two hours? I only succumbed to a couple of impulse purchases and mostly wished I could figure out how to make my living space be as effective as their little showcases. I think that not being able to drill holes in the wall limits my possibilities. Add in the fact that I can't bring myself to get rid of various keepsakes and... well. I do what I can. That night I met up with Jenny again, and Michael Bales, for dinner at Dukem (an Ethiopian place). There were a couple of other people there; it was a lively conversation and a good group. I was able to bike down to U street really quickly. Nice.

Monday was work! And then home, and grocery shopping, and waiting for my dear azure_armand to come home. Which he did, and there was much rejoicing.

Yesterday work was... um. Well we were not very focused, but it was fun! After work I got my vegetables from my farm share, and then headed straight to McPherson square so that Azure, Jenny, Michael and I could join the protest (against the bombing of Lebanon, Lebanese civilians and civilian targets, etc.) outside the White House. It was small - far smaller than I'd hoped - especially at first. But that made me feel like my presence was more meaningful, and that was kind of cool. It was really hot out, so we only stayed for an hour, but there were still many people there when we left. Although I saw quite a few reporters there, I'm not finding much on the Web yet in terms of news coverage. Hmph. This notes that the protest was going to happen, which it did... I hope it maybe made some difference. It was a pretty diverse group with many people of many different religions and so on there - that was excellent.
We lugged our vegetables to a bar in Georgetown for happy hour with some other friends of Jenny's. And then from there we went on to a Vietnamese place for a delicious dinner (mmm, carmel tofu with lemongrass... so good. this recipe, minus the dried shrimp, is probably close). And then we and our belaguered vegetables headed home, walking to Foggy Bottom and then taking a couple of Metros to get home. We said goodbye to Jenny and Mike took a couple of commemorative pictures with his cameraphone...




In other news, hopefully it will soon be cool enough again for me to bike to work. I hear tomorrow it's only supposed to hit the mid 80s, so that should be okay.

And in other other news, I have an appointment to get ze hair chopped again. It really needs it. If you have any great photos of haircuts you think would be excellent on me, please feel free to share them... I'm not sure what I'm doing, other than fairly short, a la the icon.

Comments

[redbird23.livejournal.com]

I am happy to see you post. I've been thinking about you and your family since the news about Lebanon was first reported. Is your brother out of harm's way?

[birdfigment.livejournal.com]

Thanks for asking - he is okay. He fortunately happened to be at a wedding in Cyprus when the bombing started. So he has stayed there, in Cyprus, with our folks. He wonders what's happened to his stuff... you can catch his lj at tomscud if you would like to see his thoughts on the whole thing.

[tomscud.livejournal.com]

Yay! Protest, protest, protest! Might make some difference, who can really tell.

I'm glad you did, anyway.

Macfriends!

[ramanujan.livejournal.com]

Neat that you got to see Jenny and Mike. No shots of Mike, though?

I wish your protest did have the power to stop the insanity. I can't imagine Israel's policy achieving a more secure Israel. Not when they're risking destabilizing a truly democratic, moderate Lebanese government, killing a bunch of innocent civilians, and not doing jack s**t to Hezbollah.

Sigh. Well, keep pedaling. Good things will happen.

[birdfigment.livejournal.com]

I can hope! And of course I went - that is one of the benefits of living here. I can go to those things.

Re: Macfriends!

[birdfigment.livejournal.com]

Yes! I have seen Mike a few times this summer. Awesome! No shots of him yet because (1) he was taking pictures with his phone and so did not take them of himself, (2) I have no camera right now due to it being stolen in the break-in, and (3) the pic of all 4 of us is on Jenny's camera and will hopefully get uploaded and sent soon... but who knows. So.

I keep trying. It's better than nothing, y'know?

[fayde.livejournal.com]

Is that a painting of the Cave from Plato's writings? I'm really intrigued by the picture too.

[birdfigment.livejournal.com]

It's titled "Interception" and... I'm not exactly sure what it is (although I don't think it's the Cave). When you can see it close up, you can see that there's sort of a sail or sheet or something on the right (the whitish thing) held by some figures, with another figure to the left holding a string that seems to be attached to the sail; a kind of wind or something seems to be blowing into that; in the wind you can see a couple of shadowy faces/figures. It's almost like they're catching a soul... or... I'm not sure. But it fascinates me.