Baseball and Three Stadia

I was born in Ohio and spent a great deal of my childhood in Huntington, WV. My mother's parents and grandparents lived on this side of Columbus in the Cincinnati Reds region. My father's parents lived on that side of Columbus in the Cleveland Indians territory. Baseball was in the periphery of my youth but I never learned the game. I cheered for the Big Red Machine, but never got to go to Cincinnati for a game. I remember several of the boys bringing in transistor radios to school with their earpiece to listen to the 1972 Reds/As world series games during school.

I remember my grandmother watching a Reds game in her chair and would occasionally make commentary about the game, complain about a call, or even yell, "He balked!" I remember my great-grandfather sitting in his chair by the front window of his house there on Limestone street, hunched over  his radio concentrating on the Reds game. Only after the game would he join in at the table for a game of Euchre.  I remember my dad's dad having the Indians on in his den, but we didn't visit there as often so those memories are fuzzy. Everybody loved baseball.

Fast forward to adulthood. I got a job in the Washington DC area and moved to Maryland. I met my soon-to-be husband and our first significant date was to an Orioles' game, the Mike Devereaux game to be exact and if you're an O's fan, you know exactly which game that was. I've been an Orioles fan ever since and I had no real internal conflict since the O's and Reds are in different leagues. Since we met my husband and I like to take the family to Baltimore several times a summer to see a game.

Baltimore's Camden Yards had its 20-year anniversary two years ago; they say it's the stadium that changed the face of modern venues. It was built to embrace the cityscape instead of obscuring it, and the Camden Yard warehouse became an iconic backdrop. Baltimore is a working class town, compared with Washington just down the road, and the difference in attitude shows at the stadium. I'm allowed to bring in food and my own non-alcoholic beverages. The tickets are reasonably priced compared to other teams.

So, in addition to games at The Yards, I got to see my Orioles play against the other local team, the Washington Nationals, or the Gnats, as I call them when I want to annoy my Nats friends, at Nationals Park. My parents, my husband and son went to celebrate my dad's birthday. The folks are Nats fans. My mother has inherited her mom's and grandfather's love of the game, she knew all the Nats players and would perk up when her favorite players were up to bat. I felt a little bad for my folks when my O's won the game against their Nats.

The Nats' stadium is newer (2008) and has a nice feature of visibility where you can see the field from the concourse, which you can't do at the Yards, but they are strict on their food and drink policy: nothing except clear sealed bottles of water. And their tickets are more expensive.

This past weekend we took a family trip to Pennsylvania, spending a few days in the mountains and a few days in Pittsburgh with friends. We did many of the touristy things including taking in a Pirates game at PNC Park against the Reds(!). PNC is another new stadium (2001) that made the cityscape the backdrop. From our seats in the upper deck we had a good view of the field and could see the river, several iconic yellow bridges and the buildings of downtown. I noticed in the program, the Pirates have sliding ticket pricing, different prices for different days of the week. And you can only bring in sealed water bottles. I gotta say, I'm appreciative of the Yards' policy of allowing my own food.

After being in three different stadiums in such close succession I noticed how the fans are all alike. Most fans wear shirts and/or hats of their team. (I'm guilty here.) They bring in signs with hopes of getting on TV. They cheer loudly and think their team is the best. (I know my O's are the best, we are up by 9.5 games over those Yankees as of September 5!) They boo calls against their team; high-five close-by strangers when home runs are hit. They are older frumpy women wearing shirts that should have been retired years ago. They are young skinny girlfriends wearing jerseys that are far too big. They are guys in shirts bearing the names of mediocre players from seasons gone by. They are kids grumpy or sleeping by the sixth inning. The predominate color worn in the stands is the only difference.

Everybody loves baseball.




 

A Few Vacation Pics - The Netherlands

A working windmill near Zuiderzee

A view of many bridges over a canal (forgot which one) in Amsterdam

Another canal bridge

Tulips at the flower market in Amsterdam

Dinner at Blue Pepper, Amsterdam

This is thee courses of our five-course dinner at Blue Pepper restaurant. I forgot to take pictures of the other two before they were gone.
First course was duck, fish pâté, and crab with mango.

Second course was seafood soup served with lemon.

The third course was lamb satay and chicken satay.
The fourth course was the main entree, the Rijsttafel. The first picture is of the condiments, the second one is the selection of curried meats and seafood.

The last course was dessert with fermented rice pudding with coconut ice cream, pear cooked in blue curaçao, and mango salad.

30 Hours

The suitcase is still empty. I have not packed any clothes. sheesh. I have been packing my carry-on bag, got my camera and tour books together, extra memory cards and knitting needles (just in case I stumble past a yarn shop).

I guess I didn't want to pack too soon, but now I'm leaving tomorrow for a week with my mom in Netherlands & France and I haven't even considered wardrobe options. Except for which coat to take, I have thought of that. And the jury is still out on that, too. I'm afraid of being cold and damp one day and too hot the next.

I've been talking to Mom most everyday this week, swapping information, quizzing each other on desired destinations. We'll have a full day in Amsterdam of free time and a half-day in Paris. The D'Orsey is in renovations; a lot of good stuff at the Louvre is out on tour (I'll have to see Mona at another time); Versailles is too vast to see in a single afternoon; our front runners are currently Musee des Arts Decoratifs and Musee Marmottan (good Monet collection).

I think I need to do laundry tonight. Right after I stop at the Apple store.

 

Take Two or Three

Ok, that didn't last long.

Pre-planning, that is, for our trip to Europe next month when Mom and I go to Amsterdam, Brussels, and Paris. I figured out We'll have the most free time in Amsterdam, the first day we are there, the day we'll probably be most tired and jet-lagged. We land at 07:30 and have unscheduled time until the welcome reception/orientation that night. Our hotel is just a couple blocks from the Van Gogh and the Rijksmuseum, so we'll have plenty of options.

The rest of the days are scheduled with tours and sight-seeing trips except for an afternoon in Paris when we can take an optional tour of Versailles. I'm torn between that and checking out Mona at the Louvre. Or going up the Eiffel tower (our hotel is two blocks away!).

I won't be able to fine-tune plans until we get our travel documents with a more refined itinerary. Which means I'm back to having that empty lost feeling I wrote about a couple days ago.

OH! but wait....
I'm going to our quilt retreat this weekend. I really really need to start a packing list for that. I'm sure I'll forget to take a project that needs attending too. I have so many started and neglected projects, sheesh. I tend to overpack and be too optimistic about how much I will get finished. Then I start something new and end up having even more projects than I started with.

I'm also running a game on Saturday so I cannot forget to take all I need for that, including prizes.

And I promised to bring a soup for Friday night dinner.

I'm not teaching fabric dyeing this year, Lisa is, so I don't need to pack anything for that. I must not get sucked into that. Must. Not. Dye. Fabric.

I really could use another brick-colored fabric, however, for a current project I really need to finish. It's a quilt to be included in a book a fellow quilter is putting together, and the perfect color would add so much....

ARGH! Must. Not. Dye. More. Fabric.

Well, that worked well, I haven't thought about missing my favorite literary characters for that past several paragraphs now. D'oh!

 

Obsession Replacement

I found something to fill the hole left by finishing the Harry Potter books: trip planning. Mom and I are going to Europe for a couple days next month, Amsterdam, Brussels, and Paris. We'll be on an organized tour but will have some time to ourselves for sightseeing and most of our meals will be on our own as well.

I had some 40% off coupons for Borders so I bought small city guides for Amsterdam and Brussels/Bruges over the weekend and want to buy a book on Paris today. I like to find the hotels and the itinerary stops on the maps, then I can get spatially oriented. I also like to do searches in advance for specialty shops I might like to visit if I have time, like quilt and yarn shops. Oh, and don't forget shopping for Belgian chocolate. I'll pass on the Belgian lace though.

I try not to go overboard with the extras, though, free time will be shorter in reality. The trip is advertised as a 7-day trip, but when it comes down to it, it's really only five days of actual touring and the other two days are travel days. I'm not upset, all tour companies and cruise lines do this, make a trip sound fuller than it is. I just can't go overboard on a list of little side trips.

Next week: I'll start on a packing list.

 

Went North

I am struggling to get back into the swing of things after being on vacation last week. There is so much to do, laundry, and the yard needs some attention. Dan mowed it on Sunday, but the weeds have really encroached the periphery, some of them are quite tall.

The central reason for vacationing in New England was for Fern to attend and compete in the ISI Worlds championship in Boston (really Marlborough, but whatever). She did quite well: of four individual events she got two firsts (FS4 solo compulsories & artistic), a second (FS4 interp) and a third (freestyle silver). She had at least five and as many as seven in her flights so I was extremely pleased with the results, especially after placing last out of three or four several times at local competitons in the spring.

Fern skated Monday and Tuesday and her team events were on Saturday. I thought the Bowie's production team event went well, but we got third out of four. The team that won had a "Sesame Street" themed show, big family appeal, but the skating was sloppy, in my opinion, and I thought they should have gotten third and Bowie should have gotten second. The second place team, the one I had placed first, skated a very clean, choreographed program, but the music was eerie and was lower on the family appeal scale.

In the interim, we went up to New Hampshire for a few days at the beach and took a five-hour whale-watching trip. The journey out to the Jeffery Ledge, 30 miles off shore, took about an hour and a half. This ledge is a mountain range in the New England Gulf where the fish (plankton, etc.) whales eat are plentiful. (See that wide high place in the map below.) We got to see a pair of humpback whales and a pair of north atlantic right whales. The right whales are very rare, only about 420 in existence. This pair was a mom and her calf. I saw another animal breech the surface and splash down about 500 yards away from the boat but our guide only saw the splash and couldn't tell me what it was. It could have been a minke whale or a white-sided dolphin.


View Larger Map

We had good food, luscious lobstah rolls (lobster salad, like tuna salad, but with huge hunks of lobster meat on a hot dog roll) were prevalent but Kevin stuck to his cheeseburger addiction.

I've posted some pictures from the trip from my phone. I took the "big" camera too, but it'll be a while before I can download them. I got maybe a hundred shots of the whales but I won't know if they are any good until I can see them on a larger screen.

We also fit a couple days in Boston taking in a Ducks tour where Fern got to "drive" down the Charles River, the Blue Man Group, and the Museum of Science where Kevin spent three or four hours watching George Rhoads's Audiokinetic sculpture, Archimedian Excogitation. I watched too. I want one of my own.

Embedded Links

It's been so long since I posted anything of substance.

I'm not sure the following could be considered "substance" or not, however.

Friday 7/9, Kevin, with his Special Olympics swim team, were honored at the Bowie Baysox game. They got a pre-game introduction, two guys got to throw out the first pitches, and many team members got to run out to the bases with the team. Kevin got to run out to second base. He stood there during the National Anthem, then sauntered back while the rest of the kids ran. That's my boy.




All the fertile office co-worker's wives have given birth and I'm still working on the last baby quilt. I have 10% of the blocks done (of 20) so I have a long way to go.

I'm trying to stay on top of the laundry instead of leaving something in the washer for a couple days or having two or three baskets of things that never got folded while warm and now need to be re-fluffed.

The kids have been back from camp for over a week now and I'm almost done with their laundry. The Boy brought back some clothes with someone else's name written inside. I still need to put them in the post.

I've been listening to BBC/Radio 1 a lot via the Internet and satellite radio in the new car. The Internet plays in real time, but Sirius time-delay's the show by five hours. Kinda messes with the mind a bit.

Wednesday 7/7 was our twentieth anniversary. Dan and I took the day off from work and played golf, then had dinner at Cityzen downtown at the Mandarin Hotel. Yum.

I took a golf lesson Saturday morning from Troy Beck. I'd totally lost the ability to hit fairway woods from the fairway and wasn't getting any real distance from my longer irons. She said I was standing up too soon because I was off balance, and that I was crowding my hands/arms. She had me stand farther back from the ball and gave me drills to practice keeping balanced. By the end of the lesson I was getting 125 yards out of my 7 wood!

It rained 1.38" on Saturday.

Back in June I went to Columbus/OSU for a Perl conference. Perl is a programming language, not a misspelled adornment. I was born and went to college not an hour away from Columbus in Urbana. Some of my college friends were still in the area so I had an opportunity to catch up with some of them. I had lunch with Piper who had lived in the dorm room across the hall from me and is now working in Columbus.

One night I drove out to Urbana and met up with Martha and David at the college. It's really a university now, but I'm having a hard time changing the name in my mind. We walked around campus remarking on all the changes made in the last thirty years and reminiscing about fellow students. My grandmother taught biology and botany there and had her lab/classroom and office in a lovely old building, Barkley-Baily Hall, which since has been turned in to plain classrooms, probably in the English department. The college built a new science/math building in which my grandmother is supposed to have a memorial classroom, but Martha hadn't seen it on a previous visit and I didn't look for it myself. While I was in town, I also drove past my grandparents old house and visited them at the cemetery.

I was supposed to meet up with another friend, but she didn't make it back into town in time. I was bummed. I hadn't seen her in years.

Fern went to ice skating camp for a week and came back pretty jazzed to skate at Worlds in Boston at the end of the month. Now she has a week to cram in all the lessons she can before she competes. Most of her events have seven girls in them. I sure hope she does better than last, I don't want her to be devastated and quit skating. She's so beautiful when she skates and I'm thrilled she has an activity she enjoys. She's been working at the snack bar at the pool and loves having a paycheck. She hates her bank because they are never open when I can get her there to cash the check. Should I let her get an ATM card?

I tried three times to get the new iPhone software to download before it was successful. The download took over 75 minutes each time and process would die with 5 minutes to go. I don't have the new iPhone 4 but I got many of the new features on my 3Gs with this download. Some of the new features are quirky and I'm still trying to figure them out. Oh well. I'd love to be a product test for Apple.

My brother and Roseanne finally opened their yarn shop in Culpeper, VA. I guess I need to visit sometime, huh?


Oh, that's enough rambling for now.

The Rest of the Story

Now that it's been a couple days since our amazing dinner, I'm ready to tell you more about it. Overall, it was a wonderful meal. It lived up to the five-plus months of anticipation since I had made the reservation.

Dan, Ann, Mark and I went to Volt, Bryan Voltaggio's (made famous by the reality show Top Chef and recent James Beard Award nominee) restaurant in Frederick, Maryland on Friday and at ate at 'Table 21,' where you are served a chef-selected 21-course dinner.

Table 21 is not a table but really a counter with seating for eight around the edge of the kitchen. Our view for the three hours we were there was of the prep area for our dishes as well as dishes for other diners. We got to observe Chef Bryan and his staff create some of the best looking food I'd ever seen. The kitchen was quiet, not like any yelling matches you might see in the movies or on Hell's Kitchen.

The cuisine was new and high-tech, not the family staples your grandmother made. Each of the dishes were planned and executed with great care, even the garnishes, from fresh local products. At one point I stole and ate a leaf from Dan's plate. Chef Bryan caught me. We were then treated to a lesson about how he chooses the garnishes, they are meant to be eaten, enhance the dish visually and provide an element to the flavor profile of the dish. The sorrel leaf I nicked had been soaked in red liquid (I forget what kind, beet juice maybe) so the veins turned red, very pretty, very tasty.

Chef Bryan used a lot of things that were unexpected, such as macaroons made from vegetables and 'dippin' dots' made from tomato sauce. When they melted on the hot chicken and noodles, it blended into his wonderful take on Chicken Parmesan.

One of my favorite dishes was the goat cheese ravioli with the 'soy air,' foam made from soy sauce. The first fish dish was also up there on the favorite list, the hiramasa. It was delicate and moist. Then favorite list gets cloudy, I cannot rank anything after that. Except for the sweetbreads (at the bottom) and the seared lamb, which I didn't even try. I've got major texture issues, and it was very raw.

Save room for dessert. There were five dessert courses, the cheese cake was probably the best and the strawberry noodles were probably the most unusual.

We were offered coffee and tea with our desserts. I chose tea. This is the part of the whole affair I was disappointed with. I asked for Earl Gray and received a tea that was so strong I couldn't drink it, and it wasn't even Earl, it was Lapsang-Souchong. I really dislike people who presume they know how I like my tea better than I do. Please, let me brew it myself. It left a bitter taste in my mouth, literally. The waiter brought me another pot of tea, but it wasn't any better. There were enough tea leaves in the basket to brew about 8 cups of tea.

Dinner at Table 21 is $121 per person plus drinks, tax, and tip. Yes, I would eat there again, I'd love to try other dishes as the seasons change, but I wouldn't drink the tea.


 

Iceland, October 2003

With all the news these days involving the volcano in Iceland, I thought I'd post some old pictures of one of my trips there.

The view north from the 4-star Nordica Hotel. Hilton runs it now, but the view is the same.


My friend and I rented a car and drove up to the Snæfellsnes peninsula on this particular trip. Reykjavik sits on the Reykjanes peninsula, the Snæfellsnes is the next one to the north. This little church was along the way.

Icelandic pony

Sheep crossing

Small roadside rest stop. Yes, that's grass on the roof.

Rugged sea-side cliff.

Color! I'm always drawn to the bright colors of yarn shops.


A shopping street, downtown Reykjavik

I took pictures of some of the more touristy places on our previous trip, but this was before I had a digital camera and I have no idea where the prints even are. What a different world back then.

Another Place to Visit

I'm trying to get my brother started in the blogging world.

He's a long distance trucker and does runs all over the east coast. I thought it would be cool if he'd post pictures of where he goes every day. I get calls from him, "I was in Maine yesterday, the leaves are still pretty," and I'd think "show me!"

He'll be posting at Beagle Adventures when he figures everything out. Hopefully I'll get my sidebar link to his page working tomorrow.

Please stop by and visit him sometime.


 

Can I add any more links to this post?

It was such a lovely evening last night, after the the frigid rainy mess we had last weekend, it was a delight to walk around Capitol Hill with my kids and drink in the balmy air.

I have a guy who cuts my hair, and has been, on and off, for nearly 25 years. I did cheat on him with Nick Arrojo a couple of times, but I'm not going to let that bother me. I love catching up with Evan, hearing about his wife and kids, wow, they are getting so old now, but I guess we all are. I've kept with him from shop to shop, wherever he worked, and now he has had his own shop, Randolph Cree, on Capitol Hill near Eastern Market for many years. I'm please for him it's going so well.

I've needed a haircut for a while and Fern's been bugging me, too, she wants her hair cut also. So I finally remembered to call and made simultaneous appointments for us. Kevin went with us and sat still with a promise of a burger from Good Stuff Eatery afterwards. He'll do pretty much anything for a burger and fries, even sit in still in a hair salon for an hour. (Kevin could have stayed home with Dan, but my ulterior motive was to keep him from crashing in my bed at 7:00. I hate that.)

Good Stuff, or "Spike's" as we call it, is several blocks away down Pennsylvania Avenue. It's run by the Mendelsohn family, but Spike is most famous because of his appearance on Top Chef a couple seasons ago. The burgers are great and the Village fries are to die for. You should stop by if you're ever by there.

But I still couldn't believe how pleasant it was out last night, folks were dining outside and I hardly needed a jacket. Except for the fact there was homework to be done and Flash Forward to watch, I really didn't feel compelled to hurry home. I'm gonna miss this when winter rolls in.


 

Of Work and Golf

Wow, I can't believe how quickly I get behind in the blogging world. I worked from home yesterday and got a lot of real work done. Sometimes I think I get more done from home than at the office. Something about the combination of not having the office distractions and not wanting my working-from-home privileges revoked if I don't get a decent quantity of work done. Anyway, the point is, I didn't take the time to waste time blogging.

AM and I flew to Florida on Friday for a weekend golf trip. We flew into West Palm Beach and stayed at the PGA resort. They have four courses on-site and one more ten minutes away. We played the Palmer on Saturday and the Squire on Sunday, the two "easiest" courses. Ha. Lots of water in play is never easy.

It was hot, humid and rainy on Saturday. Thunderstorm-kind of rainy. We finished our round after 7:00. Actually, we really didn't finish since we stopped after 16 holes with more thunder in the area. And this was with an 10:28 tee time and a major storm delay. Newsflash: Florida is humid. I'll never wear a nylon golf outfit to golf in again, even if it was a gift from AM, and as cute as it may be. I was so sweaty-stinky at the end of the day, eesh. I needed tongs to remove it from the laundry bag. Cotton is better for me.

Sunday we had an 8:12 tee time and finished at 12:15. No rain! We were paired with a couple who lived on the course and evidently plays there a lot. After several holes the wife started pushing us to play faster, "We're behind pace...we're 15 minutes behind...we have to do everything we can to pick up the pace...." She had lipstick on her teeth. She bugged me. I started out playing well on the first several holes but then I went downhill, coincidentally with her nagging. This other couple decided two twosomes can play faster than one foursome so they played on ahead of us at 11. We never saw them again, good riddance, and we still finished in good time, no course marshall ever scolded us. The nice thing about them leaving was my mojo came back. I hit great drives after that, even got a par on a par 4 hole and a one-over on a par 5 hole. I finished the back nine with a 51.

We had plenty of time to drive around West Palm before going back to the airport. We got to see the famous Worth Drive where all the fancy-schmancy shops are. But it was a ghost town, the shops weren't open on Sundays so there was hardly anyone around. We found a nice upscale Italian place open for lunch with valet parking, but the valet was getting off work so we parked ourselves for free.

The flight home was uneventful, unless you count a thunderstorm over Tampa which delayed our incoming jet, which delayed our departure by almost two hours, and then the baggage carousel got stuck at BWI making us wait 45 minutes for our suitcases. The golf clubs came our almost immediately at the large item door. No wonder folks like to carry bags on.

Now it's Wednesday already. What's up with that?


 

Rainbow at the end of Saturday

Ball-eating Tree

I usually don't go for sappy, sorry

Patrick Swayze died last night from pancreatic cancer. I know he made other movies but I remember him mostly from Ghost and Dirty Dancing.

A couple weeks before school started this fall we were in southwest Virginia for Dan's family reunion. As part of that trip we drove past Mountain Lake, the resort what was used for some of the exterior shots of Dirty Dancing.

At the time Dan suggested I write a post appealing to my women readers who all have that movie in their wheelhouse. He suggested I post pictures of the resort from the movie along with the ones I took that day. I hadn't gotten around to finding the "before" pictures but in light of Mr. Swayze's death, I'll post the two I have now.



This is the front exterior of Mountain Lake resort, complete with Kevin romping on the grounds.

This is the gazebo that used to be at the lake shore where Johnny and Baby were shown practicing the famous dance lift. Jennifer Gray was quoted this morning on the news about what a great guy he was and how cold the water was. The lake has been losing water for the past several years, though, the current level is as high as it is because of the winter melts and spring rains this year.

As it happened, Dirty Dancing was on TV a week or two later and Fern got to experience what every girl my age did back then, except this time I knew all the words to all the songs. She thought it was lame. I guess teenagers nowadays don't go for nice stories with hunky guys?

Rest in peace, Patrick Swayze.

Photos from the Weekend

Abstract: Fern skating



Humpback Rocks, Blue Ridge Parkway, Va



The puzzle is coming along
It looked like this last week.

Quick Weekend Roundup

Kevin doesn't have day camp this week, therefore Dan and I are splitting the workdays this week; school starts next Monday so I might be back on a "normal" blogging schedule then, if I ever was on a normal blogging schedule.

This past weekend we went to Dan's family reunion down near Blacksburg, VA at Claytor Lake. Sunday the four of us hiked up to the Cascades. It was two miles each way and I am so bummed I didn't have my "walkometer" with me to record the hike's distance and elevation. I took pictures instead:








 

Sorry I haven't been blogging much. Last week was vacation, this week it's been work. We have a ticket system now where the testers will find something wrong and put in a ticket to get it fixed. The tester started testing my survey while I was away so I came back to about 15 tickets to attend to on Monday. Some were easy and got fixed fast, some more complicated opening up a whole can of worms and are still not completely resolved. But now I finally have a few minutes to blog before the next thing comes along.

---

Vacation was nice, we spent a week in south Myrtle beach, Surfside Beach, to be exact. I attended a two-day golf school Tuesday and Wednesday mornings. There's just so much to learn, or re-learn as the case may be. The school makes a individualized CD of your lessons so you can remember things and practice them after you go home. Check out Ritson-Sole golf school.

We arrived at our rental on Saturday, a cute little 3-bedroom house up on stilts with a carpark underneath. Sunday we spent at the beach and I got burnt where I missed with the sun screen at the edge of my bathing suit. Grrr. Monday Dan golfed while I took the kids up to Wilmington to pick up Fern's friend who was spending the rest of the week with us. Fern's so much easier to entertain when she has a friend along. Anyway, Dan calls me from the golf course. He thinks his camera was stolen out of the car. His work badge was not were he left it, which had been on top of the camera in the central console. Grrr.

The rental house did not have internet. Grrr. Tuesday Dan went out to a Dunkin Donuts with free WiFi to surf the web for a while. He came back with a newspaper someone had abandoned. There on the front page of the community section was an article about how the Surfside Beach police arrested five persons for breaking into cars, estimated 30-50 cars, on Sunday night. Really now? I just knew that's were our camera had gone, Dan was skeptical. He feared it would look like I was just "shopping" if I just went there looking for a camera we hadn't reported missing.

Later that afternoon I took the kids out to the dollar store and Walmart for sundries and swung by the police station on the way home. I told them our camera was missing, and yes, the car had been unlocked, shame on us. The girls wanted to go in with me, experience the whole police station thing, so we were escorted back to the room where they had the collection of the stolen property.
"What kind of camera was it ma'am?"
"A reddish-maroon little Nikon."
"Like this?" as he pulls out a camera fitting my description.
"Yes, exactly like this," I said. I turned it on and reviewed the pictures in the memory. "Hey, there are your pants you painted," I said to Fern, and "There I am golfing." The officer in charge of the property looked at the image of me and had me sign the form stating our property was returned to us.

We were escorted back out to the lobby where I had to fill out a report of the incident. I texted Dan: "At police station, got camera." He texted back "Wow!!" Oh ye of little faith.

The rest of the week was pretty tame. Thursday Dan golfed and I took the kids to Le Grand Cirque, which is a cheaper version of a Cirque du Soleil. Friday I golfed and Dan took the kids to the water park.

Dan got a 15 minute head start on the drive home on Saturday, and went to I-95 via Wilmington and I-40. I went to I-95 via US-701 & US-421. When we were both on 95, he was about 30 miles ahead of me and his lead grew even more when I had to stop for gas and lunch. I was not going to win the race home, not that we were speeding or anything. At Richmond I took the 295 beltway, then US-301 to Bowie, he stuck with I-95. I beat him home by 30 minutes. Yay me.

Now it's back to the real world, and there are two more weeks until school starts.


 

I'm back from vacation.

I'm trying to tame the laundry beast.

659 new email messages were waiting for me at work.

My back hurts.

I haven't been sleeping well.

How are you?