lolajl: March 2005 Archives

Last night Bruce and i got stuck in a massive backup on Route 50. The reason? A motorcycle driver ran into a police car. Yep, that's right. Apparently the wreckage was spread out all over the place and all lanes were closed, so that a helicopter could land to take the seriously injured motorcycle driver to the hospital. Fortunately, Bruce and I had stopped just before the last on-ramp (the next exit is, of course, at least 6 miles away), so we managed to maneuver our vehicles over to the onramp. It was pretty scary driving since we were going “against” the traffic but finally managed to get onto the highway that is below Rt. 50 and then took Rt. 450 back home, along with hundreds of drivers forced to go down this path. Thus causing us to miss the first hour of Amazing Race.

Argh - we were not happy campers about this. Especially since we'd seen this warning on a signage way before this section but the traffic looked normal to us, so we decided to continue. Wrong decision. The accident must have happened moments before that message went up on the electrical sign. I did have a feeling that perhaps we should go down on Rt. 450, plus Bruce wanted to pick up the key lime pie that my parents' neighbor had made for us.

Okay, now I'm going to start up a rant about motorcycle drivers riding motorcycles like this one. Once you get beyond the Beltway overpass, all the way until Bowie (which makes it about 10 miles), the highway is fairly straight. Yes, just the perfect playground for young people driving motorcycles. At high speed. Perhaps as high as 150 mph (I kid you not . . . I've seen them go past my station wagon out to a point way at a distance in just about 2 minutes), weaving in and out of the traffic and even on the dotted line edge.

Come warm weather, they come out to play on the weekends and in the evenings. I have to watch out when I'm driving on Rt. 50 at certain times.

Now, these folks have every right to own such motorcycles and use these however they want to. With that, though, comes responsibility, making sure they don't break the law and/or cause a serious accident. In addition, I'd like to see more cops on the road during times when these motorcycles are out on the road.

We had a good tutoring session to start off with. I like our tutor; she is quite patient and I was able to understand her most of the time. I had a hard time making some of the sounds on its own, but pronouncing the words is no problem. I'm really surprised that my pronunciation is quite good; with practice I ought to be fluent . . . I'm sure that were we in Russia for several months, I would be speaking like a native in no time at all.

Now, Bruce and I just need to practice more often. And in the meanwhile, I made great progress with the sock. No, I didn't finish it off yet, but I did get to turning the heel and am now working on the foot portion. I really hope that I'll be finished with it tomorrow evening.

You know how it is when family gets together for a holiday dinner and the conversation takes interesting turn? We went over to my parents home and had two family friends join. Now, father is a great storyteller and is always talking about deceased family members, the neighborhood from when it was first established as the first subdivision for black folks in Prince Georges county, Patti and me from when we were kids (you know, all those embarrassing stories that you can't tell your parents to stop telling because these stories really did happen).

Well, today's dinner conversation went like this, no particular order: Mr. Smith's brother, who used to be a prizefighter and would walk down to the bus stop to go to McDonald to eat and then come back home, cremation, worms in the ground and tapeworms, all the bad manners that I taught Sis and the bad manners that Sis didn't get from me, shopping for hats, shoes and clothes from stores that existed 30 years ago and which are closed now, me being the first child born in the neighbor and having nobody to play with but Erica (so that's why I turned out so weird). Like I said, it's an adventure just sitting around the dining table with my parents; you never know what to expect.

I finally broke down and called up Schoolhouse Press and was gratified to find out that Woolgathering is coming any day now, having been mailed out earlier this week (or was it last week?) . . . so those of you who are waiting for your copy, keep an eye on the mail box.

Meanwhile, I'm starting to gather steam on the 2nd pair of sock. Will I be able to finish it before end of the weekend? One can always hope - at least I'm hoping to make quite a bit of progress.

I think several months ago, I mentioned that Bruce and I were taking Russian classes. Well . . . we've been finding ourselves falling behind, due to the fact that Bruce started a new job, and that we'd been sick for two weeks in February. Also, the way the class is run is simply not working. So, we tried to get out of the class but it just didn't go over too well with the teacher. So, we've decided to stick with it, for at least one more month to keep the peace, and in the meantime we'll be seeing a tutor in order to catch up. Then, after we finally get out of the class, we hope to continue with the tutor. I really want to learn the language; it's just that I think I can get more out of it with a more individualized attention than in a group situation.

I feel bad for the other students as we seem to be holding back the class a bit. I noticed that there were two other people who apparently have dropped out of the class. I'd sure love to learn their secret on how they accomplished this - one of them I see every Sunday at church. Hopefully I can get to him before he goes home next Sunday, if he shows up that is. Wish me luck!

Bruce and I had a good time at the embassy, despite the fact that we got small plates while the people seated right next to the stage got large plates, they ran out of coffee, and desserts were gone by the time we got over to the side chambers at the other end of the great hall. We had an acquaintance take our picture:

There were some entertainment. First they had a group of young girls from the embassy community come and sing and dance. They wore ritzed up versions of their native costume. I was hoping that these would be authentic, but I guess not.

By the way, there were two teenage girls in costumes handing out the programs when we arrived at the great hall. But I didn't get to take pictures since I didn't feel appropriate taking snapshots right there at the entrance. But there will be other opportunities, I hope, for me to check out other costumes.

Besides this group, there was a gentleman who sang an operatic song and a folk song, a magician, a young woman dancing a gypsy dance while a trio played. I took pictures, but I was way in the back so the pictures aren't really that great. Oh, well. At least we got to dress up and go out on the town. I'm hoping we'll get to do this more later in the year.

I'm actually making progress . . . I got started on this sock last week and really knitted up a storm on it over the weekend. It got slowed down a bit this week but now I'm getting ready to shape the toe and should have it done by end of the day and will have started on its matching pair.

Still no Woolgathering - I'm going to give Meg Swansen a call next week and see what we can do about this.

Recently there have been concerns over the proposed regulation of bloggers and political journalists. Currently, paid advertising is, and should be, subject to FEC regulation. However, bloggers, on all sides of the political world, provide commentaries on various issues. Think of it as a soapbox that you get on and cry out your thoughts, and you'll be prepared to face anything, from rotten tomatoes to roses.

Here is a bipartisan coalition, The Online Coalition, who are preparing to send a letter to FEC expressing their concerns about this regulation. Whether you're a blogger, or just an interested reader, I encourage you to read this letter. I've added my name to the petition.

Still haven't received Woolgathering. Sigh . . . maybe before Saturday, certainly. It looks like The Opinionated Knitter is available now, for a decent price. I'm a big fan of Elizabeth Zimmermann and I have all of her books, except for Knitting Without Tears, which seems to have gone missing, along with Simply Socks by PG-R.

Tomorrow I leave work early so I can get ready for the Maslenitsa event. Usually, I'm rushing around until the last minute to make additions to my wardrobe, since I don't usually get dressed up as I rarely go to fancy events like this one. But this time I had a lot of luck on my side - I was able to find a nice long dressy coat with fake fur trimmings, and I even found two pair of shoes that fit my feet nicely. Hubby was able to find a nice wool/cashmere suit (it's really amazing how quickly you can detect the quality of the suit fabric . . . there was another one that was a lot cheaper but also looked it - stiff, shiny, with a tacky feel to it), white shirt that fits him along with a nice red tie with small patterns.

Wish I could take my sock knitting with me, but I'll be too busy gawking and taking pictures. And trying to remember what little Russian I know and keeping my mouth shut so I don't cause an international diplomatic mess . . .

Now I'm feeling like I need to get back to knitting. Yesterday morning on the Metro train I went diving into my backpack to look for my knitting bag, and realized that I'd left it at home. Rats. There's a sock that I'm trying to get going on; I'll have to remember to take it with me when we go out shopping for a new suit for Bruce and a nice winter coat and a pair of comfortable dress shoes (is there such an animal out there?) for me.

Our church, along with St. John the Baptist Orthodox Church are the beneficiaries of an annual event that is hosted by the Russian Embassy. This event is called “Maslentisa”. It is a winter festival that is traditionally celebrated in Russia, and takes place during the Cheesefare Week. In the Orthodox Church, we call the period before Pascha (which would be known as Easter in the West) the Great Fast. First, we start to abstain from meat, then, we start to abstain from dairy products. So in Russia, before the Revolution, Maslenitsa was a big holiday. Remember that back then they didn't have refrigerators and so forth, so they had to use up all the cheese, butter, etc. People would make blinis and serve sour cream and butter.

At this event there's going to be blinis, caviar, smoked fish, and other delicacies. I'm not so sure about caviar, but since this may well be my only opportunity to try Beluga caviar, I might as well go for it. There will also be entertainment. On the invitation it says business attire or Russian costume. Russian costumes - now that piques my interest! I'm going to have to remember to take my camera and make sure I have an extra disk.

I wonder if SecState Condoleeza Rice will show up? That would be really awesome if she really did show up . . .

I see that Meg Swansen has put up a picture of the Cuff-to-Cuff sweater at Schoolhouse Press. The technique used, intarsia in the round, looks very intriguing and I'm interested in how Meg does it. I haven't received the newsletter yet - hopefully it'll come today. Has anyone got it yet? What's the gauge?

Boy, that snowstorm turned out to be a wimp of a storm. For once, it turned out that the air near the ground was just too dry and the snow machine decided to pass us by and dump it all on Boston. There goes our chance of getting a foot-high pile on the front yard.

Couple weeks ago I found out that my sister is expecting and Baby Hall will be due in September. I'm really excited about getting to be Aunt Wowa (I'm guessing that's how the baby's going to pronounce). I figure I'm going to knit garments for the 6 month size, or 9 month size, since that falls within the cold weather range. But first, gotta find out whether it's a boy or girl . . . they'll be finding this out later this month.