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Friday was nearly pretty good sliding toward awesome. My supervisor let me out early as a 10 year anniversary gift -- yes, I've been doing this work for 10 years now -- to see a movie, Odds Against Tomorrow, that I'd been wanting to see for approximately 40 years. (First boyfriend's introduction to Modern Jazz Quartet, their music was one of the early things we bonded over. I'd never seen the film. Now I finally have.)

For those who are interested, many reviewers have called it the last true film noir. All I know is that it dealt with racial issues far more explicitly than I thought a 1959 film would. Harry Belafonte was good, most of the rest of the cast was good, too. It showed the underbelly of New York really well. The single most surprising shot of the movie for me was one showing the highway approach to one of the bridges. It was nearly empty.

Followed up the movie with Vietnamese for dinner with neotoma, and she even bought me coconut cake for dessert.

That was all the "pretty good sliding toward awesome" parts. Seriously. If Friday afternoon into evening had just been that, it would definitely have been at the awesome end of that scale.

Getting to the movie was a problem. For those of you who aren't in the District, I'm back in a boot for a bad ankle. I have three more weeks in the boot, followed by six weeks of physical therapy. If that doesn't work, then the podiatrist and I are discussing surgery on the tendon. I think it's the posterior tibial tendon. Anyway, that's over a month out.

Being on the boot and a cane, I try not to get into scrums on the metro, so when four other people all lined up at one door, I went to the other. They walked down to my end to sit for some reason. It was a nearly empty car. One was a girl that I think was about ten, but might have been a couple of years younger. Two of them were teens with one looking more like the lower end of the scale and the other -- the one who kept trying to use the supports to "pole dance" might have been as old as seventeen. The fourth seemed to be in the same age range until I got a good look. I think she was mid to late twenties.

The oldest was the one doing the most messing around. She pretended to twerk at several points, asked to see my tablet (I explained it was a Kindle, showed I was reading a book on it, and told them I tended to buy new ones in July when they're cheapest.). The youngest was more interested in the river out the window while we were above ground and was very quiet once we went into the tunnel. At some point the oldest asked which stop I was getting off at, and I said, "Metro center." She just said, "Oh, that's after us."

The car filled up more about three stops in and three stops after that, L'Enfant Plaza one of the places to switch lines, they got up to go. I nodded at them. The doors to the platform opened and one of them -- I don't know which -- flung an open bottle of something (I thought Gatorade from the smell, but when I saw the bottle, it didn't look right.) at me.

The bottle didn't hit me. It was plastic so it didn't shatter. The liquid covered me. I had damp sticky patches in my hair and I kept finding them on my skin until I got home that night. None of that mattered in the first few seconds because the liquid got into my eyes. It was two stops before I could open them properly. I blessed my lucky stars that I'd taken home an open bottle of milk from the office so that I could use it to bathe my eyes. Someone gave me an antiseptic wipe and told me to wipe my face and hands as we didn't know what else could be in the bottle. I was offered water. Someone gave me a whole packet of Kleenex to help me wipe the worst of it off or up depending upon the surface. The boot has a slick sole when wet, so someone helped me cross the spilled liquid as I got off to change lines.

There were so many good, kind people. I can't stress that enough. The incident makes me feel unclean -- nasty -- in spite of all the good people. And I'm sorry about that. Most of the people who helped me confirmed they threw it at me. They weren't pulling a general prank.

I know that I'm lucky this weekend. Very lucky. They threw a liquid that stung my eyes but didn't damage me in any permanent way. There are people dead, injured, or mourning after the events of the weekend. Not me, and I know that's wonderful.

But it still felt icky.

I have a snow drift on my balcony. I decided it was time to close the window.

We're getting the nearly 2" an hour that was promised. As of an hour ago, Capitol Hill had 16" of snow. This is getting interesting.

First bit: Please go read ladyofastolat's post titled Of the Rings of PowerPoint and the Third Age. Everyone has been to the type of meeting she describes at the beginning.

Second bit and/or bob: As always, I like to commemorate an anniversary on this day. This is the date my father got back from his last tour in Vietnam. He swears he'll get over the jet lag soon. I'm lucky that he's still with us, but after 40 years, I still remember greeting him at the airport with "We just heard that Da Nang fell." His answer was, "Then that's the end." By the end of April, he was right.

Article which prompted everything below is here.



I'll start by saying that I don't have children. However, like most of us, I was a child at one point, and I remember growing up.

When I was 5 I went to kindergarten. The school, Ashlawn, was three or eight blocks away depending upon the route. My mother walked the three block version, which included a short trip through some public greenery on the edge of the playground, for about a week before school was due to begin. The night before the first day of school, she asked me if I wanted her to come with me. I replied that I was a big girl, and I walked to school by myself.

Part of me regrets not having her walk me to school the first day, mostly because she never offered again. But I also remember how proud of myself I was for being "a big girl."

Mom made certain I knew all the smart things: never get in a car with an adult you don't know, never tell anyone where you live (other than a policeman if you're lost), come straight home. I took these to heart. In late October or early November, it began to rain while I was at school. I had my rain coat, boots, and umbrella, so I was prepared, but no one realized how windy it was going to be or how much the temperature would drop. I began to walk home. My umbrella blew inside out as soon as I got out of the trees and the wind felt like it was going right through me. At the first of two street crossings, a woman stopped and asked if I wanted a lift home. She knew my name, but I didn't recognize her -- not for sure -- so I told her that I didn't take rides from strangers. I completed my route home.

The woman, whose name I don't think I ever knew, had called Mom as soon as she got home. Praised her for training me so well, and warned her that I was still over a block away and very cold and wet. Mom says she debated whether to come get me. She didn't. Instead, when I got home, grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup were waiting to warm me from the inside out. Mom was never big on praise, but that day I got a lot of it -- especially for turning down the ride.

We moved to London just before first grade. Because the bus stop was on a busy street near a three lane roundabout, Dad walked me to the bus stop every morning and Mom picked me up from it every afternoon. But there were still things I did on my own, ranging from walking two blocks to the pillar box to post letters to deciding what books I wanted to read. (I attribute being able to read at a 10th grade level at age 7 to the fact that neither parent tried to censor my reading.) Third grade, I was in small town America and walked my little sister to kindergarten every morning. We walked to the bus stop in 4th and 1st grades. We walked to and from school -- a mile each way -- from my 5th - 8th grades. We also had a paper route, went to summer camp for 10 weeks every year, and were allowed to go to the movies by ourselves. With my paper route money, I bought theater tickets. I saw the Mormon Tabernacle Choir standing room only when I was 12. I went to see plays, too.

At 15 I went to boarding school. I found out much later that my parents had signed the permission slip for me to smoke. They figured I might try it some time and didn't want me to get in trouble for it. Beyond that, I was shocked when I wasn't allowed to attend an evening movie or go to a restaurant on my own in downtown Richmond. I found a friend who was willing to see the Olivier Wuthering Heights with me, fortunately, and I had to fight to be allowed to attend the Nutcracker on my own at the Richmond Mosque (theater name, not religious establishment).

In Belgium, at 17, I discovered the Musee du Cinema. I saw Il Trovatore standing room only. Hell, I went to Paris for the day by myself (six hours each way by train which left me about seven hours to explore the city). Not one thing I did there was something I'd done before. But I was trusted to figure out public transportation on my own, trusted to call if I had a problem (pre-cellphone: I think we used tin cans and string back in the Dark ages), and trusted to stick to the schedule I'd discussed.

One of my fellow alumni came up to me at the reunion I attended and said, "I didn't appreciate you enough. You were the only one of us to go out and have adventures." He also thanked me for introducing him to Gilbert & Sullivan which became a lifelong love of his.

The thing that I want to emphasize most out of all this: the crime rate was much, much higher back then. Washington DC was the murder capital of the country when I was going to the theater on my own at age 12. If it was an evening performance, my parents would pick me up afterward, but if it was a matinee, I was trusted to find my way home. I was trusted to buy ingredients for the dinner I was cooking from the time I was 10, even though it involved crossing a major street with no cross walk. That's what I remember most, being trusted. And that's what I worry the kids today aren't getting.

I'm fine. My evening commute was bollixed up, but I am absolutely fine.

One person is dead. Two are in critical condition. Another 81 people were affected badly enough to require a trip to the hospital. No one saw any flames, just smoke.

I feel pretty lucky.

And, thanks to eanja's generosity, I'll see many of you at Arisia.

Guardian Obituary

New York Times Obituary

Washington Post on the DC Summer Jobs Program

I met the man. I've shaken his hand. He kept a group of us waiting for over half an hour for a meeting he'd called. Once he was in the room, though, he was laser focused on the issue at hand, and he knew the facts of the matter. He had the knack for remembering people -- maybe not their names, but why and when he'd met them -- which made him a popular politician.

There is an annual turkey giveaway in DC. In addition to providing turkeys to poor families, there's a meal for every homeless person in the city. It's financed through donations and city funds, by the way, not a penny of federal money.

Marion Barry helped make Home Rule possible. Was he a great man? Well, he certainly had great flaws. But I think he achieved some niche greatness.

This is a response to someone else's comment at The Guardian:

Let me tell you about Marion Barry. But first, let me tell you about myself. I have lived in DC for 7 years now and lived in the DC area for 12 years in my childhood and teens.

DC has a non-voting Delegate in Congress. We wouldn't have even that much, if it weren't for Marion Barry. We wouldn't have the ability to make our own laws, if it weren't for Marion Barry. We have a better city for the poorest because Marion Barry fought for them. You can be cynical and say he was only doing it for a vote, but the fact is he got people fed, clothed, and employed.

His summer jobs program continues to this day and is the biggest in the country with 14,000 getting jobs last year and we do it all with local, not federal money.

At his death, I think it's just as appropriate to remember the man who helped achieve home rule, and who did so much to improve the city as it is to remember the man who was arrested for crack.

The NTLive Frankenstein is being reshown on Halloween. I already have tickets for me, a work friend, and her teenaged daughter (Friend says I'm the daughter's real mother, she just carried her, because daughter and I have such similar outlooks.) I'm doing a happy dance in my seat.

I don't know which actor is playing which role and I really, really wish they were showing both versions.

I got off early tonight and was able to stop at the Farmer's Market. Kale Kimchi, DC dill pickles, two different cheeses, and a half gallon of the best chocolate milk (Yes, it even tops the milk found at Pennsic) are among my haul. I stopped for a half dozen oysters and a glass of white wine, too.

Lovely!

Good thing: jerminating is in town. We met up for dinner last night and will have a chance to spend some time talking before his flight leaves on Sunday, too.

Bad thing: Yesterday, four people were shot during business hours about a block from where I work. As of the last report I read, none has died. The bus stop is on the bus line I use to get home.
Local news report here

I don't know what Congress is up to, but the lights are still on in the cupola at 23:35.

My flight was cancelled last night due to the United computer glitch, so no Boston for me this weekend.

Two of my stranded compatriots decided to get to New York or New England by the 3:15 Amtrak departure and were dropped at Union Station just before I was let off.

I did the tourist thing, especially with the woman who lives in Albany but spends a great deal of time in Denver. She's a schoolteacher and the questions she asked about "the bad parts of town" were slightly prejudiced -- though to her credit she didn't know it until I explained and she seemed quite compassionate after I gave her a potted history of the city.

But she also did not know, nor did the other person in the van with us, that the District had no representation in Congress. They both asked a few questions, and I made my usual plea for them to ask their representatives to give me a representative (at least).

I also did some sightseeing spiel for them, since she'd never been to DC before and I included the tidbit that the statue of Freedom on top of the Capitol is actually slightly taller than the one of Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial which is impossible to tell from the angles. I then mentioned that Jefferson Davis when he was Secretary of the Interior was responsible for the change to the headdress (it was originally supposed to be a French style Liberty cap) because he didn't want the slaves who were building the Capitol to get any ideas.

She said, "I don't like to hear about things like that," and shuddered.

It's part of our history. She's tall (at least compared to me), slim, and blue-eyed. How many people don't know because they don't like to hear about it?

It's amazing to me.