Do you ever have those moments when you realize that you’re behaving like a charicature of yourself?  You know, when you do the sort of thing that someone who knew you might write into a scene for an exaggerated sitcom character that is based on you?  Well, I do.  (Not the sitcom part, but the rest of it.)  […]

I think I’m not a fall person.  When I was in school in Utah I liked fall because I associated it with the excitement of a new school-year and the fun of wearing sweaters.  Now that I just work at a law firm, I don’t have new school-years, and I only wear sweaters on the weekends.  So […]

Lunch at Ginger Since we didn’t begin our tour of Madrid until around Noon, and since I hadn’t eaten anything since the airplane breakfast during the wee hours of the morning, our first order of the day was to get lunch.  We decided to try a place called Ginger — it came with strong recommendations […]

I got to the hotel around 11am and met Amanda in the room.  We caught up quickly, congratulated ourselves on being in Madrid, and then I jumped in the shower to freshen up.  Once clean and sunscreened, I put some eyedrops in my eyes (it’s easier to pretend you aren’t tired when your eyes aren’t […]

Today’s forecast predicts temperatures in the 100s. It’s likely to hit 106 F, and if it does, it will break all sorts of records. The high humidity will make it feel more like 110 or so. Needless to say, we’re in an “Excessive Heat Warning”:  children, animals and the elderly are advised to avoid the […]

This afternoon I received a text from my friend Nicole saying she had an extra ticket to tonight’s Major League Baseball game between the Washington Nationals and the Colorado Rockies — did I want to come?  Not only did I want to come, I also felt like I could come.  After a busy and stressful […]

This week is the fortieth anniversary of the Watergate scandal that brought down President Nixon.  As you might expect, Washington is abuzz and the Washington Post (whose reporters famously cracked the story) has compiled quite an array of current and archival materials analyzing the events and their impact on American politics.  The Post also hosted a fancy […]

On Thursday night I got a text message asking me if I wanted to see a concert at a place called Jammin Java on Friday.  I had no idea who sent the message (some out of state number), and I’d surely never heard of Jammin Java — but I said yes anyway.  A quick Google search told me there […]

I went to a dinner party tonight after work.  It was hosted by the same woman who threw the New Year’s Eve party that I almost completely missed.  As I’d expected, it was full of interesting people:  there was an environmental lawyer, a graduate student in social work, an environmentalist who works at the World Wildlife Foundation […]

This was a busy weekend.  Not only did I have a six-hour opera, a modern dance concert, and a Shakespeare play, I also: worked; went to church; hometaught two new families (both of whom are going to be a challenge — one is a newly baptized Haitian who doesn’t speak English and barely any French; the other is […]