Oh Brother!

It's June. Someone pinch me, because I seriously doubt May could have passed quickly enough for it to be the 7th of June already. Ridiculous! It's strange how May did run away with itself when there were more days in it than in April. Okay, only one more day, but sometimes that seems to make all the difference. Anyway, I spent the first half of last month looking forward to the last half of last month and it did not disappoint.

My brother arrived at Dulles International Airport at 2:20 on a Wednesday afternoon. To be precise, it was the Wednesday before the lovely Memorial Day Weekend. I kept track of his flight's progress online and called him the moment I knew he landed. Since I didn't pick him up from the airport, I was forced to wait until I came home from work to hug his neck. It was a glorious reunion. I walked into my room and...there was his stuff, ALL over it. It's okay, I didn't mind. We greeted each other and then got ready to head down to Old Town Alexandria for a little Thai food with my small group from church. Sure we were half an hour late, but we rode the trolley down the famous King Street and enjoyed a nice meal with my friends and a lovely view of the Potomac right behind us. It was fun for Barron to meet some of my church friends. Okay, it was fun for ME to see Barron meeting some of my church friends. I don't suppose it's polite to put words in the poor boy's mouth. Anyway, that concluded our first day of togetherness and life didn't get any less busy from there.

Thursday night we went our separate ways because I was given the opportunity to see Puccini's Turandot at the Kennedy Center Opera House with a friend from work. Joanne and I left work and journeyed via metro to the Foggy Bottom metro stop. From there we forewent the free shuttle ride to the Kennedy Center and decided to stroll there on our own two feet. It was a lovely spring eve. After eating at the tasty but definitely overpriced Kennedy Center Cafe, we made our way into the theater for the start of the show. I knew nothing about the opera except that the most famous aria from it, "Nessun Dorma", was currently on my iPod. I read all about the story in the playbill. This was good foresight on my part, if I do say so myself, because our seats were under the first balcony which obscured our view of the translation above the stage. So I never really knew what the people were saying. If I leaned to my left and ducked a bit I could see the bottom left of the screen. Words like "heart", "torment" and "my" kept showing up but in what context, I don't know. After Joanne shushed the young couple behind us attempting to explain the plot to each other in loud whispers, I enjoyed the opera very much. The sets were amazing, the music was superb and the lady who played Turandot was only slightly annoying. I mean, if I could have seen the sound waves made by her vibrato I would probably see about 50 feet between each peak. It was bad. Eh well, that's opera for you.

Friday night Barron and I accompanied Joanne and my roommate Bekah to Havana Village in the Adams Morgan neighborhood. It was time for a little salsa dancing. We took the beginner's group lesson at 7:30 before the free dancing started at 9:30. I would just like to formally thank Barron for being the only male student who knew how to salsa. There were three girls (me, Joanne and Bekah), and three boys (Barron and two guys who did NOT know what they were doing.) Since the instructor made us switch partners every couple dances we all got to dance with Barron. and ONE! Ahem, anyhoo...we learned a few of the basic steps and were released to dance with whomever we wanted. The lights dimmed, the room filled and the beats of salsa and merengue pulsed out of the loud speakers. It was so much fun! Rarely have I danced in a group of people where men outnumbered women. This was one of those times - as soon as my friends or I sat down there were one or two guys standing in front of us, asking us to dance. Though I had a good knowledge of the basic steps I spent the time trying all these new complicated things the guys seemed to make up on the spot. I spun around, dipping and ducking, but smiling all the while. No one spun me as much as Barron did, though. He kept trying out all these new spin moves on me. It's kinda fun to be a dancing guinea pig. I kept dancing with guys who spoke Spanish to me and seemed surprised when I didn't understand them. I finally figured out why. "You're not Puerto Rican," a young fellow named Hector asked me. "Um, no, I'm American," I replied. "Oh, I thought you were Puerto Rican. You look Puerto Rican," he said. Fair enough.

We've now reached Saturday night of Memorial Day Weekend. Busy, right? I'm telling you, I need a break for the rest of the summer to recover from doing so many things in such a short amount of time. I was thinking, "Oh, it'll be nice to lie around and watch TV on DVD all weekend long." Nope, no such luck. Anyway, Saturday Barron and I went with my roommate Kristen (far right in above pictures) and her mom to Sonic. What's the big deal, you might be thinking. Well, I'll tell you. I love Sonic. Love. It. And until that day I hadn't been to one in over a year on account of the closest Sonic to my house is in Fredericksburg, VA. That, my friends, is over an hour away! An hour! So that Saturday seemed the perfect day for a Sonic road trip. For lunch I had a chicken club toaster, onion rings and a Route 44 cherry limeade. It was perfection. Barron and I took a nap on the drive back and arrived in Arlington refreshed and ready for a night o' fun. We grilled out with Kristen and Cory (also pictured above) before we headed to Dupont Circle for a little live jazz. An ORU alumnus sings regularly at the 18th Street Lounge in Dupont Circle, so I took the gang with me to hear her and have her meet Barron. It was fun. We heard some good music and enjoyed some lounging. Barron and I even did a little more salsa-ing on the dance floor. By the end of the night, we were beat and ready for a day of rest. But we didn't get it...

Sunday dawned and we had a party for which to prepare. I had bragged about my house so much to my lunch gang at work that they had invited themselves over for a Memorial Day cookout at the famous 925 house. It turned into a house party when I told my roommates about it and, voila, there we were on Sunday morning/afternoon preparing for a house party of 25-30 people. It was a blast. The food was delicious and so was the company. We even brought in a fellow Oklahoman for the night - Barron's friend Allison from OU. She was visiting friends in the city and graced us with her presence. Delightful. Anyway, we wrapped up the party about 12:30am or 1am. I know! We picked up around the house...okay, Kristen and Cory did most of it...okay, all of it...and we were ready for a relaxing Memorial Day.

Monday was relaxing, but we still had plans. In the afternoon we rounded up Allison and headed to Alexandria to watch Star Trek on the silver screen. I'm no trekky, but I did like that movie a lot. I'm a sucker for any summer blockbuster with stunning visuals and occasional cheesy lines, though. Give me Transformers, super heroes and outer space creatures any day...of the summer.

Barron and I spent the rest of the week hanging out, seeing Night At the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian on IMAX, and rewatching episodes of Arrested Development on DVD. It was a rip roaring good time. We did each hang out separately with friends who were in town for visits. I had dinner with a good friend from UK and it was fun to catch up and talk sociology...

...I'm going to digress here for a moment. Ready? Okay. I have been out of school for a full year now. Over a year, actually. I finished my thesis by mid-April and I was completely done with classes by the beginning of May. Since then I have done very little to exercise my mind intellectually. I feel I get a little dumber every day. I still think with a sociological framework, but I seldom express my sociological sentiments because I feel that few would jive with those thoughts, if you will. When reuniting with old grad school chums, however, one has the perfect opportunity to talk all the sociological jargon one wishes, and I did. It was fantastic! I felt my mind getting a little sharper with each conversation point. I suppose I should keep up the sharpening process by reading sociology journals and books and such. Don't bet on it. I like rereading the Harry Potters too much, and I won't apologize for it.

So...the last weekend Barron was in town was fun. Unfortunately, we didn't spend it together really. He went to Wolftrap Friday night with a friend to see Pirates of Penzance while I readied myself for a trip to Jannerstown, PA, with my roomies Kristen and Bridget for our old roomie's bridal shower and bachelorette party. K, B and I left early Saturday morning to celebrate Kate's upcoming nuptuals. Kate, by the way, is the roommate I "replaced" when I moved in to 925. We overlapped by about a month and in that time we became friends and she found out enough about me to ask me to play the violin in her wedding. She's never heard me play, bless her heart, but she trusts that I know what I'm doing. Hmmm, I guess I should practice, huh? Anyway, Kristen, Bridget, Kate and I had a great time at the shower with Kate's friends and family. It's fun to meet people who have so much history with my friends. It's nice to see from whence they've come.

FYI, from left to right is (are?) me, Kate, Bridget and Kristen. I care naught for grammar at this late hour. It's 9:20pm and I'm fading.

Before I fade entirely, however, let me tell you a little bit more about what I've been up to the past month. I've been working, thank God, and I'm still enjoying it. The work is generally steady and the coworkers are generally pleasant. For what more could I ask? My church has been great. I go to service at 9:30am then help out with the pre-K kids at 11:00. I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but let me elaborate a bit. Kids are exhausting. Perhaps you haven't heard. I doubt I set a good example for the kids when I'm on the floor with them, rough housing in church. I'm the safari leader, they're the lions. Naturally, they must eat off my arms and legs so I can only hobble around or lie writhing on the ground, calling pitifully for a doctor. Sometimes they're the wardens and I'm the prisoner. I demand decadent prison food like creme brulee and my wardens provide me with food they don't even know exists. This one kid, Austin, speaks only in gibberish. Now, this gibberish comes in complete sentences and conversations, so I enjoy just going along with it and making up incredible responses to what are probably very ordinary statements. "Shzah blah kee boothrobleeble," he'll state quite emphatically with conversational hand gestures and all. "Oh really," I'll exclaim incredulously, "you just got back from the moon and it DIDN'T taste like cheese?" We can go on for minutes at a time. Besides molding malleable minds at church, I enjoy taking the occasional Pilates and body flow classes at my local gym. In fact, I'm sore right now from the latest body flow class. It's tai chi + yoga + Pilates and it's miraculous. My reading has been bent toward rereading some personal faves, but I plan to branch out soon to those yet unread books my friends have recommended.

Also, you should know that I finally won something. I don't recall being very lucky when it comes to raffles or door prizes or what have you, but I finally won a raffle yesterday. A store in my neighborhood was having a block party to promote its products, and I put my name in the drawing for some gift certificates. I ended up winning a $25 gift certificate to a local sports store. Cool. Whatever. I'm not sporty, but I'll take it. Then I get another call. Something along the lines of - well we have this teenager who also won but she doesn't really want her gift certificate to Farinelli so if you want to switch that'd be great but whatever you want no pressure. I didn't care. I didn't even recognize the Farinelli name. Turns out they're a kitschy little Italian boutique in my neighborhood. Dresses cost upwards of five hundo, you know. So I walk in thinking, "A $25 gift certificate isn't going to get me squat in this store." "Hi," I say to the employee at the counter when I walk in, "I think I won a raffle for a gift certificate here?" "Yes," responds the guy, "you won a pair of free jeans." Cut to me, shocked. "A free pair of jeans?" "Yes," he replies again, "what kind are you looking for?" "I don't even know," I exclaim, "I didn't come in with plans to get any jeans!" He ends up picking out four pairs for me to try on, and I got myself a $159 pair of jeans FOR FREE!!! That's what I call a winning draw. Okay, I don't really call things winning draws, but if I did...you know the rest.

So there. That's the latest, I think. I'm still super excited about this summer. It's flying by already and it's barely begun. I'm going to hang out with my brother, I'm going to read, I'm going to go to the pool (provided I can convince my pooly friends to invite me), I'm going to play for a wedding, I'm going to hang out with my mom in DC, I'm going to celebrate another Independence Day in the city, and I'm even planning a little jaunt to Cali wine country for a mini vacay at the end of the summer. That's right, I shortened California and vacation. Story of my life. Those are the events of the past month. My inner angst will return at some point, no doubt, and I'll wax eloquent about more facets of life as an adult. Right now, though, I'm going to refill my water cup and get into bed. I have a book to read about body snatchers and it's not going to read itself.

Cheers.