Life is a State of Mind

Well, Erci and I hosted Dan’s 40th Birthday Bash per arrangement made with Dan and Jeff a few months ago and it was a blast. We had something on the order of 60 people out, enjoying some Contra Dancing, some time in the pool, a lot of Erci’s cooking (Tiger Cried, yummmm!), and the company of friends.

I am using my old PowerMac Cube to send iTunes music to both the stereo in the big room, and to an airport extreme connected to the whole house stereo. Anything Deb (DJ) selected came through loud and clear in all parts of the house and out by the pool. She has awesome music, btw. Thanks Deboranter!

Gotta host more parties, yippea!

Finally found a pool service company that understands we want to swim in the pool this year, and I am very happy with Pool Boys. La Belle folks swam in cloudy water on Saturday (which was the first swimming we’ve been able to do this year), and Sunday the pool cleared up enough to see stuff on the bottom in the deep end. Turns out the previous company failed to locate and remove a winterizing plug which prevented filtering from happening.

I wish I had my camera handy to capture one priceless moment where Melanie was in the pool with sunglasses on and a margarita in her hand. Melanie, Char, S, Erci, and L were there with B and T. Nice La Belle meeting, and moving of B’s lathe to my garage for a while.

Sunday we had Soka Gakkai district leaders over for some training and a nice visit. Preparations continue for Dan’s big party to be held here next weekend. Hope we are ready. We are also researching the Hawaii vacation as we have time.

Woke up early and decided to watch “Good Night and Good Luck”, which turned out to be riveting. Recommended film, but you have to be in the mood to really listen and think.

While I am not feeling very positive about our nation lately, I can at least celebrate being independent minded and having the freedom to express myself how I like.

I went to the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in DC with my partner, , and enjoyed the heat, crowd, cultural exchange, and like-minded people. I was annoyed at the NPS and Federal police trying to introduce fear into the crowds with bag checks and check points. I was glad to see most people laugh them off and continue to have fun and exchange ideas despite long lines in the heat.

We got out just before the weather turned sour and heard on NPR about the weather based evacuation of the mall. On one hand it may have been extreme over-reaction, but on the other I’ve personally seen Constitution Avenue under 30 inches of water in a torrential downpour (see Sutragirl’s account of June 26th, 2006); so perhaps evacuation was a wise move after all.

We came home to rest our sore, tired feet and do more house cleaning and gardening. Heard fireworks nearby (and were grateful for the rain, as the woods had been pretty dry lately).

Anyways, normally I tend to wonder why we aren’t in a revolution against tyranny, but the Folklife Festival and seeing so many peace/protest/liberal T-Shirts on people definitely picked up my spirits a lot. Happy Independence Day to all.

Friday, I pushed the limits of my stressed foot by dancing at The Ballroom Studio in Centreville, Darryl worked with me on Argentine, Quickstep, and Samba; then there were group classes and then a dance party (which was lots of fun). Capped a fabulous evening off with Haddock at Sweetwater with dancers. All this while Erci waited for nothing at an AT&T store, then picked up the iPhone she wanted at the Apple store.

Saturday Deb took me to Anothai restaurant in Ashburn/Brambleton for lunch. I highly recommend their fantastic Panang curry. Yum!

Sunday Jeff, Dan, and Jonathan came over to help with the garden and landscaping and together we got a huge backlog of chores done and several ideas for still more garden work. The pool continues to defy all efforts to get the water crystal clear (grrrr). We finished the day of hard work by going over to Scott and Leslie’s for Cava and dinner with friends.