3 posts tagged “busy”
with travel to boot! Heading down into the peanut patches of SoVA for work, then back up to the D.C. for a little Artomatic action and visit with m'parents on top of it. busy busy busy....
Life has been incredibly busy lately... so much so that I've had to put many many many things on the backburner, including things I like to do, but aren't necessary right this very second (watching movies, reading), things I like to do and are important to me (photography), things that are important because they support other things that I do (updating photography website), things that I wish I had more time to do (research, writing), things that I really need to do and am frustrated that I can't (spend more time with Phil). And blogging. That's way on the back burner. As should be apparent.
So, what am I up to? A lot of work, and a lot of Artomatic. I did get to shoot a concert recently, which was fun, if challenging. The Gin Blossoms played an outdoor concernt in Crystal City, right across from Artomatic on Cinco de Mayo.
The main problem was that it was rainy, and kind of tough to shoot with a tall stage (me a short person), and no good vantage point. And rainy is not so nice. Still, it was fun. There were some real characters there, including a woman who was a few years older than me and was completely, word-slurringly trashed before they hit the stage at 7pm. She kept leaning on me and saying, "do you think that it's dangerous? all those cords in the rain? it's scaring me. I like the Gin Blossoms. I hope it stops raining." Pause. "Do you think it's dangerous?" repeat, ad nauseum. She eventually began talking to a young man who was with his girlfriend (or I assume from the way they kept their mouths suctioned on to each other throughout the show, only coming up for air in order to drink cups of beer in a greedy, desperate sort of way... the way one might expect someone to drink water after stumbling out of the desert, having been lost for two days without water). The young man was also lit up like a Christmas tree, as was his girlfriend (I suspect she was very very unhappy later), and hardly noticed her. Meanwhile, a guy appeared with a grim look of determination on his face and a manner that suggested either psychosis or some drug experience that wasn't quite settling right. He seemed to be on angry ecstasy. When the band came on he shook his fist in time to the music with a serious look on his face, and eventually wrested the tamborine away from the singer. The singer did, in the end get it back. He might have just been a serious fan, as he knew all the words to all of the songs.
Mostly, the rain held off during the Gin Blossoms' set, though it rained on the opening band (the Laura Lee Band), who was quite good (a little poppy for my taste, but she has a great voice). It was an oddly cold evening in general, which seems the be the flavor of this spring. It's been chilly the last couple of days, and it seems amazing that it's already moving into late May and we've only had a couple of days hit the low 80s and hardly any humidity. I'm still wearing sweaters and jackets, which seems downright shocking... it feels like Ithaca finally got my forwarding address and has come to visit.
Which is kind of how I feel at the moment. I'm in one of those too, too much on my plate loops that periodically roll through everyone's life. Many of the things crowding the plate are things that are steps towards things that will be very, very good when completed... but are a little sticky now. Like the house-- I know that I will love that we're in the house when we're unpacked (I already love that we're together, even if we can't find way too many things).... but at the moment it's a bit of an anxiety not being able to find things, or having the boxes of books still in boxes (not all, but a quarter of the total or so) in the dining room. Making so that seven weeks after moving in we still can't use the dinig room table. *sigh* And of course Artomatic, which is going to be soooo much fun, and which I'm very excited about, but one our millionth trip to Home Depot for screws or whatever yesterday kind of made me want to throw up. There's still lots to do, but hey,it will all be done soon and then we can just enjoy the show! :)
One casualty of the busybusybusiness has been, sadly, my photography, which I haven't done much of the last couple of months. I *did* get to bust the camera out for the Lobsterboy Revue at the Birchmere on April Fools. It was really really nice to get the cameras out.....
There was a belly dancing group, who were very good....
The high point of my weekend (which involved a volunteer shift, a temper tantrum thrown at me, painting the last corner of the space where we are showing, a trip to Ikea and a trip to Home Depot) was when Phil dropped me off at the Chinese restaurant next to the Despot. It's a Chinese restaurant owned by Sino-Vietnamese people. There were certificates on the walls from some local Vietnamese organizations (I now live in Saigon America 1975), the Catholic Vietnamese society of northern Virginia, the Republican party, notices of being added to some local papers' resataurant lists. The owner has a Vietnamese name, but everyone was speaking to each other in Chinese (not Mandarin, I think in Cantonese). When I arrived there was a waiter trying to get the take out order from a woman who was there with her mother. Half of what they asked for was something they weren't making, couldn't make, were all out of, don't make anymore. The man kept repeating back what she had already ordered, and said over and over:
Egg foo young, Communist platter, fried rice... Egg foo young, Communist platter, fried rice...
And I kept thinking, Communist Platter? I wonder what that entails. It took me a little while to realize that it was a combination platter. But I sat happily contemplating the intricacies of a Communist Platter for a while, waiting for my order (which took a while to settle on, as I had to go through a similar retinue of items that were listed on the menu but that were things they weren't making, couldn't make, were all out of, don't make anymore.) After a while a Russian guy showed up and said, "HI AM CHERE WIZ CAKE. HWEDDING CAKE." They looked at him blankly. "HWEDDING CAKE. HWEDDING CAKE." "Oh oh oh, wedding cake wedding cake..." They waved him towards the back of the restuarant where, in the distance, tucked into the many rolls of ruffled lavendar gauzy fabric there was a big gold and red double happiness on the wall behind a dais. As my food was arriving the Russian man was slinking out of the building. The owner of the restaurant-- a short, round, gray-haired man with glasses-- yelled at him as he slunk out of the building.
What is this? What kine business you run? Huh? Huh? You bake cake, but you don know how to set up? What you think I know how to set up? We not bakers! You baker! You set up! What kine businessman you are? Stupid!
Looks like someone's wedding cake wasn't going to be tiered....
