GinohnNews
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13 JULY 2006 |
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G: Thursday we
went on another (my third week in a row) bike ride to Franklin's, with
Rich and TvTom. John's bike wasn't shifting right and we stopped on the
way for him to fiddle with it. When he couldn't get it working right he
decided to go home instead of trying to keep up with us. He took off
with the backpack in which all my stuff I might need was, but Rich had
money and Tom had a lock.
A few minutes after we arrived I saw John approaching, and assumed he'd
driven, but it turned out he just didn't want us waiting for him so he
let us go ahead and then continued the ride, after fixing his bike to a
higher gear. I was glad to see him. I had felt bad about going on
without him. Some people met us there - Suzette and Melanie, Greg, and
Susan. We had a nice time.
Saturday night John and I went down to the New Deal Cafe for
another Dan Hart show. This time he had another funny folk singer with
him, Carla Ulbrich. I'd heard two
of her songs on my Dr. Demento Basement CD's, "What If Your Girlfriend
Was Gone" and a parody of that, "What If Your Butt Was Gone," written
about a time when she was very ill and lost a lot of weight. She sang
another song, "What If You Only Had One Good Song" to the same tune.
I bought all of her (three) CD's and singles (two). I'm a funny music
fan! As in, the music is funny, not me. I guess.
Sunday was a fabulous day for a canoe trip on the Shenandoah
river for Kristin's birthday, so off we went. It was also Luisa's
birthday. We met up with Andy, Kristin, Alison, Luisa, her beau Andrew,
TVTom, Greg, and Suzette and Melanie in Harper's Ferry. After a long
time of getting everyone signed off, driving to a pickup point, being
taken to the drop off point, and getting the canoes in the water, we
were off! Since we were an odd number, TVTom decided to try the kayak.
We had a great time. Alison took a dip in the river and then it started
to rain. Tom got caught on the rocks which caused him to capsize.
Alison and Kristin paddled back to save him while the rest of us took
refuge under the trees at the shore. When it looked like the rescue
operation was not going so well, John and I started toward them, but
only got halfway there before all was well again.
Andy and Greg were very amusing with their extremely laid back style of
canoeing, sitting in the bottom, leaning back, and Greg with his feet
up on the bow.
We came to an area with lots of quite small rock islands and pulled in
for a island "exploration". Before reaching them I spotted a rock
outcropping ahead that looked remarkably like King Kong peering out
from the trees.
Greg declared the island his in the name of Greg, so we called it Greg
Island.
Some people took a little dip (Alison, Suzette, Andrew, me) and I took
lots of pictures. We headed off and just about when people were
starting to feel like it had almost been enough, we saw the exit point
ahead. There were some very minor rapids along the way, but near the
end was a long stretch of them. That's where Tom got caught on the
rocks and capsized again. Kristin and Alison to the rescue! This time
he just got into the canoe and they towed the kayak the short way back.
We returned home for showers then went back over to the Looneys for
cake-stravaganza. Yay!
A lovely day. Thanks and Happy Birthday Kristin!
This Wednesday I had free so I made plans to visit my friend
Amy in DC. She's a realtor and has a busy, hectic schedule. In the
morning she called and said her grandmother had gone into the hospital
so our visit would have to be shorter. That was alright, we could still
get a couple of hours in. I went over (damn that beltway traffic even
after rush hour should be mostly over it is jammed! It's very
aggravating and I don't know how people stand to commute that way. I
guess you get used to it...) and we got going on a little bike ride
around the neighborhood. We rode down a long winding stretch in Rock
Creek park, and payed for it with a big uphill later. We then headed
for a restaurant (Domku) for brunch. We arrived 8 minutes before they
opened and had to wait out on the city sidewalk. Amy kept saying she
was really hot and zoning in and out. We went into a convenience store
next door and I pretended I was interested in getting something out of
each of the refrigerators so I could open the doors to try to cool her
off. I thought it was kinda funny but she really wasn't feeling well.
We got into the restaurant and drank a lot of water and Amy got them to
give her some bread, and we ordered food, but she just wasn't
recovering and we soon just got a ride from the owner back to her
place. She got comfortable in bed and we hung out and she slowly felt
better. Turns out it was a code orange (air quality bad) day, she
hadn't eaten anything before we left (neither had I), and another
factor or two probably converged to make her feel bad, but she's fine
now. Be careful out there!
Today was a memorial service for Joyce Abell. Saw many friends
there, and a lot of people who used to work at Beautiful Day. It was
nice to see all those people. Her son Shaun gave a lovely eulogy at the
beginning, which a friend said he found very comforting. The rest was a
Catholic mass. Afterwards there was a reception at the firehouse next
door. I spent a long time there chatting with friends and reminiscing.
