I had a great weekend. First, I found myself paint-covered on Friday after spending most of the day fixing up a house with Rebuilding Together. I still may have a drip or two of paint in my hair, but what can you do?
Then I headed up to Baltimore to watch some baseball and be an extra on The West Wing. In the season finale, President Bartlet goes to Camden Yards and throws the first pitch; naturally, I had to be there (even though I haven't watched TWW this season). The game was delayed by a torrential downpour for an hour, but then it stopped. Martin Sheen came out and they filmed four takes of him throwing the first pitch (after the announcement, "And now, the President of the United States!" and much cheering from the crowd and waving from him). He did OK his first two throws; not so much his last two throws. Also, Martin Sheen is wee; very short. Dave and I (having left Amber and Amber's coworkers to the dryness of the overhang) were sitting on the third base line, fairly close in. It rocked. Then the game got underway. We snuck down and sat in the second row for 2 innings before getting booted from the section (by a very rude usher). I was very disappointed, having looked forward to declaring my affection to Brian and Larry should they be stopped at 3rd for any period of time (which they both were, the next inning; argh!). But it all worked out, as we wound up sitting in a section surrounded by a large group of fun folks, behind some of Brent's students with fantastic signs for both of my boyfriends, as well as signs for 3 or 4 other players. Plus, the O's whupped the Blue Jays (we definitely went to the right game of the series, seeing how they lost the other two). So it was all good.
Carrie and I finally made it to the movies on Saturday, seeing Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and 13 Going On 30. I really enjoyed them both, though they're obviously quite different. We wound up at the Silver Diner for dinner, where I got these fantastic Thai chicken kebab things that came with this fantastic ranch/wasabi sauce. Mmm. And we finally finished watching the first season of The Office.
Sunday I had HOSC so I headed downtown in a Metro car packed with folks heading downtown to participate in the March for Women's Lives. It was actually really cool to be in the midst of that. All of these people (hundreds of thousands) all gathered for one purpose. There was definitely an air of camaraderie. It's odd living in this area; you hear about a lot of protests, but much of the time it's in relation to traffic ("You'll want to avoid Foggy Bottom due to street closures for the IMF/World Bank protests" or "The following streets are closed for the gun march: Constitution..." etc.). But it's still neat to go and see them and experience them (and odd; a number of times I've been downtown for whatever reason, only to see a random protest go by). And it's particularly nice when you agree with what they're marching for. Plus, the museum was fairly empty, so it made for a nice afternoon.
I'm in a fairly chipper mood now. Good weekend, and I have no after work commitments this week--no tutoring, no book club. Mmm. Plus, it's all downhill at work after this week. My books need to be at the printer next week, so it's our final push. It'll all be OK; I have faith. And my mom is visiting on Sunday! Yay!
Current song in my head:
"Rockin' the Suburbs" by Ben Folds