Barb's Burblings

You're welcome, Boston. Grr.

I'm always conflicted when the Orioles play the Yankees. They're my two favorite teams, and I pretty much always want them both to win. But when they play each other, obviously that's not possible. If I'm at Camden Yards, I root for the Orioles, but when I was at Friday night's game, I felt really bad about it. I wanted the Yankees to win more than I wanted the Orioles not to lose--because, with Boston's win, a Yankees loss meant the Red Sox winning the AL East. So the Orioles winning meant a good thing for the Red Sox, and I never want anything good for the Red Sox.

I admit, though, the seeing the O's come back to win on Friday night was awesome. The O's have been so down all season that it was nice that they got a feel-good win like that. But I reserve the right to remain bitter that the headlines about the game were all about the Red Sox clinching the AL East. I mean, even the Orioles announcers were like, "Mora bunts! Redman scores! THE ORIOLES WIN!!! The Red Sox win the AL East!" Um...wha? Stupid Red Sox.

In other fun baseball news, what happens if four teams in the NL wind up with the same record? It could happen. The answer: Tiebreakers for most of the week!

Misery of a book lover

A few years ago, I heard about these books that were out in England that were set in an alternate universe where people could interact with fictional characters and there were police units dedicated to literature. I searched, but they hadn't been released in the United States yet. So when I found myself in Edinburgh for New Year's 2003, I snagged copies of The Eyre Affair and Lost in a Good Book. Then, when I went back in 2004, I got the next in the series (The Well of Lost Plots). Since then, two more books have come out--Something Rotten and First Among Sequels. I had put off buying them, because I want all my books to match. The first three are cute, like this:

But the American versions are like this:

Sadly, it turns out that the British versions look different now. Why would a publisher do this? They're screwing over the British book collectors, too? Man, it's just like the Outlander series, where they changed the cover style somewhere around book four. Do people have contracts to design book covers in threes?

I mean, Booth was hot, but...

Last fall, a sort-of companion book to Manhunt came out. I totally wanted it--it has boatloads of pictures and letters and posters and things relating to the Lincoln assassination. (Including some of the totally innocent "conspirators", i.e., Ned Spangler, who didn't do anything wrong, dammit!) I was at Politics & Prose this evening to see whether they had any signed copies of Alan Greenspan's book left (no), and I saw that the fun picture book was on sale. Whee! I hadn't bought it earlier because it cost something insane, like $40. I'm not made of money, people, no matter how cool the book is.

Anyway. I was happily driving home with the book on the passenger seat (so I could look at it during red lights). I had it face down, because the front cover is a shot of the execution of four of the conspirators, and I don't like looking at that. The back of the book has a bunch of quotes from other Civil War experts. The best thing about it? At the top, in big letters: "Praise for LINCOLN'S ASSASSINS". Hee.

Now tell a few lawyer jokes!

There are a lot of things I like about living in the DC area--thriving theatrical community, free museums, and so on. One of the things that annoys me? People who don't live around here who give talks and make cracks about all the dirty politicians around here. I went to a training session yesterday and the speaker kept joking about all the lying around here. Whatever, dude. You're talking to a group of people who aren't politicians, whose jobs actually don't relate to politics, who don't really come into contact with politicians, and who spend their days trying to help nurses do their jobs better. But please! Tell some more "jokes" about how policians lie! So original! So funny! Only, you know, not.

Eh, I guess people who live in Seattle have to deal with Starbucks jokes. We all have our crosses to bear.

100% accurate!

The Reduced Shakespeare Company acts out the Lincoln assassination:

Birthday revelation

I realized yesterday that next year, Election Day falls on my birthday. In 2004, my birthday was two days after the election, and I spent it in England. (Which...wise move.) Not sure what it means other than four-day weekend, baby! My company gives us Election Day off (I believe presidential only, but I'm not sure) and gives us our birthdays as a paid holiday. When your birthday is on a weekend, you get the closest day off. So that's something to look forward to!

Booth and the guy who played him

My boyfriend Will Gartshore is starring in another Sondheim show--Merrily We Roll Along. And look at this dreamy, dreamy picture of him!

I think it actually worked better as black and white, which is how it appeared in the Post this morning. And it was huge! I was quite happy.

Speaking of John Wilkes Booth, Mike and I went on the Lincoln Assassination walking tour with MobileTours.Org (and I recommend checking out the website; they offer a free tour of DC on your cell phone--it's pretty cool). Admittedly we knew almost everything, but the tour guide was entertaining and it was neat actually seeing where a lot of the events took place. And as we walked from place to place, some of the other people on the tour (there were around 25 people) would ask us questions. Good times all around.

Plumbing hates Barb

Oh, it's been an exciting weekend. And by "exciting," I mean "my bathroom exploded."

I got home on Friday to find both my kitchen sink and bathroom sink coated in blank gunk. That was a bad sign. I called my landlord. It was too late on Friday to have his normal plumber come over, but he'd send over a handyman in the morning. A couple of times, the plumbing went GLURP, spewing more blank gunk. I woke up to find both sinks full of black water. Fun! The handyman comes, snakes the sinks, gets rid of the water. OK. The toilet is still acting a bit oddly, but whatever.

I head out mid-afternoon to get a haircut and then to a Baysox game. The haircut is good; the game, not so much. I head home, stopped to pick up some Ben & Jerry. This was definitely a Good Idea.

I walk in the door at 11 to a nasty odor. I look in the kitchen sink--it's clean. I take a couple of steps toward the bathroom. The carpet squelches. The bathroom has a charming layer of water (I thankfully hung the bathmat on the shower curtain, as it had gotten a bit damp earlier). There are green, leafy bits sticking out from the closed toilet lid and scattered around the floor. The corner of the rug in my bedroom closest to the bedroom is also wet.

The landlord sends over the handyman, who quickly realizes that this is not something he can handle. He calls the landlord, and gamely starts using my mop to get the water out of the bathroom. He and the landlord futz around with everything, and wind up calling a Professional Plumber, who isn't available until morning. The landlord and handyman leave around 1:45. In the morning. Whee!

The Professional Plumber shows up around 9. Turns out my upstairs neighbors' garbage disposal overloaded, or something. Every time they flushed or let any water down their drains...my plumbing spewed stuff. It takes a few tries, but finally everything is fixed. It only took the Professional Plumber 2.75 hours. Fun!

So now things are fine, except the lingering bad smell in the bathroom and my lack of rugs. It royally screwed up my plans for the weekend, but what can you do? The thing that gets me is the one rug I had considered replacing is the only one I don't need to replace. Hey, at least rugs are on sale at this time of year, and my landlord will be chipping in.