Barb’s Burblings

A guy at the First Ladies exhibit totally made my day. In the first room of the exhibit, there’s a picture of each First Lady, her name–including her maiden name, and the years she served as First Lady. Most people ask about the women listed as “daughter-in-law” or “niece” (generally because the wife of the president died before he took office; the exception is James Buchanan, the only president who never married), but I always want someone to ask me why Eleanor Roosevelt only has one name*. And this guy did! I was SO happy.

Of course, he also made my day when he explained that he wears Yankees gear in Rhode Island not because he’s a baseball fan, but to annoy Red Sox fans. “I don’t care about baseball,” he said, “I just hate Red Sox fans.” Man, if this guy wasn’t there with his wife and kids, I would’ve given him my number.

Also making the day exciting was the presence of vomit hiding in the corner of the exhibit. Fun! I got to track down security to have it cleaned up. Apparently a docent was there when it happened and told the folks at the information desk, but didn’t actually do anything about it. This was the perfect counter to yesterday, when someone at Ford’s had a medical emergency and we had to call 911, and I spent intermission telling people to using the bathrooms in the balcony or the museum. Never a dull moment!

* Her maiden name was also Roosevelt; she and Franklin were fifth cousins. Teddy Roosevelt was Eleanor’s uncle, and actually gave her away at her wedding. So, really, she should be listed as Eleanor Roosevelt Roosevelt.

I was at the O’s game tonight (but let’s not talk about that), and, of course, was surrounded by Yankees fans. In fairness, the ones right around me weren’t too bad. The couple behind me were idiots, but they weren’t loud. And around the 7th inning, I was ready to smack the kid next to me once he decided to start yelling “O’s suck!” a lot. (I may have yelled “OOH, COULDN’T EVEN HIT THE WARNING TRACK!” in the kid’s face when some Yankee flied out and the kid was all, “Get out of here!” even though the ball was obviously going to stay in the yard.) (This was possibly not my proudest moment.) But for the most part, the loud idiots were well behind me. This meant that I could focus my attention on the shirt of the guy in front of me:

At first I was fine with it, and was pleased to see that at least it wasn’t a 2009 World Series Champions shirt. (I was amazed at the number of people who had bought the official one. Seriously, very few knock-offs. Which is kind of sad, but when I was shopping for a Christmas present for my father, I discovered how hard it was to find non-official merchandise online.)

And then I took a closer look. This was obviously a knockoff. I started getting annoyed at the “East Division.” Nowhere on the shirt does it say “American League.” It’s not the MLB has a single “East Division.” It has, in fact, two of them.

Yes, my annoyance level was already somewhat high, but this just got to me after a while. (Obviously. I mean, I went to the trouble of taking a picture.)

Also, what’s up with the flag?

I was on the Metro this evening when I looked up and noticed a young man standing nearby holding a very familiar book. He obviously was either on his way to work or had just come from work, and was wearing an ID badge identifying him as a nurse. And the book he was holding was one I had worked out; it came out last year. I must’ve looked insane, because when I saw it, I just stared at it, grinning like an idiot. I’d never seen anyone with one of my books out like that! And really, we’ve only sold around 1000 copies of that particular book; really, what are the chances of me running into someone with one?

I totally would’ve gone up to him and asked him what he thought of the book, but we were almost at Gallery Place and I didn’t want to lose my seat. Ah well. It’s better this way. What would I have done if he said it sucked?

I was in downtown DC on Monday and Tuesday for a class, and since it was so nice, a coworker and I went for a walk during lunch both days. The classes were only a couple of blocks from the White House, so we walked over to Lafayette Park, where I bored her with descriptions of the history of Washington and the presidency. On the second day, we were talking about cities that we liked, and I was talking about how much I like DC and why–not intimidating, good theater scene, free museums. “Plus,” I said, “you never know what you’re going to run into when you’re downtown.”

We arrived at Lafayette Park and found a policeman moving people away from Pennsylvania Avenue into the park proper. There was a mob of cameramen and sound guys, and we saw a reporter talking intently to the police officer. We tried to figure out what was going on; there was a line of people in military uniforms right at the fence, and a truck by them. Our initial thought–before we really noticed the service members–was that maybe President Obama would be driving up or something. (The last time I had a class at that location, I ran into his motorcade.) After asking around, though, it turned out that the service members had chained themselves to the fence to protest Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. We hung around for a bit, then went back to class.

Like I said, it’s always something when you’re downtown. And then I found a mention of it on Politico; apparently the whole “pushing the media away from the protestors” thing wasn’t supposed to happen. You can actually see me at the end of the video, if you know what I’m wearing. And recognize me from the back. Whee!

Over at the Itty Bitty Kitty Committee, Laurie is having Tux Day, not Tax Day, and is showcasing pictures of the various tuxedo kittens she’s hosted. And you know, I have my very own tuxedo kitty right here! He is very attractively licking his butt at the moment, but here are some other pics…

Look how tiny!

So wee!

He really is very snuggly

Honest! Snuggly! I swear!

When I woke up this morning, my first thought was, pretty much, “Thank God I took tomorrow off.” It’s been just a crazy weekend. I took Friday off, too. (The only thing that makes the gap between Presidents Day and Memorial Day manageable is 4-day weekends.) But in the past 48 hours, I’ve been to two baseball games, gone to a parade rehearsal, been in a parade (which involved waking up at 5:45 Saturday morning), volunteered at the American History Museum (during peak tourist season), and hosted my dad. I actually got home from the museum this afternoon and took a quick nap–otherwise, I wasn’t making it through the day.

It was one of those weekends where everything has been really, really fun…but totally exhausting. So it’ll be nice to have a day to sleep in, hang around the house, watch some tv, play with the Internet-enabled Wii (yay!), and go to another game. (Oh yes. Three games in four days. Maybe the third time will be the charm and they’ll actually win tomorrow?) (Although I’ll have to distract myself from the sorrow of my boy going on the DL.)

God bless my large vacation day reserves.

Sure, yesterday was Opening Day for most of Major League Baseball. But it was put off until tonight for the Orioles and the Rays. Luckily their first game is at night, so I don’t have to miss the O’s first game of the season. It always sucks when they open away, but I’ll be there on Friday to welcome them home. I’m just bummed that Matusz is pitching Thursday, not Friday.

And since it is the beginning of the baseball season, I can’t help but include one of my favorite commercials…

Screw it, let’s throw in some of the MLB Network commercials, too.

My boss brought in flowers for a celebration we had this morning in honor of my two latest books. They were quite pretty, and she gave them to us after the party was over. Luckily, I had driven to work, so I didn’t have to take the flowers with me on the bus. And, I discovered, they fit perfectly into my cupholder:

Isn’t that pretty? I thought about just leaving them there, but my car gets no sun when parked in front of my apartment.

Now I just have to hope the cats don’t eat them.

At night, Colin usually sleeps snuggled on my legs, except during the summer, when it’s just too warm. (Though if the air conditioning is on enough, even then he’ll join me.) Pem usually winds up somewhere on the bed.

But the past couple of nights, she’s been sleeping on me, which is definitely unusual, except when it’s very cold–which it hasn’t been. So, because it was night and my brain had nothing better to do, I started thinking about those stories about the animals that sense that someone is dying, and goes in and stays with the person. It got to the point that I was a little freaked out at the prospect of going to sleep, for fear that I may never wake up.

Of course I did wind up falling asleep, and I did manage to wake up in the morning. (Barely. I was sleepy.) Yet another indication that I really should come up with new things to occupy my brain, because apparently, my life at the moment just isn’t enough.

In my second bedroom/office/whatever, I have a futon (now 90% less sleeping on the couch!) (I still nap on the couch) and I have a tendency to leave the futon in bed mode after someone’s slept in it. Part of it is that I’m just too lazy to take the sheets off, but part of it is that the cats love it. It’s like a bed of their very own. (Of course, they only get part-time access to it; I keep the door closed when I’m not using the room.)

So the futon has been a bed since my mother stayed here about a month ago. Yesterday, the cats accidentally knocked the pillow from upright, leaning against the back rest, to horizontal. And now they have discovered the joys of sleeping on the pillow.

Colin usually gets the pillow; he’s bigger and he sleeps more. (As I type, he’s asleep on the pillow and Pem is chasing a foil ball around the room.) I have to say, it is super cute. On the other hand, he gets very cranky when I kick him out of the room now.