Masquerade

I went through a phase (at about age 12) where I listened to the Phantom of the Opera soundtrack endlessly. And ever since then, I have wanted to go to a masquerade-not only because of the Phantom song, but because what could be better than dressing up in sparkles, feathers and swirly skirts and dancing to music played by a live orchestra and drinking sparkly drinks in long-stemmed glasses? NOTHING.

So when I got the e-mail from the International Club of DC announcing their Fall Masquerade Gala, well...you know what I'm going to say: I signed up. And I bought a mask and I got out my dancing shoes, and I tried really hard to make my un-formal black cocktail dress seem Very Formal. And I think I succeeded:



And not only were there sparkly drinks in long-stemmed glasses, but there was a dinner buffet, a dessert buffet, and gads of tuxedo-ed men who knew how to dance. At first I was a little wobbly on the dances I didn't know, which included...well, everything except salsa and tango. But I picked up on the waltz, hustle, cha cha and foxtrot, which are all pretty straightforward. And FUN. Because how can you not have fun when you are dressed like this



and feel so mysterious and seductive?

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In movie news, I went with some friends to see The Legend of Zorro on Friday, and I Netflix-ed Baran yesterday. Zorro is, as you would expect, full of swords and horses and ragged emotions and beautiful people. The little boy is *adorable*. Catherine Zeta-Jones is gorgeous and wears pretty dresses while fighting bad guys. And Antonio Banderas is dreamy. Who cares that the timeline is historically questionable? See it anyway.

Baran is, well, NOT Zorro. It's an Iranian film about Afghan workers in Iran: a young teenager discovers that his fellow construction worker is actually a girl and he falls in love with her, despite extremely limited circumstances. This movie is beautiful. More is said in Baran's eyes than in the dialogue (Well--I could be wrong about that, since it's subtitled, but I think it's a fair bet) and the film makes subtle points throughout about love, sacrifice, humanity and generosity. Very moving, and very sad, because foreign movies with snow are always sad. Always. And you should see it, too.

The contents of the parcel

Look at what a happy parcel it is!

(And if you don't know about the parcel, you need to read my other post, Misery Loves Company.)

What to do on a glum day when you can't go outside but must keep busy...

Something to do if you find yourself with a lot of Jell-o on hand.

Something to listen to. I really like this--Evangelicals Out of the Box. At last, for those of us who don't want to be lumped in with the popular stereotype. I think I'll write more about this later, when I digest it a little.

And something else, for the bookworms. I think it is the Type A in me that is so fascinated by this.

Misery Loves Company

It has been a rough week. And by "rough," I mean, "often miserable." We need not explore this further, but I would like to mention - and thank - a few people who made my week significantly less miserable:

1. Lisa. Lisa, if you were not aware, is a wonderful human being. The kind of wonderful that makes you glad you are not the only one who thinks that way, and isn't the world full of beautiful and interesting things, and by the way, isn't this a marvelous cup of tea? Moreover, the kind of wonderful that makes you feel that way even if you have puffy eyes and incoherent speech.

2. Rami. A down-to-earth, genuine, encouraging gentleman. When one is feeling complicated and complex and like one can't think about anything anymore because one might collapse into a soggy mess and one won't even have solved any of those complicated problems for all that thinking, all one needs is a visit with Rami. Because Rami will remind you that life is better when you take it at face value and that this, too, shall pass. He will also remind you that true gentlemen are alive and well in the world.

3. A really cool Iraqi Fulbright Scholar that we met at an utterly Washingtonian dinner last night. More about him later. He deserves a whole post.

4. Chocolate and Zucchini. Not the blog, although the blog is great. The forums are what made my day. Let me explain a bit. It was an inspired idea by one of the forum readers to do a "Blog by Mail," sort of a Secret Santa idea, where we each get assigned a name of someone far away, someone who also reads the forum. We go out and spend 10 - 20 dollars on yummy local food items and package it up nicely and pop it in the mail on October 10, and then a week later (give or take) each of us would receive a lovely parcel in the mail filled with good things from far away.

Well, as you know, I used to live in Fritwell. And my package arrived from Birmingham, a mere hour from Fritwell. And my Secret Santa had, ingeniously, googled my name, found my blog, read my Fritwell post, and then GONE TO FRITWELL to collect things for my parcel. YES. Including: beermats from the local pub and autumnal dried leaves from the very streets I grew up on. Also included in the box were: MINI CHRISTMAS PUDDINGS. Scotch whiskey and accompanying truffles. Cadbury's sweets. Organic Bombay snack mix. An orange leaf-shaped candle. A nifty spatula. Rooibos tea bags in a neat little pouch. Lavendar jelly. Blueberry and pansy jam. Homemade pear chutney. And little chocolates shaped like Christmas puddings. And a picture of Fritwell, an assessment of the local pub food (a postive one, I must say), and a homemade CD with autumn flavored tunes. Really! Could it be more delightful?! No, my friend, it could not.

Things That Make You Think

Aha! I'm glad I didn't stop reading Friedman totally, even though I was mad at him for a while and even though NYTimes.com now CHARGES to read op-eds. His most recent contribution, Leading by (Bad) Example, is great. It'll be on Lexis-Nexis, etc, if you, like me, don't want to pay FIVE DOLLARS to read the NYTimes.com post. It's also printed in various other places around the net. I found it via Google.

I was Very Cultured lately and saw not one, but two small-ish movies at the Landmark E Street Cinema: Good Night, and Good Luck, about newsman Murrow's fight against McCarthy, and Innocent Voices, about the civil war in El Salvador. Both very good, although the latter is quite possibly the saddest movie I've seen all year. Don't see it if you don't have a strong constitution: boy soldiers, murders, guerilla warfare, all up close and personal. It's very moving and makes its point effectively. Good Night and Good Luck is worth a see, and no boy soldiers or murders take place (which is nice, sometimes) plus, a heftier George Clooney in suspenders, lots of cigarette smoke, a not-so-subtle commentary on modern politics, and that nice cultured feeling you get after watching a black-and-white movie that inevitably leads to coffeehouse discussions.

In which she makes a fool of herself at her new job

Ok, so it's week 2 of the new job. I am gung-ho. I am excited. I am determined to sweep them all off their feet with my MAD conference planning skills. Uh huh.

So...we have these two meetings coming up. One is a Very Big Meeting with All Our Partners, to be held in March, in Istanbul. One is a very small meeting to be held with a few of our partners, and we don't really know if, where, or when that will be held. However, the same guy-let's call him Antonio-is chairing both meetings. I'm supposed to get these meetings going, and in my enthusiasm I send Antonio a very eloquent e-mail saying how wonderful it is that he offered to chair this small meeting, and how this other guy (let's call him Frank) would also like to chair and wouldn't it be lovely if the *both* chaired, and let's plan for early March in Istanbul at such-and-such college, shall we?

Then I sent another enthusiastic e-mail to Frank, saying much the same thing.

Then my boss e-mailed me and said, "What? We're not having the small group meeting in Istanbul. We're having the Big Meeting in Istanbul, but we don't have a location. We haven't even scheduled the small meeting yet."

Then I realized that I had successfully confused everyone.

Then I had to send many apologetic e-mails explaining that there were in fact TWO meetings, as they already knew, although I did not, and no one knows anything about the location of either, and I'm terribly sorry for the confusion and it won't happen again and please do not hesitate to contact me with questions. Everyone now has about five emails from me in their inboxes taking back what was said in the previous e-mails.

I swear I can keep meetings straight.

Lori and What We Did

There is a certain SoCal artist, with whom I used to live and whom I haven't seen in at least a year, and she decided to visit me this weekend, and sleep on my squeaky futon, and let me tell you about what we did.

We ate a delicious French dinner. And the next night we ate Spanish tapas! On Saturday, we even drank mochas at my favorite coffeehouse, Tryst.



We visited the National Cathedral



and happened upon a BUNCH OF EPISCOPALIANS! One of them was very nice and led us to a seat in the front so we could see, even though we only caught the last hymn.



We ventured to Mt. Vernon in the pouring rain, where we bought apple butter and got very wet, despite our greatest efforts to stay dry.





And we toured Georgetown in our cars so as not to get wet



and then saw the Kennedy's graves, and Rehnquist's newly-dug grave (below) at Arlington before driving (and only getting mildly lost) to Dulles so she could head back to the non-rain in Southern California.

Fritwell

I spent some years of my early life in Fritwell, England. (If you don't know where it is, don't worry. Even Brits I meet don't know where Fritwell is.) I have pleasant memories - the sort that have that fuzzy, warm, dreamlike quality - of my childhood there which was composed, like most childhoods, I imagine, my family, our backyard, and a healthy dose of make-believe. The ditch that ran through our backyard into the large field behind our house, which was spotted with apathetic sheep and knarled trees; the sandbox on our stone patio where my brother and I made sand pies, which are not as tasty as apple pies; the tadpoles that appeared annually and seemed to fill up the entire pond; that one tree, far away in the middle of the field to which someone had nailed a few mishapen boards, creating a ladder of sorts; the vegetable garden in the corner of the yard with the tomatos and sweet peas and morning glories that were taller than I.

Out of curiosity the other day I Googled Fritwell, to see if I recognized any of the pictures that came up. I found my school, which I remember in scattered, but vivid, detail: Mr. Pryor the enthusiastic headmaster, the auditorium where we sang "Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me," the foyer where we kept our outdoor shoes when we changed to our indoor shoes. The field behind the school seemed endless. I recall one recess running to the very end of the field and then running back-it took so long that I missed the bell and ran into class late and panting in my disheveled uniform, and the prim and proper, gray cardigan-ed Miss Clark snapped her gray head toward me and raised her eyebrows. I burned in humiliation.

I vaguely remember a trip in our Volvo van to Banbury, famous for its cross: Ride a cock horse, to Banbury cross, to see a fine lady upon a white horse... I remember Banbury being cold and stony, with lots of little cars zooming round the roundabout, and seeing women dressed in hot pink miniskirts with frizzy hair (it was the 80s, after all.) They seemed so grown up and exotic. And none of them wore rings on their fingers or bells on their toes.

I'd like to go back, but I'm afraid that if I do, the dreamy pastel quality of my memories will be replaced by the black and white perceptions of a grown-up. Maybe I will. Someday. The food, at least, might not be as bad as my mother remembers. And if I go around the holidays, there's the Christmas pudding-oh, the pudding! That in itself may be worth the trip.