Mark and I discovered some local hiking trails and swimming holes: Great Falls, VA.

The Great Falls. Look how tiny the people are down in the bottom right of the picture.

Tourists! 

This is on the cliffs, way above the water in the gorge below: "High Water Marks." Look, just 9 years ago it had come up over the cliff! 

We found a swimming hole just outside the national park (no swimming allowed inside the park). It was delightfully refreshing.

Mark is always the curious one. :) 

Not mad, just contemplating the vastness... 

Falling Branch Creek, MD

The falls.

I'm practising my belly dancing moves, while Mark delights in the fact that I seem to be "glowing" through the camera. 

Snack time. 

Peaceful places. 

Peaceful places. 

From the top of the falls. 

Chillin' on the edge. 

Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

Mark and I wandered through last night, mystified.

On Thursday, we drove by The Senator, contemplating a Thursday night showing of Revenge of the Sith. The Senator, so we have been told, is the place in Baltimore to watch any and all Star Wars re-releases and new episodes. Daunted by the line, still an hour before the showing, that curved down around the theater block and stretched two more blocks (or as far as our eyes could see) down another street, Mark and I rolled past the crowd suspiciously, tucked in our tails, and drove home without a fight. The next night, Friday—which turns out to be the “last night” I began this post in reference to—we engaged in mental pacing (the sort an anxious or undecided fellow might practice) for several hours, uncertain if we should brave the crowds this weekend night. By the time we made up our minds to head out, it was nearly 9:00pm. We were agreed that we would not be disappointed if we could not get into any of the showings, but we did try to enhance our luck by heading out to the Super Multiplex Cinema outside of the city, where we would have a shot at the 10:10, 10:50, 11:20 and 12:30 showings. (Friends of ours had reported at least an hour-long line at 4 o’clock for the 5:00pm showing at this same Cineplex, so we kept our hopes in check.) We drove up to the theater, hearts silently dropping at the packed lot, and skulked into a parking spot in a far corner across the street. As we walked nearer, Mark and I both saw the heads…the line. Mark even said it out loud, “Well, there’s the line, I guess.” But as we got closer, scanning the length of the crowd, we were a little confused to recognize the gathering of heads (all we could see over top the stretch of cars) as nothing more than a gaggle of loitering teenagers. Hmm… The line must be inside, we agreed, or on the other side of the theater—we were heading through the back entrance after all. Into the theater we went, and marched up to the remarkably un-crowded ticket counter. We scanned the digital posting of the movie times…it still read “9:30, 9:30, 10:10…” None of them said “Sold Out,” so I shared with Mark my fear that they may not have updated the screen yet. We looked around, still a bit confused, and headed out to the front of the theater to find the tell-tale lines. But as we pushed out the big red double doors, we found ourselves lost in yet another sparing sea of loitering kids. Our heads turned simultaneously toward one another in question (and I suddenly felt we had found ourselves in some sort of sitcom sketch). We headed back to the ticket counter where a smallish line had begun to form. “Okay, then here we go,” I thought. But due to the high volume of ticket-tellers, our wait was hardly a full minute. I stepped up to the counter asking as carefully as possible if there were any showings of Star Wars that were not yet sold out (I did not want to appear to be the naïve Star Wars-ignorant movie go-er who would not recognize the mass popularity of the film). The kid behind the counter, “Hmmm”-ed and studied his screen carefully. “Well, there’s tickets left for...” he trailed off and I knew he must be scanning down the screen near the midnight showings… “uh, for the 9:30 showing.”
“Really?” Mark and I traded first confused, then dubious glances. “Okay, but how many seats are left? I mean, realistically, are there good seats left?”
He replied, “Well, there’s about 145 seats left.” Really? “Okay, but out of how many?” The poor guy looked a little confused, “I don’t really know. It doesn’t say, but it’s basically 48% left open.” Finally convinced, I let down my protective tense-shoulder stance and laughed a little. “Okay, we’ll take them. Is there a line somewhere?”
“Yes, I think so,” he replied apologetically.
So we took our tickets to the ticket-tear-er and waited behind a smallish mass of other movie goers. But past the steward in only moments, we were ushered to the second theater on our left. We had to sort of fight upstream against the flow of people coming out of a few theaters on the right—each with digital movie titles flashing “Episode III.” But once we passed through the long dark hallway into the gigantic stadium theater to which we had been assigned, we were in awe once again at the enormous abundance of open choice seating. You would have thought we were first in line or two hours early or accidentally in the theater showing the number 10 box office hit. Weird! We shook our head as we picked through the seats, deciding on our favorites.

I guess it’s the California in me, but I couldn’t believe it. I don’t know if it’s just because there are less people, or if they finally did it? If they finally built so many gosh darn theaters with so many seats, that even with the whole city out to see the latest Star Wars must-see, patrons could still sit luxuriously spaced out with 5 to 10 seats between them and the next group of people. Sadly, it dawned on me, that as we paid nearly $10 per ticket, we were probably paying for not only for the right to occupy our own seats, but for the privilege of keeping the seats next to us empty as well.

As for the movie, I will not give anything away, except to argue with my brother who reported that this episode, Episode III was his favorite, second only to The Empire Strikes Back (Episode V): I, in turn, would report that this episode took in my book, the long-coveted, long-held place of the spectacular sixth episode—Return of the Jedi—as the ultimate number one.

Gastronomical Delights

On Saturday Mark and I discovered Belvedere Square, a very new marketplace near our house. We enjoyed a big bowl of fresh soup, a baguette, and some pepper covered goat cheese from Atwater's...mmm, it was good! I watched as they spooned freshly steamed asparagus into our soup before serving it to us, and we saw them picking still-hot chicken off the bone for another soup.

We were reminded of our favorite market at the Ferry Building in San Francisco, and imagined that we were in California for a day :)

Weekend Movies

We enjoyed The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy this weekend. Not a laugh-out-loud movie, as one critic wrote, but an entertaining, smile-across-your-face-most-of-the-time film to be sure.

Later I Netflixed "Fast Times at Ridgemont High." I had never seen that movie before (a classic, I'm told). I set up the laptop in the bedroom and watched the movie as I lounged in bed with the bay windows open and the late afternoon breeze pulling through. It was wonderfully warm and beautifully blue on Saturday. I also really enjoyed this movie :)

A little more time on my hands

Things at work have come back to a normal pace and I'm finding I have a little more time on my hands. As a result I think I am quickly taking up the occupation of Blog-Bully: that is, I am so thirsty for pictures and stories that keep finding myself leaving messages on everybody's blogs for more posts. (Sorry, if you have been one of my victims already; if you have not, then "Please Post!") :)

Other fun activities have been designing cards and invitations on Adobe Illustrator, watching Mark play this amazing new game called Jade Empire on the X-box, and strolling around the neighborhood enjoying the sun.

Congratulations Anne!

My best friend from high school, Anne De Jong, just got engaged to her now-fiance Dennis! I haven't talked to Anne in months, maybe even a year. I was so glad to hear from her. We used to sign everything A2 (the 2 being a superscript so the effect was "A-squared") a title our eigth grade science teacher, Mr. Slegers, dubbed us. Congratulations, Anne!

Mark and I went to see the Orioles play the Royals at Camden Yards tonight

we weren't too terribly close to the field, but we like it up here

there's a beautiful view of the city from the stadium 

Mark watching the scoreboard 

enjoying the game from high in the sky 

The Fairie Festival at Spoutwood Farm

Today I went to the Fairy Festival at an organic farm in Pennsylvania with some of my girlfriends.

This was one of many musicians throughout the festival. There were also three or four stages where entire groups were performing. 

Fun around the creek. There were lots of creeks running through the property. 

A mud fairy-man? 

A true forest fairy-man.