Rebel Prince

I’m back in D.C. now. And it’s too damn hot! And humid! Ugh. (Funny how the grass is greener on the other side of the country. Just yesterday, I was all, ah, I can’t wait to get back.) So I’m here in my nice air-conditioned apartment–with the TiVo, begging for my attention–after a long schlep from the airport, and it’s going to take some amazing determination to make me trek out into the heat again and go to the office. Le sigh.

Update (13:45): Okay, I finally made it in to the office, and thankfully I’m not quite as cranky anymore. I was listening to Thoroughly Modern Millie on my discman, and really had to stop myself from doing the charleston while waiting for the Metro. Jazz hands! Plus, I stopped at Starbucks on the way in. Caramel frappucino makes it all better. Mmm.

Finally another audio post, eh? I’d honestly forgotten I had an audblog subscription until Paypal hit me up with an automatic renewal last month. Well, here goes:

Live from the Twin Cities, in which the author attempts to remember where the hell he is and what he is doing there (transcript below).

I forgot to mention in the audio clip that the Minneapolis airport has gotta have the longest series of moving walkways I’ve ever had the misfortune to be on, connecting one end of the airport to the other. Then again, I was pretty groggy, so even crossing a dirt path would’ve felt like Lawrence of Arabia. (This diagram says four minutes directly between concourses G and C, but I swear it took a lot longer.) I seriously should get miles for that.

Okay, kids. The Bay Area’s been swell, but this vacation is at an end. Tonight I’m out on the redeye to Washington, and back to work tomorrow. Sigh. On the other hand, boy, do I miss my TiVo. When I return to my apartment–which hopefully will be just as I left it; you may remember I departed in quite a frantic rush last week, and who knows if I left the stove on or something–the TiVo better be waiting for me with my slippers and over a week’s worth of television goodness. So, nobody talk about what happened on Sex and the City or The Amazing Race until I get back. La la la, I can’t hear you.

“Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes / How do you measure a year in the life? / Measure in love” — “Seasons of Love,” Rent

One year ago today, my dear friends Jeff and Rebecca got married. Happy anniversary, you crazy kids.

[N.B. When I get back to D.C. tomorrow, I’ll dig through my files and update this entry with some memories of that day: the text of Rev. Brown’s wonderful homily, and pictures from the lovely reception at a Kansas vineyard.]

Here’s a recap of selected highlights from last week, including a couple of restaurant mini-reviews, so I’m posting this in the food file:

On Wednesday afternoon, Caroline and I went to So Noodles (I think that’s the name) on Irving Street in San Francisco. Great place. As Caroline and I agreed, a cute first-date lunch kind of place. Casual and very reasonably priced; most everything is about six dollars or so. We had some crispy, spicy chicken to start, and I had a noodle dish with shrimp and mushrooms in a peanut sauce. Tasty. The entrées come in large portions, so bring your appetite.

Afterwards, we went to Stonestown where I made a beeline for Banana Republic. Lots of stuff on sale. I picked up a few sleeveless tees–note to self: must work on biceps, etc.–and a couple of dress shirts. I’d wanted to get some shoes–I need to expand my collection in the loafer and boot categories–but they were out of my size. Bah. Oh, well. A quick run through Williams-Sonoma with a stop at the altar of KitchenAid stand mixers–now in pink!–had a calming effect.

Thursday night I met up with the Stanford gang and we had dinner at Tamarine on University Avenue in Palo Alto. Very swank. The cuisine is Vietnamese; we shared a few dishes, including scallops and carmelized chicken, all with various kinds of fragrant, infused rice. For dessert, I had the inventive chocolate ganache wontons–basically chocolate sauce and banana wrapped in fried wonton wrappers. And I’ll also mention that the wine and cocktail list is extensive; the martini list alone, my goodness. The whole evening was quite a treat.

So, I’ve joined the Friendster cult. Who knows where all this will lead.

Update: Apparently I’m the tipping point; I sign up, and boom, the Friendster servers are suddenly overloaded. Ah, it’s tough being the last on the bandwagon. (Well, until they upgrade and add more bandwagons.)

More intellectual nitpicking:

Someone had brought Scrabble to this afternoon’s family picnic, and the women who were forming a game needed a fourth player, so my mom decided to join in, on the condition that I would help her out as needed. At one point, I suggested that she add an S to the word “heaven,” which was already on the board. This was met with objection by one of the women.

“You can’t make it plural. There’s only one ‘heaven.'”

Well. Maybe I should add here that English is none of the players’ native language? Anyway, she was obviously speaking with a capital H. I had neither a dictionary nor the energy to get into a whole discussion on secular versus religious meanings of “heaven“–the afternoon heat can just sap all the semantic enthusiasm right out of you–so in the seeming interest of general picnic peace, diplomacy, and bonhomie, I let it go.

But I just have to state for the record: I was right. And let this be a lesson to you all: carry a dictionary upon your person at all times. You laugh now, but you never know when you’ll have to defend an obscure (though in this case, fairly common) inflection. Heh.

Some interesting statistics on baby names from the Social Security website, and lots of way to slice and dice the data: in the 1970s, the decade in which I was born, Jeffrey–this is how I spell my full first name; please, not Jeffery–was the 15th most popular name for boys. (The data come from Social Security card applications.) By 2002, Jeffrey had steadily declined to 132nd. Heh, I kind of like that, a medium level of popularity. Don’t want to wear it out or anything. Most popular last year? For boys, Jacob and Michael. For girls, Emily and Madison. Madison?! (Link via kottke.org.)