When you are in the proper frame of mind, watching people on the DC Metro can be endlessly fun.
Today I think I saw extraterrestrials.
They were a man and woman - very much a matched set. They were Caucasian and in their late 50s or early 60s, perfectly coiffed and groomed (I mean perfect - freakishly perfect). Every hair was sprayed or gelled in place.
Remember as I write this, gentle reader, that it is July in DC. It’s about 100 degrees and humid. They got on at the zoo stop and had no sweat.
They both had suntans that were slightly too dark to be normal - precisely the same shade - and few wrinkles. The man was wearing sunshine yellow pants, a sky-blue polo shirt and the smile you might see on a CEO who had just been pushed out in front of a press conference after being indicted for something sordid but had just been given a few magic pills by his secretary so now he couldn’t remember what he was all upset about.
The woman he was with (I assumed it was his wife until I realized that neither were wearing wedding rings), was in a perfectly ironed white button-down shirt and blue striped sear-sucker shorts. She perched herself delicately on the edge of the seat and sat ram-rod straight. She immediately slapped on a frozen smile that said to everyone who entered the train “please don’t kill me”.
It was rush hour. We are all tired commuters. She stood out like… well… like an extraterrestrial who dressed the part of the affluent tourist but just didn’t have the courage to see it though.
I was sorely tempted to pull out my phone to take a picture, but I was afraid if I kept my hand in my purse for too long, the woman would run screaming from the train… so I resisted. I just kept stealing glances.
They didn’t say a word after they got on the train. The man just kept staring out the door opposite door, smiling… ummm… weirdly, and the woman just stared ahead, her eyes wide and knees clenched.
They got off at Farragut North - always an exciting area once the commuters have cleared out. Particularly fun are the panhandlers who stake themselves out at every Metro stop on a Friday evening after a long day of sweating in their 30 layers of clothes all day.
I hope they had fun.
The day wasn’t actually that bad… but I saw this on my front porch and just had to pause.
This is an unused hanging flower pot. As I was walking by, I noticed a flash of iridescent green. Intrigued, I looked closer.
It’s a little hard to see in the photo, but this is a good-sized Japanese beetle. Actually, to be more specific, it is a good-sized Japanese beetle’s butt. The head is stuck in the hole. The beetle, near as I can tell, is dead.
I think that’s a pretty good definition of “a bad day”… or, maybe just “a bad idea”.
…well, unless you count the sync-ing which, for 16 gigs (that I fully intend to fill up), might take a while.
That’s right. You heard it here first race fans. I got my new phone.
I’m at home, holding the child at bay, while I frantically sync, re-sync and go shopping on the Apps Store.
I have a blissful whole weekend to play with it…
…as soon as I order a pizza for Cici. She’s quite the negotiator. * sigh *
Many of my vacations can be actually mapped out into a certain, almost mathematical formula. This is what my earlier vacation would look like:
I’m aiming for a zero or a nice positive number. Add this trip all up and you get the Post Vacation Funk integer (- 21).
The Post Vacation Funk is an itchy feeling that maybe you made a mistake with the whole coming back home thing. It generally passes back into some kind of equalibrium (with another little flare-up when the credit card bills show up in the mail at the end of the month).
I wonder if there is any way around it. Retirement, perhaps….
So one more day of wasted hours trying to upgrade my phone. Still long lines and understocked stores. I will just have to wait.
I hate to wait.
UPDATE July 15: Still waiting
UPDATE July 17: Still waiting… but Mike just went ahead a prepaid for a couple of phones at an ATT store downtown. We’ll probably get them next week. In the meantime…
still waiting.
