I went to the Folklife festival on the Mall today. (The Mall is the grassy field about 3 or 4 blocks long between the Capital and the Washington Monument.) It was perfect weather - about 80 degrees and a nice breeze. Unfortunately, the Folklife Festival runs June 24-28 anffd 7- 1 to 7-5, and it is 6/30!

Joke

The meanie post reminds me of a story told by Seneca Foote (check out the link - He had a lot more hair when I knew him than he does in that picture!) to my Dad. He told this story way back when he was new at Nursing Home administration. The way he tells it, they had cantankerous old man at his Nursing Home who was never happy with anything. Seneca went up to him one morning and asked what he would like for breakfast. The man said he wanted two eggs - one scrambled and one fried. Seneca came back later and saw the man was sitting there with one scrambled and one fried egg. "Wow - looks like they got your breakfast just perfect," Seneca said. "No! It's horrible!" the man replied. Seneca was dumbfounded. "Look, it's one scrambled and one fried egg, just like you asked." "HMMPH!" the man said. "They fried the wrong one!"

Meanie

We have this miserable (and, actually, you can use either definitation of that word - she, herself, is miserable, and she's a misery to others) old woman who lives here. She plops herself in a chair directly opposite the concierge and closely watches and comments on anything that happens in the lobby. She has an absolute fit if they try to move her or the chair. She's just mean and nasty - she yells out cruel observations to passerbys, she calls people ugly names (.............not that she hurt my feelings, mind you). She makes absurd demands on the concierge. As a self-defense measure, all the residents have learned not to speak to her or even look at her. I walked into the "library" today, and there were about four people reading the paper, and all 4 of their chairs would normally have been facing hers, and they had all 4 turned around completely backward, so that they were facing, not the same direction, but away from her. The thing is, though, if one happens to be in the shadows watching from afar, she's really quite sad. She's probably been mean all her life and brought this all on herself, so I'm certainly not excusing her, but she really is sad. Here is the dialogue that went on today:
Her: what day is it?
Concierge: Tuesday.
Her: My family comes every Tuesday.
Con: No they don't. They come Sundays.
Her: what day is it?
Con: Today is Tuesday.
Her: Call my daughter right now. Tell her that her mother wants to talk to her.
Con: (picks up phone and dials. Carries on muted conversation. Woman occasionally yells, "Tell her her MOTHER wants to talk to her." Con hangs up phone.) She says she'll see you Sunday.
Her: What day is today?
Con: Tuesday.
Her: My daughter is coming today.
etc., etc.

To continue the story, (if you remember, Dad and David are at Randolph Macon moving Susan out because she flunked out) David and Sue pretty much don't know each other at all at that point, and, if you know Dad at all, you know he goes absolutely ballistic without a moments notice, so poor David was probably scared to death. He was also embarrassed as shit, because these people he was being forced by Dad to march in and "strong-arm" were the kinds of people that had been his friends in college just a year before. According to David, they just pounded in and started grabbing dishes out of cupboards and linens off beds, and even took the typewriter table out from under Stephanie's typewriter while she was trying to type a paper. To give you a final wrap up, Sue and I moved in together, which Mom and Dad were sure was going to be her final undoing, but which actually ended with her graduating with honors from George Mason in economics and the getting a job as a contractor with TASC. Stephanie, the girl who was typing (can you believe we actually typed back then?) became a lawyer and married a marine. I'm not real sure what happened to Shannon. Last I heard she lived on the West Coast and had invented and developed three dimensional fold-out tourist maps.

turtle

Anyway, I promised you a turtle story... When Sue was much younger and in college, she lived in a house with 3 girls and unbeknownst to my parents, at least 2 boyfriends. A great deal of - well, lets just say "partying" - went on there all day and night. For some reason that none of them remembered, they obtained a full size box turtle. One of them brought it in from somewhere, it didn't just crawl in for shelter from the wilderness. They had two kittens., so they figure it ate the cat food. Their apartment was trashed, and occasionally when they were "mellow", the turtle would just crawl across the floor, and they would say, "Hey, man! There goes the turtle!" The odd tie-in of this story to my life is that Sue flunked out of school, and Dad took my much beloved friend David, who at that time was Dad's employee and not yet my friend, to bring her stuff back home to Falls Church (where Dad and David were both at Dulin UMC To be continued...

I did go meet Ron and Sue at Ballston yesterday - I had called Sue and knew she was coming, but it was a wonderful surprise that Ron was there. We saw "IronMan 2". This is not normally my type of movie, but I am in lust with Robert Downey, Jr.
Tee-hee - I have a got a picture of Robert Downey Jr. on my web page. I may live in an old folks home, but I'm about 12 years old emotionally.
I'm going to go ahead and post this only because I'm going to dinner and I've on occasion has entries just disappear when I've gone to dinner! YES, RON, THEY JUST DISAPPEARED!! Like, Poof - they're gone!

later, dudes

Sorry for not posting yesterday. It was SO hot, it actully made me sick - which reminds me to say again - NEVER PUT YOUR WEAK OR HELPLESS LOVED ONES IN THIS PLACE - IT WOULD BE CRUEL! i'm planning to meet Sue at Ballston for a movie, so I'll plan to write later. I have lots to say - most of it amusing and involving a turtle!