Be Here Now...
Murmurs of the Mason Jennings concert had made their way to my ears a few times over the summer months, but the show was on a class night and I was trying to be a responsible student. Buuut when I was surprised with tickets to the show, I couldn’t resist an evening of potential great moments.
We stopped by Duffy’s, one of "Washington's Best" for a little bite to eat before the show. My shepherd’s pie lived up to the reputation, Keith’s burger not as much. We made the far trek across the street to the 9:30 and staked out a spot on the balcony.
We caught a few mintues of the opening guy before Mason came out. The next part was a blur of happiness. Many artists can fall shy of expectations, aided by the technology of a recording studio. That is not the case with Mason at all; he was just as incredible as you could hope for. Bonus points for playing each of our favorite songs: Ulysses for Keith and Sorry Signs on Cash Machines for me. The evening seemed to land in a strange vortex where past, present, and future met all at once in my little emotional brain.
...no other place to be...
One of my classes this semester is particularly…unchallenging. After spending about two hours knitting and chatting, and a mere 30 minutes actually presenting to the professor, we had another few hours of knitting and not being productive looming ahead – so we decided to head out for some lunch. Each week Goli has a new food obsession that she talks about craving all class – making Michael and I starving by osmosis (or something). Last week: cookies. More specifically the black and white cookies from Starbucks. This week: soup and salad. We settled for Chicken Friand at La Madeline with a brief stop off at Stitch DC for some essential yarn (new projects! No photos yet) and a stop off for me at a cute little book shop called Bridge Street Books to pick up a copy of Blood Meridian on my walk to Foggy Bottom.
Living in the moment with the friends I love.
This week was the last of the Jazz in the Garden series, with live jazz music from 5 - 7:30 in the Sculpture Garden. So we stopped by the Organic Market on Pennsylvania for cheese, bread, salami, and chocolate for a little picnic.
It seems to get pretty crowded, but it's still a great time. They have a little cafe with snacks, food, wine, sangria, etc. And a gelato cart (I still can't bring myself to try gelato outside of Italy - it just seems sacrilegious). A moment later and it was dark and cold and time to walk.
Bright and early Saturday morning we gathered at the Wye residence with some breakfast from Eastern Market, eager to head out to apple picking in Virginia. The residence (compound?) is in a prominent spot right next to the market, so the weekend foot traffic by the front windows is pretty impressive. We were just about to head out when we heard ::screech::thud::scream (scream scream). Jon served at the first responder from our group, as the rest of us looked on, concerned but not sure what to do. It seemed to be handled and the woman was not seriously injured - but the whole thing was kind of surreal: did that just happen?
6 people and a dog in a station wagon made for a cozy and entertaining ride out to the orchard. But a lot of the ride and all of the destination was breathtaking. The District is a relatively easy city to be in - still a lot of greenery, parks, bodies of water, and accessible opportunities to connect with nature. Even so, it is a distinct shift into a more peaceful and balanced state when you get into the country and into the mountains.
Saturday was an unusually warm day for this week, but it was still Fall in the air and apple picking seemed to be the most natural thing to do at the moment.
Boys will be boys as a game of ball and stick erupted (substitute apple and apple-picker).
Jon and Nicki had their own special technique for getting the good apples:
We filled up on the granny smiths, threw in a few red delicious for color, and topped it off with this tiny, perfect red apple I found. The stem might give away it's tininess in this picture, but it is an adorable little 1" diameter apple.
Bags of apples, some cider, and a tiring dog - we piled back in the wagon to venture on to the winery.
We did a tasting - 3 whites (all chardonnays) and 3 reds (2 blends and a merlot). We were all kept laughing most of the time (especially when Jon tasted the wine by dipping his pinkie into the chardonnay and rubbing it on his teeth. dead pan. awesome. warranting a pretty good look from a nearby patron with a bad goatee), I don't really have much to say about the wines themselves. Not overly impressive - pretty standard. I had a glass of the merlot and it was good. We took some wine and snacks out onto the balcony/porch that looked out onto the vineyard and mountains and enjoyed the sunshine and somewhat cool air.
Eventually it was time to head back to civilization. After a few faceplants on the drive down, Fred was not up for another hour sliding around in the back - so he climbed into the backseat with Keith, Nicky, and I - slowly pushing Nicky out of the way until eventually he had successfully usurped her seat altogether. It's worth mentioning that Fred is not a small dog. Fred is a very, very large dog who forgets just how big he is. Ohhh Fredddd...
We arrived in DC to hop into my car and drive up to Baltimore for dinner at Mex (unimpressive) at Power Plant with Kelsey and Sean before the show. I was skeptical. Yonder Mountain String Band? Doesn't sound like it's for the faint of blue grass hearts. But when you're 4 feet from hands moving across an instrument with such ease and precision, watching 4 guys having a blast, and in good company - it's bound to be a good time. Perhaps it was the instrument I was most familiar with, perhaps it was his likeness to someone I know, or maybe it was indeed his skill level - but Adam on the guitar was absolutely captivating. Well, captivating in the moments that I wasn't being amused by the hot mess behind us hitting on Mark and Keith. Oh ladies. Didn't anyone ever tell you that spandex and stripper heels are not the garb for a blue grass concert? And here I was... nervous about not wearing any flannel.
The cool air moved back in and we awoke Sunday morning for a crisp morning to enjoy with the Baltimore Farmer's Market. Donuts were in order, of course. I know I talk about these donuts a lot - but seriously, they're amazing. Upon Sean's recommendation, we also tried the omelet wrap (mine was sun dried tomato, fresh basil, fresh garlic, feta cheese, ham, spinach, and potatoes in a spinach wrap) - delicious!!
With a box of donuts in tote, we headed back down to DC and the Wye residence for an afternoon of baking.
Back to the organic market and Eastern Market for supplies to go along with our giant bag of apples. I picked a recipe I found linked from a post on DCist, on a blog called Twin Tables. We couldn't find any pumpkin ale, so we substituted a brown ale and a smidgen extra pumpkin puree. I wish I could report complete success, but that wasn't the case. It never fully cooked - despite bumping the time up to about 70 minutes (versus the prescribed 55 - 60). Eventually we just took it out anyway. Toasted with some butter - I still really like it. The rest of the crowd gave mixed reviews.
More successful was the apple crisp recipe Keith found. We sort of didn't follow the directions, but it turned out to be a happy mistake and the final product was pretty damned good. We were apple-peeling fools, though, and ended up making 3 1/2 pans of apple crisp instead of the intended 2.
But it was so delicious there wasn't any problem finding homes for any of the pans. 
The lyrics of Mason Jennings songs have been running through my mind a lot of the weekend: Living in the Moment:
One day it hit me, this ain't a movie, now
I'm living in the moment with the friends i love
Be Here Now:
Be here now, no other place to be
All the doubts that linger, just set them free
And let good things happen
And let the future come into each moment
Like a rising sun
I tend to look ahead - to make plans, to make choices today based on what I expect to happen tomorrow. It's a blessing and a curse that has only started to waiver in intensity in the last year - given a number of great changes and upsets to "the plan". I'm learning that there is something to be said for letting go of the worry; to let yourself go from being guarded in preparation for future upset and to just live in the moment.
Good luck on your qualifying exam, Stephen!
Good luck with your visa, Keith! (well, sort of ::wink::)
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