By Dan Albergotti
Greek olives in oil, fine beer, the respect of colleagues,
the rapt attention of an audience, pressed white shirts,
just one last-second victory, sympathy, buttons made
to resemble pearls, a pale daughter, living wages, a father
with Italian blood, pity, the miraculous reversal of time,
a benevolent god, good health, another dog, nothing
cruel and unusual, spring, forgiveness, the benefit
of the doubt, the next line, cold fingers against his chest,
rich bass notes from walnut speakers, inebriation, more ink,
a hanging curve, great art, steady rain on Sunday, the purr
of a young cat, the crab cakes at their favorite little place,
the dull pain in his head, the soft gift of her parted lips.
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I did lots of fun things indoors and out on Saturday, but my web site -- or rather my web hosting, specifically FTP and all other means of file management -- is completely screwed up tonight, and I've spent the past two hours trying to figure out how to upload a photo there, and now I must go turn my clocks back. So rather than try to describe our day in detail, I'll let the photos speak for me:
En route to the Blacksmiths & Friends event at the Montgomery County Agricultural History Farm Park, we stopped to see the farm's goats.
We also saw several blacksmiths working on everything from bug sculptures made from old forks to heavy iron jingle bells, though we spent the most time watching a carpenter with a lathe carve beautiful pens from blocks of wood.
Before that, we visited the Swedish Bazaar at St. James' Episcopal Church in Rockville, which we stop at every year to get farmer's cheese, rye bread, and other Scandinavian foods...
...and afterward, we dragged our very beleaguered children to a model train show at Damascus Library, which had banjo music as well as what younger son described as completely age-inappropriate exhibits for two high school students.
Once upon a time, this was the sort of rapt attention that Daniel in particular paid to train shows. These days it's Paul who wants to go!
We ended up at Black Hill Regional Park, where we met geese and ducks who were as eager to be fed...
...as the happy sparrows, chickadees, finches, tufted titmouses (titmice?), blue jays, and other visitors to the bird feeders around the nature center.
Everywhere we went the sky was spectacular all afternoon -- it was quite chilly but the sun came through the clouds in wonderful patterns. Adam's blog has the good photos, since he had the good camera (and you can see my fingers in two of them).
We watched The Blind Side in the evening since I was the only member of the family who'd seen it -- the others all follow the Ravens, so they know who Michael Oher is, and I figured that even if the story of high school adversity didn't appeal to them, they'd get a kick out of the opening in which we get to see Lawrence Taylor ending Joe Theismann's career. Everyone enjoyed it a lot.
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