Indigo Girls

I think this was concert #7 of of 11 for the year.  It was a couple of weeks ago at Wolftrap, which I think is my favorite outdoor venue in the area.  You can bring in your own picnic, so heading out early to make a night of it is always a great plan.  We pulled together a little picnic of the kind of eating almost all women like to do… cheese/ crackers; hummus, chips & guac & salsa, fruit, and chocolate chip cookies.  who needs a whole meal when you can just snack?  I also appreciate any opportunity to use my monogramed picnic basket.  duh.

our picnic spread

One of my favorite things about the concert was the people watching.  A surprisingly diverse crowd of people were in attendance, and I throughly enjoyed taking it all in.  The Indigo Girls themselves were also fantastic.  I’d never seen them live before and this was definitely a concert I was excited about.  For those of you who have seen the movie  Love Actually, I feel about the Indigo Girls the way Emma Thompson’s character feels about Joni Mitchell when she says “Joni Mitchell taught your cold english wife how to feel.”  Cheesy? totally, but the Indigo Girls provided the soundtrack to much of my high school/ college angst, and for that alone I will always love them.

I'm channeling the angst of my early 20's

The ladies did not disappoint and put on a great show.  It was a total juxtaposition to the Mumford & Son’s show, which was just a few days before, but it was a great Sunday night concert.  I look forward to seeing more concerts out at Wolftrap later in the summer.

they didn't look this fuzzy in real life

Lessons learned:  when you forget to bring a knife to cut the cheese a corkscrew can work, but if you ask the people in front of you eating lobster tail, they’ll likely let you borrow one.

The Other City

On Saturday night, after a long day working at a soccer tournament, I went to see an outdoor screening of the documentary “The Other City.”  The only reason I went was to try and sell some baked goods we had left over from the soccer tournament as a fundraiser to send kids to camp this summer, and I’m so glad that I did.

The film is based on an expose that was published in the Washington Post about HIV/AIDS in Washington, DC.  I’ve for a while known that DC has a high incidents of HIV/AIDS, but this film was eye opening.  At least 3% of the District of Columbia has HIV/AIDS.  According to the CDC, 1% of the population contracting HIV/AIDS is considered a “general or severe” epidemic.  And while DC isn’t the only city in the country experiencing this type of epidemic it does have the worst rate in the country and is equivalent to many Sub-Saharan African countries.

Did you know that HIV/AIDS is the leading cause of death among black women between the ages of 25-34?  Yeah, me neither.

The thing I really appreciated about this film was that it addressed many of the preconceived notions I think many of us, or at least I’m willing to say, I have, previously held.  For example, it’s easy to say just wear a condom if you are having sex with many partners.  One of the women in the film, J’mia Edwards is a mother of three and HIV positive.  She made the point that if you are sleeping with someone who is beating you, the last thing you are going to do is to ask them to do something that may set them off and risk getting beat.

At a later point in the film the same facing possible eviction from her apartment, J’mia said that given the choice of having to sleep on the streets with her kids, or sleeping with a man so her kids had a place to stay, she would choose the later.  It’s not as black and white when your decisions mean survival for your children.

I’ve highlighted J’mia’s story because it resonated with me, but the film also does an excellent job looking at HIV/AIDS amongst the gay population, the needle exchange programs and HIV/AIDS among drug users, and the increased incidents of infection among the growing latino community in DC.  I highly recommend this film to everyone.

Living in a city forces you to face the injustice of the world daily.  In DC there is extreme wealth and extreme poverty literally living side by side.  You have the most powerful people in the world living blocks from some of some of the most disenfranchised.  This film brought up a lot of questions and made me question a lot of things.  I won’t even begin to pretend to have any answers to how to begin to deal with any of these problems.  But I do think that the first step is being present where you are.  Living in the city isn’t always easy, but being engaged with your neighbors and in your neighborhoods is a first step to being aware that these issues exist and must be addressed.

All that to say, you should check out the film, www.theothercity.com.

Mumford & Sons

I few weeks ago I had a mini freak out.  Months ago when Mumford and Son tickets went on sale I was confident that I’d purchased mine, but I couldn’t find the confirmation email.  This wouldn’t be so big of a deal if I didn’t have a history of thinking I’d purchased tickets without actually having purchased them.

A few years back I was working a pretty high stress job.  Looking forward to leaving on a much needed vacation, I called U.S. Airways to find my flight information, only to be told by the nice customer service gentleman sitting somewhere outside of Mumbai that there was no record of my having purchased a ticket.  I was supposed to fly out two days later.  Tickets were, naturally, very expensive at this point.  I ended up renting a car for the first half of my trip, and bought a one way ticket to fly home.  Moral of the story: I’m known to forget pretty major details.

So I had reason to believe that it was within the realm of possibility that I’d not actually bought tickets to the, now, sold out Mumford show.  After a quick call to Tickefly I confirmed that I had bought the tickets.  Thank goodness.  It was a show I’m so glad I didn’t miss.  During the opening acts a serious thunderstorm blew in.  It was fun until the hail started and then it got painful.  We survived and were rewarded with an amazing set by Mumford.  I think my favorite part about it was how excited and giddy they were about playing.  It always makes me think about how I wish I were that excited about my job.  I guess if several thousand people were cheering me on as I wrote memos every day I’d be more excited about going to my job every morning too.

I tried to upload a video, but I’m not blog savvy enough to figure that out…

Little Mercies

So I was walking down the street today after lunch, when I notice this man staring at me.  He’s late 40’s early 50’s, dressed in a suit, getting into a Land Rover.  He keeps staring, so I said hello.  He responds hello, and as I walk by continues saying “I sure hope he knows how lucky he is, he better know how lucky he is!”  Presumably he was referring to my non-existent boyfriend/ husband etc.

Some women are offended by cat calling, which, I guess is understandable.  It can be offensive.  Today I decided I to see the cat call as God’s little mercy and encouragement to me during a season of singleness.  He was probably just a dirty old man, but I’ll take it as a compliment.

Summer Adventure List

It’s easy to live in a city and never take advantage of all the things there are to do here.  I easily fall into my routine and forget to explore the huge variety of things this city has to offer.  Here’s my list of DC things I’m going to try and do this summer and hopefully have enough adventures to keep blogging about.

1. Discover Crispus Attucks Park

2. Go to the Newseum

3. SW Fish Market

4.Kennilworth Aquatic Gardens

5. Franklin Douglas Museum

6. U St. walking tour

7. the drum circle in Meridian hill park

8. Mt. Vernon

9. rock creek park

10. kayaking on the potomac

11. American History museum

12. hike Old Rag and Billy Goat Trail

13. orioles game at camden yards

14.  DC Carribbean festival- this happens next weekend a few blocks from my house, I’ve heard it’s insane and can’t wait to check it out!!!

Anything I’ve missed?  What would your list of summer adventures include?

Easter Lupper

So what happened to May?  Seriously, I don’t know what, but I certainly didn’t MEAN to take a month off from blogging.  I know how you faithful 5 have been waiting with baited breath for this update.  Good news is I’ve got several posts I’m working on, here’s to being more consistent in June!

Being a 7 hour drive from home makes getting home for weekends tough unless I’ve got at least 3 or 4 days.  Alas, this Easter I didn’t make it to North Carolina, but instead hosted some of my favorite single urban family members at our house for lupper.  Lupper, if you didn’t know, is a combination lunch/ supper.  It’s one of my favorite meals.  Many of us attend a 5 o’clock church service, so we did a 2:30 meal to accommodate.

I’m way behind on my 11 dinner parties in 2011, but this one reminded me how much I love a good dinner (or lupper!) party.  I’m attending one tomorrow night, which will get my grand total for 2011 to 4.  I need to pick up the pace.

All the photos below are thanks to my good friend Alison of Red Shoes Photography, if you are in DC and looking to hire a photographer, check her out.  She’s awesome!!