Wonderful Weekend

I started the weekend off with contradancing. Counter to coworker's prediction, there were more boys than girls in our group. The dance was held in Glen Echo Park, and over 200 dancers attended (with the gender ratio about even). To oversimplify for the uninitiated, contradancing is a more active type square dancing. A set of calls (or instructions) is repeated continuously throughout one "dance," thus there is no need to call past about the third iteration.Unfortunately, the dance hall becomes very hot very quickly--next time I'll remember to bring extra layers (to replace sweaty articles of clothing).

I joined up with old high school friends (including enjanerd and itp) after dancing. It turns out that a pal I hadn't seen in years now lives right next to me in Crystal City. Becca successfully balanced a quarter on the edge of a beer glass with the help of two forks. Jenna then tried to show her up by balancing the salt shaker on its edge--failing miserably in the process. We stayed at a local diner until 3:30am, when my stomach finally shut off. (For the first time in my life I couldn't finish a vanilla milkshake.)

Saturday I went to a family dinner in Baltimore. Besides resolving an argument between two men at a bar over who was/is better "skill-wise," Kobi Bryant or Michael Jordan, my 78-year-old grandmother also provided this great anecdote:

"[discussion about how my grandmother is now a Harry Potter fan]...I remember at camp [in Waterford, ME] the summer when the first Harry Potter book came out. I had just returned from Bridgeton where I had picked up a copy for [her grandson] Jesse when I saw the UPS man. He had 21 identical boxes for the campers. I said 'Wow, Harry Potter is more popular than Stephen King.' The UPS man responded, 'Yep, and I've got his copy right here.'"

Sunday morning I volunteered at a workshop for Jewish 6th graders. About 300 congregated at the Berman Academy in Rockville, MD to learn about Jewish immigration. At the area I helped, the kids pretended that they had just arrived in America from Eastern Europe. In groups of four they wrote letters back to their families explaining: Why they came to America, What they have done since arriving, and What their future plans are. Once again, a stranger asked which kids were mine (and these were 11-yr-olds!).

Sunday afternoon, I visited the Sackler Gallery and focused on their Asian games exhibit. Turns out almost every game you can think of (backgammon, chess, cards, dominoes, go, parcheesi, polo, and (?) kickball) originated in Asia--with the possible exception of Chinese checkers. The scope of the collection was terrific--and the same could be said of the company ;)

This evening I had dinner at the house of my first boss, who has one of the most talkative two-year-olds I've met. Her shyness around me lasted about five seconds: next thing you know she was quizzing me on why I am a vegetarian :)