The Tell-All Heart
When I checked with the I Ching before my trip, it gave me the answer that my weekend in DC/Richmond would have an inauspicious beginning (a conflict or lawsuit, actually), but at the end I would be able to hold my head up: song to guan (gotta love those moving lines). I'm not so sure what the Book thought it was telling me about; perhaps it was the snow in Chi that would soon become sun in DC.
More likely it was merely warning me of Verinda's dog Dumbo who has emotional issues, although you wouldn't be able to tell it from the way he lounges around, and snuggles with V (here pictured with Jess -- and curiously, the picture of V & J & Dumbo looks quite similar to the pic of V & J & beer). Dumbo made one snap at me when I was giving him a treat, but by the end of the weekend, we were good friends, and even posed in our own Pieta.
Or perhaps the Book was referring to the party I went to with the MS in Foreign Service crowd on Friday, a party full of people speaking several languages and with astounding international backgrounds, where the conversation tended to go like this: Me: So, where are you from?
Yasmin: My dad is Yemeni, and my mom is Austrian, and they worked for the UN while I was growing up. Where are you from?
Me: Chicago.
There wasn't much conflict there (I spent a large part of the night being introduced by V's friend Dan successively as V's friend, then the coolest guy in the world, then Dan's friend; and then spent another part of the night discussing translation AI with an Austrian), but neither did I leave with my head held up, as I was pretty tired by the time we left.
Or perhaps the Book meant that our trip from DC to Richmond would be inauspicious, which seems true insofar as we had some trouble finding our way out of DC in the cute maroon Mazda 3 (named Marlise) that V rented, and even when we did, we couldn't get the XM radio working. But we did find our way to Richmond, and got to see Jess and Pat in their new house. Dumbo loved the yard, but I preferred the kitchen, where we ate pasta with fresh basil and spinach salad for dinner, and waffles for breakfast.
Also in Richmond, we went to go see the Poe Museum, but most of our time was spent walking around Richmond (which is pretty vegan friendly, I was pleasantly surprised to find out), and just hanging out, watching movies. It was something like a domestic holiday, a weekend of ordinary pleasures (or pleasures I'm privileged enough to call ordinary): a vacation into an everydayness that was not my everyday. When I told a friend here about the weekend she asked if I imagined that sort of life for myself, and as nice as it was, I don't see myself living like that right now; you know how the saying goes, I wouldn't want to live there, but it was a nice life to visit.
Although, at the end of the weekend, when V was driving me back to Reagan (which is, all things considered, an uninspired and slightly dingy airport), when I had Dumbo sitting on my lap (whereas on the ride down, he stayed on V's the whole time), when the sun hadn't hidden behind the clouds -- at the end of the weekend, it was a hard life to leave.
More likely it was merely warning me of Verinda's dog Dumbo who has emotional issues, although you wouldn't be able to tell it from the way he lounges around, and snuggles with V (here pictured with Jess -- and curiously, the picture of V & J & Dumbo looks quite similar to the pic of V & J & beer). Dumbo made one snap at me when I was giving him a treat, but by the end of the weekend, we were good friends, and even posed in our own Pieta.
Or perhaps the Book was referring to the party I went to with the MS in Foreign Service crowd on Friday, a party full of people speaking several languages and with astounding international backgrounds, where the conversation tended to go like this: Me: So, where are you from?
Yasmin: My dad is Yemeni, and my mom is Austrian, and they worked for the UN while I was growing up. Where are you from?
Me: Chicago.
There wasn't much conflict there (I spent a large part of the night being introduced by V's friend Dan successively as V's friend, then the coolest guy in the world, then Dan's friend; and then spent another part of the night discussing translation AI with an Austrian), but neither did I leave with my head held up, as I was pretty tired by the time we left.
Or perhaps the Book meant that our trip from DC to Richmond would be inauspicious, which seems true insofar as we had some trouble finding our way out of DC in the cute maroon Mazda 3 (named Marlise) that V rented, and even when we did, we couldn't get the XM radio working. But we did find our way to Richmond, and got to see Jess and Pat in their new house. Dumbo loved the yard, but I preferred the kitchen, where we ate pasta with fresh basil and spinach salad for dinner, and waffles for breakfast.
Also in Richmond, we went to go see the Poe Museum, but most of our time was spent walking around Richmond (which is pretty vegan friendly, I was pleasantly surprised to find out), and just hanging out, watching movies. It was something like a domestic holiday, a weekend of ordinary pleasures (or pleasures I'm privileged enough to call ordinary): a vacation into an everydayness that was not my everyday. When I told a friend here about the weekend she asked if I imagined that sort of life for myself, and as nice as it was, I don't see myself living like that right now; you know how the saying goes, I wouldn't want to live there, but it was a nice life to visit.
Although, at the end of the weekend, when V was driving me back to Reagan (which is, all things considered, an uninspired and slightly dingy airport), when I had Dumbo sitting on my lap (whereas on the ride down, he stayed on V's the whole time), when the sun hadn't hidden behind the clouds -- at the end of the weekend, it was a hard life to leave.