Thursday

First: my good friend Ellie has made her music available free over the internet. You can listen to, or download, four acoustic tunes here. Highly recommended. Now back to talking about me: when I woke up today it was eighty-two degrees outside. This wasn't unexpected after yesterday's heat (a tolerable, moderately breezy seventy-eight average) and the hot night. But today it was overcast, making the heat oppressive somehow. I let the housekeepers in after making sure Dora was well out of their way, and then I got busy updating our iPod with all Ellie's new songs and staying out of the way, myself. During this hour the temperature dropped twenty-six degrees outside, the wind picked up, and the day went from overcast to downcast. As I type, it's hovering in the low fifties and raining out there. Its also really windy. We just returned from a pleasant meal at Thai Terrace (between Ballston Commons Mall and Virginia Square in Arlington). We met one of Sunshine's coworkers. I've eaten there before: I liked it then and I liked it again, tonight. The tom kha was superb (and about the prettiest soup I've ever seen, high praise indeed considering Thai is one of the world's most aesthetic cuisines). My shrimp in emerald curry was so good I had the remaining sauce packed up to go. The conversation was all work-talk between interesting and compelling people, so I dug it. After dinner, we got groceries returning to Falls Church, and this reminded me to add something to my litany of complaints: it's a solid drag to carry groceries into this place. None of the doors can be held open. All require electric key entry taking whole seconds to read. The elevator's slow, possibly possessed. And it's sometimes hot and sometimes raining. [Cavin]