Dream with Our Eyes Open

Woke up after far too little sleep and went to watch our town's parade. Most of the usual suspects were there: the police color guard, the local politicians and heads of educational institutions in vintage cars, the day care centers, the dog training school, locals bands on trucks, part of the Washington Revels company (complete with Morris dancers), fire trucks, town maintenance department heavy equipment, Shriners, a youth dance/cheer school, cub scouts, the local wooden bat ball team, a coouple of religious groups(with, thankfully, Congregation Tifereth Israel to balance the Christian groups, and the car plastered with names of local businesses who sponsored the event.

Crowd-pleasers included the heavy equipment (always popular with the kids), the rival youth swim clubs — the Hammerheads and "The Feet," the Panquility steel drum band, a couple of acrobatic cheerleaders from the local high school, and our Representative Jamie Raskin (Democrat, 8th Congressional District), surrounded by friends and his re-election committee.

Then I went home and crashed, completely missing the traditional July 4th ice cream making at my friend Kat's house.

"Leave tomorrow for tomorrow." I did my best.

Peaches
Jonamac apples
Green beans
Raspberries
Blackberries
Red and yellow cherry tomatoes (that is, two different types)
Different types of heirloom tomatoes
Sweet onions
Mixed-milk morbier cheese (with ash)

One of the tomatoes had split by the time I got them home, so I ate it for lunch with some shredded string cheese and basil left from last week.

I should have bought more basil because this batch is kaput.

So, yeah, I'm kind of forgetting how to LJ/DW. Like, that I should post things that might be of interest to my circle/friendlist.

lady_ganesh and her daughter came to visit me and The Mr. as part of a trip to tour the DC/Baltimore area. Mostly we showed off our town, [the People's Republic of] Takoma Park.

I had intended eating dinner in town as part of the total Tacky Park experience, but The Mr. wooed our visitors away from the hyper-local joints in favor of A & J, a favorite of his (and mine, too) up in Rockville, the county seat: about a 25-minute drive. This is a place that serves authentic northern Chines dim sum: lots of noodle dishes (including ones with wonderful housemade noodles) and none of the bready buns that most people associate with dim sum. They also (obviously) serve dim sum in the evening, unlike most places in the area.

It was a lovely visit.

So! New cellphone, with much spiffier camera: 13 megapixels vs. 5 (!) on my old camera. And it's a beautiful spring day.

The phone store guy moved over all my stuff from my old phone, so I still have the icons I used for businesses in my contacts list, my downloaded fics and free e-books (which I have imported into a freshly downloaded Aldiko reader), and my old cellphone wallpaper ... which looks all blurry because the screen has a much higher resolution. I need to find the wallpaper specs (it's a Galaxy S4 - the newer ones are too big for my chunky little hands) and make a new one.

ETA for my own reference: 1920 x 1080 pixels for S4 wallpaper, says the Intarwebz.

Cantaloupe melon (in basket), caraway rye bread, spelt mini loaf (on top of a barely visible mini country white loaf), green beans, blueberries, blackberries, cider-washed tomme cheese, garlic, field-grown cucumbers, fingerling potatoes, field-grown cherry tomatoes, assorted summer squash, peaches.

To all who celebrate it. We are setting up to watch our neighborhood parade:

(From last year's event. More on Flickr.)

Clockwise from upper left: snow pea shoots, extra large brown eggs, asparagus, rye with caraway bread, struan bread, chicken empanadas (in bag), calverly cheese, poppy seed hamentaschen, strawberries, tomatoes (probably greenhouse-grown at this point), snap peas, Persian cucumbers.

So how tough is cutting custom mats? We have a nice local framing shop, and we like to buy local, but I just got two tiny watercolors (see more from the series she did here), inspired by some pix from my garden that I posted on FB. On the two she sent me, the quote is split between the two. So I would need a mat with a double opening to frame them together (either that, or two tiny separate frames).

I just know that getting them framed will cost beaucoup de bucks. And I haven't been doing anything crafty recently.

It's simply not that cold out - it's 55°F. But yesterday hit a high of 78°, with sunny skies: today it's rainy, and it hasn't been this cold for almost 6 months.

Yesterday I was wearing capris, a tank, and sandals. Today I just came in from spending 2 hours at the Takoma Street Festival, wearing jeans, a tee, a rainjacket, and (again) sandals. And I'm cold, and slightly damp.

At the festival, I had a vegetarian platter (felafel, green beans in tomato sauce, and rice with lentils), a couple of bites of the grilled chicken skewer and crabcake that the Mr. had, hot cider, and a yogurt. The yogurt was free: Quaker Co. (they of the oatmeal) is launching a new line here in Maryland, and they were giving the stuff out.

"The 34th annual Takoma Park Folk Festival will be held on the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, and this year’s theme of Peace and Reconciliation is in recognition of that tragic event. Performers have been encouraged to present music and dance related to this theme, and they will reflect ways that the arts can promote unity and harmony across cultures. Some performers, such as emma’s revolution and Magpie, are internationally known peace advocates. The Festival also will provide opportunities for visitors to hear and discuss various points of view with representatives of nonprofit organizations at our Community Tables."

Festival Website, with schedule of performances, directions, list of community groups participating, etc.