It's All Coming Back to Me Now

July has been a month full of memories, and remembering things from years past. It's been a few years since I rode a bike (as in, perhaps 7 or 8 years), but earlier in July, I bought a bike. With the metro opening near me--yes, here it comes again, a reference to the metro--I decided I needed to branch out and get new forms of transportation. Plus, my doctor told me to exercise more, and since running isn't my thing, I figured biking would be good. So on July 5, I took the plunge and got a bike and having been biking around the Virginia suburbs here and there as my heart desires. Even though it's been so many years, it came back quickly. What they say is right: riding a bike for the first time in a long time is easy, as easy as riding a bike. :)

And then part two of remembering happened this past weekend on a trip up to New Jersey and a part of the state I spent a few years (well, a summer and a half, really, but it was still "home" for a bit). As I got closer, I very much remembered the roads and the landmarks. It had been 18 months since I had been there and six years since I spent any real time there, but I knew the area. I find it amazing how well my mind--well, many peoples' minds, really--can store that information and remember for years into the future. Even though the road was widened, new buildings were put up, and the landscape changed to make room for new future developments, I knew the area. Fascinating.

Thank you, Ellen, for making me laugh as always.

I Can Finally Confirm That I Don't Have Birds Living In My Bathroom

For the past two summers there has been an incessant chirping during the day in one of my bathrooms coming from the vent. It basically sounds like a family of birds has taken up nest in my house. Problem was, besides that one place, I seemed to be unable to locate the source of the chirping. This past weekend I went into my attic and had a look around. THANKFULLY, no birds. Yet the chirping continued. I was about to chalk it up to weird echoing when yesterday, for the first time in a long time, it was silent. Dead silent.

Then oddly, this morning, my bedroom and my kitchen (my bedroom is right over my kitchen) had this weird smell, as if a skunk was right outside or an animal died. My mind immediately connected the two incidents, but I had no proof, of course. To air out my house and eliminate the odor I opened all the windows in my bedroom and kitchen and, as if on cue, the birds in the trees outside my house started chirping. I rushed back to the bathroom and, lo and behold, it was the same chirping (or, at least in the same rhythm). Further, when I went outside to that area, there was a poor bird that looked like it might have been dead right in that area. Mystery, I believe, solved.

Sadly, with the birds having taken up residence in a tree right outside a vent that apparently leads straight to my bathroom, I'm afraid the noise will continue. However, there is some comfort in being rather confident that I don't have birds living in my bathroom and one of those birds not living in my bathroom didn't die in my vents. Unless I get evidence to the contrary, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Because animals can be incredibly cute (well, are usually ridiculously cute), this dog melted my heart. Definitely man's best friend, even when being mean to baby man.

One Week Until the Silver Line

Today Fairfax County hosted an open house at the temporary end of the beautiful new metro line. I'm 3 miles away, and since I anticipate using the metro a lot, I figured it'd be a good idea for me to go check it out. I want to be prepared and know before it opens how to get from train to bus, where parking and bikes go, etc. Basically, I want to be prepared.

It was a mixed bag of success. I know the layout of the station and the associated facilities, but the folks there to help us new commuters were not as knowledgeable about things as I would have expected them to be. I thought some of my questions would be easy to answer and part of a standard FAQ, but apparently I was wrong. I guess I'm going to have to spend the next week doing my own research to answer my questions. At least I have the bus and metro schedules now to refer to.

Wiehle-Reston East Metro Station

Entrance to Buses/Bike Room/Parking

In any case, next week will be an exciting time for me. Yes, that's more than one post about public transportation, and I'm sure there will be more. The whole reason I moved as far into the suburbs as I did was knowing that the metro was eventually coming, so this justifies the move three years ago!

Francais Encore

I've been meaning to work on my French; I think knowing a foreign language is an invaluable asset for anyone, and I had made a lot of progress studying French from middle school through college that I have a nice base to start from. Well, this week, I once again began to study French. It started out cobwebs, but even after just 30 minutes of conversation, it started coming back.

Vive la France?

Problem, though (because there's always a problem). I also have a nice base in other languages, and when my vocabulary in French starts waning, as it oh so often does, I just naturally find a language where I know the words. I don't speak French. Or Portuguese. Or anything else...I speak my own hodgepodge language. I remember a couple years back when a bunch of people in northern France were convinced I was from Belgium because of my accent and poor vocabulary. At least I sort of blended in, right?

Of course, a downside(?) to studying French again is that I find myself silently (usually) narrating my life in French just to see if I can do it. I also probably mutter the words sometimes. The people at the supermarket must think I'm a complete weirdo, walking down the aisles speaking in tongues. Such is life out in the suburbs, I suppose!

Not only are all of DJ Earworm's mash-ups awesome, but he even did one in French...that totally and completely feels like summer!!!

I Refuse To Accept My Friends Are Leaving

The reason my friends leaving is bothering me can be traced back to elementary school. See, my "class" (Class of 1999!) in elementary school had about 110 students, give or take a few. Now, maybe I don't remember very clearly, but I feel like very few people entered or left the school during my couple of years there. I then went to a middle school on the opposite side of town, so few people from my elementary school joined me in middle school. There might've been new--as in moved recently to the area--people there, but I wouldn't have known. The people I spent time with in middle school was relatively small, and I once again don't remember anyone moving into or out of the area from my crowd. And then I went to high school in a town over--again, with very few people from my middle school and no one from my elementary school--so I don't know who was new and who was not.

Why am I bringing this up? Well, growing up, I don't think I ever really had to deal with friends moving away. Maybe I did, but like I said, I don't remember it if I did. When I went off to college, it was me deciding to move away, so the scattering of my friends wasn't all their doing, but just as much mine. And then I didn't go back home and stayed in the DC area, so it was my fault again, I suppose. Post-college, it's obvious not everyone is going to stick around, so the dispersal of my friend group around the country didn't bother me all that much...it was expected, actually.

The view from the rooftop on which we played Wizard's
Chess. That's the Washington Monument in the background.

I've spent the last four years with a relatively static friend group based in the DC area. Yeah, there's been some shuffling, but it's more or less held, and for those who did go away, there was a feeling that they might--could?--return soon. Not anymore. The "permanence," as it will, of people moving away in their mid- to late-20s is becoming more obvious to me. Friends are moving for jobs, or grad school that turns into jobs at the location of their grad school. The dispersal is starting anew as I watch my friends pursue great, new opportunities not in the DC area.

And I refuse to accept it. Perhaps it's because I know I'm not going anywhere, or if I do, it'd be for a short timeframe. Maybe I'm taking this harder than I should, but I don't like that some of my best friends in DC are moving away with no guaranteed return date. If only my opinions on the matter were the deciding factors for all of them. C'est la vie, I suppose.

So last night I went to a going away party for some of these friends (which doubled as a Happy Birthday America party), and it was a great time...reinforcing why I don't want them to go. But on their rooftop is a large chessboard and, especially after a little glass of wine, was just screaming "WIZARD'S CHESS" so of course I took the place of the king while two others played out the game in the rain. Super fun. Despite the terrible acting, this scene is super fun and I wish I could partake in a massive game of wizard's chess:

US-Belgium From My Nervous Spot

My side bio note says I get excited about things like the Duel in the Pool, so obviously I get excited about the World Cup and feel surges of national pride during it. I hate when people say the US is not good at soccer--I feel like being ranked 13th in the world, doing the best in North American qualifying, and making it out of difficult group stages at the World Cup twice in a row is pretty good. And boy, did the US Men's National Team put up a good fight, especially today against Belgium.

The view from my "nervous spot."

Well, it happened without me realizing it, but I have a "nervous spot," as in a spot I go during sporting events when my heart rate races to absurd levels and I just can't take it anymore. This spot is right behind my sitting spot, overlooking my couch (allowing me to lean on it) and with a direct view of the TV. During particularly fingernail-biting times, it gives me easy access to walk across the house, and I can jump and crouch from the spot without hurting myself or knocking anything off my walls or putting any dents into my walls. And when something good happens during a nervous period (like Greene scoring that goal against Belgium), I can go crazy with no fear.

This game against Belgium, I spent an inordinate amount of time in my nervous spot. I watched the highs and the lows from that spot. I wish the US had won, but it was a great effort by the men's team and I'm proud of how well they did. I'll continue watching the World Cup (of course), and then it's time to start getting excited for the 2015 Women's World Cup in Canada, which probably require a lot more time in that spot!

And because despite the result of today's game I still love America (duh!), here are 50 Great Facts about the 50 States: