March miscellany

A few unconnected items:

It did not actually snow yesterday. I treated myself to a peppermint hot chocolate anyhow. And although it was cold, I was not horribly uncomfortable waiting for a bus after work last night, in spite of the fact that I forgot to wear a hat, a scarf, or gloves. (Look, I got out of the house with a coat, my lunch, my house keys, and my Metro card. I think that's pretty good.) It didn’t even begin to rain until I was curled up in bed with my book.


The Husband and I decided to try Indique after getting recommendations from several friends. Now I only regret that we waited so long to try it. Our curries were wonderfully spicy—the chickpeas in the aloo chole cooked to creamy perfection, the eggplant in the baingan bhartha rich and smoky. And the restaurant’s variation on samosas was almost too good to be true. Also? Spell check thinks I’m doing a crappy job on this paragraph.


Ohio State Senator Robert Hagan rocks my socks.


I finally finished Parting the Waters. It was a wonderful book, but after reading exciting chapters on the Freedom Rides, the movements in Albany and Birmingham, and the March on Washington, the last few pages of tying up loose ends was sort of a let down. I suppose it’s the nature of that sort of book, though. I’m taking a break to read some fiction, and then I’ll move on to Pillar of Fire. I figure that by the time I’m done with that At Canaan’s Edge will be out in soft cover.


I am listening to Gillian Welch right now, and quite enjoying her. When Joan Baez included to Gillian Welch songs on Dark Chords on a Big Guitar I thought I should probably get an album. Then El Jefe recommended her to me. Finally I got Hell Among the Yearlings and Time (The Relevator). Both are excellent, although The Husband finds her "too twangy" for his tastes.


I love that the days are getting longer and that the sun is coming up earlier. It makes it so much easier to get up. But I still get funny looks at work for saying things like “I was surprised by how cloudy it turned out to be today. The sky was so clear and red this morning as the sun was coming up.”


I didn’t grow up watching basketball, but I have somehow been liking the college basketball tournament this year. Maybe I just like tournaments: I enjoy the NBA finals, as well. Maybe it's that, in spite of defending the pace of baseball to non-fans, I do enjoy the quicker pace of basketball. Or maybe as a vertically-challenged individual I am just amazed by the size of basketball players. Anyhow, I didn’t fill out a bracket, but I do have teams I’m cheering for. I’m not telling who they are, though. Don’t want to jinx anything.


Speaking of baseball: two weeks until opening day!


I got a call this afternoon from a man from some catering place about bagels for a meeting. He kept asking for Nadia. I kept telling him he had the wrong number. He kept asking if he had the right university. And I would say yes, but I'm not the person you need to talk to. He would ask me to connect him to Nadia. But he didn't know Nadia who or what department she was with. He just needed to talk to someone named Nadia and worked at the university. He told me that he thought she was Muslim. I didn’t find that information very helpful. I asked him what number he was calling. He read me off a number that wasn't mine. I said that wasn't my number, that he must have dialed wrong (but it was way off, so I didn't know how he got to me). Finally he told me that that number was busy, so he had tried my number instead. What the hell? I told him he needed to call back the other number. He asked me how many bagels I needed. I hung up.