In which I recount the weekend.

Because I must, like all bloggers, assume that the excruciating and mind-numbing minutiae of my quotidian existence is endlessly fascinating to the rest of the world... I present to you my Weekend in Review.

It was God-damned hot.

Artscape had all the streets in my neighborhood screwed up.

I made, and drank, two pitchers of iced ttea from Stash® ginger-peach green tea.

My morning jogging route has altered slightly and so now I am at a hair over 4 miles each morning.

Half of the mouldings on the second-floor hallway are now painted.

Cynthia's friend Pearl came for a visit. I like Pearl. She and Cynthia shared an apartment when they lived in Hong Kong in the late 1990s. I hope she visits more often.

At Artscape I went to performances by M. Doughty, Gary B. and the Notions, and Rusted Root. Plus whoever happened to be at the DJ stage when I got a kielbasa -- the food court was by the DJ stage. The Soul Coughing fans and Doughty fanatics (you know who you are) will hate me for saying this, but I found the Doughty show rather dull. Gary B. and the Notions have a good garage-band sound and I will definitely go see them again. Rusted Root was a lot of fun but fairly predictable; they haven't really progressed beyond "Send Me On My Way." It was just too damn hot to stand out in the sun, anyhow. Next year: Whartscape, where I can see bands I've never heard of. The drawback is that 90% of them will suck; however, the 10% that will be a pleasant surprise will make it all worth while. You can't do anything new and good if you aren't willing to risk doing something new and lousy.

That last sentence would also be my dating advice for Pearl. Why is it that women are far more likely than men to fall into the trap of not liking anyone who likes them? I call it "Groucho Marx syndrome" -- he said he would never want to belong to a country club that would have him as a member.

While I'm giving unsolicited dating advice to Pearl, let me add: you can meet people and learn to like (or dislike) things about those people. Or you can create in your mind an imaginary perfect person and then judge everyone you meet against that imaginary yardstick, dismissing anyone who fails to meet these preconditions. One of the troubles with the latter policy is that if you somehow managed to meet a person who met all of these criteria... he probably wouldn't be into you. With the former policy, your world will become much bigger and more interesting.

Keep in mind, however, that unless I am talking about Maryland criminal law... I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about. Which doesn't stop me from bloviating away, of course.

Back to the weekend:

Artscape ended at 10 on Saturday, and thus after 10 we could leave and return to the neighborhood with a reasonable chance of finding a parking space. So we went to the 10:30 showing of the new Batman movie, "The Dark Knight." I must say, it was really good. The script was much more nuanced and complex than any other superhero movie I've ever seen. Heath Ledger's performance was really good, and I say that as someone who is completely unsentimental about the fact that it's a posthumous review.

On Sunday we took Pearl back to the train station for her trip home. I made Cynthia scrambled eggs for breakfast. I make scrambled eggs with a little bit of milk and a dash of herbs de Provence. The herbs make a big difference. Also, you can never stop scrambling. I whisk it together into a bowl and then when I pour them into the frying pan I keep on stirring away.

Also for breakfast on Sunday: bagels from Cynthia's favorite New York bagel place. I split them, lightly toast them, butter them, sprinkle some fresh chopped chives and rosemary from my herb pots onto them, put a giant handful of gorgonzola cheese on each half, then stick them in the oven at 250º until the cheese melts and seals in the buttery herbs.

Or, from Cynthia's perspective: "I had eggs and bagels for breakfast. It was yummy." It's not that she doesn't appreciate good food. She really does. It's just that the kitchen is a black box to her. Bags of groceries go in, and tasty food comes out, but what happens in between is largely a mystery.

Later on Sunday we went to my aunt's house. My aunt is a bit of a neurotic. Her daughter, my cousin, is worse. I never met someone so... anxious, all of the time. My cousin has two daughters. They were sweet and personable. I wonder: given that my cousin has somehow managed to be more neurotic than her mother, will her daughters be even worse? How can that be?

I wish, actually, that I could remove a little of my cousin's anxiousness and keep it for myself. In moderate, being a spaz can be useful. She over-studies, over-prepares, over-worries. I under-prepare, worry insufficiently. If I had just a touch of her compulsion to fret and overdo, I might have accomplished a lot more.

But her quality of life...! Who can go their whole life without ever feeling comfortable?

At my aunt's house we borrowed a baby-seat base and tested to see if it would fit in the back of my car. It will, but getting a baby in and out of it with the top closed will be difficult. My solution: just keep the top open. True, it will be December when we bring him home from the hospital, but then again it's only about a mile and half.

My father gave me two CDs to check out when I saw him on Sunday. Reviews to follow. I am still digging the new My Morning Jacket, however.