Dance Halls and Diners

Dancing equals life - a least in my book. And it had been far too long since I had been dancing, but not anymore. Saturday night I went with some friends, namely Celeste, Kevin, Valerie, and DC Kevin (with two Kevins you must distinguish), out to the Clarendon Ballroom - in which, ironically, they don't ballroom dance. But it was a fun club. We showed our ID, we payed our cover, and then we danced. There was a live band playing called Kristen and the Noise and they were good. Played mostly punk and rock, one country song, and even a Prince song. Now how can you beat Purple Rain? I had lot of fun singing along, rocking out, attempting to head bang, and just being crazy.

The club closed at 1:3o, so we headed over to the Silver Diner across the street. It's a great 50's themed diner, complete with little jukeboxes on each table. Gotta love eating at two in the morning, and the vanilla malt I had was oh so yummy. By the time we ate, walked back to DC Kevin's apartment, tried to find our way out of the parking garage (hey, it was confusing), and drove home, it was 3:45 a.m. I haven't had such a late night, or should I say early morning, in I don't know how long. It just goes to show the lack of excitement in my life. I had to take a nap after church to recover. My 25-year-old body couldn't take it - I know, I'm pathetic.

But there are planned evenings of dance in the future. Gotta keep rockin'!

Baseball/Softball = America

I truly believe the phrase that baseball is America's favorite pastime. On Saturday night, I and some friends went to a Washington Nationals game - they played the Atlanta Braves and won! The new stadium is huge; I heard it holds 40,000. We of course got the nosebleed seats because they only cost $5, but they were pretty decent and we could see everything. First of all, I want to praise whoever mows the outfield, because not only do they make a very pretty checkerboard design in the grass, they also write a very elegant cursive W. Pretty darn cool in my opinion. Watching baseball games live is amazing; there is nothing like the roar of the crowd when a double or triple-play is made, and it's even louder when a home run is hit. The ability of the athletes amazes me. Maybe I need to meet some of the players - future husband material? Oh, I kill myself.

When we were in Boston, Celeste and I went to this museum that had a huge exhibit called Baseball as America. They had tons of old uniforms, stadium seats, pictures, etc. It was so awesome to see all of that history and read about it as well. They also had hands on stuff where you could see how to hold the baseball for different pitches, feel the difference between a wood and aluminum bat, and see on what kind of grass the ball rolls fastest. But the coolest/scariest thing was where you could put your face in the catcher's mask and see what it feels likes to have a baseball thrown at you at 95 mph. Yikes. All I can say is I have a lot more respect for the bravery of catchers. Go catchers!

Yesterday I got to play softball. Maybe not as amazing as baseball, but still lots of fun. I caught balls, I threw balls, I dropped a couple balls too. And I got some pretty good hits in. For me this is a great accomplishment, because in junior high I stunk at batting - but maybe that's because in junior high I played fast pitch and we were playing slow pitch yesterday. Whatever, I'm not going to think of it in that way. I'll just assume I improved immensely.

So, from all of this my love for America's favorite pastime has grown. Play ball!