Proof of Life

Yesterday afternoon, serious thunderstorms threatened our surrounding neighborhoods with rain, but we received not a speck. It would have been nice to get a downpour and flood all the pollen off the cars and sidewalks and railings, despite my usual Charlottesville-rain misgivings. We've got a serious coating of this grossness.

Weather.com says this is oak pollen; we're under a high alert, and have been since Thursday, when the pine pollen alerts were lowered to moderate.

The poor car parked next to Koala had it even worse. Yuck! Wikipedia tells me that anemophilous spring blooming plants like oak typically induce pollen allergies across the U.S. until the end of April. May, here we come!

I don't think I've ever been more tempted to use a hose in my life. I just imagine neon powdery gunk flowing to the ground in rivulets, the water weighing down all possible microgametophytes so they can't fly near my face. Poetic, I know. The limitations of apartment living continue to fill me with fine fantasies of lawn hoses and garages and programmable thermostats. ;-)

A Mid-August Afternoon

In April. In Virginia. Portent of things to come?

We spent our afternoon, smartly, in a movie theatre, where we watched a matinee in a dark, cool theater. That temperature reading above is from about 5pm, on our way home. Oy!

I was chatting with our friend Jordan earlier in the day, and, as he told me all about his juicy evening date to a French restaurant with a lawyer from Capitol Hill, I imagined telling him my day's plans: an afternoon showing of a G-rated children's film (by Disney, no less!) in a beat-down theater with Ben's parents and a box of Milk Duds. ;-) But, for shame, what a pleasant afternoon it was! Matinees -- and copious servings of triptans -- remain the perfect antidote to loud summer weather in my book (and, really, it also worked to soothe the anguish of the mixed-season thick film of pollen our cars, too).

Earth is of course visually mesmerizing, smart, thought provoking, and cute without being overtly saccharine. One older woman in our showing played the requisite "ooohhhh-er and ahhhhhh-er," though it would have been even more fun with an audience of excited, nerdy kids. That said, it's a very self-selecting film; you'll know if it's the way you'd want to spend a few hours. Are you fascinated by digital projection? Planet Earth? Google Earth? Survivor Man, hiking, or nature photography? Well, then, perfect!

After the show, we traveled to a mall across the highway for cool drinks and I spied with my little eye a Civil War Trails marker pointing toward the parking lot.

Ever the displaced New England-trained historian, I immediately made Ben promise we'd investigate on our way out.

This is further proof that reminders of the War of Northern Aggression are never far from hand in this central Virginia neck of the woods. The plantations stand tall, the neighborhoods remain segregated, the battles and flags are memorialized generations later. Even in the parking lot of a low-grade strip mall, it's hard to forget where we are.