rachel’s blog

Bags of candy I bought to give to trick-or-treaters: zero.

Costumed kiddos who rang my doorbell tonight: zero.

Minutes my porch light was on: zero.

Those of you who just placed me in the Party Pooper category will have to take me right back out when December rolls around. I may not like Halloween, but I (fa-la-la-la)-love Christmas!

Today I walked up to a complete stranger’s house and rang the doorbell. When the owner of the house came to the door, I introduced myself… and then asked if I could step inside and look around. To my delight, she happily welcomed me in and gave me a grand tour. I don’t plan to make a habit of this behavior, but this wasn’t just any old house.

It was a house on Knoll Drive.

My dad grew up in that house and my grandparents lived there the rest of their lives, so I have a ton of memories associated with the house. Until today, I hadn’t been there for 13 years. It was fun to walk through all the rooms, noting what had changed and what had remained the same. The most significant additions are a room (on both levels), a deck, a swimming pool, and a front porch. And of course the house and yard are smaller than they used to be.

I’m sure people who saw me wondered what I was up to, but I also enjoyed taking pictures of a few businesses in the Falls Church area that I specifically remembered — the Harvest Moon restaurant, Westlawn Supermarket, and Bluntley’s.

Actually, it’s Bentley’s Family Restaurant, but our family affectionately renamed it. I met up with an acquaintance there for lunch today. The diva with the ridiculous green eye shadow is no longer the hostess there… and all of the decor is still the same. I wasn’t sure whether to be glad or sad.

Today is a beautiful day in the Shenandoah Valley. Yesterday, however, was not so lovely. It has been quite dry around here, so I really can’t complain about the weather, but it still would have been nice to have sunshine yesterday instead of rain.

My sister came up from Georgia for a wedding this weekend, so we spent yesterday afternoon and evening with our parents in the little town of Harpers Ferry, WV, which is where Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia meet. Harpers Ferry is also the place where abolitionist John Brown led a raid on a federal armory in October 1859. He and his 21 men planned to use the weapons to free slaves, but within 36 hours, his attack had failed. John Brown was tried and hanged, but his actions ultimately contributed to the start of the Civil War.

Last time I was in Harpers Ferry (probably 20 years ago), we did some hiking on the Appalachian Trail, but none of us wanted to hike in the cold rain yesterday. It would have also been a beautiful place to do some photography, but the weather wasn’t very conducive to that either. It’s hard to take good pictures while standing in the rain holding a pink umbrella…

The university where I work has been rather quiet for the past two days. However, contrary to what students might think, offices on campus do not shut down for Fall Break. (Wouldn’t THAT be nice?!) Even though I’ve been busy working as usual, Fall Break DID bring me a much-needed reprieve from the two seminary classes I’m taking this semester. I decided to take advantage of my free evening by hosting a potluck tonight.

Don’t plan potlucks on Tuesday evenings.

Most of the people I invited already had plans, but I went ahead and made a big pot of soup for those who were able to come. As the aroma wafted through the house, I couldn’t help but sing the chorus of John McCutcheon’s song “Soup.” (Listen HERE by clicking “Preview.”)

“It smells like winter at our house… smells like soup.”

Of course, it’s only autumn and “our” house is really just “my” house, but it definitely smelled like soup. Minestrone. I think… although I can’t exactly be certain. I started with a basic minestrone recipe, but then I added some ingredients. I’m pretty sure it was still minestrone, but I’m also not entirely sure what makes minestrone minestrone. I do know, however, that I now have yummy leftovers in my fridge!

On my way home tonight, I stopped at Wal-mart to pick up a few items and happened to run into an acquaintance of mine. I hadn’t seen him in more than two years, so we chatted briefly about the church he’s pastoring, and he mentioned that he’s engaged. Before I left the store, I ran into another casual friend of mine who I hadn’t seen for a while. “I’m getting married!” she said, as she showed me her diamond ring.

“Really? That’s exciting!” I hadn’t even known she was dating anyone. “Who are you marrying?”

You guessed it. She’s engaged to the guy I had just been talking to! I didn’t even realize they knew each other… and here they are, planning to spend the rest of their lives together. Congrats to the happy couple.

(P.S. Just for the record, I was not in any way poking fun at my dad in yesterday’s post about fishing. Maybe I’m too easily amused, but imagining my dad doing something that isn’t his style just seemed rather humorous…)

I realize that October is an odd time to be thinking about New Year’s Resolutions, but I’m happy to report that I’m still making progress on my resolutions for 2007. Of the three resolutions I made on January 1, only one is public… and it’s my favorite: “do new things.”

So today I went fishing. I know what some of you are thinking. “What? Your dad never took you fishing?!” Um, no. My dad doesn’t fish. In fact, the idea of him loading a tackle box and fishing pole into the trunk of his car just seems really comical to me. It’s about as likely as him grabbing his hypothetical gun and tromping out into the bitter cold to try to shoot a deer or something. It just isn’t gonna happen. Fortunately, there are plenty of other hobbies in the world to choose from.

But I digress. This afternoon I went with a group of friends to a stocked pond in West Virginia where I managed to catch eight fish. I learned how to cast and reel ‘em in, but there were some other parts of the process I chose not to experience first-hand… Maybe another time. The person in our group who caught the most was Dannel (that’s not a typo, he’s Cuban) — and he fished without a pole! He just had a hook on the end of some fishing line. He’d twirl it like a lasso and cast it out into the water, and before long he’d be pulling in another fish. Amazing.

When we got home, we had a fish fry. Mmm-mm! And now I have three fresh fish (sans head, guts, and scales) in my fridge. Pushing myself to do new things can have some yummy results…

I finally flipped the switch on my furnace this evening. When I got home from work, it was a cool sixty-couple degrees inside, so I figured it was time to start heating the house again.

Sadly, this means that sandal weather is almost over. I love sandals. My feet love sandals. I have probably worn sandals every day for the past six months… but today I broke that trend. Fortunately, there is something else that keeps my feet happy during the colder half of the year — fun socks! There’s just nothing quite like knowing that underneath the black boots I wore this evening, I was wearing pink socks with pink pigs on them.

(I really need to marry a photographer. Trying to take a good picture of my own two feet put me through some rather awkward contortions…)

I may live on a crowded street just a few blocks from the square, but I sure love the sunsets I see from my back porch…

I’m sure we’ve all seen funny signs and labels that sound like they were written by someone who knows just enough English to be dangerous. Tonight I happened across a blog written by someone who either doesn’t speak English fluently or (more likely) used an online translator like Babelfish.

Babelfish is fine to use if, for example, you receive a love note written in French and need to know the gist of what it says… but I certainly wouldn’t rely on it for much more than that. As I skimmed the translated-into-English blog tonight, most of it just sounded awkward, but one phrase caught my attention and made me giggle.

My bosom travels out to you.

Happy Columbus Day!