there is something very cool about riding your bike home after a picnic in the park and suddenly realizing that you're right next to the capitol building, and that no, it's not a movie, and that in spite of your doubts about the effectiveness of our government, it's a pretty amazing thing to see. equally amazing is a pink sunset - especially when you're seeing it on the lawn of the national sculpture garden with old friends and a great hummus picnic - the kind of picnic that makes you start planning to pack lots of picnics when you get home, so you can see more sunsets and sit in more parks and get outside of your own yard.

i have fun pictues to post, and good stories to tell, but right now i'm just saying hello, so that you don't let me forget that i need to post my fun pictures and stories later - which will be much easier now that i have my laptop back after leaving it with the nice mac mobile guy for a week and a half. until then, though, angie is in africa and nathalie is in guatemala en route to honduras. i'm too lazy to link right now, so find their names in the sidebar. it will brighten your day. my brother is in iraq now, but apparently, keeping a blog is reason for termination there, so you can't read his stories. does anyone have a big tiller i could borrow? or an extension ladder? happy friday!

saturday was a truly full day, with lots of unexpected glimpses into the communities that surround us. saturday morning, i took my laptop to mac mobile to have a new hard drive installed. who knew that the mac repair shop would feel like a retirement home? from the 70-something receptionist to the three old men getting their computers fixed, it was pretty surreal. it was also a lesson in aging gracefully. one of the men, a lifelong columbus resident, said, "what's good about today? i woke up in ohio?" he then went on to talk about how his wife never listens to him, particularly if she hasn't put in her hearing aids. i want to be more like the other man, who talked about how he's not going to a nursing home because "i plan on being a burden to my son." it was great. what was also great is that they are cheaper than the apple store, and tom, the owner, wasn't nearing retirement, and had a way of making me totally confident that i can trust him with my computer for a few days. after the mac shop, julianna and i walked to the nieghborhood brunch at the dilapadated presbyterian church down the street. it's sponsored by the community garden group, so there were a lot of hippies talking about changing the world. it made me happy! plus, free food is always good, especially when you have fresh snap peas and salad picked from the garden behind the church. saturday also happened to be the olde towne east community yard sale, so after brunch, we ended up at our neighbors', roger and dan. they have an incredible, huge old house, and also like to share all of the juicy details about the neighborhood and the neighbors. things we learned included: 1) one of our neighbors is a nazi; 2) one of our other neighbors keeps trying to turn our neighborhood into an african village, and informed them when they moved in 11 years ago that they "will be tolerated, but european colonialism attitudes will not be tolerated; and 3) our house used to be the "gordon family crime house," with a whole family full of drug dealers and violent criminals. in other news, my brother left for houston yesterday. he'll be there for a couple of weeks before he goes to iraq for a year. he'll be a civilian contractor working on a military base as the "welfare, morale and recreation coordinator." he'll come back debt-free with some money in the bank, but that won't keep me from worrying. at least he's not a truck driver. last weekend we went to cincinnati on a last-minute marriage retreat. unfortunately, it meant that we missed a few family things i wanted to go to, but it was worth it for the good it did our marriage. i also got daniel to not 100% rule out the chance of ever moving back to cincinnati. thank goodness for priceline hotels...