theparkerfamily.org

Author: evancparker

  • anarchy and chaos in mount pleasant

    img_1696_smanarchy and chaos has broken out in our quiet little corner of mount pleasant.

    our building is replacing each of our 35 year-old (single-paned, leaks like a sieve) windows, and workers are up and moving (and banging, and crow-barring) at 6:45 each morning.

    as if that wasn’t enough excitement, D.C. has decided to rebuild Park Road between us and Columbia Heights as part of a streetscape project. We’ve got new storm drains going in, new (shiny!) marble curbs, and sidewalks are being widened for better pedestrian flow.

    of course, that’s another cacophony of sound each morning (7:00ish) as the jack-hammers, earth movers and angry commuters all battle for auditory supremacy.

    obviously, the lady sparkler and i are adult enough to see the benefits coming after the passing trauma, but the big loser in all this is Emily the Cat.

    the poor thing thinks she has been shipped off to a war zone.

    we took her to the vet today, and no kitty prozac for now … but she has a follow up appointment this weekend, so she may still get the good stuff if keeps at it.

  • found photo: mount pleasant, dc

    [Mount Pleasant, Washington, DC.]
    IMG_0449, originally uploaded by [ecpark].

  • knitting and snowing

    100_0074two signs of the coming apocalypse: it’s snowing at the beach, and i’ve learned how to knit.

    the weather down this way has been crazy. in the last month, we’ve had just as many days above 60 as we had below freezing. it’s rained, it’s typhooned, it’s snowed, it’s blizzard-ed.

    i wouldn’t be surprised to see dennis quaid snowshoe by, murmuring about having to save Jake Gyllenhaal (tho, to be frank, i would toss Jake back and focus my attention on saving Emmy Rossum).

    i digress.

    the lady sparkler and i are spending the long weekend on the coast of Delaware with Lighting Chick Knits, whose sister happens to have a house out here with a spectacular view of the sound (pictures of the view on facebook).

    much as her blog would suggest, Lighting Chick Knits, well, knits. and, being the Renaissance man that i am, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to add another tick to my “wide, not deep” resume of skills, probably best symbolized by my musical skills (guitar, bass, piano, violin, and harmonica) or my interest in foreign languages (russian, arabic, spanish) — all of which i can “do,” just none particularly well.

    and so it is with knitting … i am neither exceptionally good or exceptionally bad. knitting fits nicely into my need for immediate gratification, but my skills are no where near the point they’d need to overcome my internal demand for perfection.

    we’ll see. so far, i’ve made it through 20 rows of a scarf, which is just enough to make smallishly-sized bookmark … which seems like a just reward for annihilating the last remaining shred of my masculinity.

  • happy new year

    wishing you a joyous season of love and peace

    so, it’s officially January now, and the lady sparker and i have yet to send out our (mostly) annual holiday card.

    it’s funny. thanksgiving snuck up on us this year, as did christmas and now new year’s. i guess it’s only fitting that sending out the card snuck up on us as well.

    so, it’s going out this weekend, but just in case yours gets caught up in some super aggressive spam filter, you can view the card online right now.

    as for timing, we’ll do better next year … i *promise.*

  • found photo: National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

    [National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.]
    IMG_0428, originally uploaded by [ecpark].

  • Photos: Christmas in Williamsburg, Virginia

    [Photo]
    IMG_7528, originally uploaded by [ecpark].
    Explore the Photo Set:
    Christmas in Williamsburg, Virginia

  • Photos: Christmas in Washington, DC

    [Photo]
    ECPA20081221_7242, originally uploaded by [ecpark].
    Explore the Photo Set:
    Photos: Christmas in Washington, DC

  • found photo: Union Station, Washington, DC

    [Union Station, Washington, DC.]
    IMG_0392, originally uploaded by [ecpark].

  • aimee mann’s christmas show @ the birchmere

    funny show, bad pictures, no set list 🙁

  • a (mostly) friendly Christmas competition

    working in online fundraising, the fact that the end of the year is coinciding with the complete and utter collapse of our economy is casting a bit of a pall on what would otherwise be a festive time of the year.

    this minor set back (alone) could have be taken in stride … but, when our philanthropy department neighboors started getting all up in our grill about how they were going to out “festive” us for the holidays, it was game on.

    i mean, we can handle trying to compensate for the decline of western civilization, but to be called out for decorating supremacy was just a bridge to far.

    we responded to this tyranny with resolve. we raided our collective attics, mobilizing all sorts of lights, ornaments, bows and garlands towards the decorating war effort (photos of the mobilization above).

    but, in the end, it was over before it really even began … and philanthropy surrendered before we had the chance to get much past the “shock and awe” stage:

    ok ok, you guys win this one. you really went above and beyond. I apologize for the trash talk and concede the title to you guys.

    i’m a tiny bit sad they caved so quickly, because we had one more salvo of decorations we could have deployed had we needed the reserves to secure our merriment objectives.

    i love the smell of trash talk in the morning.