Seema and friends visit!

Last weekend Seema and her friends Sanjum and Sangeetha came to visit from Detroit. They stayed in a hotel in downtown DC so they could be close to all of the sights and sites there, and also so they could be close to all of the clubs.

Chris (the other Urban Scientist who has moved to Virginia) and I took the metro downtown Friday after work to meet them. After dinner we ladies hung around in their hotel room while they got ready to go out while the guys drove around.

Sanjum and me in the hotel  

Team V-Dub!

Seema and me, in her element

Seema and me, in my element

After visiting Great Falls and driving past all of those fancy houses and horse farms, we had dinner in Reston and took Seema and company back to the metro station so they could go back to downtown DC for more clubbing. Sunday afternoon I packed all three of them and their luggage into my little Beetle for the drive back to the Baltimore airport. It was a little crowded, but that's okay.  We had perfect weather all weekend and it was a great day for a convertible ride even if that meant Seema had to hold her suitcase on her lap.

Such a silly kitty.

Zellie loves to squeeze herself between the blinds and the window so she can sunbathe, or at least be close to the warm window. She does this no matter how warm it gets outside. At least I don't worry about leaving her home without the air conditioning on. Pumpkin likes to lay in the sun too, but he doesn't put nearly as much effort into it as she does.

The evolution of drums

This weekend I dropped by the Manassas Museum. Manassas was the site of the first battle of the US Civil War. I was mostly impressed by the ratio in their collection of percussion instruments to other objects. The picture below is a drumstick found on the battlefield in Manassas after the battle. It was quite a beefy drumstick, even by modern standards.

Rhetorical question: Can drumsticks be beefy?

Every drumstick deserves a good drum. This is a Union Army drum.

This drum (with sticks) was used by the Manassas Town Band around 1915. I love the contrast between the rope and leather tensioning system from the Union Army drum and the steel lugs on the drum from 1915.

I would have loved to snatch that bell mounted in foreground for the Farmington Community Band to use. :)

Sunday Kitties

This is our default state lately. It is getting very hot here now, and humid as well. The kitties are taking it well, but it seems like their favorite place to hang out is near the sliding glass door no matter how hot it gets. Zellie even likes to sunbathe when it's 95 degrees. Oh well, there's no accounting for taste, especially among furballs. Pumpkin spends a LOT of time in this position. I never would have thought it would be comfy for him to lay this way. Think maybe he's trying to radiate heat from his belly? He's still as sweet as ever and sleeps on my bed by me every night.