How I Spent My Summer Vacation... So Far

The World War II Memorial opened in DC this past weekend. Of course, if you live here long enough, the thought of going through gated entries, being picked at by guys with badges, guns, and bad attitudes, tends to detract from the magic of the occasion. So you just don't bother to take the Metro into town. You wait until the huddled masses of tourists have had their fun, and you make plans to go when the barbed wire is taken down.

But it didn't stop me from celebrating the occasion, especially with enough swing dancing going on all over town. At one of the dances, they showed a collection of film clips from the 30s and 40s featuring the swing kids of the period. The highlight was an MGM short entitled "Groovie Movie," a cute musical number with girl singers and boys in uniform. Two of the dancing couples from the movie were present at the USO benefit at Glen Echo Park on Sunday night, and the ladies still had the moves. You go, grrrls!

(UPDATE: Clips of "Groovie Movie," as well as other short films of the era, are available for viewing at the Swingstyle Syndicate website. RealPlayer required.)

I got a cell phone. This has been planned for awhile. And with Paul getting ready to move on his own, and wanting to find the little rascal wherever he is, we got our own units together, on the family plan. It was a close race between Verizon and Nextel. But because Nextel's service and equipment is slightly better, we went with Nextel. The only drawback is that Verizon works underground, while Nextel doesn't. So I don't get to be one of those obnoxious twits on the subway saying things like: "Okay, I just stepped in the door of the Orange Line... Okay, we're moving now... Okay, we just pulled into Metro Center..."

But the web access feature is nice. I can read the news headlines and the weather from the major sites like CNN and ABC. Makes for good light reading while killing time somewhere. And I rarely if ever turn on the ring tone, preferring the "vibe" mode to keep the excitement to myself.

But I turned it off when I served for the diocesan Memorial Day Mass at a local cemetery chapel, as a lay reader. The place was over its capacity crowd, with worshippers viewing a video feed in an extra room.

Things on the "broken home front" are heating up, with my son getting ready to graduate, and his mother getting ready to run off to Cleveland and marry some guy from grade school before a justice of the peace. With only two witnesses in attendance, she just couldn't reschedule the thing, preferring to get the hell out of Dodge before her son has a chance to get settled, and before I can get a place in which he can settle. Of course, the support runs out in June, and I certainly don't expect the poor little thing to support herself, not when she can get another meal ticket lined up.

Bitter? Hell, no! But it tires me out a bit, and I don't get as much accomplished as I would like.

And I've got a lot to accomplish before the summer is over. Meanwhile, we've got more news to report here at MWBH, including that whole Ave Maria thing, which is taking on a life of its own. Not to mention some issues I've wanted to touch upon for a long time now.

Stay tuned...