Saturday, July 07, 2007

Urban hiking in DC on a warm Saturday

I was suddenly seized with a desire not to go to the gym today, and so I decided to do an "urban hike" - a walk around DC. In today's heat, I definitely sweat a lot, but I can't say it's really aerobic exercise. Maybe 5-6 miles, total loop, but I don't walk fast enough to do the powerwalking aerobic thing. Still, I felt like being outside even though it is summer in DC, which is to say, horrible. Why can't I be in California, preferably the Eastern Sierra Nevada? Jean-Marie and Renee were at Renee's swim meet at St Alban's - they are out the door pretty much every Saturday by 6:30 am, which is a precise and accurate explanation of why I gave up on attending swim meets. So I hiked from our house at American University down to Dupont Circle, then cut over on M Street and recrossed Rock Creek Park into Georgetown. I'm currently sitting and posting from Saxby's coffee house next to Georgetown University. I like the place - student place, friendly, airconditioned, free wifi - I used to come here Sunday mornings while Renee was in religion class at the church up the block. Listening to my ipod - I broke with all the Marianne Faithfull oldies I had been just slightly obsessed with (Renee asked me What On Earth I Had Been Humming For Three Days Straight?!? - Ans: Faithfull's cover of the 1930s Boulevard of Broken Dreams. I finally got it out of my head by playing the melody on my cello - it works well in D minor in either of two octaves. It would sound good with two cellos, one on the melody and one on an arpeggiated background, or two cellos with a vocalist singing in Faithfull's "nicotine-stained" contralto.) So: not Marianne Faithfull, but Antonio Caldara's trio sonatas and cello sonatas, from the 17th century Italian Baroque.

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