50K

It's Sunday. I'm trying to catch up some things. I hope I'll be able to mow the lawn today--it rained yesterday just as I was thinking about that. I've got some reading to get done. I need to make a push on my manuscript this week so I want to be ready to devote myself to that. But in the meantime, clearing out some miscellaneous thoughts from my head:

Yesterday I recorded my 50,000th visitor to this site since I added the sitemeter a couple of years ago. That doesn't make this a big-time blog by any stretch, but still that's a lot of visitors.

On Friday night I saw Taming of the Shrew again at ASC's Blackfriars Playhouse. This time I sat in the left-side Lord's Chairs to get a different persepective. It's almost like sitting onstage, only more comfortable than the stools. Even though no seats in the theater are far away, it's still an odd experience to have the actors within reach or to be able to see them breathing heavily, or to see details of the costumes that might be overlooked from a distance. The production was still funny the second time around; the run of the current season ends in two weeks and I may go back to see Henry V once more before the end.

The political scene is heating up here in Virginia. Last weekend we Democrats had our congressional district convention and nominated Sam Rasoul as our candidate to challenge the incumbent who has outstayed his welcome. In two weekends the state convention will nominate Mark Warner as our candidate for the Senate. And the Republicans have been busy battling each other both locally and state-wide. As soon as the presidential primary picture clears up, which could be as early as Tuesday night this week, the campaign season will really begin. For more on all this, see Cobalt6.

Last weekend, the Northwestern University Women's Lacrosse team won its fourth straight national championship, defeating Penn 10-6 in the final. Until they began this run, I'd paid no attention to lacrosse, but their success has been phenomenal and it's impossible to ignore.

Trees. Growing up, I was pretty much oblivious to trees. Especially when we moved to Illinois, where our yard had few if any trees, there wasn't much to look at. But where I live now, trees are everywhere. In my yeard I have several planting beds (that I've allowed to get a bit overgrown) some of which have ornamental trees like dogwoods and redbuds. There's one bed down by the creek that had three dogwoods when I moved here, but all three were damaged by beavers. In place of one of them now is a redbud sapling. Next to the center dogwood stump (which is trying to regenerate itself) is a walnut sapling and more advanced sycamore. At the far end is another sycamore sapling. Also in there is a little juniper tree, but I may not be able to let that one stay, given how wide the junipers are at the bottoem. I planted none of these trees. They just happened. In the pasture behind my house, the volunteer tree population is even more startling. There are dozens of walnut saplings and black locust trees, redbuds and wild cherry. It's exciting to watch this development from year to year. The only tree I have planted since moving here is a gingko tree. It was about five feet tall when I put it in the ground two years ago and it has now doubled in height. I believe I'll plant some more . . .