Perfect weather to blog from home, Greenbelt, MD

Today is the perfect day to blog from home. The sky is a dull gray, and I’m still in my fuzzy robe drinking Brazil light roast coffee, a store brand I got from the local Giant grocery store. And for being a lot cheaper than the Starbucks brands beside it, it’s not half bad. Some things never change. No matter where I travel, there is always the constant that I will have a cup of coffee and blog somewhere in this wide, wide world.

I’m toying with the idea of taking a leisurely stroll down to the local Greenbelt Branch Library today, but not much more than that. I have laundry to do and thoughts to record, as well as the trunk of my car to unpack since it is still filled to the brim with the belongings I brought along from Wyoming.

I didn’t get to sleep until 1:30 a.m. this morning. I spent time talking to my boyfriend back in Wyoming, who is two hours behind. We varied between talking on our phones to IMing on Yahoo. The wireless Internet I use here seems to work when it wants to, and the phone service has been sketchy with Verizon, so the medium we were using at any given moment depended on which of the two services was working at the time.

Last night I spent hours at the http://www.newdealcafe.com I mentioned in the last entry. It’s definitely going to become a regular haunt for me. Not only was it a friendly place, but it became even livelier as the evening began to take hold. People began to fill in more readily within its walls, while the cashier Leslie who described herself as “a country girl” busied herself setting candles at the tables and dimming the lights. She had told me earlier on that she liked to think of the place as a cross between “Cheers,” where everybody knows your name and the show “Friends.” The music of a local pianist filled the place from a large back room where musicians, comedians and such entertain customers almost nightly for the fee of a small donation. It turned out he was a bit of a local celebrity and a recent newspaper article about him was featured on each table to give the newcomer a bit more information on this passionate soul who described himself as someone who loved to create and who never cared if he had a big house or a yacht, as long as he could do just what he loved. In the daytime he teaches piano lessons to others, and when he’s not doing that, his fingers don’t seem to find much time away from lovingly exploring their way across the ivories.

It was such a lovely night, and I was enjoying the charm and energy of the local neighborhood. I walked across to find that there is a small, inexpensive local recreation and aquatics center there where I can pay a nominal fee annually or pay by the visit if I want to work out away from the gym at my workplace. I grabbed a few brochures and was happy to see the center hosted a range of inexpensive classes, many of them art classes. I also happened across a flyer for the local photography club and am definitely considering adding that to my list of activities. I sat in the local square interspersed with trees, their leaves decked out in the various brilliant colors of autumn, shedding their foliage everywhere so that they crunched as people walked across. It seemed like any small town. Had you not known it was within 20 minutes of Washington, D.C., you might have thought it was any place located far off the radar of any map. The hostess at the coffee shop even called it a town akin to Mayberry. Maybe that is going just a little too far in a time where we all know that murders can occur in the unlikeliest of places, even sleepy Pennsylvania Amish communities. But it was a nice delusion, a spell to put myself under for that evening.

I grew hungry and talked a bit more to Doug on the phone in this little area that sported concrete benches and a statue of a woman holding a child. Just down from the local co-op grocery, the dry cleaners and the Old Greenbelt Theater, I spotted a Chinese restaurant with the very original given name of Beijing on the corner. I went in and ordered salmon teriyaki and an order of spring rolls. The Chinese waiter asked me something about the spring rolls three times, until I finally gave up and just nodded my approval of whatever he was offering me. Immediately, one of the women in conversation, diagonally across from me at the table beside me, asked me how I was doing. I don’t recall what I said in response, but it led to a friendly, hourlong conversation between her and I and the other lady, Phyllis. We discussed everything from local Indian restaurants to how we liked the area and how we ended up here. She was originally from Michigan, having done the same as I, packing up her car and driving here years ago for a job. What a coincidence. We both described ourselves as feeling somewhat like modern-day Beverly Hillbillies as we made the trip. She identified with my frustration over having to leave my belongings behind, because she too had done this. She had slept on a couch when she first arrived, just as I now sleep on an airbed hoping to soon get the real thing back underneath my body. I gave her my email since she lives in town and told her to look me up if she ever wanted to grab a cup of coffee.

Again, I was pleasantly surprised at the overwhelming friendliness of a town not far from our nation’s Capitol. I try to keep a good balance of openness and caution, however. For an idealist such as myself, it is all too easy to see the good in someone and maybe ONLY the good. But I’ve had much practice dealing with people who have totally fooled me and left me hurt, dazed and confused, and I’m not about to go through that again.

Following the wonderful dinner, I went next door to catch the film Who Killed the Electric Car?. I felt really angry when I saw it, knowing that in this day of a growing environmental crisis, we had the answer in our hands a decade ago and money was more important than saving our world for our future generations. I recommend that everyone see this movie, because it really opened my eyes even more to our society and why we are one of the most wasteful nations on the planet. I love my country, but we have a long way to go in maturing. We absolutely cannot stand to sacrifice even a smidgeon of our own comfort levels to make this earth a better place. We refuse to give up our gargantuan Hummers and SUVs. How long is it going to take us to realize what is most important? How can such a large section of our society be so stupid and insensitive?