Scrappy Hearts

The View From Saturday

A Bachelorette Party

I don’t generally do weddings or bachelorette parties. Well, that was until I got married last week. Seems there has been a flurry of activity this week regarding the nuptials of a certain young royal couple. This past Tuesday I joined my friend Naya and her Red Hat Ladies for Kate’s bachelorette party. What a hoot it was! 

Once I heard that Naya had gotten herself on the cover of the Sunday paper, I couldn’t resist attending her party for Kate.

Kate was so very surprised! Especially when she discovered Will was in attendance also!

The folks from the B101 morning show also attended. Actually, it was Team Tiffany looking for a few votes for her R21K race against Michael. I am sure you caught a glimpse of me on their website from my post the other evening.

In typical Naya fashion, there were games and prizes. Imagine winning a frog that, when placed in water for three days, turns into a prince! I missed out on that one. Good thing I already found my prince! There were even little favors filled with hugs and kisses. The chocolate kind!

The highlight of the evening, next to the pin the dollar on the Prince, might just have been the kazoo version of the British National Anthem. No one plays a kazoo quite like Marianne!

Well, I am in receipt of an invitation to a special viewing of the royal wedding so, having now attended one bachelorette party and taking on the starring role in my own nuptials, I believe I must admit. I do do weddings. You will find me in the royal box with my camera taking photos of all those royal rituals.  

Rally for Sanity

Washington D.C. was a sea of people on Saturday as we power walked our way from the upper end of Connecticut Avenue, past the zoo, down to the mall. The stage for the rally was positioned near 5th Street, as far as I could tell, but I never got close enough to see it. The jumbo-trons were probably located near 7th or 8th Street but, I got nowhere close to them either.

What a great experience though, so many people, so much sanity. It was exhilarating to be a part of this experience. My photos do not capture the enormity of the crowd, but I tried.

 

I think the best part of the ay was the fact that I was able to share it with Mark and my dear friends Robin and Leon. We had a great day and I am feeling grateful that I was able to be a part of the experience.

Closing this Location

This morning I woke up and I was hungry. For most people that is probably a daily occurrence but for me, hunger doesn't usually hit until 10am when I am teaching and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. These past few days, feeling a little under the weather, hunger has escaped me. So this morning I was excited. Okay not really the hip hip hooray type of excited but more of the, YES, maybe today I will finally get something in this stomach of mine.

I thought about a salt bagel, yum. Reality then set in. My bagel store, Bagels, Etc., in the Holly Ravine shopping center closed about 6 months ago. No worries I thought, Genuardi's offers a pretty good bagel. At least they did, until they closed. I was forced into the drive-thru line at Dunkin' Donuts. While sitting there I realized that so many of "my" stores have closed.

I guess this message had really hit home on Monday evening when I went into "my" Verizon Wireless store for my 2 year upgrade. I had decided to take care of it at the store, even though it wasn't as cost effective, because I want the store to stick around. I was politely recounting this to the nice young man, Jason, behind the counter when he began to grin. "Funny you should say that," he mused, "we were told yesterday that this location will be closing on the 25th of April."

So, there you have it. My attempts to patronize those businesses in my neighborhood have failed. I guess buying ribbon once every two weeks at the Scrapbook Station, strawberries and watermelon once a week at Genuardi's and a bagel once a month at Bagels, Etc. just isn't enough to keep those operations open, least of all flourishing.

The problem is, plain and simple, I don't need that much and I don't buy that much. My retail purchases would not be enough to keep any store in business and as often as I walk to those establishments in my neighborhood, it will never be enough. But I wonder, others in my community have surely moved here because of proximity to many of the establishments that I have mentioned, where are my neighbor's doing their shopping?