the kite festival and laryngitis

 I lost my voice yesterday somewhere between the kite festival and my third episode of Bones for the night. Or maybe it was during Much Ado About Nothing. Either way I've been whispering when I've found it absolutely necessary to speak, which is rather disconcerting since T-rav has been trained (by me) to respond when I squeak, shout, holler, or yelp, and a silent burst of air being expelled just doesn't have the same attention-getting qualities to it. Anyway, this has forced me to analyze the quality of what I'm thinking of saying before I actually say it. It goes something like this: Is this important? Is it going to engage me in a long conversation? How can I say this as concisely as possible? Is it worth heckling T-rav and possibly trying to goad him into an argument that I will have to whisper rather than rant? It's been interesting for a day at least. You might want to try it some time.

In other news, yesterday was the Kite Festival, part of the National Cherry Blossom Festival (no matter that the cherries are quite done). It highlighted handmade kites, had flight demonstrations and a showing of tricks, and culminated with a series of kite fights where the kite fliers try to cut the other kites out of the sky by strategically wrapping their string around the other strings and sawing until the other string breaks. It was very exciting. Although the weather wasn't quite as warm as I would have liked (especially since my nasty cold had moved from hot flashes to cold flashes), there were hundreds of people out flying their kites along with the pros. Us included. It only took us five, ok fine six tries to get our kite airborne (I don't remember it being so tricky to get a kite to stay up. I swear when I was a kid, I just ran and tossed it up and voila! Kite in the air).

Sadly, my cruddy camera does not capture the massive number of kites being flown. It almost looked like a plague of locusts buzzing around the Washington Monument (did I ever mention that the earthquake was nearly 9 months ago and construction on the small cracks that appeared at the top won't even start until this summer?! And then who knows how long it will take. Bah to bureaucracy!). Almost equally as sad is the picture of me and T-rav at the festival that is most definitely not pictured here. We're pale and sickly-looking and my hair is blowing everywhere and we're both squinting weirdly even though it wasn't really sunny. I do have standards, you know. Just enjoy the whale floating in the background and imagine yourself there with us. Visitors are always welcome!