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One year ago I took my father on the trip to the New Carrollton Bojangles. We stopped first at Magruder Park in Hyattsville (mile 4), in order to stretch our legs walking the paths and playing ultimate. The act of making introductions enabled me to learn the day jobs of all my ultimate teammates, including the playwright John Feffer, who works at the Institute of Policy Studies when he's not writing plays or outrunning his defender on the field.
I quit the game earlier than I usually do, in order to enjoy more of the day with my father. I navigated us along East-West Highway to New Carrollton, where we stopped for lunch, home improvement shopping, and groceries at Shopper's Food Warehouse.
Not having exited this particular strip mall by car before, I gave warning of an approaching turn too late for my father to react. We ended up continuing eastbound along Annapolis Road, which brought us through neighborhoods I only recall thanks to bike excursions to the Bowie public library or the post office on Laurel-Bowie Road.
We took the northbound turn onto Laurel-Bowie Road, which gave us a streetside view of Bowie State University and the Patuxent Wildlife Refuge. North of the intersection with Powder Mill Road, we started looking for cross streets that would get us to the familiar landmarks along Route 1. Taking this detour, farther outside the Beltway than necessary, sparked memories of my father's visit five years ago, when I had just started renting a room in Greenbelt and he stayed in town a few days for nature hikes in Savage and Jessup. This time, however, our destination lay in Montgomery County, so the detour through Calverton and Hillandale would bring us inside the Beltway at precisely the right exit. Arriving home with a full trunk, we needed several trips to unload the shopping bags before settling in for the night.
Among the purchases (the last ones my father made in person on behalf of the house) was a oil-filled space heater. This heater, in storage now for almost a year, I set up today in the narrower of the two upstairs bedrooms, right below a particularly drafty window. Since Mom is out of town on one of her family and friend reunions this week, it feels wasteful to heat the entire house when I only occupy one room at a time. The evidence of my turning this heater on can be seen quite readily in the time series for electricity consumption this month.