I Spy

[with heavy German accent]

My name? My name is Greta Schmidt. I am a 33-year-old Astronomer from Germany. I am traveling to London, England on business for four days. Of course I am not Sarah! Codename "Pineapple"? What are you talking about? I do not know any such person.

I certainly was not at the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C. this past weekend. In fact I've never even heard of the International Spy Museum, nor have I heard of or ever participated in the hour-long interactive experience, Operation Spy, which was not totally fun except for an under-enthusiastic group, and I absolutely do not think it would be fun to go back -- because, of course, I have never been -- with a group of 8-10 friends who would be enthusiastic about playing along, hypothetically speaking.

No, I have never seen this woman before in my life. Jen B you say is her name? Codename "Pancake"? This is silly. Not only have I never seen nor heard of her, I was definitely not with her while I was not at the Spy Museum this past weekend. She looks suspicious though. Perhaps you should use the time you are wasting with me to find and interrogate her.

We didn't walk down to see the White House either, after not going to the Spy Museum without having ever met.

And then we didn't go to Georgetown for an afternoon of lunch and shopping. Oh? I'm really not excited to hear that a Paper Source is opening in Annapolis later this year. Eh. So what?

We did not go to this restaurant -- Café Bonaparte, you call it? -- and we didn't eat delicious crépes for dessert. No, the Crépe Josephine was not dark and luxurious with bananas and Nutella, not topped with vanilla ice cream, and the Crépe Suzette was not warm and citrusy -- absolutely not the thing for a long afternoon in late spring -- also not topped with vanilla ice cream. I don't even like ice cream. (Alright! Maybe a little.)

Okay, this is getting a little old. No! There is no such place as Georgetown Cupcake, that is not a line of people not standing outside of the shop that is not Georgetown Cupcake, and I most certainly did not purchase Coconut, Red Velvet, Lemon Berry and Chocolate Hazelnut cupcakes that were not fantastically delicious to give away and/or eat for breakfast Sunday morning. In fact I am not even really interested in food.

We were here.

This past weekend, we traveled to Cumberland to attend the closing reception for a gallery show called "Fresh Produce." I submitted three works to the show (Sweet 100, Swiss Miss and Strata-licious), and all of them were accepted, while about 25% of entries were cut, which is pretty darned good if you ask me.

Anyway, since we were all the way up there, and since the cheaper hotels were out in Garrett County, and since we just bought a kick-ass new DSLR, we decided it would be a good idea to head out to Swallow Falls State Park on Sunday.

And while the woods and the mountain streams and rivers and waterfalls and fall colors are wonderful and beautiful, the thing that never fails to impress me is the human desire to have existed. I expect to find names carved into dead trees and benches and stairs and railings, but I can't quite figure out how they get their names into the rocks because I am guessing they don't bring lasers or sand blasters with them.

This time, we discovered Bob Maroney, 6-16-19:



I only wonder if Bob was really there on June 16, 1919, or 1819, or even 1719, or whether he was there on like June 16, 1983 and just ran out of time or got tired of carving into the rock, or perhaps an unexpected rush of water swept poor Bob over the edge and down the mountain. Or maybe he was eaten by a bear.

So, believing that Keith and I also deserve to have our names immortalized on the rock, I set out to do just that, only feet away from where Bob Maroney once sat, carve-carve-carving away so that even if he achieved nothing else, all who came to this spot on the edge of Muddy Creek Falls when the water was running low would know that Bob Maroney saw it too--long ago--that life is transient, fleeting, frivolous, while the rocks, the trees, the water--they keep the stories of our sacred selves forever.

Unfortunately I'd left the hydrocutter in the car.