My Itinerary

My life is about to be AWESOME.

Seriously.

Be jealous of me.

I deserve it.


You can be jealous of Mustard too. He's coming along. We will post updates if we are able.

Bon Voyage!

(PS. You can click on the picture to see it bigger.)

The Littlest Victim

Funny Ha-Ha, or Funny Sad?

Thursday night I had a wardrobe malfunction. I had a client dinner, a very important client dinner, and I wanted to look extra nice. So I brought a fancy dress to work to change into before the dinner.

Unfortunately, this particular dress doesn't have the most reliable zipper in the land. And I tugged and tugged. And sucked in my ribcage, and tugged some more. But no luck. The zipper stayed stuck about 4 inches from the top.

So I asked a co-worker to help. And she tugged and tugged. And I sucked and sucked. But still no luck.

A third co-worker joined in the fray. One pulled, one tugged, and I sucked. But still ...

Four. Damn. Inches.

Finally, I cried uncle. That zipper wasn't going anywhere.

With only 20 minute till dinner, I had two choices:

1. Run to the mall and buy the first dress I saw.

OR

2. Fake a sprained or broken arm and keep my left arm pinned to my side for the entire night. (I had a camisole on underneath so it wouldn't have been entirely obscene.)

I went back to my desk, a little heartsick. My carefully laid wardrobe plans in shambles at my high heeled feet.

And there, at my desk, nestled amidst some sticky notes and a stack of scratch paper I spied my stapler.

As I hefted it in my hands I thought, "hmmm. Could I?"

I looked at the 4 inches of camisole.

I considered the longterm damage staples would do to a silk dress.

I shrugged. A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.

Then, wincing a little, I sucked in my ribcage, and stapled that damn dress shut.

Now that I've been stapled into my clothes I expect my luck is over and I'll have to start breaking my heels doing everyday things and have to use chewing gum to glue them back together. Or close ripped seams with multi-colored binder clips. Or, hell, maybe I'll even have to make a mini-dress woven entirely from paper clips. Those are just the kinds of things enterprising city girls have to learn to do, and I've been lucky for way too long.

Wherin I Had No Plans

I had nothing special to do last weekend. Which was why I found myself wandering around the National Portrait Gallery Saturday morning, trying to figure out if I don't like portraits (which I don't) and I don't like landscapes (nope) what kind of art, exaaaaactly, do I like (anything modern with lots of color). Fortunately Camie saved me from some serious Art Introspection by texting to ask if I wanted to go to Philadelphia for the wild girls weekend. Our friend Anna had a conference there this week and we thought, Hey! What are friends for if not to share their hotel rooms with?

So we promptly got some roadtrip snacks (twizzlers and my new favorite chocolate covered pretzel chips) and headed off with Anna for our Philadelphia adventure.

And, boy, did we have many adventures!

But the most exciting adventure was stumbling onto the "Parade of 1000 Rockys" at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. There was a boxing ring. There was free cheesesteaks. There was a Rocky look-a-like contest (which sadly we missed). But most importantly, there were free black and gold boxing robes that said, "Italian Stallion" on the back and "Rocky" on the front.

You better believe we muscled our way to the front of the line that was giving those robes away.

Here's Camie modeling it with her best "You betta watch yo ass, Mr. T" look.




We both put our robes on and milled around with the other Rockys at the foot of the museum while we each ate one of the free cheesesteaks. In case you're considering eating a free cheesesteak entirely cooked and assembled on the street and you're wondering how it would taste, let me offer this analysis: It is equally delicious and disgusting. If you don't think about it you could probably really enjoy it.

Either way, wearing our Rocky robes at the Museum of Art while simulteously eating a cheesesteak was a very quintessential Philly experience. An experience that could only be topped by wearing a Rocky boxing robe while taking a Rocky-esque picture in front of the Rocky statue. Now THAT is true blue Philly.



And the best part about it all is that now I have next year's Halloween costume all ready!

Halloweeny Time

My new strategy for making sure every activity I undertake is SUPER FUN is to have very low expectations going into it.

That was the situation I found myself in this Halloween. Tired and worn out after a long and hectic week traveling and working my typing fingers to the bone, the last thing I wanted to do on a misty Saturday night was come up with a cute/clever/cheap costume and go be perky at a party.

BLAH!

But when you're a single gal livin in the big city, sometimes you just HAVE to go out and have fun. There is no choice. Gosh! My life is super hard sometimes.

So Camie helped me brainstorm costume ideas and for 85% of the day I thought I'd go as a bag of jelly beans (clear plastic bag with colored balloons inside). But then I figured it would be difficult to drive anywhere in and even more difficult to drink Diet Coke in. So obviously, I had to nix that idea. And besides I didn't have any of the materials. So at the last minute I decided I'd be a Wind-Up Doll.

When we reached our destination I asked Camie to help me to attach my Key, and gave my camera to a very drunk Bryan to take a picture once we were all situated.

What resulted was a photographic flip-book of me tying my key on, of me holding my purse between my legs, of me looking behind me to see if that key would stand up straight, etc.


This picture is # 15 of 17 taken at 9:35PM.



Bryan was, hmm, How you say? Shitfaced? Yes. Yes, that's exactly what he was. It usually takes me a minute to catch on when people are drunk so I was glad when he got to my house, told me the same story 3 times in a row, stage-whispered, "I'm REALLY Drunk!", and then fell down our stairs as we left. That cleared it right up for me.



But we made it to my other friend Clark's AMAZING Halloween party without any trouble, and promptly started doing The Monster Mash. Clark is reknowned for his Halloween parties. In fact, I'd been thinking I'd throw my own Halloween party this year, but when Clark called to tell me to save the date I immediately cancelled my party and invited my attendees to go with me to his.

I mean, any party where you experience the following things is A-OK by me:

* A reading of Poe's "The Raven"
* A room with a cozy fire where people could talk in a civilized way about uncivilized things
* Excellent music including lots of MJ, Lady Gaga and Journey.
* Jesus in Sunglasses (I think he was supposed to be The Dude, but it just came off as Jesus)
* Snacks GALORE (and good ones too, not just candy. Lil Smokies in the HOUSE!)
* A lapdance by a gay cop (I think I brought this on myself since I mentioned that he looked like a stripper)
* A guy in a hot dog costume who, good-naturedly, let me call him The Biggest Weiner At The Party all night long
* A Kiss from the cutest party crasher at the party

That little line up equals PARTY SUCCESS!!

Falling for Capitol Hill

Today is one of those perfect Fall days. The kind of day where all you need is a cardigan, a scarf and your sunglasses. Brisk and bright and beautiful.

I've lived in Capitol Hill for just over a year now, which means I've had the chance to see it in every season. After careful analysis and debate I have decided that Fall is the season that looks best on Capitol Hill. This could be because the general color palette of CapHill is fall-ish. Lots of brick reds, muted golds, and browns. Or it could be because like the leaves collecting in the gutters, Capitol Hill as a whole is slightly decaying. Nevertheless, Fall really becomes this charming old neighborhood. I took advantage of the beautiful weather today to take a walk around Eastern Market and the neighborhood to snap some photos.

When people ask me why I commute to Virginia to work, I will just show them these pictures. That should clear it right up.

Hello World

For the past year Camie and I have been leeching the Internet off of our unsuspecting neighbors. While financially savvy of us, this meant that we didn't have the most reliable internet access. One by one our neighbors got wise and locked it down, and us out.

For the past few weeks we've been unable to do much internetting at home. If one of us is miraculously able to connect, the other would jump on too, and then next thing you know someone is screaming, "STOP HOGGING THE INTERNET!" That usually spiralled down into hair pulling or stomping off in a huff to break some priceless keepsakes. It wasn't pretty.

So one night our laptops were off, and we were watching TV when a Verizon commercial came on. For $29.95 we could have reliable, twenty-four hour a day internet in our lives. And Camie turned to me and said, "Really? We've been holding out on getting internet for $15 a month?" And I shook my head in disbelief and said, "So it seems, my friend, so it seems."

Of course, we remedied the situation right away. Now we're set up with some internet of our own, and you better believe we locked that sucker down. I don't want other cheap-o girls siphoning off our internet power and getting all of their hair torn out.

I am now free to roam where I please for as long as I please. So with all of the Internet before me, these were the first places I went:

1. Facebook. Here I learned that a yellow bag is a conversation starter, and that I have a very close friend who dresses his dog up in dog clothes. (Imagine if I hadn't discovered that online, and had seen it in person!? GAH! The mocking would have been merciless and could have lost me my friend. Thank goodness for Facebook!!)

2. Hulu: to watch this week's episode of Glee. Lots of funny bits in this episode, but I particularly liked the part where Finn was reluctant to thow a slushee on Kurt because he "knows how particular he is about his skin care regimen" and then when after being slushee'd Kurt cries, "Somebody get me to a day spa STAT!" I really love this show!

3. My brother's blog to get the latest picture of my neice. Who, if you aren't aware, is a budding fashionista and nobel prize winning scholar. Just like her Aunt. Here she is looking super glam with an assortment of bags.




4. The DC Public Library website. I was hoping to put the new Alcatraz vs The Evil Librarians book on hold. Alas, they've re-done their website. And in true DC style neglected to put a link on it to the Catalog. Pssst, Website designers, A link to the catalog is SLIGHTLY essential. (morons.)


Yes, Internet, I've missed you. I've missed having you at my beck and call to look up whatever takes my fancy at the moment. I've missed the random bits of news and the zaniness you offer at every click. And who knows now that we're hooked up perhaps I will be more vigilant about blogging. That could very well happen, friends. It could very well happen.