Happy Holidays!

For the Christmas Holidays my husband and I are going back to Texas to visit my parents. My brother and his wife will also be there and my Grandparents just moved nearby. We are hoping to also catch up with a few of our friends and stop in to see my cousins who live in The Heights area. I am excited to have everyone in one place for the holiday.

After being in Houston for a week, we will travel to Austin to participate in a close friend’s wedding. During that time we will also be able to check in with a few college friends and my husband’s parents are coming to the wedding as well so we will get to see them as well.

We should return to DC during the first week of January and have few days to rest (and celebrate our one year anniversary) before my husband starts his new job.

Merry Christmas!

No Longer Under-Employed

My husband was offered (and accepted) a great job with World Resources Insitute working as a project coordinator. The job will include providing administrative and programmatic support to a team of researchers involved in US climate policy. He will be performing operational support for a large NGO with ample international connections, and will have the chance to demonstrate that his self-taught "radio" skills are more universally applicable than many potential employers have accepted.

The wonderful work environment is extremely open to cross-department brainstorming and actively encourages the extra-professional development of its generally younger staff. While it is not work directly in international affairs or elections policy, he should expect to learn a great deal about energy, climate change, and the balance between commercial, government, and advocacy organizations. WRI is a hybrid organization that seeks to demonstrate business advantages for climate-sensitive decisions or economic benefits to energy efficiency government policy.

We are very excited to have work (purpose), a salary and benefits.

Yeah!

White House Tour

A few days ago the production staff at the theatre and I went on a tour of the White House. Our tour was scheduled for 10:30 am and we all met up around 10 am to get in line together. Of course it started snowing exactly at 9:50 and as we stood outside in line waiting to go through security the snow flakes started getting bigger and bigger and wetter and wetter. We stood huddled next to the fence talking and laughing to make the time go by quickly.

Finally we made it to the first checkpoint at which we were asked to show our ID and recite our birthday before walking to the next checkpoint where we were asked to show our ID and recite our birthday before we were finally escorted to the building with the metal detectors. Eventually we all got into the main lobby of the White House. Then we were asked to wait again as Michelle Obama was passing though the building. When she had traveled we were able to wander through the beautiful building and look at all of the amazing holiday decorations. The theme this year was reuse, recycle so all of the decorations were being repurposed from old decorations or were made out of recycled materials. Everything was just wonderful but my favorite was the peacock themed room.

Happy Holidays!

Pumpkin Bread

This year I decided to make Pumpkin Bread instead of purchasing gifts. With that in mind I set aside today to spend baking. First I measured out all of the ingredients and prepped my the kitchen and my work area.

Ingredients Include:

3 cups Flour

1/2 tsp. Baking Powder

1/2 tsp. Salt

1 tsp Baking Soda

1 tsp each Nutmeg, Cloves and Cinnamon

3 cups Sugar

1 cup vegetable oil

3 eggs

1 (16 oz) can of pumpkin

1 cup walnuts chopped (optional- I didn't add them)

1 cup raisins or craisins or a mixture of both

Then I sifted all of the dry ingredients together into a medium bowl.

Then I mixed the sugar, oil and eggs together in the large bowl.

Then mix the pumpkin into the sugar mixture.

Finally add the dry ingredients and fold in the raisins and any other materials.

Bake at 350 for 60 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Then place on a rack to cool.

Wrap, decorate and give!

K-9 Dog Adoptions

Saturday we went to volunteer at a K-9 Adoption event in Virginia. There we a lot of very cute 1 year old dogs, a few older dogs and a bunch of puppies. The dog I was assigned to handle at the top of the event was very quickly snatched up so I ended up in the puppy pen for a few hours.

They were cute when sleepy but once they woke up the older ones were attempting to jump over the pen wall on a pretty regular basis. Once one of them made the escape the others all figured out how to leverage their legs on the wall and flop over the top. Luckily there were enough volunteers to put the older puppies on the leash and get them outside for awhile.

For more information check out: http://www.k-9lifesavers.org/

Office Holiday Party

Friday was our office holiday party. The Events Committee did a great job planning the event. There was holiday music, amazing food and lots of drinks. There was a cookie bake off with some great tasting treats and a White Elephant exchange that created a lot of laughs.

All in all pretty successful I think.

Thanksgiving

I can't believe it is already Thanksgiving! (Eeek! I have to go Christmas shopping!)

I can't believe I have almost been married one year!

wow.

Its crazy how quickly life goes by!

Battle of the Windows

Our apartment is a little sketchy. I enjoy the neighborhood, the amount of space is fine, and we have not only a bedroom door (which our last place was lacking) but also a washer/dryer right next to the TV. The guy who lives above us re-did the place himself. Its not bad for an amateur but it does have a few problems. The floors are not even, the front door was not framed out on the inside, we get a LOT of bugs and originally our toilet wasn't working correctly (he fixed that).

Currently our major problem is the windows in the bedroom. These windows leak like no ones business. They let in gusts of wind and bugs and dust. As it has gotten colder our bedroom has turned into an icebox. Last weekend when my parents were here my mom and I attempted to "block" some of this air. We cut large pieces of cardboard and shoved them into the window frames making the bedroom very dark and hopefully cutting off some of the drafts. After placing some curtains in front of the white cardboard it looks pretty nice, and it works ok. Not a decisive battle win but at least better than a draw.

Apparently it doesn't block spiders. I woke up last week with a HUGE spider bite on my face. We looked around the bed and found nothing. The next morning I had a HUGE spider bite on my hand (which is usually near my face when I am sleeping). That night we cleaned the entire bedroom, sprayed it down with bug poison and moved the bed to the other side of the tiny room.

So far I am spider bite free. Victory!

And the upside is we are further away from the windows.

A couple nights ago it got really cold and we could feel the wind falling in the windows (even past the cardboard) and pouring out of the electrical sockets. That night I went into battle with the windows again. I filled the big zip lock clothing storage bags with air, forced them into the window space and then put the cardboard blockers in front of that. After reinforcing this set up with our curtains the bedroom has stayed much warmer than before.

I'm declaring this one a tentative victory, for now.

Non-Profit Business Books

A few of the more "business minded" members of my fellowship are going to start a book club around non-profit management. Below are the choices we are considering but any other must reads would be helpful! I've read several of these books beforehand but a re-read is always important.

Theatre Management by David Conte

Drive by Daniel Pink

Switch by Chip and Dan Heath

Clearance and Copyright by Michael Donaldson

Sign-Up for Culture and Wired for Culture by Eugene Carr

Guerilla Publicity by J. Conrad Levinson

Secrets of Word of Mouth Marketing Silverman

Management and the Arts Byrnes

The Art of the Turnaround by Michael Kaiser

Theatre Management and Production in America Langley

Guerilla Marketing Levinson

Managing the Non-Profit Organization Drucker

Dig Your Well Before You're Thirsty Mackay

Arts Marketing Insights Bernstein

Theater Law Chaikelson

The Economics of Arts & Culture Heilbrun

The Rise of the Creative Class Florida

Subscribe Now Newman

Word of Mouth Marketing Sernovitz

New Rules of Marketing and PR Scott

The Rights of Authors, Artists and Other Creative People Norwick and Chasen

The Tipping Point Gladwell

Standing Room Only: Strategies for Marketing the Performing Arts Kotler

(thanks to Chad for many books on this list!)

Family Time

Last weekend my parents flew in to visit. We had a great weekend trying out all the resturants in our neighborhood that are usually out of our price range, visiting Arena Stage, the National Zoo and the American History Museum. They stayed at a Bed and Basket we found through the New Columbia Heights Blog. It is just on the other side of Harriet Tubman from our apartment and was nice enough for them for the weekend. The only major issue they complained of was the noise from Wonderland.

Friday night we took a short tour of the neighborhood and then went for a delicious dinner and drinks at Meridian Pint.

Saturday we took in brunch at The Heights followed by a backstage tour of Arena Stage, a leisurely walk through SW to the National Mall and some museum hopping before dinner at Red Rocks Pizza.

Sunday we took the Circulator to the National Zoo, visited with the Asian Animals, the Birds and a few other creatures (including a brief look at the Panda) and then walked back to our apartment for football, dinner making and some small home repairs.

Monday morning we all grabbed some coffee at Sticky Fingers and then went our separate ways. It was really nice to see them and the weather that weekend was beautiful, I just wish they could have stayed longer.

(I don't have any pictures to post as my dad took them all on his fancy new camera.)

Fun Updates!

So some amazing things have happened lately.

My brother got a full time job as a DIRECTOR of news at a TV station in Madison WI.

My sister-in-law (brother's wife) was offered a post-doc position at a University in Kalamazoo MI. (How cool is it that I get to say she works in Kalamazoo??)

AND my other sister-in-law is having a baby in April. We are very excited for Button's arrival.

In conclusion, it is also FALL the greatest season in the world. Jackets, and wood burning stoves and pumpkin EVERYTHING, and holiday planning. I love fall!

Good things all around....

Rally for Sanity and/or Fear

On Saturday, the day before Halloween, my husband and I went to the Rally for Sanity and/or Fear with Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. I was a little nervous as I do not enjoy large crowds or being squished and everywhere we turned in Columbia Heights people were discussing how excited they were to attend.

We got on the VERY crowded green line metro and then walked down from Gallery Place/Chinatown. The crowds grew and grew as we wandered down toward the National Mall. We managed to find a good place near the back of one of the audience "pens" and snuggled down to wait the start. At 10am they started videos and pre-show of past show clips discussing the rally.

The rally itself was pretty wild. Special guests Cat Stevens, the Mythbuster guys, The Roots, Sheryl Crow, Kid Rock, R2D2, Kareem Abdul Jabar, a huge Stephen Colbert puppet and video appearances by the flight attendant who popped the safety chute and others really rounded off a varied and very NON political rally.

The diversity in age and race and religious background was wonderful to see. Even the diversity in political beliefs was inspiring. Even though we had to walk all the way home, I left the day quite satisfied.

Pictures below...

Some of the Crowd

One of the MANY signs

Ryan and I after the Rally

Flags were waving during the song, "It's the greatest strongest country in the world.."

Our view of the Rally and the Capitol. Huge TV's were just off to the side.

Fellowship at Arena Stage

Wow. I am so bad at this blogging thing!

Since August 23rd I have been at Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater in a fellowship in the Managing Director's office. I work with amazing people in a beautiful new building and I am learning so much about budgets and board relations.

On October 23rd we celebrated our Grand Opening with all day festivities including performances by Broadway stars, local talent, a few high school glee clubs, conversations with playwrights and a banjo dancer. This was followed on Monday by a high level amazing Gala featuring an amazing dinner and performances by Brian Stokes Mitchell, the Manzari Brothers and Alice Ripley.

One of the projects I was given when arrived at the theater was to assist in the planning and execution of the Alumni Brunch part of the Opening of our new building. We started opening day with over 300 of our Alumni spanning all of our past 60 years having brunch in the cafe terrace listening to amazing speeches from our past and present Artistic Directors. It was a beautiful moment.

Below are a few pictures my husband took of the day. More information can be found by googling "Arena Stage Homecoming" we have had tons of press so it should be fairly easy to find.

Kogod Cradle

Outside Stage

Inside View looking towards the Fichandler Stage

The Roof at Sunset

The Curvy Glass Wall

Crafty Bastards Art Fair

Yesterday Ryan and I went to the Crafty Bastards art fair in Adams Morgan. We didn't purchase anything but I did pick up several business cards for companies I would like to purchase from in the future. I am sure Ryan will post his own blog about the event and put up some pictures of the crowds but I wanted to post these links so others can enjoy and shop.

Knit Outta the Box

This is a Knit in a Kit program that supplies everything you need to make a final product. They mostly have baby accessories.

Strawberry Luna

This company does slightly retro screen printing.

So She Sews

This company creates new items out of unwanted or recycled fabrics. I love their beer coozys.

Zooguu

She makes stuffed animals by design. You can pick and choose the colors and the size and whether or not it has kid safe eyes or plastic eyes. Very cute. Also her website has games and other fun activities.

El Jefe Design

Although the website is mostly poster design they had quite a few shirts at the show.

Jaime Zollars

She mostly has prints but many of them remind me of fairy tale illustrations. What actually caught my eye the first time was a Little Red Riding Hood poster and how it reminded me of another blogger I follow. She had fallen in like with a Little Red poster which may be by the same artist- at least they have a similar style. I like the "stirring" silkscreen and the "homeless" one.

There was also a booth for Horrible Adorable but I can't seem to find the website. Here is their flicker page.

Tour Management

This fall The Magik Theatre will be sending their second national tour out into the world. Last fall around this time I was busily packing to fly to San Antonio to begin work as the Tour Production Manager for The Jungle Book, which was their first national tour. I was nervous, excited and a little trepidatious.

Although we drove long hours and ate very repetitive road food, the experience with The Jungle Book was overall a great one. I worked with some very talented people and had enough happy laid back folk in the group to counteract any negativity. The theaters we played were for the most part beautiful and the hotels were (for the most part) better than decent.(tour blog here)

I am slightly sad to not be going back this year. However with moving and marriage and a great Fellowship at Arena Stage, it's just not in the cards.

I will continue to have a smaller role. One that doesn't have to sleep in hotel beds or eat Subway until I want to die or sit in the car for 10, 11, 12 hours at a time. This year I will drop the production part and just be- Tour Manager.

My new duties include prep for the contracts meeting happening on Tuesday, creation of the Tour Procedures Manual for the Stage Manager/Company Manager and Actors, training of the new SM/CM in all of the budget and report documents, arranging travel plans and booking all of the hotels. All of which I can do from my computer.

In my pajamas.

While on Facebook.

And eating some Subway.

Yum.

Educational Supplements

My brain is exhausted and my typing fingers are sore it must be that time again, Educational Supplements Time!

In layman terms I write Study Guides for performing art programs. Each supplement (I was told by an Educational Director the other day never to call them guides)is focused on standards based activities created to augment whatever prep the teacher is doing for the field trip and to give the educator some standards-based weapon power in their fight against the district cuts in field trip funding. Say that 5 times fast.

Generally my guides/supplements have a similar layout. I keep them down to 4 to 6 pages, easy to read with black and white art as many educators do not have access to color printers- plus if it is already in color what do the kids get to color? One page is completely focused on language arts and discussion questions (who, what , when, where, why , how would you?, what do you think). One page focused on multi step mathematics word problems and the additional activities and information in science, social studies, health topped off with a list of standards that are reached just by attending the arts programming itself. AND if the show is in the summer I just might pop in a word search, crossword or maze to mix it up.

A major difference from many guides/supplements I see online is that mine are ready to go for the student. As a former teacher I really detested the 14 page brightly colored list of donors, sponsors and ads with a page or so of guidelines for how to act in the theatre followed by suggestions of activities I could do in my classroom if I wanted to take the time to create the materials I would need to perform them. Obviously the people writing these guides had never been in a classroom. I wanted something I could print and give, looked good printed on the 10 year old printer I was lucky to have access to and that dealt with a wide variety of learning styles while also giving my students practice in the formats they will become familiar with through the amazing amount of state sponsored testing. (I think I found more field trip money!) I wanted TEKS I could write down on the 800 forms I needed to fill out to justify the trip. In short I wanted the trip to do part of my work for me.

I hope I'm helping.

BUGS

Washington DC is a bug filled place.

Living in hotels and in NYC for the last 2 years has spoiled me. There are no bugs. Hotels are cleaned and sanitized so often that very few bugs survive and NYC is so toxic the bugs are smarter than to try. Sure in NYC you see cockroaches, but they were never in my apartment. Even during our bed-bug debacle of 2009 when we had sticky traps throughout our apartment, nothing was ever on them but dust bunnies. (By the way our "bed-bugs" were actually Ryan developing a peanut allergy. No actual bugs)

Living in DC there are bugs everywhere. I know it was built on a swamp, I know it's summer, I know I live in a basement, but goodness gracious this place is a bug convention! In our house alone I have battled huge house spiders, some big ole furry black spider, tiny beetles that look like baby roaches, 2 slugs and the grossest of all, HOUSE CENTIPEDES. (here is a picture)

I hate centipedes. Just typing that word makes my skin crawl. When we first saw the nasty things I looked them up online and read about how great they are, how they keep other bugs out of your house, ect, ect. I do not care. Those things are gross. They have way to many legs.

Eww.

When I was little we were vacationing at our house in Kerrville TX. My little brother and I had gone exploring and were now in the bath when a huge gross centipede walked around the corner of the doorframe and into the bathroom. My mom freaked out and my grandpa caulked the thing in under the sink counter. When that piece gets pulled out for remodeling the biggest, grossest centipede skeleton EVER, is still going to be there mocking me.

Eww. Yucky.

Signature Theatre

Ever since we arrived in Washington DC I have been attempting to find a theatre to work for part time. I applied to numerous box office jobs but my upcoming fellowship precluded me from many of the positions. Then I started emailing and calling to volunteer. I have been sent usher packet after usher packet even thought most of my conversations began with- "I would love to volunteer in some way other than ushering. " You would think with 10 years of theatre experience I would be able to find an administration that needs some sort of assistance filing, organizing, typing, answering phones, or even sewing but weeks of inquiries left me with nothing. Finally I sent a short email to Signature Theatre in Shirlington VA that just said;

Hello, I just moved to Washington DC and I am looking for a place to volunteer. I have ten years of experience in theatre management including Stage Management, Tour Management, House and Company Management and experience in a variety of administrative duties. I would prefer not to usher. Can you use any of my skills?

And got a response back in 2 hours from their PR person asking "When can you come in?!"

So for the past few weeks I have spent 2 to 3 days a week at Signature Theatre doing cut and paste, organizing folders, writing PSA's, writing Press Releases, participating in meetings and generally helping out.

It's nice to finally be needed somewhere!

The National Zoo

Last Saturday we found ourselves at the Zoo. We had actually started out to go to the farmers market a few blocks from our house but one thing led to another and then a walk and then we were at the zoo.

We've been to the zoo before. Right when we moved in we took nightly walks and have found ourselves crossing the bridge and staring at the big concrete Z-O-O on the hill. The first time we were there it was 6pm and no animals were out. Well, correction the prairie dogs were in fine form enjoying the lush grass filled concrete planter they live in, but no other animals. This time it was a Saturday morning and although the prairie dog pit is now a dirt covered hole with wasps, there were animals out in full force.

We were able to hit the monkey house, invertebrates, small mammals and the great cats before the heat, lack of food and huge number of annoying tourist families and their massive strollers did me in. I wonder if they have an "Adult Swim" concept where no one under the age of 18 is allowed in the zoo. I think that's when I want to go next.

All in all it is a beautiful zoo and one of the items I am proud to sponsor with my tax dollars.

National Public Radio

Last week my husband and I went to NPR headquarters in downtown DC. As many of you know, he used to work at a radio station in San Antonio TX called KRTU 91.7. He was the Operations Manager and then later on the Station Manager before we moved to NYC. Because of his background and radio and our mutual love of NPR, this tour was particularly interesting.

On Tuesday mornings they give a public tour around 11am. You sign in on a computer by the front desk and get a printed nametag and wait with all the other NPR fans in the lobby. It seems to be a fairly relaxed work environment. People were coming in for their day around 10:45 and most people were dressed in a shirt and slacks or jeans. The only person we saw in a suit was Ari Shapiro and he covers the government so there you go! (He was also very handsome, the Anderson Cooper of radio)

Around 11 Alan our tour guide joined us and took us in and around the building. We saw most of the offices, a couple studios, heard a recording/interview of Dave Mathews that was being edited, met the technician for Morning Edition and were able to see the place that the "Tiny Desk" concerts are taped. We were even offered a seat at the concert that afternoon!

Unfortunately we had a lunch so we missed the concert taping but overall the tour was great- a must do on any vacation list for DC that includes intelligent adults. For Ry's view of the event check out his blog here.

Oklahoma City's OK!

Finally we made our way up to OKC. That is Ryan's hometown. His littlest brother was getting married to a redhead named Becky. They became engaged about a month after Ryan and I, while Brad and Becca were in Paris visiting the middle brother, Duff and his wife, Larissa. We had been asking for a few weeks if there was anything we could do to help out, but they had said they had everything under control.

As the rehearsal dinner was being held at their Grandmother's house, Ryan and I went over on Thursday to see if we could help. We set up tables, moved furniture and put out linens in preparation for the 50 person Mexican feast that was happening on Friday night. While we were there we met Holly, the newest addition to Ryan's family. She is a very sweet baby, all smiles and such.

Friday was spent with Duff and Larissa who had flown in from England the night before. We all went over to the wedding location to help set up the numerous decorations Becca's mom had brought. It got set up just in time for everyone to run over for the beginning of the rehearsal dinner. At the dinner we met the last family baby, Nathan, who is just a month older than Holly but much larger.

After the dinner I found out that Becca had taken me up on my offer to help and wanted me to be in charge of making sure the beginning of the ceremony went smoothly. I was a little bit worried as I didn't know any of the bridal party excepting the ones who I was related to, and I didn't know any of the music being played or pretty much any information at all.

Of course it all went very smoothly and I hope that Brad and Becca had a wonderful time at their ceremony. The wedding was beautiful, everyone had a great time and in the end they were married- and that's what counts.

Now Ryan and I are back in DC working on finding employment in his case and spending time writing study guides in mine. It was a great vacation and we hope to see everyone again in the near future.

Birthdays- 2

Babies- 4

Weddings- 2

Receptions- 3

And then to Austin...

Barton Springs- Zilker Park

Tuesday morning we took off for Austin TX to visit our friends and to see Becky. She had just returned from Thailand so it was great to see her and to hear about all of her adventures. She is a pretty active person so shortly after arrival we were whisked off to Barton Springs for some pool time fun. We then came home, showered and took off for Julios where we caught up with a few of our other friends over mexi-marts and enchiladas. It was great to see everyone.

Wednesday morning Ryan, Becky and Becky's cousin made an amazing breakfast. She has a Mexican bakery near her house so we introduced her cousin to empanadas and churros. Yum!

No birthdays, weddings or babies here- but it was fun anyway!

Houston Time!

We left San Antonio in time to arrive at our next event only a few minutes late. My ex-roomie and friend, Bianca was throwing a wedding reception to celebrate the wedding she had in Vegas a few weeks beforehand. It was held at her parents lovely home in Spring Branch TX. It was great to see her and a few other sorority sisters and to meet everyone's husbands.

We continued our frantic pace by leaving the reception to run over to my cousin's new house in The Heights in Houston and so that Ryan could see their new baby. I had already met the baby in April on my visit home but it was his first time. Neither of us had seen the new house. It is much larger than their old one and very pretty. They are having trouble choosing furniture so it is pretty empty but I am sure it will be beautiful when completed. My parents met us at my cousin's house and Ryan and I took off with my father to see a Dynamo Game.

Ever since World Cup, Ryan has been very interested in MLS soccer. A friend of mine in Houston has season tickets to the Dynamo's and as his wife's boss had offered them box seats for this particular game, his seats were open. They were just to the right of the goal box and it was an interesting experience to sit with all the regulars. The game ended 0-0 but it was fun to watch and even more fun to watch the crowd.

The next few days we just rested at my parents house, enjoying the pool and reorganizing the wedding closet. Monday night we celebrated birthdays. Ryan's birthday happened on this trip and my mom's is close. One of my cousins joined the family for a huge dinner at Perry's Steakhouse. Note to veggies- they smear their baked potatoes in bacon fat before they are cooked! The salads are very good though!

However on Tuesday morning it was time to be off once again!

Just in case you aren't keeping track; 1 wedding, 2 receptions, 2 babies, 2 birthdays.

Trip to Texas

In the second week of July my husband and I took off for the South. We had 2 weddings, 3 wedding receptions, a few birthdays, and some babies to see while we were there. We landed in the afternoon on a Wednesday, grabbed a snack, I got a haircut and then my parents took us out for Mexican food at Chuys. We also spent some of the evening visiting with my aunt and uncle and my grandparents.

Early Thursday we made a run for San Antonio with my grandparents in the back. Luckily my husband and my grandad didn't get into any political disagreements during the 4 hour drive. We did stop at Bucky's really quickly since my grandparents said they had never been there before.

Once in SA we dropped off the grandparents, ate some deliciously fattening Mexican at Panchitos with Ryan's best friend and hung out at the Quarry Market until dinner. Our dear friend Willy joined us at Starbucks and Ryan and he talked about a great deal of historical and political topics I am not the least bit interested in.

We chose The Cove as a great place to meet up with a few other friends for dinner. I just love their salads. The Cove is such an interesting place. Where else in the world can you have amazing food and follow it up with delicious ice cream while washing your car and doing your laundry? And all with an amazing band playing in the background. Our amazingly cool friends Dave and Shannon joined us for dinner and it was great to get to see them again.

Friday morning found us eating breakfast tacos at Dave and Shannon's favorite taco place and then Ryan and I separated to go to our former places of business. He spent the day at KRTU 91.7 and I stopped over at The Magik Theatre to see Snow White and the Seven Amigos. It was a very good show. The actress that played the stepmother, Becky King, was hilarious. The show was very clever and wonderfully directed. The building looks great and their new acquisition, the building behind the theatre, coming along well in it's redevelopment. I just wish I had been there to see the new sign in person. After leaving the theatre I was able to see Susie and little Julian at a Starbucks near North Star Mall. Seriously where did people meet up before Starbucks was popular?

Friday night Ryan and I celebrated the marriage of our good friends Aaron and Lori at their beautiful wedding in the Southwest Center for Arts and Crafts. She looked beautiful, everyone had a great time, the weather held- very important for an out of doors wedding in TX.

Exhausted, but happy we were able to squeeze one more taco breakfast in before returning to Houston on Saturday.

Oh San A, how I love you!

Kramer Bookshop and Afterwords Cafe

This morning I had lunch at Afterwords Cafe in Dupont Circle (off the red line). It is a delicious cafe attached to a very non-Borders like bookshop called Kramer's. (Warning: the website is not nearly as cool as the venue)

My appointment was at noon but I arrived early and looked through their book selection. They have a very extensive travel section and I enjoyed their "classics" selection as well. The children's section was very small and I was a little put out by the amount of "Twilight" junky Young Adult Fiction was on display. But, my news reader tells me that movie just came out and has been very popular so I guess, when in Rome...

Afterwords Cafe also has a bar section, right past the Twilight books, but we ate on the back porch which thankfully has been glassed in. I ordered the Cafe Salad with Portobello which also came with a huge slice of cornbread. My lunch date ordered the Jamaican Chicken Salad which looked tasty especially the big piece of grilled mango on the side.

The waitstaff was pleasant and friendly and overall I would come back for lunch or perhaps to add to my enormous book collection!

The Fourth of July

Last night we were attended a 4th of July event at our friend's house. We know him and his housemates but since our local friendship circle is pretty much limited to those 6 people, we try to attend his house parties in order to continue to get to know his friends. Plus, its a very cool house, they have a big second story deck, everyone plays cornhole and beer pong and the food cooked in that residence is amazing.

My husband has been on a big cornbread kick ever since we made vegan chili last week, so we brought 2 kinds of cornbread; sweet and green chili. We also brought some Wacko Beer which is our current summer drink of choice, it's made from beets!

For dinner the group had made, buffalo and beef burgers with onion, garlic and peppers, homemade mac and cheese, stuffed mushrooms, cornbread, roasted pepper dip, bruschetta, a amazing grilled carrot and wilted greens with goat cheese salad and a toffee banana cream pie.

After stuffing ourselves to the brim we climbed up the ladder and watched the Capitol Fireworks from the roof. It was great.

Happy Fourth of July!

Note: I will be traveling until the 19th so the blogging will be limited. Instead I hope to have shared adventures with most of the people who read this in the first place!

Convention Center Gig

So I was going to the zoo today and then I was going to blog about that. However, getting up off the couch yesterday I ran my little toe into some hand weights and I am pretty sure I broke it. It still moves up and down, but it is huge and putting weight on my foot is painful. Hopefully it won't hurt so much soon and I will be able to visit with the lions, tigers and bears in the near future.

Since my zoo trip is postponed, I will instead write about my event planning gig yesterday at the convention center. I applied for work with an event planner who was looking for a few people to work registration for an event happening at the convention center in DC. I had a phone interview and after she had asked me to work the job she mentioned that the convention was for Expungement Candidates.

I later realized that the convention I was working was for convicted persons who were working on re-entry into society. The organizer was the Public Defenders office, and they had set up a system by which registrants could get appointments with lawyers to discuss Civil Liberties, Social Assistance, Child Support and how to get their records Expunged or Sealed. There were also workshops for assistance in housing and job recruitment as well as a large fair for lawyers and other professionals to extend their services to the registrants.

They had planned on having around 700 people attend, however I think the numbers only got as high as 400. That meant that most of the day was spent sitting at a table waiting for registrants. The variety of registrants and the other staffers were interesting and overall the day was fairly pleasant.

On the way home (3 stops on the metro green line) we were informed that my stop was closed because of a suspicious package and a bomb threat. Apparently there was a bus or a shuttle but since I never found it I just walked the mile or so home. After NYC, Washington metro system feels very inefficient.

Buckminster Fuller @Arena Stage

Last night we made the trek down to Crystal City to attend the Buckminster Fuller Salon hosted by Arena Stage. Crystal City is a complex of buildings all connected by underground passages. It has a lot of restaurants and is home to a somewhat erratic supply of shops. It looks a little like a forgotten suburban 80's mall. Each hallway seems to have a theme. One hall was decorated to look like a "Knights of the Roundtable" village, another looked like clinic hallway and then the other side was more "normal" mall-like decor with the big plastic looking plants in the tiled planters.

From looking at the Yelp and Google Map reviews of the stores and restaurants in the center the big draw seems to be that you don't have to go outside in bad weather as the metro station lets you out in the mall center.

Part of the staff at Arena Stage has called this center home for the past few years as their new Mead Center is under construction. The Lincoln Theatre is where they host the musicals, and this smaller more utilitarian theatre next to the Marriot, is for the plays.

Arena Stage has assembled three experts to be the speakers along with a facilitator who had been on the directorial staff for the production of the show. Each speaker talked about their individual area of expertise and then they began to take questions from the audience. The audience was comprised of season subscribers and many of them were extremely interesting. I thought the discussion was thought provoking. It stayed near the topic at all times and both sides of many arguments were addressed. You can read more about the show- here. or read Bucky's Wiki page here.

Upon leaving the theatre we realized that a Star Trek movie night was happening just around the corner from our current location. We walked over to a small square covered in blankets, chairs and people all facing a portable movie screen. I think my husband would have liked to stay for the movie but we decided to go home as we were not wearing our sit-on-the-ground-for-2 hours clothing and it looked like the movie would not be starting for another 45 minutes or so. They are showing the Star Trek movies in order each Monday night at 7 for the rest of the summer so we may attempt to go later in the year.

USA Game on H-Street

My third adventure this week was the USA vs. Ghana game at the H-Street Country Club Bar. Our good friend Sam and his roommate Megan picked us up and we traveled through the parade mess that is the DC Caribbean Festival (FYI-The website is loud) taking up all of Georgia Ave to a stretch of H-Street that houses a ton of bars, cute restaurants and boutiques. We were going to the newest hippest bar, Biergarden. However it was packed so we hopped down the street a few storefronts to the next bar that was open, had big TV's and where we could grab a table.

H-Street Country Club bar is pretty interesting. The inside is all decorated in sporty argyle memorabilia. They have a few pool tables, a shuffleboard table and skeet-ball. Upstairs they apparently boast a mini-golf course but since someone had claimed it for a birthday party I didn't make it up there yesterday. The menu includes nachos, quesadillas, chips and salsa, and empanadas. All Mexican, although our friend Sam, who is from Mexico, thought this was slightly weird. The beer selection was ok, the prices were normal for DC and they actually had a pretty big mixed drinks, wine and margarita selection for a sports bar.

The clientèle was also interesting. It was a pretty fair split male/female and while the males were definitely there to watch the game, I got the feeling a lot of a dressed up girls were there to meet a man. I would say that 98% of the bar was cheering for USA but we did have one table of people cheering for Ghana. This made the game even more interesting and I was happy to see that even after Ghana won and the 8 of them went wild, sportsmanship prevailed.

We have been watching at home and there is a difference watching with a huge group of strangers. The energy that came from having that many people intently watching the game was fun and exhilarating. The energy and collective reactions were amazing. I can only liken it to an amazing theatrical experience. When the entire audience gasps or sighs or cries there is something so uplifting and humanizing about the togetherness of it all.

For those of you who don't follow the game USA lost to Ghana 2-1 in overtime.

After the game we met my uncle and his daughter for dinner at Paragon Thai in Cleveland Park. Highly recommended. The food was delicious, the service was great and the prices were good. Here is their website. I had the spicy eggplant, but apparently their curry is to die for.

MLK Library

Today we went to the MLK Library. It is very near the Chinatown/Gallery Place Metro Station and the Verizon Center. The library is extremely large and divided into separate rooms for each subject. The rooms are on the outsides of the building so each has a great view of the DC area. In the center of the building there are conference rooms, offices, elevators and the restrooms/ water fountains. We have another library close to our apartment but as it is currently under-construction their books are pretty limited to fiction and children's lit.

We went to the library to pick up a few books on Theatre Management in the Arts, Music and Recreation Center. While I wait for my fellowship at Arena Stage to being at the end of August I decided to read all I can on Arts Management and American Theatre with a concentration on Edward Albee who is the focus for the Arena Stage season. I have picked up or purchased several books to begin reading this week.

Old Town Alexandria

I had a coffee meeting this morning in Old Town Alexandria. It was a pretty easy metro ride from our apartment, just a long sit on the yellow line train. The metro let me off on King Street and I strolled down to Misha's Coffee to meet my work acquaintance for some delicious coffee. This place is cute, the baristas are friendly and it has plenty of seating.

After my meeting I took a walk down King Street into Old Town proper. The town tried to keep the historical feel but has been modernized with lots of shopping, both chains and boutiques, as well as a ton of restaurants and bars. You can take King Street all the way down to the water and look over into the downtown district. They have a very active Farmer's Market and Art Scene in this area. The Torpedo Factory is a large building full of different artists right on the river. I walked in and wandered through several studios. It reminded me of The Blue Star Complex in San Antonio.

I forgot my camera this morning so the following image was found on google. If you get a chance to go to Old Town Alexandria, take it. And as a bonus you travel right under the Pentagon on the metro on the way down!

For more information check out the Wiki site- HERE.

National's Game

Sunday we went to a National's Game with Ry's old friend Mike. It was very hot. Mike got us great seats on the 3rd base line and we had a good view of the field and the big screen. It was a father's day special and the place was packed. Mike lives about 2 blocks away from the field and attends regularly and he was surprised at the amount of people that had shown up.

The Nats played the White Sox and lost 5 to 3. Earlier in the week President Obama had shown up to watch a game as he is apparently a fan of the White Sox. Some highlights of the day included; The President's race, where actors in costume with huge bobble-heads run around the field dressed as Presidents Lincoln, Roosevelt, Washington and Jefferson. The big sausages covered in chili, cheese and onions that Ry and Mike ate, GROSS! And the kids with their fathers who ran the bases after the game- very cute.

That's THREE for last week! This week may include Old Town Alexandria, the MLK library and possibly the drum circle at Meridian Park. Week one of the challenge is done.

Sophisticated Ladies

On Thursday night my husband and I went to see Sophisticated Ladies at Arena Stage. Since Arena Stage is undergoing a rebuilding they have been using two local stages for the past few years. The musicals have been held at the Lincoln Theatre on U Street and the plays are being held in Crystal City.

Sophisticated Ladies is a celebration of the life and music of Duke Ellington who is originally from Washington DC and was actually raised on U Street. My husband is in the middle of editing a book on Duke Ellington for Phil Schapp and Jazz at Lincoln Center. While this made him more interested in the performance, it also made him a bit of a know it all when the dates, music or images weren't exactly correct.

The show was very well done. The costumes were amazing, the dancing fantastic and I was very impressed with the technical aspects of the set. It was a standard bandstand and stairs set up; but the usage of sliding screens along with projected images was interesting and with the age of the building and the limitations thereof, challenging.

You can read more on the Arena Stage blog here, or read about their new residence program for American Playwrights at the Washington Post website.

First Visit to the Mall

On Thursday we took a trip to the National Mall to wander around the monuments. Our dear friend was in for a conference on International Health and decided to take the day off to come out with us. We started by wandering down past the Washington Monument to the Reflecting Pool and ended up at the Lincoln Memorial.

After braving the crowds at the Lincoln Monument, we took a trip down by the river to the Jefferson Memorial that overlooks the tidal pool.

Finally we walked up to the Smithsonian Castle and took at look at Madeline Albright's pin collection. You can read more about it and her new book "Read My Pins" here. To end the day we returned to Columbia Heights for a Thai dinner at Zagat rated Pho14.

Running

Now that we are in DC and looking for employment (or waiting for a position to begin in my case) my husband and I have taken up running.

We don't run together. I have a very particular pattern from all my years of cross country and soccer and a very particular pace that doesn't really fit the way he tends to run. I also don't listen to music when I run and his pace tends to change with the song on his MP3 player. So he runs when he wants to and I run when I feel like it- our patterns are currently determined pretty much by the World Cup. Ry is willing to wake up and run before the morning match, where I am pretty content to run later in the morning and miss the first drop.

In NYC we didn't run outside unless we were on our way to the Athletic Center to run on the indoor track. I tried it a few times and was serenaded with catcalls, sexual offers and remarks on my attire, running style and body. In DC I still tend to attract a lot of talk (maybe its because I don't wear ear buds?) but so far it has been pretty clean. This morning I was asked if I was 25 by two men in a car, and had a few good mornings from various men, women and children. The topper today was an older man who said "good morning" to me and after I passed said, "That's the way it should be" in reference to a lower part of my anatomy.

Thank you for the pep talk peoples!

I Need a Challenge

So Ryan and I are moved in and settled into DC life, but without employment it is pretty hard to put yourself on a regular schedule. Once the World Cup began we found ourselves spending 9 hours a day in front of the TV, lunch happens in the middle of the afternoon and everything is just topsy turvy. So until my fellowship begins (more on that once I sign on the line) and he finds a job we are looking for ways to make our day more structured.

He is still working on the Duke Ellington book for Phillip Schapp but I am pretty much at my leisure so I decided to give myself a challenge. I am going to do/visit 3 DC events or places a week and write a blog about each one. This week is already half over but we will be attending Arena Stage's Sophisticated Ladies tomorrow night and going to a Nationals game on Sunday so I should be able to squeeze one more in on Friday.

And the flag is dropped!

Final Days of Honeymoon Land

We spent our last two day in London and were able to finish off our museum list, visit with Duff and Larissa and act as cheerleaders at the PWC softball game. We also had some great veggie friendly food at the world food cafe- always good to do some internet research before wandering London.

We went to the City of London museum but were only able to see half of it as anything after the "Great Fire" was under reconstruction. Luckily Tudor England is my favorite so we were all good there.

We also went to the Museum of Transportation which was neat and recommended for any other travelers in the area. It is in Covent Garden and that was also a neat area to look around in.

This is us in a 60's tram car at the Transportation Museum. You can tell I need lunch and sleep.

A great Honeymoon.

Honeymoon Sofia Day 2

Woke up to a beautiful day in Sofia and had this lovely view out our apartment window to look at while we ate our leftovers and had some DD coffee.

The hostel we are staying in is called Internet Hostel. It is in a large building in a good location near the upscale shopping area. I don't know if I would stay in the regular rooms downstairs but we reserved the apartment and we have a kitchen, dining area, bathroom and bedroom to ourselves. The shower is a little weird as it is just a water pump in the middle of the bathroom so everything gets wet when you shower (while standing a foot away from the toliet and next to the sink). The apartment is part of a larger apartment that they "sealed" off by shutting the doors between the rooms. That would be fine except a "Real" family lives on the other side of those doors and there kitchen is adjoining your bedroom so when they and their 2 or 3 small kids get up at 7:30am it is pretty loud.

We wandered around again today with a plan to see this famous cathedral (i forgot its name) and to visit a large park in town.

At the park they had these places where people would pay to put their kids in the hamster balls and have them try to run around on top of the water. It looked like the main plan was to tire them out as fast as possible.

The park was also home to the large sport fields and several monuments left over from the Soviet rule. These monuments were in sorry shape with graffiti, missing statues and general abuse.

We also tried to go to the Military museum but it closed right before we arrived. We were able to wander the grounds and look into all the old machines.

We finished the day off with good old American pizza and beer. By this time I was ready to return to the states but we still had a few days in London with Duff and Larissa.