The Urban Outwitter

Kickin It

2012-02-25T10:11:00.002-05:00

Well Widget is moving now. It isn't hard enough yet that Ryan can reliably feel it happen, although last night I was laying in bed and my entire left tummy jumped, but I can almost schedule my day by his wiggles and waves.

He likes to move around 4 times a day.

1- 7am. I'm not sure if he is hungry or bored of me laying in one place but the love taps begin at 7am.

2- 10-11am. This is usually when I am working at my desk. I have a ton of meetings scheduled all throughout my weeks but I can usually schedule some work time between 10 and 11 and he seems to like the clicking of the keyboard.

3- 5-6pm. I think this is when he has decided it is time for us to leave work and go home. Either that or he is reacting to the applesauce I eat at 4:30.

4- 10-11pm. Between 10 and 11pm I am usually starting to settle for bed. (i know, bed at 10pm? I am such a loser) These are usually the most powerful kicks and last night I almost felt like when I laid down I put him on his head because there was some major squirming as he re-adjusted himself.

It is interesting to final have some sort of interaction with the baby. These little movements make it a lot more realistic.

A little lazy

2012-02-16T09:07:00.003-05:00

I've been a bit busy/lazy this week. On Monday I actually came home, slept from 8pm to 9pm got up to prep Valentine's Day dinner and then went back to bed at 11 and slept through the entire night.

Tuesday we celebrated Valentine's Day by making a delicious dinner of lasagna rolls, roasted small green round object I can't remember the name of (feeling dumb today/thanks for the recipe David Morgan!), baked brie and an amazing cheesecake created by our guests. (thanks Travis and Marissa)

Wednesday I had a benefit meeting and went to work a bit early to catch up on paperwork so I worked 9 to 9 and then came home to collapse and tonight we are going to go see a few friends discuss Social Media Fundraising during Social Media DC Week. (Go Alli, Sarah and Tim!)

Friday we have opening night for CIVILIZATION at Woolly Mammoth. Exciting, but I am really not sure how I will work until midnight. yuck.

So as you can see, Widget is getting very little attention and thus, I have very little to write.

Sonagram #2

2012-02-11T10:38:00.001-05:00

Here is the best image from our second ultrasound. Widget had his head firmly in the bottom left corner of my pelvis and the tech had to poke and prod me just to get this one shot before he turned himself back around again.

Unveiling crazy Skeletor baby!

This image of his little arm is much cuter, but I am slightly worried he is making the Star Trek sign. Maybe it is just a thumbs up.

We found this link later on birthing extraterrestrial mutant babies. (Curtis, this one is for you!)

Bend it...

2012-02-09T08:35:00.000-05:00

I haven't absolutely felt the baby move yet. I have had a few maybes but no absolutes.

The book (my current bible) says we have until 24 weeks before we should be concerned and my friends say to try to stave off the kicking as long as possible as it gets old quick but at the same time I am a bit anxious.

Apparently we don't have a soccer star in there- sorry DC United. You are going to have to look somewhere else for your 2020 roster.

Baby Store Adventure

2012-02-07T08:25:00.002-05:00

Ryan and I went to the baby store this past Saturday. We have a Babies R Us and a Buy Buy Baby in our general location (as in within 15 miles) so we chose Buy Buy Baby. BBB as everyone on the mommie blogs calls it, it structured more like a Bed Bath and Beyond than a giant warehouse store. So much so in fact that I bet they are owned or at least decorated by the same people.

We were a bit overwhelmed and quickly realized we probably shouldn't have chosen Saturday morning for our first Baby Store adventure. But, we had a list and we marched around the store looking at all of the items we had looked at online so we could properly compare and contrast. In the pack n play and bouncer section we met Jean. She is a trainer from North Carolina who was just in for the week to train a few of the Rockville employees on a few new products. She had one day left on her trip and had decided to spend it on the floor at the BBB store. It was fate- and she became our BBB savior.

After 5 or 6 minutes of discussion she became brutally honest about what items were needs and which were wants. We convinced her that we have a TINY apartment and we were looking for items that either did more than one thing, or allowed us to easily carry the new one around a metro center. She stuck with us for the next hour or so but not in that annoying salesperson way and was even smart enough to walk off every so often so we could talk about stuff in "private." (the privacy of a store full of parents, babies, toddlers and sales people)

I think at the end we figured a few things out and have even more questions on others. It looks like we will be making that hour long trek out to BBB again in the near future- but I might try to avoid 10am on a Saturday.

Tummy Pics- Once and Only, I promise.

2012-02-05T18:19:00.000-05:00

Ok- I know basically only my family cares about the size of my tummy but since this blog is mostly for them, here goes.

This is going to mostly it for gratuitous tummy postings since I am lucky enough to be in Houston at the end of March and they will be able to see for themselves!

17 Weeks

19 Weeks

No idea why I look so much tanner in the first picture. I swear this belly hasn't seen sun since leaving TX almost 4 years ago.

Dressing for Success

2012-02-03T11:29:00.000-05:00

Maternity Clothing. Every morning we have a ritual in our apartment. I stand in front of my diminishing wardrobe, choose a maternity bottom (jeans, grey cords, black pants, grey skirt or tan khakis) and attempt to choose a top. Sometimes I get lucky and the top I want to wear is still long enough to cover my tummy. Sometimes I can add a tank underneath and still get away with it. And sometimes off it goes and into the "not anymore" bin. Thanks to one of my aunts I have found Old Navy maternity tanks which has increased the number of shirts I can still handle.

I am actually nervous for the day when maternity tops and dresses is all I can get away with. At least we planned this one so that once I get really big it should be warm outside. Apparently most pregnant women get hot flashes during their pregnancy. This is not a side effect I am having so mostly I just freeze in the thin maternity clothing in our 27 degree winter weather in DC. I wonder what women in Alaska wear?

Do they make pregnant people snow suits? How funny!

Side Note: I googled maternity snowsuits after writing this post and found this- http://www.mountain-mama.com/ Activewear for pregnant mommies.

It's A....

2012-02-01T08:01:00.002-05:00

A little boy! (hopefully he won't look too much like his daddy in this picture)

Today is the day!

2012-01-31T08:00:00.000-05:00

Boy or Girl? Today is the day!

Which one do you think it will be?

Growing

2012-01-29T08:29:00.000-05:00

Ugh. Today I just wish I could return to my pre-preggers body for one day.

We have been taking pictures each Sunday (which I will try to post sometime- but I don't understand Ryan's camera, and honestly I am not sure I want everyone to see) and measuring the diameter of my tummy. In the past three weeks we have gained an inch and a half. I am already getting tired of my 3 changes of pants and I am now big enough that everyone wants to touch me. That is the weirdest part- I have never had the urge to randomly lay my hands on some woman's stomach without asking or even knowing her.

Gender Check

2012-01-26T16:41:00.000-05:00

The first week of February, (NEXT WEEK) Ryan and I will find out if we are having a boy or a girl. We have been a bit torn about which one we would prefer and we haven't had "inklings" or "feelings" about which one it is. Honestly, as long as everyone comes out happy and healthy it will be a success.

Once we find out we will let everyone know, but we have decided to keep name choices to ourselves. Suggestions are welcome and will be considered- but let's keep everything positive.

Widget Update

2012-01-24T16:34:00.000-05:00

In an attempt to get our baby stuff off of Facebook we are going to try to update family and friends on this blog.

So far everything is going fine. The three questions we are answering the most often include-

1# Was this a surprise? A: No. As an event planner I pretty much had only a few months this year I could take off that wouldn't create a big hassle for me and my office, so we counted backwards a couple months and got really lucky.

2# Did you have bad morning sickness? A: Nope, hardly any. Maybe next time will be terrible to make up for it.

3# Are you moving into a two bedroom apartment? A: Nope we are going to make it work for the first year in our one bedroom apartment with beautiful hardwood floors that is only two blocks from Target AND the metro. Ryan and I are very resourceful so we are pretty sure we can make it happen.

If you want to know anything else, give us a call!

It's Official!

2012-01-22T16:30:00.002-05:00

Ryan and I announced over the Winter Holiday that we are expecting our first child in June. We had been talking about starting a family for awhile and once our jobs had stabilized we felt that it was time.

Here is the last sonogram image that we received in December when we were 12 weeks and one day.

Fall is here!

2011-10-01T14:43:00.002-04:00

I love fall. I love pumpkin flavored stuff, layering and the smell of firewood burning. I love school supplies (even though that has mostly moved to August), I love fall vegetables, soup and no longer being lazy for staying inside curled up with a book and some coffee.

But my most favorite-ist part of fall is those wet windy days when you feel like going outside is a battle. Not the downpour of rain days, but the misty, windy, blowing leaves days where the air is crisp and being outside makes you feel happy and confident and alive. Your hair gets all messy and it's hard to walk against the wind and it is glorious.

We had one of those today.

Apocalypse

2011-09-06T14:12:00.000-04:00

Lately it is seeming like 2012 could be a reality in Washington DC.

Around two weeks ago we experienced a fairly strong earthquake and only 4 days later a torrential downpour hit DC in the form of a hurricane. On top of all of that our politicians are acting even more like small children than normal. Might not be apocalyptic but I am feeling low on confidence for our current situation.

We made it through the hurricane just fine although Ryan was pretty bored. Netflix can only entertain for so long. The earthquake was another matter. My poor little Dorgan face (or actually ear) planted into our hardwood floors and took off his ear and his head! Ryan has repaired him somewhat but the scars will always be with him.

Pictures below.

Mike & Emily's Wedding

2011-08-30T13:26:00.000-04:00

We just realized we never posted anything about Mike & Em's wedding. Suffice to say it was beautiful and we had a great time. It was also very nice to see all of our friends from Texas and New York. Ya'll should come down to DC more often!

Clowns to the left of me...

Jokers to the right...

and Ryan walking Grandma Dar down the aisle.

The group before the wedding

and the ladies afterwards!

Yea! People who love each other!

NoVa: Part 2

2011-08-26T13:01:00.000-04:00

On Sunday we went to the Shenandoah River Valley Museum which is a fancy museum building, a historical home and beautiful gardens.

Then we traveled out to 3 Foxes Vinyard and after a quick tour and a tasting spent some time on the top of this hill...

Wandering through the vinyard itself...

and ended up in a hammock by the little creek. We did also purchase a few bottles to take home and enjoy.

All in all a great birthday trip. THANK YOU husband!

Northern Virginia Trip

2011-08-25T13:17:00.003-04:00

For my birthday we decided to go to Northern Virginia on a little history and winery trip. We decided on the city of Winchester and booked a hotel and a car. Once we got out there we spent Saturday wandering the city, the old town and a local cemetery with graves dating back to the Revolutionary War. We saw quite a few greyish red foxes and all in all had a great weekend.

Outside the city library in Winchester

The local cemetery

The back of an abandoned theatre they are turning into condos.

The lobby of the abanadoned theatre.

Camping in WV

2011-07-26T08:34:00.004-04:00

We went to West Viriginia to go camping/white water rafting for Ryan's big birthday. I wasn't able to take any pictures of us white water rafting, which I rocked at by the way. Who knew my 2nd super power is the funyak?

Below are a few pictures of our funny little tent and campground. We also ate dinner at this awesome Mexican restaurant in town.

Birthday Boy

Our funny little tent. Mike had never been camping before so this is our baby steps tent.

HUGE moth.

Smores!

Fire! Ryan taught Mike and Em how to make some Boy Scout fires.

New York Trip

2011-07-24T20:37:00.004-04:00

At the end of May, Ryan and I went to NYC for the weekend. We stayed with my good friend Katie and her beagle puppy BB. While we were there we wandered the city, ate lots of great food, went shopping and caught up with a few friends. Pictures below.

New York City!!

Drinks with Katie and Kelly at Blockheads

I'm drinking coffee ON THE SUBWAY. Take that DC.

Yes. This is NYC (Actually Brooklyn)

Finished our trip off with a visit to Aaron and Lori Prado.

Apartment Pictures

2011-07-02T10:18:00.003-04:00

So Ryan and I moved into our apartment about a month ago and it is almost complete. We still need nightstands and a few more pictures to be hung.

Here are some photos.

Lucky Number 13!

Living Room and Dining Room

AV Equipment- Gotta love those Expedits from IKEA!

Bedroom with HUGE window. What you can't see are two (TWO!) big closets on the other wall.

Cute bathroom. A little low on storage but there is another window in

the shower.

Overall we like it. Let us know if you are ever in the area to stop on by!

Updates- The Move

2011-06-30T08:41:00.004-04:00

So it has been a long time since I updated this monster. We have had a busy few months being "grown-ups." (that's my code for both having full time salaried jobs.)

For the month of May we paid double rent. We had starting looking for a new place, above ground with windows and one Saturday we walked over to check out an apartment right on the corner of 16th and Irving. The minute we walked in I wanted to fill out the paperwork. The apartment is big, and old(built in 1906), and had AC and wooden floors and super high ceilings and we can see the cathedral from our bedroom window. It is just beautiful.

After rushing home, filling out paperwork, waiting, waiting, jumping through some hoops and having to make a 2-year agreement we finally met the agent at our local bar and were given keys to our new apartment. But we didn't move in right away. I was still really new at my job and we had a bunch of other stuff going on and we ended up scheduling our move for the next to last weekend in May.

We hired movers who had really great reviews online. The Saturday they were supposed to move us they didn't show up. We called and kept getting pushed off and finally we just rescheduled them for later in the week and decided we would both work from home on Wednesday to babysit the movers. We took our bed and essentials shoved them in a friend's car and slept in the living room on the floor for a few days.

Wednesday morning the movers did show, and they did move us. It took a longer time than we were expecting and honestly they were slightly frustrating. We were told that everything would be calculated to the minute and they ended up charging us 15 extra minutes saying they had to run it up to the next hour. Then they asked for a tip.

(I would mention the name of the company on this blog but after watching my friend go through some blog-related slander lawsuit you can just email me and I will tell you privately. )

A few days after moving in we started to get fraudulent charges on the credit card we used to pay for the move. Whomever stole our number, I'm not saying it was the movers but they did use one of those old carbon copy cc sliders instead of an electronic machine, racked up several hundred dollars at Fandango, a few hundred purchasing tickets to Six Flags in MD and paid off a Washington DC library fine. Luckily we are with USAA and they are wonderful and amazing. I also called the moving company and complained.

ANYWAY. Here is a picture of our apartment. More to come, before August. I promise.

The Kitchen

The Living Room from the Front Door

The 5 Week Mark

2011-05-11T08:58:00.002-04:00

I've been at Woolly Mammoth for 5 weeks now.

I've executed a 330 person benefit event, a 30 person cast dinner, a first read and have created and sent invites and pre-planning for a 30 person offsite BBQ and a full house opening night of the next performance. I've also started time-lining next season and planning our major fall event.

I now know how the postal mail works, how to check my email from home, where most of my files are and the basic rhythms of the place. Many things still remain a mystery. For example I'm not always sure what people's names are and last names are still leaving me clueless. I don't know what perks people get for being on the board or major sponsors or even minor sponsors. I often forget my keys and have to take the elevator. I locked myself out of the patio and had to phone a friend to get back in and I have no idea who most of the board members are or what they look like. As my job is in development, that can be an issue especially since I am getting to the point where everyone thinks I should know.

Do I love it? Not quite. I'm still so overwhelmed with planning and budgets and work that I can't quite love it. I like it okay. I don't hate going to work, in fact I usually quite like it. The people are nice or at least very competent and I can respect that. We are located in Penn Quarter and watching all of the people go by and having all of the good food nearby is quite a change from my prior employment.

I wonder what I will think about the job in 5 more weeks.

Woolly Mammoth

2011-04-04T09:15:00.002-04:00

I start my new job as Development Manager, Special Events at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company today.

Weirdness so far-

1. They spell theatre with an RE. Arena spells it with a ER. Magik also spells it with an RE. So after months of training myself to spell it with an ER, I now have to train myself back.

2. We don't start work until 10. I get up at 7 (well 7-ish, Ryan don't you laugh) I used to leave the house at 8:45 and now I don't have to leave until 9:40. I already had a lazy morning but with an extra hour I am clueless as to what to do. So far, I have had another cup of coffee and vacuumed. I guess I am going to have to start working out or something.

3. Woolly is slightly less formal that Arena. I mean in general less formal but I am honestly most focused on the dress code. While I used to worry I wasn't looking "nice" enough for work, I am currently concerned about the opposite. I don't want to alienate potential new friend/workmates by dressing too well. I'm going for black pants and a grey shirt today. Can't really get too formal when you dress like stage crew.

OK- well that killed 15 minutes. Only 20 more to go before I leave for work.

Home Internet

2011-02-16T21:20:00.002-05:00

After several months without home internet our landlord FINALLY turned it back on.

YEAH!

13-monthiversary

2011-02-09T11:41:00.002-05:00

13 months ago Ryan and I got married. I asked my good friend David Morgan to speak about marriage. On this, our 13-monthiversary I wanted to remember the importance of his words. They are listed below for your information and amusement.

David Morgan 1-9-10

"Wow this is great. I love a wedding. Mom gets to cry. Dad gets to cry. I’ll probably cry. Shelley and Ryan asked me to say something about marriage. My script says, “Dave says something about marriage here.” That was very brave- so here we go.

There is always a lot of pretty and flowery language at weddings. Thees and Thous flow like wine at the reception. I promise none of that here. I’m going to get to the nitty gritty of marriage. That’s what a marriage is- nitty gritty, down and dirty. It never ends day in and day out. And when the wedding is over and the clothes are packed away, what’s left?

Mortgage, bills, job, family, where to live, where to work, when do the kids come and the big question, should we get a dog. These questions used to be answered alone. You didn’t need anyone’s help or permission. You didn’t have to worry what someone else wanted or even if they didn’t like dogs. But now… now.. your married. The old ball and chain, game over. Now you are married and it all changes.

I becomes we.

I would love to get a drink becomes, Let’s get together sometime.

I want a sports car becomes, Should we get a station wagon?

I want an orange cake becomes, Can we have an orange cake?

It’s all different now, but the secret is- its great, awesome, doesn’t get any better.

We is so much better than I. Now you get to say; we are in love. Now you get to say; let’s travel the world.

Now we get to say;

They are so good together.

They look amazing.

They will be so happy.

They should get a dog.

Now I try not to cry.

We love that you are becoming a we. And now the questions of what happens next seem so easy to answer. They don’t even matter. All that matters is the we. We have each other, a lifetime together. We will wake up everyday next to our best friends, partner in crime, our love. And I can’t think of anything cooler than that."

Neither can I Dave, neither can I.

Happy Holidays!

2010-12-25T18:07:00.000-05:00

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

2010-12-23T18:06:00.000-05:00

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

2010-12-21T18:04:00.001-05:00

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

2010-12-16T20:36:00.000-05:00

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

2010-12-14T20:26:00.000-05:00

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

2010-12-12T20:21:00.002-05:00

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

2010-11-27T15:15:00.002-05:00

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

2010-11-26T12:56:00.000-05:00

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

2010-11-24T12:51:00.000-05:00

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

2010-11-22T12:40:00.000-05:00

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!

2010-11-10T21:08:00.000-05:00

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

2010-11-05T21:07:00.000-04:00

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

2010-11-03T20:36:00.004-04:00

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

2010-10-03T11:55:00.003-04:00

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

2010-08-20T16:43:00.003-04:00

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

2010-08-16T16:35:00.002-04:00

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

2010-08-10T12:26:00.000-04:00

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

2010-08-09T12:18:00.000-04:00

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

2010-08-08T12:11:00.000-04:00

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

2010-08-07T12:00:00.003-04:00

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!

2010-07-26T17:12:00.000-04:00

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...

2010-07-25T16:52:00.000-04:00

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!

2010-07-24T16:41:00.001-04:00

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

2010-07-23T16:25:00.002-04:00

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

2010-07-06T17:35:00.002-04:00

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

2010-07-05T11:00:00.003-04:00

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

2010-07-01T11:36:00.002-04:00

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

2010-06-29T10:58:00.000-04:00

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

2010-06-27T09:16:00.000-04:00

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

2010-06-24T12:29:00.001-04:00

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

2010-06-23T15:02:00.000-04:00

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

2010-06-21T20:43:00.000-04:00

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

2010-06-20T06:53:00.000-04:00

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

2010-06-19T06:41:00.000-04:00

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

2010-06-18T11:07:00.001-04:00

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

2010-06-16T13:30:00.000-04:00

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

2010-06-11T03:21:00.000-04:00

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

2010-06-10T03:03:00.000-04:00

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.

Honeymoon Sofia

2010-06-09T14:44:00.000-04:00

Sorry this is coming in bits and spurts. Most of my life is job hunting right now so this is a secondary application.

We got off the train and found our hostel (Internet Hostel) in a big rainstorm. Needless to say after 14 hours of train and 7 hours of travel before that and getting all wet in a former Soviet Republic with crazy sidewalks; I was not in the best mood. But we grabbed a shower and a change of clothes and some veggie lunch and some Duncan Donuts (super hot) coffee and everything was looking up.

We went a wandering and found this nice mosque in a beautiful park across from a old bathhouse they are restoring.

This is the side of the bathhouse. In the picture above Ryan would be facing the Bathhouse.

And then wandered up and over past a huge synagogue, a main square and this MJ shrine.

Which was near the national theatre which was showing Cyrano de Bergerac. (we didn't go)

And then on to a huge park I didn't take pictures of that had a large monument in the middle to the Soviet Union. At least we think that is what it was, the Bulgarian's had put up scaffolding and set up large billboards to surround the old monument so that you couldn't see it.

Finally we were hungry for dinner so we found a Moroccan restaurant that had been noted on the board at the hostel. We thought we ordered a main dish that came with 4 side dishes each so we made sure to tell our waitress which "mezzos" we wanted to come with the main. We ended up with 9 full size mezzos AND of mains with smaller mezzos on the side. All in all a TABLE FULL of food. It was overkill. It was delicious. Luckily with the exchange rate on our side (for once) it was cheap and we took the leftovers home for the next day.

All in all an ok day in Bulgaria.

A Break From our Regularly Scheduled Programming

2010-06-07T09:53:00.000-04:00

If you are interested in reading about our move to DC or seeing pictures of our new apartment please go here. http://lametexpatriot.blogspot.com.

Train Day to Sofia, Bulgaria

2010-06-06T09:38:00.000-04:00

Upon leaving the island of Mykonos we traveled on the ferry back to the port of Athens and then grabbed a metro to the Larrissa Station where we got on our overnight train to Sofia, Bulgaria. This is a 14 hour train ride through the country in the middle of the night with one stop in Thessaloníki. The train is equipped with a very scary bathroom at each end of the car and little tiny rooms with three bunks and a sink all the way down. We had booked a double which meant that we didn't have any stranger on the third bunk, which is good because I don't know where we would have put our packs.

This is us ready to drink our beers and go to sleep. At this point it was about midnight and we had been traveling already since noon.

Ryan between the bunks and the little sink, excited to sleep on a train.

We arrived in Thessaloníki at 6am and there was a lot of banging and crashing while we changed engines. Then we sped along again until we stopped at the Greek border for about an hour and then again at the Bulgarian border for longer. They came and took our passports away, but eventually gave them back with stamps. They were very incredulous that an American boy and American girl were going to Bulgaria. We were apparently a rarity and our conductor just called us "the Americans." He had to announce names in order to get most of the passports back to the right people and that is when we found out that the guy next door's name was Paul Anka. How funny!

The above are from our Nikon series showing the countryside of Bulgaria through the eyes of the train.

Honeymoon Delos

2010-06-05T13:00:00.000-04:00

Wednesday we went to the island of Delos. To get there you have to go to the port city of Mykonos on a bus and then purchase tickets to the ferry which takes about a half hour to get to Delos. Once you are on the island you pay another 5 euro to enter the island. Then you can wander wherever you like until 3 when the last ferry off the island leaves. They check bags for relics on the way out.

On the North Side of the island there is a little town with many walls and buildings still standing. This is called the theatre district because it is close to the theatre. Cleopatra's house is also in this area as well as several well preserved homes with large mosaics.

The famous Delos Lions.

One of the lesser preserved large homes. Each one was built around an inner courtyard that usually had a large mosaic in the middle or some sort of water feature.

The theatre. Do you see the tiny people on the upper left of this picture? They are standing on the top row of the seating. This is the picture I want to show to my actors from now on. Project to those tiny people!

It was a wonderful and HOT day and we returned to Mykonos exhausted. Followed this adventure with some dinner and wine and then took our sunburned selves to bed after watching some Greek Idol. It is just as terrible as it's American counterpart but with a much smaller talent pool to draw from.

Interruption

2010-06-03T21:41:00.000-04:00

I will try to post a few more honeymoon items tomorrow. Right now we are moving into our new apartment and I have gotten a pretty bad cold which makes me want to sleep and cough and sleep.

I will also post a video of our new place when it finally gets put together.

we will now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

Honeymoon Mykonos

2010-06-01T18:06:00.000-04:00

t this point our vacation turned into beach, beer, sleep and some minor tourist-y stuff for the next few days. We had frappe and cheap local beer and ate and visited Paradise Beach and Paranga Beach and saw the windmills at the port in Mykonos.

We did spend a day at Delos and I will make a separate post about that experience but basically the rest of the week we just chilled out.

The famous Pelicans of Mykonos.

The Greek's are smart.

Honeymoon Day Six

2010-05-31T17:51:00.000-04:00

This was our big ferry day. We woke up nice and early to catch the metro to the port to get on the 7:45am ferry. The ferry took us to Mykonos Island. It took about 5 hours but at the end of it we ended up here.

It is just beautiful. We grabbed some groceries and after some confusion with the bus system made it to our flat in Plato Gialos. Ahh the island life!

I highly recommend Plato Gialos and going to the Greek Islands in May. The weather was beautiful and since the season was just starting you didn't have to fight any other tourists for restaurant reservations or beach space.

Honeymoon Day Five

2010-05-30T17:43:00.000-04:00

Today was busy and yet not very exciting.

Today was take care of business day. We got up and went to the train station to book our overnight train from Athens to Sofia, Bulgaria and then took the metro to the port city to book our ferry and find out where we were going and then we hit up the Ancient Agora one more time, mostly to use the restroom and get water before shower, dinner and bed.

This picture is me at the Ancient Agora in the building that houses the museum.

Here is a picture of our craft beers. I got Hefeweisen and Ryan got something that seriously tasted like Smoked Gouda. They also give you lays potato chips with your drinks. We sat outside on the patio and watched all the teenagers strut by.

This picture is sideways so turn your monitor a little. The door is the door to the WC (restroom) and the box on the left is where you put in your token so that the water for the shower is hot. Each token is 8 minutes.

Honeymoon Day Four

2010-05-29T17:31:00.001-04:00

*** Sorry for the delay. We move tomorrow so life has been hectic!

This was our first full day in Athens so we packed up our stuff, grabbed our new German friend, Martin and set off. It was hot and we did a lot of walking but we saw most of the good stuff today.

For example- here is a picture of the temple of Hephaistos in the Ancient Agora. The Ancient Agora is right next to the new market and between them runs the metro. When you are at the Ancient Agora it is very quiet and you can barely hear all the tourist noise from across the tracks. This is one of the most complete temples in Athens.

This is the Temple of Zeus.

This is one of the performance spaces at the Acropolis. This one is still in use and mainly is used for musical concerts. The theatre spaces were not built with the back wall.

This is our obligatory picture at the Acropolis.

We also went to the brand new Acropolis Museum which was excellent. Lunch was grabbed at the Ice Grill in touristland which was surprisingly very good and after a shower and a nap at the Hostel Ryan and I went out for dinner.

The waiter at dinner was Greek but had lived in Indiana, so spoke English. We let him choose our food. We ended up with an excellent meal, some local beer and were surprised with a strange cheesecake, jello, jelly dessert item on the house.

All in all an historically satisfying day.

Honeymoon Day Three

2010-05-26T16:13:00.000-04:00

Today we traveled to Athens, took the train to the main square and then walked to our hostel. Ryan had stayed at Youth Hostel #5 before and we only wandered a bit before finding our way. Picked up a German student on the Airport Train named Martin.

Found out later that Fox news was displaying the main square on US TV and that it seemed to be filled with rioters and smoke bombs and violence.

They must have had special lenses to see all of that action. All we saw was a big empty square.

Honeymoon Day Two

2010-05-25T16:05:00.000-04:00

We woke up way to late- Jet Lag issues and went to Trafalgar Square for lunch. Ryan had bangers and mash.

It was election day which had nothing to do with this tent city set up right down the street from Parliment. We found out later that they took it down because the group had started planting veggies in the lawn and the Queen was upset.

Then we wandered around London for a bit, and hit up the British Museum.

I had already been on my last trip but this time we went through all the greek items that the British removed from Greece. Later on we saw all the places the sculptures had been before that removal and got a chance to look at all the plaster replicas the Greeks have been allowed to cast from the items at the British Museum. Seems weird.

Ended the day with Indian food at a brewpub and a walk down High Street. Then watched the Election Coverage on the telly with Duff and Larissa. No clue who won that election.

Honeymoon Day One

2010-05-24T15:57:00.000-04:00

I'm going to do our trip one day at a time- a technique I am borrowing from my friend Shannon and her blog- NomadsUnlimited.

Ryan and I took our long awaited Honeymoon in May. We started our trip by traveling to Newark to take our flight to London. Our plane was only delayed an hour which was good since most of the flights around us were cancelled due to the ash cloud.

After arriving in London we travelled to Ryan's brother's home in St. John's Wood where we were going to stay. We grabbed a bit of lunch and took off for the V&A museum. It was really incredible.

This is just one of the many rooms full of the items Victoria and Albert collected on their travels.

I guess it pays to be royalty!

Texas Family

2010-05-02T21:21:00.001-04:00

Last weekend I went to Houston to visit my mom for a quick weekend. We went to Chuys, and visited the new baby Phoebe, and her parents, and generally hung out with the family. It was nice. The last time I was home was right before my wedding and it wasn't really relaxing.

At the beginning of April they had some to visit Ryan and I in New York. This picture is of them standing right where Ryan proposed. It is a bridge overlooking Amsterdam Ave. We also wandered the city, went to Times Square and a jazz club and generally had an excellent time.

Vermont

2010-04-20T21:16:00.000-04:00

Ryan and I took a trip out of the city to visit Amy and Pete in the great state of Vermont. The weather was not amazing as it was rainy and cold the ENTIRE weekend, but it was amazing to get out of all the noise and dirt of the big apple.

We spent Friday in Burlington walking around, shopping, going to the "mall" and eating at our favorite restaurant. We love to eat at American Flatbread when we are in Burlington as the food is awesome and the beer is even better. Pete picked us up around 3:30 and we drove down to Montpelier where Amy and Pete actually live.

Since the last time we were there they have acquired a very cute and energetic white lab puppy named Hudson. He added a little bit of spice to the day with his puppy antics and his insistence on playing tug every five minutes. He will take the toy and actually push it into your hand, lap, arm, leg or even face to try to get you to tug with him.

I think we ate or drank in every restaurant in Montpelier and it was all delicious. I feel about 15 pounds heavier than when we left but the conversation and companionship were worth the extra time at the gym.

Yea for being able to visit Amy and Pete!

The Velveteen Rabbit

2010-04-14T22:25:00.000-04:00

Today I went to see Velveteen Rabbit at The Manhattan Children's Theatre in NYC. I had a meeting afterwards with the General Manager to discuss a contract for me to develop the study guides for next season. As I sat down in the little storefront theatre surrounded by around 100 2nd graders and realized that this was the first time in a very long time that I was watching children's theatre that I was not involved in.

Usually I am the one behind the performance. As a Stage Manager for mainly children's theatre I am the one calling the go, making sure the cues are set and generally supporting the work that the performers are doing onstage. This was the first time in a very long time that I had absolutely nothing to do with the production. Granted- I did go see Click Clack Moo a few months ago but since I know 2 of the performers AND worked for the company last year that seems different somehow than this totally unconnected experience.

I have a history with this story so I was prepared to be quite defensive. Luckily, the show was pretty good. There were some slow parts and I think the lighting design could have been handled differently but the script was nice, the Rabbit costumes were excellent and the animation behind the performers was awesome.

The kids loved it. They watched mesmerized as a group of adults turned into the book characters and then back out again. They laughed at the jokes, gasped when a hidden door was revealed and grew somber while the Rabbit sat outside by the burn pile and cried about her uncertain future. And that is really why we do it. Through theatre you can change the perspective of a child, teach them compassion and understanding and a love of a very primal art form. Honestly- the set and the costume and the script and the lights don't even matter as long as the feeling is there and the children respond.

So Brava ! Velveteen Rabbit cast- excellent work! or as a former cast member said quite a few times on tour, "Can you believe we get paid for this?!"

Pillowfight NYC- Union Square

2010-04-04T12:27:00.000-04:00

Yesterday Ryan and I attended the Pillowfight at Union Square for about an hour. We then went to Starbucks, Trader Joes and Gamestop and when we walked back to Union the pillowfight was still going on!

Apparently the First Saturday in April is Pillowfight Day!

Us at the Pillowfight- It was BRIGHT!

The Mass

Even kids got into the action!

Watchers. Also a bunch of Tourists who were throughly confused.

The Feathers Fly!

World Theatre Day

2010-04-02T19:35:00.000-04:00

Last Saturday I participated in World Theatre Day- NYC. In order to not have to go it alone, I called Candice (my TU/ NYC friend) and left her a cryptic message to meet me behind the big statue at the SW corner of Central Park. For the non-NYC'ers that is the corner near Columbus Circle which features later on in the story.

World Theatre Day is a celebration of theatre arts. Madame Judi Dench made a pronouncement and many arts organizations had some sort of special event. In NYC a few people organized flash mobs throughout the day in different areas of the city. I skipped the morning events and met Candice at 3pm for "Untitled" which ended up being a song and dance into and around the lower west part of Central Park with a minstrel.

After singing and dancing our way around the park we met in the middle of the traffic circle to get our next set of instructions. Our new "director" gave us the directions for "Cheers"- we were going to disperse and meet in front of the male statue in the Columbus Circle Mall. On the signal we were all going to start clapping and yelling for 40 seconds. Then a new signal would be given and we would disperse as if nothing had happened. It was pretty awesome.

The third activity was to be a group reenactment of "The Kiss" in Times Square but apparently we missed it. It was really cold and we stopped for Starbucks on the way down from 59th.

Watch videos and get more information here: http://nycwtd.com/ or at the world-wide blog worldtheatreday.org

Life or Soup?

2010-03-27T10:40:00.000-04:00

Terribly sorry we fell behind on the soup experiment. Last weekend my parents came to town and my super hero friend KT has been leading the improve pack with an event every Sunday night and soup just became a little less important.

Life has gotten a little nutso lately. I continue to work in the opera-development office but my employer's family has suffered a major medical emergency and therefore much of the week it is just me and my intern. Since my employer likes to have final say on all business dealings it has been more stressful at work than it probably should be. But her emergency is working out and hopefully by the time I leave at the end of the month she will be ready to take back the reins full time and enjoy her newly cleaned, organized and procedure ready office.

On the larger family homefront we are welcoming the arrival of 2 new babies. My cousin and Ryan's cousin both had the first newborns of "our generation of cousins" within the past 3 months. Couple that with my wedding, cousin Amber's wedding, my brother's wedding and Ryan's brother's wedding all happening within a year of each other and we are a busy group. We can also add Ryan's best friend's wedding in Jan 2011 and our friend Aaron's wedding this summer only one week before Brad's. It's next generations time people. Apparently we are taking over.

And in our tiny NYC homefront the main focus is on finishing the paper, getting jobs and trying to plan with little or no direction a move in May. I've had 2 phone interviews and applied to 8 or nine positions within the past month. We spend a little time each week on craigslist looking at houses but to actually move we will need a location. Ry and I are both ready for a more focused life that includes actual income.

we will see.

The Soup Experiment- Not Soup

2010-03-14T15:38:00.000-04:00

So usually I make soup on Sundays and then try to remember to blog about it while I am eating that warm yummy liquid heaven. Well, the delicious French Onion Soup took so much effort on Sunday and yielded so many meals that Ryan and I aren't really in the mood for soup this weekend. (although it is wet and cold and perfect weather for soup)

Instead I made a Ratatouille. Let me correct myself. I faked making Ratatouille.

Ingredients-

onion- we used one chopped

oil- a bit

garlic- a spoonful

squash and zucchini- 2 zucchini and 1 squash chopped

peppers- half a red one chopped

celery- 2 stalks chopped

parsley- fresh

thyme- fresh

pasta sauce- ours had mushrooms and black olives - about 1/3 of the jar

rice- we used uncle ben's 90 sec Long and Wild Rice

saute onion and garlic in oil for 15 minutes

add pasta sauce and peppers and celery

simmer 15 minutes

add squash and zucchini

simmer 15 minutes

add thyme and parsley

serve over rice with grated cheese (we used the leftover gyere from the French Onion Soup)

Outcome-It was delicious! The taste is really complex and it fills you up for a long time but has lots of good nutrients. We rarely have fresh herbs and it makes all the difference.

I love making up recipes!

Side Note- watched Food Inc last night on Netflix. Makes me want to shop at farmers markets or grow my own food. Too bad we are poor and the greenmarkets in NYC are so expensive! But... I'm going to see what I can do to eat better for the planet.

The Soup Experiment- French Onion Soup

2010-03-12T12:58:00.000-05:00

From: David Morgan

Times Prepared: this is the first!

Recipe:

4-5 med onions sliced into rings about 1/4 inch thick- used red and white

1 TBS butter

Some oil- I used EVOO

1 Cup Red Wine- we used Malbec

1 veggie bouillon in 3 cups of water or 3 cups veggie/ mushroom broth

Crusty Bread

Garlic

Melty Cheese- We used Gyere (sp)

Put Oil and Butter in big deep skillet and put on medium heat. Layer on Onions sprinkling salt on top of each layer to draw out the water.

Once the bottom layer onions are brown (about 15 minutes) you can start turning them over.

Let all the onions turn brown and let a good rue happen on the bottom of the pan.

About an hour later add the cup of wine and scrape all the rue into the liquid.

Add 3 cups of broth to skillet and simmer with a bouquet of bay leaf, tyme and parsley for an hour.

Remove bouquet. (this thing has a fancy name but I forgot it)

Cut bread into pieces, rub with garlic and lightly toast. Place in bottom of bowl, cover with soup and the add cheese.

Put under the broiler until cheese is golden.

Comments: Was really yummy. I think that Malbec wine added a deep flavor. As we have eaten more of it, we have added more water then another bouillon cube to keep the flavor high.

Tools note: small crocks for the soup that are oven safe.

Overall: Easy to make and yummy ! It took a long time but was worth it. Our oven doesn't broil and we don't have oven safe dishes so we were not able to melt the cheese on top but it was still very good.

Next up- Not sure but probably something from my new book- Simple Suppers given to us by Teran and John.

Not very pretty but it tastes amazing!

My New(ish) Job

2010-02-17T20:26:00.001-05:00

So at Thanksgiving I became unemployed. Luckily my wedding kept me pretty busy but after all that hustle and bustle and crazy traveling I came back to NYC and started freaking out about not having a job. So I started working on that problem and (as usual, Ryan says) had a job before 2 weeks were up. How, What and Where, you ask?

I emailed one of my old bosses about being a reference and she emailed me back saying that her company had been without a managing director since August and would I like the position. I met her for coffee, we talked about what needed to be done and I showed up that next Monday. Unhappily it was the Monday after they went to IPAY, but such is life.

I am currently the Interim Managing Director for FOI/Ardea Arts Inc. I handle all the money issues, which includes logging the sea of invoices and bills that haven't been entered into Quickbooks going back to August. I plan events such as Open Houses and this summer's Southampton Benefit. I handle social media; blogs, facebook, twitter and linkedin and I run the office. Running the office includes setting up and documenting procedures for everyday tasks, handling the ordering of supplies, phones, email, fixing technical problems, fundraising, grant writing, cleaning and making sure the trash and recycling goes out. I am also creating budgets for touring and future productions and in March I probably need to start interviewing and training at least some summer interns if not a new managing director because Ryan and I move away from NYC in May.

Oh and the office includes me, my boss and my intern. Very cosy.

Very exciting and exhausting stuff-

(add us to your twitter! familyopera - my goal is to double the followers by May. Please help!)

The Soup Experiment- Pumpkin Curry Soup

2010-02-14T15:22:00.000-05:00

From: Patricia Torpis originally from Karen Shepard

Times Prepared: this is the first!

Recipe:

1 med onion finely chopped (1/2 cup)

2 TBS butter- to saute onion and mushrooms

2 TBS flour- add to onion and mushrooms before adding broth

16 oz of pumpkin- NOT pumpkin pie mixture

8oz of whipping cream

1 veggie bouillon in 3 cups of water or 3 cups veggie broth

1/2 lb of sliced mushrooms

1 TBS curry powder

dash of hot sauce

salt and pepper to taste

Saute onion and mushrooms with butter in a large saucepan till tender not brown.

Stir in flour. Add veggie broth, pumpkin and curry powder.

When all are well-blended add hot sauce and salt and pepper to taste.

Add cream- do not let soup boil! serve with croutons.

Comments: Currently smells amazing but I haven't tasted it yet- ok I have, but just a sip. We actually sorta doubled this recipe by adding more pumpkin and 2 cups more broth and then more curry.

Tools note: no special tools for this one.

Overall: easy to make although it was difficult to find pumpkin.

Next up-not sure but probably something from my new book- Simple Suppers given to us by Teran and John.

Snow Day!

2010-02-10T09:59:00.000-05:00

All week the forcasters have been telling us that we are going to receive a monster snow on Wednesday. NYC cancelled government and schools on Tuesday morning when it was dry as a bone and in the mid 30's. Walking through Times Square last night you could pick out the tourists because they were the only ones bundled up. Last night Ryan and I went out to dinner and walked back in dry clear weather that wasn't even cold.

I woke up at 2am and there was no snow. I woke up at 5am and there was a light dusting. At 8 I conferenced with my employer and she was willing to let it be a snow day but didn't understand what all the fuss was about. At 9... HOLY COW! We currently have about 4 inches or so outside our building and it is coming down like huge fat rain drops.

Snow Day!!!

The Soup Experiment- Chili and Corn Chowder

2010-02-07T13:01:00.000-05:00

From: Better Homes and Gardens- Vegetarian Recipes

Times Prepared: this is the first!

Recipe:

1 med onion chopped

2 TBS butter

2 TBS flour

1 large potato diced

2 cups water

2 cup milk

10oz of corn- they ask you to use frozen or fresh but we had to go with canned.

1 veggie bouillon

1/4 tsp ground pepper - we had to use regular table pepper

1 4oz can green chili peppers

2 tablespoons cilantro or parsley- we had to do without

Saute onion with butter in a large saucepan till tender not brown.

Stir in flour. Add water, peeled potato, corn, chili peppers, bouillon and pepper. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer for 10 minutes till potatoes are tender.

Stir in milk and cilantro- heat through and serve in individual bowls decorated with cilantro or parsley springs and fresh chili peppers

Comments: We've been waiting on this one. Veggie Bouillon is very expensive and hard to find so my mom sent us 3 packages. I ended up squishing some of the potatoes to get a thicker soup.

Tools note: no special tools for this one.

Overall: We had to do without a lot of the special ingredients that would have added a lot of flavor but even with the subtractions the soup is good and filling for the cold weather we've been having. All in all- good stuff.

Next up- a recipe that we received from Patricia Torpis at our recipe/ornament shower this winter. Pumpkin soup with curry!

The Soup Experiment- Carrot Quinoa

2010-01-24T10:53:00.000-05:00

From: A Vegetarian Times sometime in 2007

Times Prepared: twice

Recipe:

3/4 cup quinoa

5 cup veg broth

2 TBS butter

1 cup onion diced

1/2 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp corriander

1 bag carrots cut into chunks

splash lime juice

salt and pepper

combine quinoa with 1 1/2 cups broth, boil, cover and let simmer 12-15

saute onions with butter and add cumin and corriender

add carrots and 3 1/2 broth. Boil, cover and let simmer 10-15 min

puree carrot mixture

add quinoa and season to taste with lime, salt and pepper- serve warm.

Comments: For the latest run I had to use a purple onion which created a muddy orange colored soup which wasn't the most beautiful. Also 3/4 of a cup of quinoa makes a ton of cooked quinoa. It overpowered the carrot soup. Next time we will make less quinoa and probably add more broth.

Tools note- make sure to have a really good mixer or at best an immersion blender.

Overall- tastes alright. Not as good as last time when we used better quality veg broth, white onions and had an immersion blender to get a better consistency.

I got married!

2010-01-20T18:01:00.000-05:00

A week and a half ago Ryan and I got married.

Now we are back in NYC and our regular life can start again. I will not be touring this spring and instead will try to live the NYC lifestyle, whatever that means.

Hopefully it includes blogging more than once a month.

maybe...

Winter Wonderland

2009-12-24T17:40:00.000-05:00

Ryan and I are in OKC for Christmas. We narrowly missed the blizzard on the East Coast and luckily our flight pattern took us through St. P/ Minn instead of the snowed in Atlanta. (who would have thought St. P/ Minn was a better chance for nice weather?)

This week it's been about 50 degrees here in OKC with sun. Until today. We woke up this morning to sleet and since then it has snowed and snowed and snowed. We have received about 4 inches of powdery white stuff which is blowing around the streets.

I am apparently NOT dreaming about that whole "white Christmas" thing.

The Plastic Jungle

2009-12-13T16:07:00.000-05:00

For those of you who read this blog as often as I write it, you probably know that for most of the last year I have been on tour, at summer stock or living at someone else's house. I have a home in NYC with my boyfriend, but in the past year I have spent about 6 weeks in it.

Starting in November there was one major thing I was looking forward to. It wasn't any particular place or restaurant or even a particular person (Sorry Ryan). It was being able to not live out of a suitcase. Our tiny place in the city doesn't really have closets or storage but we have made do and I was really looking forward to being able to leisurely sort through drawers and hangers of clothing to put together an outfit that didn't include jeans or one of the 5 shirts I've been living in since last year.

I got home and got the bad news. The building is pretty sure we have bed bugs. Bed Bugs are pretty gross. They don't spread any major diseases or anything but they are very difficult to kill and it can take several months of treatments to get rid of them. You used to get them by traveling outside the USA but in NYC you can get them anywhere. People pick them up on the subway or at a restaurant. Since we do live in NYC AND we both have been traveling extensively both in the US and abroad we weren't that surprised. Dismayed and upset but not surprised.

The building gave us a huge list of things to do before the guy comes to spray. Since Ryan is in finals I had to wash or dry every piece of fabric in our apartment and then package it in sealed plastic bags. I had to clean the entire place with a certain kind of soap and vaccum all of the rugs. We also ended up tossing most of our pillows and the others went through the dryer on hot. I also had to bag up all shoes, books, records, personal items, DVD's, VHS, CD's, electronics and jackets after inspecting and cleaning them. It took me a week.

Then they came and sprayed leaving a haze behind and small puddles of white-ish grey liquid. They also overturned our bed and bed frame, and put all the plastic bags in the center of the room so it's even harder to find whatever it is you are looking for. We now wait 2 weeks and then they spray again and then we are under watch for 6 weeks before they declare our apartment clear. If they find more evidence of bugs we go through the entire process again. At that point I will probably just bag and box and send it all to go live in my parents garage.

So currently, instead of living out of a suitcase, I am living out of grande zip lock bags and twisty tied industrial garbage bags until we leave for the south.

Oh, how I miss you little suitcase.

Back in NYC

2009-12-03T20:57:00.001-05:00

I have returned to the center of the universe. I will be home for 14 days before we are back on the road again. For the holidays Ryan and I are traveling to Oklahoma City for Christmas, Houston for New Years and then San Antonio to prepare for our wedding.

While I am in NYC I am hoping to finish any last minute wedding prep, visit a few museums and clean up our apartment.

Coming back to NYC is always a little rough. After leaving the land of the cars my walking muscles are pretty out of shape and I am hoping to be able to reclaim some muscle tone before returning to the south. It is always louder and more crowded here than you remember. With the holiday season approaching the city is even more crowded than usual with all kinds of tourists. I have a good friend coming in tomorrow and I kind of dread walking through mid-town to see the holiday decorations.

58 Days till we get Hitched

2009-11-12T14:00:00.000-05:00

So the other day I realized (actually theknot.com told me) I only have 60 days until my wedding. Holy cow! How did the time go by so fast? I feel like we just got engaged a few weeks ago. Perhaps that is because since we have been engaged we have spent less than 6 weeks in the same city.

Not being together makes planning a wedding a little difficult, mostly because Ryan has opinions. If he didn't care about any of the wedding stuff I could just do whatever I wanted but since he cares everything goes through me and then him and then a discussion and then eventually is decided.

But the thing I miss the most about spending this time apart is the excitement of being engaged. Ry and I completely missed being able to run around and "flaunt" our engagement. We missed being able to be giggly and cute and silly. That's not really our personalities anyway but I would have liked the opportunity. We will get to spend the final 3 weeks together so that should be fun.

I've had a few job offers for the spring but they are all another tour. Ryan and I have decided that I shouldn't tour but finding a "at home" job makes me nervous. I guess we will see how things turn out.

Medical in Mexico

2009-11-06T23:28:00.001-05:00

So last week I stepped off the sidewalk in Idaho Falls ID and fell down. It was early, it had snowed and the sidewalk did not continue in the manner you would have assumed it would have continued. After sitting in shock for a bit while my cast gathered around, I managed to get up and to make it to the theatre. (we weren't even late to call)

Thoughout the first performance and the load in I didn't even look. I figured that if I was bleeding my long johns would soak it up until I noticed and since I could walk, it wasn't broken. Upon checking my wounded knees I noticed that the right one had doubled in size and was turning a nice green color. The left one was also painful but since it seemed to be the second to hit the ground, it had sustained less damage. We put some ice on them and I managed to limp around for the next few days. My left knee currently is spotted with some big purple bruises and my right knee is striped, green and swollen at the time publication.

The next day I woke up with a very sore shoulder. I had been carrying 2 big bags on my right side when I fell and apparently I yanked my shoulder pretty hard. A couple days later that pain had gone away as well.

The second day I noticed that my mouth was hurting. It seemed not only had a bruised both knees, and yanked my shoulder that I had bitten the inside of my mouth pretty badly. Pretty bad got worse as the week went on and when it got infected eventually my head, neck and ears were in painful shape. It was at this point where I figured I should probably go see a doctor. We were in Brawley CA and Kelly and I had quite a medical adventure.

Brawley CA is a small town a few miles north of the Mexico border. We i-phoned for clinics and came up with El Salud Medical Center. I called in to see if I needed an apt and the lady asked me several questions to see if I was pregnant before letting me come in. When we arrived I signed my life away and was asked such a litany of personal information I gathered that one.. they needed the answers for some sort of funding and two... most people attending the clinic did not receive regular medical care.

After tons of paperwork I waited to be called to wait in a different waiting room. Then I was called in an measured, weighed and temperatured as if I was cattle all while the techs fired basically the same questions at me. Then I waited again. Finally I was called in to see the doctor and I waited some more. Around 2 hours after arriving at the clinic the doctor walked in gave me and Kelly both a pop and lock handshake and asked me again about my medical history and if I was pregnant.

I left paying nothing (thank you equity insurance) and with a small paper ensuring that I could receive 10 days of antibiotics and 60 mega pain killers. I am currently awaiting the day in which I feel 100% better but that day might be sometime after this tour is completed and I am eating and sleeping on a normal schedule.

Still on the road....

2009-10-26T10:00:00.000-04:00

We are currently in Billings MT. We drove in last night and went to dinner at a great brewery called Montana Brewing Co. Damian, Ariel, Kelly and I had a great time.

Today we drive 4 hours to Helena MT and load in the set. We will be in a middle school theatre as the main theatre is having work done.

Everything is going pretty well. I'm starting to get very over tired with all the time zone jumping and the hours of driving. You wouldn't think sitting in a car would be so hard.

onward... and I guess upward for reals.

October 20th 2009

2009-10-20T22:23:00.000-04:00

Today was a long day.

We got up at 5:30 AM to drive into the Bronx at 6:10.

Wait. I should start before that. Around 1AM we had loud banging on the door to our Best Western hotel room. Kelly opened the door to 4 firefighters. Apparently Ariel had called the office because there was water pouring from a light fixture in the workout room. The firefighters thought the fuse box was in our room so they were looking to see. The fuse box was not in our room. However they did turn off the water heater. Luckily Kelly and I had already showered the night before.

On the way across the George Washington Bridge I accidentally got in the lower lane in the Penske truck and had to be escorted by police to the upper level toll booth.

Then on the way to the Bronx a guy in a truck honked and then shot the finger at me. No apparent reason.

Today at our venue, The Bronx Center for Science and Math, we couldn't find a place to park the van, we couldn't fit most of the set in, we didn't have light cues, and while unpacking the van one set piece fell off the ramp narrowly missing Anthony. I wasn't as lucky and also fell off the van and will have a nice big bruise and a painful shoulder to show for it.

The day got a little better after that. The show was good and the kids were awesome. We had actually been worried because they were high schoolers and our show is mostly for 2nd graders but they were very well behaved and asked some great questions during the Q&A.

Seven hours of driving tomorrow. Maybe life will be better.

Jungle Book Tour

2009-10-09T16:58:00.000-04:00

I am on tour with The Jungle Book produced by The Magik Theatre in San Antonio TX.

We are traveling the USA in a van and a Penske truck performing in different venues. It's fun and everyone is super nice and easy to work with. Here are some photos. We also have a blog at junglebooktour.blogspot.com.

New Mexico

Car Trouble

The Spencer Theatre in Alto NM

The Cast- ShereKhan, Tabaqni, Baloo, Mowgli and Bagheera

Sorry for the wait

2009-09-28T22:10:00.001-04:00

I am very behind on my blogging. I am currently on tour with The Jungle Book and you can also follow our blog for that at junglebooktour.blogspot.com

Pictures- From this summer at Trinity University.

San Antonio

2009-08-07T10:25:00.001-04:00

Ryan and I are in San Antonio for a quick trip and have decided to be more touristy than usual.

Here I am at Buc-ee's. We finally purchased shirts because walking around in a Buc-ee's shirt in NYC is so much cooler than wearing one in Texas.

TWO DOLLARS !!! Toto, I think we are NOT in NYC anymore.

Male Bonding over frozen drinks with fruit in them.

We have more pictures but Google Chrome is making me frusterated so we will save them for another day!