29th Birthday Party

This year, I wanted to do something a little different for my birthday. Instead of having a party here at my place, a bunch of friends got together and we went out to the new National Harbor, specifically, Bobby McKey's, a piano bar.

I read about Bobby McKey's in the Washington Post a few months ago when it was favorably reviewed. I had first been to a piano bar while I was in San Antonio for work and had a great time. Drinking and good music, what else do you need? Then when I was on the cruise, Chris, Andrew, and Whitney spent several evenings in the ship's piano bar and had a lot of fun.

So 26 of us caravaned over the Wilson Bridge a few weeks ago to National Harbor to the piano bar. Our reserved table was VERY close to the front, so it was a bit louder than I had expected, but I think a good time was had by all. We talked, we danced, we drank...dear god, I drank. In fact I was so hung over the next day I had to miss the Fairfax Chocolate Festival, but in retrospect, I think it may have been more the beginning of the flu that hit my full force the next day. Which makes me seem slightly less pathetic. It seems kind of sad to be 29 and lying in bed nauseous and sad because you drank too much the night before.

But let's get to the good stuff! Pictures!














See you all at my 30th!!


Oh, dear god. I'm going to be 30!

Long time no see, Mr. Flu.

Oh, influenza. It's been a long time since we met up, or even talked on the phone. Maybe, what? 5 years? Since that time at Christmas you made me so miserable that I couldn't even stay up more than 2 hours on Christmas morning to enjoy my presents. But let's not dwell on the past. Let's talk about the future! And how since I contracted you a week ago I won't have to look at your ugly mug for another half a decade.

That's right. Exactly a week ago today I began to exhibit flu-like symptoms. Headache, sore throat, nausea, an achy body (I thought at first maybe I had overdone it on the elliptical machine the day before, but quickly realized that's not going to make my entire body ache). The only thing to do was to load myself up on Alka-Seltzer and lie in bed moaning. You know you're sick when you're whole body aches so much you can't even fall asleep.

I thought I might be able to drag my sick ass into work on Tuesday, but alas. It was not to be. Which was really unfortunate since I had started mentoring a new attorney the week before and am basically in charge of teaching them. The way it works at my job is All I Need To Know About Veteran's Law I Learned From My Mentor. So when your mentor isn't there during your second week? Not good.

Luckily for me, Alicia is a quick study and had plenty to keep her busy. So my absence was not really that big a deal. On Wednesday I put in a half day, since the achiness struck again. In an attempt to make myself feel better, I procured some ice cream of the chocolate peanut butter cup variety. But then I spent the whole of Wednesday evening freaking out that I might get salmonella. Plan = backfire.

In any event, by Thursday I was feeling much better, and good thing too, since I flew out to the fair state of Michigan to visit my brother and sister-in-law for the weekend. We had a great visit, which included lots of movie watching, cookie eating, and even a trip to the Second City comedy group outside Detroit. AND I picked out the new kind of flat panel tv I'm going to buy when my fed tax refund comes through. Although who knows when that's gonna happen.

So, see ya flu! Go turn someone else's life into a misery. You jerkface.

Coming soon: Birthday celebration stories and pictures!

You know you're getting old...

...when snow loses it's mystic charm.

Remember when you were a kid and you eagerly looked forward to snowfall? Snow days, sledding, snowballs, snowmen, snow forts etc. etc. The world seemed to have transformed into a fantasy land when those first few inches would stick to the ground.

Yeah, that's all changed.

Snow is now more of a hassle than a sign of fun. Things I consider when I hear there is snow in the forecast: "Do I have enough milk?" (I am from Virgina, after all), "will my bus be on it's normal route?," do I need to drive anywhere?," and "will Metro be running?"

So the magic of childhood has faded to the practicalities of adult life. And that's depressing.

But despite that, there are still times when the snow is just as beautiful and filled with as much promise as when I was a kid. But it's getting harder and harder to remember that. Especially when I have to hike home on iced over sidewalks after my bus has dumped me 10 minutes away from my normal stop because it's running on a snow emergency route.

Things to do in DC: National Museum of American History

After closing it's doors two years ago for extensive renovations, the National Museum of American History on the DC Mall reopened in November of 2008. And a couple weeks ago, my Mom and I visited to check out the new digs and see the special exhibition of The Gettysburg Address, one of the few original copies hand-written by Abraham Lincoln.

Now, call me old-fashioned, but I like my museums to feel like museums. Old marble, maybe some dust gathering in the corridors, none of this light and airy crap. And what the American History Museum has is a nice marriage of traditional and modern. Walking in the front entrance (which is actually the entrance opposite of the Mall), you enter a huge gallery lined with random pieces of American history. C3PO from Star Wars! A nineteenth century bicycle! Things like that, all displayed in long cases the entire length of the hall. And while there is a huge skylight in the main hall, things don't feel too disconnected from the museum of old.

And very smartly, the bathrooms and lockers are located right next to the entrance. Thanks layout planners!

In fact, the only disappointment I had is that the museum eliminated the huge pendulum that used to swing in front of the star spangled banner. Sigh. Memories.

As for the flag itself, it's been moved to a glass enclosed viewing area which seems much more logical than having it hanging out in the middle of the air. It also underwent some extensive cleaning, but honestly, it looked the same to me. Which is as it should be.

I was surprised by the small number of exhibits that are currently out. I distinctly remember there being about twice as many First Lady gowns on display as there are now, but I have a feeling the curators are still getting settled in the new space. And they probably like to bring new things from time to time and put some thing backs in storage. Most shocking was how small Mary Todd Lincoln's waist much have been and how cute Kermit the Frog's felt hands are. I mean, I saw Kermit! The actual Kermit! And Oscar the Grouch. Other than the Gettysburg Address, the pop culture and entertainment display was my favorite. We Americans can get so nostalgic over our entertainment.

As for the Gettysburg Address, we were fortunate to have arrived right when the museum opened on a Sunday on a non-holiday weekend. Which means the place was not packed and I could get my nose right up to the glass to look at the speech. It's amazing how so few words (it covered about 2.5 pages of lined notebook paper--paper that looked exactly the same as lined paper we use now) can reverberate so loudly and so clearly through history. Lincoln's handwriting was small and precise, and I imagined him sitting at his desk writing several copies of the speech. Did he have to concentrate absolutely on what he was writing, as I have to, to avoid mistakes, or could he allow his mind to wander to other matters of state or something more mundane? Did he write by the light coming from the sun shining in the windows, or was it night? Did he know the impact his words would have on generations to come? For that matter, do great men and women ever fully realize that they are great?

Ok, this post has gotten a bit off course.

It's strange what runs through your head when you get close to history. Just being that near to a copy of his speech was surprisingly moving. It's pretty much the only way we have to feel like we can communicate with the great people of our past.

In any event, the new museum is well laid out, and worth visiting. My only advice is to avoid the peak times; if I had had to wait in an hour line for each exhibit, I would have been disappointed by the small number of objects out. And take advantages of the lockers. You don't want to have to carry your coat all day, and they only cost 25 cents.

Florence and the Santa Maria del Fiore

Hang in there, kids, we're slowly but surely nearing the end.

After passing the Stromboli Volcano without experiencing any lava or other disasters, our final excursion was to Tuscany were we traveled to Florence and Pisa.

Florence is known for its history and its importance in the Middle Ages and in the Renaissance especially for its art and architecture. A centre of medieval European trade and finance, the city is often considered the birthplace of the Italian Renaissance; in fact, it has been called the Athens of the Middle Ages. It was long under the de facto rule of the Medici family. From 1865 to 1870 the city was also the capital of the Kingdom of Italy.

Florence has a decidedly different feel than the cities of Southern Italy. It's as populous as its southern sisters, but feels somehow roomier. The weather is cooler, the streets are cleaner, and it has a more peaceful feeling. It's easy to imagine the Renaissance masters wandering its twisty streets contemplating art, philosophy, and the place of man in the world. Or maybe I had been on the road a really long time and was starting to hallucinate.

In any event, wiki isn't kidding when it says the city was "long" under the rule of the Medici. You can't take a step in Florence without tripping over some piece of Medici history; one of their art galleries, an old villa, or one of the their family crests that seem to drip from the stone walls.

But the real pride of Florence, and it's most recognizable landmarks is the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore, or as it is more commonly called, the Duomo.

The basilica was built on the site of a previous cathedral, Santa Reparata (locals of Florence continued to call the Cathedral by this former name for some time after reconstruction), and was inspired by the new cathedrals in Pisa and especially Siene Cathedral, whose ever-extending and over-ambitious plans were never in fact completed. By the end of the 13th century, the nine-centuries-old church of Santa Reparata was crumbling with age. Furthermore, it had become too small in a period of rapid population expansion, when prosperous Florence wanted to match or exceed in size the much larger cathedrals then being built.

The new church was designed by Arnolfo di Cambio in 1296 (although the design was altered several times and later reduced in size). He designed three wide naves ending under the octagonal dome, with the middle nave covering the area of Santa Reparata. The first stone was laid on September 9, 1296 by Cardinal Valeriana, the first papal legate ever sent to Florence. The building of this vast project was to last 170 years, the collective efforts of several generations.

But enough of that boring history stuff. Let's get to the good stuff.

Nice, huh?

The Duomo must be one of the most recognizable churches in the world, and it was the only Florence landmark I was familiar with. It's so huge, it's difficult to get an idea of the full scope when you are on the ground. The city is built right up to its walls, so to get a good look you have to walk several blocks away, turn around, and stare up.

Approaching the cathedral from a street.

Looking up at the dome. Or at least trying to get a view of the whole thing. That mother is huge!

The "new" facade, completed in 1871. The cathedral is covered in beautiful white, red, and green marble.

The Florence Baptistry is located directly across the street from the facade of the cathedral and is renowned for its three sets of artistically important bronze doors with relief sculptures by Lorenzo Ghiberti. These doors were dubbed by Michelangelo as "the Gates of Paradise" because of their beauty, and they were said to have begun the Renaissance. The large panels pictures above show scenes from the Old Testament.

Details of The Birth of Eve panel. See, she's busting out of Adam's rib. Ouch!

More pics of the Duomo:

Campanile tower (aka the bell tower).

The facade again.

One last look at the dome.

Katakalon and the Stromboli Volcano

Our next stop on the cruise was a small village called Katakalon in Greece. We didn't book an excursion for this place, mostly because we were exhausted. But we did walk around the town a bit. Any by town I mean the one street that ran right through the center and was chock full of tourist souvenir shops. The good news is, I found tablecloths for everyone on my Christmas list, the bad news is it took like 2 hours of wandering to find them. But find them I did!

Here's the view walking towards the village from the ship. I told you it was small.

The main drag, lined with shops.

The next day we had a treat. We cruised by the Stromboli Volcano, a volcano on a small island off the north coast of Sicily, containing one of the three active volcanoes in Italy.

Stromboli stands 924 m (3,031 ft) above sea level, but actually rises over 2,000 m (6,500 ft) above the sea floor. There are three active craters at the peak. A significant geological feature of the volcano is the Sciara del Fuoco ("Stream of fire"), a big horseshoe-shaped depression generated in the last 13,000 years by several collapses on the north western side of the cone.

Stromboli is remarkable because of the length of time for which it has been in almost continuous eruption. For at least the last 2,000 years, the same pattern of eruption has been maintained, in which explosions occur at the summit craters with mild to moderate eruptions of incandescent volcanic bombs at intervals ranging from minutes to hours. This characteristic Strombolian eruption, as it is known, is also observed at other volcanoes worldwide. Eruptions from the summit craters typically result in few second-lasting mild energetic bursts emitting ash, incandescent lava fragments and lithic blocks up to a few hundred meters high. Stromboli's activity is almost exclusively explosive, but lava flows do occasionally occur - an effusive eruption in 2002 was its first in 17 years.

Extreme close-up!

Things to do in DC: Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum

I've always been fascinated by wax museums; there's something undeniably neat yet creepy about them. It feeds my voyeuristic tendencies, without actually requiring that I get up close and personal with famous people. So I feel naughty, but haven't really done anything wrong.

The only problem with going to Madame Tussaud's in DC is that it is ridiculously expensive. For $18 I would expect a personally guided tour with my own personal wax figure to take home as a parting gift. Fortunately, Madame Tussaud's is having a winter sale (or as I like to call it, a "dear god please come in before we have to close due to this shitty economy" sale) and the cost of an adult ticket is only $10. So on a chilly Friday after Christmas, Carly, Rachel, Rachel's sister, and I took off to enjoy us some wax figures. '

First off, it's worth noting that some of the wax people are more realistic than others. The Beyonce figure looked almost nothing like her, while I freaked myself out in the hall of Presidents by constantly thinking the wax figures were real people. In my defense, they were positioned around the room such that they could have been fellow tourists. When I saw them out of the corner of my eye, there was always a moment of confusion before the brain kicked in an realized they were just wax.

Also, while the price was greatly reduced, the Madame Tussaud's experience comes down to walking around a couple rooms and staring at wax mannequins of famous people. We were through the whole thing in approximately 20 minutes, and if I had paid $18 for that I would have been kinda pissed. So, in conclusion, it was fun, but probably not worth the money. But good thing I had my camera to document our hijinks!

Rachel shaking hands with Thomas Jefferson.

Carly getting fresh with Robert E. Lee.

Rachel attending the theater with Abraham Lincoln (sidenote: this set-up was actually really creepy since they had you sitting right next to Lincoln right before he got assassinated. It felt kind of...wrong).

My championing civil rights alongside Martin Luther King, Jr.

Me being interrogated by J. Edgar Hoover. I didn't do it, I swear! Communism was just a red herring!

Carly and I gaze adoringly at President-Elect Obama.

President Margaret and Chief of Staff Carly.

Carly gets fresh with Johnny Depp.

Me and George. Look, we're holding hands!

I help Tiger line up his next shot.

Year of teh Suck

Dear God, will this year never end? I think I can say without using too much hyperbole that this has been a crappy year all around. Mom's heart attack, Mom's abdominal cyst, my Aunt's thyroid cancer, my Grandmother not feeling well as a remnant of last winter's colon cancer, the looming possibility of my brother becoming unemployed (he works for GM, natch), and the various things that have decided to break in my condo this year have all combined to render this a sucky year overall.

And while everyone has pretty much recovered from their various health crises, and with the auto bailout deal it appears my brother will not become unemployed, and all appliances that broke have been replaced, let me just say that I will not be sorry to see this year end.

In fact, for the first time ever, I have decided to celebrate the new year by doing nothing at all. It's not a secret that I hate the holiday New Years, but usually I suck it up and go out and have some fun. But this year, I intend to have a quiet night. Dinner with my Dad and Grandmother and then coming home and going to bed. The plan is to wake up to 2009 feeling refreshed and hangover-free.

Not to say that this year did not have it's bright spots. My vacation/cruise was definitely the highlight, and the usual fun with friends and family was had, but honestly, this year needs to end. I don't know what it is about a simple flipping over of the calendar page, but it really does seem to make a difference with our mental well-being.

Oh, but before I get to the real point of this post (posting some of my holiday pictures), I thought I would share one anecdote. As I neared the end of the year, I began to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but leave it to 2008 to find one last way to screw me over. As you might remember, this year began with a knock on my front door at 2 in the morning on New Year's Day. My downstairs neighbor had come to inform me that water was leaking from his ceiling in the bathroom. This was because the wax seal on my toilet had broken. I got it repaired and paid for the replastering of his ceiling and all seemed well.

Until Saturday morning when I woke to discover water pooled on my bathroom floor from the ginormous crack in the base of my toilet (to which my mother of course commented, "you must sit on it too hard." Like, WTF, Mom?) So almost a year to the date when it had previously broken, the toilet and 2008 decided to have one last laugh. I scurried off to Home Depot to purchase a new toilet, conned a friend to help me carry me up to my apartment, and had a plumber come out to install it. $400 later, I have a bold-looking (it's Kohler!) new toilet. Swell.

Ok, enough negative stuff! Let's get to the good stuff. Fun holiday happenings!

My Dad's dog, Lumpy, decided it would be a good idea to sit on a big stack of presents. Bonus dog hair with your gift!

Dad's telling Bill on the phone how much he enjoys his gift: a new gun. *sigh*

My Grandmother is not one for big shows of emotion. So trust me when I tell you that this half-smile when she unwrapped her lighthouse magnet was pretty effusive.

Here's me with a big bow on my head. So just your typical Thursday night then.

Mom seems really happy to get that new knife. What is it with my family and gifting weapons? In a side note, I just want to assure everyone that while I was pretty depressed that my brother would not be home for Christmas this year (for the first time ever...he had to go see the in-laws), my Mom and I ended up having a great day. And while we missed Bill, we made our own fun! Such as going out to dinner at the Chart House; I was so not going to cook.

Mom was really surprised by the Spode Christmas ornament I gave her. Either that or she is very perplexed.

My big gift from Mom was a gold pineapple (the Virginia symbol for hospitality) pendant. You can kind of see it here.

Here's Mom showing off her new scarf (from Bill and Amanda), and her new pants (from me). What a fashion plate!

Here's me at the little Christmas tree at the Old Town waterfront (by the Chart House).

And here's Mom with the tree wearing her Russian hat. Well, that's what I like to call it, since it's fur and all.

The day after Christmas, my old roommate Jennifer and her husband Mike drove up for some Friday night karaoke. Since they have a one year old, they needed some adult fun time! Which of course means booze, dancing, and drunk singing. Woot!

King Street in Old Town Alexandria at night.

Me and Carly.

Carly, Rosslyn, Me, and Jen on the dance floor!

Roommates reunited!

Sultry Jen and Mike!