Smile for the birdy

Oh right, the engagement pictures!

In our fast-paced electronic world where everyone who reads this blog already saw these pictures on facebook, this post seems a little redundant. But I do what I want.

We weren't actually planning on having engagement pictures taken, and we kept getting coupons for professional photographers in DC, but here's the formula for getting the pictures you see above (for free!):


One good friend who is talented behind the lens and charitable with her time (Jana)
+ One digital camera which you already own
+ irresistible urge to purchase to cute dress (and nowhere to wear it)
÷ Limited number of crisp October mornings in the National Arboretum
x undying love and devotion (awwwwwww)
--------------------------------------------
Seriously priceless photographs












I know how much I lucked out with these. It's really hard for me to pick a favorite, and I can tell that Tim and I look at each one totally differently. We're both scrutinizing ourselves and laughing at each other (in a good, crinkly-eyed kind of way). All I can say is that I'm glad I passed up the many email offers I received to have the pictures professionally done. Business casual at the Lincoln Memorial just wouldn't have been "us."

Here's the best part though (I thought)--after we took the pictures, we were already all dressed up so we made a day of it.

I called Fogo de Chao as soon as we were done, since we'd been hoping to go there for as long as we've lived in DC, but we discovered that on weekends they don't have a lunch service. Why on earth would they pass up the beaucoup tourist dollar and not serve lunch? I have no idea. So that meant not eating until 4:30--which, let's be honest, is a pretty solid plan if you're going to Fogo.

Since we were all dressed up with no place to go for a few hours, we decided to see a matinee in Georgetown and settled on The Social Network. Sweet mother. If you haven't seen it yet, there is a scene of a regatta that is like a short film in itself. It made my hair stand on end. The rest of the film is David Finchercredible with a whole lot of Aaron Sorkintastic thrown in for good measure. It's the only movie I've seen so far where Jesse Eisenberg plays an actual character and not a bargain Michael Cera--and he did a remarkable job. All of this from a movie about facebook, for god's sake.

Anyhoo. After the movie we sat in the park for a while and watched a crazy man roll around in the bushes without ever taking his lit cigarette out of his mouth. He wasn't old-homeless-dirty crazy, he was young-drunk-needs-attention crazy. Like something from a French movie. It was interesting, to say the least.

Then, on to Fogo. Really the only thing I can say about that is that my dress still smells like meat. The only other time I've experienced residual meat-smells is when I actually sold meat to people for 8 hours a day as a Turkey Wench. This was one meal. Everything I had on me, my purse, my dress, my shoes, everything smells of the heavenly aroma of roasted meat. That is ridiculous.

It's amazing for me to think that we were over-dressed for something that costs as much as Fogo de Chao does (but honestly, I think we were over-dressed for just about everything on earth), though it's shocking how many people go there in border-line sweatsuits and slippers. I know it's a meat-fest, but it's not a BBQ on super-bowl Sunday.

Anyway, after the gorging, we went home and played Super Mario Bros. Wii. Because such things are the solid foundation upon which our relationship is built.

I can't wait for our wedding. These pictures are--if I do say so myself--super cute. But I would like to have some with our friends and family in them.

Tuna P. Wiggle

I'm writing a paper right now, but I had to stop and talk about something here.

No body ever eats sauce on toast anymore. No, no wait. Hear me out. When I was kid, I feel like people ate Welsh Rarebit and chipped beef all the time and nobody batted an eye. Maybe it was reaganomics. Everyone for whom the money wasn't "trickling down" was like, "well, I have sauce. I have toast. This works." And now celebrity chefs are all, "rrrrmmm, there aren't enough complicated steps in that. Can I used braised brioche loaf and a bechamel with leeks?"

Obviously, I like fancy cooking too. Last night I made a New York strip with creamy goat cheese polenta and rosemary grilled zucchini (and Tim ate the zucchini! Yes, I'm bragging.). But sometimes you just have to eat sauce on toast, damnit.

I "remember" this recipe from when I was a little kid, sitting around at my Grandma Karen's house in the 80's while all my aunts and uncles, who were still in high school, ran around and did their thing on a Saturday afternoon. I can tell this an amalgamation of memories, because they weren't all in high school throughout the duration of the 80's and not every day was a sunny Saturday--but I did spend a lot of time at that table in the house on Tenino eating delicious things.

No one ever told me how to make this, so I could be totally off base, but this is what my memory tastes like because I've been making it for myself this way for years.

This is comfort food. This is fast and easy and probably not very nutritious and I doubt anyone would ever, ever in their right mind serve it at a dinner party, but I love it.

Tune P. Wiggle (the "P." stands for "pea")

Ingredients:
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1/3 cup milk
1 can tuna drained
1 half cup frozen peas
salt
pepper
bread to make toast, preferable *good* white bread like potato bread or english muffin bread. Not that wonder bread crap.

For the ambitious:
1/4 to 1/2 cup shredded colby or chedder cheese.
dash garlic salt
2-3 diced white mushrooms

Destructions:
In a small sauce pan combine soup, milk, tuna and peas. Over medium heat, stir together well and then add a generous amount of pepper; salt to taste. If you're adding mushrooms and garlic, add them at this stage. If you're adding cheese, wait until sauce is smooth and bubbly, stir it in and reduce heat to very low.

Cook sauce about five minutes after it bubbles to let everything meld together and the peas heat through.

Toast the bread to your liking. I usually have two slices of toast. Please for the love of God don't be tempted to butter the toast before putting sauce on it. This is coming from me--the Butter Idiot. Doing so will make you want to roll on the floor in a gluttonous semi-coma.

Test the sauce to make sure it's got enough seasoning, cheese, what have you, before putting it on your warm toasty bread. Then spoon a generous amount onto each slice of toast and eat with a fork.

This recipe serves about three people, or just me if I'm being ridiculous.

There's just something about eating what your family eats. My grandma's no slouch. She can make some amazing from-scratch meals that would knock Giada de Lauretiis off her butt, but this one just happens to come out of cans and I like it.

351! 351! Rover, sit! Hut! Hut!

Ah yes, it's come to this. I'm using Ace Ventura to draw analogies to my life.

This, however, is the clip that runs through my head over and over when we work on planning anything that has to do with the wedding. It's a lot of fun--but at the end of the day, it's also a crazy person in a tutu, pitching an invisible football to no one.

Mostly by that I just mean that I don't want to have to wait two years to get married (crickets? did anyone ever expect to hear me say that?). We're throwing a lot of ideas at the wall and the wall is 2012. 2012! You try booking a tent for 2012: people just laugh at you (and not because of the Mayan calendar).

But, that is the way the cookie, she crumbles, if I want to get married where I've wanted to get married my whole life: at home, on my Grandparents' Ranch or up at Camp. (I know, it's shocking, but I did think about that when I was little. It's literally the only wedding-y thing I ever thought about so I'm holding on to it.) That means it will have to be summer, and it can't be this summer because, remember? Crazy person in tutu.