Here I am, Baby...

Well, here I am a typical Saturday since we've moved to DC: set the alarm for 8, get out of bed at 10:30, say we're going out, sit on the couch listening to Al Green and watching The Simpsons until the day is gone. It's been a charmed life. Except today is different because the reason I'm sitting around half brain-dead and a little excited, is because I've gone to work every day this week.

As you know, I've been on the job search, trying to give a little meaning to my wanderings, my wayward life. So literal moments before I'm about to draft an open letter to the employers of DC which starts something like this:

Dear Employers of DC,

What does is it take to beat this game? Not only am I eager, willing and highly experienced, there is not a single exaggeration or lie on my résumé. I build strong relationships and actually AM a creative problem solver. They aren't just words. Not to mention that I don't do drugs, kill people, or steal office supplies...

But the letter was never drafted. With thanks in large part to Mae who sent my résumé on to a friend of hers. The morning after she sent the résumé, I got a call to schedule an interview (after nearly a month of hearing nothing from anyone to whom I applied). I applied to the Folger Shakespeare Library and even after a good friend of mine, who had worked there, physically went in, retrieved my application, and said "hire her" I never got a call back.

So last Thursday morning I miraculously end up in an interview with Clutch Legal Staffing and my interviewer tells me I should hear back from them sometime in the next week. Ok, fine.

That afternoon I get a phone call from the President of the company asking if I'd like a job as an Administrative Assistant, starting Monday.

Can I just say that it was one of those, jumping up and down, Tim throwing me over his shoulder, doing a little happy dance sort of events. See, the place is a staffing company that places people in temporary jobs working on legal cases. I didn't really dare to hope I'd get placed internally, but here I am. I've obviously never had a job with a salary. I've never had to report more than $9,000 on my taxes. I've never had full benefits. I've never had the option for a 401-K. I didn't even know what a 401-K is. The job isn't the stuff of dreams, it's true. (Paul, my boss said simply "it's not the best job in the world, but it's not the worst job either.") But for once I feel very stable and taken-care-of by my job (not that the Bookstore wouldn't have taken care of me if they had been allowed to).

So this is what I do: anything and everything I can do to help. I am, as Belen puts it, "Paul's right hand." The company is growing rapidly and I've never seen a busier person than my boss. It's not like I climb Everest on a daily basis, but I don't know how he lived without having an assistant before.

I make collages to make fulfill my craving for systematic chaos, I think Paul started a legal staffing agency to deal with his.

The thing is, the company is AMAZING. The people are all talented, dedicated, interesting people who genuinely care about the position they're in. After one week and can see that they're all kind, rational, hardworking, professional people. It's a small office, but in a lot of ways it runs like a high-speed train. It's just great. I'm so relieved to have ended up in a place like this. Besides having to get up early in the morning, I don't have a single complaint. I suppose it's set up that way intentionally: happy, interested employees make a better business.

If you're interested, check out the website. It can be kind of boring if you're not a lawyer looking for a position or a law office looking for good staff, but it will give you a picture anyway. We've recently merged with a company in India, so the current website is here and the soon-to-be website is here.

Don't ask me what I plan to do in the future. Grad school is still in the works, where and for what I don't know. But things are good right now and for the moments, that's enough.

A Message from my friend Sara

Marmet family of Mulvey, LA lost home and all possessions to tropical storm-strength winds.


MULVEY, LA – The Marmet family of Meridian Line Road in Mulvey, LA suffered a devastating loss on the morning of Thursday, September 13, when a tornado spawned by the landfall of Hurricane Humberto destroyed their home and the majority of their possessions. The family of three – Sonny, Megan, and daughter Kalie (age 7) – had only recently moved into the home following nearly a year and a half of major renovations and repairs. Without the aid of homeowner’s insurance, the Marmet family must now begin the process of rebuilding their lives. Family members of the Marmets have launched www.helpthemarmets.com to raise funds in order to assist with this process. Visitors to the site can read news coverage of the devastation of the Marmet home, make secure donations via Paypal, leave notes of support, and read updates on the family’s progress. While both Sonny and Megan are employed, the task at hand requires far greater resources than are available. Monetary contributions of all sizes are equally needed and appreciated, and will be used solely to assist the family in their efforts to rebuild. Family member Sara Hebert, sister to Megan and “Tee-Taunt” (aunt) to Kalie, created and administers the site. Those wishing to donate items or make special arrangements to help the Marmet family may contact Sara at Hebert.sara@gmail.com.

In case you really like apartments...

Hello, and welcome to our apartment. I know if you have Facebook you've already seen this and it's almost like you've been staying with us, sleeping on our couch, drinking our milk out of the carton, and leaving our towels on the floor for days already.

Well, not everyone has Facebook, you selfish beast so step aside. Give someone else a turn and maybe do your dishes every once in a while.




Voila, the kitchen. The one and only. Right now it smells like salsa because Trader Joe's has these salsa kits (three roma tomatoes, a jalapeno, a shallot, two cloves of garlic and a lime) that are simple deadly.

It's generally a great kitchen except that it has no windows, which means two things: no sunlight, so I have to keep my basil plant in the living room; and no breeze so it will smell like salsa until I cook something even more pungent and the two smells mix together to create one unconquerable ultra smell and Tim and I are forced to sleep on the curb.










This is the more appealing side of the kitchen. Note that we have more storage space than anyone could ever need in a kitchen, which is good because we had no where to store our extra blankets. Guess which cabinet they're in and win a prize!









This side is less fun. Note, not a single dirty dish. My mom would appreciate the fact that the sink is actually at an appropriate height and wasn't built under the assumption that magical trolls would be maintaining the household, like our old house in Crawford was. Also, we have a functioning dishwasher.







This side of the kitchen does have one cool thing, which is a window into the living room. Here's a glimpse.












Look! Tim!











This is our hallway. Stay away from the closet doors if you don't want to be buried under an avalanche of... well... I'm not exactly sure anymore. I just know, by the grace of God, it all fits.

Also, the front door (with the RISD poster from my high school art room) is magnetic, which is highly dangerous. In this picture, the living room is to your immediate left, the kitchen is the second left, and the bathroom is on the right, which is where we're going next.











TA-DA. I like to stand in the shower and take pictures of the bathroom. Again, it's a pretty typical apartment bathroom.























It has a fair/good bathtub, with is grand/magnificent after having no bathtub at all. (My lobster is much happier) And...













Greatest of all, there's a combo washer dryer IN THE APARTMENT. You really can't beat that.



















So, next is the living room, which also doubles as my office. Tim's "office" is set up in the bedroom because, in theory, he will be studying while I will be downloading music, looking at college humor and writing on my blog--so I get the TV and stereo in my office and he gets the sound-blocking effect of all of our clothes.








The view from my desk...

















This can also be seen from my desk. Yes, we're that lazy. We've come to grips with it.




















That's Tim showcasing our $35 table (thanks Mikey) in what we like to call the "breakfast nook." Actually, I think I'm the only one who thinks of it as that but it is a nook, and one could eat breakfast there if one was thusly inclined.









And... a closeup of the nook, which has taken on the attitude of a jungle.















The only thing left is the bedroom, which actually doesn't have that much stuff in it. It does hold some interest though for those who were familiar with my tank of a bed and who wondered how I could possible turn it in to a queen size. Well, there it is. Tim look a little like he's hiding something naughty though. Like the drawers are full of stolen cookies. Which, I suppose, is for us to know and you to find out.





This is us, as you know, and our mirrored closet doors.















And this is the view of the highway that runs directly underneath our building, which I think is fairly cool, especially since I can't really hear it at all.

If our apartment was directly on the other side of the building, you could see the U.S. Capital building through this window.














And last, this is the worst grocery cart that ever was, in case you wondered. After repeatedly kicking it, I finally got it to collapse. On my foot. And yet, there it sits. Still.

I hope you'll come an visit us. Tim is at orientation right now and I'm working on getting the Best Job in the World. Tonight we're going to Mae's for Red Beans and Rice and LSU football. So life hasn't completely changed.

If you actually sat and read all that, I appreciate ya.

When lobsters play practical jokes...

Ok, that's just cool. Click on the lobster to read about its awesomeness.

Baby you can drive my cart...

So, Tim and I had our first grocery-trip-in-the-city experience yesterday. Normally, I wouldn't consider buying groceries anything worth blogging about, but honestly, buying groceries was on my top-five all time list of concerns about living in the city (along with: missing my family and friends, the fact that I don't like big cities, getting a job and getting into graduate school, and Tim finding a smarter girlfriend at GW).

We didn't bring the car to DC because it's simply outrageous how much parking costs and how difficult it is to get around. I'm the kind of person who likes to make GIGANTIC grocery trips. I absolutely LOVE grocery shopping. Grocery stores among of my favorite places on earth, besides the woods, any body of water, bookstores and my bed. I still grocery shop like I live in the sticks, where you make one trip "To Town" every few weeks and get everything you need, really load up.

You can imagine that the idea of stopping by the store every day or every few days really rains on my parade: going to the grocery store should be a grand event, not a daily chore.

So Tim and I have been trying to decide how to negotiate the grocery store trip. Do we get a Zipcar membership, which feels a little like chickening out? Do we give in and become one-bag-a-day shoppers? Do we order all our non-perishables on-line? Yesterday we settled on buying a grocery buggy... a little cart with wheels and a handle, which you can cart your stuff home in on the Metro and then fold up and store at home. (Mind you, the folding up bit is very important in a 1BR apartment that is already packed, I mean PACKED to the gills.)

We try out our first grocery store, a Safeway out in the Suburbs, two metro stops away from us. We walk through a tunnel absolutely inundated with urine, past a man who appears to be either sleeping or dead on the side of the road, up a 30% grade ramp to the parking lot of said grocery store. There, we get a cart which is not $12 but $28 (this we don't find out until it's been assembled for us). We pack it full of groceries and head back to the metro stop. Before we even get out of the store we realize our mistake. The wheels face rigidly forward, so the cart doesn't turn. The handle is too short by inches, so we both have to hunch over uncomfortably to control the thing. It's so low to the ground that you kick it as you walk. And perhaps worst, the front wheels are so small and narrow that they get stuck in any and all cracks, causing the rubber outer wheel to pop off as you ram the cart handle into your groin.

Miraculously, our case of beer made it home without a disaster. Our vegetables are somehow unbruised.

Essentially, there is little that could have been worse about the design of the thing. I'm nearly convinced that it was designed by the same folks who built the levees, or all those crumbling bridges and tunnels. So we are one option down, until we find a better buggy and a less terrifying grocery store.

I don't know how long it will take us to get accustomed to this place, this unfamiliar way of life. But I feel quite certain that a lot of trial-and-error will be involved. I feel like a bit of a weenie for admitting that having to hoof it everywhere for the simplest errand makes me tired just thinking about it, but we shall see. We shall see.

how high are a hundred boxes?

I have been a very negligent blogger, as you can see. I haven't forgotten though. There's more than enough news to fill at least five independent entries. The problem is that I desperately want to get my apartment unpacked and take pictures before I tell you all about it.

There's a trip home to Colorado, a terrible sunburn, a two day drive to the Capital City and a whole mess else to tell you about. I'm sorry I've been a bum, but I'll get there. I promise.

Got to keep the loonies on the path...

I'm not sure if it's the same everywhere, but looking for an Apartment in DC was ridiculous. Tim and I had to restructure our game plan once or twice a day (a discouraging amount of strategery in what we expected to be a fairly straight-forward process). In the end, we only filled out one application-to-rent because we only found one place that wasn't remarkably silly.

If all goes as planned, we'll be moving into Carmel Plaza apartments in mid-August. I'm so excited about being able to eat anything in the kitchen, wall-to-wall carpet and a view of the Capital Building. And about being 4 blocks from Chinatown, which means about 6 blocks from the National Portrait Gallery and a Chipotle, two things which Shreveport sorely lacks.

I think Tim and I may have been the only two people who didn't fly into the city to see parades and fireworks. But see parades we did. After seeing a New Orleans Parade and a Crawford Parade, nothing in the middle will ever really be as exciting. But someone in the Capital really knows how to put on a fireworks show.

I can't watch Fireworks without crying. I don't know what it is. Something about the sound and the power and the pure humanity of it. What other creature would go to such cost and risk just to see the stars explode on earth? I love it. (That's the Washington Monument in the middle of the picture--again, what other creature...)

In other news, I have a new cousin, which makes me officially 24 years older than the youngest of my 12 first cousins. I don't know how long it will be before I get to meet this new little girl since I don't see my uncle Miles much (I've never met his wife), but it's exciting nonetheless.

This is my favorite picture from DC. It's a truck from Pakistan, and the coolest vehicle I've ever seen. Be careful before you talk shit about Pakistan, is all I can say.