Short and Sweet

I'm supposed to be packing so I'll keep this brief.

• Tim and I are moving to our new apartment tomorrow. We're both so excited and a little bit nervous. Excited because the apartment is amazing. Nervous because everyone who was going to help us went out of town for Labor Day weekend except Saint Alsn, who can only help us until she has to go to work.
• I started graduate school on Monday. More precisely, I had orientation and registered on Monday, my classes started on Wednesday, and meanwhile I've been packing all week. I still haven't gotten any of my loan money from the school (learning to deal with the Georgetown Administration should qualify people for some kind of award), so there's been ZERO income on my part for weeeeeeeeeks. Pasta it is!
• The best, the best, the BEST news of all, the head of the Graduate Department asked me to come and see him yesterday because he had some good news... it turned out that the news was a full tuition scholarship for the full two years that I'm at Georgetown. He was so sort of funny and nonchalant about telling me (though he was obviously happy) that I'm not sure I reacted with the proper level of freaking out. My life actually CHANGED yesterday. This really and truly changes everything for years and years to come.
• Wheeeeeew. (That's the sound of a sigh of relief, in relation to the post above.)
• Our trip to Colorado was amazing and wonderful and I really, really, truly and absolutely do want to move home. But right now, now that I'm actually on the path I'm supposed to be on again, instead of just dumping my days into a job for no reason, I feel much better about being here and I hate the city a lot less.

1001 American Nights

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Mexico...Gettysburg...David'sWedding...Amber'sWedding...
CountryDinnerParty...WorkisCrazy...VisitedGeorgetown
OMansionTea...TWOWEEKSLEFT!

Saturday was the first day I got to sleep in in over a month. Even though Mexico technically counted as a vacation, there was no real sleeping in or zoning out because we were all together and we wanted to do so much fun stuff.

Every weekend for the past god-knows-how-long I've either flown or driven a minimum of four hours to be with everyone awesome, doing every awesome thing you can imagine. The only problem is that now I'm a more than a little flat broke and tired because I still had to go to work during all of that.

The next two weeks, in spite of being my last two weeks of work, when most people shut off their brains and stop caring, are going to be the busiest, most ridiculous weeks of work I've had in a long while. I'm in the middle of so many projects. Other than that it makes sense for my "real" life, I have no idea why I thought it was a good idea to quit right now. (Oh yeah, and I still need money, which is about to get messy.)

Instead of easing into grad school, I'm being shot from a cannon.

At 6:00 a.m. the day after I leave my job (Farewell!) I'm flying to Colorado for basically the rest of the month. Meanwhile Scarlett, aka Elsa, my Pie Elf, is being deported--ahem, is voluntarily departing the country--back to Cyprus. Which is more than a little depressing. When I get back Jana and I are just going to have to get massively drunk and hold some sort of ceremony.

The thought of being kicked out of America is literally so horrible to me that it makes me physically nauseous. I like to travel, ok, fine. But I can't imagine not being allowed in America. Sometimes I freak out a little because I love this country so much, and I'm more than a little upset that we're kicking Elsa out because of one little checkbox on one stinkin' tiny little form. Amazing.


Anyway, before I babble on and on, here are the greatest hits from this month. Enjoy.














Gettysburg! Charge!
This was the flag-bearer on our battleground walking tour. We were the North and at the end, we marched through a field against the South. When we met up in the middle all we did was yell at them and turn around and go back. Elsa and Alsn say, simultaneously, "Aw, I was ready to headbutt someone," and "I was ready to knucklepunch someone." Which is how I know my friends would be good in a fight, because I was satisfied with yelling and running away.


Oh yeah, there were also battles. And dudes laying on the battlegrounds watching the battles. Which is what I aspire to be.







The night before David's wedding, at about 1:00 a.m. Jason tricked me into walking a mile to Jack in the Box, which was closed inside, so we had to go through the drive through. The people in the car behind us clearly hated us (and I hated Jason for lying about Onion Rings) but the window lady liked that Jason tipped her.


Silly David, she needs her arms, don't pull them off!









The night AFTER David's wedding we all went bowling. I have lots of pictures of this, including one of Kristin scoring an 18, falling on the floor, and being Sad Panda, but I think this one is "Art."



I took 185 pictures at Amber and Jonny's wedding so not overloading you is a chore. Let me know if you're not and Facebook and you want to see the rest. Really, I think this one says it all.


And the piéce de résistance, after spending 3 out of four weekends with Jared, I feel like I earned this. This was my prize and the frosting on my cake:

Chicken dinner. This is before we put out the salad and after we ate all the jalapeno poppers. Recipes to follow... eventually. BTW, me, Elsa, and Jana made all this from scratch in my apartment WITHOUT AIRCONDITIONING. Tim kept us hydrated with beer and lots of water. Dan helped us eat and... wrote an essay for the Foreign Service?

Sunday, after finally getting to sleep in, Elsa too us to the O Mansion (O, Mansion!), where we had High Tea and explored the 100 rooms and tried on lots of ridiculous hats. The place has more bathrooms and books and autographed guitars and weird 80's paintings... IDK, and everything, absolutely everything is for sale.

Here is Jana looking smashing in a $100 hat.

And here are Elsa and Annie, Through the Looking Glass. Please don't take this lady away from me, Uncle Sam.

This playa is your playa

Having just returned from Mexico, I can positively say that I am a born again Mexican (which I'm pretty sure I knew all along). Kacie and I had been planning this trip since withing five minutes of meeting each other and we waited this long to go, so you'll have to wait just a few more days to hear all the dirty details. But here are the pictures. I hope you'll enjoy.

Meximole!

I'm going to post pictures and write more about Mexico later tonight, but for now, here is the Guacamole recipe that I tricked Kacie and Jana into making while we were in Mexico. It tasted a million times better because we were in Mexico, but this will have to do.

Guacamole!

3 Avocados
1 Tomato
1 Jalapeno
4-6 Garlic Cloves (depending on your tastes)
1/2 Onion or 1 Shallot (what I use at home)


Chop all of the above and put it in a bowl. You can chop it finely or in big chunks depending on what you like. Jana likes to put the Jalapeno seeds in because she is a CRAZY person, but I recommend cleaning them out of the Jalapeno.

Add the juice of 2 Limes

Seasonings:

1/2 tsp Salt (plus more to taste if needed)
1/4-1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/4-1/2 tsp paprika
1/4-1/2 tsp Cumin (and then some)
or just a big heaping Tablespoon of Tajin Crazy Mexican Seasoning if you have it.

Mash it all together until the avocados are the texture you like. Eat it.

Arrrrrrrrrrrrrriba!!!

Knock Knock Knock

For anyone who might not have heard: Tim got a PMF job at the State Department.

And I quote: "Graduate school is worth it!" I'm still not sure about that (God, it better be)... I think it might be partially due to what I like to call Tim's "Life Serendipity", wherein just about everything in Tim's life sort of magically falls into place. I'm not saying that Tim doesn't work very hard to get where he's going, he definitely does: I also just kind of suspect sometimes that if Tim sat on the couch eating peanut butter and nutella sandwiches all day long, someone from the State Department would eventually have knocked on the door and said, "we saw your pictures on Facebook. We need a tall, blond, blue-eyed, dashing Texan to sit on our payroll and reap our government benefits for two years while we give you language training and possibly send you to foreign countries. Also, you will get a discount on hotel rooms. We brought beer."

It probably just seems this way because I'm at work while Tim is tearing his hair out trying to make his life-long dreams a reality.

Nah.

Hunky Dory

Got my Georgetown award letter today... not quite as exciting as my Centenary award letter which was a pinnacle of bright shiny hopefulness compared to this one. But the overarching point is... award letter received. Received. I also got my Georgetown email address. Um, and some form asking if I have tuberculosis.

I have largely given up on Tulane, because they basically stopped communicating with me and although I know it's a two way street, and I want to live in New Orleans so terribly bad... I think that this is the best choice. I think. :)

I'm really glad that I got that letter today because today was fixin' to suck pretty bad. After a long, beautiful, three day weekend, it was a horrid rainy day and everyone at work was irritable, cranky, incredulous, and generally should have stayed in bed.

This weekend was awesome though... Saturday we went to Eastern Market and bought fresh veggies, pickles, lemon-aid, homemade pasta, bread, and a roasted chicken. The one thing I miss most about France, above all things, above all things, was going to the outdoor market and buying a fresh baguette and a roasted chicken every Sunday. This market doesn't put fresh roasted potatoes in the bag as well, but they also don't make pay in Euros, so you win some you lose some. I think Tim and I have decided this is going to be our new Saturday ritual.

Afterward we went to our friend Dan's house for the first time, where we learned that Dan has the hidden ability to play just about any 80's pop song on demand on his Casio key board. I love discovering that people have hidden talents, so that was basically amazing.

Sunday we went to a Nats game with Jana using free tickets we had earned picking up trash in the Anacostia river on Friday. Yes, I took off work on Friday to go out in a boat and pick up toxic crap out of the river and it was the best day I have had in months. It was a beautiful sunny day, I got to see baby birds and be outside and play in the (toxic) mud and help the planet and not be at my desk. Anyway, we went to the ball game and then out to old town Alexandria to a used book store that Dan recommended where I bought a billion more used books (which reeeeeeeally has to stop).

Monday, I finished Redwall. And did nothing else of any use to anyone. Huzzah!

nom nom graduate nom

Everything about this weekend was awesome. Well, all but about 20 minutes and 30 seconds of it, which I'll get to later--but yeah.

Tim's grandparent's were supposed to be the first to arrive in DC on Thursday for his two graduations--however, they were delayed for almost 10 hours in the Dallas airport. So Tim's parents were first to arrive (for the first time since they dropped us off almost 2 years ago!).

Thus the eating commenced.

Let me start by saying that Tim and I get to go out to eat once every 2-3 weeks, if that. And when we do go, we feel guilty. Because we're brokity broke broke broke. Also our "try a new place every time" thing dropped off a while ago because I think we pretty much exhausted everything in the one $ range, which in DC isn't many.

Anyway-Thursday we went with Tim's parents to this place called Vapiano which has delicious pizza, pasta and salads. I had: pizza with olives, artichokes and ham

Friday morning I met Tim's parents and his poor grandparents, who hadn't made it to their hotel until 1:00 in the morning, at the Smith Center on GW's campus for Tim's FIRST graduation, which was solely for the Elliot School of International Affairs, and was the graduation where Tim actually walked. All the graduates got special gold medallions instead of diplomas--I suppose since they didn't really graduate until Sunday? I don't know I've never seen that before. It was pretty much your typical graduation: about four boring speakers, one good speaker, and the WORST wranglers ever. The grad students were wandering all over the place because their handler may or may not have been able to count to ten. Tim's mom and I could have done much better if we had a laser pointer.

Lunch: Bus Boys and Poets, I had: blue corn nachos, bread pudding. (yes, I know I punctuated that sentence poorly.)

2.5 hour nap.

Dinner: Cafe Berlin, fantastic little german restaurant. I had: rahm schnitzel, in honor of Rahm Emanuel-who would speak at the Sunday Graduation, and Bailey's cake

After dinner was 30 seconds that sucked, when Tim's Nana stepped in a hole a fell. She hit her lip on the curb and for about 30 seconds there was that moment I think when everyone was scared that she was really, really hurt. But Nana just popped right up. She had a split lip, but she's tough. I'm 100% that if it was me I would have cried.

Saturday morning we picked up Carly from the airport and went straight to Eastern Market where I ate market pickles and some of Tim's nutella crepe.

Lunch: Tunnicliff's. I had eggs benedict even though I wasn't remotely hungry.

Dinner: Chef Geoff's. OMGOMGOMG. I really think this is my favorite restaurant in DC. I had sangria, Scallops with asparagus and mushroom risotto, and lemon and blueberry bread pudding (again--but I should have had the mousse cake).

Sunday was the graduation for the whole graduate school, which was outside on the National Mall. In the rain. And the mud. Really, it wasn't so bad. The 20 minutes that sucked came after 20 previous minutes of standing up for the procession of graduates, where no one could see anything and it was rather exhausting and boring. Blah blah blah go out and do good blah blah, Rahm Emanuel blah blah, congratulations you are now graduates of The George Washington University!

Lunch: Fado's (my other favorite restaurant--Jared, you've been there). I had chicken pot pie and a hoegaarden. Keep the dessert AWAY FROM ME.

2 hour nap

Dinner: Greevy's. I had a reuben with blue cheese instead of thousand island.

And that was the end of that. Unfortunately. I'm so glad they came to visit. And that Tim finally graduated. But it doesn't even feel like "finally" really because it doesn't feel like it's been two years already, maybe because while he's had semesters and breaks and change, I've just had the same job day in and day out. Basically, last weekend set the bar pretty high for the next people who come to visit.