not my best day...

I've had a busy couple of weeks, which precluded me from updating regularly - there were baseball and soccer games, dinners with aunts, parents, friends, and co-workers, family bbqs, work-related bbqs, an 80s concert that left me with stories to tell, and a day off from work spent wandering the zoo and city with a friend from Boston. It's been tiring, but oh so much fun!

Today, however, I'm just tired. I can't find my Metro pass, despite my new jacket I didn't feel cute today, work wasn't especially productive, a headache caught up with me as I got on the Metro, and by the time I got off the Metro it was raining and I had no umbrella. So rather than sit down and blog about all the fun I've had lately, I got into comfy pants, shed a few tears, and lost myself in a book for the evening. You'll have to wait for all the stories. In the meantime, however, I finally got a digital camera, and so I took the following picture of my comfort tonight:

jam-packed fun

Just a quick word - my weekend is crazy, so I won't be posting. Last night I took Daddo to the Washington Nationals game (it was his birthday!) and we watched some sloppy baseball in a great new ballpark - it was good fun! And I wasn't the only person there wearing a Red Sox cap, so there.

I'm about to run off to the zoo for some hours, and then I get to hop the Metro and head to the outer reaches, a.k.a. Northern VA. There's a family bbq this afternoon, and mom's making cherry pie - totally worth the Metro trip! An 80s cover band show tonight with some folks from work, and a send-off bbq tomorrow, and I'm tired just thinking about it! But it should be fun, and I'll be back home tomorrow with stories to tell, I'm sure...

PS - Meredith took Dumpster to his first baseball game this week - he loved it!! If only she'd remembered that box they call a camera!

rising prices

So a discussion of rising gas prices prompted me to do a quick look at my proposed August trip. I'm headed to a meeting in San Francisco, and decided to take the week after the trip off and spend some time in Boston - actually, half a week on Block Island with JanemyJane and Neeners, and half a week in Boston. I'm already in countdown mode! But back to flights... I typed in Dulles to San Fran to Boston and back to Dulles... wowsers! The cost made me gulp. So I thought, "let's check the cost of the work trip - the roundtrip to San Fran for which I will be reimbursed..." Turns out, the cost of going to San Fran and back to DC is MORE expensive than going to Boston on the way back - I'm SAVING the government (and therefore the taxpayer) money by going on vacation! Yay, me! This calls for a Tavern night when I'm in town - or as I like to say, economy stimulus!

As an aside, I checked with my office mate, and we estimate that the cost of gas (at the pump) has gone up about 30% in the past six months - airfares, from my admittedly small sample of one, have gone up 65%. And that's before you pay the fee for checked luggage.

viewing the neighbors...

I was sitting at the computer this evening (answering email questions to a potential) when I heard the most awful howling. My usual kittay calls weren't working, so I followed the sounds and wandered into the bedroom. There she was in the window (a recent storm has resulted in open window weather) watching a neighbor. By the time I got there she was trying to decide whether she was howling or hissing, and for a little cat that's a tough dilemma, and all I could see was long hair being tossed in the blow of a hairdryer. Oh, but that cat was worked up - her tail was a furrball and he hissed! I had to shut the window and blinds to calm her down. She's a funny girl, that cat.

In other news, Christopher is moving to an apartment of his own, and it's closer to me! He's just on the other side of the park, and I'm already planning breakfast picnics!

an institution is gone.

Over the past five years two men have become fixtures in my life: Charles Osgood and Tim Russert. My Sunday mornings revolved around the New York Times, a cup of coffee, and CBS Sunday Morning followed by Meet the Press. The introduction of cable into my home brought with it Keith Olbermann, Jon Stewart, and Stephen Colbert, but Charles and Tim were there first, and I never changed my Sunday routine. Rather, I would DVR Charles and Tim, so that when Christopher came over for brunch I could go back later and make sure I hadn't missed anything. So it was truly unbelievable to me to hear on Friday of Tim Russert's death. I still find it hard to think that he wont be sitting at the table on Sunday morning. Lots of people are paying tribute to him across the country, and it's impressive to see how many lives he touched. The story that occurred to me this weekend was truly blog-worthy, but somehow missed documentation (I went back and looked) - some might say it's not a fitting tale to tell at this moment, but I don't agree. One of the best first dates I've ever been on ended with watching Meet the Press on Sunday morning. It was back in Boston, and I'd met a boy who loved music, was intelligent, and, as it turned out, kept up with current events. We were at an amazing show - a new band for both of us, I'd heard good things and impressed the hell out of him - and were talking at one point about a recent development in the news. Boy said, "last week Tim Russert interviewed..." and I was gone. Good taste in live music, an interesting, thought-provoking job, and a fan of Tim's?? I'd thought it was too much to ask. We spent the next morning doing exactly what I always did on Sunday morning, and it was fantastic - he had me more excited than any boy in a long time - or since, for that matter. My folks knew I'd been out the night before and called to see how it went; when I didn't answer my phone during Sunday Morning they guessed the state of things. I talked to them later, and all Daddo said was, "Who ever heard of Tim Russert as a pick-up line?" Unfortunately, a month later boy wanted to pursue other things (girls), but at the time, it was wonderful.

nothing special.

I’ve mentally written a couple of posts in the past week, but never sat down and actually typed them in. This kind of defeats the purpose of the blog, and is a useless exercise, but there you go. Nothing very interesting, just some random thoughts I had about recent articles written about bloggers and their lives. It may turn into a post down the line - you might find you'd rather I'd sat down and written that instead of this - my week has been pretty quiet, which makes for boring reading.

I wasn’t on the computer much over the weekend, because my little machine gets quite warm as it chugs along, and it was too hot to hold a warm computer in my lap. And I had the a/c going, too, but even at top speed those machines could only get my apartment down to about 82 degrees – better than the 100+ it felt like outside, but too warm for me, anyway. It wasn’t a very exciting weekend, and the heat was a big reason for that. I managed to explore the new Harris Teeter in my neighborhood (yay!) and make it home in one sweaty piece, and did a lot of house cleaning. I was in post-housecleaning grossness and eating a salad when Jared and Claudia called to see if I wanted to go see Indiana Jones in an air-conditioned theater. The only problem with that plan is that it involved going outside to get to the air conditioning. But the kicker was that I had resorted to short-hair pigtails as I cleaned, with all of the bobby pins and elastics that were required. There wasn’t time to shower and bring my hair back into an outside, real-world sort of presentability – and I’m never very presentable in the first place. So I shamefully stayed home with the a/c and cold beer. Next time, guys! Christopher made me leave the house again for breakfast on Sunday morning. What. A. Jerk. By the time I made it home I was so hot and exhausted (yes, just from walking – it was 3 miles in the heat!). So the rest of my weekend was a whole lot of nothing. But the good news is that I got some housework done, found a better grocery store (& it’s closer, too), and created a wind tunnel of cool air in the apartment. So a good weekend all around, in a homebody, productive and restful sort of way.

And yes, I spent some time on the online boy hunt, but nothing truly blog-worthy yet. I shot an email to Mr. Eyes over the weekend, and heard back from him early this week – he’s been busy, will be busy with work, and out of town, and so on, but wants to keep me on the line, apparently. So fine, there are some other boys coming on deck, but I think I'll wait to write about any until we meet up.

My shi-shi bourgeois shoes got soaked today!

Recently I bought a new pair of shoes that I love inordinately. They weren't ridiculously expensive - only slightly humorously expensive. But they are both adorable and comfortable, so I love them. I've been avoiding wearing them on potentially rainy days, however, because I didn't think they would stand up well to moisture. I got caught in the rain on my way home tonight. It serves me right for loving something so silly.

I met Mr. Eyes for coffee tonight. There was a mix-up as to which coffee shop we were meeting at, so we ended up on the phone at different sides of Dupont, and met in the middle to sit by the fountain with our coffee. He's not an idiot, or socially awkward. His eyes are nice in person. He's got a cute butt. He's originally from India, but has been in the States for over a decade; he's got a nice accent. He's a good, but unimaginative kisser. There's a second date in the works.

Was it worth wet feet? I'll keep you posted...

Jane sent me this today, and I love it!

general mayhem.

So we've got a couple of big presentations coming up at work, my weekend involved volunteering at the zoo twice, going to a 13 inning baseball game (GO SOX!), lunch and shopping with the folks, wrestling two air conditioners into windows, melting a coffeepot, and a bad date with a boy.

After much discussion with some folks at work, I'm giving e-harmony a try - yes, it's started by a religious zealot, and they won't match homosexuals, which bothers me. There are a couple of things I like about it. The big one is that they do all the work, there's no searching through tens/hundreds/thousands of profiles - they send matches every day who are (according to them) compatible. Having gone through the questionaire involved in joining, I'll say that they asked some good questions, which would come to bear on mutual... I don't know that values is the right word, but lifestyle choices? Anyway, the "guided communication" is a lot more involved than other sites, but it is interesting. The other thing I like about it is that there seem to be a lot more people on the site - I've found that different sites are better in different geographic areas. I know the folks aren't thrilled with this as a way of meeting people, but I don't come in contact with a lot of eligible guys in the day to day.

So there was Good-on-Paper, who I'll just call Paper, who's emails were articulate, well thought out, and while not funny, were interesting. Paper looked cute, in a dorky way, and it seemed promising, especially when he suggested we get together at an art exhibit. The man carried a tote bag. He took the elevator down one flight of stairs, twice. When I suggested we take the stairs he said, "If the elevator doesn't come soon, there aren't many people here." Not the point, buddy. Not. The. Point. So there we are in the exhibit, and he expresses a wish for more "scientific" art. We round a corner and come across a series of geometric prints - "not patterns," Paper says, "science." I don't know what that means. Finally, we get to the part of the exhibit where the Peeps dioramas are - the dioramas that were in the Washington Post around Easter - complete with Reservoir Peeps, and the soundtrack playing in the background! Little Green Bag!! That was my favorite Peep diorama, naturally, something about a marshmellow bunny with an ear cut off is just hilarious. So there I am smiling at murderous Peeps, when Paper says, "um, yeah, I don't like this art." That was the longest sentence he said that wasn't a complaint about DC not being as good as San Francisco. The rest was monosyllabic answers followed by silence. Awkward silence. Luckily I'd shown up late due to forgotten Metro repairs, and he had to go meet up with friends, so we weren't there that long - I kind of want that 40 minutes back.

Tomorrow night I'm meeting another guy, who's answers were more terse, but who I've actually spoken with briefly on the phone and seems capable of full sentence responses. I call him Mr. Eyes, because in one of his photos his eyes are quite piercing. I'll keep you posted.

Others? There are a few, but none that have yet earn monikers. I'm debating with myself as to whether an affinity for Dan Brown is a justification for not communicating with a boy - it sure feels like it. Seriously? Those books are horrible!!

Then there's the guy who I was trying to be open minded about as we went through the form questions, his responses were lackluster, but it also seemed that English was his second language, and that would make this a tougher forum. However, tonight he sent me an email and got my name wrong. He wrote an email to "Alexi." I don't know who that is, but it is not me. And yes, it's close, but it's not my name; I am nothing that ends in "i" or any such nonsense. If you can't be bothered to check the spelling on a girl's name, then you deserve to be single. I'm trying to decide if it's mean to send him an email saying, "dude, you spelled my name wrong" before I close the match - and even if it's mean, I'm tempted to do it, anyway.

So if nothing else, there's some promising material for funny stories in the near future.