the busiest three weeks ever: part one, New York.

Some time around the beginning of May we officially found out that Tim got the transfer that he requested to San Francisco. It was less than a month's notice. But instead of freaking out over the never ending cross-country move to-do list, I decided to just skip town. Where to? My favorite city in the country: New York City!

Jimmy (my brother), who you may remember is traveling with Cirque Du Soleil's Ovo tour, is living there at the moment. Regardless of the planning, and packing, and re-packing, and moving, I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to take advantage of a free place to stay in the Big Apple.

And so began part one of the busiest three weeks ever. Here are a few highlights from the too-brief trip to NY.

Jimmy's Apartment! - is on the 30th floor of an apartment complex on the Upper East Side. I walked in to this view:


Cirque Du Soleil - Ovo!!! - I got to see the circus :) And not only did I get to see the circus but I got to see the circus for free. And not only was it free but I sat in arguably the best seat in the house: front row, a little right of center. Apparently Jimmy has made some friends along the way and when he saw what seat the box office had assigned me, even his jaw hit the floor.

I don't know how to adequately do the show justice in a description of it, but lets just say that it was kind of FANTASTIC. You can check out Ovo's official website here. I've seen Cirque twice now, and I was still floored by the talent and general bendy-ness of the performers. Go see it!


Ovo's one year tour anniversary party!! - Now this was an unexpected treat. Jimmy told me early on that all the Cirque employees, performers included were attending the one year tour anniversary party for the show, so I'd be spending that evening solo, and honestly I was just fine with that. But, him and his housemates came home that night with an invite for me too! It was a 1920's flapper themed party, so I did my best. Borrowed a dress from one of his housemates, and spent the night partying at a rooftop bar in Manhattan (with a ridiculously upclose view of the Empire State Building), with a bunch of Circus performers, enjoying an open bar - ie. never ending champagne, and a crazy 1980's dance troup for entertainment. I went to sleep that night at 4am. Here is a photo of Jimmy and I before the party:


The Metropolitan Museum of Art, also known as "my favorite place in New York City"!! - I go to the MET every time that I go to the City. I know where all of my favorite rooms are and where to find all of my favorite pieces. I decided to take pics of all my favorites and, Following is a brief tour of all the things I would show you if I ever took you to the MET.

My favorite vase:

My favorite 18th century Venetian room, and also the thing that I look most forward to seeing when I visit. Strangely enough, I've observed other MET visitors walking right by this room without even giving it a second glance, which leads me to believe two things: one, that I am the only person in the world that thinks this is the most fantastic bedroom ever, and two, that I should have been born in 18th century Italy.

My favorite sitting room from 19th century Europe:

My favorite stained glass window:

My favorite sculpture - Diana:


My favorite chair, and believe me, the MET is full of pretty chairs:


And finally, my favorite pieces of art - Seurat, van Gogh, and Monet (in that order):



Central Park!! - Where I love wandering.


And there you have it. My waaay too brief trip to New York city. I left out photo's of people watching on the steps of the TKTS booth in Time Square, and the trip to Junior's for Cheesecake, but I'm sure you can imagine just how good that was. So good in fact, that I couldn't eat the entire piece, and I enjoyed the remainder of it for breakfast the next day :)

Soon to come, the blog all about the trip to visit Tim's family, because you know, when you're moving across the country who needs to plan or pack? Traveling and putting things off is way more fun :) Stay tuned...but it may take a while to get that one up. They're turning off the internet in the morning, and then the movers are coming, so you may have to wait till we get to San Fran for a description of all the wonders of Small Town Missouri...

it's a baby in a basket.

I have a box of old family photos.
This has to be my favorite one of them all.

It's my dad at 14 1/2 months. My grandmother, in true motherly fashion, has penned his age on the back in precisely scripted blue ink. I like that it's not your typical childhood photo. He's not tearing into glittery Christmas wrapping, or blowing out birthday candles, there's no laugh caught mid grin.

I think that this is when dad started to figure out what the world was all about.

I imagine my grandfather kneeling on the freshly mowed lawn in order to frame the image just right. It is a picture worthy moment...my father on the verge of tears over the unfairness of being placed inside a wicker laundry basket alongside, what I imagine to be his fathers drawers and handkerchiefs recently pulled from the line. Who knows, maybe this was my grandmother's solution for a not-yet invented playpen, it was 1943 after all.

I imagine that moments after the click of the shutter my grandfather rose from his crouched position, brushed grass clippings from his knee, and rescued my father from the stack of laundry, perhaps giving him a soothing rub on the back. At that point I see my grandmother retrieving the basket, smoothing her apron before bending to the ground to pick i t up, and they all return to the kitchen for lunch, or maybe an early afternoon nap.

This is all just conjecture though. All I really know is what I can see in this photo, and one thing is clear. This may have been the moment that Dad realized that sometimes it doesn't matter what you want, sometimes you just end up somewhere you don't want to be, like in a pile next to your father's underwear. :)

This is one of the reasons why I love photos. They capture important moments, for sure. But, sometimes you get lucky and you catch a moment that doesn't become important until much later :)

spring!

These were taken in the backyard of our apartment complex, not, as you may have thought, at the National Cherry Blossom Festival. I did go down to the festival this year, but believe it or not I got better shots of the trees in the backyard. Go figure.

And because it's becoming kind of a tradition to include an Oliver update, here you go: Tim is making a cameo appearance (playing wii of course), and yes, this really is how Oliver "sits" on the couch.




Happy Spring!!

today is brought to you by the letter "R"...for "resign"

Last Wednesday my boss had a team meeting. Oh, how I love the team meetings. She's been on an inspirational quote kick lately, and during our meeting she handed out a photocopy of her latest favorite:

"An Integrity Test: Here's an integrity test for anyone who's part of an organization: Does what we say about our organization while we're at work match what we say at home? If it's positive at work and negative a few hours later at home, we have a choice to make. Here's an idea we should all consider: Believe or leave. Sound harsh? Maybe. But if the organization is no longer a vehicle to help us reach our life goals, why would we stay?"

Now, she handed this out intending it to be a pat on our backs that we are so committed to our positions, and that thankfully she doesn't have employees that have to ask themselves this question.

Seriously?

I called in sick the next day, and the day after, and then walked back in the office on Monday and quit.

I mean, I was miserable at that job, though apparently I did a really really good job of hiding how much I loathed it. Otherwise, I can't imagine that my boss ever would have thought that handing me a permission slip to resign would have been a good idea.

Now, thankfully, she took it really well. And even though I wasn't looking forward to being unemployed, I was prepared for it. But, it doesn't even look like that is going to last very long. The same day I quit I had an interview with Starbucks (can you tell that I needed something pointless?, plus who can deny that knowing how to make a decent cappuccino could be useful?). They hired me. But now I get to call and decline that too, because I got hired by a temp agency in DC...which will be fine until June or so. Why June? We've got big plans in June, but I'm superstitious, and nothing's confirmed yet, so I'm not telling.

:) Cheers to quitting stupid jobs.

"Snowmagedon"...the sequel to December's wildly unpopular "Snowpocalypse"

And, here we go again. Because, you know, the twenty inches that we got in December, followed by the two other snow storms that we just got, clearly wasn't enough. Nope, we're always out to outdo ourselves. Bigger and better is the name of the game here in the nation's capitol. This time we closed the Federal Government, declared states of emergency, kept all the kids home from school, and canceled all the flights, and that was before it started snowing....and snowing...and snowing....

When all is said and done we could have almost thirty inches, making total snowfall so far this winter close to sixty inches, and winter's not even done yet. If only that damn groundhog hadn't seen his shadow.

The grocery stores look like a tornado has hit them. Not a single banana left on the shelf. No pasta. No franks and beans. The only thing worse than standing in lines, I imagine, is being the checker behind the counter ringing the carts. You're stalked in the parking lot for coveted parking spaces and shopping carts.

Home Depot sold out of shovels on Thursday (we checked).

Business closed at noon, which just moved rush hour up by five hours. No seats on the metro, no calm on the streets. And, everyone is just waiting, waiting, waiting, for more snow since we've seen since 1922 (or so the news says).

So, I'm sure we'll wake up tomorrow, hopefully with electricity in tact, to the blinding silence of a city blanketed in white. We'll enjoy it for a few hours. We might build a snow man, snap a few photos, catch a few flakes on our tongues. Then it will sink in...

Now we have to dig out.

when all else fails, just blog about the cat.

not feeling particularly blog inspired lately, but I do know some of you out there who did always enjoy the Oliver anecdotes, so here you go :)


Every morning Oliver wakes up, meanders out to the living room, eats, uses his box, and settles down in the same spot on the floor to stare up at the wall, as you can see evidence of in the photo to the left. What on earth is so intriguing about the wall? Well, I wondered the same thing the first time I noticed him doing this and thus found myself staring at both the cat and the wall...for half an hour. He just sat there, waiting. For, as it turns out...the sun. Yep, the cat stares at the wall, every morning, and waits patiently for sun to make it's way down to him. It's quite cute actually, especially when you consider that the poor thing hasn't yet figured out that he could have already been blissfully basking in the light if only he jumped up on the couch. Again, never claimed he was the smartest, but he sure is good for a laugh. And, right now as I type this, Oliver has decided to express his objections to my giving of attention to my computer, and not him. I had actually mistyped the previous sentence three different times because of the fact that I am now reaching around and over a cat that has settled right on top of my chest as I lay here on the couch, and is proceeding to lick my face. Oh, and did I mention that when he jumped up here he brought his ball of yarn with him. Again, not the smartest, but he sure does know how to get what he wants. And with that, I'm off to go play fetch with my cat...errr, i mean dog...oh no wait, he really is a cat...i think.

stop the presses! it's official...the world has ended because the office is out of fax toner!!

Lets just say that there was a toner "incident" at the office today. I call it an "incident" when what I really mean is "fiasco of ginormous proportions."

Please watch the following scene from one of my favorite episodes of Friends. It will properly prepare you for the silliness of this morning's office antics.



Ok, so hopefully you found that amusing. I had this scene running through my head the entire morning I spent dealing with what will forever be known (at least to me) as "The Day Without Toner."

I walked in this morning and the fax machine was blinking red. Red is never a good sign when it comes to office electronics. It either means that some minuscule shred of paper has lodged itself inside some well hidden yet crucial piece of machinery and caused a jam which will take you all day to un-jam, or it means that you are out of toner and hopefully are not wearing white because you will inevitably end up covered in black dust. It ended up being the latter.

Initially this was not a big deal, as this was an obstacle that I had foreseen back in April when I ordered a spare toner cartridge anticipating this exact scenario. Now, what did not occur to me at the time is that the wrong toner cartridge would be delivered, so that seven months later when I actually needed it, it would render itself full of toner, but absolutely useless to me.

Next up...break the news to the rest of the office. Considering the level of panic that ensued, one would have thought that I had said a tornado was headed straight for us. Now to their credit, a good portion of day to day business is conducted via this fax machine, so I do understand (kind of) the concern. However, I still saw this as a manageable problem. Just walk up the street to the local Staples and buy a toner cartridge, and get reimbursed for it.

Now that would have been a reasonably good plan, but I forgot that I live in a recurring episode of "The Office", so naturally there wasn't a single Staples or Office Depot in the Metro DC area that actually sold a compatible cartridge for our fax machine.

On to plan two, order some and have it shipped over night...oh wait, they can't ship it overnight. Awesome, the earliest it can be delivered is Thursday. That won't work.

Sit back, take a deep breath, tune out the rising levels of panic surrounding you in the office...think, think...Wait! Is it possible that there is another office that uses the same fax machine (unlikely, but worth looking into), and may actually have a spare cartridge??? Yes! Success, there is a spare toner cartridge waiting for us up at one of our sister offices.

I break the news, and you know what reaction I get? Now that the office realizes that toner is within sight the conversation turns to complaining about actually haveing to go get the toner. Well, if it's not important enough to go get it, then why the heck did you watch me spend an hour and a half trying to find it??? I think that tomorrow I'm going to get to the office early so that I can exact my revenge...perhaps I'll purposely jam the copy machine...

a little dose of christmas cheer from...

...non other than the President of the United States.

Tim surprised me yesterday with the possibility of a ticket to the National Christmas Tree Lighting. I guess that since the Park Police were working the event that tickets were available to their friends and family, so he got me one this morning. Thankfully, convincing my boss to let me leave work two hours early to attend wasn't difficult at all.

Here's Tim at work:

Now, what I didn't plan for was the weather. It was almost 60 degrees today, so it didn't occur to me that it would dip to 40 degrees once the sun set. Needless to say that earmuffs, and a heavier jacket, and maybe even some fleece socks would have certainly been nice. At one point I thought about tackling one of the volunteers that were walking around handing out hand warmers (apparently they were just for the important people). It was coooooold, and even now that I'm home, and comfy, I still don't think my toes have thawed.

Now to the seats. I had fantastic seats! I had a "white" ticket, which put me in the reserved seated section in the 12th row. Twelve rows back from the stage, directly in front of the box the president and his family were sitting in. How cool is that?

Randy Jackson hosted the evening, with performances by Jordan Sparks (of American Idol fame), Sheryl Crow, Ray Lamontagne, Common, Celtic Women, and some local school quires. The Marine Corps Band accompanied.

Here's a picture of Sheryl Crow:

Speaking of Ray Lamontagne, Tim and I really like his music and neither of us knew he would be there. Tim, however, had never actually seen what he looked like. Apparently while Tim was on duty, Ray was standing right next to him the whole time prior to performing and Tim didn't even realize it. In fact, he didn't realize who it was until they announced him and Ray walked up on stage. Needless to say, Tim's a little disappointed about not getting to say "Hey, Ray." I think that's kinda funny.

And lastly...here's the tree :)



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And in other non-news, for those of you missing your Oliver updates...here's proof that he's still doing nothing and getting lazier by the day :)

oregonians rock

Today was "team spirit" day at work, so we got to wear gear from our favorite sports teams to the office. Naturally I'm wearing my well worn Oregon Ducks shirt. Now, I've run into the following scenerio a few different times while out here on the east coast, but it wasn't until this morning that I realized what has been stricking me as odd about these encounters. I was walking out of the Metro, and a middleaged guy stopped me and exclaimed "Are you from Oregon?!" with a big grin on his face. I responded that yes, I was from Oregon. He went on to explain that anytime he sees something that indicates a person is from Oregon that he has to stop and say something since there are so few of us out here. And then he immediately launched into an explination as to exactly why he was out here in DC. The funny thing is that I did exactly the same thing.

I realized that what it came down to is that we both felt the need to explain and rationalize to eachother why on earth we ever left Oregon. Because, if it wasn't for a job or a relationship or something else of equal importance, why would anyone ever choose to leave? I thought the whole interaction was funny, and kind of refreshing....that Oregonians, even on the other side of the country, are still proud to be Oregonians.

my gym membership cost what??

It's been a little while since I've gone off on one of my rants, but it's also been a little while since I've felt energized enough to undertake the task. Tonight's agenda is much like most of DC's and the rest of the Nation's, as the President's speech to congress regarding health care was/is, in my opinion, justifiably the focus of the moment.

And though many of us have done our due diligence by voicing our opinions publicly, and giving the President an imaginary pat on the back for not putting off what has been put off for much too long, I still will argue that we aren't all asking the right questions. Tonight, we heard what the plan actually is and we heard what the plan is not. We got deserved slaps on our wrists for partisan bickering, and we got deserved pats on the back for compromise and an awareness of our shared "American character" . We were told that we shouldn't go broke because we get sick, and we were told that we shouldn't die because we can't afford health care. I don't disagree with any of this mission, but what I want to know is this: When did "health care" become more about fixing you when your sick than preventing you from actually getting that way?

I want to know why my gym membership isn't reimbursable through my health insurance. I know that I would go to the gym more if it was. How about you? We already have optional health flex spending accounts where we get reimbursed for buying toothpaste and pain killers, why not the gym?

I want to know why ALL medicine isn't considered "preventative." Why is an annual physical, yearly shots, and cancer screenings considered more important than trips to a nutritionist, and acupuncturist, or a psychiatrist. Yes, everyone needs to get their blood pressure checked, and no one should have to get the measles or the mumps, and certainly no one should end up with cancer if it can be avoided. But, does that make the other "specialties" any more or less legitimate in regard to preventative care? I would say that I consider mental stability and nutritional awareness to be as highly beneficial to healthful living as is knowing that my cholesterol is right where it should be and I'm up to date with my flu shots. But, how many of you actually have a nutritionist? I don't. And, it's a shame that these specialties are often considered desert, if you will; nice if you can afford it, but expendable if you can't.

There isn't any part of health care that should be considered expendable. And there isn't any part of the "American charecter" that should sit back and be OK with the fact that the practice of medicine and insuring it has become a reactionary indurstry.

We are continually reminded that we are a nation of doers. But we forget that we can just as easily fall in to complacency. I'm glad the President reminded us of this tonight, and I am equally hopeful that even though a plan has been presented, that we aren't done asking all the questions.