weekend trip north

This weekend I went with my friend Tess to Washington, DC and the Northern Virginia area. It was great fun. We stayed with my (great) Uncle Richard in Leesburg. He recently moved into the penthouse of a big fancy condo in a big fancy condo complex for 55+ers. It's okay to laugh when you hear that the place is called Leisure World.

Friday we saw the changing of the guards at Arlington Cemetery, visited the National Portrait Gallery, ate lunch at the Chinese place in Chinatown with the guy making noodles, and visited the National Museum of African Art. Then Uncle Richard took us to dinner at Clyde's in Leesburg.

Leesburg, it turns out, is closer to West Virginia than it is to DC. So Saturday we drove to Harpers Ferry. I really liked it there. There was history (+1) and mountains (+1) and wineries to visit on the way back (+1). Saturday night we went to Adams Morgan in DC, which is a strip with tons of fun bars and restaurants. I think Uncle Richard didn't know what to do with two twenty-four-year-old girls at Leisure World running around at 9pm trying to get ready for a night on the town.

Sunday we slept in and then went to brunch with Uncle Richard at an old bank. Then Tess and I went to Georgetown to walk around and shop before hitting the road again for Richmond. I also introduced Tess to the world of Ikea on the way home.

Overall it was a pretty excellent weekend. We saw museums and sights in DC, mountains and history in West Virginia, a beautiful winery, and DC nightlife and shopping. And seriously, how could a weekend that involved taking this picture not be awesome?

tagged: 8 habits or facts

1. I still drink Carnation Instant Breakfast most mornings for breakfast. In fact, I'm running out...

2. If I write in a book that I'm reading for school (and those are the only sorts of books I write in) I do it in pencil because I think it keeps the page a little cleaner looking and also because I am always self-conscious about what other people will think about what I've underlined if I ever sell the book or lend it to someone, and I imagine that I can always just erase everything, though to this day I have never actually gone through and erased any of the pencil markings.

3. I make my bed every day, even when I live alone in my Raleigh apartment. Every day. Mostly this is habit, because my Dad always forced us to as kids and because my grandparents will give me a hard time if I don't, but I also feel like it makes the bed seem more fresh when I get back in at night, even if I haven't washed the sheets in two months.

4. When eating M&Ms or Skittles I like to have an even amount of colors in my hand, so I will eat the extras until they're even, and then eat those evenly, usually three at a time.

5. Since I have been getting up early every morning to take Danny on a walk (so he'll poop somewhere other than the yard) and to water, I have been in the habit of cheerfully telling myself once I'm out of bed to "Greet the Day!" And sure enough, it helps cheer the morning up. Coffee helps, too.

6. My love of crossword puzzles has put my grandparents into the habit of always leaving the Flair section of the newspaper (aka "Andi's section") out in the living room for me, even when they've already thrown the rest of the paper out. Also, when I am in Raleigh for school but they know I am driving up to visit for the weekend they save me the crossword, and that makes me happy.

7. When I go to Taco Bell, which I mostly do in Santa Fe but occasionally do in Raleigh, I usually get a bean burrito and a soft taco supreme.

8. My face often has a habit of giving away whatever I'm thinking without my noticing. This usually simply amuses people, because I have been known to make some funny faces unconsciously.

At least the running warmed me up.

Those of you in the area already know that today was unseasonably not as warm as usual. And a few posts ago I told you that they keep the building freezing at my internship, so I use a lunch-time walk in the heat to warm up. But without heat today, I stayed cold outside even though it's July and I was wearing a long-sleeved shirt. In fact, I looked down while eating my sandwich and noticed that my fingers were white and my nails were purple with cold-ness.

As I continued to walk down the nice tree lined street in the Fan and contemplate my freezing fingers, a whooshing flurry flew precariously close to my head. "Goodness!" I thought, "that bird scared me." And then the bird scolded me and I looked up in a tree to see its beady little bird eyes staring directly at me. Before I could even comprehend the creepiness of the ogling bird it took off from the branch and headed straight for my head. I jumped and hurried off down the sidewalk, but the whooshing bird came at my head again. No joke, the bird was stalking me. I had visions of bird poop in my hair and my eyes being pecked out, and when the bird kept flying from tree to tree and aiming at my head I freaked out and ran down the street to get away. Seriously. I ran. With my open Coke.

Weekend Review

Friday: Man, I can never remember my Fridays...oh yeah: slept in a little, made rolls, went to the store, ate Grandma's meatloaf with my rolls, took a nap, went to a bookstore, and went to Sam's for Allison's going away party.

Saturday: Ran, went to lunch, took a nap, puttered, went to a coffee shop to research for thesis.

Sunday: Up early, worked on crossword puzzles, made pasta with shrimp and tomato sauce, took ten-year-old cousin to spend gift card at the Limited Too and endured her singing every word of the "I'm a Barbie Girl" song in the car, went to church and chatted afterwards, home to putter all night before finally going to bed.

My worlds don't often collide.

In college, I was always keenly aware of the separation of my Santa Fe and Tacoma lives. Except for the occasional visit from my parents or Ryan, nobody else from the two places ever mixed. Well, once an ex-boyfriend visited me in Tacoma for about an hour freshman year, but that was it. When I moved to Richmond that simply added another world that rarely mixed, though it did so more than the other two.

The real collision of my worlds lies with Allison. Allison and I have been friends since our freshman year of college. I'll admit that sometimes when I think back on friends at school I mostly think of Katie and Amy, or the friends I would watch movies with on the weekend and go to shows with in Seattle. I didn't do those things with Allison. But she and I were in a Bible study all through college, so in some ways we knew each other even better. And when I really stop and think about it, she was truly a big part of my college years. We froze together while planting cherry trees with migrant workers during a spring break, she helped fill my room with tiny cups of water stapled together on my birthday, one semester we met for breakfast every Tuesday at the SUB, I held her hand while she got her nose pierced, and we went to a Sunday service together at Westminster Abbey in London.

Allison graduated a year early and moved to North Carolina for PT school at Duke. We were all sad to see her move so far away, and honestly, I doubted I'd really see much of her again, because sometimes that's how life goes. Then I moved to Richmond. And after that? I moved to North Carolina, too. And then she moved to Richmond! As if these coincidences weren't enough, back in 1999 we were both at the same music camp in Michigan for eight weeks. We didn't know each other at all, but now we can remember together blue socks, the date gate, and the tuba hut. And you want to know another coincidence? The one person from college who actually has seen me in Santa Fe is this guy Cody, who is a close family friend of Allison's. How crazy is all that?!


Last weekend another friend who was in our college Bible study came to visit for the day, so three of us were back together again! That's Josefina on the left and Allison in the middle.

So to boil all of this down, what I'm trying to say is I love Allison and I'm incredibly grateful that she transcended my Tacoma world and is still in my life. I love hanging out with her, and sometimes when I'm sitting next to her in church I think back to sitting with her at Lighthouse in college and I am overwhelmed with how amazing it is that we're still together.

Tomorrow Allison leaves Richmond for Belize, where she will work her PT magic with children for six months. I will miss her a lot, but I think this is an amazing opportunity for her so I'm also excited to see her go. I can't wait to hear about her adventures, as well as her inevitable (but hopefully few) misadventures. And who knows, maybe the next time I see her will be in Belize in January?!!!

Mexican Saturday is back!

Today for lunch Grandma and Grandpa and I went out for Mexican food. This was their first post-surgeries outing other than visits to doctors. We weren't terribly impressed with the food and the service was only so-so, but we sat outside and had a very enjoyable time. It was especially enjoyable for Grandma and me, with our "medium" sized margaritas that turned out to be jumbos (like I said, service was only so-so). I, however, did not finish mine because *someone* had to be able to drive us home for naps.

Updates on the internship.

Some of you readers whom I know (is that the correct use of "whom?" I had a professor who said not to bother using it anymore, but I disagree with him.) in real life have asked how the internship is going, and now I'll go ahead and let all of you know whether you asked or not.

In short, I still really like it. Sometimes the work I'm doing gets long and tedious, but that's just how working with these big archives collections goes. I finished the project they had for me after five weeks (plus it will take a little time to fix it up once someone has looked over my inventory), so they had to find a new section of the collection for me to do, which is exciting I guess.

What isn't exciting is finding mouse poop in the folders, or dealing with rusty paperclips that shed dust and probably give you cancer when you breath. (And for the record, the mouse poop, as far as I can tell, is very old and was deposited before we got the collection.)

Tomorrow is another public lecture, which I'm excited about. It's on George Washington. I'm sad that this will be the last lecture that happens while I'm still there.

Every day during my thirty-minute lunch break I take a walk. It's my favorite part of the day. I don't mean that in the "recess is my favorite subject in school" sort of way, I just mean that I love walking around the neighborhood and looking at houses and yards while eating my sandwich, fruit, and cookies. And sure, it's usually a billion degrees when I'm out, but they have the air conditioner on so high all the time that thirty minutes is the perfect amount of time to thaw out.

I hope it rains.

For several weeks now, I have been in charge of watering our yard. Sure, I turn on the sprinkler and that takes care of the grass, but my grandparents have flowers and tomatoes and herbs and tons of other stuff all over the place, and it's my job to keep them alive. So far I'm doing okay, and watering seems to work. I even sprayed some bug killing stuff on some Japanese beetles a couple times. But my gardening knowledge stops after water and bad beetles.

Grandpa loves flowers, so not only does he have them all over the yard, but he usually arranges them around the house as well. Add to that the fact that my other grandfather in New Mexico used to own a flower shop, and you'd think I'd know a little more. Those pink flowers on the fence? No clue what they are. The red ones by the stairs? Nope. I don't even know about most of the herbs out there. The tomatoes I can handle, but even there I didn't have them staked up and after describing the massive mess of tomatoes in my yard to a woman at my internship she scoffed and said "you weren't made to live on farm" (like she does). Even when I tried to arrange some cut sunflowers on the table the other day I simply made all the petals fall off in my hand. Sometimes I feel like a gardening disaster.

But despite all that, the yard still looks pretty darn good if you ask me. And you don't even have to ask me, because you can see for yourself!


These are only some of the tomatoes.

See Danny under the table?
















We have grapes, too!

You know who else enjoys our yard?



Myrtle.

Weekend Review

Friday: Woke up to Grandma's bran muffins, did some stuff around the house, then ran. Ate lunch, took a nap, then ran a few errands. Ate dinner, then hung out with cousins.

Saturday: Did stuff around the house, and eventually ate lunch. Went to a coffee shop to do homework, then saw the new Harry Potter movie. Ate at Famous Dave's, then came home to do a crossword puzzle and go to bed.

Sunday: Ran, went to the store, then made Andilicious Burritos for lunch. Took my friend Josefina from college to Carytown, then to get a beer at Capital Ale House. Church at four, then we ate Ethiopian food with Allison and Sam. Sat with my grandparents and worked on a crossword puzzle, and now off to bed soon.

I don't live in an empty house anymore!

My grandparents are back! Grandpa came home yesterday, and Grandma came home today. They still have lots of recuperating to do, but they can walk and get themselves to the kitchen. Tonight they came to the kitchen to experience my first attempt at tomato soup. We have a billion tomato plants outside, which I am in charge of watering. Also, they are flopping all over the ground because I don't know anything about gardening or putting in stakes and stuff. I figure since we have a billion plants we can sacrifice some of the tomatoes to the ground and eat the rest. Anyway, I didn't want to make plain-old-tomato-soup so I added some herbs I found outside (I water those, too) and an onion and even some jalapeno and chili powder. It was spicy and not at all what they were expecting, but I thought it was good and they at least played along nicely and ate it all. Now I have to think of some other awesome things to do with tomatoes for when a new little batch gets ripe...

on the up and up

I wouldn't know because I've never had surgery, but apparently it sometimes makes you want to die. Or it makes you despair and think you will be an invalid forever. But really, most surgery is done to make you better. Even better than you were before. So you have to sit tight for a while, and that takes patience.

As you can probably imagine, things have been a little stressful around here. Well, just a little for me, but a lot stressful for Grandma and sometimes for her daughters. Stressful for Grandpa, too, because he's been sitting in the same boring hospital room for two weeks.

But things are looking up. Grandma's surgery went well, and she was already getting up to walk a little this evening. Also, Grandpa had a lot of fluid in his chest that made him short of breath (which is why they wouldn't let him come home), but today they drained it all out (1.5 liters!) and he's doing much better. This is all exciting news.

A few days ago in the thick of stressful times, despair was swimming around in Grandpa's chest and he said "sell the house and get us an apartment." He rescinded that rash statement, and today with a chest full of healthy air he ordered "renew the passports!"

Weekend Review

Friday: Went to my internship, visited Grandpa at the hospital, then came home and...I'm not really sure. Maybe I just watched tv? This weekend has been a little off since the Wednesday holiday messed with the week and I don't usually work on Fridays.

Saturday: Ran, then went out for a Thai lunch. Helped an aunt create a PowerPoint presentation, came home for a little bit, then went to a coffee shop to do research for my thesis. Came home and got in bed to read.

Sunday: Ran, ate lunch with Grandma, then went to another coffee shop for more research before 4:00 church. Took Grandpa some cooked spinach, then came home. Now I will work on a crossword puzzle and then go to bed.

Tomorrow morning Grandma has surgery, so both of my grandparents will be in different hospitals and I will be here, holding down the fort with Danny.

a few little updates

Danny-the-cutest-dog-ever is sick with a not-so-cute hacking cough. Luckily he sleeps in Grandma's room and not mine.

I played my cello today. I'm not gonna lie, it wasn't very good.

Grandpa did not go to rehab today as planned. Turns out he's doing too well for it, and yet they said he's not well enough to leave critical care and come home. Riddle me that.

Today in my internship collection I found the signature of a president before his presidential days. That was pretty exciting. I also found a newspaper ad from 1975 that read "Enter the Miss Virginia Beauty Pageant. No Talent Required."

"I don't know much about the Civil War, but I can tell you about the Alamo."

Those were my words to the news camera in the fourth grade when my dad took me to the ceremonial (re)burial of some Confederate soldiers in Glorieta, New Mexico. Luckily they didn't air my little interview that night on TV.

Tonight I stayed more on topic when I was interviewed. If you happened to be watching the channel 8 six o'clock news in Richmond this evening you saw me say a few words from the corner of Stuart and Mulberry in the Fan. I was walking and eating a sandwich during my lunch break when I saw a news camera up ahead, so I made sure to cross the street and get out of their way. Apparently I was the lone young woman they'd been waiting for at that corner though, so they jogged across the street to meet me and ask if they could ask me a few questions on camera about the two sexual assaults that took place last night in that area. I said sure, but then realized I didn't really have anything to say- that's a horrible thing to happen, but why did they want to talk to me about it? I wasn't there, I don't know anyone involved, I don't live there, and I don't walk around there alone at night. Anyway, it was awkward but I got through it and the few seconds they aired weren't too bad. Thankfully there was also an intern present to tell me I had crumbs on my face before the camera rolled.

Weekend Review

Friday: Visited Grandpa at the hospital, ran some errands, ate lunch with Mom, took Mom to the museum at the VHS, watched a movie.

Saturday: Visited Grandpa, ran more errands, ate lunch, took Mom to airport, hung out around the house with cousins, went to aunt's house for Chinese and to hang out on the porch.

Sunday: Ran, visited Grandpa (he looked great today!), went to Mass with Grandma, ate lunch with her at the Hill Cafe, read for an hour, went to church, went to other aunt's house for pho party.

This is true when you live with my Grandma:

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