and then rides all around it on her bike.

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Use it three times, make it your own

Once a month, the WEAVE "Teen Team" (I try pretend it has a different name, I think the rest of the "Team" does too) meets to talk about what's going on in our various departments in regards to DC youth. Heather can talk about counseling, Cristina has the in at the courthouse and follows developments in policy for under 18's, Emily knows what's up at the intake centers, and I'm all over the outreach/education side of things.

We start each meeting by talking about what new teen word we learned the last month.

The word for this month was:

bitin'
b-i-t-i-n-'

Use it in a sentence: I was kinda tired, but they was all really bitin' to get to the party, so we headed out.
Definition: (v.) to be really eager (usually, eager to do something. Like, you wouldn't say, "he was really bitin'," you'd say, "he was really bitin' to...")
Old person from the Midwest definition: chompin' at the bit
(but if you say "chompin' at the bit" to a 14 year old in DC, they look at you like... well, like I'd look at them if I heard them say "bitin'")

See, don't say you never learned anything reading my blog.


In other news, here's where I sit and eat lunch when I eat lunch outside:



It's Lafayette Park.
Yep, I took this picture. And yeah, that's the White House. And the Washington Monument. It just kind of happens to be the closest park to where I work, so if I want to sit on a bench while I eat, this is where I've got to go!
Not bad, hey?

Thursday, September 13, 2007

It's Here!!!

My camera cord
(Thank you, United States Postal Service)
(and Cass)
which means I have pictures to share
... lots and lots of pictures to share

We crossed the 200 mark during the birthday party... of course, they won't all be posted.... but probably lots of them will. Eventually.

Here's a starter for you:
















Me in my party dress at the end of the night, after everyone else had gone to bed.
Also featured in this picture is the back of our tv, our bookshelf, and our game of Catchphrase.


But here's the whole party outfits montage:


me in my party dress *** David striking a pose (naturally) *** Jill... exiting the bathroom


So.
Here we go.
All my photo albums can be found here, but I'll break it down for you too:

This first one is a doosy, it's kind of huge and has lots of pictures from the day I spend roaming around the general National Mall metro area. It features a lot of things you'd probably take pictures of if you came to visit accompanied by witty commentary, and then also a lot of things it would probably never occur to you to take pictures of... like I said, it's kind of big, and it won't hurt my feelings if you don't look at them all with great care and attention, etc.

On Labor Day, a whole bunch of us went to a Washington National's game, and those pictures can be found here. Can I just say, all of the red caps with white W's on them that did not refer in any way to the state of Wisconsin or to Badgers of any kind were very hard for me.

The September 9 birthday party pictures can be found here, in an album appropriately titled "Birthday Party Woohoo."

And I made this little album, Transplant!!!!!, which has a couple pictures from the hospital, but mostly features the Milwaukee Airport, which I love. (Raise your hand if you're surprised that I took pictures at an airport... I love taking pictures at airports.) I love airports in general. I also love Midwest Airlines. I also also love chocolate chip cookies.

(Midwest serves freshly baked chocolate chip cookies on board their flights... good chocolate chip cookies, and you don't just get one, you get two, and you don't just eat them alone, you wash them down with a nice, freshly brewed cup of Alterra coffee. Why do they do all this? Because they're awesome, that's why.)

So. Pictures. There you go. :)

Sunday, September 9, 2007

just so you know,

pictures of me in my new party dress are forthcoming. As are pictures of the chocolate glitter cake.

It was a lovely birthday.

Saturday, September 8, 2007

name that coffee shop:

It's 25 thousand degrees out (roughly... maybe more like 95, but I don't do well with heat so it's hard to tell) but I'm inside, cozying up by a roaring ("roaring") fire, drinking my iced mocha across from a giant stuffed bear head...

Yeah, I'm at Caribou, a little slice of Alaska here in our nation's capital. I live two blocks from one. And three blocks from another. And five blocks from another. I'm in that kind of neighborhood where you don't have to worry, because you're never more than a couple blocks from a Caribou Coffee. (And then there's the Starbucks! They're really everywhere!)

Anyway.


I had a real reason for this post but I forgot it.

Oh! I know. I was going to say that I'm starting to remember how very much I love living in a city with lots of fun different international food options. Yesterday my office took me out to a nice Indian place for lunch, and it was wonderful, really, just wonderful. Also, there's an Indian food chain, I guess it's a chain, in DC (and maybe other places, who knows, not me) called "Naan and Beyond" and I totally want to eat there too, because what a name!

(naan)



In other news, my little sister Caitie, who is awesome, just wrote me a birthday post. Tomorrow is my birthday and this morning I bought myself a party dress, and then I went and bought myself party earings from H&M, which I am totally in love with. So I have a whole party outfit. I might even wear it!



(This is a picture of Caitie in her party outfit, which includes a beret, if you hadn't noticed. She got it in France when we went there this summer. Isn't she cute? She'd been on the beach all day... with topless old ladies... ah, the memories... she will maybe hate me for posting this picture on the internet, but I just can't help myself.)











So get out your party dress (and/or your H&M earings, your beret, etc.) and wear it around the house a little today - it's that time of year, after all, Shana's birthday. Party dresses all around. Feels good, doesn't it?

Ok. That's all.

Thursday, September 6, 2007

this is HARDLY going to be worth it.

I do have reasons for why I haven't been posting. I could list them, even. I guess I will:

1. I'm busy.
Full time work and even fuller time roommates! AND and I kind of have a bit of a social life these days! For those of you who are unfamiliar with this thought, since it never came up in my other blogs, it's when I spend a lot of time with people, often even people my age, and we "do stuff." I know. I kind of like it.

2. I don't have a reliable internet connection.
We're currently smurfing off an open wireless network named "allison," the only one of about twenty networks I pick up from our house that doesn't require a password. Allison's nice and all, but sometimes she's in the mood to connect with me, and sometimes she isn't. Often she isn't. And I just can't ever predict her mood, and I don't know what to say to make it better when she's not talking to me...

ok, enough of that.
We're going to be getting real internet of our own soon. You know. "Soon."


3. I left my camera cord at home!
(This is maybe the most important reason.)
It's so frustrating, to know that I have a million great pictures (or maybe more like 100, and that's actually not an exaggeration) that I'd like to share, but can't share... so I've been dragging my feet with posting, because what good is a post when the potential for great pictures is so close but so far away? Just kind of makes me sad...

;)


That said, I've been doing well. My foot is almost totally not broken anymore, and I've been trekking all over town, seeing all sorts of things, taking pictures of anything that looks even minorly important and several things that clearly aren't of any importance at all. And I found the river, that was good. I'm missing the Mississippi. Or the South China Sea. Or Lake Michigan (I know, so exotic).

My dad is doing well. He went home from the hospital two days ago, working on learning what life post-transplant looks like. It's all still pretty unbelievable.

And my job pretty much great. We're having a gala tonight to celebrate our 10th anniversary. Fancy fancy!

And actually, I have to go to work now.