Snow, Oscars, blah!

This weekend was...eventful. Friday night I ended up going to the 18th Street lounge with some friends...lots of fun! I LOVE the fact that it has no sign-just a doorway. The fiance's been under the weather, so he stayed home. This was kind of weird considering we go almost everywhere together. It was okay, though, he got his sleep and I got my hang-out time.

Saturday....hmmm....oh, yeah, I finally found a pair of boots that fit my ginormous calves. Of course, I have to wear 2 pairs of socks with them because they are 9 1/2's (I'm normally between a 7 1/2 and an 8, depending on how wide they are) but they ROCK!! Which is good, because I only buy boots...well, any shoes for that matter...when my old ones begin to actually have holes and such. Maybe my sister will be a kind soul and knit me a pair of socks that are thin at the top and reeeally thick at the bottom and cozy. And perhaps purple. Hmmm. I should ask her :D

Sunday we were supposed to visit a friend with a sheep farm and baby lambkins (three of whom were born as we were supposed to be driving up there. Neato!) but when we tried to go to the grocery store beforehand, we ended up on the median at the exit from our apartment complex. It was snowing, you see, and about three inches of white, fluffy, slippery stuff was on the ground. Thus both obscuring the median and the road markings. In a situation resembling less coincidence than Providence (after we ended up on the median with all four wheels about 1/2 inch off the ground) a guy wandered past with a hitching cord. And a guy in a HUGE...I mean we are talking B.A.T. also wandered by, and they pulled us off the median. Which is good, since USAA's 'roadside assistance' was going to let us cool our heels for two hours before the 'assistance' was supposed to arrive. Fab.

This meant that we A)didn't get groceries and B) missed the lambing. We stayed home all day. Fiance sulked for a while over the car incident (I was driving, he figured he would've avoided the situation, I refrain from commenting on this) and then got over it when I made chicken soup. For those who may not have tried my chicken soup, it's always enough for about a week and very tasty :D

So, we decided to watch the Oscars. Although I enjoyed the E! pre-game show, it wasn't as much fun as it would have been had they made more comments about how people were dressed (and if I had agreed with more of the comments they did make-sheesh, they thought Cameron Diaz looked good. Who could think that a woman whose hair looked like it'd seen the business end of a vacuum cleaner, whose skin was an orange color normally associated with highlighters and whose outfit looked like she'd forgotten a dress and therefore had to badly improvise with a white satin sheet could look good?????). Then the actual show started, and within an hour we were both ready for bed...they put us to sleep by about 9:30...and I hear they went on well past midnight! Wow, did they really think that people who had work on Monday were going to watch that stuff????

And that was my weekend.

Sigh...

So, tonight we have to go to one of those meetings where they assess your 'readiness for marriage.' I'm somewhat torn on this issue. Fiance has a bit of a history, but I've never been this close to actually telling someone officially that I want to spend the rest of my life with them and them alone, so the enormity of that decision makes me a little nervous. What if they say we aren't prepared? Argh! And I'm definitely hormonal, which always makes me a little melancholy. All in all I am starting to understand why people elope.

We did find a very nice photographer, though, and she has really reasonable package deals. Nothing's set yet, but she's at the top of the list so far. We haven't even started looking for a DJ, and the caterer situation is only just starting to come into focus. The seamstress, who has been great thus far, is being very patient with my current turtle-like speed of communication, but that has to start happening again, too. So much to keep track of!

I wonder what this would be like if I weren't in grad school and working 4 full days a week....

Honeymoons are like cotton candy.

Since we are currently in negotiation about how one can possible afford to ever get married (we must assume this is only a prelude to the "eek, how are we ever going to pay for this child's education!" discussion) looking at possible honeymoon sites is like considering that bag of cotton candy at the NJ boardwalk. It's always overpriced and looks fabulous, but may be nothing more than air and attractively packaged spun sugar. All things considered I love the occasional cotton candy. So, we've downgraded from the fabulous 8 day trip to Hawaii (airfare's a pain!) and are now considering a lovely Caribbean destination (hey, not a bad compromise, hoping to keep the 8 day thing, too)...but since we're not sure how we will be paying to FEED our multitude of family members short of a miracle involving a poorly shaven fellow in a robe and some cheap dried fish and bread, it's interesting that we haven't given up altogether.

Sigh. I must really love him a lot :D

Edited to add:
That last is meant to indicate that this kind of stress is only reserved for people you really like. Why on earth would one do this otherwise?

Ah, some people...

Have a very good sense of humor. Would that the people they have a sense of humor about woke up and started realizing what silly people they are. Anyway, this is what George Bush and Hilary Clinton would make if they made wine. I personally like the bubble shaped glasses that would come with Britney and Paris' wine, but hey, I'm a glassware junkie to boot :D

Orchids

So, in the office where I work, they brought two phalaenopsis plants to sit at the front desks of each floor (we occupy two floors of the building) about a month or so ago. At this point both of these poor fellows are living in my office struggling to survive the terrible medium they were forced to live in. One had a single healthy root with no signs of new growth, the other is in slightly better shape with one root that had partially survived, a couple of stumps of root that are still hanging on, and three little bumps that will grow into new roots given time. I've repotted both with new medium, mostly sphagnum moss with a little bark and sponge rock mixed in, and put the one that's in worse shape in a plastic bag with the top open for air circulation. I haven't decided yet whether I'll allow them to go back into the office if they survive or to officially adopt them :D For now they will keep the oncidium I brought into my office back in December company.

Snow!!!!

Ah, winter. I love snow, I love winter weather. I have this deep conviction that the benefit of enduring the cold, short days of this part of the year should be rewarded with snow to blanket the earth and make everything pretty. Not to mention said snow allows all sorts of things to grow in their proper cycle, both by providing insulation and spring thaw water. We are getting a bit of snow today. Not as much as I would like, and it's going to turn into tree-and-power-line-coating ice (eek!), but it's still wintry precipitation. I've missed it!

Let it Snow!

Signs that you need to get out of that winter funk and off your butt:

When you lean over to check your bottom drawer for a clean shirt and your back goes completely out on you, and then later at the doc's office...while you are getting dressed after another dignity-crushing exam involving a catheter (interstitial cystitis-not for the faint of heart or the shy of strangers poking at places most people never see!) it happens again, well, then you realize that maybe it's time to start practicing yoga again and stop using the cold weather as an excuse not to run.

Also not for the faint of heart: wedding planning. It's rather difficult to arrange meetings with florists, photographers (some of which leave you waiting 45 minutes after your meeting was supposed to start after asking you to move the meeting up from 5:30 to 4pm...) and caterers when you are getting fed up with certain people involved in said wedding and are handling several other things at once. My advice: be rich. This makes things much easier. Second piece of advice: since you are rich, hire a wedding planner who knows your style. Ah.

When all else fails get a fabulous deep tissue massage!!!

And later in the day...

Well, it's always interesting when a coworker leaves. If you are friends with said coworker, this can involve a bit of time on their last day being less productive than you ought to be...it's good that people don't leave very often. It also is nice when you enjoy working with your coworkers.

I will miss Julia, she is a hard worker but also knows how to have fun. I wish her good luck in her next job.

Random Car Incidents.

So, the question is...how exactly does one get a compact car into such a situation where it is stuck between hitting the car you are trying to parallel park behind or doing some elaborate curb jumping while scraping the meter you are trying to park next to....which happens to be out of service, but through this whole thing you don't know that...in order to get into (and then out of...which was markedly simpler) the space? I don't know either. But I hope it never happens again. And the great irony is I parallel parked perfectly...on the left side of a one way street...in the second space I found. Apparently I'm in backwards land today. Sigh.

Edited to add: For the record, the cars in front and behind were never so much as touched...but the sidewalk was well used.

Good Bosses Are A Rare Gift.

I am an intern. I am a lucky intern-I am not unpaid. This is rare.

This having been said, I still get intern-like things to do, often involving updating spreadsheets (I am not actually an Excel goddess, but I'm certainly getting close to demi-status.) and other, well, tedious tasks.

My boss actually recognizes the work I have done, and even occasionally says thank you, while being very flexible about things like classes and doctor appointments, not to mention the fact that he often shares these tasks with me and the others instead of just making others do the tedious work for him. He even occasionally gives me something of real importance to do, such as the project I just completed...and I think he just offered me a part-time-which-may-just-evolve-to-full-time job. Wow.

Thank you, boss, for caring!

Edited to add:

And I'm pretty sure that the reason why interns are treated so well here is that my boss started as one. Here. As did several other now-higher-ranking members of the staff. Yay!!

Weddings...

I have come to realize recently that weddings...are stressful. People become, well, insane when you involve them in weddings. I have this odd theory that planning such an event should be fun and happy, ya know, 'cause getting married should be a GOOD thing. But perhaps this is too much of a stretch. Anyway, it seems like sometimes you meet a person whose sole purpose in life is to try and make themselves the center of attention.

It's Freakin' Cold!

So, it's officially been colder in Washington, DC than it has been in Moscow for the last several days. This is clearly an indication that the end is near.

First Posting

Yeesss...I've delved into the world of Blog. I think someone may be crowing with laughter out there...I think I hear it!