Sailor Soldier of Love and Justice

Sooo tired! Busy weekends are fun though!

On Sunday, Jess and Tara and I went into DC. First we had the fun adventure of navigating the shuttles because metro was doing track maintenance on a big chunk of the line. The shuttle was supposed to take us to ballston, which has tons of ticket machines, but instead they took us to the stop after (virginia square, i think?) which had 3 ticket machines for the entire busload of people. Not cool. And then figuring out how much a ticket actually costs is always fun too!

But eventually we got on a train. We had a fun conductor who was warning people not to make him blind with their flash cameras and to not stick their crutches in front of the train.

Our first stop was the Botanic Garden. I had never seen it so full! I'm used to a fairly intimate experience because the place is normally so empty. But we were still able to enjoy it and see all the pretty flowers. I liked the super tiny flowers and the one that smelled like cinnamon chewing gum. Jess took over 100 pictures! Sooooo many flowers!

After that, we had lunch at the native american museum because fry bread. All the fry bread.

When lunch was over, we stopped at one of the hands-on exhibit tables to make hawaiian ti leaf bracelets. The lady at the table taught us how to twist the leaves into a cute little spiral. The leaves gushed water everywhere as you twisted them and made everything super sticky! But once the stickiness dried, the bracelet had a smooth, shiny hard coat to it. I think mine looks really nice. I'm going to wear it for as long as it lasts. Then it goes in the compost because the lady made us promise we would return it back to the earth once we were done with it.

From there we went to the natural history museum which was super packed. We bought tickets to the butterfly exhibit, but it wasn't as nice as it usually was. They didn't have any staff inside, so people were manhandling the poor butterflies. Poking them, picking them up, just generally abusing them. Finally a guy came in to bring people in line. The place cleared out pretty quickly after that, as tourists were annoyed they couldn't abuse the poor butterflies anymore. They really need to keep that room fully staffed on busy holidays. For the sake of the animals!

But other than that, the museum was good. We only looked at a few exhibits, but it was free so we can't complain. We saw rocks, mummies, dinosaurs, and human origins. It looks like they have started removing things from the dinosaur exhibit in preparation for the upcoming renovation. I look forward to that. The exhibit is really showing its age.

We were eventually kicked out of the museum for closing time, so we headed home. All went well until we had to catch the shuttle again. Despite waiting on the express line, a local bus pulled up to our stop. It was a looooong ride.

We picked up ben and had dinner at silver diner. Of course we managed to get the worst service the one night we have guests!

The next day, everyone slept late and then we had lunch at ghengis grill. They changed the set up so people can't pig out on all the meat now. They now have 3 bowl sizes and no unlimited option. Plus they have someone that handles the meat and sauces. I do like that the sauce person can keep people from double dipping their tasting spoons. I don't know how I feel about the other changes yet.

After that, jess and tara got on the road for their long drive home. I'm glad they were able to visit. It was a lot of fun. :)

I decided earlier in the week that summer is far to short to waste in an office. So I took a half day on Friday to go out and enjoy my life. Unfortunately Friday was also one of the peak days for this heat wave we are going through.

So on friday I went to the National Archives to see their latest exhibit, What's Cooking, Uncle Sam? There was a terribly huge line to get into the building, but once I survived that I ran into very few people. I think everyone else was there to see the declaration of independence. (Which had a line longer than disney world.)

I was mostly interested in the victory garden part of the exhibit, but I learned a lot of other neat stuff. It was certainly a good way to spend the afternoon.
( A few notable things from the exhibit )

Saturday was the hottest day of the heat wave. And of course, the day I'd get sick. Probably all those filthy tourists. Anyway, I spent the day relaxing and chilling. As did the dogs. Maggie spent most of the day sleeping in front of our bedroom ac vent.


In the evening when I was feeling better, ben and I watched Megamind together. It was surprisingly enjoyable.

Today I felt much better, so ben and I did a bit of shopping and then returned home to escape the heat. We have discovered that maggie enjoys water, so I have been spraying her down with the hose. Noname has made a point to stay far far away from the hose despite the heat.

And now, fresh Maggie pictures. Because she grows up so fast and won't be this tiny forever!
( Puppy! )

I woke up yesterday morning feeling a bit under the weather. I had all the signs of coming down with something - headache, sore throat, congestion, and sensitive skin. But I didn't feel so bad that I couldn't get up and move around, so I went to work anyway.

I took my misery out on our marketing agency. I was extra harsh on them each time they messed up. Especially over misspellings in the copy. Supposedly this stuff is going over to a proofer, but time and again they have proven that this is not the case.

In the afternoon, we had a feast of balls in honor of colbert. There were cheese balls, meat balls, popcorn balls, cake balls.... It was quite extensive.

I wasn't feeling better at all by the time I got home, so ben and I decided to pick up dinner instead. We decided to use my groupon to The Pollo Factory. I had heard good things about the place and had been meaning to try it, but it's in a lousy location so I had always put it off. The groupon was good motivation. I'm glad I got it cause that was some amazingly good peruvian chicken. The skin was caramelized and crunchy while the meat inside melted in your mouth. The guy at the counter said they imported their spices from peru, which I thought was an interesting little factoid. Ben must have really liked it because he ate half a chicken by himself. We will probably go there again in the future.

I did feel a bit better after a good dinner, but I decided it would be best if I rested up to beat whatever I was coming down with. I crawled into bed and alternated between sleeping and watching tv. It was kinda annoying when I'd fall asleep during the middle of the show, wake up at the end, and have to search through to figure out at what point I lost consciousness.

This morning, I don't feel any better, but I don't feel any worse either. I have fed my pets and eaten breakfast. I will probably head back to bed again soon. I'm trying to spent a little bit of time with my bird, who was totally neglected last night as I tried to recover. She's a very social animal and gets very upset when she doesn't get some quality time with me each day.

Yesterday was the first day of my target benchmarking thing. Before I left for the day, I gave boss' assistant (what I thought were) very clear directions on what she needed to handle. I thought she understood.

Then I ran off to my thing. It went well. I learned a lot of stuff and networked hard.

Had a bit of culture shock when it came to food. I was told there would be a veggie option. They really did mean A veggie option. One sandwich. Good thing I was the only one that wanted it. Also, there was no salad. I was like, "no salad? what do the vegans eat?" But of course there were no vegans at this event. I really like salad though....

I felt a bit like the baby-eating atheist in the room. There were three catholic charities out of the seven groups there. The other groups were a veterans group, a wildlife group, an animal welfare group, and me (another wildlife group).

I personally found the catholic charity stuff a little creepy. All sorts of magic candles and other nonsense.

After the first day's session, we all went out to eat at a local restaurant called Founding Farmers which was all local and eco-friendly. I was surprised by the amount of bacon dishes they served. I had three cheese ravioli, which was pretty good. It was in a caramelized butter sauce so it was sweet. The sweetness went well with the cranberry cucumber cooler I got to drink. It was a bit more cucumber than I expected though.

I have to admit that the highlight of the dinner was the trip to the bathroom where I got to experience the dyson airblade. I have never seen an air hand dryer that actually works before. Normally I spend 10 minutes under the stupid thing trying to get my hands dry. This thing, it was one WOOOOSH and my hands were dry. Awesome!

I think everyone must have gone out to have fun that night, because the next day, the group was much more mellow. Maybe it was just morning, but no one really had the energy to talk. The whole thing ended at noon on the dot.

I returned to work to learn that my boss' assistant totally ignored all my careful instructions on what she needed to do while I was out. I ran around scrambling to repair disasters.

She neglected to send edits to sca for the really urgent package, so I rushed those edits to them.

She forgot to collect edits for a semi-urgent package, so I am not harassing people to get me their edits asap.

And she ended up collecting and send to sca edits for a non-urgent package, so I had to tell them to ignore everything she sent over because I was still cleaning everything up and had some questions about some of the changes she listed.

Now I am impatiently waiting for her to return to the office, because I learned she went on a half-day retreat with the database team today. Why did she agree to cover for me when she was going to be out half the day!? I need her in the office now so I can ask her why her edits say to change the premium on a package when it's not listed in the mailplan to have a different premium.

When she does eventually get here and answer my question, I am going home early. I have had enough of this day.

I followed through on my plan last night and went straight to the food store after work. We were out of the basic elements of food like milk and eggs. I also got entenmanns donuts and cookies because there was a big buy 1 get one free sale and I love me some entenmanns.

There was a huge over 300 lb guy who also loved entenmanns, but far too much. He brought over a completely empty wagon and loaded it up as far as it would go. At first I thought he was an employee moving some stock around, but NO. He went to the register and purchased an entire wagon full of cakes, donuts, and cookies.

After shopping, I came home and had a bachelor-style dinner of frozen pizza. But I made dinner a bit less unhealthy by having a salad beforehand. Then I called ben to talk for a bit before going to bed early.

I woke up this morning to my dog's nose 1 inch from my face. She had been watching me sleep again. She wagged her tail at me as if to say, "Hiiiiii~!!"

I took the day off from work to have my new washer delivered. They said they'd be here between noon and 2, so I should plan on getting dressed in an hour or so. Once it is delivered and set up, I have an exciting day of laundry planned. I have a huge pile of clothes to wash because I gave up trying with the broken machine.

I'm also going to try applying to some new jobs. It will be a very productive day.

Thanksgiving was a success!

I woke up around 8am to finish up all the cooking. Then ben and I started driving around noon. Our stupid gps had us go the scenic route, so it took us longer to get there than it should have. Baltimore can be such a sketchy place. I entertained myself by pointing out how many bail bond, liquor, and pawn shops I could find on each block.

When we got there I made soup and helped carve the turkey with my mighty electric knife.

Then we got to eat! There was tons of tasty food. Everyone ate their fill and then we had to take a break before dessert. We played a bunch of board and card games to pass the time. I was a bit of a jerk to ben about his game. I feel really bad about it and am not sure why I was acting that way. Luckily he forgave me.

Everyone liked the cheesecake despite the crack. And the ice cream went off well too. There were pies there too, but I didn't try any because I am a picky eater and they were not pies I like to eat.

Noname had a good day too. She begged for lots of food and wiggled all over. It must have been a lot of stimulation because she slept the entire way home.

We headed back around 10. I was surprised by the number of people on the road. There wasn't traffic though, so that was good.

Ben and I fell asleep almost instantly after we put everything away. I think if ben's alarm hadn't gone off, I could have slept another 2 or 3 hours. Can you believe he has work today?

I think I will make this a lazy day. I fully intend on not cooking at all. I think I will watch cartoons and knit and cuddle my adorable little dog.

It is tragic I did not think of this. I have been eating spaghetti with tortilla chips for at least a decade now. I cannot believe it never occurred to me to try putting the pasta in taco shells. Self, what is wrong with you!?

Tonight ben and I watched Food, Inc. I think I'm going to stop eating from now on.

This is a movie about how the industrial food industry is going to kill us all. Wheee.

I think a major flaw of the film was that it only barely acknowledged that many people cannot afford meat that was raised humanely or produce grown organically. In fact, a lot of people cannot even afford regular produce. Advice to eat in season only goes so far, especially when you work for walmart wages and can get a party sized bag of cheetos for 99 cents.

Still, it did a good job of horrifying me. I made many sad faces at the industrial meat farms. But I already make a point of trying to eat more humane meat. When I eat meat, which is usually only once or twice a week.

Or was. Now I'm just going to stop eating completely. Food is too gross!

[Poll #1612177]

For christmas, we got a shiitake mushroom log. It is quite possibly the most annoying, time consuming thing in the world. Every two weeks it needs to be soaked. After 6 weeks, it needs to be soaked in the fridge. And for all that work? Three mushrooms so far. But this week it decided to grow another! Woo! At this rate, I'll have enough for a meal by next christmas. At least shiitake dry well, so I can store them.

Tonight I made quinoa loaf for dinner. It was...interesting. I think it had too many onions in it. Despite that, it was kinda bland. I think it needed some sort of sauce.

Anyway, the whole thing just confirms my belief that any loaf outside a loaf for bread or a kitty loaf is an abomination.