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. :)

The last month was fairly crazy, but let's see if I can encompass it in one lj post. I have a fresh cup of tea, so let's do this.

( Jessica's magical Disney wedding )

( After Wedding Adventure )

( The Most Magical Place That Ever Did Magic )

( In which I reduce Tara to tears at Epcot )

( The parents arrive. )

( Magic Kingdom part 2 and Hoop Dee Doo )

( Wrap up and then home to bed. For two weeks. )

( Ho Ho Hobbits )

( The end )

When tara and her friend came to visit, I made waffles for them. Soooooo many waffles!

I froze the leftovers though, and have been enjoying them every morning. It was brilliant.

I think once I buy more flour (I was pretty low when I made the waffles to begin with), I will make another big stack of waffles to freeze. It would be tasty and convenient! :)

Though I think when I make the recipe again, I'll replace some of the oil with butter. The oil doesn't really add to the flavor. Butter should make the waffles taste richer. Plus, then I don't have to butter them before I eat them!

I had my reoccurring potty dream again.

This time jess, tara, and amanda kept barging into the bathroom, so I couldn't go. Finally after I chased them off, I realized the toilet was broken so I couldn't go anyway.

It's so weird that when I am stressed out, I dream the world is stopping me from using the bathroom. What is wrong with you, brain?

Hung out with tara, jess, and amanda last night.

We played a game called apples to apples which was a lot of fun, especially because I won. (Then we played a little longer and amanda won.)

Afterwards, we went out for food. We all ordered a bunch of appetizers, but it was so much food!

I stayed out until about 1:30 and got home at 2. My mom was sitting up waiting for me. It was kinda really creepy.

It was pretty late so I wasn't sure if I should call ben before bed, so I flipped a coin. It said yes! I'm glad it did cause ben was up and it felt good to talk to him. We stayed on the phone together until I was falling asleep.

In the middle of the night I woke up to the bird freaking out. She was flying around the room, crashing into things. Something must of scared her. That's why I can't be lazy and not cover her cage at night. I found her clinging to the curtains in the dark, hyperventilating.

Considering I didn't go to bed until after 3:30, I think I need a bit more sleep. I'm going to have to explain to noname that I need my pillow back.

I knew as soon as the alarm went off this morning that today was going to be rough. In fact, I refused to get out of bed for nearly an hour. Instead I whined to ben I wanted to die.

I had a bunch of bad dreams last night. ( Nightmare )

So yeah, I wasn't in a good mood this morning. And ben was too sleepy to hug me and make the scared go away.

Then at work, my boss is back in the office. After two peaceful weeks of getting things done at a relaxing pace, everything needs to be done NOW because everything is SO URGENT. It's quite jarring after my relaxing time. I had a ton of stuff to do today but I actually got it all done. I just didn't take any breaks. I am very exhausted now though.

Tonight I need to go back to spring cleaning. I need the apartment clean before jess and tara come visit. It's so soon!

Oh, but I did get a tiny bit of good news today. Defenders of Wildlife sent me an application for employment. It's not a contract though, so I won't get my hopes up. Still, it's a good sign if they want you to fill out paperwork.

Scott Hamilton Skates the Universe (Courtesy of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum)

I saw this at the museum yesterday and was absolutely entranced. It was fantastically surreal.

------

We took it easy on tara's last day here, going to see Borat rather than a museum. Everyone is going to tell me I have no sense of humor, but I found borat to be incredibly boring. The shock value was gone after the first 15 minutes and then it was the same joke over and over again. The only part I genuinely liked was when the bear in the ice cream truck scared all the kids. Ben and tara liked it though. So I guess it's just me.

We didn't have much time after the movie, so we got food to bring home rather than go out to eat. We watched vast quantities of host club. Originally I wanted to watch utena, but I think host club was for the best. The story is less ongoing. Utena is more something you should watch in a relatively short amount of time. (Weeks, not one night.) And host club really is most fantastic.

After I took tara to the airport, I spent the rest of the evening uploading pictures from my california trip all the way back in september. If you can figure out where my galleries are, you can sneak a peek. Eventually I'm going to put them all up in a post, explaining them. (Tree. Windmill. Sea Lion.) But for now I'm getting sleepy. I'm going to see if ben wants to read Lost Girls with me for a bit before bed.

I forgot to mention the oh so exciting hotlinking adventure I had yesterday. I was checking the web stats on one of our client's websites when I noticed their hits suddenly went through the roof. It seemed odd. :P

So after a little more checking, I found that all the hits were coming from one site and were all accessing one image. Easy to guess what's going on there. Unfortunately I wasn't allowed to switch that picture with something dirty or offensive. Instead I broke the link and deleted the old file.

So that was my excitement for yesterday. That and the delivery of my HP Lovecraft-themed Christmas CD. I listened to it in the car this morning. I don't think ben enjoys it as much as I do. But then, I don't think he enjoys filk as much as I do. Or hates christmas music as much as I do. (Bad experience working at a craft fair that had ONE holiday cd that they played over and over again all weekend. There are only so many times a girl can hear frosty the snowman before she goes a little insane.)

And tonight taraisagoddess comes to visit! Yay! Hopefully I can get the apartment cleaned in time! Tomorrow we're going to the air and space museum. That will be fun, even if I've been there before.

Some people in the anime club seems a bit annoyed that I'm skipping the meeting this weekend to *gasp* hang out with a friend I haven't seen in forever. :P I find that a little strange.

Ben and tara went away. No one to talk to now. And I have 45 minutes left of work. Unfortunately I finished all my work for the day, so there's nothing really I can do. I wish I could go home early when I've done everything. I feel like I'm just wasting time sitting here.

[EDIT] And now a meeting...What, is death too good for me?