Cool and Blue

There is something about DC in the summer that compels me to leave the city.  I want to buy boat loads of fruit and grill and spend my days floating around in a pool.  Luckily my Oldest-and-Best-Friend (she of getting married and naughty little sisters and helping me wrap my bouquet along with swimming lessons at the age of 9 and fort building and college break visiting and teenage shenanigans fame) and her husband bought a house.  An hour and twenty minutes up a highway are complete with pool and grill and spare bed big enough for David and me.  A weekend of faffing around in their pool, eating her glorious cooking and talking about politics, religions, books, TV and recounting the mid-90's upstate New York strife with the Oneida Indian Nation to our husbands who, not having been there, couldn't possibly care less.  Coming back to work today feels like a tragedy.  I'm making her come back soon.

Summer time

It's amazing how quickly the summer gets away from us.  Dave was out of town last weekend and I had my sisters in, next weekend a friend from college is visiting, the next two weekends we're out of town and then Mary visits and the next thing you know I'm 27 and it's August.    Summer gets away so quickly so I'm trying to make sure I take the time to leave the city to swim in my sisters pool in Rockville and leave our neighborhood to do some of the cool summer things around the city.  This weekend we went to U St to shop and then the Zoo and Eastern Market (oh the jewelry at eastern market!). 

On the first of our weekends visiting my sister and her pool and her delicious spicy canjun shrimp pasta we brought her our second couch so we can finally rearrange our apartment.  Which has led to some furniture rearranging and eventually it will lead to some art buying.  Now that 20x200 is gone -where do we buy art?   Any ideas?

Friday

 

via

I’m off to my parents farm this weekend. I’m seeing my stylist (I always go back to the same girl who has been doing my hair since I was sixteen) for a keratin treatment (I hope I look like Veronica Lake magically afterwards) and maybe a trip to the flea market to keep an eye out for a cake stand or some lovely blue mason jars. Every time I’m at the flea market I want to be one of these people who buys things in the country and sells them on Etsy but I might not be on top of it enough yet to do that.  Instead I'll just keep an eye out for all the things the Best-Friend-From-High-School needs for her new apartment.  My littlest sister and I are going to make throw pillows with freezer paper stencils (my new fave) and I’m going to eat all of my mother’s delicious cooking.

  Have a good weekend!

Happy Birthday, Sisters!

Twenty-four years ago today I woke up late and learned that the babies had arrived and they were both girls.  Identical twin sisters just for me.  I was pretty excited and wandered around Chicago announcing to anyone who gave a shit that I was their big sister and they were welcome to congratuate me on my good fortune.   Happy Birthday, Sisters!  I hope this year is your favourite one yet!

 

28

David is now 28 which feels like adulthood.  I am still only 26 which feels like the very edge of youth. His parents came to town and we had lunch (and tiramisu) and went to the Air and Space Museum and then went to the movies and had pub dinner and home.  Happy Birthday to David!

Friday

 

Cake Bunting from ReadyGo, $12

 

This weekend is David's birthday and so tonight will be filled with wrapping and decorating and cake baking. I spent this morning listening to NPR's coverage of Boston and cozying up with tea at work away from this blustery weather. I hope it's nicer tomorrow for visiting parents and trips to the museums and lovely lunches (probably not outdoors as originally planned) and maybe a movie in the evening? Who knows. I think we could all use a good weekend. Geesh.  Have a good weekend!

A Cautionary Tale

Can't find credit for gorgeous CD

Sometimes nice girls from nice families, the daughters of lawyers and poets, with very nice education - junior year of high school and college at prestigious foreign institutions - from top 30 schools in the north east and very nice shoes and handbags, sometimes these girls become shop girls. Sometimes these girls turn down the only job offered them straight after graduation and they move back in with their parents (who have since moved to Mississippi) and become waitresses and shop girls. They work as nannies and assistants and maybe they get married. These girls didn't mean to become cautionary tales, reminders to study hard and minor in econ, but they do. Their fathers often tell them that you can either get your personal life in order or your professional life and that these girls were on the marriage track and that that's fine. These girls still sort of wish they were minutes away from becoming doctors or lawyers or independently wealthy bloggers. These girls end up working in cubicles while their classmates graduate from masters programs or law schools or start residencies and would literally punch someone for the chance to have an office with a door and window and wall space to hang a print and a place where their plants wouldn't die of lack of sunlight.

I think it might be time for one of these girls to take the GRE and Get It Together. 

Cherry

We missed the peak of Cherry Blossom Fest but they were still pink pink pink and gorgeous.  The tidal basin and the Jefferson Memorial are a hot spot for the blossoms and the new and incredibly moving MLK Memorial right on the water is fantastic.  The weather was warm and we grabbed chips and ice cream at the Lincoln memorial and trecked through the war memorials to the cherry blossoms where little children looked very much in danger of falling in and lots of mummies and daddies tried to rangle them into photographable positions and David and I worried about dropping camera and iPhones into the water.  Lovely Lovely.

Weekend

 

 

This weekend was busy busy busy.  On Saturday I went up to Maryland for a bridal shower with arm loads of flowers and champagne and some fancy bottles of juice (God forbid we pour juice from the Simply Orange bottle).  

 

 On Friday night I went to the flower wholesaler and came home with ALL the flowers and spent an evening eating french fries and cramming snap dragons into every vase I own.  They made it up to the shower little the worse for wear but after the drive back they are looking a little rough.  Now they are on every surface of the apartment.  Bedside flower arrangements, dresser flower arrangements, kitchen counter arrangements. 



 

Sunday morning I was awoken with donuts and coffee and the newspaper in bed.  The Washington Post is a journalistic mess (and I may of may not have thrown it accross the room when I found the third instance of terrible punctuation) but the donut was delicious and the coffee was strong and it kept me in bed until noon.  Lovely.

 

Once I dragged myself from bed I wandered down to Eastern Market to get bacon and veggies and the thickest, darkest, most lovely bread and we ate lunch of pea-shoots with backon and lemon and salt and pepper and eggs over easy with bread and butter.  Amazing.

And I STILL haven't killed my cacti.  Good job me.  Cherry blossom photos to follow.

How was your weekend?

Friday

Blessed Friday - time to pack away the winter clothes, ditch work early to pick up all the flowers and arrange them, bridal shower lunch and then a walk through the tidal basin to look at the cherry blossoms (hopefully in a stripey dress).  I hope you have a brilliant weekend.

I think I need this print for my bathroom.

Spung

Blossoms on my way to work

 



We left DC on Friday and tights were needed under skirts for work, I wore my long down coat on Thursday to work.  Rehoboth was sunny and windy and babies were chubbed and kissed and snuggled and today, back in the city it is warm.  Really warm.  It'll be in the eighties this week and we will go look at the cherry blossoms.  After we catch up on all the sleep we missed thanks to babies and booze (not together) and burning the candle at both ends and once we stop missing the lobster rolls and good friends.  It's time for DC in spring time.  About effing time.

Hump day

Striped dress / long sleeve sweater / top / cardigan / skinny fit jeans/ shorts / sneakers / Ancient Greek Sandals / tote / red pullover / ray ban eyewear / Alessi Record Watch -Open Box / Mountain Classic Anorak



We are going to the beach this weekend. We are poor and young (although not as young as we used to be) and we can only afford to split a beach house three ways with friends of Dave’s from college. They are bringing their babies and we are bringing booze and we’ll enjoy the sea in spring instead of summer. The mid-Atlantic can’t quite let go of the last of the winter and spring won’t be denied so the weather is twitching madly and I’m bringing scarves and sweaters and shorts and sandals and we’ll see where we end up. In a world where my sunglasses weren’t pinched from my second sister when she left them at my parents over the weekend and where I had remembered to get the battery changed in my Alessi watch I would pack the above. Heavy on Old Navy because we’re poor, remember? Because we are young and you can only get away with wearing Old Navy for so long.

There are massive piles of paper at work and hiring to be done and files to be sorted and I am dreaming of wintery spring sea and coffee and friends. The first lot arrive tonight to take in the District before we caravan to the sea tomorrow. It’s hump day, baby, half way there.

Sunday

On Saturday David and I trecked accross town to see Sign Painters at the Renwick. I didn’t know until we got there but it was actually the world premiere of the movie and it was great. I have an inappropriate crush on sign painters now and want to open a business just to be able to have a gold leaf sign.  If it comes to your city and you like lettering and design (or just the resurgence of the handmade nation) it's definitely worth seeing.

We stopped to grab a sandwich on the way there and then walked accross town back to our apartment.  It took us hours and we popped into a couple of historic churches and wandered through the Building Museum (one of my favourite museums in DC) and randomly ran into someone who had a class with David in undergrad (smallest world).  The weather was scrumptious and I ran around without even a jacket.  Wind and rain came back in time for Easter and although the sun is shining now it's forty degrees outside.  

Good Friday

Wind from the Sea by Andrew Wyeth, snapped my me at the National Gallery of Art

My Oldest-and-Best Friend needs happy thought today.  Her little sister, who we used to dress up in old ballet costumes and have bring us tea when we were playing at VERY fancy ladies, needs happy thoughts.  She has grown up to be a really fantastic fun woman and a rockstar of a human being.  She's on the other side of the country from her home and sisters and she is dealing with something I cannot imagine.  She and her husband are in the hospital welcoming their first child and, if the doctors are right, saying good bye to their sweet baby minutes later.  A random fluke.  It could happen to any of us.  Please keep them in your thoughts and, if you are the sort to pray, prayers.   I am still hoping for a miracle.  A right out of nowhere, act of God, completely unbelievable, story book miracle.  Let's hope together.
 

Happy

Last night I watched the documentary Happy.  I'm sure you've all seen it already but it was great.  I read Gretchen Rubin's Happiness Project and Happier At Home and even though I haven't done my own happiness project I always feel like just reading about the happiness project makes me happier.  I like knowing that the happiest people are close to their community and family and that people who are happier are more focused in intrinsic goals.  It's nice to be reminded that having the perfect apartment won't make me much happier but finally getting the guitar from my parents and learning to play might.

Do you have a happiness project or things that you consciously do to be happier?  Do you try to be happy or do you stumble upon happiness?

Cherry Blossoms and Snow

 

snowy commute by foot

 

Last night it snowed in Washington. The cherry blossoms are supposed to be in full bloom in the next couple of weeks. I hope they won't be hurt by all the snow that's still coming down. This weekend I cleaned and painted half the bedroom, I canned and cleaned and made polenta with wine braised beef and watched documentaries and drank lots of lovely wine courtesy of my chum Judy.  I feel ready for the week which is really all that you can ask of a weekend. 

Friday

via

 

This weekend is kind of going to be a catch up.  We've been swamped for what feels like weeks and I've been running to Trader Joe's over lunch to pick up stuff for dinner (which could feel young and French and instead feels chaotic, expensive and unhealthy) and running hither and yon in searching of printing help and envelopes and paper for a week and a half.  This weekend I'm going to do some canning, shopping, reading and catching up on Girls (I've seen only a few episodes of this season).

 I am most looking forward to doing some grocery shopping, real life meal planning and all.  Every week I think I'll make a frittata and have it for breakfast in the earlier part of the week before switching to the standby scrambled eggs.  It hasn't yet happened but this just might be my weekend.   I also want to make these rice and salmon cakes.

And, if you haven't already, go read Why We Like Beautiful Things.  The author was on NPR this afternoon talking about beauty and his book.   And quick-like-a-bunny read this letter from Eudora Welty to the New Yorker when she was younger than I am now and wanted a job.  When I lived in Mississippi I knew her old bartender and people universally refer to her as 'Ms. Welty' and remember how badly she drove. She had a lovely garden and lived in Jackson with few breaks for almost a hundred  years.

Snow and Icing

I'm going back home to my parents again this weekend.  My sister in law is having a baby shower for her third boy in three and a half years and I'm providing chocolate cupcakes with raspberry filling frosted with 'ice' coloured icing.  The above chart hasn't failed me yet.  My dad and I are rolling out of town early early tomorrow morning and I'm looking forward to snuggling with my sister (who I just saw on Tuesday) and eating my mother's delicious food and cuddling up on the couch with Lucy and Mal the dogs who are good couch cuddlers.  Probably the best.  Especially when our city is blanketed in snow and bitterly cold.  It's going to be a good weekend.

frosting via

Inauguration

 

We didn’t make it to the mall. We didn’t manage to stand in the throngs of people who waved flags and screamed. We did bundle up and head down the side of the Capital and walked miles and miles and tried to get into the mall in several spots but each one was closed as we approached so we ended up walking along with thousands of people talking and cheering Obama and we saw so many full length fur coats we could barely stand it. Sister and I want BIG fur coats. We ended up getting coffees and sitting on the floor in a hotel lobby with other people who couldn’t get into the mall and we hooped and laughed and clapped and lots of people cried when the president spoke of equal pay for equal work, of the rights of immigrants and of climate change, when he spoke about the journey “through Seneca Falls and Selma and Stonewall”.

We were carried home in a sea of people and stopped for a lunch surrounded by other button wearing, flag waving people.  It was an exciting day to be in Washington.
Photo by moi

New Years

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from us and ours to you and yours.  Resolutions are being made, new jobs starting.  I like Gretchen Rubin's idea of a one word theme for the year,  what are your resolutions this year?

Home.  On Christmas Eve. In the snow.