1 busy Friday

Yesterday, Ben and I went into work with my dad. Ben worked for a bit from my dad’s office and then went with him to an Ezra Klein, Wonkblog, lunch talk. I went to the Renwick, and had lunch with my brother, David, at Food Truck Friday on Farragut Square, where I ate calabaza, chickpea, and spinach soup from Pepe‘s food truck. YUM! I also stopped into a Weight Watchers meeting. I miss my old meeting leader.

We met up later in the afternoon and went to the National Geographic Museum to see 1001 Inventions of the Golden Age and Birds of Paradise. WOOHOO, butt wiggling mating dances! They had an interactive video game thing so that you could mimic one of the simpler mating dances.

In the evening, we stopped for a smoothie before getting in the car and going to early services at NVHC, out in Reston, so that my dad could say kaddish for his brother. We ended up staying and chatting with people and nibbling on veggies and desserts for dinner. Oops.

Today we visited another new-to-us synagogue. The rabbi was great and the people were friendly enough, but the cantor was very cantorial and the location was a bit ritzy for us. I’m feeling a bit spiritually homeless, but at least we’re making friends every other week at Segulah Minyan, in DC, with other young adults. We’ll be there next week and visit another synagogue the following week, and be back at Segulah for Purim the following Sunday. Since Ben will be finishing week 2 at his new job, I think he might want to stay home and sleep in that Saturday. Driving 20-30 minutes to go to shul sucks compared to our 8-10 minute car commute or 30-40 minute leisurely bike ride in Boulder!

Tomorrow, I think we’re going to the Postal Museum tomorrow and then meeting up with my dad and David for dinner at Joe’s. Nom nom nom. Joe’s is my pizza cognition pizza. No other NY style eggplant slice can live up to it.

Monday, I have an interview with a legal staffing agency. I’m also working on some cover letters for jobs that might not pay as well but will probably leave me a happier and more fulfilled person at the end of the day than most of the “cog in the machine” legal gigs I qualify for.

Other than that, I’m re-teaching myself how to play viola so that I can play with a local ensemble, with other transient young professionals, for their next concert cycle.

Read Full Post »

ROAD TRIP!!!

Here’s the day-by-day of how our 10 day road trip from Denver to DC went:

Friday, December 28th: movers were 2 hours late, they got the truck loaded by 4 PM, we went out for pho, and then vacuumed and cleaned up a bit before we went to Becca’s for shabbat.

Saturday, December 29th: lots of nothing, Netflix, sleeping, and sitting in front of Becca’s faux fireplace, then we met up with some friends and went to Domo for dinner (where I had the BEST ramen I’ve ever had).

Sunday, December 30th: unpacked and reloaded the car, ate pie for lunch, and then got the tires checked at Costco before hitting the road around 1 PM. It started snowing around 8 PM, so we drove until 11 PM Central Time and stopped overnight at a highway hotel Junction City, Kansas because the snow was supposed to be worse the next day.

Monday, December 31st: It took us almost 5 hours to drive the remaining 3 hours of our drive to Leeland, KS, where Ben’s aunt lives. After a disappointing lunch we went to Whole Foods to stock up on ingredients and then visited Ben’s grandma for a bit. Then we blobbed out on the couch, made ourselves a big pot of pasta and some salad, did some laundry, and went to bed. We’re exciting people. Also, it was 12 F outside.

Tuesday, January 1: Had New Years Day brunch with Ben’s grandma and her friend at their retirement home, then hung out with his grandmother for a bit and went into Kansas City for the afternoon. The intention had been to go to LegoLand, but apparently you need kinder to go there, so we got our tickets refunded and wandered around the skybridges and visited Union Station where they had an awesome Lionel Trains exhibit about all the different gauges.

Wednesday, January 2: We hit the road around 10 AM after cleaning up the kitchen and reloading the car. Ben dropped me off at Walgreens to get a flu shot while he went to buy stamps at the Post Office. It’s a good thing we didn’t go very far though because I realized that I’d left my phone, plugged in and charging, in the kitchen at his aunt’s house. Oops. So we went back and picked it up before heading having lunch at a old timey bakery/cafe (Dave’s) in Independence, MO. Then we spent the afternoon at the Truman Library. Then we drove to St. Louis, stopping for dinner at Panera somewhere along the way. We used a Groupon I had for a convention center hotel that included parking, welcome drinks, and breakfast in the morning.

a funky church in Independence, MO

Thursday, January 3: Breakfast wasn’t exciting, but it was included in our Groupon so we made the best of it. Then we bundled up and walked over to the arch. It’s gorgeous! The Jefferson National Expansion Memorial (museum) was OK, but I wasn’t into it. Frankly, I think the flu shot was making me feel like crap so I did a lot of staring at things without reading them and sitting on a bench with my brain turned off. Ben did most of the driving. After checking into IndyHostel, in Indianapolis, Indiana, we had dinner at Napolese, which was amazing (and not just because we were hungry).

the arch in St. Louis, MO

Old Court House, where the Dread Scott case was heard

Friday, January 4th: We met up with a classmate of mine from Interlochen for brunch at Zest, it was yummy! Then we hit the road and drove for a few hours, starting a new audiobook, Argo. We stopped in Columbus, OH for ice cream at Jeni’s and met up with a friend from Chicago, his wife, and their new baby. I had 1/2 a scoop of some AWESOME cherry chevre ice cream and 1/2 a scoop of cherry lambic sorbet. I think cherries make me think of warm weather and it was too cold to snow outside. We slogged on towards Pittsburgh, stopping no where memorable for a roadside dinner. Not the shabbat we were hoping for, but it gave us more time to listen to our audiobook!

Saturday, January 5th: We’d called ahead to one the of the synagogues in the area that had seemed worth visiting, to see if anyone might have hosted us for shabbat, the person who answered the phone had no idea what to do with that question and I was so shocked by her lack of welcoming that I forgot to leave my name and number. Oops. Instead, we had an AMAZING brunch at Square Cafe and the went to the Andy Warhol Museum, which is in what used to be a Jewish neighborhood that is now mostly black. Dinner was disappointing Chinese food downtown, about a mile from the convention center hotel Ben had found us a good deal on.

Pittsburgh Platform Plaque

Sunday, January 6th: We had a quick breakfast at a bagel shop downtown and then we took the light rail to the the Carnegie Science Center. We spent most of the day there, then took the light rail back to the hotel, went to a bizzaro Turkish/pizza place, walked in and then left, then picked up some sandwiches for dinner, went back to the hotel and blobbed out to watch the season premier of Downton Abby on PBS.

Downtown Pittsburgh, PA

USS Requin, at the Carnegie Science Center

Monday, January 7th: Ben paid and exorbitant fee to get the car out of the garage (stupid weekday vs. weekend pricing), and we headed off to Johnstown, PA, where we’d meant to go to the Johnstown Flood Museum, but it was closed (in spite of their website and the sign on the door saying that their open every day but Thanksgiving and Christmas Days). We wandered town for 20 minutes, got back in the car and drove in alternating shifts to my parents’ house, getting to Gaithersburg (where Ben will be working) around 5 PM. The rush hour traffic at that hour is heading OUT to the suburbs, not into the city, so we didn’t have any issues getting home in time to meet up with my dad for dinner.

Post Mortem of our trip: I think we’re foodies.

Read Full Post »

The Trip Home (from Michigan)

We staying in a motel 1/2 way between the beach and the airport (about 10 min to either) the night before we were to fly home to Colorado. You can see the photos from our evening beach excursion in the previous post. Since we had an 8 AM flight and a rental car to return, we didn’t want to have a big drive to worry about before 7 AM in order to return the car and check our one suitcase -we always fly out carry-on only with United and bring a duffel bag to pack dirty laundry in, giving us room in at least one of the small roller bags to pack souvenir bottles of wine and other food products we like to purchase while traveling (preserved cherries and maple syrup this time).

Anyway, we packed the night before, leaving out a change of clothes and tooth brushes, and swim suits to dry. The morning was a breeze since we’d pre-packed and had some pastries from a bakery in Traverse City stashed in our carryon bags. We returned the car, checked our suitcase and sleepily waited to board the plane (note: at this point I had an awful head cold and was snuggled into my sweatshirt and cuddling a box of kleenex).

We boarded our tiny plane, had to gate check our roller bags because they would never have fit in the overhead bins of the tiny plane, and took off on-time.

I really wanted a ginger ale and was waiting for drink service (about 20-30 min after we took off) and watching the landscape below.  My ears were KILLING me. I kept rubbing the little flappy part over the ear opening, trying to get my ears to pop. The pilot made an announcement that we were about to fly over Milwaukee. About 2 minutes later he made an announcement that because they were unable to stabilize the air pressure inside the cabin, we were unable to assent above 17,000 feet and didn’t have enough fuel to make it to Denver at that altitude. Therefor we would be making an emergency landing in Chicago and would touchdown in about 30 minutes. Doh!

We landed in Chicago, went to the service desk and were issued tickets for a 3:30 PM flight to Denver. It was about 9:45 AM at that point. We also each received a $10 meal voucher.

After plunking down to pirate some wifi from the airport hotel, we each emailed our bosses to let them know that we were stuck in travel purgatory and wouldn’t be in until tomorrow.

Then we sat around debating what to do with our time in Chicago. We figured we’d head to the Art Institute and go see American Gothic, but I got us off a stop too early on the El and we ended up right on the Chicago River. Then I thought: a river cruise! So I dashed into a nearby fancy hotel and asked the concierge if she could book us 2 tickets on the Architecture River Cruise! No dice, it was high tourist season and they’d been booked for weeks. Oops. Then I was informed that tickets to the Art Institute were $18 each. Also a no-go for us.

Dejected, we walked aimlessly along the Magnificent Mile until we saw as sign for Beard Papa’s, a French chain that serves various styles of cream puffs and gourmet coffee drinks. Aah, the perfect birthday indulgence (yes, this all happened on my 29th birthday).

Yes, we had cream puffs the size of cheese burgers for lunch, and sweet cream tea. DELICIOUS!

We wandered the mall a bit before retreating back to the airport so that we could have a proper lunch of quick gourmet Mexican at Rick Bayless‘s Tortas Frontera in the airport and spend our vouchers before our flight. YUM! We split a Roasted Garlic and Mushrooms Torta (sandwich) and a Tres Quesos Mollete and each got our own agua fresca (fresh squeezed juice). DELICIOUS!

My birthday may not have been as boring as I’d planed (fly home, eat lunch, go to work), but it was WAY TASTIER!

In the end, we got on the plane to Denver, flew home, got our checked bag, waited just 10 minutes for the bus to Boulder, got home and did laundry and ate something un-memorable for dinner. Again, not what we’d planned, but still a great day!

Read Full Post »