Around the World (And Back Again)

Birthday Weekend in Charlottesville

2011-06-01T04:11:00.006+02:00

Yay! I'm actually posting something on our blog for a change. Dave and I escaped DC and Rolling Thunder by heading out to Charlottesville, VA with our friends Laura and Kathleen. My sister-in-law was awesome and let us borrow her convertible:

MUCH fun was had by all. We spent Saturday shopping, shopping, shopping, and eating. When it was lunchtime and our feet were hurting, I suggested the strategy of eating at the next restaurant we saw. Apparently it was a good strategy because we found this amazing French place called Petit Pois:

We couldn't go to Virginia wine country without visiting several tasting rooms at the local vineyards. Dave and Laura seemed to enjoy this part of the trip:
While Dave and I were just along for the ride enjoying the wine tasting, our friend Kathleen was on a mission to stock her wine cellar and made some serious purchases:
Sunday was my birthday, but we seemed to spend the whole weekend celebrating. Saturday Dave found this great cupcake store called Cappellino's Crazy Cakes. We got to learn some local lore about the cupcakes - a very pregnant woman was in line ahead of us getting a free lemon drop cupcake. Apparently the cupcake is supposed to help you go into labor if you're overdue. The store claims this has worked for 43 babies to date. I'll have to remember this trick...eating cupcakes sounds way better than doing jumping jacks or eating spicy food.

I'm soooo excited about my birthday present from Dave. He got me a pair of red 18th century walking shoes. They're being made, and I should get them in a few more weeks.

On Saturday night we celebrated my birthday at the Ivy Inn Restaurant. I looked around for a nice meal online and came across this place that's known for cooking with sustainable meats and local produce. It sounded like fun, so off we went. If you are ever in Charlottesville you MUST go to this place. It was amazing...and I've spent more eating at Joe's Crabshack. Definitely order the Shrimp & Grits (I don't like grits...and I LOVED this). The waiter was very nice and helpful, and since it was my birthday, we got a free Champagne toast and I got a special dessert:
Sunday we went out to Monticello. The estate was beautiful, but it was a very hot day and we had to wait quite a while before our tour began. If I ever go back I need to remember to reserve a tour ahead of time online. I'm a bit of a history buff, but there was quite a lot of new stuff for me to learn about Thomas Jefferson...and I have to say, most of it wasn't very flattering. I'm definitely glad I went. We found a fun purple shamrock plant to that was grown at Monticello's nursery to bring back to Jennifer as a thank-you for letting us use her car.

After all his patience with the shopping/wine tasting/touring, Dave finally caught a break on Monday when we stopped for lunch at the Blue Mountain Brewery. My Dad would love this place - they even grow their own hops right in front of the restaurant. Dave tried a sampler of all their draft beers:
Every time we turned around there was a gorgeous view (especially at the vineyards). I considered going back to school to become a vintner for about five seconds...before I remembered that I have a black thumb and am terrible at chemistry. It was a fabulous weekend. Thank you to everyone that helped make it so wonderful!

Oscar 2011 Predictions/Outcome

2011-02-28T20:31:00.003+01:00

Okay...I didn't get this posted before the award show, but I promise I didn't change any of my answers (the categories with stars at the ones I got wrong). I got 18/24 right this year, which is one better than last year. I will, as always, be posting an Oscar fashion round-up after the Oscars on my sewing website, but here are my guesses for this year:

Best Picture - The King's Speech
Best Director - The Social Network* (King's Speech won)
Best Actor - Colin Firth
Best Actress - Natalie Portman
Best Supporting Actor - Christian Bale
Best Supporting Actress - Melissa Leo
Best Animated Feature Film - Toy Story 3
Best Foreign Film - Biutiful* (In a Better World won)
Best Original Screenplay - The King's Speech
Best Adapted Screenplay - The Social Network
Best Documentary Feature - Inside Job
Best Original Score - The Social Network* (King's Speech won)
Best Original Song - "We Belong Together"
Best Film Editing - The Social Network
Best Cinematography - True Grit* (Inception won)
Best Costume Design - Alice in Wonderland
Best Art Direction - Alice in Wonderland
Best Makeup - The Wolfman
Best Visual Effects - Inception
Best Documentary (short) - Strangers No More
Best Short Film (animated) - Day & Night* (The Lost Thing won)
Best Short Film (live action) - Na Wewe* (God of Love won)
Best Sound Editing - Inception
Best Sound Mixing - Inception

It's going to be all about the King's Speech this year. I saw the movie and really enjoyed it, so I'm happy that it's in the lead. Social Network will probably be the runner-up this year. On costumes: I think there are a lot of people saying the award will go to the King's Speech designer, but I really think Colleen Atwood should get it for Alice in Wonderland.

New York, New York!

2011-02-25T02:57:00.001+01:00

I spent the last few days up in New York on business, but managed to take a few hours to play. My brilliant friend Liz managed to get us reservations at Per Se for dinner Monday night. I've never had any food that comes close to the Per Se culinary experience. It really deserves it's three Michelin stars. The staff treated us like princesses, we dined enjoying an amazing view of Central Park, and the nine course tasting menu was fabulous.

After 2 amuse-bouche, 2 starters, 2 fish courses, 2 meat courses, 1 cheese course, and 2 desserts, we were shocked when a the waiters bombarded our table with a final flourish of sugar:
As if two desserts weren't enough, we got candy, doughnuts, cappuccino ice cream, truffles, macaroons, chocolates, and caramels (all made by Per Se). Liz compared it to the grand finale of the firework show. It was dessert shock and awe!

I also managed to catch a Broadway matinee on Sunday. I had always wanted to see Wicked. I managed to read the book which really didn't impress me (and was terribly sad), but I heard rave reviews of the musical. Now I know why. The show is a beautiful production with a compelling story.
This is a shot from my favorite musical number: Defying Gravity. Check out the link which goes to a YouTube clip of the song. In the scene, Elphaba learns to fly...because "Everyone Deserves the Chance to Fly."
Of course any Broadway show wouldn't be complete without my own commentary on costumes! Above, I've included a photo of some of my favorite costumes in the production: the Emerald city costumes were visually stunning. Galinda's costumes are by far the flashiest, which makes it easy to overlook the delicate and beautiful gown that Elphaba wears during the peak of her "Wicked Witch" years. Take a good second look, and note the amazing details/frills/lace that went into this costume.

I was amazed by the evolution of Galinda the student to Glinda the good witch:When we first meet Galinda Upland, she's a pampered young woman from an affluent family on her first day at Shiz University. We begin to see Galinda evolve. Here, she has adopted the new name "Glinda" and wears a traveling gown as she and Elphaba visit the Wizard at the Emerald City. After agreeing to work for the Wizard, Glinda takes on a more sophisticated look. I love the hair and hat! It reminds me of the styles popular in the 30's and 40's. We next see Glinda at a ball. Her gown is clearly evolving into a style more reminiscent of the Glinda we all know and love from the Wizard of Oz movie.SPOILER ALERT! Stop reading unless you want to know what happens at the end of the musical.

Finally, we see Glinda in her prime. A large fluffy dress, enough sparkles to blind, and the bounciest curls of the North. I really like that the costume designer steered away from pink and instead chose a soft blue for Glinda. But Glinda is no longer a puppet of the Wizard - she is a strong and confident sorceress. She ousts the Wizard, and is ready to take up Elphaba's cause and lead Oz.

History, History, and Halloween

2010-10-25T02:30:00.007+02:00

I've been meaning to make a few blog posts...but now that I've finally sat down long enough, we'll do three postings in one! First up, Halloween! Dave and I spent this afternoon searching for the perfect carving pumpkins. I give you Dave's amazing cannibal pumpkin:

I stayed very simple this year, and chose to carve a kitty pumpkin. It took me an hour from start to finish. I don't think I've done a pumpkin this quickly since I stopped doing the classic jack-o-lantern with triangles for eyes when I was twelve. I normally go for the most complicated pattern in the book.
Here I am with my pumpkin:
And here's Dave:
Last weekend Dave, Kathleen (a friend from work), and I all piled into our cars and went to Colonial Williamsburg. My favorite stop, as always, is the Milliner shop. Check out my costume blog for info on the this year's visit. We caught the noon parade, and Dave snapped this amazing photo. Very professional looking, don't you think?
There were LOTS of dogs on Duke of Glouchester street. We saw this guy walking around and just HAD to get a photo:
The weekend before Williamsburg, we were at the Renaissance festival. We had an amazing time. I think it's been several years since I've enjoyed the festival this much. We got to actually chat with the King for a few minutes, and the actor was very kind to allow us to take a picture with him (posed exactly like the festival's brochure that Dave is holding in his hand):
The Rogues happened to be performing when we walked by one of the stages. They were performing one of my favorite songs. It's actually a classical song that I've danced to at Gatsby's tavern, but most will recognize it as the theme song from Last of the Mohicans. We were very amused to note that the Rogues have groupies that dance at their performances (apparently these are their wives and girlfriends):Even more amusing was the burly guy in a kilt, guarding the stage and wearing a security T-shirt. I wasn't sure if he was seriously security, or if it was a joke.Finally, one of my festival favorites (she's actually new to the festival in the last three years) is Lady Merilee Effingham, the English courtesan. Dave and I were thrilled to find out she had her very own performance this year. Last time we saw her she was a street act.
I LOVE her costume. Check out her venetian chopines:
We actually saw her walking around in these! Very impressive.

New York, New York!

2010-09-19T03:22:00.002+02:00

I got to visit New York this week for business. The visit kicked off on Thursday, when I arrived in Penn Station in NY, and promptly bumped into Beth, my college roommate. I haven't seen her since my wedding. What blows my mind is neither of us live in NY. She lives on the West Coast, and we just both happened to be in the train station at the same time. It's a small world!

I checked in to my hotel (the Hudson), which turned out to be a very hip building. I didn't even recognize the building as a hotel when we pulled up in the cab...there were no signs indicating this was the place. It was very close to the Time/Warner building, which had fun shopping. Other observations - I paid $25 for a not-so-impressive breakfast, $5 for a soda, and my room was the size of small cube. There was literally one foot between the foot of my bed and the wall. But, the bed was comfortable, so it worked.

Thursday night, I met up with Julie from high school. We went to a Jazz at Lincoln Center concert in Bryant Park, and then had yummy french fusion cuisine. Lots of fund catching up with her!

Friday, after my meetings, I decided to go check out the costume exhibit at the Met...only to find out that there was no costume exhibit. In my defense, I DID look this up before I went, but I couldn't tell from the website that there was no exhibit. I did check out the bookstore before I left, and was happy I did. There were two books that I'd been considering purchasing, but I didn't like them after thumbing through them.

Disappointed by the lack of costumes, I ran down to the Garment District to FIT's fashion museum. It was a small exhibit, but there were several pieces that I really enjoyed, and it focused on eco-fashion. There was a really cool green dress from the 1860s that was dyed with a process that used arsenic. Gives a new meaning to poisenous green.

Since I was already in the Garment District, I couldn't resist going to Mood, the fabric store featured in Project Runway. It was amazing!! One floor was almost exclusively silk. I had a really good time checking everything out, but managed to resist buying.

I definitely want to visit NY again soon. Dave should come along next time, and I want to have time to see a Broadway show (specifically...Wicked).

Funfilled Weekend

2010-07-20T22:15:00.006+02:00

I was pleasantly surprised this past Friday to get home and find out Dave was on his way up. We had a nice weekend together. First, we went out to Homestead Farm in order to pick up some fresh white peaches and blackberries. I later turned the peaches into a peach crisp, and the blackberries into a blackberry pie.

Next, my tastebuds were demanding a trip to Georgetown Cupcake. I watched the premier of DC cupcakes on TLC this last Friday, and have had a craving for one of their cupcakes ever since. Dave had a chocolate cupcake, and I had a strawberry cupcake. Plus, thanks to a rain shower that ended just as we arrived at the cupcake shop, there was no line!
Finally we went to see Despicable Me. It was lots of fun to watch, and we caught it in 3-D (honestly I could take or leave the 3-D, but the showing we wanted to se happened to be in 3-D). The previews gave away a lot of the funniest moments in the film, which was too bad. My favorite line remains the little four year old neurotically shouting: "It's so fluffy!!."

Reclaiming the Blog

2010-07-07T15:10:00.002+02:00

So after a rather unremarkable year in Colorado, Dave and I are ready to reclaim our Blog and our lives. With the help of his parents, we repacked the U-haul for the return trip to the East Coast in late June. Dave is going to set up his new business in Chesapeake, VA where we hope to both be living within the next year or few years. I, meanwhile, have returned to work in Washington, D.C. and am living with Dave's parents in the Maryland suburbs. The commute in to work is brutal, and I'm definitely still adjusting. Thanks to the generosity of Dave's parents, we're hoping to save, save, save for a new house in Chesapeake. Perhaps within a few years home ownership can be ours.

I'll try to keep the blog a little bit more up-to-date. Hopefully there will be more newsworthy info to publish here! Dave and I recently welcomed a new nephew to the family. My sister and her husband are so proud of their new little baby. Mama bear is very protective of her new baby, though, so I'm not allowed to post any pictures of the baby. You'll just have to take my word for it that he's adorable.

Get Inclined

2010-04-30T20:12:00.000+02:00

I'm just going to throw this out there now: there are a lot of photos following this text (84 to be precise).

What follows is a selection of photos from my hike up the Manitou Incline on Sunday, April 25^th, 2010. We started a little before sunrise, so the pictures of the sun coming up are from about half way up the incline. Then there are a few pictures from the top of the incline. The rest are from the trip down on the Barr Trail.

On the way down I took part in an exercise to practice photo composition, which resulted in my taking a few hundred photos. The exercise was this: I couldn't stop to take a photo. At most I was allowed to pause mid-stride. There are a few photos where I cheated a little bit, but only in the sense that I took them while we were already stopped.

-Dave

Oscar Fashion Roundup

2010-03-08T18:47:00.000+01:00

My annual fashion roundup for the Oscars is available on my sewing website.

Oscar Predictions

2010-03-05T22:46:00.003+01:00

UPDATE: I got 17/24 right. I put an asterisk next to the categories I got wrong. I was happy I made the right call on Best Picture.

It's time for the Oscars again! I will, as always, be posting an Oscar fashion round-up after the Oscars on my sewing website, but this year I thought I'd record my predictions here and see how I do. Here are my guesses for this year:

Best Picture - Hurt Locker
Best Director - Kathryn Bigelow
Best Actor - Jeff Bridges
Best Actress - Sandra Bullock
Best Supporting Actor - Christoph Waltz
Best Supporting Actress - Mo'nique
Best Animated Feature Film - Up
*Best Foreign Film - The White Ribbon
*Best Original Screenplay - Inglorious Basterds
*Best Adapted Screenplay - Up in the Air
Best Documentary Feature - The Cove
Best Original Score - Up
Best Original Song - "The Weary Kind"
Best Film Editing - The Hurt Locker
Best Cinematography - Avatar
Best Costume Design - The Young Victoria
Best Art Direction - Avatar
Best Makeup - Star Trek
Best Visual Effects - Avatar
*Best Documentary (short) - The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant
*Best Short Film (animated) - A Matter of Loaf and Death
*Best Short Film (live action) - The Door
Best Sound Editing - The Hurt Locker
*Best Sound Mixing - Avatar

It's going to be a close race between The Hurt Locker and Avatar, so I won't be surprised at all if some of these technical categories are flip-flopped. I think, in the end though, the Academy will shy away from giving a Sci-Fi film Best Picture, so that's what I'm going with.

Stranded

2010-02-03T18:19:00.002+01:00

I dislike it when people say "I told you so," and I really hate giving people the opportunity to say it. I got a used car for Christmas, and it has already had several trips to the repair shop. My dad wanted me to put it on a warranty, but we just don't have the kind of money to plunk down for that right now. So last week, Dave had a death in the family and we decided to drive to Indiana to attend the funeral. We took my car because it has cruise control, and I figured we HAD just had it checked out at the dealership, so surely everything should go fine. Wouldn't you know the stupid car threw a rod not 90 miles from our destination? Of course Dad was quick to point out that's something a warranty would have covered.

We've spent the last two weeks stranded in Indiana while our car gets a new engine installed (happily, we're stranded with very kind and generous family).

I would just like to point out, for those who are keeping count, that I've now had a car catch on fire with me in it, and one car's engine blow up with me in it. I'm getting a bit tired of this bad car Karma. I clearly need to be able to purchase a much newer car that won't give me this sort of trouble. Keep your fingers crossed that I finally find a job that will allow me to do just that.

The Bittersweet of Life

2009-09-04T12:25:00.002+02:00

For those of you who didn't hear on facebook, I'm officially an Aunt for the first time. My little niece is named Katherine Vanessa, or Kathy, and she's adorable. She weighted in at 7lbs 11ounces, and has a head full of hair like her mother's (and like my husband's). I'm very proud of my new little niece, and plan to spoil her rotten.

In other news, the same day my niece arrived in the world, my grandmother departed. This is the first grandparent I've lost so I've taken it a bit hard, and Grammy Wilson was always very close to my heart. I'll miss her a lot, but she was very ill and is now in a much better place. I was also very fortunate to get to see her less than one month ago on my way out to Colorado. We're leaving today for the funeral, and will be back after the long weekend.

All's Fair at the Fair

2009-08-31T03:36:00.003+02:00

Today we went to Colorado's State fair in Pueblo. I had the most fun checking out the craft arts display, which included food (cakes, canned goods, cookies, etc...), quilts, dolls, and clothing. I didn't find any historical entries, and there didn't appear to be a cake decorating contest, much to my dissapointment.

Perhaps the most interesting discovery this year was "Mutton Bustin." This is apparently a common rodeo and fair sport where parents willingly let their 3-6 year olds get bucked off an unsuspecting sheep. Seriously -google this! None of the kids we saw actually rode the full six seconds, but there were a surprising number of 3 year olds that made a good showing. I counted at least four. There were also a few kids that bailed out once the got on the sheep and realized maybe this wasn't such a good idea.

Finally, we of course ate the mandatory fair food. This year's fattiest foods that we spotted were the fried oreo cookies, fried twinkies, and fried snicker bars. We opted out of those, but did go for a bratwurst with saurkraut and the mandatory funnel cake.

Caly the Movie Star

2009-07-17T06:31:00.010+02:00

In the spirit of the Look-Alikes Blog, I'm posting the following comparison:

Caly Post-Haircut

Totally Looks Like Falkor From The Neverending Story

Thanks to our neighbor Nate who we can always count on for random 80's pop culture references and who first pointed out the resemblance.

-Dave

Nudist Dog

2009-07-14T22:22:00.007+02:00

It's been awhile since we've posted anything so for you consideration I present the following:

Calypso: A Before and After Pictorial Review

BeforeAfterBeforeAfterBeforeAfter

The differences are subtle, so don't feel bad if you're having a hard time spotting them.

-Dave

People with way too much time on their hands...

2009-04-23T03:15:00.006+02:00

Being a big enough geek that your wife knows you'll actually appreciate a Lego Star Destroyer set: Check
Being a big enough geek to think it will be fun to make a stop motion video of the construction project: Check
Being a big enough geek to spend over three hours editing together the final video including time spent researching what character sets and colors to use for the opening scroll: Check
Having a wife who is a big enough geek to appreciate (and participate in) all preceding items on this checklist: Priceless

-Dave

Side Saddle Video

2009-04-17T04:30:00.003+02:00

This is Melissa riding side saddle on Sandy several weeks ago. She's still alternating weeks between riding astride and riding aside and her instructor isn't quite ready to put her aside on a thoroughbred, but she's improving each week and is hoping to move off of the "kiddie" horse soon.

Right now her instructor's greatest fear with moving Melissa onto a younger horse is that her hands will rise up and cause the younger horse to either stop or bolt. Personally, I think her instructor should just put Melissa on a younger horse now. All it will take is that horse bolting once and I guarantee you Melissa's hands will never rise up again.

I know. My concern for my wife's safety is inspiring. They should give me an award.

-Dave

Welcome to Chocolate Heaven

2009-04-15T02:26:00.004+02:00

I really, really, really love Hershey Chocolate. When I was living in France as a kid, and people would ask what they could bring me from the U.S., I would beg for Hershey chocolate bars (they didn't have them in France). So, imagine my delight when I got to visit Hershey Pennsylvania this weekend!
There were some amazing chocolate products at Chocolate World, including the world's largest Hershey Bar (5 Pounds of chocolate!).
10 Gallon containers of Hershey's Syrup (yes, they're actually for sale).
The Largest Hershey Kiss, stuffed with Hershey Kisses (almost 3 pounds of chocolate).
Bars, and bars of giant chocolate bars (these are the really big ones you find in the candy and baking aisle). This show reminded me so much of Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory.
Finally, Dave, Katie, and Missy all check out their loot while sitting in front of Cocoa trees in Chocolate world.
Next up was Hershey Park. We decided that Missy had to double check the height requirements for the extreme rides - she just made it! Not that the tall people would rub it in or anything.
Here we are getting ready for a ride on the Comet roller coaster.
As per our theme park tradition, we finished the evening with a ride on the carousel. Missy and I had a great time picking the horse that was 'just right.'
Katie and I snuck out early on our last day for a trip to the Hershey Spa. Here is our 'after spa' shot. A Raid Shower, Milk and Honey Bath, and Cocoa massage all contributed to this blissful state.

Animals

2009-04-05T03:34:00.003+02:00

This Post will focus on the animals in our life. Gidget has been hiding a lot lately, so she's not pictured below, but she still sneaks in stealth cuddles in the morning and is just as loved as always.
Caly and Mina have bonded and formed an evil alliance. Dave and I are convinced that they will attempt to overthrow us any day now. Just look at them...definitely plotting.
In horse news, I can always tell when I'm going to do something new and interesting at a riding class: it's when I forget to bring my camera. This week, when I showed up for my 'astride' lesson, I got to try out a new horse. A HUGE horse. Meet Tonka, a Belgian horse ( as in the breed, not the country...picture a Clydesdale). His hooves are about the size of dinner plates.It's not the best photo, but here I am on Tonka. He has one of the smoothest trots I've ever had the pleasure of enjoying in an English Saddle. I actually managed to make it half way around the indoor arena at a trot today (this is big news because I have major posting problems...I raise my arms up when I lose my balance, which makes the horse stop). My instructor told me I have very nice posture this week, so I'll file away that little gold star. Getting off of Tonka was an adventure in itself. It was like jumping off a skyscraper.
The side saddle lessons are coming along too. I'm currently trying to learn to keep my hands down (see reference above). If I make it through a class without being told 'put your hands down' I'll get to upgrade to one of the Thoroughbreds. Sandy is a nice horse, but he's over 20 and is the 'kiddy ride' horse. It would be nice to get on a horse that's a bit more eager to trot.
Yay!!! Here you can see that I'm getting my posture right!! My back is straight, my head is up (I look a bit snooty, don't I?), my right foot is pointed down, and my left heel is down. All is as it should be, though my hands should probably be even lower...hip level.
And another small step in Side Saddle world - meet the 'right leg.' I'm referring to the cane I'm carrying. It's a cane, not a crop. I tap the horse with it (on the right side) whenever I would usually be squeezing my right leg to convey an instruction.

So, there's my random 'animals' Post. Enjoy!

Isn't It A Bit Early for Easter Decorations?

2009-03-07T01:03:00.006+01:00

For some reason, my dog decided she wanted to get festive for spring and dyed herself pink. Yes, that's right, my dog dyed herself pink.
I had just retrieved something from my sewing closet and apparently didn't notice that I'd knocked something off its shelf, or that Caly was in the closet and went after it. Five minutes later Caly came and sat down at my feet chewing on something round and plastic. Upon further inspection I discovered that it was a container of pink chalk powder like this one:I use it when I'm sewing to help me hem my dresses. I have a chalk hemmer. If you can't picture this, visit Joanne's fabric here to see what I'm talking about.
As funny as it was to see her all pink, Dave and I were not laughing once we realized that the bottle of chalk was completely empty and we started finding chalk dispersed all around the apartment on our white carpet. We vacuumed to no effect, so Dave worked on cleaning the carpets while I rewarded Caly's behavior with a bath and blow dry. We have still not gotten all the pink off the carpet, but we're definitely making progress.

Bad dog.

You think she can get me some Cadbury Eggs?

Look...I'm Riding Aside!!!

2009-02-23T04:10:00.002+01:00

So, of course the first night my instructor dragged out the side saddle is the night I decided to leave the camera at home. She HAD said I'd be riding in an English saddle for a few more lessons last time, because she didn't feel I was ready for the side saddle. I don't know what changed in between last week and this week, but I'm glad it did. We'll have to make do with photos from Dave's camera phone:I'm riding Sandy, a nice old Palomino horse (he looks much too white in these photos...he's a beautiful sandy blond). He was short too...probably about 14 or 15 hands, which made getting on and off a lot easier in the side saddle.
I like this photo...although I can almost imagine my instructor telling me to put my left heel down. I really enjoyed riding in the side saddle. I was able to trot without any problems, and managed to convey 'stop' to the horse just by rocking my weight back in the saddle. It was interesting to find out that the foot in the stirrup is doing almost nothing. It's my right leg that is keeping me on the horse, and directing the horse. The scariest part was getting down. Dave has to help me to on and off (there are apparently ways to learn it on your own, but assistance is preferred). To get off, I swung both legs onto the left side of the horse (facing away from the horse) and had to slide off with Dave holding my right hand. I just about sat in the dirt I hit the ground so hard. :) I can't WAIT for the next lesson.

George Washington's Birthday Ball

2009-02-18T01:27:00.003+01:00

Which also happened to take place on Valentines day. It was probably the only way I was ever going to be able to get Dave to attend a costumed ball with me, and I took full advantage. I had a great time, and I think Dave had a good time as well. Here we are in the ballroom at Gatsby's tavern (I should have taken a picture toward the beginning of the night instead of half way through...all of my tendril curls have fallen flat):We took the dance classes that led up to the ball, so we did pretty well with the English Contra Dances. If you want to see more on the dance (read: costumes), check out the costumediva.com website for more photos.

Side Saddle Course

2009-02-09T03:42:00.004+01:00

Yes, I DID say side saddle lesson. So why, you ask, am I sitting astride the horse? Well, my first lesson on riding 'aside' was learned astride the horse. The instructor wanted to get a feel for how comfortable I was on a horse. The answer, I think, is that I'm doing ok but I definitely need a lot of work. English has never been my thing, so posting has always been hard work for me. I did not manage to demonstrate a passable trot this class, so I might not be in a side saddle next time either. I would finally start posting, and I'd shift the reigns, and the horse would stop...exactly as he should have since that was the signal I was sending him). I'm currently the only sidesaddle student at the farm, so I'm getting private instruction.

I'm taking lessons at Linden farm in southern Maryland (it's a bit of a drive, but it's real pretty). I'm signed up for at least this month. It's a rather expensive hobby, so I'm not sure if I can keep it up, but so far I'm really enjoying it and would LOVE to continue. Maybe I won't feel that way once my rear end has experienced the discomfort of a sidesaddle. I have to admit I was floored when the instructor told me that her goal is to get me ready to compete in the Dressage category, riding sidesaddle, a year from now. I'm not sure competing had ever entered my mind.

The horse I'm riding is "Ollie," short for Oliver Twist. He was a real sweetie and was happy to stand still while I sorted myself out on the saddle and inexpertly saddled him. He got even though, because he has one of the most jarring trots I've ever experienced.

There were lots of barn cats hanging out, and Dave had a good time playing and saying hi to this barn cat while I had my lesson. Apparently the cat was clear on the other side of the arena and came running over when Dave crooked his finger.

Update from the Zoo

2009-01-27T02:15:00.003+01:00

Yes, our house is a zoo, but I kind of like it. Mina and Caly are getting along with each other pretty well - I love this photo of Dave draped with white furry animals.Mina is growing incredibly fast, but she's still just a little girl. This was taken a few weeks ago...she's now four months old, and is probably half grown. Gidget still makes a big fuss around Mina, but I caught Gidget grooming Mina two days ago, so things looking up. I wasn't able to grab my camera quick enough to catch a photo of it - Gidget stopped the second I came into the room.Here, Mina is stalking a piece of Caly's rawhide. Pretty much everything is a source of amusement for her right now (including playing with shadows on the bed with the morning light is streaming in). Mina pretty much loves all of Caly's toys, but luckily Caly likes playing the Mina's toys, so it all evens out.

A Very H(cr)appy New Year

2009-01-04T23:43:00.005+01:00

Our New Year's Eve was spent more or less like any other. We woke, we had breakfast, we lazed around for a bit after Melissa got off early from work, and then we went to the emergency room.

Evidently Melissa wasn't happy with the number of toes she previously had working, so she decided to "accidentally" slam one against a door frame on Sunday night. She then gave it another good whack on Wednesday afternoon for good measure.

Look inside the red circle on the photo above and you can see how successful she was in her endeavors. That little spur that's kind of hanging out by itself as though the other bones don't want to be its friend? Yeah, that's supposed to be attached.

For her efforts Melissa got a free ride to the hospital (and free parking!¹), a cool see-through picture of her foot, pain killers, a really stylin' blue walking boot, and a trip to IHOP!

And what did I get? I got food poisoning at IHOP.

Happy New Year!²

-Dave

¹Only because it was a holiday. As though going to the hospital weren't expensive enough they make you pay for parking too.
²I was going to say that I hope everyone had a better New Year's than we did, but I decided that probably went without saying.

Merry Christmas

2008-12-30T17:02:00.006+01:00

Dave and I enjoyed spending the Holidays with his family this year. We spent five days with his family, enjoying our traditional Raclette meal for Christmas Eve. We all agreed to cut back on gift spending this year, but I think that this resulted in very thoughtful Christmas gifts that both Dave and I have been enjoying.

Dave's dad set up his LGB train around the Christmas tree. This turned out to be a very important Dog Deterrent System to keep Caly out of the wrapped presents. She didn't quite know what to make of the loud train. We made sure to get Caly a few presents for her stocking so that she was worn out by the time we opened our gifts and didn't have the energy to make a nuisance of herself.

The biggest Christmas present that Dave and I got this year was yet another addition to what is quickly becoming a small menagerie. I fell in love with a kitten at one of Petsmart's Rescue societies, and just couldn't resist (she's the white one giving her brother a bath): We adopted her two weeks before Christmas, but had to wait until the day after Christmas to bring her home (she had to be spayed first). Here we are the day we picked her up:Our little Pashmina (Mina for short) came home with us and is a wonderful little cuddle bug that loves to purr. We named her Pashmina because she's silky soft and likes to curl up or sit on our shoulders like a wrap. She let's us walk around with her on our shoulder like a parrot. I do think we now have more than enough animals - I am officially cutting myself off. However, it didn't take much to convince Dave that another kitten was just what we needed. Here's a photo I took with my camera phone the night we adopted her (two weeks ago). Mina clearly already had him wrapped around her little paw.

Mina and the dog are actually tolerating each other fairly well - Caly likes to lick the kitten, and Mina purrs in response. Although the kitten didn't fuss, Dave and I were slightly alarmed when Caly decided to grab her by the ear and drag her away from us. Because of this, they require constant supervision, but I think they will really like each other once Mina is a bit bigger and able to counter Caly's rough housing. Gidget is disgusted with the entire situation. She spent two days hissing at me any time I got near her, but she came up for a cuddle last night when I went to bed, so I think I'm on the road to forgiveness.

Merry Christmas to all our friends and family!

The Official Start of the Holidays!

2008-12-06T17:03:00.006+01:00

Yay!!! An excuse to temporarily halt our one month trial of the 'eat clean' diet. Dave and I have been trying our best to try out a new lifestyle where you make an effort to cut sugar out of your diet and try to stick to six small meals a day. It involves a lot of cooking, since the philosophy of the diet is to buy unprocessed foods so you have more control over what you're eating. So far, our biggest complaint is we have a hard time eating all the food(!), and yes, we're losing weight. We'll see how it continues to goes, but on Thanksgiving we felt we could be officially excused from eating 'clean.'
We went up to Dave's parent's house in Maryland, and had a wonderful time! Check out the beautiful table setting they had. Dave's Dad retired from the Army on Tuesday (BIG congrats), and a lot of the family that came for the ceremony stuck around for Thanksgiving. It wasn't quite the mad house that my first Thanksgiving with Dave's family was (50+ people), but there was lots of company.To my mother's horror (her arteries object), and my utter delight (I'm sure my arteries object too), Dave's family fries their turkey after injecting it with Cajun seasoning. This year I was able to capture the process.
I am always amazed at how quickly the Turkey cooks. It only takes a little over one hour. I love the way it tastes...it's very moist, and of course the seasoning is lots of fun. No pyrotechnics occured, and as always a fire extinguisher was on hand in case of a mishap.Jennifer also make a Turkey (yup, there were that many people) in the more traditional roasted method. I sampled both, and they were excellent! Dave had the honor of cutting up the Turkeys...he seemed to enjoy this a bit much. Don't you think he has a bit of a scary gleam in his eye? Hmm...So here was part of the feast (awaiting one more Turkey platter). We served buffet style in the kitchen after realizing there was no way we could pass around all the food.
Here is my annual pie contribution. Two apple, two pumpkin, one cherry, and one chocolate cream. They really didn't take that long, although I suppose after the one year where I made fifteen pies it's all relative.Being back in the US has made me crave doing things that are very American. I missed Black Friday last year (though I did have fun on the internet), but for some insane reason I felt compelled to participate in Black Friday this year. After combing over Thursday's adds, Best Buy's doorbusters caught my eye (who can argue with 18 month zero percent financing?). We didn't have an HDTV, and I've heard bad things about the converters. So...we hopped in line at about 10:30 pm on Thursday, armed with blankets, hats, gloves, and chairs. I still can't believe I talked Dave into this. He really is a good sport. We stayed out all night until the doors opened at 5 am. It was a really interesting experience. It was cold (Dave and I have both been very sick this entire week...so I suppose we're suffering the consequences of styaing out), but people in the line were very friendly, and the police showed up at about 3 am to keep the line in control. There was no rushing the doors when the store opened, though people definitely strode with purpose toward their selected loot. We walked out the proud owners of a 40 inch LCD TV and a Blu-Ray player. Total savings: over $400. Only in American can you feel like you've 'saved' money after making such large purchases. I don't think this is something I'll care to repeat (seriously...it was COLD), but I'm still thrilled I went out and experienced Black Friday, and I'm very proud of our purchases.

The Governor's Ball

2008-11-25T03:14:00.003+01:00

Try to ignore the lovely shoes in the foreground - here's a photo of me all dress up and ready to go to the Governor's Ball at Gatsby's tavern. If you want to ready more about my dress, you can check out the latest Post on costumediva.blogspot.com.I had a very nice time at the ball. I went stag but Dave was nice enough to drop me off and pick me up. One of these days maybe I'll convince him to tag along, but this ball was not that day. I wasn't able to bring my camera (no pocket), so unfortunately I have no photos from the ball.

In preparation for the ball I took a series of 18th century English country dance lessons, so I knew most of the dances at the ball. Some of them I danced well, while I managed to stumble my way through a few others. Here's a youtube clip from Pride and Prejudice showing one of the dances I actually learned and danced. I kid you not - the name of this dance is "Mr. Isaac's Maggot." There was surprisingly no lack of partners - I only sat out one dance, and otherwise I was on my feet having a great time. I met some very nice people who will be at the next ball (Washington's birthday ball), so I'll look forward to seeing some of the same crowd again in a few months. I also really enjoyed the dancing and learned that there is a group that get's together regularly in Alexandria to practice, so I may start going. It's certainly a good workout.

Congrats to Megan and Ethan

2008-11-17T04:28:00.008+01:00

I have finally managed to pull together some photos of Megan's wedding week, so here they are! If you would like to see the professional pictures, they're now available here (do check them out...I've only gathered what few photos I took and the family sent...they're are beautiful photos on the photographer's website.
So first up, just one or two shots from the Bachelorette party. Megan dressed up as a trophy wife, and enjoyed posing for the camera.Here we all are in a limo on our way to our evening entertainment. What happens at the Bachelorette party stays at the party, but I thought it would be nice to show a few photos of us having a good time.The next day we hosted a "Brunch at Tiffany's" wedding shower for Megan. The towel cake in the center of the table is my gift to Megan. The martini glasses are full of champagne and roses bath salts as favors. We served lots of little savories and pastries, along with Belinis (champagne and peach juice).Megan looked great in a hat she ordered from eBay, and a really cute little dress. Here, she's posing with her new Mother-in-law.You can't see her as well in this photo, but I thought it really showed off how well she had accessorized her outfit.The guests really got into the theme as well. I'm in the green dress with my back turned to the camera, my aunt Judy is to my right, the hostess Amy is in black with her back turned to the camera, and on the far right is my mom.Here are Megan and Ethan at the rehearsal dinner. We had the dinner at the Phantom Canyon in downtown Colorado Springs. The rehearsal was a bit of a challenge for those of use who weren't Catholic (there were LOTS of things to remember), but we all figured it out in the end. Get this: the seminarian who helped with the rehearsal recognized me, and it turns out we both spent our Junior year abroad in Paris (there were only 70 of us or so). He is originally from Virginia and has been assigned to a church in Colorado Springs. What a random coincidence!Here's Megan on her wedding day morning. First stop was the salon for us all to get our hair done.I LOVE the way Megan's hair turned out. She wore her veil right above the low chignon, and borrowed the tiara I wore at my wedding.Here she is coming down the aisle with dad. All brides are beautiful, but Megan was positively stunning!This is the only photo I have of myself at the wedding, so here I am in my matron of honor gown with my cousin Robbie. I'll have to buy a few of the photos from the photographer of me with Megan.Megan and Ethan made their grand entrance at the reception and did a beautiful choreographed rumba dance to "Sway with Me." It finished with a gorgeous dip. Nicely done Ethan!Here are Megan and Ethan together. It's one of the few shots I have that shows Megan's full wedding dress.Here they're cutting the cake. Megan went with a fall themed wedding, so her cake reflects that with leaves and yellow flowers on butter cream. Each tier was a different flavor (spice cake, almond cake, and chocolate cake.A few of the younger family members went out with Megan and Ethan for a post-reception party in downtown Colorado Springs. Megan wore a cute little sweater dress as her 'get-away' dress. Since it was so close to Halloween, there were lots of costumes roaming around. Here, Megan and Ethan pose with a group dressed up as the Reno 911 cops. What a great group costume!

So that is Megan's wedding! It was a beautiful event. The newlyweds have just returned from their honeymoon in Spain, and it sounds like they had a wonderful time. A big congrats to my baby sister on her wonderful new husband, and may you have many happy years together!

Congratulations/Happy Halloween/Happy Election Day

2008-11-04T20:49:00.004+01:00

As the title notes, I'm a bit behind (yet again) on updating the blog. Dave and I got back from Megan's wedding last Monday completely exhausted. I went straight back to work which didn't help much, and then Halloween activities distracted me this weekend. I dressed up in my favorite costume - the 18th century robe francaise. Every time I wear it it looks better because I have more accessories. New this year were the 18th century shoes, silk stockings, fingerless gloves (yes, they're period), the hat, and I sprayed my cheap white costume wig gray for a better look. I love the dress so much I'm considering making another one once I finish my new 18th century corset. Maybe a blue dress with pleated trim instead of ruched trim, layered over ivory organza. Mmm...yummy. Here are some Halloween photos to tide you over:Dave made an appearance as a Jedi on Halloween night.Depending on who you asked, I was dressed as Mme. de Pompadour, Marie Antoinette, Elizabeth Swan, or (very disturbingly) Scarlet O'Hara. I had to work hard to bite my tongue at that last one.There were actually quite a few dogs dressed up out for a walk. Caly is the pumpkin, and I just HAD to get a picture of the wiener dog dressed up as a hot dog. We saw about five more dogs in various costumes that night.
I embraced the Elizabeth Swan thing (after several little girls said, LOOK, it's the girl from Pirates of the Caribbean), and practically tackled the first Jack the pirate for a photo.Here, my little puppy is showing her good taste as she gazes into the window of an art studio. For the most part, she was very curious and seemed to enjoy her Halloween outing. The outfit did not appear to bother her at all.

For those of you holding out for wedding photos, you'll have to sit tight for another week or so. The photographer is posting the pictures online, and since I was in the wedding party I didn't have a lot of time to take photos. I didn't even get photos of the wedding shower I put together because my camera's battery ran out! Ack!

Dave and I rolled out of bed at 5 am this morning to get in line and vote. We were pretty lucky - the line wasn't too long and once the polls opened we only had to wait for 40 minutes. I even managed to make into work at my regular time. Now that it's mid-day, I hear that the lines are wrapping around the block. Another neat thing about voting this morning - we were able to walk to the middle school that is literally right next to our apartment building. It didn't even take five minutes.

If you haven't yet, GO VOTE. One way or another you'll be able to tell your kids that you participated in a historical election.

Back on the Ol' Homestead

2008-10-18T04:36:00.003+02:00

Now that we're back in the DC area, we couldn't wait to go visit our favorite apple picking farm once fall rolled around. We went out to Homestead Farm with Katie and Missy, and had a nice wholesome morning at the farm. I was disappointed that there was no corn maze this year, but I guess you can't have everything.
We waited for the Pink Ladies to be ripe (plus we also wanted it to be late enough in October that we could pick out some decent pumpkins). Here, you can see that the Pink Lady trees were heavily laden and ready for the picking!
The farm has several different varieties of apples, and each row is labeled with what apple trees are planted. It was fairly late in the apple season, so only Pink Lady, Braeburn, and Fuji apples were ripe. Last weekend was actually the last weekend the farm had apple picking available.

Every time I get out to the trees, I always wonder if I remember correctly which apple is my favorite. Here, I'm sampling a Braeburn apple, and while they are very good and sweet, I stand by the crisp sweet/tart combination that you get with the Pink Lady. Dave and I saw Pink Lady apples on only a few occasions in Poland - they were always imported and highly overpriced, and yet we still went ahead and bought out the produce lady's stand every time she had them. Since these apples under a dollar a pound, we went ahead and got a full bushel. I assume there will be Thanksgiving pies in the future, and the apples will keep in the fridge for several months (wohoo!!).
I did pick out a nice carving pumpkin for when we get back from Megan's wedding, along with a mini pumpkin which is sitting in our window with some other Halloween decorations (Pictures to come closer to Halloween). My major prize was finding a "Boo" pumkin (or a white skin pumpkin). I was on the lookout for one, but they didn't have any with the other pumpkins. I finally spotted a boo pumkin in the farm store display, and after a quick chat with the check out girl, the pumpkin was mine. Of course, it was only after this that I learned that the farm has a boo pumpkin patch, and that I could have had all the boo pumpkins I wanted had we taken the hay ride out to the patch.

The farm had some of the amazing Pumpkin Masters carving pumkins. I decided to do a very challenging pattern, but I used one of the hobby store pumpkins so that my work won't go to waste and I can use it another year.
We actually went back to the Renaissance festival after the farm with Missy in tow. Dave had left one of his glass dragons with the glass blower to be repaired so we needed to go back, and when Missy expressed interest we decided to go ahead and enjoy the fair for one last weekend. I made the mistake of taking Missy to Nobless Oblige to show her the gowns I had been admiring last weekend. If you'll recall from the last posting, I tried on one of their gowns last weekend in order to determine my size (the gown I put on was one size too big). I filed away my correct gown size and thought to myself that a custom order would be more fun since I really wanted a dress in burgundy, like this dress from Dangerous Beauty.

So of course, I walk in and there on the rack is a burgundy dress in my size. Since Missy decided to try on the gown, I figured what the heck, and tried on the gown. It was so beautiful and perfect!! Words cannot describe - it had a steel boning bodice, a stomacher to allow for changes in dress size with a wooden busk, it was 100% silk (with very little slubbing which makes it more authentic), it had beautiful appliques that looked like embroidery, and the back bustled up to give the dress the same 'poof' as the movie dress. It is THE dress I've always wanted (and no, I can't make my own...there's currently no pattern that comes even close to this). I think I stayed looking at myself in the mirror for a good half an hour. It was incredibly hard to put the gown back, but the three digit price tag (that was way too close to a four digit price tag) was completely out of my reach. I guess I'll start saving up for next year (I like the Esmerelda combined with a matching Melisandra).

Dave and I are now off for Megan's wedding in Colorado (it's on the 25th, but I need prep time)!

The Renaissance Festival

2008-10-06T00:45:00.004+02:00

Dave and I realized that it had been almost five years since we last went to the Maryland Renaissance Festival. We both enjoy going, and always have a great time! In this year's story line, King Henry VIII has divorced Anne of Cleves and married the young 15 year old Catherine Howard (yes, this is one of the wives that he beheads...unlike Anne Boleyn, she WAS having an affair). I managed to find some members of the court just as we were leaving - the Duke of Norfolk is on the far right, and to my left is Archbishop Cranmer and Lady Rochford (Lady Rochford also gets beheaded because she was helping Catherine keep her affair a secret).
A new addition that I thoroughly enjoyed was Lady Merilee, the Courteous Courtesan. Ren Faires need more courtesans! I adore her outfit...she made it herself! She had a little set up in a small alcove where she had set up rugs, seats covered in fur, and a small desk. She offered to entertain us with lyrics, poems, or jests. She was very witty, and one of her other advertised services was taking "pesky husbands" off their wives hands for a few hours.

We were sad to hear that Joe Kudla, better know as Snot of the famous "Puke and Snot" show, recently passed away. An excellent actor has stepped in to continue the character that Joe developed over several decades, and he refers to himself as Snot Junior. The show did go on, but Snot will be missed.
In case you're wondering, this is one of the few costumes in my closet that I did not make myself. I actually bought it on ebay - I always adored the Arwen costumes from Lord of the Rings, but knew that all that beading and embroidery would make it a very difficult costume to reproduce.
The costume came complete with the ears and "the one ring." Obviously the hair isn't mine - I bought it for $4 a a local beauty store (it's intended to be used in braids and weaves). I pinned it to my hair at the top of my head and then braided a piece of the weave to disguise where my hair stops and the wig begins. I think the effect was very pretty and fey like. A little girl was fascinated by my hair, and asked to touch my pointy ears. Even after I told her the ears were fake she thought they felt real. Thanks to Dave for taking all these pictures. One of these days I'll get him in costume and then maybe we'll get him into the photos! This year our favorite stores were Transparent Sands (this is where Dave buys his glass dragons), the demon horn stand (Dave and I both indulged in a pair this year), Dragon wings (lots of fun feather hats!), and Noblesse Oblige where I got to try on a beautiful Venetian courtesan dress a la "Dangerous Beauty" (check out the Esmerelda and Melisandra...I wore these together).In other news, Gidget and Calypso have still not made peace. Gidget is resorting to new and creative hiding places. I call this one the disembodied hiding place. I didn't catch it quite right in the photo, but she likes to hide behind the curtains and only stick her head out so that she can spy on the dog.

The Pentagon Memorial

2008-09-28T20:13:00.005+02:00

Obviously this Post is a bit overdue since the event occurred on September 11, but thanks to Dave's dad we had the opportunity to attend the dedication ceremony for the Pentagon Memorial.
For the ceremony, the Pentagon set up 3,000 flags representing all the victims of 9-11, and flags with blue ribbons represented those killed at the Pentagon. I tried to take the photo at several different angles, but you still don't get the feel for the field of flags that we saw.
The seating arrangement was enormous. I heard estimates that there were 17,000 people there. I'm honestly not sure...I would have guessed a lot fewer than that, but I've never been good at figuring out crowd size.
While I knew that Secretary of Defense Gates would be there, I was surprised when I spotted Secretary Rice quietly entering from the sidelines (I saw a large crowd of suits discreetly seating themselves moments before the program began, and in the middle, there she was). Other surprise guests included Former Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Vice President, and President Bush himself. Below is the best photo I could get. Rumsfeld is on the left, then Gates, President Bush, and Admiral Mullen. The man on the right was one of the main organizers of the memorial, who lost his brother in the attack.
The ceremony was truly beautiful, with every military musical group you can imagine playing great patriotic songs, including Taps, Amazing Grace on a bag pipe, An American Anthem, and God Bless America. They also had a childrens' choir perform, and the flag that hung over the Pentagon was hung, and the soldiers who draped the flag on 9-11 stood on top of the Pentagon by the flag. The most difficult part of the ceremony was the reading of the names of all the victims at the Pentagon, while their photos were projected on the large screen. The military officer reading the names was poised with a clear voice for the majority of the ceremony, but even her voice cracked as she read the name of the youngest victim: a three year old girl who died on the plane with her entire family.

We couldn't actually see the memorial from the bleachers, but the unveiling was projected on a large screen (and were unable to actually see it since you had to have time-staggered tickets to get in). Here, President Bush is getting ready to unveil one of the 184 benches that make up the memorial. Military staff unveiled the remaining memorials simultaneously. Each victim has their name carved into one of the benches, and there is a glowing light pool directly underneath each victim. The benches that represent the 59 victims on Flight 77 have the names oriented so that a visitor will face the sky when reading the name of the victim. For victims who were inside the Pentagon, the name is oriented so you are gazing towards the Pentagon.

While not one of the happiest events ever, the dedication ceremony was everything that it should have been, and Dave and I were both honored to be able to attend.

Dave chimes in: I have no idea how she found this, but my mom found a picture where you can see us on Fox New's website: Picture Link.

In the photo: look at the far right side of the picture. We're in the bleachers about five rows from the front. See the little splash of red that's barely in the picture? That's mom's shoulder. Moving to the left is Melissa. Continue moving to the left and you'll see an achingly sexy beast of a man. That would be me. I know. My modesty overwhelms you all.

Meet Me At The Fair!

2008-08-13T20:00:00.001+02:00

The Outer Banks

2008-08-06T20:06:00.005+02:00

Laura, our awesome friend from Warsaw, has moved back to DC and invited us to spend the weekend with her in North Carolina while she enjoyed her vacation on the beach. She had an amazing sea cottage rented in Avon on the Outer Banks.Though it was quite the drive for a weekend, it was absolutely worth it! Here we are enjoying the beach:We spent the early morning and late evening out on the beach. I managed to avoid any sunburns (thank you SPF 55!), but Dave missed a spot on his legs and got a little pink. We mostly spent the time sipping iced tea, reading, and jumping large waves in the ocean. The beach cottage had this really great outdoor shower setup, so we didn't even track in sand after our beach outings Apparently this is pretty common at beach cottages, but having never been to one I thought that was really neat. They also had a fish cleaning table set up outside.During the hottest part of the day, we took a break from the beach and explored other nearby attractions that had air conditioned visiting centers and shopping. I have always been in love with the idea of living near the seaside, 'near a lighthouse.' I have no idea where this fascination with lighthouses comes from (I certainly wouldn't even want to hike up one), but there's something incredibly charming about them. I had my chance to visit my first light house at Cape Hatteras. It was built in 1870:Sunday we had to check out of the cottage early, so we loaded up the cars and decided to make a slow return up the outer banks, including a stop at Kitty Hawk. There, we visited the Wright Brothers National Memorial and visitors center.The visitor's center featured lots of interesting original items from the Wright Brother's works, and also included a full size reproduction of their glider and powered plane. The glider is pictured below.I got a huge kick out of learning that the brothers came down to the Outer Banks from Ohio to take vacations during the summer for several years in a row. Granted, the main purpose of these vacations was to work on their plane...but it was funny to learn that they chose the Outer Banks because they wanted a nice vacation (I'm sure the wind had something to do with it too).Here I am standing on the field where First Flight took place in 1903, December 17. I'm standing near the launch point. The brothers flew 4 times that day and each of the 4 white stones indicates how far the engine powered plane went (going into the wind). The last flight lasted almost a full minute, and you can barely make out the marker in the distance.We all hiked up Big Kill Devil Hill to get a better view of the field, and Dave and Laura paused to strike a noble pose.
Just to prove that I too made it up the hill, here I am with Dave at the Wright Brother's Monument at the top of the hill.

We couldn't end our visit to an area known for its famous pirates (Black Beard was caught just off the Outer Banks) without gathering some loot and provisions take home. We made a stop by the local seafood joint and picked up that morning's catch of the day: shrimp, scallops, and crabs. Further along the road, there's a series of farmers markets that helped add to our loot: we brought home fresh peaches, blueberries, cherries, and corn. It might not be the kind of loot the pirates were after, but we were proud of our yummy treasures.

Dog Videos

2008-07-09T04:01:00.001+02:00

We've been having more fun with Calypso these past few weeks, and Dave finally made a few great videos of her in action. The first is actually the first meeting between Calypso and Gidget - watch for Gidget taking a swipe at her newfound foe. She's pretty fast, so it's easy to miss.

Despite the fact that we still have not managed to fully housebreak her, Caly is proving to be a very intelligent dog (maybe she just doesn't want to be housebroken...). Here is a video of her and the tricks we've taught her. Since we made this video, we've also taught her to high-five and wave. She's still a bit confused on 'sit-pretty' (where she rolls back and sits on her butt with front paws up) and 'play-dead' (too similar to roll-over, probably). We're working on them, so she'll probably know a few more tricks before we're finished. She seems to respond to our hand commands more than to the actual voice commands, but she now sits on voice command so maybe that comes with practice. Here's our clever little puppy in action!

Caly's about ready to go off to school I think - puppy obedience school at Petsmart will be starting in a few weeks. She's pretty well behaved, but we want to put a stop to barking/jumping/nipping behavior that might be cute when she's a puppy since they won't be so funny when she's fully grown. We're not sure how cute they are now, though everyone that meets her seems to adore her.

We took her with us up to Dave's parent's house this weekend. We went swimming, and Calypso wanted in on the fun (thank goodness Dave's parents were amused if not encouraging this behavior). Sadly I don't have any pictures of her swimming. She pretty much fell into the pool on accident while she was exploring, and we figured since she was already soaked, why not let her swim a few times back and forth between us. She's a good little swimmer, and enjoyed herself despite the surprise she got when she initially fell in.

Williamsburg Visit

2008-07-02T21:03:00.004+02:00

Dave and I went to Williamsburg last weekend for the Redcoats weekend. It is set in the year 1783 when Williamsburg was occupied by the British military for a short period, and General Cornwallis declared martial law. It was a pretty neat weekend. In addition to all the normal Williamsburg activities, there was a British encampment in the center of town, and the troops marched up and down Duke street:
There were many reenactors on hand for the event. I adore this lady's 1770 Riding habit...I would really like to make a fancy one in green wool (granted, I think I'd rather wear it to a Winter event, rather than an in the sweltering June heat). She was even wearing gloves! I have to admire her willingness to be truly period correct. The gentleman behind her is actually one of my co-worker's sons. He was playing her servant, and would yell 'make way for My Lady' as they walked up and down the street. I'm trying to talk Dave into this next year...sadly, I haven't made much progress.Calypso came with us to Williamsburg. She's too little to kennel, and we thought it would be good for her to be out and socialize with people. In addition to people and dogs, she also got to meet a variety of wildlife. As with the big dogs, Caly didn't hesitate to bark at the large horses. I don't know how big she thinks she is, but she clearly has no concept of her real size.
The cannon demonstrations were a lot of fun (though Caly disagreed). I think this is part of the 33rd Regiment (a group of reenactors).
One of my favorite sights was the camp followers working in the British camp cooking. Here, they have chickens roasting over the fire: And they're also making pies! I've made pies before, but I've certainly never attempted that over an open fire. I have to say, I'd be hesitant to get out and cook near an open fire in my costume skirts. There's a very good reason that death by fire used to be unfortunately common for women.I went in costume the first day, but Caly was the star of the show. Here, one of the ladies that works for Williamsburg has fit Caly down into her pocket hoops. I don't think she'd tolerate that very long, but that would sure be a fun way to carry her around.We couldn't go five steps without someone asking us to stop and let them take a picture of Caly, and she was a big hit with kids ('can I pet the puppy?!!'). Calypso was pretty worn out by all the walking, so she was on her best behavior with everyone. We gave her lots of water and even sprinkled her coat with water to cool her off at every water fountain we passed. We missed a photo of it, but this nice lady gave Caly a drink straight from her mug (she was done with the water and about to toss it out). It was pretty cute.Check out my costume website for more info on my costume, and some in depth photos of the Williamsburg tailor shop. Dave and I got year-long passes, so we'll be going back for sure. Our next visit will be in September (well...Dave doesn't have to come if he doesn't want to, but I'm going for a weekend sewing seminar on period stays).

Amish Country

2008-06-23T04:03:00.003+02:00

This weekend we went up to Lancaster county, Pennsylvania to Amish Dutch country. Dave's cousins Beth, Debbye, Becki, and Susanna were in the area and we went up to see them. We started out the day at a HUGE Amish Farmer's Market (I keep referring to it as Amish country, but we later learned that most of the 'Amish' are actually Mennonites). It was indoors, and in addition to finding fresh produce, sticky buns, Apple Butter, Preserves, and fresh Cornbread, we also got so sample a bit of everything else (fresh pretzels, salsa, candy, pop corn, sausages, cheese...you name it, it was there).
Next up it was lunch time. We went to an Amish buffet where we stuffed ourselves with yummy wholesome food. We took this picture outside of the restaurant. Beth is sitting next to us, and Debbye and Becki are across from us. We were amazed to learn that both are pregnant with their first child and due within seven weeks of each other (they're twins, in case you can't tell from the photo).
After lunch, Beth had to go to work, so the rest of us continued on with our shopping. We stopped at two hand-stitched quilt stores. Susanna fell in love with one quilt we saw (quilt not pictured)...she took lots of pictures and is bringing them back home with her so her husband can take a look and decide whether or not to get it. I had an amazing time at the quilt stores because they also had fabric for sale. There were several civil war prints that I was musing over when a stack of homespun cotton caught my eye. One bolt was a gorgeous purple plaid, the price was right, so I bought it. The I found the drapery remnants table and got a jacquard fabric for my Tudor dress at only $2 a yard. It isn't silk damask like I really wanted, but the colors were perfect and I couldn't let a bargain like that slip by.
We ended our day at the local outlet mall. We all had very successful shopping trips. I found four dresses (but one get $10 off), and a couple were already on sale. I also got the necklace I'm wearing in the photo for 70 percent off!! The only thing better than outlet shopping is outlet shopping when everything is on sale. It makes for some ridiculous bargains.We hope to see them all long before next year's annual trip (yay...next time there will be babies!!), but next year we're going to try and time the trip so I can go with them to Hershey's chocolate day spa. It sounds perfectly decadent!

New Toy!!!

2008-06-19T21:30:00.004+02:00

As if I didn't have every kitchen gadget known to man, I have a new prize for my collection! Meet my new ice cream maker (thank you Mom!!):

Oooo. Shiny.

It's a White Mountain old fashion machine with an electric motor...I might be old school, but I'll be darned if I crank cream for a half an hour by hand. White Mountain, fittingly enough, is the creme de la creme of ice cream makers. Modern designs just don't seem to get it right - the ice cream comes out too icy or only make it to milkshake consistency.

In the picture, I'm making the first batch of the summer. Dave had a special request for peach ice cream, and since it's peach season it wasn't too hard to do. It was actually really good. Next up is Watermelon Sorbet (just need to find unflavored gelatin...) and then White Chocolate ice cream. Bring on the hot weather!!

Birthday Bash

2008-06-16T05:00:00.005+02:00

Okay, my birthday is long since past, but I never got a chance to post pictures from my party. I spent a lot of time on the food, so that seems to be all of the photos I have. Above, you can see several of the yummy treats I laid out for the party, including fruit for chocolate fondue, and zucchini goat cheese tartlets. Of course, the cake was the piece de resistance: White cake with raspberry mouse filling. This was the first fondant cake I'd ever made. It turned out beautifully, but I really missed the flavor of buttercream icing. I think this might be the end of my foray into fondant cakes.Here are more nibbles - half of the reason I'm listing them all is in case I want to remember for a future party (that, and to make sure all of you are looking forward to my next party!). On the red plate are savory endive treats with grape, walnut, and cheese stuffing. On the orange plate are caprese salad skewers - fresh mozarella, basil, and cherry tomatoes. In the background I have melon and salami skewers (provolone was out of the budget this time around). Mmm...the desert plate. The cake and chocolate fondant were clearly not enough, so this plate has mini cheese cakes and raspberry and apricot tartlets. These are the only things I can't take credit for (Safeway frozen section), but WOW were they good.

One of the birthday presents was an amazing White Mountain ice cream maker (the creme de la creme of ice cream makers) so I fully expect I'll be posting a bit more about my summer culinary experiences. Be sure to keep an eye on the costume website - I received a lot of sewing presents and have been updating and sewing like a mad woman.
Finally, for the heck of it, here is an adorable picture of Dave and Calypso during one of her rare naps. She wore poor Dave out.

Caly vs. Mr. Bear

2008-06-08T19:21:00.001+02:00

Meet Mr. Bear. He was a gift to me from Dave before I left for Africa. I started putting Mr. Bear into Calypso's crate at night so that she would have something to cuddle with. Our puppy book said that dogs find stuffed animals comforting.Imagine our surprise when Caly began showing quite a bit of aggression towards poor Mr. Bear. At first it was just a bit of chewing and nibbling, but then it turned into a wrestling match. Caly would grab onto the unsuspecting bear, and then vigorously shake her head, flinging Mr. Bear to and fro'. Calypso kept this up for a few days until we noticed that she was particularly focused on Mr. Bear's T-shirt. She was slowly but surely prying the shirt right off his back. She also began showing a disturbing fascination for Dave's hand exerciser, carrying the heavy thing around the room like a prize and chomping on the hard plastic.We finally solved the mystery. Our adorable little angel of a puppy is a bully. She was pumping iron so that she could mug the adorable little plushy. Poor Mr. Bear is still recovering from his last run-in with Caly:Caly, meanwhile, seems thrilled with her boon. She has been leaving Mr. Bear alone ever since she literally ripped the shirt right off of his back. Much to her delight, Mr. Bear's T-shirt was a perfect fit. One has to wonder if our clever little doggy can read. Why else would she be so determined to claim the "Someone at Maryland Loves Me" T-shirt?All joking aside, Calypso is doing really well. She's got a healthy appetite now that all her parasite problems have been taken care of, and she's making headway on housebreaking. Next time, we're going to put up a video of her doing some tricks - we're still trying to master a few, but she's already got an impressive little repertoire.

If you're wondering why we're not posting more pictures of Caly or posting more often, it's because a four month old puppy is quite and handful!! She is taking a nap right now, so I was finally able to sneak away to the computer.

-Melissa

The Newest Member of Our Clan

2008-05-22T18:00:00.004+02:00

Meet Calypso (Caly for short), the newest addition to our little family. She's a tiny 3 month old Maltese, born on Valentine's day. Dave took her to the vet today, and she weighed in at just about 3 pounds.

Calypso is like most puppies her age - she likes to eat, sleep, play, and poop. We're obviously devoting a lot of time to housebreaking, but she seems to be catching on quickly and we managed to have an accident-free day yesterday. Of course there were one or two brilliant moments the day before when she decided to go on the carpet moments after coming in from a walk - twice.

We already thought she was perfect, but our vet reinforced this notion by telling us he was very impressed with her temperament (she was a perfect pooch during her shots). Gidget isn't so thrilled with Caly but has refrained from any outright declarations of war. As long as Calypso keeps her distance, Gidget seems happy to perch somewhere high and stare at the puppy in disgust. Then, her natural cat curiosity kicks in and she just has to get a closer look: Caly is eager to play with Gidget and has made several unwelcome overtures of friendship. She seems to grasp that she should keep her distance when Gidget starts to puff up and growl.

Gidget, meanwhile, is finding new and creative ways to hide from the puppy. I call this one "Cat Lamp."

If you're wondering where we got the name, be warned: our academic nerdiness is about to rear its ugly head. Calypso was the nymph who imprisoned Odysseus on her island Ogygia. Ogygia is believed to be modern day Gozo, a tiny island that is part of Malta. Our puppy is a Maltese...a breed that originated in Malta. Thus the name Calypso.

Sigh1

2008-04-30T18:17:00.000+02:00

-Dave

¹Translation: $#*&@! Again!?

Hershey's Bliss

2008-04-28T21:04:00.010+02:00

**Please also check out our weekend at Fort Frederick, which is posted on my costume website.

I sometimes like to do things a bit backwards, so when I found out that our household shipment is arriving next week, I thought NOW would be the perfect time for a housewarming party. I suppose that decision was based on both vanity and impatience: our apartment is looking really cute without all the 'stuff' that's about to descend on us, and I just couldn't wait the extra month it will take us to whip it back into shape. Here's me and Risa, looking fabulous and showing off the new furniture at the party.
So now you're probably wondering about the title of this blog entry. I already knew I wanted to have a party when I heard about an interesting website called House Party. The website is a method of advertising for various products - on a select few days, one product is featured at over 10,000 private house parties nationwide.

What on earth does this have to do with my housewarming party? Well, I happened to notice that Hershey was sponsoring a House Party Event, and decided 'what the heck?', and applied to be a Hostess. So here we are, a month later, and I got to have a Chocolate themed house party featuring over six pounds of free chocolate, courtesy of Hershey. Here is the chocolate mudslide I came up with as our signature drink:

We had a good turn out and as always provided waaay to much food. One menu featured Chocolate fondue, chocolate cake, the new Hershey's Bliss chocolate candies, chicken mole sandwiches (one of the ingredients is Cocoa), chocolate chip cookies, and lots of other 'real' food to prevent anyone from going into chocolate shock. Here's a picutre of our buffet set up before the party (there was a lot more food in the kitchen):
So thank you to everyone for coming, we had a really great time and will have you back once the chaos of our move is over. I'd also highly recommend HouseParty.com if anyone wants to try it out. There really wasn't a whole lot expected of us - the website helped with electronic invitations, provided party ideas, and a box full of goodies for the party (including goody bags). None of the current offerings really caught my eye, but maybe one might catch yours. Enjoy, and until next time.

-Melissa

Dave's Educational Video Series - Syrup Making

2008-04-04T04:04:00.015+02:00

Last weekend Melissa and I took a short trip up to Vermont to make some maple syrup. Unbeknownst to us, the cosmic ether twisted during our plane ride up to the snowy north and we arrived to find ourselves staying at the same location as Melissa's parents and grandparents. Clearly strange and powerful forces colluded to bring about this coincidence. I have dubbed this force "Monster-in-Law" and truly she is a formidable foe¹.

A few comments before the chronicle of our adventure:

The sound heard at the beginning and end of the video is what you hear if you stand near a tapped maple tree and remain silent²
Melissa had a pretty nasty sore throat while we were in Vermont; whenever you think a Muppet is narrating, it's Melissa
The video is just over seven minutes long. You may want to grab a soda or something while it buffers if you have a slow internet connection

Sugaring in Vermont

While making syrup we also had what Melissa's family referred to as a "sugar party." The reason for the name became apparent as I learned what to do. It started out with Melissa's Aunt Sandra (below) boiling maple syrup even further until it was ready³. We then hustled outside while the (now very thick) syrup was still warm, patted down a patch of snow, applied the syrup, and ate it. Essentially we were eating pure maple sugar. It was exquisite.

Something else I learned during this experience is that maple sap is actually quite thin. When most people hear the word "sap" they tend to envision the super sticky stuff produced by pine trees. Maple sap, on the other hand, looks and feels more or less like water⁴.

At the end of the day it was time to grade our syrup. Maple syrup producers take their syrup making very seriously, so they've developed a grading scale to distinguish the various qualities of syrup. The grades are: Fancy (sometimes known as Grade A Light Amber), Grade A Medium Amber, Grade A Dark Amber and Grade B. Which grade is considered the best is a matter of taste. I can however say this, there was some definite swelling of pride going on in the sugar house when the following photo was taken:⁵

Interestingly, syrup producers have no control over what grade they make; it is 100% dependent on the sap harvested from the trees.

Stay tuned for the next installment in our educational video line in which we'll show you how to make your own air conditioning unit using nothing but your refrigerator, duct tape, and some trash bags!

-Dave

¹My father-in-law was the driving force behind this trip, but Jwan and I already have the Monster-in-Law joke running, so I got lazy and ran with it.
²Something very difficult to capture with several people around.
³I'm not clear on how the determination was made that it was "ready." I think there may have been some magic involved.
⁴Anyone who's watched the video and is curious about what the sap tastes like can do the following: get an 8 oz. glass of water. Stir in a tablespoon of sugar. Drink.
⁵It doesn't come across as well in the photo, but we definitely produced Fancy.

To Jenn and Ryan

2008-02-26T21:36:00.011+01:00

As Melissa discussed a few posts ago, I was recently honored to be a part of my sister's wedding ceremony. Since Melissa has already talked about what happened at the various festivities, this post will be about what didn't happen: my toast to Jenn and Ryan.

It's not that I wasn't prepared (I was) and it's not that I have trouble speaking in front of large groups of people (I don't); no, the problem was simply an erroneous assumption on my part. I had envisioned a scenario in which I could rap on my glass with a knife to get everyone's attention, stand up, and make my toast. Jenn and Ryan's reception, however, was not formatted in a style conducive to impromptu toasts, so I decided it was better to deliver this speech in a different format than to attempt to force their reception to conform with what I had envisioned.

What follows is a transcript of my toast. Superscripts, which are normally reserved for jokes in my posts, will in this case be used to explain visual clues that would have been apparent were I giving this speech live.

To Jenn and Ryan:

Wow, that worked just like it does in the movies.¹

So here we are.²

These are blank. I just wanted to look prepared.³

In doing research for my own wedding I came across references to a tradition where the most recently married member of the family stands up and gives the bride and groom some advice. Some insight into succeeding as newlyweds. Unfortunately, with a family as large as ours, I held the title of most recently married for… almost a week. So I’m disqualified there. But I feel that my status as Jenn’s only sibling makes up for my deficiency in the most recently married category. Also, I’ve never been much for tradition, so here we go.

I was always very blessed growing up. I had two parents who supported me in all things and a big sister who, despite occasional tiny arguments, was always there for me when I needed advice. Often that advice was unsolicited, but it was there none-the-less. So it put me in somewhat unfamiliar territory when, a few months after my own wedding (and I can’t remember how many exactly so we’ll just say it was 3.14 months), my sister asked me for advice.

I remember it vividly. Jenn and I were up late one night at mom and dad’s watching cable TV as we often did when we found ourselves staying at our parent’s house. We never really found anything worth watching, but we watched it anyway because the only alternative was going to bed. So there we were, watching Monk or some other drivel they put on after midnight, and this this was the moment my sister chose to ask me one of the most profound questions of our lives. She sat up on the sofa and reoriented herself towards where I was sitting across the room in our dad's recliner and asked, “How did you know Melissa was the person you were meant to marry?”

And my reply? Nothing. I’m sure to Jenn it looked like I was ignoring her. Being a typical younger brother I’m quite adept at ignoring my sister and hone that skill often. But not this time. The truth was my mind was racing: "How do I answer that question? How did I know? I can pinpoint the exact moment I knew, but how did I know?"

The only thing that would come to my mind was the old Redd Foxx routine: “What is it? What it is.” “How do you know? Because I know.”

I ran through that sequence internally a few dozen times before coming to the most shocking realization of my life: I had been married for 3.14 months and I couldn’t answer my sister’s question. I suppose I could have taken a stab with the Redd Foxx thing, but I knew that wouldn’t satisfy her and besides, it was coming up on 1:00 in the morning and I didn’t really feel like explaining who Redd Foxx was.

Well Jenn, I’ve thought about it a lot over the past three years and I have an answer for you. Helpful brother that I am I have an answer to a question you no longer need answered. What can I say? I work for the government. We specialize in obsolete information.

So, how do you know when you’ve found the person you’re to spend the rest of your life with?

Because you know.

You know when you look in their eyes and see your future staring back at you. You know because you see yourself walking hand-in-hand with them through the decades and it just makes sense. You know because that person becomes a part of you and you can never be complete again without them. For these reasons and a thousand others that you could never hope to articulate: you know. But mostly you know when you pray for guidance and the only answer is, “You already know.”

To Jennifer: my sometimes nemesis, my sometimes partner in crime, my always sister and friend.

And to Ryan: who I loved like a brother before I ever met because of the joy he’s brought to my sister.

May the love and happiness you share be without limits and may you both always know.

-Dave

¹This line was intended to follow the aforementioned ringing of the glass.
²After delivering this line I was going to shuffle a set of blank 3x5 index cards as though my speech notes had become disorganized.
³The cards, having fulfilled their one function, would at this point be tossed dramatically upon the table.

Red Carpet, Meet Melissa

2008-02-26T18:29:00.006+01:00

And no, I don't mean Melissa Rivers. However, like Melissa Rivers I for some reason feel entitled to critique the red carpet fashion from the Oscars and pick the Hall of Fame and Shame. Before I start, though, I feel compelled to mention that this was the first time in over ten years that I made the wrong call on the Costumes Oscar. Although I much preferred Elizabeth, I thought for sure Sweeney Todd's costumes were going to take the prize. They were edgier and whimsical, which Oscar loves. If you want to see the costumes, check out some examples from Elizabeth and Sweeney Todd.

So here we go. My favorites are:This year's best dressed: Jennifer Garner. She looks great in black, and all the detailing at the bottom of the dress is amazing. The diamonds really set off the dress. Kudos to her for also handing a very odd red carpet exchange with Gary Bussey. Where was Ben Affleck while his wife was being kissed on the neck by a weirdo??I LOVE this dress on Katherine Heigl. I think she made a pick that was incredibly flattering, and it just floated when she moved. I love the shoulder too.Another red dress, but Anne Hathaway went for the Grecian draped look that was really nice against her alabaster skin. Jessica Alba looks great! Extra points for women who are pregnant and still manage to find dresses that dazzle.

Next up comes my 'on the fence' category. They all still look very nice, but I feel like they could have made better choices.Cameron Diaz's dress is really pretty, but I don't think it went well with her complexion. She seemed to pale. I also think that if you're going to have that much bare chest, you should have jewelry too. Come on Cameron...the world's finest jewelers would have begged you to borrow one of their necklaces for the evening. And speaking of jewelry, I know she was wearing about a thousand carats, but that necklace was just not flattering on Nicole Kidman. When she was presenting it had swung off to one side and looked like it was cupping one of her breasts. The dress itself was very understated. Maybe she was trying to hid her baby bump, but I can't imagine she's really showing yet. She should have been a bit more bold, or even worn a dress to show off the bump.Okay, I'll go easy on her because Jennifer Hudson and I share the same problem, but her stylist should have known better. That dress style is designed for a B cup or smaller, and was a disaster on a larger chested woman. The rest of the dress, and the color were beautiful.I know Cate Blanchette is pregnant which creates a challenge on the red carpet, but I really didn't like this dress. The neckline was all wrong, and the printing on the gown wasn't very flattering either. If I had her body, I would have gone for the flowing chiffon goddess look. It would show off her nicely toned arms, and emphasize her pretty pregnant belly. It would also have been a bit more forgiving in the bust area.

And now for the Hall of Shame: I know some people won't agree with me on this one, but I just hated this dress. I will say that it is flattering to her body style...but she could have looked great in anything. WHY did she wear a dress with 3-d layers of fabric flowers in decreasing size right over her breasts (it's like she had flower shaped nipples represented on her dress), and FISH SCALES?? Yikes. During her award acceptance for best actress I kept gazing down at the odd flowers shooting forward from her chest...it was like watching a train wreck...I couldn't look away.Daniel Day Lewis' wife. Brocade, velvet, candy cane striped shoes, red bows, and jewels down the front. Enough said. This year's Worst dressed goes to Tilda Swanson. Again, I ask myself why would such a beautiful woman with an amazing body do this to herself? I looks like she went to the sale table at Jo Anne's fabric, picked out an icky polyester stretch velvet, and proceeded to just wrap it around her body. Seriously, it's like she's wearing a sack, and she forgot to sew on one arm of the dress. I can only assume there was no stylist at fault here...so the lesson is hire a stylist before you present at next year's awards Tilda.

-Melissa

Jennifer's Big Day

2008-02-25T19:51:00.000+01:00

Dave's sister Jennifer and her fiancee Ryan got married in Maryland last week. Dave attended as a groomsman, and I attended as a carefree guest (wohoo!). Earlier in the week, the bridesmaids let me help out with planning Jennifer's bachelorette party. What happens at the bachelorette party stays at the bachelorette party, but I can say we had a good time without (I hope) causing too much embarrassment.

My mom and I both got to go to Jennifer's shower. Mom was in town to hold my hand through a medical procedure and got to join in the fun. One game was particularly fun - Jenn had to answer questions about Ryan. For every wrong answer she had to chew half a piece of bubbalicious gum. There were quite a few hard questions, and toward the end Jennifer was having a hard time managing all the bubble gum:I also had a fun time with her shower present. I made her a towel cake with items from her registry:

The rehearsal itself was lots of fun, and generally a good time. The best man had to juggle parental and groomsman responsibilities for most of the night, but I think he found creative solutions:Here is Jennifer and Ryan, both looking great. They looked ready to run right back up the aisle and out of the church just like the rehearsal had been the real deal. Either that, or they were really hungry and wanted to move on to the rehearsal dinner. The bride, of course, had her pretty bow bouquet from the shower.
One custom I was not familiar with was the bow hat for the father of the bride. Hmm...I think I know where Dave gets some of his personality quirks from.The rehearsal dinner was lots of fun. Months ago while I was home for the summer, Jennifer had mentioned that Ryan wanted to have a special groom's cake made for the rehearsal dinner, but she couldn't come up with any ideas. I spent a minute or two on the internet, showing Jennifer where I had found some cake image galleries, so imagine my surprise when the cake turned out to be the first one we had looked at!

On the big day, I got to help get Jennifer ready with the bridesmaids. Her dress was pretty complicated and required patient lacing, but the effect is just gorgeous! Of course, I admit to being biased towards all things reminiscent of corsets.Here's another shot of Jenn getting ready with the bridal attendants and Matron of Honor (she's a bit hidden behind Jenn's head):The gentleman were also looking very dashing. Especially that tall one in the back.And here's a shot of the ceremony in progress. I have a great shot of the kiss, but I wasn't sure Jennifer would appreciate me posting that on the internet. She'd probably be fine with it, but I'll play it safe. I think the decorations turned out beautifully. Most everything was done by Jennifer and her aunts. I helped out on some of the pew hangings and hanging the draping in the background. I went shopping with the mother-of-the-bride for the fabric and was especially proud that I managed to negotiate a good deal from my favorite fabric store since we purchased an entire bolt (I've clearly been living overseas too long because I generally don't attempt to bargain in retail stores in the US).

Back to Stay (at least for now)

2008-02-22T19:36:00.004+01:00

Hey all,

Time for a quick update on what we've been up to. I am slowly getting better and am no longer at the hospital, but it will be a while before I can really say I'm fully recovered. I'll need to see a doctor weekly for quite a while, so we will not be going back to Brussels. I have started a temporary assignment in DC this week, and leased an apartment in DC that's an easy commute to work. My mom helped me find it while she was visiting me a few weeks ago. Here she is in my new kitchen:

Our storage was delivered to the new apartment this week...I can't tell you what an odd thing it is to be reunited with items you haven't seen in over 3 years. Some things I was thrilled to see (yay tempurpedic bed!!), some I had forgotten about (random rugs, storage unit, and my lane trunk), and some things I wondered why on earth we had bothered to store (three random lamps that probably haven't been used in over six years and don't match anything). *shrug*

As 2000 lbs of furniture came rolling in (our full bed, my old twin bed and it's trundle, dinning room table and 6 chairs, bookcases, computer desk, sofa, etc) it turned into a game of tetris trying to fit everything in. I shudder to think of what we'll do when the rest of our 5000 lbs of stuff shows up. Thank goodness for relatives and storage units.

I'm slowly getting set up (internet this weekend...phone whenever Dave comes back to the US). Dave briefly came home to attend his sister's wedding (which was so fabulous it clearly merit's its own posting) and also dropped off Gidget, but he's now back in Brussels finishing his last few weeks at his old job and packing up our belongings. I'm hoping he'll be home in early March. We did have time for a date on Valentine's day, and we went out for seafood on the Georgetown Waterfront.

So far I'm really enjoying being (the price shock hasn't set in yet), and am looking forward to being in touch with friends and family. I'm also looking for fun activities or clubs to join. I'm trying out yoga this week, but I also want a social activity. I was thinking about SCA, or a dance class. I can't seem to find a historical sewing club anywhere. What do you all think?

-Melissa

Domestic Diva

2008-01-22T02:32:00.000+01:00

For my long weekend, I seemed to crave activities that were all things domestic. Dave's parents were kind enough to put up with me for the weekend, and I helped out a bit with wedding planning and prep for Jennifer's upcoming nuptials. I tied labels onto small silver bells, ribbons onto bubble containers, and even decided to try my hand at making a square cake.
This one is a four layer yellow cake with vanilla pudding. Since I didn't have my piping kit with me, I just snipped the corner of a ziploc bag to decorate the cake. Still, I think it turned out nicely.

I made the mistake of visiting Michael's and Hancock Fabrics. At Michaels, I found a "teach yourself to knit" kit, complete with booklet and knitting accessories. I have done a little knitting before, so I went ahead and bought it, along with the supplies for an Old Shale Afghan. Don't think for a moment that knitting will replace my love of sewing...it's just hard to sew when I'm in a hotel room with an ocean between me and my sewing closet. Here's the afghan pattern I'm working on:On the sewing front, Hancock was having their fabulous 99 cent sale on Simplicity patterns. Simplicity makes all the historical costume patterns that I love, so I helped myself to six patterns that I have been eying (I may or may not make them...but I couldn't pass them up at 99 cents). Here's one of four civil war patterns that I picked up, and the other two were regency patterns (dress and undies).Finally, I did something that some would argue was slightly impulsive considering the current uncertainty of my future living arrangements (DC or Brussels). I bought furniture. I don't even have an apartment to put it in (though I do have a place to temporarily stash it thanks to my fabulous sister-in-law), and if I'm sent back to Brussels I'll have to arrange storage, but I just had to have it. It's perfect. It caught my eye in the sales catalog, and after several days of longing I finally decided to go check it out in person. It passed the comfort test, Dave checked it out on the internet and decided he liked it, and it was 50 percent off. Plus it has a chaise. Did I mention, I now own a chaise?? I got the sofa in blue, the chaise in white, and the chair in brown (I also got the cube ottomans). This was my first 'grown-up' furniture shopping experience (as opposed to thrift stores and Ikea) so I was very proud and excited.

On the medical front, if this weekend is any indication I seem to be regaining my previous activity levels which is definitely a sign of improvement. I'm waiting for some lab results this week, and I'm also being sent out to a specialist to check for ulcers and a few other stomach issues. Yuck. I can't tell you how much I'm not looking forward to that.

Red, Red, Wine

2008-01-17T15:06:00.000+01:00

Red hair, take two. The 6-8 shampoo hair color washed out on the first go, but I had so much fun the first time I thought I'd go ahead and do it again. I had gone to CVS to find a new nail polish I'd seen advertised in magazines (the kind that comes on sheets and you rub off onto your nail...has anyone tried this stuff??). I didn't find what I was looking for, and once again found myself in the hair dye aisle. This time, I decided to go a much darker red, and since they didn't have what I wanted in the 6-8 shampoos, I grabbed a 28 shampoo temporary dye (it says it will last six weeks...we'll see).

Since someone (*mom*) couldn't tell the difference with the last dye, I decided to go for before and after shots this time. Here is my normal hair:

And here is my wild child red. I'm really enjoying it, but I think if I ever really want to go red I'm going to let a pro do it, because I want it to look RED, not red over brown.And no, I'm not going for the sex kitten look in that last photo, but was just trying to take the photo with my hair at an angle. The red didn't show up on camera when I took straight on shots.

Fun stuff, huh?

Little Red Riding Hood

2008-01-13T20:27:00.000+01:00

I decided I was craving a walk on the wild side, but being the tame person that I am temporary hair dye was the only answer I could come up with. Jennifer helped me use an at home dye kit to go auburn red this weekend. She was a really good sport about it. Jenn kept worrying that she might mess it up, so I tried to reassure her that if it didn't turn out right I'd just go the hair salon and get it fixed...no big deal (I need a haircut anyway). Jenn may have missed her calling, because the results are subtle and rather natural looking.

It will only last for 6-8 shampoos, so I shrugged my shoulders and decided that I'd always wanted to go red. I think if I try this again I might double the time and try to go a bit darker since I've been enjoying the color so much. It's probably not anything I would want to do permanently, but I've really been having fun with it. Who knows what's next? If I could find a spray in color, I might even try dying one small strand of hair pink (like a quarter inch strand).

-Melissa The Redhead

...And Back Again

2008-01-12T21:42:00.000+01:00

It's funny how life brings you full circle sometimes. For those of you who don't know, I've been sick for the last several months (I, being Melissa). I had been struggling to obtain the medical attention I needed but was trying my best to be treated locally in Belgium. After several months of limited progress, I finally decided it was time to come home and get better.

And so now I find myself back where my journey began...at Georgetown University. I'm receiving medical attention at the university hospital since mid week. I'm already doing much better now that I'm home, and seem to be getting better every day. Dave is still in Belgium working and taking care of Gidget, so if anyone happens to be in the DC area, please let me know because I would love to see you. I expect to be at Georgetown for about 30 days, and I hope that a few of you might be in the area. I'll give you more updates as I have them.

My Wallet Hurts

2007-12-17T19:10:00.000+01:00

Normally at this time of year I'd be running around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to figure out what on Earth to get people for Christmas. This year, since we're spending another Christmas overseas, I did all of my shopping in a timely and efficient manner: I ran around the day before the Christmas mailing deadline like a Chicken with its head cut off trying to get gifts purchased, gift wrapped and mailed. I'm still not exactly done shopping for the people who reside en casa, but I've still got a week.

Melissa has been getting into the holiday spirit by baking all sorts of goodies. I'm secretly convinced she's become a cannibal and is trying to fatten me up for her Christmas dinner. There's so much sweet stuff sitting around our place that even the decorations are edible. Diabetics beware: the air in our apartment will probably kill you.

Questions you never thought you'd have to pose, "How many calories are in that Christmas tree?"

This past weekend we went to the Aachen Christmas market. To say it was a little crowded would be akin to saying Microsoft makes a few dollars each year.

We had a nice time in spite of the crowds. Melissa spent money, I watched and carried the bags. Then we'd go to the next stall and repeat the process.

We were extremely fortunate to find a parking lot with free parking. We think. The gate was open when we arrived, so we just pulled in; I'm not convinced we were technically "allowed" to. We weren't towed or ticketed, but there was a moment of panic when we returned to the car and found the exit gates closed. They opened up as we drove towards them, but I must admit to having visions of muscling a gate open or going off-roading to make our escape.

Melissa and I are both very happy with all of our purchases, but none so much as our new pyramid. We'll try to ensure this pyramid doesn't catch the cat, or itself, on fire as so many of its brethren have done.

We also bought a smoker¹ that helped us discover a universal truth:

No matter what name you put on it, everywhere you go, in every language, burning incense always smells like crap.

-Dave

¹For those unfamiliar with this particular German decoration: think a nutcracker mixed with an incense burner, just without the nuts or the cracking.

Just what my waistline needs

2007-12-05T23:58:00.000+01:00

As readers of Melissa's costume blog are no doubt aware, Melissa has been taking a bit of a break from sewing. I'm confident that she'll resume her favorite hobby eventually, but she's not interested in getting invested in any large projects at the moment.

Instead, Melissa has decided to pursue a hobby in cake baking. Evidence of her first three attempts is below. The biggest problem with her new hobby? We've yet to finish a cake before it goes bad.

Clearly I need to step my game up a notch¹.

My name is Dave and I approve of this hobby.

-Dave

¹Those who know me well will never believe this, but I've actually made the switch to Coke Zero. Admittedly, Melissa's new hobby has little to do with the switch; it had more to do with the fact that I was drinking about 500 calories each day. The cake thing is just a convenient excuse for my pansification.

Where we been at?

2007-12-04T14:45:00.000+01:00

After over a month of silence, I have decided to bring our longest Blog drought ever to an end. I've been telling myself for several weeks now, "Tomorrow. Tomorrow I'll start a post." Tonight I told myself, "Enough is enough. Now is the time. This is the place. We Blog!"

I'm sure I'm paraphrasing from about half-a-dozen movies there, but that's okay. Hollywood has enough to worry about with the writers' strike. Maybe if I come up with more hackneyed lines like the one above, write in some gratuitous violence and a hint of sex, I can get a job as a Hollywood writer. I hear they're hiring and their standards are lower than ever¹.

It's late and I'm tired, so I will make this a brief post and leave you with three thoughts:

We're back, honkies.
As you read this, someone, somewhere, is eating chocolate.
Wha?

-Dave

¹I know, I know. That's not saying much.

Gallavanting in Ghent

2007-10-21T23:41:00.001+02:00

So, after the disastrous Palermo trip, I was dying to get out of town for the remainder of our long Columbus day weekend. The fates seemed to be working against this vacation: we originally were scheduled to spend the weekend in Champagne, but were unable to find a bed and breakfast. Then, hotels.com messed up our second choice hotel near Bruges and Ghent. On the upside, we were offered a huge upgrade to the four star Ghent Marriott at no additional cost to us. The Marriott is right on the river in Ghent, and has preserved the three antique facades.
It was rather shocking walking into the old Dutch facade of the hotel to be greeted by the ultra-modern chic interior of the Marriott. Kudos to the architect...I was impressed:
And while I'm sure few of you are incredibly interested in how our hotel room looked, we still had to take a picture because this hotel stay was such a treat. I want to find out where they get their bedding. It was heaven. Must be several thousand count sheets, with feather comforters. When we were tired of looking around the town, the hotel had a deal where you could pay 20 euros and have unlimited access to the pay-per-view movies. We caught up on several movies that we'd missed this summer (including Ocean's 13 and Spider Man 3).Ghent is famous for the 'three towers of Ghent,' pictured below. On the right is Saint Nicholas' Church, built 12th-14th century in pure Schelde-gothic style. Next, in the middle is the Belfort (13th century) and Lace Hall (15th century). The Belfort ("belfry") was a symbol of the power of the guilds and the city. Finally on the left is Saint Baaf Cathedral, built 1274-1569. The emperor Charles V was baptized in this church. And I am sure that Ghent is famous for many other reasons, but our first night there we were only interested in getting food. On the way to find food, we made a brief stop when we discovered a Champagne bar (since I had Champagne on the mind from our canceled trip, we seized the moment):
Dave tried a 'blanc de blanc' which is made only from Chardonnay grapes. I started with a Rose. Then, we noticed that they offered half bottles of a 'demi-sec' champagne. With my sweet tooth, it's no surprise that I enjoyed the sweeter version of the champagne (sorry to all my French friends who have tried to nurture my wine palate and insist that Brut is the only sophisticated champagne selection).After three glasses of champagne I was feeling quite a bit better, and we continued on to dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant which had great food. The only down-side were the random street performers who were allowed to play (very badly, I might add) and interrupt to ask for money while we attempted to enjoy a quiet meal.
Last stop of the night was checking out the river Lys (easy enough since our hotel is right off the river front), and the reflections at sundown were beautiful!The next day we started off our trek after a quasi-good rest (the sheets were wonderful, but I haven't been sleeping too well, or particularly late). This is kind of neat...it's a miniature staircase that starts half-way up the side of a building and leads to a blue glass box that doesn't appear to have any openings or doors. We don't know what it is, but figured it was some sort of art statement, and thought it would be fun to share.
Other interesting artistic touches were found around town, including these neat statues at the top of a downtown facade. We don't know the story behind them, but what a great picture! It looks like there might actually be people dancing around on the roof a la Mary Poppins.Next up was a river cruise on the Lys, complete with a nice tour of the Count's castle. I was really excited when I first saw what appeared to be a fortified medieval castle in Ghent, but was disappointed to learn that it was a fantasy reconstruction completed in the 1800's and has little to do with the historical castle that once stood there. Oh well. It was still neat seeing the view and walking the ramparts.
Here's a picture of Dave on the river with the neat buildings and hotel in the background. We topped off the weekend with some lace and chocolate shopping, and a fabulous meal at a Moroccan restaurant, complete with authentic mint tea at the end of the meal and no uninvited street performers.

Thank you Dave for making all the arrangements, and thank you to hotels.com for messing up our original reservation so we could stay at the fabulous Marriott at a bargain rate.

Traveling Light in Palermo

2007-10-06T14:24:00.000+02:00

Work took me down to Palermo, Sicily this week for a conference. It was a very short trip - I left on Thursday and returned Saturday morning. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Alitalia managed to cancel my original flight, mess up my connection to Rome (delaying my arrivial by 5 hours), lose my bags, and somewhere in there compeletly cancelled my entire return trip reservation. To say that Alitalia has 3rd world customer service would be an insult to 3rd world airline companies.

On Saturday morning, I was told as I attempted to check-in that my reservation had been completely cancelled, and they didn't know why, but it must be my fault for not confirming my flight 42 hours in advance (note: the tickets weren't even purchased until 42 hours in advance). There I was, at 5am on a Saturday, wearing the same suit I had worn on Thursday (by now very smelly due to the tropical temperatures), in contact lenses that hadn't been washed in two days (because no one in Europe seems to have ever heard of hard contact lenses), and I'll admit the unsuspecting ticket agent bore the brunt of my wrath. But he did find my reservation. Rather quickly.

The only 'sightseeing' I did was during my walk from the hotel to the conference site. I allowed an hour for a leisurely stroll, but I have to say that Palermo isn't exactly made for pedestrians. Here are the pictures I managed to snap:
This is a Cathedral that I walked past. I love the eastern influence...
Pretty sure the picture above is a theater. Wouldn't swear to it, but I didn't have a guide book.The Palazzo Dei Normanni courtyard where we had the conference. I love the Italian Renaissance!! The picture below is the view out the window of the conference hall. Beautiful weather...although the sun was on it's way down by the time the conference ended for the day.

Friday night the conference had a very chic dinner party at the palace, complete with a live string quartet and the mayor of Palermo in attendance. I've never seen so much silk and designer evening clothes in my life (again...me in my smelly black suit as opposed to my cute little thai silk number stowed away in my bags).

Anyway, happy to be home. It's now Monday...still no sign of my bag, and I can't even get anyone to pick up the phone at the lost luggage department. More disturbing, the baggage tracking website claims that my lost luggage number is invalid.

Wedding Bells, and More Wedding Bells

2007-09-16T23:03:00.000+02:00

Updated on 10-22-07: okay, I have pictures of Megan's engagement ring. Wow...nice job Ethan!!! So most of you by now have probably heard that Dave's sister Jennifer is getting married in February. We're really excited for her and our soon-to-be-brother-in-law Ryan. We've been having fun hearing about their wedding plans.

What you probably haven't heard is that my little sister Megan is also going to be getting married! Her boyfriend Ethan (no last names listed here to protect the innocent...) proposed this weekend, and they're talking about getting married next October in Colorado Springs. Both Megan and Ethan are going to be deploying over the next few months, and I know they'll be happy to have mom to help plan those things she can't get to.

We got to meet Ethan this summer over a quick memorial day weekend, and we were very impressed. Sad to say we were so jet lagged that no one seemed to think to take any pictures of them together (sorry). Haven't seen the ring yet, but Megan was positively bubbling with happiness over it and Ethan.

Both Ryan and Ethan have made our sisters very happy, and we're looking forward to welcoming them both into the family.

Brussels Beer Festival

2007-09-16T22:39:00.000+02:00

One of the really neat things about living a block away from the Grand Place, is that there is ALWAYS something interesting going on. We've seen spontaneous marching bands, a circus camp for kids, choir performances, and our favorite to date...

The Beer Festival.

We had company in town over Labor Day weekend, and heard that there would be a beer festival. We wandered down on Friday night to check out what was going on, and it was crazy. We had a quick beer, and then decided to go back earlier the next day before all the drunken revelry was in full swing.The first thing we encountered on Saturday was a parade of horse-drawn beer wagons representing the local breweries.We swung by Brussels' mascot, the Mannequin Pis, and noticed that he too was all dressed up for the festival (he's normally naked). The town's political officials actually wear the same outfit the statue was wearing for the beer festival.Then, we purchased tokens (beer caps...clever) and went in search of beer. Belgium is of course known for beer, and yet when you go out to restaurants you always seem to encounter the same few brands. The beer festivals are where Belgian beers really shine, and you find all the special local brews. I have quickly become a fan of Belgian fruit beers, and got to try a pink grapefruit beer, a rose beer, and coconut beer (yes...it came in a cool coconut cup).Dave tried something called a Kwak (pronounced "quack") that comes in a glass so special, it requires it's own stand. A fellow festival goer insisted the glasses were specially fashioned glasses for horsemen (the idea being the beer wouldn't spill out if you were on on a horse). An interesting theory but considering the source, I remain a bit skeptical.Thanks to Alena and Kelly for coming out to Brussels and giving us an excuse to get out and enjoy the festival!

The New Neighborhood

2007-09-16T22:33:00.000+02:00

We've been in our new home for over a month and we've finally gotten to a place where we're not spending every free moment running errands or arranging the apartment. We've been getting out and exploring Brussels a bit and we thought it high time we share some pictures so everyone will want to come visit our amazing new home¹!

Because this post is more about showing off our neighborhood than really conveying copious amounts of information, I won't be my customary loquacious self. There also won't be mouse overs. I just couldn't face doing eleven of them. I'm sure you'll find some way to cope.

Our backyard
Our neighbors
Our shopping mall
Our church
Our church is bigger than yours! (probably)
Last week's sermon was so good...
Our umm... other church
Our Tower Records
Uhh... the building next to our Tower Records
Gidget's garden
Complete with kitty drinking fountain!

-Dave

¹$20 per limb per person for the first night. Additional nights $30. Price does not include applicable taxes and fees. The final price will be so outrageous you could plotz. Some plotzing fees may (will) apply. Prices do not include meals, transportation, laundry services, sheets, running water, a bed, entry into the building, fuzzy banana chips, or fumigation. Smoking is not allowed. Pets are not allowed. Children are not allowed². May not be combined with any other offer. In fact, by combining this offer with itself you've already violated the terms of the agreement. By accepting the terms of this agreement you agree to submit to binding arbitration for anything we'd like to sue you for. We, or our representatives, reserve the right to select (and pay off) the arbiter. The terms of this agreement may not be legal in some states. Please consult our attorneys³ if you are unsure of your legal rights.
²The terms and conditions define a child as anyone under 92 years of age.
³The law firm of Dewey Cheetem & Howw

Didn't We Just Do This?

2007-08-19T13:11:00.000+02:00

As most of you probably know, we've arrived safely in Brussels and we're settled (somewhat) into our apartment. We just received our primary shipment of household effects a week ago, so our place currently looks as though it's been hit by a tidal wave that unearthed some long-dead civilization.

The movers brought our copious piles of crap (CPC) up from the street using a lift that for some reason reminded me of a trebuchet. I kept expecting the movers to set our CPC ablaze and send them hurtling through the air towards the enemy ramparts. Perhaps these visions are the result of the combination of an overactive imagination and living in a medieval city.

In addition to having Everest-sized piles of stuff to sort through, we also have: no internet connection (until about 5 minutes ago), no TV cabinet, and very few power transformers. On the plus side though, we do have two bars! We are, however, somewhat lacking in the booze department. I'm sure living in one of the beer capitals of the world will soon alleviate that problem.

There was also a minor dishwasher leak, but maintenance took care of that: they just removed our dishwasher. Problem solved! It was a somewhat disconcerting experience to come home and find the dishwasher missing.

They were so kind as to deliver a new dishwasher a few days ago, but of course, the second the repairdude walked out the door it quit working. I think Melissa's dad (you know, the engineer) and I have managed to get it up and running again, but we've discovered a leak in the main drain in the process.¹

The Gidge is the only one who seems pleased with the state of disarray we've had thrust upon us. She's been whiling away the hours playing with all of her stuff and being startled by small bits of fluff.²

-Dave

¹No, we didn't cause the leak in our repair attempts.
²Small bits of fluff which usually originate from her tail.

Falling Through the Table

2007-07-23T17:16:00.000+02:00

We know that everyone has been dying for updates since our last post about the house. Dave and I have been very busy, fighting our sluggish lending company and getting last minute vital documents from the seller. In the end, the deal just did not come together: our confidence in our lending company was shaken (bad good faith estimates, and can nobody be bothered to EVER answer their phone???), and we had problems with the Condo Association. We decided we needed to walk away from the Condo over the weekend, and voided our contract. While we really wanted the Condo, we were having so many problems that it was a relief to walk away.

We've learned a lot for our next house buying experience, and the whole thing hopefully won't cost us too much money (we are supposed to get our deposit back due to documentation issues with the Condo Association). I think we're definitely never purchasing a house again on such a short time table, and I'm not sure I could ever go through the same lender again.

It was a bittersweet end to our homeleave, but we're looking forward to arriving in Brussels. I started back to work last week for training, and we're headed out at the end of the week. We're looking forward to seeing you all in Belgium.

A Room of One's Own

2007-07-04T20:49:00.000+02:00

Yeah...so, Dave and I have bought a house.

More accurately, a Condo in Alexandria, Virginia (technically part of Fairfax county). It's about three blocks from the end of the Blue line on the Metro, which means I have a direct commute in to work. The neighborhood is really cute - it's called Manchester Lakes, and it's right next some great shops (Giant, Safeway, Wal-Mart, movie theaters, Bombay, Noodle company, etc).

We found it just in time - we'll close the week we leave for Belgium. We'll rent it out while we're away, but we plan on living in it whenever we come home for a Washington assignment. Dave and I have been looking hard for a house over the last month, and even made two unsuccessful bids for Condos prior to this one. The market is not nearly insane as it was two years ago, but it's still competitive.

It's a three bedroom condo with two full baths. We don't have a lot of nice photos yet.

The things we really like about this condo are the loft with fireplace, the high ceilings, the balcony with a lake view, and closets with custom built organizers. There are a few things I'm not crazy about - it's on the top level with lots of stairs to get there, the kitchen is small and out of date (that can be fixed), and the bathrooms need updating (also can be fixed). Not too shabby for our first place.

More Than Meets the Eye

2007-06-24T18:35:00.000+02:00

Imagine my sister's surprise when she discovered her new car is actually a robot in disguise:

She was kind enough to allow her new robot friend to chauffeur Melissa and me around while she was at camp in Indiana for a week.

Everyone can rest easy. Melissa and I will protect the Earth from the Decepticons with the help of our new ally!

The Air is Thinner Up Here

2007-06-16T01:32:00.000+02:00

Okay, I confess that Dave and I are already in Maryland, and we have been very lax about providing updates from Colorado. We did some neat stuff, so I thought I'd summarize the highlights from the last two weeks.

Much of the visit was consumed by mandatory bank and doctor visits and TONS of shopping. Other than the PSP gaming system for Dave's birthday and a little stop at the Body Shop for me, most of the shopping was strictly for things we needed to buy like suits, luggage, fall jackets, and bedding. We bought enough that I've had to schedule an Air Freight shipment.

Our second weekend in Colorado we went on a mini road trip to Lake City Colorado. I'm not sure who named this place a 'city,' because the population falls a bit short for the title:

What you see in this picture is the entire town. The population of the town is a few hundred during the summer (for 'tourist' season), and it falls down to about eighty during the winter. Most of the inhabitants work for the county government or run small businesses. Despite how small the place is, it is surprisingly sophisticated. We stayed at a lodge run by a French couple that served some of the best french food and wine I've ever had (including in Paris). Besides the mountain view and nature attractions, Lake City's claim to fame is a man named Alfred Packer. The man's culinary taste led to him being known as the Colorado Cannibal. He oddly enough seems to be a somewhat celebrated local character, but I suppose when you live in a town of 80, you take publicity where you can find it.

My mom was there for the French food, but my dad was there for the hiking. He continues his quest to hike all 54 "Fourteeners" (mountains over 14,000 feet in elevation). He's done 35 so far, and Uncompahgre Peak is in the area. It was still too covered in snow for dad to summit it, but he and Dave did a test run up to about timber line. He was thrilled to have a hiking partner, because my Mom and I firmly stick to the "I don't hike" mantra. That left us plenty of uninterrupted shopping time while the boys were off hiking. One of my favorite stops was a small soda fountain shop where I had an old fashioned cream soda, and Mom had a chocolate malt. The locals were very friendly, and we enjoyed the company as much as our sodas.

The next day, the boys went out on their own again and had a successful fishing trip. My mom and I lazed around town and enjoyed a leisurely breakfast (seeing a pattern here?).

When we got back to Colorado Springs, it was time for some girly activities. We dragged Dave kicking and screaming to Glen Eyrie - the mansion/castle of William J. Palmer, founder of Colorado Springs.

The castle now serves as the international headquarters for "The Navigators" Christian organization. It's primarily a conference center, but the Navigators have maintained many of the castle's beautiful historic features and offer guided tours. After the tour the staff serves a proper British cream tea in the castle's music room - a favorite mother/daughter activity.

After a very nice few weeks in Colorado, it was time to move on to Maryland to see Dave's parents and shop for a house. My suitcase, which was well under the weight limit when we boarded the plane in Poland, suddenly weighed 53 pounds when I initially put it on the airport scale. The man checking us in firmly informed me that my bag could not weigh more than 50 pounds - thankfully he then removed his hand from my bag which suddenly only weighed 49 pounds. Melissa: 1, United Airlines: 0.

We were highly amused when we arrived and the airport and saw a hot air balloon right over the parking lot of the Colorado Springs Airport. Happily it didn't wander into the runway area or cause any flight delays. Everyone at the airport seemed amused and calm about the situation. If this had happened in Washington D.C. airspace, I can't help but picture two F15 fighters escorting the unfortunate balloon to the nearest military base. Can't you picture the headlines? "Terror alert raised to red after hot air balloon strays into the National Capitol's airspace."

Rocky Mountain Home

2007-05-27T17:32:00.000+02:00

After an exhausting flight home (almost missing both of our connecting flights, and losing one of Dave's bags which finally materialized on Monday), we are back in Colorado!!
One huge bonus for the trip was we got to fly business on Air France. We enjoyed comfortable seats that reclined back almost flat. We had a private movie screen where we could select movies/TV/computer games. The meal was an amazing three course meal that was really good and included cheese and dessert. Unfortunately, we experienced over two hours of consistent and rough turbulence that left me so air sick I didn't sleep and regretted the heavy meal.

Here was the view of the mountains on our first morning in Colorado: Megan and her boyfriend visited us over Memorial weekend which was great! We went to see a baseball game on Saturday night - The Sky Sox play in Colorado Springs and are the farm team for the Colorado Rockies. We had a fun time watching their funny mascots (Dave is working on a video of them, but to tide you over here's a photo):

We'll be in Colorado through June 11, and then we'll be in Maryland through July 26. Feel free to come visit us!! Dave and I aren't shy about inviting people to our parents' house.

Bon Voyage/Goodbye Poland

2007-05-24T15:07:00.000+02:00

The time has come for us to bid farewell to Poland. We will be boarding the plane bright and early tomorrow morning, and are thrilled to be going home for several months before moving to Brussels; Dave and I are both a bit homesick.

Gidget will be spending the summer being pampered and cared for at a fabulous cat luxury resort known as "Judy and Dave's Place." Despite these arrangements, our cat does not seem thrilled with the reappearance of our suitcases and seems to suspect something is up. She has made herself scarce this week, trying to find new ways to elude her forced departure.

Dave's parents have been visiting us in Poland for the last week and have given us the perfect excuse to make one last visit to all our favorite restaurants, shops, and historical sites. This included a wonderful stroll in Lazenki park to the Palace on the Lake:

The Wilanow palace:

And the mandatory liter beer picture:

Our last day in Poland, we went to the Warsaw Uprising museum and the Warsaw train museum (Dave's dad is a big fan of European trains, and has an impressive LGB model train collection). Dave really liked checking out the old-fashioned train boilers, and I enjoyed re-enacting a scene from Hansel and Grettel:

Finally, for our last night and meal in Warsaw, we went to a special wine-makers dinner. They Hyatt Hotel's chef serves a five course meal specially paired with the wines being presented at the dinner. We tasted five wines from the Bordeaux region in France, and an employee from a Bordeaux winery explained the various wines we were tasting. Here we had a lime/rasberry scallop salad with a white Bordeaux:

A great way to end our stay in Warsaw. We'll miss Poland, but we're ready to go home and enjoy life in the U.S. for a few months!

It's Like Déjà Vu All Over Again

2007-05-17T21:55:00.000+02:00

Well, we've been in Poland for about 2 ½ years, so everyone knows what that means: it's time for another exciting episode of the "Dave and Melissa Pack-Out Fantastic!"

We had another amazingly smooth pack-out¹; our LBMs arrived more or less on schedule, tore into their work like a pack of ravenous lions on an elderly zebra, and were out of here in time for happy hour.

I would like to take this opportunity to remind everyone how brilliant I am. I said for weeks that our pack-out would probably take just one day, but Melissa and everyone else vehemently insisted it would take 1 ½. Gee... sure is crowded with all of these boxes in here... oh wait! There are no boxes! Nee neer nee neer nee neer! I was right! I was right²!

In other news, we had a repeat offender come to visit us today. Check out the second picture in our post entitled "Ve Got Our Vine" from the day they delivered our stuff. See the guy with his back to the camera? He was the head of our pack-out team today. At least he knew where everything was. He should. After all, quite a bit of it hadn't been moved since he unpacked it.

As with all of our previous moves, Gidget was an immense help. Typical. When there's lazy perching about to be done, she's all over it. Ask her to help by covertly watching the movers, she spends the entire day peering out the window.

-Dave

¹Due in no small part to yours truly slaving away for the last four days to get everything ready for the big day.
²Just let me have this, okay? This is the first time Melissa has acknowledged that I've been right about anything since our wedding day.

The Huntress

2007-05-13T19:12:00.000+02:00

My forays into the world of video editing and YouTubing continue. Fear not! Our blog is not becoming a cheap picture and video fest like so many others out there; you'll still be able to tune in semi-occasionally for my witty banter. Videos are just a down and dirty way to make it seem as though the updates are flowing while Melissa and I are busy with moving preparations¹.

Gidget: The Mighty Huntress

Stay tuned next week for the exclusive DVD content: director's commentary, deleted scenes, and movie trailers!

-Dave

¹And partying.

Grainy Dragon at Large in Krakow!

2007-05-03T11:28:00.000+02:00

I shot this video several weeks ago when Jenn was here on her spring break. I made two mistakes when filming this video:

I rotated my camera, forgetting that my camera does not have a built in utility for reorienting videos¹
I neglected to verify the quality settings for video recording

Smok Wawelski²

(I recommend turning your sound on if it's not already.)

Lesson learned: make sure your camera's video settings are set to high before paying the zlote to text the dragon to make him breathe fire.

-Dave

¹Obviously I managed to flip him around using video editing software.
²Smok is already awesome because he's a dragon. Imagine how awesome he would be if he were a dragon with an alliterated name! He would be the pinnacle of awesomeness!

Blogger Blotter 2

2007-05-02T23:06:00.000+02:00

Keen observers might point out that this post should by rights be titled "Randomness III." In my last Randomness post, however, I mentioned my Blogger Blotter and I've decided that it makes a much better title because alliterations, like dragons, make everything more awesome, which is why my desktop, thumbdrive, laptop, and external hard drive are named Duo Doorknobs, Mighty Match, Mobile Matchbox, and Little Lighter, respectively¹. I also have a fun alliterated name for my iPod shuffle, but my memory fails me and I don't feel like booting up Mobile Matchbox to look it up. Rest assured, it's alliterated and it's awesome. But I digress.

In summary: Alliteration good; posts which heretofore appeared under the Randomness title are now referred to as Blogger Blotter posts².

Today's Blotter post is about a little gem that I've bogarted for almost two years. I've been saving it for a particularly dry blogging spell like the one Melissa and I have fallen into the depths of recently. Moving preparations are boring reading, fortunately for you, throwing people down a flight of stairs is never boring!

Stair Dismount

The game is very simple: select a point on the little guy's body to concentrate all of your pent up anger and frustration, set your angle of attack, and shove him down the stairs! You're assigned points based on how much damage he sustains during his less than conventional trip to terra firma. I refuse to admit how many hours I've spent flinging this little trooper to his death; we'll just say that my high score list tells a tale of innumerable digital souls lost and leave it at that.

If you would like to join me in digitally living out your homicidal fantasies, you can download Stair Dismount at Skinflake.com, which gets my vote for the website with the least appealing name ever.

On a geeky note, this game is an excellent example of ragdoll physics, which are now used in more video games than you can shake a ragdoll at. They've been around for quite some time, but they've started to make frequent large-scale mainstream appearances in recent years.

For added fun, think of someone you really loathe and name your little guy (or gal) after that person before laying the smackdown.

-Dave

More randomness: Randomness, Randomness II

¹There also seems to be a fire theme going there as well...
²So why isn't this Blogger Blotter 3? Because the original Randomness post was just random. It wasn't from the Blotter. Duh.

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

2007-04-10T22:33:00.000+02:00

Over the last two years, Dave and I have made careful scientific note of traffic patterns in Poland. Our conclusions are: driving in Poland is like a full contact sport, and not for the faint of heart. While this may seem completely arbitrary, the fact that Poland suffers from the highest number of traffic fatalities in Europe seems to support our conclusion.

Our friends (both Polish and ex-pat) have suggested numerous reasons why Poles are such lead-footed aggressive drivers. Some say that it's because under Communism it was more about having the right bribe and less about successfully passing the drivers test. Other's blame poor road conditions.

Dave and I have always maintained it's because of the confusing traffic signage in the country - the driver's handbook in Poland is about 50 pages long, and 30 of those are pages explaining what hundreds of different signs mean (trust me - most of them are not intuitive).

After two years in Poland, I am proud to say we finally captured the perfect illustration of Poland's baffling traffic signs:This is an actual picture shot from our car while driving in Warsaw, and yes, that IS a stop sign mounted on top of a traffic light. I am baffled. When the light is green...do you stop and then go? And when the light is red...do you have to stop twice?? Maybe what it really means is that obeying the traffic light is optional as long as you stop first. Since we've seen many cars in Poland treat red traffic lights as mere recommendations, it seems like the stop sign would still be a bit superfluous...

'Topes Win!!

2007-03-27T19:58:00.000+02:00

Well, we didn't exactly win, but we came pretty close to winning!! This weekend was the annual Quiz Night fund raiser at the American School of Warsaw. We attended this last year and came in a modest 9th out of 15 teams. This year we organized another team made up mostly of entry-level employees. Our team name was the Albuquerque Isotopes (it's a Simpson's reference). Here's part of our team in round one:Quiz night was broken into 4 different rounds - in between rounds we had appetizers, dinner, and dessert. The first three rounds are written out on sheets of paper. If you're in the top ten, you participate in the final fourth round, complete with buzzers. In the final round you face off in rank order, and each team keeps going until they're eliminated. We started the lightning round in 7th place and went all the way to the final match for 1st and 2nd place. Our team was the only team that managed to displace another team.We went head-to-head with the team that had been in first place for all three previous rounds. Each of our teams correctly answered 2 questions, so the entire game boiled down to one question. Even though we buzzed in first, we had a brain lapse and couldn't remember why Mars appears to be red in the night sky. We all agree we knew the answer was the iron in the soil, but we just couldn't remember in time.
So we took home 2nd place! We all got bottles of Italian wine with Polish pottery corks. From 7th to 2nd place was pretty neat - the whole room was cheering us on. We also beat out several other teams where our bosses were playing (including the number two guy at work).

I'll say this about the team that took first: they were in first the whole night, and they are some of the smartest people I know. Congrats to the "Failed Bulimics" team on taking home first prize! (pictured below in red)

Together at last...

2007-03-25T10:46:00.000+02:00

...in Krakow. It's almost Palm Sunday and we had a great time looking at the Polish version of palms out in Krakow's market.
Last weekend was the first time Dave and I were able to go to Krakow together. We've each been on various occasions with relatives and work, but never together. So we took a short train ride to share the neat places we'd each discovered (I had seen more of the tourist spots, Dave knew more restaurants, so it worked out nicely). We stayed in an apartment owned by the office:We got comfy beds, a kitchen, and 500 channels of satellite TV (with only 2 English channels) for $35 a night. We thought it was a pretty good bargain. Plus, it was right in old town.

Our first stop was to visit the Dragon's lair beneath Wawel castle. I had no idea there actually was a Dragon lair underneath the castle, though I had already heard the dragon legend. Dave took the mandatory photo with Smok the dragon, because, according to Dave, "Dragons make everything awesome."Next, we located a special vodka/liquor shop that we had heard about from some friends. They flavor the vodka in the store in big containers with pour spouts attached. You select a special bottle after picking your flavor.
We got little bottles of chocolate cream, rose vodka, and coconut vodka.The next morning we discovered that Krakow has a distinct lack of places open for breakfast on Sunday morning before noon. Shortly before noon tons of places started opening up, which did us lots of good as we rode out of town on our 12:00 train. Fortunately, we did manage to find a hotel that served a very nice continental breakfast in time for us to have a moderate paced breakfast before heading back to the train station.

Oh nos! P@rn!

2007-03-23T16:08:00.000+01:00

Things I find amusing about work #152: Gestapo content filters that catch completely inane data and deny you access to them.

For instance, consider for a moment the following picture from a recent post:

The picture above¹ does not load at work and if you click on it (an action that would normally take you to a new page with a larger version of the picture), you see the following:

Access Denied (content_filter_denied)

Your request was denied because of its content categorization: "Adult/Sexually Explicit"

Needless to say I've been visiting this picture everyday in hopes that my system will get locked down for accessing "naughty" material and I'll be summoned before a tribunal and called to account for my perverted sins. At which point I'll show them a printout of the offending material, mock their lame content filtering system and call them to account for such a colossal waste of time and resources.

I will then probably be fired, but only because I'll be sitting before the tribunal naked.

-Dave

¹The Nikifor and Zniwa paintings have also been censored.

And the wiener is...

2007-03-15T20:56:00.000+01:00

Clearly the answer was 42.

Actually the answer was 3, but they're practically the same thing. Nikifor¹ is quite well known here in Poland, so this particular painting not being granted export license wasn't a total shock for us.

Jwan, I do find it funny (and suspicious) that you guessed the correct answer since I heard Melissa tell you the answer on the phone. She insists that she didn't, but she also insists that espresso is pronounced "expresso." So there you have it.

As to what we're going to do with our national treasure: we're probably going to donate it to the office or sell it to someone who's remaining behind in Poland. We haven't decided yet.

It's one of those or a Mission Impossible style exfiltration of the illicit booty from the country.

I just don't think I care enough about the painting to hang upside-down from an air conditioning duct for it.

-Dave

¹No "What's a Niki for?" jokes allowed. I've already made them all.

National Treasure

2007-03-06T22:43:00.000+01:00

As spring is slowly arriving, Dave and I are making our initial preparations for our move. One of the things we did this week was our customs declaration. We learned that the National Gallery would inspect any artwork that we purchased in Poland, and had final say over issuing an export license for our paintings. Dave and I have bought several paintings over our two years here, so we sent them to get checked out. Well, it turns out Dave and I own a 'Polish national treasure' that the Gallery won't issue an export license for.

Let's see if you can spot the National Treasure:

1. "La Dolce Vita" Tulips, by B. Murawska
2. "Fairy Tale," by KPMD 3. Unknown title by Nikifor Krynicki
4. "Three in the Park," by P. Dabrowski5. "Zniwa" (sorry...I need to look up the translation), by R. JampolskiGo ahead and leave a comment with your best guess. We'll post a comment with the answer in a few days. Good luck!

Chili Cook Off

2007-02-11T22:21:00.001+01:00

Last Friday I participated in the local chili cook off. I had a lot of fun making the chili. I made it up the night before, and brought in my slow cooker to work. I turned it on low around lunch time, and by 5pm it was ready to go. I think everyone in my office hated me - although many showed up at the cook off to try the chili, so maybe that earned me a few votes.

I didn't win, but I made a decent showing with seven votes (there were nine chili dishes and a crowd of about two dozen). My bosses bosses boss (the BIG boss) wound up winning the cook off with his spicy chili which I thought was pretty good.

Here's the recipe I used with a few local substitutions for the specialty chili peppers that were definitely not available on the local economy. I can't claim ownership of this recipe: it was the blue ribbon winner of the 27th annual World's Chili Championship. Google for recipe for detailed cooking instructions if you want to give it a try.

Puppy's breath chili recipe

	pounds	Tri-tip beef or sirloin tip; cut in small pieces or ground coarse
2	teaspoon	Cooking oil
1	small	Yellow onion
1	can	(14.5-oz) beef broth
3 ½	tablespoon	Ground cumin
½	teaspoon	Oregeno
6		Cloves garlic; finely chopped
3	tablespoon	Gebhardt chili powder
1	tablespoon	New Mexico mild chile powder (up to)
6	tablespoon	California chile powder
1	can	(8-oz) tomato sauce
1		Dried New Mexico chile; boiled and pureed
3		Dried California chiles; boiled and pureed
1	can	(14.5-oz) chicken broth
1	teaspoon	Tabasco pepper sauce
1	teaspoon	Brown sugar
1		Lime
1	dash	Msg
		Salt to taste

I also wanted to announce that my other blog, Costume Diva, is once again being updated. I hadn't been able to attach any photos to my blog for the last several months, which doesn't make for interesting reading on a sewing blog. The new version of blogger has corrected this problem, so you'll find several new posts about my latest project.

Rome!

2007-01-25T22:07:00.000+01:00

When Dave and I heard that his parents were going to be in Rome last weekend, we begged for time off and quickly scrambled together a visit. It was a blast!!
Dave has been to Italy and Rome before, but this was my first visit. It was like Paris...only Italian with lots Roman ruins. In our three day visit we managed to see the Pantheon, St. Peter's Basilica, the Sistine Chapel, the Colloseum, the Forum ruins, and Trevoli fountain. We stuffed ourselves with amazing food and wine (hurray for artichoke season!!), and soaked up the sun. We really appreciate the weather we had in Rome since winter finally decided to visit Poland this week. Our very late first snow dumped 6 inches overnight.

Amelia, one of my friends from Georgetown, is in Rome this semester working on her ph.d. We were able to meet up with her and her fiancee for dinner one evening (fabulous meal...our server also seemed to own the place and kept force feeding us her delectable foods). You can read lots more about our meal on her website. It was nice to see friends and family! Another highlight of our trip was witnessing several small police stings. There is a flourishing designer knock-off black market in Rome. Bands of illegal immigrants roam around the big tourist areas, either draping their merchandize off of their arms or setting up temporary blanket displays. The cops would come in, and within seconds the displays and vendors were nowhere to be seen. It was like watching a flock of pidgeons take off. Needless to say the police weren't very successful. They managed to snatch one guy's blanket of bags, but ten minutes after the police left the vendors were all back again. I definitely want to go back, and thanks to Central Wings in Poland and Ryan Air in Brussles (I heard this week that the assignment is official), I hope we can explore a bit more of Italy next time. Mmm...Tuscany wine and Como silk.

Our Newest Family Member

2007-01-24T21:59:00.000+01:00

Meet Dave's new toy, my new housekeeper, and Gidget's worse enemy.

The Roomba.

In the rush of the Holidays, exotic illnesses, and get-away vacations, Dave and I neglected to ever report on our Christmas Holiday!! Dave's sister Jennifer spent the holidays with us, and arrived with a suitcase stuffed with presents! Since the Roomba wouldn't fit in the suitcase, Dave's parents bought a copy of the movie "I Robot" and slipped a picture of the Roomba inside the casing (the company that makes the Roomba is called "I Robot").

The Roomba is from Dave's parents, and I REALLY like it. I was worried it would be a gadget that didn't do what it advertised...but I seriously underestimated the geniuses that work at I Robot. It goes under and around furniture, can vacuum under the bed, gets up the cat hair that our normal vacuum doesn't get, and it doesn't seem to miss many spots. All this while we're at work. These things are so smart I'm convinced that they might actually try to take over the world, and Will Smith will have to save us all. Then again, as long as I don't have to vacuume, I'm willing to share the world with the Roombas. I'm sure they will be kind and benevolent leaders. If you're interested in a Roomba, they have fairly inexpensive refabricated models on Amazon.com.

Notice how sneaky Gidget thinks she's being as she slowly creeps up behind the Roomba. Dave was also thrilled to learn that it came with a remote, and has been chasing her with the Roomba ever since. This leads to a cleaner house and picks up cat hair as it is deposited on the floor, so I have no objection. My Roomba manual assures me that pets will eventually adapt and become friends with the Roomba. So far Gidget isn't convinced.

Maybe we should see how she reacts to the Scooba...

Shopping and Looting in the Subcontinent

2006-12-17T07:17:00.000+01:00

Ahh...shopping in India. What more needs to be said?? I love the picture at the top - it's a bangle bracelet store. You could buy 12 for 40 cents. The prices and the quality of products in India were incredible. First, let me start off with the food. Very spicy, but very tasty. My stomach rebelled, but the food tasted too good to pass up most of the time. Indian's don't use food utensils, so you eat with your hands. Here is a traditional south India dish called a Thali:

It's 12 small dishes and is served with bread and rice on top of a banana leaf. You could also get tea everywhere for a fraction of a dollar. South India tea is called Chai, or Masala Chai. It's mostly milk, maybe just a little bit of water and a very strong black tea with cardamon and masala spices mixed in. You sweeten it, and it's out of this world.

One of the best shopping experiences I had was shopping for saris. I love my sari. I feel like I did a pretty good job putting it on, but I'm sure it's not perfect. I went to the India town of Kancheepuram which is one of the silk weaving centers of India. One of the silk stores had a traditional silk loom set up to show the silk making process:

Here is a store that had walls lined with Saris, and the storelady was very helpful in showing off the beautiful silks!

I got one Sari to wear and one Sari that will be cut up and made into a Regency dress. I also bought silk material for a few upcoming costume projects. The prices were a steal. Here's a back view of my sari - I love the Palu (the shiny end piece of the sari). The blouse material comes attached to the Sari and I took it to a tailor and had it made into my blouse. I was really pleased with the fit.

Rugs from Kashmir are also an incredible buy if you find one you really like. I went to a recommended shop where other people from work had good experiences. They had a craftsman from Kashmir with a small dummy loom to show the rug making process. It was pretty cool.

Below is a picture of a rug I wound up purchasing. I learned a new bargaining technique while in India called "cell phone bartering." The store keeper and I each got out our phones and called friends - he pretended to call a tough boss that didn't want to lower the price, I called an Indian friend and pretended to be unconvinced by the price. Cell phone bartering seemed to be fairly successful...I knocked 15% off the original price.

Finally, I went a little 'native' while I was in India. My first folley was toe rings. I wore open toe shoes the entire time I was in India, so I liked showing off my toe rings and pedicured feet. I had several local ladies explain to me with deep concern in their voices that only married women wear toe rings in India. I patiently explained that it wasn't a problem since I'm married. Even though I'm way over the traditional age for Indian women to get married, it didn't seem to occur to many people that I might be married. Meh.

My last act in 'going native' was getting henna on my hands. I had a great time getting this done. People at work either loved it or hated it, although the Indian ladies universally seemed to love the henna (apparently fair skin is very popular in India so they thought the henna was especially nice on my pasty white skin). It took about two hours to finish, and the lady didn't use any pattern or stencil. It was all freehand. Here it was immediately after finishing:

And here it is the next day, after I had scraped the henna paste off and the henna color had darkened into a nice marroon. It certainly raised eyebrows and provoked a few grins at the holiday party once I got back to Poland.

There was so much more I would have loved to have purchased, but I was severly limited by the airline's 1 bag, 44lb weight limit. I think it's a good thing, because otherwise I might have also come home with curtains, a new bedcover, a bedskirt, and Lord knows what else. I'd love to do an India tour someday...if only to get to purchase some of the amazing wood furniture that I saw. Overall, a fabulous trip, and I highly recommend it to any and all!

Adventures in Chennai (aka Madras)

2006-12-17T06:43:00.000+01:00

After one month in India and 13 hours of travel, I'm back in Poland just in time for the holidays. I really had a great time - everyone was very nice to me in India, the shopping and food were amazing, and I always felt like there was something to do. I would love to be posted to India someday, although due to some work-related things I would opt for New Delhi over Chennai. By popular demand, here are the pictures from my trip to India:

The first weekend I took a tour around Chennai in a tourbus. They took us to Chennai beach and I got to dip my feet in the Indian Ocean. Chennai is one of the places that was affected by the Tsunami and you can still witness some damange in the areas all along the beach (especially if you drive outside of Chennai). I took this picture because I liked the woman in the Indian clothing wandering the beach:

There is still a very active fishing trade in India and we went out to see the fisherman. Their catches of the morning were already long gone by the time we got there (9am), but some were still untangling their nets. There boats were very colorful:

I was also surprised to find a little known piece of American history in Chennai: The Ice House. In the 1840's an American clipper ship arrived in port with a surprising cargo: ice shipped all the way from the US (it was cut from a lake in Boston). Using saw dust to insulate the ice kept it from melting, and imagine the prices the precious cargo could fetch in 19th century India. American Frederic Tudor, aka the "Ice King," built this Ice House right along the coast to store the ice when it arrived from the US. Ice deliveries from the US were lucrative until 1880 when steam powered ice makers first appeared in India.

Next up was my trip to Pondicherry, the former French territory. I had a great time in this town and it's one of my better memories of India. We walked along the beach at night (thus no pictures of the beach...sorry), we sat up on the roof terrace listening to the ocean while sipping wine, we shopped, and we enjoyed our fabulous inn. A French woman owns the inn and began letting out four of the rooms to help pay for the large house (she must make good money at it because she's now moved out into an even larger house). We had French croissants and Indian mango for breakfast! Yum! Check out this room...I love the floating linens:

This bed was too cool...it's much larger than a US king size. The words "Arabian Nights" kept running through me head every time I saw the bed.

While in Pondicherry, we visited a temple with an elephant. The elephant is very important and is generally viewed as a clever animal. One of the important deities in India is Ganesh, a human with an elephant head. The elephants are trained to accept offerings - money that they accept with their trunks, or food which they eat. The elephant then waves its trunk over your head and blesses you. I got a kick out of it and won't admit how many roupies I gave the elephant before we finally got the perfect picture:

Finally, I went to the town of Kancheepuram. Kancheepuram is a silk production center, as well as a temple city. At one time there were over 1,000 temples in the city. Today there are over one hundred. We managed to visit three before they closed at twelve. Here is a shot of a temple to Visniu (the god with many faces). Notice that everyone is barefoot - you have to take your shoes off before entering a temple.

Here is a picture of us in the marriage hall at the Visniu temple. The stone carvings were amazing. I love this picture...the guide took forever rearranging us until he deemed our pose was picture-worthy.

I really enjoyed the last temple we visited. It was a temple to Shiva, the destroyer god, frequently depicted with many arms. The temple was special because, unlike most temples, foreigners and non-Hindus were allowed into the inner sanctuary area. We were blessed by the priests (you'll see in the next picture we're all sporting the red spots on our foreheads). The backgroud is funny because the guide kept bragging about the fact that the temple had over a thousand of Shiva's "lakshmis" (I'm spelling that how it sounds). We were all confused because we had no idea what a lakshmi was. When we asked he looked uncomfortable and replied "it's Shiva's source of power." We looked it up in our guide book - a lakshmi is a phallic symbol. Mystery solved. :)

Sun, Mosquitos, and Saris

2006-11-28T11:39:00.000+01:00

Hello from Chennai! I hope everyone is enjoying their lead up to the holidays. I'm spending long hours at work in India (like 10.5 hour work days), but am still finding time to soak up the sun and the fabulous weather. I have completely missed the monsoon rain, and get to enjoy the relatively 'cool' and sunny 70-80 degree weather in India. The only down side is how many mosquitos there are in the aftermath of the monsoon...I have bites all over.

I have managed to go on a whirl-wind bus tour of Chennai last week on Thanksgiving day, and I went out of town to a place called Pondicherry this weekend. The highlight of my bus tour was a really neat Shiva temple in town. You take your shoes off before going in, and walk around barefoot.

Pondicherry is an old French territory that was handed back to India in the 1950s (the link is to some good pictures of the town). I think at some point the name was really "Pont de Cherie" but it's been transformed over the years. People still speak French there (along with the dozens of local languages, of course), the streets all have French names, and you can get really good French meals, enjoy the beach, and go shopping. I visited a temple here where an elephant stands outside, accepts 1 roupi coins from people, and then waves it's trunk over their heads to 'bless' them. I've got an awesome picture of me being blessed by the elephant...but here's a picture of the elephant to tide you over. The place we stayed, Villa Helena, was AMAZING...a five bedroom guest house near the beach with a huge staff to take care of us...words won't do it justice. Neither really do the pictures on their website...but check it out anyway.

Last night I went silk/sari shopping at Nalli's. It was a lot of fun - there are rows and rows of wooden shelves filled with every kind of sari on the face of the earth (cotton saris from $4, and wedding saris to $1000). I found a very affordable silk red and gold one...now I just have to get the blouse made up before I leave India. I was a bit disappointed with the silk fabric selection...I'll have to keep looking. Most people, including me, get around here by autoricksaw for a little over a dollar a ride.

Thanksgiving Framed

2006-11-25T19:06:00.000+01:00

Another year, another Thanksgiving spent apart. If things keep up the way they've been going Melissa and I will be lucky to have spent five Thanksgivings together by the time we celebrate our 25^th anniversary.

Neither of us got to spend Thanksgiving with family this year either. Instead we each found various people to impose ourselves on; I spent Turkeyday with some friends of ours and Melissa crashed some Chennaian's¹ feast.

Me and Sophie. Clearly I can never have children. After just a few minutes fatigue began to work its way inexorably up my arms like some sort of child-spawned serpent and I was forced to seek out a chair in which to deposit myself and my cumbersome burden². All fourteen or so pounds of her.

I also couldn't seem to walk anywhere with her without her legs shooting out and wrapping five times around something. She was like a little four legged octopus.

Just part of the crew. Thanks again to EJ and Holly for having me over. Successful Thanksgiving checklist time:

Good company
Copious amounts of good food
Pregnancy announcement³
Herculean dessert portions
Almost setting the neighborhood ablaze while trying to deep fry the turkey with dad

Well, four out of five ain't bad.

I had intended to make some joke about how many men it takes to get a baby into her snowsuit, but David⁴ is so clearly posing that I was afraid it would detract from the comedic value of the joke. So I'll make a less funny joke instead: Look! Three men and a baby!

Terrible. I know. But what can I do? I took three shots and that was the best one.

The only thing these two pictures have in common with Thanksgiving is that they were picked up from the framing shop the weekend before Thanksgiving. They're being posted here because the post title doesn't make any sense without them. Oh, and something about Melissa not wanting to wait three more weeks to see them in all of their framed glory.

This one Melissa has already seen framed since we bought it as is; we just didn't have the cashiola to pick it up the first time we saw it. That being the case, I can only assume that she wants a picture of it posted online so she can show the world what terrible taste her husband has in artwork.

Melissa has already complained about where I chose to hang this one (even though she's never seen it). She claims it's "behind the bathroom door." While this is technically true, it's not quite fair because the bathroom door is always closed. Therefore, it's not really behind the bathroom door. It's beside the bathroom door.

I don't think I used the word bathroom enough in that last paragraph. Bathroom.

-Dave

¹ I don't know if this is actually a word, but I'm throwing it out there anyway. If Dr. Seuss can do it you bet your flumpydingalo I'm gonna do it too.

²Originally this sentence was going to be the photo's alternate text, but I liked it so much that I couldn't bear the thought of no one (including Melissa) ever reading it.

³My family is large enough that these are considered standard at all gatherings of more than 8 people.

⁴He's the one on the right. I guess my faith that you could figure out which one of them was "clearly posing" was misplaced. I apologize. I'll try to use smaller words in the future.

Belgian Waffles!

2006-11-16T21:25:00.000+01:00

I'm still in slight shock that I've managed to land such a great assignment, but I thought I'd share news that I know where I'm headed next!! It's not 100% firm yet, but unless something goes wrong I'll be headed to NATO headquarters in Brussels next summer. I still can't believe that I'm not headed someplace a little less cushy than Warsaw...after all, I did bid on some fairly exotic places.

There are so many things I'm excited about!! Mussels and fries, chocolate, lace, speaking French, the job (which comes with travel opportunities), and of course...Brussels!! Plus, we can keep our little car!! Dave is slightly disgruntled because he wanted to get the chance to take language training...but once more we're being assigned without any opportunity for him to learn the language. I'm trying to fill his mind with images of Belgian Beer, Beligian waffles...

Anyway, we'll know more details in the spring once I'm officially assigned. We'll keep you all posted!

Halloweenies

2006-11-04T22:07:00.000+01:00

Quite a bit has happened since our last posting, but most of it was pretty boring and mundane and of the "we went to work today" variety, so I'll just concentrate on the fun and exciting highlights such as:

London 2006: Revenge of the Teeth

We recently took another trip to London. Overall it was a pretty nice time: we did a little shopping, ate at some fun restaurants, Melissa had four wisdom teeth carved out of her skull... basic vacation stuff.

I'm happy to report that Melissa is recovering well after her surgery. She had a couple of very difficult extractions that made her recovery time a bit more prolonged than it would have been had she had "normal" extractions, but she's been back to a fairly normal diet for about week now.

Unfortunately, due to the surgical nature of our visit, we didn't see much of London. I would occasionally go out and walk around our neighborhood a bit, but I invariably would forget to take my camera on these excursions. Hence, the only picture we have from our most recent trip to London is the view from the corner window of our hotel room¹.

Halloween

Allhallows Eve, November Eve, Feast of Souls, Feast of the Dead, Candy Night, Sugar-O-Rama! As a costumer, this is more or less the event of the year for Melissa. For me, it's pretty much just another day to dress up as a Jedi in public.

This post would ramble on much longer than normal if I tried to include even a fraction of our pictures from the two Halloween events we attended this year, so I'm just hitting the lowlights. For more October 31^st related pictures and words, click on over to Melissa's Costume Site.

Melissa as Marie Antoinette. This costume won her the award for Best Adult Costume at the kids' Halloween party. For that she got to bring home absolutely nothing. I told her we should just choose our own prize and steal a kid, but apparently Poland's kipnapping laws are pretty harsh. Besides, children tend to smell. Especially the easily concealabe ones.

Me as a Jedi. I really wasn't trying to be any particular Jedi, but everyone called me "Obi" anyway. I guess that makes me Obi-wan as a padawan since I have no beard. And knowing that makes me an incredibly huge geek.

I should also mention that Melissa was upset with me for wearing a white t-shirt underneath my tunic. I think she's worried that it ruins some of the effect of the costume. For that reason I must do the following:

::Jedi mind trick:: You don't see a white t-shirt showing in this picture. The neck of my Jedi tunic comes to a perfect V in the middle.

Melissa and I posing with Nadia in the costume Melissa made for her. We had to coax her out of her winter coat to get this picture.

David (a different one) posing with Melissa in his "Costume by Melissa." David and I went as a pair this year for Halloween. I was the young padawan and he was the geriatric master. I don't recall how the wig got on his head, but I think he looks quite fetching in it. Perhaps I'll have to borrow it the next time I break out my Jedi outfit³.

-Dave

¹This is not technically true. We also had some pictures of the teeth they excised from Melissa, but she's being a fuddy duddy and insists that no one wants to see that². Personally, I was fascinated by them. Clearly my oral surgeon was holding out on me when I had my wisdom teeth pulled.

²She also wouldn't allow me to leave the clear plastic envelope, in which we received the teeth, in a prominent location for hotel housekeeping to find.

³Tomorrow.

We're No Art Connaisseurs...

2006-10-10T21:31:00.000+02:00

Dave and I have discovered that we have very different taste in art. It's not that either of us has bad taste (except maybe me...), it's just that we don't tend to like the same things. When one of us falls in love with a painting, it's almost guaranteed the other will hate it.

So imagine our surprise when our cafeteria was hosting a local artist, and we found something we could agree on! It was afordable, so we got it. I think I like it a bit more than Dave did, but that's ok. When we took it to the Frame shop, we lucked out again and found another piece we both agreed on, and got that one as well. We'll revise this post once we have everything framed and home. Meanwhile...here is the painting.
I like this beause it's historical, it's in Paris, it's got a lot of geometric shapes within the painting, I and like the vivid colors. The Eiffel tower is unfinished, and there's that white space of unpainted canvas in the middle. (in short...it's shiny and and caught my attention. I like pretties).

Around the World (And Back Again)

Birthday Weekend in Charlottesville

Oscar 2011 Predictions/Outcome

New York, New York!

History, History, and Halloween

New York, New York!

Funfilled Weekend

Reclaiming the Blog

Get Inclined

Oscar Fashion Roundup

Oscar Predictions

Stranded

The Bittersweet of Life

All's Fair at the Fair

Caly the Movie Star

Caly Post-HaircutTotally Looks Like Falkor From The Neverending Story

Nudist Dog

Calypso: A Before and After Pictorial Review

People with way too much time on their hands...

Side Saddle Video

Welcome to Chocolate Heaven

Animals

Isn't It A Bit Early for Easter Decorations?

Look...I'm Riding Aside!!!

George Washington's Birthday Ball

Side Saddle Course

Update from the Zoo

A Very H(cr)appy New Year

Merry Christmas

The Official Start of the Holidays!

The Governor's Ball

Congrats to Megan and Ethan

Congratulations/Happy Halloween/Happy Election Day

Back on the Ol' Homestead

The Renaissance Festival

The Pentagon Memorial

Meet Me At The Fair!

The Outer Banks

Dog Videos

Williamsburg Visit

Amish Country

New Toy!!!

Birthday Bash

Caly vs. Mr. Bear

The Newest Member of Our Clan

Sigh1

Hershey's Bliss

Dave's Educational Video Series - Syrup Making

To Jenn and Ryan

Red Carpet, Meet Melissa

Jennifer's Big Day

Back to Stay (at least for now)

Domestic Diva

Red, Red, Wine

Little Red Riding Hood

...And Back Again

My Wallet Hurts

Just what my waistline needs

Where we been at?

Gallavanting in Ghent

Traveling Light in Palermo

Wedding Bells, and More Wedding Bells

Brussels Beer Festival

The New Neighborhood

Didn't We Just Do This?

Falling Through the Table

A Room of One's Own

More Than Meets the Eye

The Air is Thinner Up Here

Rocky Mountain Home

Bon Voyage/Goodbye Poland

It's Like Déjà Vu All Over Again

The Huntress

Grainy Dragon at Large in Krakow!

Blogger Blotter 2

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

'Topes Win!!

Together at last...

Oh nos! P@rn!

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Caly Post-Haircut

Totally Looks Like Falkor From The Neverending Story

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