My Turn to Cross Over to the Dark Side

So I wrote a year ago about how I wasn't super happy about boyfriend moving across the river into Virginia.  One of the biggest sacrifices that I will have to make in this marriage is following him.  I thought about convincing him to move back, but realistically speaking, it just makes so much more sense for me to move there.  It hadn't really sunk in yet though, until today I put up a Craigslist ad for someone to take over my apartment.  I don't want to give up my wonderful apartment in the middle of the wonderful city where I can walk to everything.  The things you do for love.  The funniest part of it all is though I got an email from a girl who said it reminded her of an apartment from the Apartment Therapy Small Cool Contest. :)

Orchids and Butterflies

One of my favorites of the Smithsonians is the Museum of Natural History, where boyfriend and I took a ramble a few weeks ago. Most of the museum is full of dead things, but there are few living items as well. I think it's a yearly thing, but they occasionally have an orchid exhibit, which is really amazing. Boyfriend and I got took some time to smell the orchids and learn a bit, as we wanted to head out to an orchid store in the boonies of Virginia to stock up on orchids for terrariums. Al's Orchid Greenhouse is amazing, and Al is quite the character himself. He went through the greenhouse with us and told us about every orchid that could possibly be used in a terrarium, and we came home with a nice selection.

Another exhibit at the museum that I like (which I think is a permanent exhibit) is the Orkin Insect Exhibit. I'm not sure how I feel about Orkin sponsoring it, but it's pretty neat. I liked the display window full of moth and butterfly chrysalises. I was able to sit there and watch one hatch.

I'm blue da ba dee da ba die...

I haven't taken advantage of the fact that I live in a city full of free museums and great culturalness in a while, so boyfriend and I went to the Museum of Natural History and the National Botanic Gardens a few weeks ago. I haven't gotten a chance to go through all my photos yet, but here are some lovelies from the Gardens.

Costume Madness, Part 2!

So here we go - the reveal! The rally was a lot of fun, despite not being able to meet up with multiple groups of friends. It ended up just being me, boyfriend, and another friend, Brian.

What most of the rally looked like to me.

Until I got to see the view from boyfriend's shoulders.

After a quick change at home, time to go out on the town in my second costume of the day! It ended up being more Vegas showgirl then sexy monster, but it worked.

Definitely Not Taking a Dip Now

So back in Austin, while canoeing on Town Lake (aka the Colorado River), I convinced Bushwoman that there were alligators in the water. Of course there were none, but it was all good fun.

The Potomac, in my mind, is equally unlikely to contain vicious man-eating beasts, but unfortunately I'm wrong - according to NBC Washington, a man caught an 8-foot bull shark in the Potomac southeast of DC. Eeek!

A Little Overbuilt, Perhaps?

So it has been a really long time, I know, but there has been a bit of stuff going on lately. I'm really close to finally finishing up my apartment, with the loft bed built, and one set out of two of copper pipe shelves soldered together and my bathroom all painted, so stay tuned for the final results!

But in other news, I received a local breaking news email from the Washington Post this morning, which explained an unusual shaking I felt in the night. Apparently, the DC area had an earthquake of 3.6 magnitude, and the loft bed shook, but was completely fine. :) I was a little sleepy, so I was confused by my bed shaking, but not awake enough to actually think about it.

Taxation without Representation

So anyone who moves to DC finds out really quickly that living in a district is a little different than living in a state. I never really took great offense to the fact that we don't have any voting senators or representatives, because I still had my own vote. But I've been living here over three years now, and it's starting to get to me. I went on a tour of the Capitol with my parents when they were here in April, and the whole thing was pretty much a snub on Washingtonians. We came really close last month to getting representation, but it stalled when gun control provisions (or rather gun uncontrol provisions) were added to the bill. So this morning I came across an article in the Washington Post that details how Puerto Rico is now in the runnings for becoming the 51st state. Really? Really?

Previously on Lost

So I'm a bit of a lostie - it all started back during Season 2 when I stayed with bushwoman over Christmas break and we watched all of Season 1 on DVD in 3 days. While I, and millions of other people, will be a little lost when it all ends this weekend, I found out what I'm doing this Saturday - catching up on what happened in a musical fashion at the Iota Club, with the Brooklyn-based band Previously on Lost, which writes songs about episodes of the show. Any other losties out there wanna join me?

First Fridays - Leaping Forward with Twins of a Gazelle

So I've been super busy lately, but I'm coming out of my internet hiding with a splash to fill you in on what you should be doing tomorrow night. Last month I got the chance to go the the first First Fridays show of Twins of a Gazelle, with the vocals and guitar provided by my friend David-Craig, along with Noah on the cello, Emily Chimiak on the violin, Arthur Harrison playing the theremin (really amazing instrument, I was fascinated), and Christina on the viola.

It was a great intimate acoustic show, mixing mellow, soothing sounds with some great foot-tapping melodies that I, at least, couldn't sit still to. The link above is to one of their songs, so definitely take a listen and see for yourself.

And I say all this to announce what everyone in DC should be doing tomorrow night, namely, attending the second First Fridays show! This month The Echo Wall will be joining Twins of a Gazelle, along with a painting raffle from Emily, who has incredible work. I've got my fingers crossed to win this time! All of the details are on the poster below as well as on Facebook:

May's Event
June's Event

So despite the fact I brought my camera and took lots of pictures, they are currently on my computer at home and I haven't even looked through them yet. So here are some fantastic photos taken by M.V. Jantzen:







So come on down to Mid City Caffe (1626 14th Street Northwest) at 7 p.m. tomorrow night! I hope to see you there!

The Great Divide

So boyfriend is starting a new job in a week and a half, which is awesome, except for one little thing. It's in Virginia. And not just like, across the river Virginia like where he currently works. It's out there. I'll fully admit it - I'm a city snob. I refuse to ever live in Virginia and pretend that I'm from "DC". But I'm trying really hard to be supportive and encouraging, because that's what girlfriends do. He currently has no plans to move, but that could change once he tests out the commute, but hopefully he wouldn't move all the way out there, just into the across the river territory. But I was doing a little google-mapping for work, and I came across a road that I fully support him living on, because it's awesome. Who can resist living on Frying Pan Road? And no, I won't even make him buy an alpaca, which is the current requirement for him moving to Fairfax County.

View Larger Map

Memorializing a Town of Memorials?

So I've been a bit flummoxed about what to do with my bathroom. I moved in with all white bathroom towels, shower curtain and rug (remember the pink bathroom?), and was planning on doing a sort of chic french sort of look, bringing in some black accessories, including a black wire mannequin earring holder thing I got for Christmas. That all changed when I went to Bed, Bath, and Beyond and was forced to buy the DC Metro system map shower curtain. I know the typical way to decorate around that would be to pull out the primary colors and go crazy. The bathroom is the one space you can really do that, but for some reason, I just can't get a good picture in my head of what it should look like. It also doesn't help matters that the tiles on the floor and in the shower are white with the occasional brown tile. If it weren't for that stupid brown tile, it would be a different story. But anyways, I digress. My idea was to try and make it transportation themed of some sort, and so I made a basket out of extra maps I've had lying around, with the intention of making more, but that has yet to be seen. And I still couldn't picture how to pull it all together.

Enter this month's edition of Real Simple/a random blog where I saw the same thing. I love graphic posters, and the travel posters for state capitals by The Heads of State are fantastic. I like them all, but I thought, why not go all out and DCify my bathroom? I'm thinking this:

and this:

I've been wanting to get the Ork poster for a while now, and this just gives me an excuse. :) So my question is, does this constitute an overly kitschy-themey bathroom?

(photo 1: The Heads of State, photo 2: Ork)

Goodbye, My Giant Friends

While reading the paper this morning I got some really sad news. According to the Washington Post, two of the zoo's arapaimas, the largest freshwater fish in the world, have died and a third is sick. People always find it a little odd when they ask my what my favorite animal at the zoo is, and rather than the typical, panda or monkey or something, I say giant fish. I've been fascinated by them ever since my first visit to the zoo, and even though I haven't been to visit them in a while, I will miss them.

Seriously, I could be doing about 12 different things next weekend...

...but no, I'm going to boyfriend's dad's wedding. I'm trying not to complain, really, I like him a lot (boyfriend's dad, that is) and I want to be at the wedding, but here is a short list of what I will be missing:

The Sartorialist book-signing.
Getting to meet Lumbergh and Milton from Office Space - pretty close to the best movie ever.
Aaron Karo show - actually got canceled and will be rescheduled, but it was on the list originally.

Ok, so I know that's only two actual things, but I think there is more that I'm just blocking because it makes me sad. And they are really awesome things. But I love boyfriend, and therefore I am off to Boston.

Morgan Freeman at the Wheel

So, it's fairly unusual to actually understand what the metro driver is saying in any of his announcements, but occasionally you can make out what the next station is, etc. But it's always a good day when you have an operator who likes his job and makes the riders feel like he or she cares about them. But it's a super good day when Morgan Freeman is driving your train. I've had this guy as a conductor a couple of times, and it definitely threw me for a loop. I'm just going to pretend he wasn't someone who sounded exactly like him, but was really Morgan Freeman doing some research for an upcoming role. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Guardians of DC

So I've been horrible lax lately in blogging, but I promise I'll be better! :) I decided to go through some pictures I took earlier this summer that I still haven't sorted, and I ran across one of my favorite subjects - lions. I normally don't wander around the Capitol building that much, as I like to distance myself from the tourists, but I happened by the statue by the reflecting pond in front of it, and got to see this statue for the first time up close.

I just never happened to notice there were lions on it, but they turned out to be difficult to get a good shot of, as the structure is so tall.

I liked how regal these particular lions were, rather than the typical sleeping or roaring lion statues.

And the actual subject of the statue, whoever he may be:

According to statue myth, he died of natural causes, as all four legs of his horse are on the ground.

The statue next to the lions/unknown man was also pretty cool, so I got a couple of shots of it as well.

I Guess I Work in the Right Town...

According to the Texas Transportation Institute via the Washington Post, DC is the only major metropolitan area to have traffic congestion increase this year, with all but two decreasing. Awesome. Hey, it's job security, if nothing else.

The Weekend of Festivals, Part 2

So as I mentioned a couple of posts ago, there were a bazillion festivals going on in the D.C. area and I had hoped to go to three - the Caribbean festival, Smithsonian Folklife Festival, and Festa Italia. I missed the Caribbean festival (or rather the parade, which was the only part I wanted to see), and I decided to put off the Folklife festival to this coming weekend, as it's still going on, but I did manage to make it to Festa Italia. Just a little background - D.C. doesn't really have any Italians. The only Italians I know here are boyfriend's friends from New Jersey. So I didn't have huge expectations for going to a festival located in former "Little Italy" (first time I have ever heard of it), but I thought it might be fun. Somehow it managed to fail even my low expectations, but I was starving, so the food was good. It basically consisted of food, some music, kid's entertainment and the centerpiece was the 6 or 7 ferraris lined up that you could pay to test drive.

My favorite food of the day - the canoli

Murals: DC Edition #4

This was the weekend of festivals, but I actually only managed to make it to one. The first festival I wanted to go to was the Caribbean festival, which I've wanted to go to the past couple of years, but didn't make it. So the plan was to go to the parade at 11 a.m. on Saturday morning, and not pay to actually get into the festival, which shouldn't be that difficult. But unfortunately, despite getting up at 8 a.m., we made it to the parade route just after it finished. All was not lost though, as I did discover a mural that I had been meaning to make a trip out to see for a while now. It is titled "Daughter of Oshun in the New World", by Joel Bergner and is part of the Georgia Avenue Global Mural Project, funded by a grant from the DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities, which promote murals all around the city. It is located near Georgia Avenue NW and Kenyon Street NW.

The Things You Hear on the Metro

So I was riding the metro, reading my magazine, minding my own business the other day when I overheard a comment I just have to share. A couple of guys, either interns or just out of college were discussing facial hair and one of them said,

"I can only grow the anti-Hitler 'stache. You know, where it doesn't meet in the middle."

I giggled internally for the next two stops.

Looking Up In Logan Circle