assessing the wRecKaGe

2011-in-Review: the MAP edition!

2011-12-30T23:23:00.006-05:00

I am an avid consumer of social media, and am often excited to try new apps, but only after people I like start doing it first (I like to think of myself as a follow-my-friends early adopter. which probably makes me not an early adopter at all). One of my favorites if Foursquare, which, as you probably already know, allows you to “check in” to the places you go. Some think this is creepy (and I agree, in some contexts it totally could be), but you’re able to check in without sharing your location with anyone if you so prefer, and I think you can even make that your default setting.

What I really love about Foursquare is the ability to make MAPS. As you know, I’m a bit of a map nerd (read: huge map nerd). And Foursquare lets you export a KML feed on Google maps to make awesome maps of the places you’ve been. I already did this once on the blog for my trip cross-country with Miriam, but thought that in lieu of the this-is-what-I-did-this-year-post, I’d be a bit more creative and share in map form. I might still do one of those posts, since they’re funsies, but let’s wait and see.

So to start off with, here’s EVERYWHERE I went (or at least checked into) this year. You’ll notice there’s no international travel (2010 didn’t have any either, but 2009 had Costa Rica). Luckily, 2012 will be a great international travel year, with the very exciting ITALY trip in May to look forward to.

Nonetheless I did get to visit some new places, like:

Denver! (there’s not so much to see from this trip, since we spent a considerable amount of time on the couch. win. Slash, blame it on the margs):

And LA:

As usual I made quite a few trips up to NY, although perhaps not as much as in the past. Nonetheless, trips in April, July, and October (and stop-throughs in January and March) yielded a bunch of new favorite spots, chief among them the Waffle Truck, Fort Tryon Park/the Cloisters, and fantastic brunch spot Centro Vinoteca.

I also started a new job in the middle of 2011, leaving the wonderful non-profit I worked at for 2 ½ years for the equally wonderful, but very different energy efficiency software company where I now work. It’s located out in Courthouse, which means I have visited some (but not enough) new places in the Courthouse/Rosslyn/Clarendon area:

It was also a fantastic year for theater, but I cannot for the life of me isolate just Philly, New York, and DC in a way that has enough resolution to see theater locations, so that will have to be saved for another day.

Finally, and most wonderfully, I now live in an exciting part of a dynamic city -- so there's not often need to leave what some friends affectionately call "the radius." This year yielded more new favorites -- Stoney's grilled cheese and the guac at El Centro D.F., and lots of visits to old favorites Pica Taco, ACKC (which is closing the neighborhood location :( !), and Teaism.

All in all, a fantastic year for being places -- I added 5 new states (Indiana, Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona), went to lots of new cities, and got to explore more of my wonderful adopted city, D.C.!

My Crush on America: the yummy, and energetic!

2011-10-02T21:32:00.009-04:00

The final, and much-delayed post in my Why-I-Have-a-Crush-on-America-Thanks-to-My-Recent-Road-Trip Series wraps things up with two of my favorite things: food and energy! (which sort of works nicely, when you think about the fact that food is an energy source).

America is yummy!

This trip involved a lot of fantastic eating. We started off the trip right, with a stop at Vegan Treats, the DELISH vegan bakery in Bethlehem, PA. I got the peanut butter bomb, which I like to refer to as The Best Thing to Happen to Peanut Butter Since the Goober Pie. Miriam got a lovely carrot cake. I've been to Vegan Treats before, but love introducing it to new people -- I was only sad that I passed within 45 minutes of home and didn't have my Mom come meet us!

The next wonderful food stop was right outside of Indianapolis and Camp Guci at Traders Point Creamery, where Miriam’s boyfriend Beni was a staff member this summer. Miriam and I both got grilled cheese with avocado (I got mushrooms, too!) and a gouda and vegetable soup (so good-a!). We also sampled their chocolate milk (which Miriam says was wonderful, but I forgot that I don’t actually like chocolate milk) and their caramel ice cream, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

In St. Louis, we had inexpensive and yet DELISH sushi at Wasabi in Clayton. I will shut up and let the sushi boat (and Miriam's face) speak for itself:

In Denver, we had delicious tacos and even more delicious margaritas at the awesome Machete’s. Hilary and Tyler are friends with the Chef, which meant we got to try new things (ridiculously smooth tequila AND huitlacoche, a Mexican corn fungus, which is a delicacy and something I’ve wanted to try for a while thanks to Iron Chef). Silliness ensued, as one would expect from the combination of altitude and margaritas.

We also had next-morning brunch at this cute place called Snooze, which had a GLORIOUS dish of hash browns with eggs and cheese and any toppings of your choice. Basically, a bowl o' happiness. I chose avocados and tomatoes (obviously):

In LA, we had a much-anticipated meal at Fabio-from-Top-Chef’s restaurant, Firenze Osteria. We each ordered a different kind of gnocchi (look, the man is famous for his gnocchi. we couldn't resist). I won't say more, except that a. I won the Ordering Game of Life by ordering the Best Pesto of All Time, and b. you should read Mat S.'s account of The Best Pesto He's Ever Eaten.

America is energy-diverse!

America has lots of different energy sources, and they’re ALL advertised along interstate route 70! Now there are some (coughcoalcough) that I’m not a ginormous fan of, but there’s no denying that it was neat to see signs advertising all of these of different types of energy. We saw signs for coal in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, for natural gas in Pennsylvania (oy vey Marcellus Shale), and for geothermal in Ohio (ask Miriam, I got pretty excited about this one).

We also saw wind turbines throughout Illinois, Kansas, and Colorado, a solar-powered restaurant in Denver, and old-school oil wells in Los Angeles and in fields in western Kansas. We even saw signs for home insulation, so I’m going to say that we saw energy efficiency, too. Unfortunately, I didn't actually get pictures of any of this except the wind turbines in Kansas. Needless to say, my inner energy policy wonk was a happy camper throughout the trip. Miriam probably less so, since she had to listen to me talk her ear off about it . . .

So that’s it for the blog posts about our EPIC summer road trip. Moral of the story: I had a fantastic time, and can’t wait for my next adventure!

My Crush on America: the science-y and musical theater-y!

2011-08-29T21:35:00.012-04:00

In the last post, I discussed some of the many reasons why I now have a crush on America, thanks to the great road trip of 2011. The love-fest continues in this post, in which I discuss America through the lens of things I love -- musical theater and science!!

America is SCIENCE-Y!

My inner former-interpreter-at-the-Franklin-Institute LOVED all of the great science we were exposed to on this trip. The Petrified Forest/Painted Desert National Park was great -- lots of pretty scenery (red white and blue mountains!? how patriotic!), fossilized wood, and a Route 66 memorial (can you have a memorial for a road?!).

I also LOVED the Garden of the Gods, right outside of Colorado Springs, Colorado, where there were tons of beautiful red rocks, perfect for a hike before heading south to Santa Fe. I was particularly excited to discover vertical stratification on this rock, which means that the sediment gathered horizontally, then the rock got smushed into a vertical position, and then it eroded away to look like what we see today. Fact: science is so cool.

Our last day, Mat and I went to the beautiful Griffith Observatory in LA, which included a lovely planetarium show (that I half slept through, not because it wasn't interesting, but because I am physically incapable of staying awake during those), a lovely hike towards the Hollywood sign, and a wonderfully well-curated and interactive set of science exhibits. The periodic table of the elements was my favorite (mostly because it made me want to sing the Tom Lehrer song).

America is musical theater-y!

This trip featured SO MANY opportunities to plays songs from musicals that featured the places we were visitings. This is not exactly a new phenomenon for me -- I'm pretty sure every time I go to New York, there's a different NY-related musical theater song in my head, but this was 3,000 MILES of musical theater references (it's a good thing Miriam likes most musicals, or our friendship would be in jeopardy . . .).

If you were following along with #3000milestoHUC, you'll know the answers to this game. First person to name a musical theater song or lyric to go with all of these places that we passed gets a drink on me!

1. Ohio

2. St. Louis, Missouri

3. Jackson County, Missouri

4. Kansas City, Missouri

5. Oakley, Kansas (okay, no musical actually goes with this place, but you should be able to guess what show was in my head)

6. Santa Fe, New Mexico

7. Los Angeles, California

OH, and speaking of musical theater – remember that time Lea Michele showed up in a sushi restaurant two tables away from us? When we got to California, I got to meet up with some of my favorite former DC residents, Seth and Stacy K. I asked them to give Schutz, Miri, and I an LA experience for dinner one evening, and they seriously delivered! We got to a snazzy (but not too snazzy) sushi restaurant in West Hollywood, and as we were walking to our table, Lea Michele walked in! We were very polite and didn’t take pictures or try to talk to her, but needless to say, we were very excited about this celebrity sighting.

Next up: more reasons why this road trip gave me a crush on America: it contains a lot of yummy food and it's surprisingly energy-diverse!!

My Crush on America: the Pretty, the Historical, the Friend-ly, and the Huge!

2011-08-22T21:41:00.016-04:00

I officially have a crush on the United States of America (but not in a worrisome, nationalistic way). I’ve been going around saying that for the past three weeks since Miriam and I finished our epic Road Trip across the country, but it’s still true. Want to know why? I’ll tell you.

1. America is PRETTY.

We saw the greatest sunset ever, in the most unexpected place (ever): Salina, KS!

We saw some of the prettiest rain (yes, rain can be pretty, too!) in Santa Fe -- there was a rain storm in FRONT of us, but we weren't in it, so we could take pictures from the side.

Yes, the photo below is of an entire field FULL of sunflowers. This happened multiple times throughout Kansas. How could that not be a wonderful state? Yes, the picture next to it is of clouds -- we ended up identifying the shapes of a bunch of clouds throughout the trip, but these were my favorites, because they looked like writing!

2. America is HISTORICAL.

The first bit of history we got on the trip was some family history for me, when we visited Bexley, Ohio, the section of Columbus where Miriam’s Aunt lived and where my mom and her siblings grew up!

My other favorite bit of history was the Truman Presidential Library in Independence, Missouri. Truman has been one of my favorite historical figures since high school, and I've been talking about visiting Independence since then. (For your reference, current Other Favorites include Teddy Roosevelt, Alexander Hamilton, Henry Clay, and James K Polk). Needless to say, I was VERY excited to go and learn, and the museum did not disappoint -- it was beautifully curated, and really moving at parts (there were great sections on the recognition of Israel, the Cold War, and civil rights), and I left feeling decidedly patriotic in the not-cheesy way.

America contains not-seen-enough friends.

I am one of those people who really likes all of my favorite people gathered in one place at all times. This is, of course, not particularly realistic, but it makes me a little sad sometimes. One of the best things about the road trip is that I got to see Seth, Stacy, Hilary, and Mat (who met us in LA), and got to meet Beni and Tyler, Miriam and Hilary's boyfriends!

Most wonderfully, this trip was a chance to spend hours and hours talking with my friend Miriam, who I see Nowhere Near Enough. We got to be ridiculous and silly and loud and just have a lot of fun catching up. I wish I could have a week off to do that with all of the people who are important to me.

America is HUGE

During our trip, I kept being reminded of one of my favorite Douglas Adams quotes:

"Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may thing it's a long way down the road to the chemists, but that's just peanuts to space.

So America is clearly not THAT big. But it is big enough that we drove over 3,100 miles, for seven days, over 12 states (four of which were new for me). That's crazy! Check out the awesome Foursquare-generated map of everywhere we stopped:

Stay tuned for Other Reasons I have a Crush on America -- hints: it's science-y, yummy, and musical theater-y!

Cross Country Road Trip Extravaganza: Seeking Ideas, Music, and Suggestions!

2011-06-15T14:52:00.003-04:00

The fantastic Miriam Shira Farber and I are driving cross-country this summer, to get Miriam and her belongings and to Los Angeles so she can go to Rabbi school. We'd love your help and input as we plan out our trip.

Specifically we are looking for:

couches to crash on, if you know anyone in Kansas off of route 70/40 (at least as far west as Salina), Santa Fe, NM, or Flagstaff, AZ. (Hey, if you're lucky, we might even do our famous interpretive dance of the Lorax!)
recommendations of delicious places to eat along our route (see below) - we do love to eat!
suggestions for fun places to stop along the way - national parks, museums, quirky things, anything that will satisfy our not-so-inner nerds, etc.

Our route is (with routes/interstates in parentheses);

New York-Columbus, OH (80 to 76 to 71)
Columbus, OH-St. Louis, MO (70)
St. Louis-Kansas (70)
Kansas-Denver, CO (70)
Denver-Santa Fe, NM (25)
Santa Fe-Flagstaff, AZ (25 to 40)
Flagstaff-Los Angeles (40 to 15)

We are also looking for help with our entertainment in the car! If you have a favorite radio station, let us know! And the most exciting and fun part...we're asking for musical sponsorship of parts of our drive! Make us a mix/playlist to get us through Kansas! Or a themed playlist to enter California! Our respective music collections are pretty heavy with Broadway and feminist folk, but we'd love to broaden that a little...

And if you'll be along our route between July 31 and August 7, let us know! We'd love to see you!

Feel free to share this and spread widely!!!!!!!

Love,

Miriam and Rachel

P.S. - Watch out for the live Twitter feed of the trip! (@MiriShira and @rachelkatiegold, trip hashtag to be determined)

I Love the 80's (apparently)

2011-05-09T07:10:00.012-04:00

This past Saturday night, I got the lovely opportunity to support a cause I care about AND celebrate the birth of one of the coolest Washingtonians, Emily PG of Wild and Crazy Pearl fame. The event in question was an 80's Prom Night to support Planned Parenthood of Metro Washington.

I must admit that at first I was a little skeptical, for though the 80s is the decade of my birth, my wardrobe tends to be reminiscent of the 50s or 20s if anything, so I didn't know what I'd wear. Lucky for me, my friend Shelby P has an extensive collection of 80's gear she was willing to share. The final outfit was a ridiculous amalgam of ruffly green miniskirt (thanks, Sarah K.!), pink tights, leg warmers, my favorite Tink tank top and a fabulously ruffly eyelet white top (complete with Anne of Green Gables-esque sleeves!). Yes, I am dancing like an old man in the below picture. But you can see most of the outfit!

In addition, I tend to assume (further proof about what they say about "assuming"*) that I don't like 80's music -- it turns out I mostly just don't like Broadway music of the 1980's (with the exceptions of Merrily We Roll Along and Into the Woods, of course). I also tend to assume I don't know popular music that does not involve doo-wop or Missy Elliot, but again, I underestimated my own musical lexicon and found that I recognized (and LOVED) almost all of the songs that were played. 80's success!

These are my friends. They are very photogenic. (Also, the photographer, Jim Darling, was awesome. He got Gavi's hair in mid-motion!)

This is me. I . . . am a dancing fool. And apparently, not so much photogenic as incapable of making normal faces (or not dancing like an old man) when behaving like a dancing fool.

Needless to say a fabulous night of dancing and singing and time with friends and celebration of the lovely Emily P. G. (with whom I have NO pictures. sad panda. so here's one of her in her FABULOUS prom dress):

*It makes an ass out of you and me. It's a thing.

because it's about to go back into the vault . . .

2011-04-26T09:35:00.002-04:00

I'm pretty sure no commentary is necessary, other than to mention that Brian Stokes Mitchell is a total dreamboat and that the lyrics of thing song make me so happy.

Hope you had a lovely Passover if you celebrate! Back to bread so soon!

Have an Egg Roll, Mr. Goldstone!

2011-04-22T23:25:00.006-04:00

Or in this case, Pho, cheesecake, baked eggs, mac and cheese, and waffles!

So some of my friends here in DC like to tease me that I spend more time out of DC than in DC. This is not entirellly true, but I do enjoy traveling, especially to New York, home of many of my favorite people in the world and much of my favorite theater in the world. This past weekend, Arielle G. and I ventured northward for a jam-packed 48 hours of friend-and-theater visiting. It also featured a lot of ridiculously good eating, which I describe here for your reading pleasure.

Despite a slightly difficult start (our bus was 45 minutes late, and we took a long stop AND there was traffic – boo!), we got to New York mid-afternoon on Friday ready for food and friends and good times. We had originally planned a 2nd Avenue Deli lunch with Sarah K, but that had to be delayed, so instead we met Mat S., best friend and New York Tour Guide extraordinaire, for Pho at Saigon Shack. I had never had Pho before, so was excited to try (especially since the Courthouse crowd talks about it all the time), and it did not disappoint. I went for the classic Pho with beef, and piled on the fun food-accessories– thai basil, sprouts, and lime!

We went back to Mat’s apartment for a brief relax, and then went down the block for Arielle’s first Wafels and Dinges truck experience. I first enjoyed the fabulousness that is the waffletruck back in December, and have been vigorously talking it up ever since. It turns out we were a little early for the truck, so we ducked into a liquor store to pick up some wine for Shabbat, and while we were there we tried cucumber vodka (surprisingly refreshing). Anyway, we eventually got our waffles, which were just as delicious as I remembered (the trick, I have learned, is to get NO toppings, that way you can maximize delicious-sugar-crystallization-flavor). This time, I also got a side of spekuloos, this spread made from cookies (how they make a spread from a cookie I don’t know, but when something is this delish, you go with it).

Saturday night was a fabulous Shabbat dinner at Casa Jonathan/Ruthie/Naomi, which was wonderful and full of friends and yummy food. Mat and I hopped to an Outlaw event at Bartini, which was mostly unremarkable, except when we got back later that evening and I realized there was still glitter in my clothing. Oof.

The next morning, we met the lovely Sarah K. and Katherine C. for brunch at Centro Vinoteca, right in Mat's neighborhood! Mat, new fan of Web 2.0 tools and eater extraordinaire, wrote a fabulous blog post on his blog Waffles, Fries, and Beer (which you should read). He covered most of the wonderfulness, but I'll add that a. complimentary things (especially warm pancake with a lemon curd) are the WAY to my heart, and b. my food, the Three Baked Eggs Amatricianna, with crispy guanciale (a kind of Italian bacon), sourdough, and parmesan, was out-of-this-world yummy.

The wonderfulness of the trip continued with some Broadway (to be discussed in my next post), and in between we went southern, J.T.-style, at Southern Hospitality in Hell's Kitchen. Apparently, in addition to being excellent at making my heart throb in the late 90's, Justin Timberlake is also good at picking a menu for his restaurant. Our choices of creamed spinach, mac and cheese, honey cornbread and pulled chicken were a WIN for the evening.

After the last show, we ended the weekend with a little Junior's cheesecake (and a chance to see Missy M.!). A seriously perfect weekend full of eating. I'm full just thinking about it again!

Pica Taco: One of the Culinary Wonders of DC

2011-02-12T13:25:00.007-05:00

I tend to believe that all things are better with a little avocado (or a lot of avocado -- I really overdid it with guacamole at this year's Super Bowl party). I also think that tongue is one of the more delicious things in the world, and that a well-made taco is better than a fancy meal. So when my friends Suzy G. and Jason H. introduced me to Pica Taco this summer, I knew immediately that I had found one of my favorite places in DC. It is a wonderful place that features well-made tacos, tongue, AND a little avocado. Score.

Jason and Suzy often go for breakfast tacos, a lovely Thursday morning pre-work tradition. I’ve joined them a few times, but it’s a little difficult for me to be functional before work. There are also lovely tacos at non-breakfast times, and I’ve tried most of the kinds they have – barbacoa and chicken are pretty good, but lengua (tongue) and the fish taco are fantastic.

Pica has two locations – one at 16th and Columbia and one at 14th and Florida. I tend to frequent the 14th and Florida location more often because it’s close to home, but the 16th and Columbia one is conveniently on the way back from the Zoo. I’ve been proselytizing (I know, Jews aren’t supposed to, but tacos are different, right?) about this for months, and this morning, I got Catherine H. and Emily P.G. of Wild and Crazy Pearl fame to join me (thanks ladies!).

The meal began with Coca-Cola from a bottle. Restaurateurs of Washington, the way to my heart is through a glass Coke bottle. Just so you know. Pica Taco also has other fun fruity drinks and sodas, but I always get the bottle of Coke.

All of the Pica Tacos come with two tortillas, because the yummy stuff inside is hot and because you make a mess when you eat at Pica Taco. This restaurant is not for the dainty-at-heart. As I said to Catherine and Emily as we left, “I’m a little bit of a slob.” Pica accounts for this by providing a second tortilla for each taco.

The lengua taco involves an onion-y cilantro-y salsa on top, and really tender tongue inside. I learned from a young age to love good deli tongue (thanks, Bub!), and I really like it in this form as well.

The breakfast taco (the one on the right below) is a wonder. It’s just eggs and beans and cheese on a tortilla, but it some how manages to make me ridiculously happy every time I consume it. Something about the combination of those flavors really works.

The fish taco is my personal favorite. It involved delicious white fish (tilapia?), seasoned with a peppery rub, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, some radishes, and most importantly, some avocado on top. A lot of the people I’ve gone to Pica with put hot sauce on top, but I’m a wimp when it comes to spicy, so I just squeeze a lemon slice on top. Suzy G. has mentioned multiple times that Californians, who are known for being a little picky about their fish tacos, think this is one of the best fish tacos they’ve ever had.

Tacos are wonderful most of the time, but Pica Tacos hit the spot morning, noon, and night. So get some tacos and a Coca Cola, and make sure to say hi to the lovely Sylvia. And you're welcome. You're seriously going to love this place.

RKG’s Recommendations: bus to NY, hot cocoa, and bookstores!

2011-01-10T21:05:00.003-05:00

I’ve decided to try a new type of blog post -- RKG’s Recommendations. These are some of my favorite things to eat and do in and around Washington, D.C.! Here are three to start off with – my favorite bus to NY, favorite hot cocoa location, and favorite independent bookstore. Enjoy!

Best bus to D.C. from New York: DC2 NY. Yes, it’s a few dollars more than Bolt or Megabus, but you get:
1. A less crowded bus. 2 of the 5 times I’ve taken DC to NY, I’ve had the whole seat to myself!
2. A bottle of water (which I never remember to bring for myself and am always grateful for, even if I’m a touch anti-bottled water in theory)
3. GOOD movies. Last time, I watched Toy Story 3. Which of course revealed the disadvantage of this particular DC2NY feature: if it’s that wonderful of a movie, sobbing may occur.
4. Drop-off in Dupont Circle. This one is key. It’s actually only 5 minutes closers to my apt as the 10th and H Bolt Bus drop-off, but it feels so much closer.
5. a bus that is not as awful as Megabus. After a very cold, poorly managed 2-hour wait in the cold in NY last month, I will not be taking Megabus again. Even if I do like the double decker thing.

Best hot cocoa: Okay so this is tough, because I love Coco Sala. But it’s expensive and fabulous and you feel like you need to be wearing heels there. The winner is ACKC, or Artfully Chocolate Kingsbury Confections (But that is too long a name, so ACKC it is.), a perfectly comfortable, decidedly lovely cocoa shop just one block from my apartment. This perfectly cute shop is home to gorgeous art (I think one of the owners is a stained glass artist?), delicious looking – I have yet to sample – truffles, and best of all The Divas. The Divas are hot cocoa/ice cream dessert/milkshakes, each of which are inspired by a famous diva. My favorite is the “Lucy”, which features chipotle, cinnamon, and semi-sweet chocolate. This is the Brigitte Bardot and the Marilyn Monroe (with Oreos and Crème de Menthe!), which we sampled during his visit last week.

Also, they have free wireless. Amazing.

Best independent bookstore: Politics and Prose
As the granddaughter of independent bookstore owners Hilda and John Gold, I am a bit of an exacting connoisseur of bookstores. Okay, that’s a lie. I really like bookstores, and if you put me in one, I’ll likely be happy no matter what. DC has an abundance of lovely book shops, but my favorite is far and away Politics and Prose. I like Kramerbooks (delicious food, and they curate their book offerings thoughtufully) and I like Capitol Hill Books in Eastern Market for the ramshackle, piles-o-books-and-therefore-happiness feel and the slightly crazy owner. But Kramerbooks is consistently expensive, and Capitol Hill Books is decidedly claustrophobic in the summer months. Politics and Prose, is practically perfect in every way (Name That not-as-good-as-the-original Musical!).

So why Politics and Prose? Oh, SO many reasons, my friends. I’ll list them for you.
1. It’s a Chevy Chase mainstay, and was a mere 5 blocks from my first apartment here in D.C., so it has nostalgic value. It has a well-curated upstairs, just like Kramerbooks,
2. Any night of the week and sometimes twice on the weekends, they have wonderful author talks – and they get great folks, too. Walter Isaacson and Taylor Branch were particular favorites (and I still haven’t forgiven myself for missing Tim Flannery, an Australian mammologist and author of one of my favorite books of all time, The Eternal Frontier. It’s a geological-time-scale history of North America’s evolutionary patterns. It’s a good thing I love my family, or I am not sure my cousin’s wedding would have been a good enough excuse to miss Tim Flannery. But I digress).

2a. sometimes they co-host events with Sixth and I. These are inevitably wonderful, but Sixth and I is another favorite place (we'll talk about that another time). The last one I went to involved Mark Bittman, and the one I went to before that was Barney Frank. Love.
3. The downstairs sale section is heaven on earth. And fundamentally Dangerous To My Wallet. So many well-priced books. So little time. Also, there is a cute café down there and they make a lovely latte.
4. The best birthday gift of all time. For my Dad’s birthday last August, Alli and I got him a P&P shirt with this quote:

Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.

Groucho Marx

Seriously, we are the best daughters of all time. And Politics and Prose is a glorious bookstore.

Assessing the Wreckage: my 2010, month by month!

2011-01-02T18:43:00.018-05:00

Happy New Year, everyone! The past few weeks have been a whirlwind of travel and friends and work and wonderful things, so I didn’t get a chance to sit and do a yearly wrap-up. But I think it’s still a useful exercise even on the second day of the new year, so here goes! What follows is the best stuff that happened in each month of the rather tumultuous 2011.

January began sunburnt and happy after an amazing vacation in Costa Rica with Mat S. and Jonathan H. I started my Economics class at GW, which was fun and challenging and just-what-I-needed. Mat S. visited for an MLK weekend adventure, during which we celebrated Alli’s belated birthday, and had a memorably fabulous Cathedral galumph with Will.

In February, Snowpacalypse part #2 happened. It was ridiculous and crazy, and I ended up getting lots of time with my Van Ness folks. It also involved a fabulous President’s day weekend visit from Stern, and a great NY weekend (in which I saw Our Town, celebrated Purim for the first time this year, and experienced my first Barney Greengrass lox!).

March began with my second Purim celebration of the year, this time at the Israeli embassy, and with the lovely group of people who would become my neighbors a few months later. Ridiculousness ensued. March also contained an absolutely perfect New Haven Shabbat with Ronis and Mat, and a weekend at home with the Mom and the Bub.

April began with Pesach at Bubbie Rose and Pop-pop Sol’s, Cherry blossom fireworks in SW Waterfront and an epic Cherry blossom fail with Jason (they were all in the water by the time we got there. Also, I turned 24, finished my econ class, and went to Baltimore for Seth’s birthday!

May was one of the busiest months I can ever remember experiencing – work was crazy, Alli graduated from college and kicked ass at it, and I had my first White House experience (the Mexican State Arrival, thanks to Emily P.G.!). I also went to NY for a crazy weekend of helping Mat and Katherine-bear move, seeing Sondheim on Sondheim, and introducing Katherine to the finest things in life (pastrami sandwiches at Katz’s, obv). And most importantly, I moved into the new apartment with Rooms!

In June, Jason F., David K, and I headed to Chicago for B-deis friends Ilana and Jeremy’s beautiful wedding! The next week, I went to the James Taylor/Carole King concert and reveled in the happy folk-ness. June also featured a visit from Miriam to DC in between Israel years and a gaggle of amazing people moving into town. In the middle of the month, I had one heck of an inspiring and fun day – I saw [title of show] at Signature Theater and participated in Relay for Life with RAC friends.

July was fun and hot – highlights included the 4^th of July at Ben and Rachel’s, my favorite date of the year -- Signature Theater’s Open House, and rooms' triumphant return to D.C. after weeks of being away!

August featured my first trip west of the Mississippi – I vacationed in California with Momma Mona for a week, spending time in San Francisco, in Santa Rosa wineries, and most importantly, with the redwoods! The next week was my first ACEEE Summer Study, an intense week of energy efficiency and good times with my colleagues. After all that travel, I was still up for more, so the last weekend, I visited NY for Schutz’s triumphant return to the United States and to visit my Dad on Long Island.

September was a mashup of Labor Day BBQs, a glorious Shaked/Missy visit, and the addition of Sarah K. to DC! Mat visited for a much-anticipated Sukkot with Jonathan’s family, a weekend that also included Kate B’s going away party and Emily P.G.’s housewarming.

October began with a Katherine-bear visit to D.C., a lovely weekend of Capitol visiting and Beirgarten adventures. The next weekend, I picked apples and successfully navigated a corn maze in Virginia and went on an awesome White House Garden tour. At the end of the month, I got to see Idina Menzel and Marvin Hamlisch rocking the NSO Pops, and had a ridiculous weekend at the Rally to Restore Sanity and Halloween!

On the night of the election at the beginning of November, I distracted myself with the very-fun Hair at the Kennedy Center, and then promptly saw the defeat of most (but not all!) of the candidates I cared about. Oof. The next weekend, I had a lovely gallump in NYC with Sara R. for Jonathan’s birthday. This was followed by an amazing G3 Thanksgiving, and then by the actual Thanksgiving at home. Also, my great-aunt and godmother, Aunt Li, passed away this month – she was a CHARACTER, who really lived life loudly and vigorously, and she will be missed.

December began with Hanukkah parties galore, followed by my first Holiday Cookie Bakefest Spectacular experience. Yum. The second half of the month featured the first half of the Mat/Rachel month of glory (in which we see each other 4/5 weekends), with a trip to NY for family stuff, and then my NY/Boston adventure. Details to follow, but needless to say, last week involved a Stern/Skrevsky/RKG reunion, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, a snowstorm, and reunion-izing with TBE folks and Leah!

Whew! 2010 was intense! I’m beat! (also, thanks to Seth K. and WildNCrazyPearl for the fabulous pictures)

Giving My Regards to Broadway!

2010-12-21T10:40:00.005-05:00

I'm headed off to see Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown this Saturday (on Christmas!) with Matt S. and Sarah K. Needless to say, I am very excited for the Patti LuPone/Laura Benanti/Sheri Renee Scott/Brian Stokes Mitchell loving that is about to ensue. I've seen Brian Stokes Mitchell in person before, at the wonderful Kennedy Center event last January, but none of the rest of them. And I'm particularly excited about one of the best divas on the stage, Patti LuPone. I've heard mixed things about the show, but am nonetheless very excited for the panoply of stars AND to get to see a musical with two of my favorite fellow-theater-goers. You'll remember that the last time we had a theater adventure together, wonderfulness in Sondheim/Lansbury form resulted.

Sometimes I just get so excited about musical theater, and read Playbill.com and Broadway.com more than an energy efficiency researcher should during her lunch breaks. As a result, I've been hearing about lots of things that make me happy. And so, I present:

Rachel's List of Broadway Shows I'm Ridiculously Excited About:

1. Sutton Foster and Joel Grey in Anything Goes. Anything Goes, being a former Ethel Merman vehicle, and being full of deliciously clever Cole Porter lyrics, is one of my favorite shows. And Sutton Foster tap dancing in anything makes me happy (she made me like Shrek the Musical. that's just impressive!). Plus, Joel Grey is wonderful in every way. For evidence of the wonderfulness of this show, see this clip of Patti in all of her glory (now you see why I'm excited to see her in person for the first time?!)

2. rumors re: Patti LuPone in Hello, Dolly, another one of my favorite shows. In fact, when Arielle G. told me about this rumor, my response was "ahhhhh that rumor just slayed me. I am now a remnant of my former self, cowering in the ashes from when I just burned up in a blaze of Dolly-loving glory. " Overdramatic? Absolutely. Warranted? Most assuredly. Dolly, being another Ethel/Mary Martin/Pearl Bailey show (we pretend like that Carol Channing thing didn't happen), is one of my all-time favorites. Plus, I made a darned cute Minnie Fay in the 2004 PVHS production of said musical. No guarantees on this one though -- according to this article, "She [Patti Lupone] has talked on the phone with Jerry Herman, but that's as far as it's gone." Here's hoping!

3. Sister Act: the Musical. This has the potential to be absolutely, fundamentally god-awful. On the other hand, it has the potential to make me vigorously happy in every possible way. In general, I like the musicals written before 1980, and in general, I don't like movies that are turned into musicals. But there are exceptions (42nd street was originally a movie, In the Heights was made long after the 1980s), so I'm willing to go into it with an open mind. ESPECIALLY given the fact that Sister Act and Sister Act II: Back in the Habit are two of my favorite movies of all time. After all, who doesn't love Whoopi and Maggie Smith and lot of nuns singing MoTown? And even better -- Lauryn Hill rocking out in all of her early 90's glory?

4. How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying: the Harry Potter edition. One of my favorite Frank Loesser shows, featuring the actor best known for being Harry Potter and getting naked with a horse (in Equus, duh). I think it has the potential to be wonderful or godawful, and I've decided to be hopeful.

There are many more, but I've already given you a few clips of happy, so let's leave it there for the day. But seriously - what shows am I missing? What else MUST I be vigorously excited about?

Happy Thanksgiving: The Gold Family Edition

2010-12-05T10:25:00.010-05:00

Reasons Why This Thanksgiving Was Amazing. In List Form, because that's how I roll:

1. the addition of the lovely Fischlowitz-Roberts clan -- Max's Mom, Dad, and brother all came into town (from St. Louis and Maine!) to hang out with us Gold ladies and enjoy the holiday Mona-style. They added a lovely dose of football (we normally don't watch), humor, and balance to the normal Gold-women-being-totally-crazy scene.

2. the addition of not 1, not 2, but 4 pieces of argyle clothing to my wardrobe, thanks to Momma Mona. Not only are my three pairs of socks and one sweater stylish and fabulous, they are warm and cozy as well. Major win.
3. the arrival of the FIRST SNOW OF THE YEAR! Oops, sorry for the caps just then. It's just that snow triggers my inner 8-year-old happy-to-be-getting-out-of-something genes, and usually involves a happy snow dance of some sort. It was less than an inch, and didn't stick anywhere besides the bench in the backyard, but it made me pretty ecstatic.

4. Momma Mona's glorious feast of deliciousness. I thought that this year might be a challenge, given the addition of three vegan guests, but the food was as yummy, if not more, than ever. We did have some turkey, and a few non-vegan items, but for the most part, we kept it dairy/meat free. Particular hits were the sweet potatoes with pecans (almost as good as Paula Deen's, and not guaranteed to clog your arteries), mushrooms stuffed with mushroom stuffing (seriously, my mother is a genius), and Mom’s Cranberry sauce with oranges and walnuts.

5. the Peanut Butter Mousse Bomb from the amazing Vegan Treats bakery in Bethlehem, PA. I visited this glorious confection shop for the first time the day after Yom Kippur with Max/Alli, and was SO grateful that Max and his dad made the trip up to Bethlehem for Pumpkin Cheesecake, Apple Pie, Chocolate Hazelnut Cake, and Peanut Butter Mousse Bomb, my personal favorite. Seriously, though

6. and most important, the craft-of-the-year: Foam Turkeys! It's very rare that a year goes by without some fun craft made by my Mom to decorate the table. This year, it was glittery, cute foam turkeys. Gold family win!

All in all, a fabulous Thanksgiving and a much-needed break from DC for some family time! Oh, and getting to see one of the best friends (Matt S. ) for the first time since February was pretty rockin' as well. There are few things that aren't improved by best-friend-time in the form of Harry Potter viewing and Starbucks schnuggling.

G3 Thanksgiving: The DC Edition!

2010-11-26T12:40:00.005-05:00

Back in my Brandeis days, Thanksgiving meant a chance to go home to PA and get some Mona-and-Alli-time. But before we left for home each year, the G3 (Gordon 3, the hall I lived on freshman year) crew got together to make a delicious makeshift dinner on hotplates and in microwaves. This tradition has continued on even after college, but I haven't been able to attend, since the majority of that group lived in New York. But THIS year, the DC outpost of Gordon 3 grew enough (it was just Whitney and I last year) to merit our own G3 Thanksgiving, thanks to the lovely additions of Becky P. and Sarah K., both of whom recently moved down to the district.

The lovely Sarah K. and her brand new kitten (!!) hosted this year's celebration, and honorary G3 member Aaron B. was in town, so he joined in on the fun, too! I originally planned to make two of my favorite dishes, Momma Mona's spinach casserole, and Paula Deen's Sweet Potato Bake, but both of those failed. I forgot to drain the water in the spinach casserole, and forgot to add the cream to the sweet potato bake. I swear, if my head were not attached . . . Needless to say, I went to Whole Foods to pick up mashed maple sweet potatoes,garlicky broccoli rabe, and a cranberry apple sauce, all of which were delicious.

There was a delicious salad (with avocados and what I think were walnuts), corn, stuffing, and two kinds of cranberry sauces. The garlicky mashed potatoes were a particular hit with me -- Sarah K. made them with help from Becky P. We finished the meal with butterscotch pudding and my favorite thanksgiving food, pumpkin pie (thanks, Becky/Trader Joe's!). I don't know if it quite compared to the G3 Thanksgiving in New York (see Elizabeth's excellent blog post on that adventure for more details), but it was definitely wonderful.

We were entertained by Sarah's new kitten (yet to be named -- right now she's calling him "Little Man") and her roommate's very cool Turkish cat, Baykus. At one point Little Man jumped on the computer and turned off our background music, then curled up contentedly in front of the computer, as if to dare us to turn the music back on.

Our excellent meal WAS lacking one thing . . . turkey! (most of the group was vegetarian, or not-so-frequent-carnivores). And because a post about Thanksgiving just wouldn't be the same without some turkey, here are two of my favorite West Wing turkey-related scenes for your viewing enjoyment.

Aren't I going to get a reputation for being soft on turkeys?

I'm . . . Joe Bethersonton. That's one t and with an h in there.

a little mid-afternoon Douglas Adams inspiration

2010-10-05T17:10:00.003-04:00

I must have petroleum energy efficiency on the brain, but I just saw this old favorite quote, and felt like it needed to be shared with the world. Douglas Adams, may he rest in peace, was really a wonderfully funny and clever writer.

Here it is:
"The trouble with most forms of transport, he thought, is basically that not one of them is worth all the bother. On Earth – when there had been an Earth, before it was demolished to make way for a new hyperspace bypass – the problem had been with cars. The disadvantages involved in pulling lots of black sticky slime from out of the ground where it had been safely hidden out of harm's way, turning it into tar to cover the land with smoke to fill the air with and pouring the rest into the sea, all seemed to outweigh the advantages of being able to get more quickly from one place to another – particularly when the place you arrived at had probably become, as a result of this, very similar to the place you had left, i.e. covered with tar, full of smoke and short of fish."

Home Sweet Home

2010-07-27T22:04:00.011-04:00

Now that I’ve said goodbye to Van Ness, it’s time to talk about the new place! In May, I moved to a two-bedroom with my friend from Brandeis, Rachel H. We’re located in between Dupont and Logan circles, and it’s such a cute place. In fact, it’s so wonderful that when we saw the place in April, we RAN back to my office so that we could immediately email the application in. We didn’t want to miss out on it – and it toNow that I’ve said goodbye to Van Ness, it’s time to talk about the new place! In May, I moved to a two-bedroom with my friend from Brandeis, Rachel H. We’re located in between Dupont and Logan circles, and it’s such a cute place. In fact, it’s so wonderful that when we saw the place in April, we RAN back to my office so that we could immediately email the application in. We didn’t want to miss out on it – and it totally took us less than 15 minutes to get all the way to Metro Center.

Since I’ve been here for about two months, I can now accurately say what my favorite things about my new home are. In no particular order, they include:

1. This apartment feels much more like a HOME. I moved into my Van Ness apartment very quickly, and while I liked it, it never really felt like I had any sort of ownership over it -- perhaps because I was in a room with a fake wall, but more likely because I didn’t really help figure out how to set it up.

2. Our cute and decidedly full-of-character neighborhood. There's a crazy house next door, with flamboyant colors and odd figurines in the window. There's an abundance of cute and friendly dogs. Some people have baby envy; I totally have dog envy. And best of all, there's amazing people watching, fabulous little front yards, and alleys full of people having summer parties.

3. There's access to not one, not two, but three (!) Metro stations. Of course, none of them are quite as close as Van Ness was, but I am no more than a 15 minute walk away from all 5 Metro lines!

4. In similar, transportation-related reasons why I love our new home -- I can walk to work! This was one of the requirements of moving downtown, and I am so grateful for my 20-minute walk down 14th street every day. (I don’t actually walk EVERYday, sometimes I take one of the very convenient 50-buses there!).

5. I have an amazing new roommate, Rachel H.! She introduces me to great TV shows (see: 30 Rock and How I Met Your Mother) and lets me read her books! I'd say it was an uneven relationship, but I DO cook with garlic often, and I feel that that's an advantage in a roomie.

6. The apartment includes a WASHER and a DRYER. in unit. Need I say more? No, but I will. This makes me so excessively happy -- I always ended up in the dorms at Brandeis that required outside travel to do laundry, and at the Albemarle there was always a line to laundry . . . lame. The point it is, this is the best thing since Ethel Merman in Anything Goes.

7. The ceilings of the apartment are soooo high. And it's full of light (which necessitated blackout curtains for rooms, but I revel in it! although I may need some curtains soon), which makes it an altogether-decidedly-cheery place to live.

8. There is wonderful food shopping. I’m a mile from Trader Joe’s, a ten-minute walk from the lovely (if overpriced) Dupont Circle Farmers Market on Sundays, and two blocks (!) from a Whole Foods. Although I sometimes miss the reliably inexpensive almost-suburban experience at the Van Ness Giant, there really is a lot of great food shopping around here. And when I don’t want to cook, there are about a hundred restaurants within short walking distance. Actually.

9. The new apartment is downtown and convenient and wonderful, and clearly other people think so as well, because I have lots of great neighbors, many of whom I knew before but am really excited to be living near now!

Goodbye, Van Ness!

2010-07-21T22:33:00.004-04:00

I’ve been in our new apartment for two months now, so I suppose it’s time to write a Goodbye, Van Ness blog post.

The apartment in Van Ness was my first big-kid apartment, and I moved there in January 2009, 9 days before Obama moved into HIS new home, and 3 days before I started my new job at ACEEE. I had spent the past six months living at home in Skippack, and while I loved the time with my mom, I was READY to be on my own.

I originally lived with two lovely ladies -- Jessica G. and Becky W., although Becky moved away in August, and was replaced by June R. I was in a room off of the living room which used to be the dining room, and which had a fake wall. It was a large room, with lovely big windows, but it was closetless. The apartment in general was huge, and particularly I loved the built-in bookshelves in the living room (look at how big that room is! you can do a cartwheel in it!).

Van Ness was also great for its proximity to a number of things I love. These include:

1. The people who were living in The Consulate. I was really lucky to find a great group of friends in Seth, Stacy, Arielle, and Alexa, (thanks to Rachel H!), and it was wonderful being a few blocks away for LOST watching and impromptu snowmageddon excursions. Of course, 3 out of the four of them are moving away, some all the way to LA!, but I will definitely miss being close to them.

2. Giant. I am a self-professed fan of supermarkets, and the Van Ness Giant is for sure the most “suburban” (I mean that as a compliment!) supermarket that I’ve experienced in NW DC. Of course, there are more exciting supermarkets (Whole Foods and Trader Joes), but for reasonably priced food AND well-stocked shelves (unlike some markets coughSovietSafewaycough), you can’t beat Van Ness Giant. And it was on my walk home every day.

3. The Zoo. As you know, I love volunteering in the Amazonia exhibit at the National Zoo, but I love it just a touch less when I have to trek there from my new apartment and the L2 is not coming. It was a much shorter (downhill!) walk in the morning at my old place. Plus, I passed the lovely restaurants and shops of Cleveland Park each way!

4. Alli G., favorite sister and sometimes doppleganger. Well, at least while she was still living at American University. Now that she’s graduated and moved off to FarFarAway (aka Takoma Park), this isn’t an advantage of Van Ness anymore, but at the time it was lovely to live one Metro stop or a short bus ride down Albemarle away from her.

5. Politics and Prose. Even before moving to DC, I heard about the wonderfulness of Politics & Prose from my Dad, who once purchased a biography of George Washington for me there. It’s this cute bookstore/coffeeshop about half a mile north of Albemarle Apartments on Connecticut Ave, and in addition to being a wonderfully well-curated independent bookstore, it's the site of daily author talks. While living there I got to hear a lot of great authors speak, although my favorites were definitely Taylor Branch (who recently wrote The Clinton Tapes, and who is famous for his history of MLK) and Walter Isaacson (who wrote great biographies of two of my favorite historical characters -- Benjamin Franklin and Albert Einstein).

The best part of Politics and Prose, though, is the abundance of sale books downstairs: needless to say, I spent a lot of my salary there. They're actually selling the store, and if I were 20 years older and a few hundred thousand dollars richer, I'd want to run it in a heartbeat -- what a wonderful place!

So that's the story of my first apartment. Goodbye, Van Ness -- you were a wonderful location for my first apartment and site of many glorious guacamole-related moments:

the lusty month of May in which June busts out all over

2010-07-06T20:57:00.012-04:00

oh dear. That's quite the unfortunate amalgamation of musical theater lyrics . . . anyway.

It's been quite a while since I last blogged, for the very good reason that I've been too busy to blog (which really is the best way to be, even if it makes goal-achieving difficult) AND I've had to contend with a computer meltdown of monumental proportions. Since I last posted something on my birthday about two months ago, I have explored a new city (Chicago), moved to a new home (in Dupont/Logan Circle), gone to the White House, celebrated my sister's graduation, and more. In classic Assessing the Wreckage style, I've decided to present my goings-on in list/picture form. I present, eight of the best things that have happened since I turned 24:

8. One of my best friends, Mat S., is away in Brussels for the summer, being amazing and working on human rights law and eating frites and drinking beer as often as possible (at least, I sure hope so). Before he left, though, he had to a. celebrate the end of his 1L year with Scottish festivities (we learned that the word "forfochen" means exhausted, and I got to see Leah and Steph for the first time in a year!) and b. move from his apartment in the east 90s to the West Village. Along the way, I got lots of time with college roomie Katherine C. (including her first trip to Katz's AND first knish of life), a shabbos walk in Riverside Park with Jonathan H., and a viewing of Sondheim on Sondheim starring the fabulous Vanessa Williams and Barbara Cook at Studio 54!

7. At the end of June, I participated in Relay for Life with Jason F., Kate B., and many of their lovely friends from the RAC. Our team raised over $5,000 for the American Cancer Society, and had a really meaningful and fun evening of luminaria, track-walking, late-night chats, and astroturf. Also, I Zumbaed. Fact: I am a decidedly ridiculous Zumba-er.

6. ACEEE published another federal legislation scoring paper, this one on the Kerry-Lieberman climate change proposal! It was a lot of work, and may have slightly taken over my life in the later part of May/early part of June, but the release involved a Senator (the very cool Jeff Merkley of Oregon!), and was definitely one of the most collaborative projects I've ever dealt with. It's still unclear what its impact will be (since climate/energy legislation is rather up in the air right now), but I think it pretty clearly demonstrated the benefits of enhancing energy efficiency efforts, and that's pretty cool.

5. Miriam F. visited D.C.! Miriam F. is one of my best friends from college, and she just spent a year studying at Pardes and will be spending another year in Jerusalem learning to be a rabbi at HUC. Needless to say, I needed to get me some Miriam-time during her short visit home, and she obliged with a mid-week visit in June. This resulted in a day of my favorite D.C. things: friends, the Library of Congress, Eastern Market, Good Stuff milkshakes and onion petals, and Mandu happy hour!

4. At the beginning of June, Jason F., David K., and I traveled to Chicago for the wedding of Ilana D. and Jeremy F.! We spent the beginning of the weekend gallumphing about the Art Institute, guffawing at Second City and Baby Wants Candy (musical theater improv! amazing!), and generally gadding about town causing a commotion. We spent the second part of the weekend celebrating at Jeremy and Ilana's beautiful, sweet wedding, and got to see a lot of wonderful Brandeis friends while we were at it.

3. Alli graduated from American University, in badass Gold family fashion! I knew I had a smart, fabulous, talented sister, but apparently the rest of the world knows it, too! Alli and her college bff, Seth C. jointly won the highest award given to undergrads at AU, the President's Award. Translation: great seats for us, lots of people saying nice things about Alli, and vigorous Gold/Dwork family kvelling.

2. I moved to a new apartment with Rachel H.! Although this ranks very high on the cool-things-in-the-past-month list, I'm thinking it's going to get its very own blog post very soon, so I'll hold off on that one for now.

1. I went to the WHITE HOUSE (!) for the Mexican State Arrival, thanks to the lovely Emily G., who gave me one of her extra tickets (she got them for being a decidedly cool and vigorous advocate for young women!). Apparently, the White House holds this big ceremony on the South Lawn with the Marine Corps Band (!) and the Fife and Drum Corps (!) and other forms of awesome salutin' every time there is an official State visit. It was one of the coolest experiences of my D.C. life to date - any day involving the Obama and the Shelly O., close proximity to the West Wing (!!!!), and the Rev. Al Sharpton is going to rank high on any list of mine.

The 23 Best Things about the year I was 23.

2010-04-28T22:58:00.014-04:00

Since I'm about to turn 24, I decided I should probably chronicle my favorite things about 23. Here goes:!

Travels:

1. Costa Rica! In December, I traveled to Costa Rica with Mat S. and Jonathan H. It involved bugs, trees, two of my favorite people in the world, an epic sunburn, and zip lines. What could be bad?

2. My first truly epic road trip (this past summer), with Sarah K. Tanglewood + the Berkshires + Boston + best friends = utter summer happiness. Hoping that’s happening again.

3. Most Broadways shows in a year of my life (hoping to keep THAT trend going!) Saw Shrek the Musical, A Little Night Music, South Pacific, and Avenue Q. All with Matt S., my partner in musical theater-going crime!

4. Ronis Shabbos in New Haven. Mat S. + Ronis + Shabbos = a full neshama for me.

5.5. My mother-daughter weekend in Annapolis and Baltimore. Such good Mona-Rachel time.

6. Visiting Chicago for the first time (although this coming year will involve a Chicago visit as well!)

7. My first whitewater-rafting experience this summer (complete with West Virginia jokes, fun times, and fabulous new friends)

Work:

8. My first quote in a NY Times article!

9. My first (and second) papers on energy efficiency policy!

10. Discovering the power of Excel. And deciding that, despite all that kvetching I did at the time, Physics Lab was one of the most useful classes I took at Brandeis. I love proving myself wrong J

DC Gallavanting:

11. Flexing my science education skillz and volunteering at the Amazonia exhibit of the National Zoo!

12. Discovering Signature theater, and seeing Sweeney Todd, their AMAZING Kander and Ebb revue, and Showboat

13. Frequent visits to one of my favorite DC spots, Eastern Market (site of many wonderful hat purchases).

14. Living through Snowpacalyse (and having a fun time of it, too!) with my Van Ness crew.

15. Cooking and baking delicious food from my first CSA (through the DC JCC!. Such a fun experience.

16. Dancing through my first ballet class of life, which incidentally, I was nowhere near as awful at as I thought I was.

17. Wine touring in Virginia. One of the best days of summer for sure, and definitely an activity that needs a repeat.

Other Happy Things

18. Meeting Julie Andrews and “warming her heart” with the story of Sarah K. and my book sharing

19. Getting my picture taken with Alison Janney, and some of my other favorite people in the world. Seriously though, C.J. Cregg! Amazing!

20. My very first Bender-Horowitz family Sukkot experience. Best.

21. The discovery of Glee. You know my feelings on this subject.

22. Experiencing the best “kosher vacation” ever at Lilly and Alexander’s crab-tabulous engagement party

23. my movement into the world of Blackberry. It was frightening, but I’m loving it a little bit.

Things to look forward to in the year I’m 24 . . . moving into a new apartment with Rachel H. in Dupont Circle! Going to the White House for the first time! Hopefully, a climate change bill with lots of energy efficiency! My first venture west of the Mississippi! (okay, fine. I’ve been to St. Louis and Wisconsin. But no further west than that!)

We're going to the Zoo, zoo, zoo? How about you, you, you?

2010-03-31T21:45:00.012-04:00

Looking back at old posts, you would think that all I do is a. travel to East Coast cities or b. have visitors from out of town here in DC. While I will admit that these are among my favorite things to do, I have seriously neglected one of my other favorite parts of my life here in DC -- volunteering at the National Zoo! (note: this post is long, but if you get to the bottom, you will be rewarded by more sloth pictures!)

I've been an "Interpreter" (the museum term for educator) in the Amazonia exhibit for the past 6 months, and have been loving every minute of it. "Interpreter" is actually a familiar term for me -- that was my job title when I was working full-time at the Franklin Institute Science Museum in philly right after college. While I didn't love that job (it wasn't the most challenging experience in the world), there are parts of it I really really miss, like teaching and interacting with the public about science and helping people to make connections to nature/science.

I realized that this was a gap in my life shortly after moving to DC, and decided to fill it by volunteering at the U.S. Botanic Garden. Although I truly LOVE the botanic garden, their focus is much more horticulture/how-to-grow-plants, and I was looking for something more ecological/how-plants-fit-into-the-bigger-picture. Anyway, it wasn't my thing, so I quickly abandoned that in search of more interactive volunteer work. I immediately thought of the Zoo, but had to wait a while until a training was taking place. Training itself was one of my favorite things about volunteering at the Zoo -- it was like being in a hybrid of Tropical Ecology and Field Bio all over again. Ed, our teacher for much of the training, and a curator?keeper? for the exhibit, is chock-full of fascinating tidbits and stories about the Amazon and its ecology.

And the exhibit itself is heaven on earth. They turned what used to be the Polar Bear exhibit into a two-leveled house of wonders. The bottom floor represents the Amazon river and contains freshwater stingrays and arapaima and lots of other wonderful fish, and the tanks are open on the second floor, which represents the Amazon rainforest itself. So you get to see all of these wonderful interactions between the birds and plants up top with the fish and turtles on the bottom -- it's kind of amazing, and there's always something interesting to talk about.

Up top, there are lots of exciting plants -- my personal favorites are the jaboticaba, the model kapok tree, and the cecropia (which makes me think of Costa Rica). I also love observing and talking about all of the canopy-level plants, like the orchids, aroids, and bromeliads -- they're a great touchstone to talk with visitors about where the biomass is in a rainforest (hint: not the soil!), and how agricultural practices influence conservation . . . amazing.

There are two monkeys (Dusky Titi monkeys), who are very active and a crowd favorite, and lots of different types of birds. I must admit, before volunteering here, I was NOT a bird person. Not anti-bird, like a camper of mine one summer who was tragically frightened of birds, just not that excited about them in general. Anyway, I love the birds in the exhibit -- there are Roseate Spoonbills (they're pink!), a White-Tailed Trogon (who I think is just the prettiest thing), Sunbitterns (they look unassuming until they feel threatened, and then they open their wings to reveal beautiful feathers), and lots of others.

And last, but very not least, there is a Two-Toed Sloth. She's very old (more than 40 years old!), and very often hidden amongst the trees (in the photo below you can sort of see her hanging out in the Mahogany tree if you look realllllly closely), so it's VERY exciting when you can see her, and I have been fortunate enough to see her a few times (see other pictures below). My favorite of her behaviors is when she climbs on the railing on top of the exhibit and scoops condensation from the ceiling to drink (sadly, I do not have a picture of it). Needless to say, one of my fellow volunteers claims he is the "Sloth Whisperer" because both of the great sightings were when he was volunteering, but all I'm saying is that I was there both of those days, too . . .

There is much more to say about the wonderfulness of volunteering at the Zoo, but I will cut myself off for now, except to say that you should visit when I'm volunteering! And I haven't even mentioned the Science Gallery! Ah me, next post . . .

the Bronx is up and the Battery's down - the people ride in a hole in the ground

2010-03-16T19:04:00.015-04:00

Two weekends ago, I went on a vigorous whirlwind of an NYC visit. I got the idea to go to NY around Purim-time about a month ago, and it was what I like to call a Good Life Choice.

The weekend began with a tiny bit of stress -- there was a large snowstorm that dumped 17 inches on New York City (DC was spared, thank every available deity), and they cancelled all of the Bolt Buses after 6:30pm, so I was very worried about my 5:00pm bus. But there was no reason to be worried, and the roads were totally clear the whole way there.

I got into NYC around 9:15, and was both tired and hungry when I was done trekking to Schutz's apartment. Luckily, Mat was a genius and picked up Piopio for us to eat before I got there. It was my first Peruvian chicken experience, and it will definitely not be my last -- although Mat definitely went overboard with the ordering -- somehow he thought that the two of us could conquer a whole chicken, plantains, rice and beans, and french fries. Needless to say, we failed, but we failed while consuming an exorbitant amount of green sauce.

The next morning we gallumphed to a diner near Grand Central for a lovely brunch with Sarah K. and Jason F. (also visiting NY that weekend). Sarah and Matt S. and I had been there in December, and I got their delicious avocado-tomato-cheddar omelette and nicely crispy home fries again. We parted ways, and Mat and I adventured downtown to see if we could get tickets for Our Town at the Barrow Street Theater. When we got there, they were sold out, but told us that if we came back right before the show, we'd probably be able to get in.

Slightly discouraged, we tromped back to the street and walked around, spending the next hour doing two of my favorite things: buying books and being surrounded by cheese. The first was accomplished at a cute shop called Book Book, where we were in 7th heaven over the lovely and well-curated history section. Mat bought a book on the Romanovs and I got a new David McCullough book on the Panama Canal (plans have been made to switch when we've finished each of our purchases!). We then proceeded to Murrays' Cheese Shop, which may be the closest thing to heaven on earth outside of the Library of Congress. In fact, it was pretty much the only thing I took pictures of that weekend, so enjoy!

We ended up getting into Our Town, and I'm SO glad we did. Somehow I managed to get through 16 years of education and 13 years of theater without reading or seeing Our Town, so I came in with no expectations. According to the Times review, the set choices in the third act were particularly atypical, but I found that they really MADE the experience, and now I'm sure I'll have trouble if I see it done more traditionally. Then again, I almost always find that I like something the way I see it the first time -- it just sort of sticks in my brain, and makes it difficult for alternative interpretations to be quite as wonderful for me. Anyway, great life choice to go, and many thanks to Mat for being willing to see it twice for me.

Afterwards, we went over to Katherine C.'s, where we played with her and her roommate Scarlet (who I enjoy so much!), then went to an absolutely de-vine dinner at this Catalan restaurant that Scarlet recommended, Mercat. Best patatas bravas of my life, and the other small plates were lovely too, especially the duck and the tomatoes, oil, and garlic bread. YUM. We went back to Katherine's, played Wii (I am tragically, comically bad at Mario, and pretty good at Bowling).

After some self-motivating, we went back out to a bar even further downtown with Mat's new friend (and my old friend) Maxine S. Small world story: she and Mat are in the same section at law school, and she was in Fiddler on the Roof with me (the production I was in at Beth Or in1996). Turns out other BOFTY people were there too, which was funny and weird (I hadn't seen some of them since I was 15!).

Sunday had all the elements necessary for a perfect Sunday -- lox, bagels, and friends. Mat and I began the day at Barney Greengrass with Jonathan H. It was my first Barney Greengrass experience, and I chose the delicious bagel sandwich with the smoked salmon. It was SO difficult to choose, as I do dearly love both sable and whitefish, but lox won out in the end (as it is wont to do). Anyway, brunch was lovely, and the Jonathan and I went for a walk so I could get a half dozen of H&H bagels to take back to DC with me. I spent the afternoon at a lovely Purim Seudah at David K.'s, and got to see lovely 'Deis people, like the now-engaged (!) Adra H. and Jason L., Gavi Y. and Jason F. and Binny K., who I hadn't seen since graduation. I left full of hamantashen and Brandeis love, which is truly the best way to leave New York!

A New Mix "Tape" -- the Buck Up, Bucko! mix

2010-03-16T15:52:00.011-04:00

I've fallen in love with a new song over the past few weeks, thanks to the generous iPod sharing of one Matt S. I won't share how many times I've listened to it on repeat, because frankly, it's embarrassing. The song, in case you're wondering, is "Sing Happy," featured in Flora the Red Menace, a Kander and Ebb show I have yet to see. Take a listen here!

As ridiculous as it is that I've listened to it so much, it did inspire something absolutely wonderful: a new Rachel Mix!

For those of you unaware, Rachel Mixs' are the musical theater equivalent of a bad case of whiplash -- I dump all the songs I'm excited about at a given moment into one glorious amalgamation of ridiculous, burn it into a CD, and into my car/iPod it goes! Sometimes, I make a theme and just go with it -- like the famous Sarah K-Rachel G. collaboration "Beltin' Broadway Babes," or my recent excellent "Old Lady Songs" mix.

Anyway, this theme was inspired by the song Sing Happy. I'm calling it the "Buck Up, Bucko Mix: Songs Guaranteed to Get You Going When You're Down." It's kind of like my version of Barney Stimson's "Get Psyched" mix -- all rise. Here are the songs, in no particular order (I hate ordering songs, but love making mixes. This may explain why mixes are sometimes semi-heinous) :

Sing Happy (Flora the Red Menace)
Defying Gravity (Wicked)
Some People (Gypsy)
I Believe in You (How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying)
Big Girls Don't Cry (Jersey Boys)
Go Go Go Joseph (Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat)
Forget about the Boy (Thoroughly Modern Millie)
I Whistle a Happy Tune (The King and I)
We Need a Little Christmas (Mame)
Many a New Day (Oklahoma)
Without You (My Fair Lady)
The World Will Know (Newsies)
I Know It's Today (Shrek the Musical)
A Cock-eyed Optimist (South Pacific)
There's Gotta Be Something Better Than This (Sweet Charity)
I've Gotta Crow (Peter Pan)
Don't Rain on My Parade (Funny Girl)

Any songs I should have included but didn't? Any songs that definitely shouldn't be on there?

I'm already listening to it on repeat! Hooray!

South America. It's like America, but south.

2010-02-21T22:10:00.005-05:00

This weekend was a glorious amalgamation of some of the things that make me happiest in the world: Matt S., theater, yummy food, and wonderful friends. Last year, Matt came to visit around his February break (Brandeis/TBE do two one-week breaks, one in February and one in April), and since we had such a wonderful time, he visited again this year!

Matt arrived on Wednesday afternoon, after a vigorous five days of work for me (Wednesday felt like Friday because I worked on Saturday/Sunday . . . but worth it, because we have a great paper coming out soon). Anyway, I was ready for some weekend, and Matt’s visit was the perfect opportunity to take a few days. We spent Wednesday afternoon relaxing and catching up, watching musicals and making delicious guacamole.

We met up with Jason F. at Kramerbooks, where we shared dinner (mushroom polenta and mac and cheese, HELLO!) and dessert (Goober Pie, obvi). I had never experienced polenta, which was a problem I am very glad to have remedied, since it was delicious. The Goober Pie was glorious as usual, as you can see below. Thanks to Emily G. of Wild and Crazy Pearl for the introduction to Goober-Pie-land a few months ago.

We spent Thursday morning lolling about, then met up with Matt’s high school friends Cati S. and Sarah F. at this cute sushi place in Bethesda, whose name I sadly cannot remember. Crunchy spicy tuna avocado rolls were eaten with a vigor, as were Philly rolls (they called them Bagel rolls – cute!), tempura rolls, and some other good ones. There was also a lovely ginger peanut salad dressing that I was quite enamored with. Lunch was fun and wacky, full of Cati and Sarah’s slightly ridiculous and definitely sitcom-worthy exploits, and afterwards, Matt and I went to Mustard Seed, a consignment shop I’ve been wanting to check out forever. I was a little disappointed in the shoe selection for those of us with larger-than-average feet, but I found a lovely Newsies-esque cap and am thinking I need a repeat trip to examine their dress selection.

Thursday afternoon was spent watching Up!, my new favorite movie ever (actually. It might be beating Mrs. Doubtfire and Sister Act right now.), which I’m pretty sure I need to own, and pronto. The combination of old man + adventure + talking dog + environmental overtones (although I kind of loved the villain citing his T.R. affiliations – I do love a good conservationist-hunter-President) was absolute perfection. Plus, the animation was gorgeous.

Thursday night involved a wonderful trip to Shirlington with Matt S. and Josh K. to see Sweeney Todd at Signature Theater. I was so excited to introduce Matt to Signature, which is really one of my favorite parts of living in D.C. We dinner-ed at T.H.A.I. (don’t know why they make it like an acronym, but the food was yummy), and then I experienced my second ever professional Sondheim show! I’ve loved the music from Sweeney Todd since Matt sat me down senior year and forced me to watch the Patti LuPone/George Hearn version against my will, but this was my first live performance of the show. The cast was wonderful, especially Toby, Mrs. Lovett and Antony, and I loved the horror-movie feel of the show, which I knew was a part of it, but never really GOT until I saw it live. After the show, we went back to Kramerbooks (come on, we wanted dessert on a Thursday night at 12:30am, where else were we to go?), where we totally ordered another Goober Pie and the lovely fruit crumble with cinnamon ice cream. Mmm.

I woke up Friday feeling a little congested/under the weather, so we relaxed most of the day, leaving only to brunch at Rosemary’s Thyme (clearly, Matt needed to experience the gloriousness of their pides). We spent the afternoon watching a documentary about Rodgers and Hammerstein musical movies, and then went to Teaism for Chai cinnamon gelato shakes and chatting. We then ventured out to Capitol Hill to meet up with Gavi Y., Jason F., and Alli G., but were early, so we got in a nice walk around the back of the Capitol and around the Library of Congress and Supreme Court. It was one of those lovely life conversations that you can only have with a few people who really GET you, and the evening couldn’t have been warmer or prettier. Hooray!

Eventually, everyone got to Good Stuff Eatery, the restaurant owned by Spike of Top Chef fame (he was there that evening!), where we all ate yummy portabello mushroom burgers and onion petals with delicious flavored mayos (my favorite is the Old Bay). After eating and catching up (and hearing some exciting news from Gav!), we galumphed to Dupont Circle, where met up with Will at Big Hunt for drinks and fun. After a very full evening of fun, we dragged ourselves back to Van Ness, but rather than going to sleep (which would have been smart, since Matt S. had to wake up at 5:30am!), we watched the first half of Hello, Dolly!, which really was a perfect ending to a perfect three days of wonderfulness.

From Snowmageddon to Snoverkill: by the numbers

2010-02-13T09:56:00.008-05:00

For all my D.C. friends, none of this post will be news (although it will involve pretty pictures, courtesy of Seth K. and Arielle G., photographers extraordinaire). For that matter, it probably won't be news for anyone else, since apparently, the ginormous amounts of snow were even enough to attract the attention of the Israeli press.

Nonetheless, I think it is necessary to chronicle the epic events of BlizzarDC 2010, and clearly, doing it numerically is clearly the way to go. So here goes.

55.9 = inches total in the DC area all winter (measured at DCA)

30 = number of miles per hour the wind was blowing on Wednesday. (the Almira Gultch tune was in my head all day . . . )

20 = approximate number of yards of 2.5-ft. snow accidentally gallumphed in by Jason F. and myself (it was a cleared path on Van Ness St. on Tuesday, and Snoverkill blew it over! We were minding our own business, walking through a few inches of snow, and all of a sudden, we were in snow up past our knees!)

4.5 = number of days the federal government was shut down

4 = the season of How I Met Your Mother that I watched in its entirety, thanks to Rachel H.

3 = number of new websites I became briefly obsessed with -- Capital Weather Gang, OPM (the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, source of federal gov't statuses!), and my work's online server that lets me get to my desktop remotely!

3 = number of the Van Ness crew that attempted to eat snow (maybe it's 4, but I can't tell if Stacy actually ate any in this picture)

2 = number of nights involving Bananagrams

2 = number of favorite snow/rap related puns: "You Down with Snow PP? Yeah, you know me." and "Snowtorious B.I.G."

2 = number of wonderful roommates who took care of me the day I was sick (thanks, Jessica G. and June R.!)

1 = number of fabulous snowmen created (who we named Milton Rutherford III, because that was one dignified snowman)

1 = number of hours I was confused by whatever LOST was trying to do this week (although about 1 minute of that included happiness about island-versio-of-history-Claire's return!)

1 = batches of snow ice cream made (thanks to Arielle G. for organizing the vanilla-y wonderfulness)

1 = night of delicious tacos, beer, and Bananagrams with the NOVA crew when Snowpacalyse was first starting

1= number of amazing Superbowl cakes made by Alexa B. - Geaux Saints!

0.8 = number of miles trudged on Albemarle Street with Rachel H. on our Best Buy/Robek's adventure on Monday

0 = number of bags of spinach in the Van Ness Giant all week!

many,many = number of times we all fell in the snow.

10 = number of days since Snowmageddon started. And guess what it's doing outside? Yup, it's snowing.

Happy Anniversary to DC and me! Part Two: the Mat edition

2010-01-21T21:53:00.007-05:00

The rest of the DC + RKG anniversary week was pretty amazing. Wednesday involved my first Trivia Night at Sixth and I, mostly notable for our abysmal general performance and our rock-star domination of the musical theater round. Thursday evening contained by first Melting Pot experience with Will F., Josh K., and Jason F. Note: I've been waiting to go there since the BOFTY event there that I missed in 8th grade . . . The Melting Pot experience was glorious, and suprisingly enough, the cheese fondue (which was very good) was my least favorite part of the evening -- I LOVED cooking the veggies and meats, and really loved the White Chocolate Amaretto and Milk Chocolate Tiramisu dessert fondue. Great success.

The real highlight of my anniversary week was the weekend, which involved a visit from Mat S., best friend and law student extraordinaire. He met Rachel H. and I on Friday evening at the wonderful MLK Shabbat at Sixth and I (which we loved mostly for the vigorous prayer dancing pre-amidah), and afterwards, Rachel and I introduced him to the wonderfulness that is Teaism (and I introduced them to the extra jolt of happiness in my universe known as the Chai Cinnamon Milkshake).

Saturday was a nice, laid-back day. I volunteered at the Zoo in the afternoon -- it was a pretty exciting day because I was able to find all of the Lemur frogs in one of the tanks, and there were a few young Strawberry Poison frog metamorphs - so little! Mat S. came to the Zoo to check out Amazonia, and then we walked all the way back to my apartment for schnuggling and relaxing. We cooked dinner at Rachel H's -- the highlight was definitely the homemade guacamole, although the delicious salmon and brussel sprouts were a close second. After digesting the enormous amount of food we ate, we went out to Four Peas in Cleveland Park with the lovely gaggle of Emily G, Beth K, and Julie F.

On Sunday morning, we awoke to rain, rain, and lots of rain. I threw on my rainboots, grabbed, an umbrella, and met Mat in Dupont Circle, where we quickly abandoned our very outdoor plans. Farmer’s Market out, indoor cozy brunch in! I’ve been hearing wonderful things about Rosemary’s Thyme for months, and decided that this was the perfect opportunity to try it out. Really, any place inside and warm would have been lovely, but Rosemary’s Thyme has that perfect brunchy feel, which was just what we were looking for. I got the Mediterranean Pide, a flatbread with lots of yummy vegetables and cheese, and with two fried eggs on top. It was very pretty, and needless to say, it tasted as good as it looked.

After brunch, we met up with Will F. for an afternoon of galumphing about the city. We cabbed it to the National Cathedral, where we enjoyed the misty raininess from the comfort of the crypt and church. The National Cathedral is definitely one of my favorite spots in DC – we did miss the tour which was sad, but still had a fun time trying to figure out exactly where President Bartlet walked in Two Cathedrals. Plus there were needlepoint pillows over major historical figures, like Henry Clay - COOL! We followed that up with Shakes (peanut butter cup!) and fries at Z burger in Tenleytown, then spent the rest of the afternoon hiding from the rain and watching football at Buffalo Billiards (which I found surprisingly enjoyable, even though it was sports, because Mat S. was good and explained things to me). That evening, Mat, Rachel H and I ventured north to Cleveland Park to celebrate the 22^nd birthday of one Ms. Alli G., my favorite (and only) sister! The food was great, and Alli’s friends were lovely, and most importantly, I procured a number of ridiculous Alli-with-sombrero photos. Great success.

Monday morning began with a visit to Afterwords Café in Kramerbooks with Mat S.—I had the avocado tomato Eggs Benedict; he had the smoked salmon, but most importantly, we both had the delicious lemon hollandaise sauce! We had a lovely brunch, and then he headed back to NYC and I headed off to work. Now THAT is how you start a work-week.

Happy Anniversary to DC - and me! (Part 1!)

2010-01-13T09:37:00.004-05:00

So I decided that this week should be extra special, since it is DC and my one-year anniversary. (I was inspired by Carrie of Sex and the City's relationship with NYC, obviously) Why a week-long celebration of my relationship with this lovely city? Well, mostly because it's a little complicated to decide where to begin. You see, I arrived in DC on January 11, 2009, but didn't move into my apartment until January 13, 2009, and didn't start my new job until January 14th, 2009. Also, the next weekend was when I really felt like I was LIVING in DC -- Schutzer came to visit Rachel H. and I for inauguration, and all of the inauguration festivities (and my second Bradley Whitford sighting) happened around MLK Day. Thus, a week of anniversaryness.

The festivities began on Monday with a fabulous Restaurant Week lunch at Chef Geoff's with Arielle G. and Jason F. I really do enjoy Chef Geoff's, and we all chose very well with our meals. For appetizer, I got Lamb Skewers with a feta/cucumber relish. As a rule, you can pretty much say the word "feta" and I'm in, but the lamb itself was really smokey and delish. Main course was an autumn squash risotto with really yummy pumpkin seeds and pomegranate seeds throughout, which added really nice texture. The dessert we all shared, and we got an apple tart, chocolate brownie (I HIGHLY recommend this -- it was thinner and richer and more molten than your usual brownie. yum), and a pumpkin spice cake with marscapone in the middle.

I ended up working 11 hours on Monday, because I had a lot to get done before Tuesday mid-day. This would have been slightly annoying, but I was still on my Chef Geoff's high and was enjoying getting a lot done. As I was leaving, I had the brilliant idea of going to get a cupcake from Red Velvet Cupcakery. I chose a Key Lime cupcake with a White Chocolate merengue icing top. Very light and airy-tasting, as merengue-y things should be. Definitely had a I-am-fabulous-and-walking- through-Chinatown-with-cupcake moment there.

The anniversary celebrations continued with something that other people might find to be less-than-celebratory: class! I went to my first class in a course on Microeconomics at THE George Washington University (why does everything have the "the" in front of it? I find it slightly confusing). I decided I needed to take econ because any environmental management (MEM) or master's in public policy (MPP) is going to have it as a prerequisite, and because it'll help inform my energy efficiency work. I was VERY excited to purchase school supplies, as this is one of my favorite things to do, but the evil CVS in Metro Center apparently no longer carries them. Luckily, I left early enough to get to the Foggy Bottom CVS. Whew.

Anyway, the first class was good - she's an engaging professor, who uses graphs well (which I certainly do appreciate), and the subject matter seems interesting. I like the idea of trying to model the way people behave using numbers. It was a little weird to be in class after a year and a half, but the class contains a lot of people who are working or getting their master's, so that's kind of nice. Also, there were definite Republicans in my class. Not that there weren't Republicans at Brandeis (although there weren't many . . .) but they either a. were not in my environmental studies classes with me or b. were in science classes with me, where it doesn't really come up. Weird.

More wonderful anniversary week to come! So excited for Trivia at Sixth & I, Melting Pot, and Mat. S this weekend!

Happy New Year!

2010-01-01T10:13:00.008-05:00

My last post -- the Best of 2009 was met with dismay by one of my bestest of friends, Mathew Schutzer. Somehow, despite the fact that 2009 involved vigorous amounts of visiting and gallumphing (inauguration, many NY visits, Costa Rica!), I neglected to mention his name in that post.

So . . .

Schutzy SchutzSchutzySchutzSchutzy! Okay, writing that many times in a row makes me a little dizzy.

Speaking of Schutz (and Jonathan), get ready for a bunch of Costa Rica-related posts. I have a three day weekend ahead of me, and am full of fun stories to tell!

Also, Happy New Year, everyone! Last night's New Years celebration at Seth and Stacy's was decidedly lovely -- I'm so happy to have successfully moved to a new city, found new and wonderful friends, and a new and wonderful job all in one year. Here's to an equally wonderful 2010.

The Best of All Possible . . . Months

2009-12-21T21:07:00.004-05:00

Because it's that time of year, and I'll be out of town when I normally catalog the bests of the year for myself, I decided to do it a little early. It was a pretty wonderful year, so enjoy! More bests of . . . posts to come.

January: After moving to DC, seeing Bradley Whitford and Peter Yarrow singing if I Had a Hammer within one week of moving here ranked as pretty gamazing. Oh, yeah –Inauguration was kind of great, too. Beyonce. Josh Groban, Obama and Shelly O. in one day. Woah.

Feburary included a four day weekend of gloriousness with Matthew S., in which we spent half of the time eating, half of the time watching musicals, and the other half of the time tromping about DC with panache (yes, some of the halves overlap). So that wins the prize.

March’s highlight was a trip to Boston – the fabulous Hilary S. was in town, so I decided to come up for a four day weekend of best friends (we had an almost-complete Octet reunion, minus Mat. S), a little Brandeis, and a lot of wonderful. A. There was a picnic in Boston Commons, and b. I was not longer the sadsad person I was when I visited in November, so March wins! March also included Purim and my first ACEEE Conference, on Market Transformation!

April was a month full of favorites – the month began with a visit by Katherine C. and Sarah K., that somehow got me sunburnt in 65-degree weather, included Pesach at home and at Aunt Amy’s, a trip to visit Prisco in Olean, NY, and . . . my birthday! Hooray! As I said, great month.

May's highlights included my first Founding Farmers experience, my 5-year high school reunion, a trip to explore Virginia’s wine country, and Excel training. You would think that Excel training would not make the list. You would be wrong.

June was busting out all over with goodness – I attended my first TV premiere (the Philanthropist, followed by fabulous reception at CoCo Sala), saw Shrek the Musical and experienced the wonderfulness of Sutton Foster, met Allison Janney (yes, that’s Claudia Jean Cregg to you), and discovered Eastern Market (and subsequently went there four times that month).

July was jam-packed with wonderfulness, all involving either theater (Spring Awakening, the Color Purple, and Candide) or the newly-returned-from-cantorial-school Sarah K. (namely, the Best Berkshires/Boston Road Trip Ever).

August was a beastly and intense work month, but I still somehow managed to go to West Virginia (and experience whitewater rafting for the first time!), attend Signature Theater’s amazing Open House, build a LOT of IKEA furniture for Alli, and get back to NYC for Avenue Q, South Pacific and an Ethel Merman-themed revue, all with the indefatigable Matt S..

September included the release of my first ACEEE paper!, an amazing Labor Day weekend with Katherine C., the High Holidays, AND the my first trip to Chicago for the EER Conference (+ fabulous visiting with Zach S., Matt H., and Mike M.)

October was full of Zoo training, my cousin Josh’s wedding on Long Island, and my first good non-Brandeis Simchat Torah! Other highlights included the High Heel Drag Race in Dupont Circle, Barney Frank at Sixth and I, and Halloween in DC!

November’s highlight was by far the weekend in Annapolis/Baltimore with Mom. Visits by Missy M, Jonathan H., and Sara R. were pretty wonderful as well.

December isn’t over, so it may be too early to tell what it’s highlights were, but I’m sure they include A Little Night Music in NY and catching up with semi-long-lost Gordon 3 girls that weekend. Danny’s surprise 30^th birthday, Showboat at Signature Theater, and, you know COSTA RICA, are definite contenders for the list.

And I'll trip the light fandango!

2009-12-07T20:43:00.009-05:00

I began my NYC adventure with a bus ride on Friday afternoon, and I had the good sense to rent a movie on my iPod – I chose The Proposal, because apparently I’m going through a bit of a Sandra Bullock phase after seeing The Blind Side over Thanksgiving. It was great fun, especially the scene where she dances to “Get Low” with Betty White. Priceless.

I arrived at Sarah’s lovely (and conveniently located! So close to Grand Central!) apartment, where I vigorously reunited with Matt and Sarah, then headed out for dinner. We went to this great Japanese place, Umi Sushi, where we all had gorgeous sushi rolls (mine was salmon avocado with spicy salmon + caviar on top = YUM). We galumphed to the Walter Kerr theater (which I had never been to before – such a pretty Grecian-looking ceiling!), where we sat for a bit and got ourselves quite excited for the theater to come.

Said anticipatory excitement hovered on multiple levels. First of all, it was my first Sondheim musical on Broadway. As with many things in life, I appreciate things more when it takes me a little bit to warm up to them (you know when you’re teaching Hebrew school and you finally connect to the kid who’s annoying at the beginning of the year? That’s what Sondheim was like for me.) I spent the majority of college resisting Matt’s vigorous attempts to get me to love Sondheim, but I finally cracked when we watched the Patti LuPone/George Hearn concert of Sweeney Todd. Anyway, since then I’ve fallen in love with Merrily We Roll Along and Sweeney and Follies, and I’ve begun to really appreciate the genius of his lyrics (I like them ALMOST as much as I like Cole Porter, which is really saying something).

So needless to say, I was excited about the Sondheim-ness. Add to that the presence of Angela Lansbury and Catherine Zeta-Jones in the cast, and I was fit to burst with excitement. From the waltz that began the show to the beautiful reprise of Send in the Clowns at the end, I was entranced. Everything was so artfully done – the staging was clever and fluid, especially in A Weekend in the Country and the Glamorous Life, the costumes were out-of-this-world exquisite, and the acting and singing were really just fabulous.

Matt and I had a little out-of-body holy-crap-is-that-actually-her? moment when Angela Lansbury started singing, and rightly so. Her comic timing was impeccable, and her take on Mme. Armfeldt was spot-on. Catherine Zeta-Jones made Desiree into this wonderful, manipulative, sympathetic character. I never really got the deal with Send in the Clowns before, and I think that’s because it really only makes sense in the context of the scene. Or perhaps she just acted it so well that it finally made sense to me. Either way, it was wonderful. Other favorites – everything that the miserably hilarious Charlotte said had me in stitches, and Frederik was just perfection. I could go on talking about this forever, but I’ll stop for now.

Afterwards, we waited by the stage door, and saw Alexander Hanson and Catherine Zeta-Jones, and then headed to Margarita Murphy’s to meet up with Missy and David for drinks and catching up. That was ridiculously good times, especially since Sarah and I decided to play our game of making themed playlists (remember the very successful Beltin’ Broadway Babes?) Well, we did that, but with Old Lady song and “Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist Songs, and Pep Songs . . . great success. Matt and Sarah and I crashed WAY later than my usual bedtime, and woke up semi-early on Saturday morning . . .oy.

We brunched at a cute diner near Sarah’s, where I had an avocado/tomato/cheddar omelette (which I’ve since recreated v successfully at home), and then we said goodbye to Matt (after creating another great Broadway playlist – traveling songs!). Sarah and I spent the afternoon in because it was cold and rainy, and she introduced me to Psych, which is fast becoming my new favorite show, and we watched The American President, one of my top ten favorite movies of all time.

Saturday evening I bundled up for the intense cold, and headed down by NYU for Indian dinner with Mat, Sarah, Katherine and her roommate! The food was a little spicy for me, but it was SO nice to catch up with them. Afterwards, we bundled into Katherine's apartment, watched the Gordon 3 video (oy.), and then went to a bar down the street for Yoni's birthday -- I got to see a bunch of Deis people I haven't seen since graduation, which was really nice.

Alltogether a perfectly wonderful 36 hours of friends and theater and music and food -- NYC is good to me :)

Practically Perfect in Every Way

2009-11-20T21:53:00.002-05:00

It is important that I record for posterity the events of Wednesday night, especially because they did not (sadly) involve photography of any kind. What exciting events, you may ask? Only the fact that I got to meet one of my top five favorite musical theater performers of the past century. That’s right, on Wednesday, November 18, 2009, I met Julie Andrews.

In the middle of the afternoon, I received an excited Gchat message from one Gavi Young, who is currently interning at the Kennedy Center, asking “ Do you want to meet Julie Andrews tonight?” My immediate and vigorous answer was YES. In order to meet the incomparable Dame Julie, one had to be one the of the first 100 people to buy her new book of poems from the Kennedy Center giftshop. Now I am not normally someone given to extraneous purchases that I don’t particularly want. Then again, I do own an avocado slicer and a mango pitter, but kitchen supplies don’t really count, and I think I got those from my mother.

Anyway, Gavi and I bought the books, and got tickets that came along with them for the signing. I spent the afternoon telling everyone on Gchat/Twitter what was happening and soliciting suggestions for what to say to her. I left work early to get to the Kennedy Center around 5:00, and Gavi and her co-worker met me by the Opera House. We stood in line for about an hour, getting excited and reading our books (which by the way, turned out to be a LOVELY anthology of poems and song lyrics. With an accompanying CD of Julie reading the poems. Why do I have no friends with children so that I can have them listen to this wonderful CD?). We found out that no pictures were allowed, but our enthusiasm was barely dampened with this revelation – after all, we were about to meet the woman who originated the roles of Mary Poppins, Cinderella, and Guenevere!!

After waiting for a while, we walked up to a side room near the Opera House (apparently where the Kennedy Center Honors award winners hang out beforehand . . . as in – BARBRA has been in that room. Woah.) where we waited in a line to get in. Gavi went first, and after she was done, I walked in, got my book taked and opened by a little boy who I was introduced to as Julie’s grandson (so precious), and then I got to the table where she and her daughter were sitting. I spoke with her daughter while she signed it, and I mentioned that I love the Stephen Sondheim lyrics they chose to put in there (from Sunday in the Park with George), and she thanked me for reading it, and then . .. I moved down the table to where Julie was sitting!

She took my book, looking perfectly elegant and matronly and well-dressed and well-coiffed and wonderful. She was much larger than I imagined she would be – not that she’s a particularly large person at all, but I think that she’s pretty tall when she stands up. Anyway, she took the book, and signed it. I told her that I recently read her autobiography, Home, with my friend as a part of our international book club, and that it helped us stay in touch when my friend was on the other side of the world. She said, “oh, that just warms my heart” (imagine Julie Andrews, the most recognizable voice ever, saying that!), and then I said, ‘it’s such a pleasure to meet you”, and she smiled and waved and took the next person’s book.

So, an hour of waiting in line and a day of getting excited culminated in about 45 seconds of interaction with a woman who once possessed one of the most beautiful voices I’ve ever heard, and who still possesses an elegance and presence that bowled me over. What a wonderful, perfect, vigorously fabulous day. I became friends with the Octet watching The Sound of Music, learned to dance like a penguin watching Mary Poppins, and learned to love musical theater watching My Fair Lady as a toddler. It was pretty darned amazing to meet the woman who made those beautiful musical experiences happen.

Twenty thousand points to Gavi, and double that for Julie Andrews for being who she is.

Mother-Daughter Weekend Part Two: Baltimore

2009-11-11T22:13:00.010-05:00

After a restful evening enjoying the Bed portion of B&B (and let’s be honest how can you not sleep well with the Prince and Me on your mind), we packed up our stuff at the B&B, and went down for the second B, Breakfast. We chatted it up with the lovely proprietor, Heidi, and got to ask lots of questions about her gorgeous, partially-pre-Civil War (!) house. While she rustled up some breakfast (I do love the verb “rustle” when applied to food-making), Mom and I walked around the property again, all the way down to their dock, and back around the barn and farmy portion of the property. When we came back, me semi-winded and Mom fit as a fiddle, Heidi was waiting with tea, a lovely fruit bowl, and . . . raisin challah French toast, cut thick, and made in the eggiest of fashions. So yummy.

We drove to Baltimore, and headed straight for the Baltimore Museum of Art. I neglected to check the museum’s opening time, so we arrived about 45 minutes before that, which meant that we were forced to walk around the gorgeous sculpture garden. If I’m going to be forced to do something in future, I sure hope it’s as nice as this garden. It was warm (70 degrees!) and sunny, and I got lots of backlit pictures of sunlight filtering through trees, and the sculptures were cool and weird and thought-provoking . . . what a great way to start a museum visit.

The rest of the museum was also lovely, and it’s a relatively small collection (says the girl who’s used to the Philadelphia Art Museum and the Met, so my perspective may be slightly skewed. . . ), but really wonderful. I was particularly enchanted by the collection of mosaics from 5^th century Antioch, especially since I just finished As a Driven Leaf, much of which takes place in 1^st century Antioch. Also, Rodin’s the Thinker was wonderful to see up close – I never realized what a muscle-y, powerful figure it is. I don’t normally think of thinkers that way. Also also, it had a really great contemporary collection (especially the very moving and powerful and thought-provoking work of Hank Willis Thomas). Other things I loved: a. it’s free! b. the listening device thingymabob was free, so I got fun and interesting commentary throughout.

We checked into our hotel, and then went back out to investigate a Greek Food Festival sign we had seen. After parking in a semi-sketch lot, we galumphed into a large tent next to a gorgeous cathedral and dug into the most delicious gyros and calamari ever (note: this is where the kosher vacay started!). It was so homey and cute, and there were Greek children dancing, people watching the football game – a great way to start our afternoon.

After the vigorous eating, I was experiencing a little bit of a food coma, so we went to our hotel room for nap. While I was napping, Mona discovered some unfortunateness about our room (won’t go into details, but ick!), so we ended up switching rooms, and somehow ending up in this HUGE suite, with two bedrooms and a living room and a conference table and a kitchen and two bathrooms. So that worked out great.

We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around the Inner Harber, checking out my home for the summer of 2001 (the USCG Taney), the fabulous Barnes and Noble where I learned about minke biology that summer, and a number of lovely shops (we had a LOT of fun in the hat shop in particular). After guacamole and drinks at the Cheesecake Factory (yes it’s everywhere, yes it can be delish), we headed in for movies and bed.

The next morning, we followed the recommendation of my Baltimore friends and headed to Miss Shirley's for brunch. This turned out to be the best part of the whole trip -- Mom had carrot spice raisin pancakes (woah), and I had a sandwich with avocado, bacon, a fried green tomato and cheese. It came with either grits or potatoes, and I always order potatoes, since I'm not a grits kind of gal. At least, I wasn't until I went to Miss Shirley's Cafe. After some waiter-cajoling, I went with the grits, made with mascarpone cheese, chives, applewood-smoked bacon, and heavy cream. Let's just say, I will never again make a trip to Baltimore without having those grits. SO good. We ended the trip with a stop in Filene's (and the purchase of a lovely sundress), and then we went our separate ways. SUCH a good mother-daughter weekend.

Mother-Daughter Weekend Part One: Annapolis

2009-11-10T20:54:00.017-05:00

This weekend was the Mona-and-Rachel mother-daughter weekend extravaganza. I warn you, this will be a food-filled blog post. Mona has decided that I’m a foodie now, and I think I’ve decided that I’m okay with it.

After a pumpkin pancake-filled breakfast with Alli on Saturday morning, we jumped into the car and sped off to Annapolis, a town not given to moving quickly, or speeding off anywhere. As we pulled into town, we drove by a very large and in charge Memorial Stadium, and decided to drive into the parking lot to check out what was going on. We thought we might find some tailgaiting or something football-related, but what we found was so much better: USSBA championships! That’s right, I happened upon the first marching band tournament I’ve seen since 2003, when, you know, I was in one.

We drove down to the city dock area, and checked out some of the cute shops – I really loved this place called Re-sails (they make backpacks and such our of old sails), and Mixed Greens, which makes lots of cool recycled things as well. We lunched at the Hard Bean Café and Booksellers, this lovely bookstore slash coffeeshop slash ice cream store. Lots of wonderful slash-ness there, especially the turkey-havarti-ciabatta sandwich I sampled.

After checking into the B & B where we stayed, introducing ourselves to the owners, and walking around their gorgeous property, we headed back into Annapolis and walked around the Naval Academy – I had been there on a CTY field trip in 2000, but Mom never had, so went to the Museum and then walked all around the campus. Apparently, they beat Notre Dame that day, so we saw lots of excited people wearing Navy gear.

Speaking of Navy gear, we also saw lots of students around town wearing their uniforms – apparently, the students have to wear them all the time their freshman and sophomore years. I wore a uniform of sorts my freshman and sophomore years, but it consisted of jeans and a rotating Brandeis sweatshirt . . .

After the Naval Academy, we galumphed in the area around the State House, where we walked all around the many circles in the center of town. There were gads of glorious shops, most notably the Annapolis Pottery, a great shop with beautiful pottery and even better glazes (I had never seen a rock-n-roll looking honey pot until that day), and a used bookshop that looked like something out of my most Henry Higgins-inspired library dreams, The Annapolis Bookstore. Although realistically, any bookstore with an Ollivander’s Wand Shop sign in the front is off to a good start indeed.

For dinner, we went to the lovely seafood-y Middleton Tavern in the center of city dock. I thought I was going to have to go on a kosher vacation earlier than expected (one prepares for this in Baltimore, less so in a new place!), but was pleasantly surprised to find tableside Caesar salad on the menu. Dinner preparation that involves a bit of a show always ranks high in my book, especially when the result is a vigorously garlicky and anchovy-y and delicious Caesar salad. We finished with a yummy Crème Brulee, and then headed back to the B&B for the Prince and Me, which Mona had somehow never seen (crazy, I know). We enjoyed the beautiful ridiculousness of Julia Stiles and the prince of Denmark, and then collapsed with exhaustion after a wonderful Annapolis day.

Hello, Salem! my name's Winnifred, what's yours?

2009-11-03T21:43:00.005-05:00

Halloween has never been my holiday. Without a doubt, it is one of the holidays that Mommy Mona does the best -- not a year goes by without some new Halloween decoration, and the tradition of precariously-placing-pumpkins-above the shelf in the family room has become somehow a comforting seasonal ritual, even if I worry that Alli will fall everytime. In fact, Mona is so good at Halloween that she has three or four large tupperware 20 or 30 gallon bins full of the decorations for it. In college, I got a care package every year around Halloween time full of orange socks and bat garlands and pumpkin candy -- you name it, she did it.

I've had some good costumes over the years -- the clock and the Chiquita Banana girl were particular favorites. But since college, I've become more enamored with Purim -- it seems like I always have a wonderful time and Purim at Brandeis is second only to Simchat Torah at Brandeis (which consistently ranks as one of my top five favorite things about college). I met my first boyfriend on Purim, my best friend Prisco surprise-visited me on a Purim, and it always feels like a magical day to me.

That being said, the last Purim I experienced was just after I moved to DC, and while very nice (I was with D-kup and Fenster at Adas Israel), it felt like such a pale imitation of Brandeis-ness that I couldn't help but being disappointed. Needless to say, I didn't have high expectations for Simchat Torah -- this turned out to be silly, because I had a perfectly lovely evening at DC Minyan with Suzy and Sarah G, and got to spend time with lovely deis people as well.

Which brings us back to Halloween. Again -- not usually my holiday, since I've convinced myself that Purim is IT, but I ended up having a greatgreatgreat time anyway. I went to Janae's (friend of friends who I went to West Virginia with) lovely apartment, which was decorated even better than Mona would (can you imagine such a thing?!) for a potluck/party before going out. Most people were superhero or villain themed -- I was the devil, and Will, who came with me, was a Starbucks barista (which everyone declared the most important superhero of all, really). Janae is a FABULOUS cook, and made sweet potato casserole and red velvet cake (it was her birthday too!) and lots of other lovely things. I brought a momma-made pumpkin bread.

Anyway, that was fun times, but I really had a great night once we went out dancing. Somehow, I've managed to live in DC for 9 months and not go dancing once. I've been to lots of bar and happy hours, but no dancing. Luckily, I made up for all of that in one night of Halloween-wonderfulness. Bailey plotted out the whole evening the night before, and we went dancing at Saint Ex and at Policy, both of which had great music. Saint Ex in particular was wonderful because of the liberal sprinklings of late 90s rap and jock jams, and Policy was most enjoyable thanks to the vigorous music ADD of the DJ (some people might not appreciate this, but I certainly did). I came home with exhausted feet and a happy neshama.

I think Halloween has just moved up in the holiday-rankings.

A Short Ode to the wonderfulness that is Glee

2009-11-03T21:16:00.005-05:00

It's like they opened up my brain and took all my favorite things in the world and put them in one show. And it really is. I love the corny plot, the oversized, ridiculous characters, and the glorification of musical theater. Clearly, Sue Sylvester's militant cheerleader coach is my favorite: you can't beat lines like this:

"Here I am, about to turn 30, and I’ve sacrificed everything , only to be Shanghaied by the bi-curious machinations of a cabal of doughy misshape teens."

Other things I love about Glee:

1. the entire jewish themed episode about Noah Puckerman, who is a. gorgeous, and b. a fabulous character, and c. should be singing more often. Great article about the jewishness here, thanks to Jonathan for sending it.

2. every time Will Schuster starts dancing. and singing. his acting usually makes me annoyed, but the rest is so lovely that I don't mind at all. also, SO sad I didn't see him in South Pacific

3. Mercedes. I think she might be my favorite. no question, this: is my favorite moment in the series so far. I bought the song on its own as soon as it came out on iTunes, and, according to my play count, I've listened to it 23 times since.

4. KRISTEN CHENOWETH. no further explanation is necessary, but I'll add that she should be tipsy all the time. also, 'Alone' was so cute

5. I love that they've made Will Schuster's wife such a caricature of a human being; I feel free to despise her and can spend all of my Glee-watching energy loving Emma, who sang "I Could have Danced All Night" while swirling and looking like a deer caught in headlights. That's just impressive.

6. any show that extols the virtues of musical theater is a-okay with me. any show that references Barbra Streisand in the second episode is golden forever.

To honor my vigorous love for the wonderfulness that is Glee, I just bought the soundtrack, and have been bopping around my room happily ever since. I really feel like this is going to be my favorite soundtrack for the next 6 months. At least.

did DC just skip fall and move right onto winter today?

2009-10-15T21:36:00.001-04:00

brrr. It's cold in my living room. Time to move into my now heated (!) bedroom.

The past month has certainly been a lot calmer than the last one. Maybe not having a huge report to work on has something to do with it. Nonetheless, I'm feeling pretty good about work - I've had the time to go back and redo some earlier stuff, and to think about ways to improve the model, and those are finally turning into concrete ideas.

Twitter, which began as a way to find out the random thoughts of people from college and new friends in DC, has turned into a great way to get information about work, and to keep abreast of legislative news, even better than something like an E & E Daily. Plus, I like finding Twitterers who quote our work.

At the beginning of the month, I very seriously considered applying for grad school this coming year, specifically at an MPP program somewhere in the DC area -- the idea being that I would work while going to school. Still thinking about it, but maybe delaying that process until next year? I don't know, it's difficult when a lot of people are starting to go back to grad school and I feel like there are definitely skills I could gain from going, especially with an MPP program, since I could use some economics and policy skillz.

Speaking of skillz, I've been able to flex my interpreter skills the past few weeks in training to be a volunteer at the Zoo. I'm going to be volunteering in the Amazonia exhibit as an interpreter, basically doing the kind of stuff that I did at the Franklin Institute. Minus the live shows. Plus the live animals (win). Minus the being paid, plus the volunteering (actually, also a win because I've realized that interpreting is a really fun once-a-week thing for me and not as fun every day). I'm learning tons about the animals in the exhibit and brushing up on Tropical Ecology from my B-deis days.

Speaking of Tropical Ecology, or rather, really good books I read while I was studying Tropical Ecology, Tim Flannery, a very cool evolutionary biology and mammalogist (of The Eternal Frontier and Chasing Kangaroos fame) will be speaking at Politics and Prose on Saturday. I will be in New York City and therefore incapable of seeing him without splinching myself or getting a Time-Turner. I'm pretty sad I'm missing him, since he's Australian and therefore not in DC so often. And since, you know, The Eternal Frontier is in the top five books that make me excited about science.

Speaking of which, I want to get Richard Dawkins new book. I love his analogies and ways of presenting information, but don't love when he gets all preachy about the atheism.

One more day of work in this week, then Shabbos dinner, NYC on Saturday, and a Gold Family wedding (my cousin Josh) on Sunday. SO excited to see my Dad after 5 months of not seeing him.

obla-di obla-da, life goes on, la

2009-09-14T22:05:00.002-04:00

This past week has been very weird in that I'm transitioning out of this intense go-go-go mode for the 50 States study (the paper and set of resources I just released). I definitely feel good about the work that I spent most of my summer on, and I'm getting some new projects to work on (our glossary, an update of our ACELA analysis etc), so that's good.

Although work has cooled down a bit, I still feel like I've been going non-stop recently, but in a really good way -- this past weekend was particularly good for taking advantage of all the wonderfulness DC has to offer. Friday night, Alli and I ordered in Indian Ocean (SO good), and then I went to an engagement party for Seth and Stacy (I was responsible for getting them to the party for the surprise part of it, and I must say, I was very Mission Impossible.) Fun times were had by all.

I woke up uber-early Saturday (okay, 8 am is not so early normally but for a Saturday . .. ) to find confetti all over my leg from the party the night before. Sweet. I also woke to a dramadrama email that I ended up wasting half of the day stressing about, but I'll ignore that one for now. I hopped on the Metro, expecting a mostly empty train. Instead, I was confronted by a PACKED train, full of people bearing American flags and various and sundry Obama- and Pelosi-hatin' signs. Being my relatively inquisitive self, I asked lots of questions, and totally pretended I was from Schwenksville, PA and that we had anything in common . . . I felt like I was on some sort Margaret-Mead-eqsue anthropological experiment. I had nothing in common with these people . . . totally nutty.

I left the Metro full of 'tea-baggers' (teehee) for the warm, comfortable Darwin Day Symposium at the museum of natural history -- I enjoyed 3 hours of evolutionary bio topics, including one great one on phylogenetic trees and spiders and another lovely one on statistical methods for comparing whether a given phenotypic pattern is more like phyletic gradualism or punctuated equilibrium . . . turns out Gould was right -- most of the time, they're finding that species tend toward stasis or a 'random walk' and that really directional evolution is pretty rare. Anyway, I left the museum around lunchtime, and walked to Foggy Bottom, where I met Alli to walk around the DC Veg Fest. We caught up with our friends Paul and Josh, enjoyed a game show with a nutritionist, and ate lots of lovely food before parting ways and heading home for the afternoon. I took my first nap in easily a month (which I enjoyed vigorously), and then went out for Thai with Jason and Gavi and some of his friends from the RAC. Came home and dealt with the unfortunate situation from that morning, and collapsed from exhaustion.

The next day, I staffed a fun trip to the Newseum with Rachel and her very fun BBYO kids -- a. awesome that it was free. b. that museum is amazing. I think it might be my favorite 'history' museum, unless you count the Met, which is obviously the second greatest museum in the whole world, second only to the Natural History museum in NY. The Newseum is so well-focused, with great interactives, and a wonderfully well-planned out structure . . . so good.

Also, I've spent much of the past five days tracking the FedEx website for my iPod touch. can't wait. !

09/09/09 and 09/09/99. which is better? hard to tell.

2009-09-08T20:50:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow is 09/09/09. I’ve been waiting for this day for 10 years. Not really waiting in the chewing-my-fingernails, on-tenterhooks (what does that phrase even means?) sense of the word, more in the every now and then I think about this date sense. And it’s for the randomest reason.

Ten years ago tomorrow, Alli, Mona, and I were in the Poconos for a vacation, staying at the Galkin’s lake house, and thoroughly enjoying the cable television in the living room. At the time,our home TV only had three channels – ABC, NBC, and CBS, and ABC was the only one with solidly reliable reception (hence: lots of Oprah and General Hospital in our childhood memories). Anyway, we we were enjoying the cable, especially the MTV (!). To a 7^th-grader without cable having MTV for days straight is akin to the nirvana my I felt the first time I watched listened to Julie Andrews sing Camelot. Anyway, that year, the MTV video music awards were held on 9/9/99, which seemed like the coolest date EVER. I remember thinking that the next decade would be full of really fun dates, like 01/01/01, and 06/06/06. Frankly, I don’t remember a thing about any of those dates (okay, vague recollection that I was relieved the world didn’t get on 01/01/01), but I do remember figuring out how old I’d be in 2009, and thinking that I wouldn’t even recognize the 23-year-old me.

I suppose that’s partially true. I still look the same (maybe the glasses are a little less egregious, and my teeth aren’t sticking out at entirely un-human-ly angles) and I’m still over-enthusiastic, into putting on a show, and a bookworm of sorts. I’m pretty much sure I know less than I did in 7^th grade (I did go to the 1999 PA State Geography Bee, after all), and I certainly read less (much to my chagrin). But in a lot of ways, I’m really happy where I’ve landed, especially because of what tomorrow represents.

Tomorrow, we release our 50 State study of the house climate and energy bill, ACES, where we document the savings from energy efficiency and talk about how the bill could be made better for consumers and the economy. It’s pretty exciting stuff (well, I think it is), and it’s being released by Environment America in 41 different states. I’m really happy about the fact that I was the lead author on a major national report, and I’ve only been at the organization 9 months – I feel like I’ve learned more than I could possibly document here, but I’m most excited about what I DON’T know – politics is still new to me, and the possibilities of delving further into this fascinating world seem at this moment to be endless (we’ll see how I feel after tomorrow, but that’s how it feels tonight). Time for bed; Hill briefing in the morning (!).

doing the john quincy adams thing

2009-09-08T20:13:00.004-04:00

Seeing Julie and Julia this weekend put me in a frame of mind to think about blogging, and its value for me and for others. I’ve kept a blog in one form or another since my livejournal in high school, writing less and less frequently over time. In high school, I primarily wrote in my livejournal because it was a way to feel connected to the people I considered friends. I’ve always been enchanted by the idea of being a good diarist – as a child, my favorite books were always biographies of people who kept glorious diaries (to a certain extent, they still are. speaking of which, the John Q. Adams twitter project is fabulous), and livejournal seemed like a good way to fulfill my ambition to record my thoughts through the ease of the computer.

Somewhere around the time I graduated from college, I abandoned the livejournal and started this blog, which I’ve updated not even a dozen times since. Partially this is related to the 9-5 work day thing, and partially this is due to the fact that I don’t have an audience like I did with the livejournal – there is a large part of me that loves performing for an audience, and I think I’m just less motivated when I don’t think anyone reads it. Well, noone reads this blog (although I believe my sister Alli follows it), but I’ve decided to revive it nonetheless.

For me, blogs can serve a few purposes – the narcissistic look-at-me, look-at-my-life type entries that Julie’s husband judges in Julie and Julia, the very informative type entries in formal blogs like my favorite, ClimateProgress, or the diary-type entries. I’ve discovered that I truly love looking back on the 5 or so years where I documented much of my life on livejournal. Yes, I wrote entries as a way of reaching out when feeling lonely, yes, they’re narcissistic, and yes, noone really reads them anyway. But I’ve discovered that I’m amused by the version of myself I present in those old entries. 17-year-old me makes me smile, and cry, and guffaw. So I think I’ll try to write more, because when I’m 29, 23-year-old me is going to seem very peculiar.

P.S. - Julie and Julia - SUCH a cute movie. Meryl Streep is a goddess, Amy Adams was a little annoying but lovable nonetheless, and the marriages the movie portrayed were just a joy to watch. Go see it, nonexistent reader. No really, go see it.

oldish and brownish and grayish and mossy

2009-08-24T21:41:00.002-04:00

apparently, they're making a CGI version of this soon. I can only say that after the resounding success of Horton Hears a Who, I am very very excited.

May was full of promises, but she couldn't keep em quick enough for some

2009-07-07T22:11:00.008-04:00

June was a wonderful month, full of work goodness (got quoted in the New York Times! a number I put together was used by Obama mama!) and lots of good friend-time.

I was in particular a big fan of my most recent foray into NYC -- although I only got to see Schutz for a very little bit (he was in crazy trial mode), I got to see Matt Stern for the first time in a while (complete with Missy and Skrevsky gallumphing), and got to see a new broadway show (Shrek the Musical, which was surprisingly lovely). I also got my Jew-girl on -- Shabbos dinner at David's with Brandeis folks and shul on the upper West side with Jonathan and other Brandeisians. Highlights of the weekend were clearly when we met Allison Janey (of CJ Cregg fame) on the street outside her show 9 to 5 (this makes my second picture with a West Wing cast member in as many summers), and the Egg Rolls and Egg Creams eggstravaganza (teehee) with Jonathan, Katherine, and Ronis in Chinatown. SUCH a good weekend.

Other highlights included the Press Club pub quiz win by Team Low Hanging Fruits, Alexander and Lilly's engagement party (which necessitated a kosher vacation so I could enjoy the crab feast, and which included lots of lovely catching up time with old PV friends), and going to my first TV screening (followed by Coco Sala, SUCH a cool restaurant). Uncle Stu visited, and Alli and I went to the Gay Pride Festival, and I went to Eastern Market for the first time -- I actually went twice in one weekend, I liked it so much. I found a great bookstore right there, and have become obsessed with a spicy black bean dip that's sold in the market. Last but not least, junior staff had a rolicking good time at our first potluck party, which was clearly a wonderful success.

the darling month when everyone throws self-control away

2009-07-06T21:55:00.013-04:00

May and June are past. Which is mostly sad because they're the months when I allow myself to sing The Lusty Month of May and June is Bustin' Out All Over on repeat for a month straight.

May was a lovely month, full of reunions and family and many wonderful things. Work-wise, it was pretty great -- W-M passed out of committee, necessitating an analysis at work, which was really fun (I'm starting to love this job!)

The month began with a visit to DC by Mommy Mona and Nor-man, culminating in the discovery of my new favorite restaurant: Founding Farmers in Foggy Bottom. Dad also visited that week (to help Alli move), and then Mom came the next weekend to bring Alli the car/back to DC, which clearly necessitated a wonderful day of Mother's Day celebrations.

We gallumphed about the Farmer's Market (check out these GORGEOUS mushrooms we found), and then took Mom for brunch at Afterwords Cafe -- happy avocado hollandaise breakfast sandwich day.

Other fun May activities included a tour of some of the European embassies (Spain, Germany, France, and Sweden) with Whitney. Favorite parts of the day included an afternoon stroll in Georgetown, flamenco dancers at the Spanish embassy, and cool energy saving designs at the Swedish embassy.

The next weekend was more laid-back, but equally fun. Max arrived in DC, and Whitney, Molly, and I journeyed to Middleburg, VA for wine tours at two vineyards and lovely walks around the very cute town. We sampled some really nice wines and basically just enjoyed frolicking in the green-ness after a winter full of cement and city.

Since it was Memorial Day weekend, we had Monday off, and Alli, Max, and I took full advantage of it, eating lunch at this great vegan Israeli falafel stand in Takoma Park and then walking around the Tidal Basin - note to self: need to paddleboat sometime this summer.

I finished off a month of great weekends with a trip home to Philadelphia for two different reunions -- first, reuniting with Skrevsky (!) after her year in Israel, and second, going to my 5-year high school reunion at the Trappe and then reunionizing with Audra and John, my essop posse kids. The next day, Mom and I saw The Producers at Walnut Street Theater (she hadn't seen it, but now she finally gets the max-a-menschen joke!)

Whew! what a month!

now that I'm two weeks into 23, the 22 best things about 22!

2009-05-12T12:44:00.000-04:00

Okay, so my birthday was a week ago. But I'm feeling reflective, so in no particular order, here's a list of the 22 greatest things I did when I was 22.

1. I discovered the glory of Brothers and Sisters. and when I say discovered, I mean Schutzer told me to watch it because Jonathan told him to so I did.

2. I had a record number of jobs in one year (TBE, CA, Abramson, Or Ami, Franklin Institute, and ACEEE!). Two of those were my first real full-time jobs!

3. The moment Obama got elected was definitely one of the best moments. I was on the phone with Schutz in my little loft at Bubbie Ethel's house, and they called Virginia, and then we realized that all he needed was California, and then they called California, and then we flipped out.

4. Okay, similiar to #3 - but I was in DC for inauguration and the concert and inauguration itself (even if I didn't go outside because it was freezing and I had moved here a few days before) were wonderful.

5. Got obsessed with LOST. It was Katherine's fault (as many of my TV addictions tend to be), but then I came to DC and started watching with a v fun group of people.

6. Met E.O. Wilson, one of the greatest biologists alive today, when he gave a talk at the Free Library of Philadelphia.

7. Worked at the Franklin Institute for 6 months, thus following in the footsteps of my favorite Chem teacher ever, and getting to dissect eyeballs, make paper, and run an 80-year-old train for a living.

8. I signed up for Twitter, and now follow NPR, J Street, and Obama mama. Also, I've gone through Claire McCaskill and John McCain phases, like you do.

9. I got my first apartment! I mean, I share it with other people, but it's still my first apartment, full of IKEA furniture and other wonderfulness!

10. I saw Bradley Whitford (aka Josh Lyman) TWICE - once in his great play on Broadway, Boeing Boeing, and once at an Alliance for Justice event in DC (which involved him singing If I Had a Hammer on stage with Peter of Peter Paul and Mary :) )

11. I finally went to visit Prisco at St. Bonaventure's. five years into her living there, it was time

12. I moved to a city where people come to visit. a lot. It's wonderful! Mat and Matt and Elizabeth and Missy and Sarah and Katherine and Jenna and Jonathan (well, he's from here, that doesn't count) and Elana and David and Miriam (whew!) have all come here within the past few months, and that really does make me really really happy.

13. I transitioned very well to post-Brandeis life. Minus the bumpier months when I was living at home. But looking at the whole year, I've done quite well at becoming, if not a real person, a very happy not-in-college person. There was a time when I was really worried that wouldn't happen.

14. I got a job where I'm learning and growing and using the knowledge I acquired in college (okay, not the biology, but the environmental stuff!). This is a wonderful thing.

15. I've become interested in politics in a way that I never was before. I think part of this started with the fact that I had two hours of commute to fill up when I was working in Philly, so I did a lot of reading and NPR-listening. Plus, my job intersects with politics now, which is proving to be fascinating. Who knew I liked this stuff?

16. I've gotten to read lots more than 22 books this year, all for fun! Having access to the Free Library of Philadelphia, a glorious institution, and the DC Public Library (okay, not so glorious, but still useful) has been wonderful for my brain/life.

17. Speaking of books, I have discovered the wonderfulness that is 24-hour bookstores (Kramerbooks) and daily author readings (Politics and Prose). I am clearly spoiled by this bounty of bookishness.

18. I moved to an apartment one Metro stop from my favorite sister, two Metro stops from one of my favorite people from college, and three Metro stops from another wonderful college friend. (okay, and about 45 stops away from Whitney, but I haven't actually gone to Georgia Ave that much, we usually meet in the middle)

19. purchased my first pair of skinny jeans. I know this isn't actually one of the 22 best things I did when I was 22, but it was recent and I'm still excited about it.

20. I took and survived the GRE. Got almost the exact same score as teh SAT, but switched my verbal and math . .. someone (me) did a lot of science and very little writing in college . . .

21. I saw Brian Stokes Mitchell, Stephen Schwartz, Jeanine Tesori, Liz Callaway, and Aherns and Flaherty all in the same night. No, I did not attend the Tonys, I went to a FREE concert at the Kennedy Center. Life is beautiful.

22. I belatedly became a fan of Les Miserables. Well, I've always like the book, but Walnut Street Theater's production was GAMAZING.

an oddly timely Orson Scott Card quote

2009-05-06T14:07:00.000-04:00

"This emotion I'm feeling now, this is love, right?"
"I don't know. Is it a longing? Is it a giddy stupid happiness just because you're with me?"
"Yes," she said.
"That's influenza," said Miro. "Watch for nausea or diarrhea within a few hours."

Children of the Mind

and exists March the 2nd on the dot.

2009-02-28T10:12:00.004-05:00

February has been a very quick, very lovely month.

In general, work has been pretty great. I've been working on really interesting things -- lots of time on a spreadsheet on energy savings from the energy efficiency programs we're recommending, writing papers on building training and the smart grid, and lots of scheduling and (this week, anyway), lots of time on the website. I helped prepare a testimony to the Senate Energy and Nat. Resources committee, which was stressful (you have to get them 50 copies of it 48 hours before the testimony itself, ack), and I went with my boss at the beginning of the month to get to know some of the energy staffers. Observation from that experience: Republican female staffers are intimidatingly pretty. With fabulous shoes. just saying.

I went home the first weekend in February just for a few days, but got to see Mom and Bubbie and did some shopping and such. AND after Alli went back to teach Sunday school, Mom and I went to the Italian market in Philly and then Dim Sum in Chinatown with Bruce and Vicki. AND it happened to be the Chinese New year's Parade, so that was basically one of the best days ever.

The next weekend was the start of Brandeis vacation, so I got to see a lot of people I love. Max came on that Friday, and I went with him and Alli to Columbia Heights, where we met some of his very fun vegan-y friends. The next day, Matt came, and we had four days of gallumphing together around DC. Highlights included a birthday brunch for Whitney, watching Candide, Funny Girl, AND De-Lovely, a visit to the Zoo (!), my first Chipotle experience, a romp around the Portrait Gallery with Catie Sprague, a fabulous Restaurant Week dinner with Missy and Jason at Perry's in Adams Morgan, and a day of Smithsonian-ing (American History and lunch at the American Indian museum - yum!) with Missy, her mom, and Matt. Whew. We're really good at packing a lot of ridiculous into four days. Oh, and Missy was still around for a few days, so she came to LOST that wednesday (which was at my apartment). When I made my new favorite sweet potato casserole.

The rest of the month was also full of goodness -- I had eat-in Chinese shabbat dinner with a Gavi and Jason, and then the next day Jenna Gondelman and Jason and I went to Spike from Top Chef's amazing burger place, Good Stuff Eatery (which apparently is opening in Dupont, yay!). We then spent the afternoon walking around the Library of Congress, which may or may not be my idea of heaven. SUCH a beautiful building, with books everywhere, and with everything as a monument to learning and reason . . . uch, amazing. This week involved two happy hours (I know, I'm such a lush), one with other junior staffers at work, and one with other Brandeis alums at Tonic near GW.

Other than that (whew), things are great. I like that I get to see Alli at least once, and sometimes more than once a week. I like my LOST group of friends. I like that I discovered this uber-cute bookstore, Politics and Prose, just a few blocks from my apartment. All in all, things are going swimmingly. OH, and it's getting warm!

yes, our teeth and ambitions are bared

2009-02-04T14:44:00.001-05:00

The month of January was a rock-star kind of a month, in a lot of ways. I'll try to remember them all. It started off pretty awfully, with the violence in Israel and Alli's really difficult decision to stay in the US rather than go to Beersheva for the semester, but after that it got better, and fast.

First of all, I got a new job doing Research and assistant-y things, and a new apartment in Van Ness/Forest Hills, DC, and I started work and began living in the new apartment. So far, I'm enjoying the new job, learning a lot every day. I'm not very busy yet, but I think that's just because I recently arrived, so I'm just learning the skills necessary for them to give me a lot of work. My favorite and least favorite thing (because sometimes Excel is evil) I'm working on is scoring all of the provisions we're pushing for the energy bill and stimulus bill (and if those don't work, the climate change bill).

The new apartment is great. The location isn't so happening in that there's not a lot of nightlife, etc there, but it has a Giant and a quizno's and it's right in between AU and Cleveland Park. Also, my commute to work is 25 minutes every morning, which beats the pants off the 1-1.5 hours i struggled through to and from the Franklin Institute. I live with two other Jewish women, one a law student at AU and one who works for a french nuclear company. So far,they're really sweet, and we get along great, although I'm realizing that I miss living with my best friends. That was kind of convenient for my life. The best part about the location is that I'm really close to Alli, and so far we've been able to see each other twice or more a week :)

My first weekend here was the inauguration, which was pretty ridiculously amazing. Lots of people were in town, including Schutz and Missy and others, and it was great to see them all. I went to the Newseum with Rachel Hillman and Mat, to the big concert (Beyonce! Shakira! Josh Groban! Obama!) with them and other friends, and watched the actual inauguration from my apartment with Alli and one of her friends. It was also Martin Luther King weekend, and I went to a wonderful dinner and okay service (although the speaker was gamazing) at Washington Hebrew Congregation with Jason and his friend from work. I also went with Jason and Matt Rogers and Alli to an event for the Alliance for Justice, which featured Bradley Whitford (with a very sad mustache), Peter Yarrow, and some great and inspiring speakers. Basically, I saw Josh Lyman singing "If I had a Hammer". That's amazing.

But inauguration weekend was not the only wonderfulness this month. No, siree. Rachel invited me to join her fabulous LOST group, which involves food, fun people, and one of my favorite shows ever. It turns out that my former suitemate Whitney has been living in DC, and I've hung out with her, her roommate Molly, and her bf Adam a few times.

The last time I hung out with them was last Saturday night, when I went to the Kennedy Center for a concert with influential Broadway composers and some of the stars who made their music famous. Highlights -- Stephen Schwartz explaining the process in writing the Wizard and I. Liz Callaway singing from Anastasia (did you know Aherns and Flaherty wrote that? I didn't.) Jeanine Tesori being awkward and cute and talking about Millie. Oh, and when Brian Stokes Mitchell sang Wheels of a Dream (a little weird with just him, since it's written as a duet), I cried. Basically, one of the most amazing nights of learning about and loving musical theater that I've ever encountered.

So that was my month. Whew, I'm tired just reading about it!