Home Sweet Home

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!

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

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.

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?

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

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!