How Fun is This?

I would totally do this.



I'm also way impressed by the girl in the formal.

Founding Farmers

Last Thurs I went into DC with a group from work to Founding Farmers. Its an organic, green-centered, all about sustainablity restaurant. I meant to tell you about it earlier, but got all excited about Sound of Music. Thursday we were still in the week of non-stop rain, and it actually got bad enough that they were announcing evacuations over the radio. As we drove through the mixing bowl, the water was draining off the overpasses looked like waterfalls. It was crazy. For appetizer, I got the grilled flat bread. It was grilled ciabata with marscapone cream, prosciuotto, and figs. It was amazing. It also came in three slices, and I told myself to only eat one and leave room for the rest of the meal, but after I tried it, it was pretty much gone. For my main course I got chicken and waffles, which I had heard about and have been wanting to try for ages. I got two pieces of Pan Fried Southern style chicken, with gravy, and two quarters of Belgian waffle with syrup. It came with Mac-n-cheese, and I picked the double whipped red potatoes for my second side. It was amazing. I tried a bit of everything, and knew I'd have to pick what to eat there and what to take home, cause I was pretty full from the appetizer. I went with the waffles, because I knew they wouldn't keep, and the potatoes, because they were some of the best mashed potatoes I have ever eaten. They were smooth, with pieces of the skin, and you could tell they had been whipped with melted butter. Hmmmmmm. For dessert I got red velvet cake, which was four layers high and served in a wedge so large, it took me three days to eat through it. I tried some of the cake, and then ate the vanilla ice cream that came with it (made fresh every day) My friends made fun of me for not being able to eat the cake, but by then I was so full it hurt.

How do you solve a problem like Maria?

Last night I went with a couple of friends to Wolftrap for the Sound of Music Sing A Long. It was awesome. Loads of people were in costume; there were all kinds of Marias, items from "My Favorite Things" song (There was a row of people in front of us who were all wearing brightly colored wool mittens, and whenever that line came up, they'd raise their hands in the mittens, whoop and dance) and an entire contingent of people in drapery-based play clothes. There were also quite a few nuns, which was really impressive given that it's still in the 80s and humid. They had a costume contest before the movie started, and my favorites were a trio of kids who were "Tea, with bread and jam" the eldest being Tea (dressed all in white, with tea bags stuck all over her), holding the hands of her little siblings, one dressed all in brown and the other all in red. My other favorite was a lady who came dressed as the third place folk singer, and was constantly bowing to the audience, she was hilarious. We also got a bag of props, most of which were kind of silly, but there was a cool invite to the ball, and a string popper. You were supposed to pull your popper when the Captain and Maria kissed, making "The loudest popping kiss ever at Wolftrap" but some people popped theirs at various other times, to great comedic effect. It was a lot of fun, and seeing the Sound of Music on a huge screen was amazing. When the songs started, there were 5,000 people singing along. It was like being part of a huge wave of sound and joy.

Costco before a hurricane is a bit crazy

Today is my rotating day off, and I have nothing else planned so I was prepared to spend some quality time standing in lines at Costco.

I was a little worried when I saw the lines of people with carts full of water that I was a little late to the party, especially when I couldn't find the water. I finally tracked it down as they were restocking it in the back. Once I had my water, I was able to browse the canned goods at a more leisurely pace.

Costco is a good place to people watch. I was standing in the line to get some pizza for lunch. Behind me a girl told her Mom that she wanted a piece of cheese pizza. Her mother responded, with a cool African accent, the following:

"Cheese pizza? What have you bought with that? Nothing. All pizza comes with cheese. If you don't get pizza with something on it you are just wasting money, so if you want pizza you'll get one with pepperoni or that other stuff on it."

It really struck me because 1: she was right, and 2: I would never have thought of it that way.

Both the little girl and I got pepperoni pizza for lunch.

Earthquake in Virginia?

I was working in the lab when there was this loud rumble and the building started shaking. My first thought was that they must be blowing up something big on the demolition field, but the building started rolling and I knew it was an earthquake.

I went through a pretty bad earthquake in California, so I was one of the few who knew what was happening. Its probably good, because the two techs who were with me had no idea what was going on. We were in an aisle with giant superglue cabinets so I was like "Earthquake! Get to the door!" I helped hurry them along, since I was the farthest in and right next to a window, and didn't want to get squished.

Nothing fell or broke however. They made us evacuate until the building could be inspected, so we got to spend an hour baking outside.

Once we got the all clear, they let us back in, but everyone was pretty much fried, and worried about their homes and families so they let us go early. I was a little worried about my house, but when I got home everything was fine. My garbage can didn't even tip over.

My friends in Fredericksburg said that some of their stuff had tipped over or fallen off the walls, but nothing serious.

Closing and Marty the Guard Snake

So I am now officially a home owner. :) Closing went really well. The sellers were nice, and they told me about a hiking path just down the street from my new house, where I can hike to the lake and rent canoes and kayaks. How awesome is that? I didn't even know about the canoes.

Or the lake for that matter.

I didn't have to pay any fees and I actually got 2000 back which is awesome. After closing I've been using the time I took off work running around like a crazy person and spending all the gifts cards you guys got for me.

I got all the locks changed on my house, and since I was going anyway, I took a couple of bins that I had packed. I was hefting them to the front door when I noticed a runaway vine strand curling off one of the bushes in the front yard. "Huh" I thought, "I'll have to trim that back. Its growing right across the front steps."

And then it reared, and flicked its little tongue at me, which vines aren't generally known for doing. I backed away from the snake, and found a stick so that I could encourage him off the steps. I tried to get him to go to my neighbor's yard, since he was halfway there already, but instead he flipped around and slithered back into my bushes.

"All right, but no free loading. You better eat a lot of insects." And then I named him Marty.

Disney Fun

I've been house hunting, and its pretty much taking up any spare moment I have. So that's why the blog's been so slow lately.

This is fun though, the Disney Princesses and Suckerpunch

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Important Quiz

24

Created by OnePlusYou - Free Dating Sites

What's your score?

Kewl

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This guy is fun to watch. Its like real live anime!

The Closer

She's so pink!

Corbeau gets a new ride

Its sassy.

New Years Eve - Quite Late

So for New Year's Eve I got together with a bunch of friends down in Alexandria. B got us a reservation at a Mexican restaurant we'd never heard of, because it was one of the few that still had open seats. It had a difficult Aztec name that we mispronounced until we just gave up and called it "Casa WacaWaca"

On the menu, we noticed that under appetizers was "Grasshopper Fondue," which was described as a cheese fondue with grasshoppers. B decided we had to try it as part of our New Years Adventure.

In my mind, I saw a cheddar-type fondue with big old fried grasshoppers for dippin'. The kind that always managed to show up in Seminary class. What actually came was a small, ceramic pot with what looked like salsa with shredded cheese on top.

"Where's the grasshoppers?" we all asked each other. B took a spoon, and started stirring the cheese into the sauce. As she stirred this enormous black mound of grasshopper bit rose into view, and I just blurted out "Holy Crap those things have been cuisinarted!"

This is why I shouldn't go to nice places.

Anyway, we all tried some. I had mine on a chip. It tasted like crunchy, spicy tomato salsa. But the chitlin bits of the grasshopper really stick around in your mouth. It took a bit to get them washed down, and in my brain was this reoccuring thought, "Leg or antenna? Leg or antenna? Leg or antenna?"

I only had the one chip. For dinner I had lamb tacos that were amazing.

Tonight, I bought a TV in anger

I've been thinking about getting a new tv for myself for Christmas. (Merry Christmas to me!) So I swung down to Best Buy and wandered over to the tv section. I wandered around and waited for a helpful sales associate to show up. No one did. Eventually I noticed that there was one sales dude in tv, (ONE!) and that he was helping an elderly couple. It was clearly going to take awhile. I looked around for someone else, but didn't find anybody. So I waited. And waited. Eventually I decided that since I'm going to need a new computer soon, I'd wander over to computers and knock out two birds with one stone. I walked over and browsed, looked at some models, had some questions. But once again I couldn't find any helpful sales associates. So I wandered back to tvs. Still one dude. Still helping elderly couple. And I waited. And waited some more. I wandered through the phone section thinking I might get lucky. I didn't. I wandered back to computers. I finally found a sales guy. He said that he was already helping someone and three people were waiting behind them. He suggested I talk to his coworker. He pointed at a harried looking surrounded by 5 people. I went back to tvs. Still no help. A comcast guy who had been watching this fiasco the whole time but who was not allowed to help me (he wasn't wearing a blue shirt) went with me for another round of "Let's try and find a sales associate" he then informed me that if I went to customer service they could probably help me. That's pretty much where I lost it. I'm not going to sit in some hellish holiday customer service line for the privilege of giving Best Buy a bunch of money. Screw you Best Buy! No Freaking Way! Or, I pointed out, I could just go to another store and buy a freaking tv. So I went to Target. I pointed out the tv I wanted. Same model. Cheaper price. I was helped the minute I went to the desk and 5 FREAKING MINUTES LATER they had it out of the back room and were helping me load it into my car. Oh yeah Best Buy. 5 minutes. Take that. Fortunately both of my roommates were home, since I hadn't actually planned on buying a tv today. They helped me get into my room and hooked up. Now I'm making sure it works. And I'm not so angry anymore. I'm still going somewhere else for a new computer. There's a principle involved. Take that BestBuy. Ninja Corbeau stands triumphant!

Mesmerisizing

This is the best Griswold house...evah.

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Awesome

They've combined two of my favorite things, Jane Austen and Violence.

Halloween

This year I went Steampunk, with an outfit I've been putting together since Otakon in August.
The goggles are mirrored, so I can see through them, but they cut off all peripheral vision. Combine that with the corset and the boots and walking became an adventure.

I wanted to show off my awesome boots, so we took this photo, and my roommate called me a "tart" for flashing some leg. :) The other one informed me that since I have a front lacing corset, I was already a hussy. It's rough being a Victorian lady.

RED

This movie is a lot of fun. I had to pee so bad it hurt but I couldn't make myself leave the theater because I had to see what happened next.

Its that good.


Its way over the top action fun, but the dialogue is witty and you can tell everyone involved is just having a good time.

Plus Helen Mirren fires a 50 cal machine gun while in formal evening dress. Every word in that sentence should make you want to see this movie.

Navy vs. SMU

Last weekend I went with a big group from church to the Navy game in Annapolis. Because of our group we got awesome tickets. I was on the front row on the 20 yard line, on SMUs side. It was awesome. Some people asked if we were a sorority.

Anyway, it was a beautiful day for a game, and the midshipmen had a cannon, their goats, and the cutest bulldog sporting the Marine colors. It was really cool to see all the Midshipmen march on. They had a couple of random Air Force and West Point cadets with them too.

The first half they were behind 0-14. But then they came from behind to tie the game 21-21 with two minutes left, then intercepted to win. Everyone was going crazy and it was such an intense nail biter.

Afterwards we went down into historic Annapolis, which I will really have to visit again sometime during the day. I mean, I saw a fudge shop down there.

We got some Italian and found this amazing hat shop that was still open. It made me want to go the Kentucky Derby just so I could buy a huge fru fru hat.

I did end up with a fedora with this great cherry blossom band because it was on sale. I love hats.

Huzzah!

Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate is back at Starbucks!! AND Krispy Kreme has their pumpkin shaped donuts out.


I love fall.

City of Music

This weekend I went to Nashville to see Dolly Parton sing at the 85th birthday of the Grand Ole Opry.
I'm not a huge fan of country music, but it was Dolly. She's a legend! It was a great show. It probably would have been even better if I knew more. They had a lot of country legends there, which would also explain the massive amounts of older folks roaming Nashville.
Seriously. They were really nice, but it was a little odd. A couple from Kansas City told us of a good restaurant, and when we caught the shuttle for the concert, the shuttle was filled with crazy old folks. They were funny though, and everyone was in good spirits for Dolly.
Trace Atkins and Taylor Swift also performed. Those were the only other names I recognized. I knew Trace from Celebrity Apprentice, and Taylor Swifts songs were much less annoying live.

Although watching her fans wig the crap out was hilarious.

Nashville is still recovering from the floods in May.

The culprit

The river flooded its banks and put a serious chunk of Nashville, including the Grand Ole Opry, under 4-6 feet water. We watched a video about the reconstruction of the stage, and it was weird to think of all the places under water.