Time Flies

It's already September! We are just moving right along this year. I'm a little reluctant to see cooler temperatures in the forecast, but I do love fall. I thought I should recap some things from the past month.

I was looking forward to the Air and Water Show for a bit of time. I invited myself to a "friend's" apartment so I could check out an amazing view! He lives in Lake Shore Towers, which is the only building east of Michigan Ave because it's not technically on "land" (it's on a landfill) so it doesn't violate a pretty old city ordinance.

View from Lake Shore Towers

 Blue Angels not breaking formation.

Blue Angels

I had planned to go to one of the Cubs v. Tigers baseball games since April. Unfortunately, the game I picked had a pretty extensive rain delay. After an hour of rain delay and no signs of stopping, we decided to leave. The game ended up lasting until 1:00am. Since it was a weeknight, I'm glad we called it a night when we did. We were able to see the Tigers take an early lead. Several home runs in the first 2.5 innings. Kinda strange to have that be my only baseball game this summer, but I won't lose sleep over it. (clearly!)

Kristen and I at the Tigers v. Cubs game

Gearing up for the rain

I took a long weekend to visit my family in Southeast Michigan. One of my favorite places is Kensington Metro Park. We were able to enjoy the beach and do some kayaking. 

Kensington

The reason for the visit was that my mom's two brothers that live out of Michigan wanted to get everyone together. I think this was the first time the four siblings were in the same place in 5 years.

Reverse age order

 This was the first time that my brothers and I have been together since Ed's wedding in 2007, I think. I could be wrong. But it's definitely been at least 5 years.

Reverse age order - this is a pretty terrible photo of me...

 I'm not sure why, but it had been 9ish years since I'd seen my best friend from high school. Sometimes life just takes you to different places. I'm glad we've been more in touch lately and we were able to spend an hour catching up.

Looking pretty good 17ish years since we've become friends!

10th grade... We've come a long way! (circa 2002)

Full Plate

This was a jam-packed week for me. I did something every night. And that is definitely not like me. Normally, I like to come home, eat something small, run to the gym, come home and catch up on tv shows that I haven't been watching. I didn't make it to the gym once... I may need to start going at 6 am... It's currently under consideration. I'll see how I manage this week, and then decide if I need to get up early to get the workout that I need.

I met up with a lot of great friends and saw a lot of cool things in the city. The Cherry Blossom Festival, Kickball on the National Mall, Busboys and Poets, etc.

On Saturday I met up with an old coworker of mine to watch the DC United game. We had pretty decent seats. In the throes of all the action and the screaming and bouncing fans, the "screaming eagles". (I was not anticipating standing the entire time, but it was fun!)

DC United ended up losing (2-0) to the NY Red Bulls. I seriously am always impressed by the athleticism and control that these soccer players possess. What can I say, I love this game!

Hanging out with the "screaming eagles"

My old coworker and I

Taking in all the action

I wouldn't mind going to another game. I can feel that the summer is going to be bursting with tons of activities... I'm going to have to pick and choose wisely! I may have already over committed myself... We'll see how everything shakes out.

Fringe Benefits

I've always wondered about how people make blogging a career. From the blogs I've observed where it seems like the bloggers make a living blogging, the authors generally have a cohesive theme and daily (if not more than daily) posts. They have fancy advertisers and people sending them products to advertise or give away on their blogs. 

And I have thought on more than one occasion, well, it'd be nice to "make it" as a blogger, but that's a little far-fetched for me since my blog is a hodge-podge of random stuff that happens to me and I don't think that anyone that I don't know personally would be interested in reading my ramblings. 

But then miracle of miracles happened: One of my blog readers sent me a present! Remember how I wrote about wanting kitchen gadgets? I received a mystery package from Amazon with cooling racks! 

When I saw the package, I thought, "Oh no, am I ordering from Amazon in my sleep?" And then I saw the cooling racks and knew, one of my readers (who has my address) was so kind that they wanted me to have a snazzy kitchen gadget from my list. 

As the package left no note, I first texted my sister-in-law (and then I remembered that she doesn't read my blog), and then I texted a friend of mine who I talked to about my kitchen gadget distress and she said, "I wish I would have thought to do that!" (you see, I once sent her a hot dog in the mail as kind of a joke... long story). 

But the true hero let himself be known and said he mistakenly forgot to leave a note. I'm so glad he let me know that he sent me the cooling racks.

I now know that I have officially made it as a blogger since I have received gifts in the mail for no apparent reason. I can now die happy! 

(If anyone else wants to send me a kitchen gadget, I will not be opposed to the gesture)

The YSA Charade

"I already know an awful lot of people; until one of them dies, I couldn't possibly meet anyone else." – Reggie (Audrey Hepburn) in Charade

As clearly evidenced by my over 1000 facebook friends, I know a lot of people. Granted, I probably am only friends with about 10% of the people who I was once acquainted with enough to befriend via facebook. But still, having 1000 friends on facebook has to mean that I at least know a lot of people. (Or at the very least, it shows that I’ve moved around a lot and been in college forever…)

Having moved to the Washington DC area has presented me with numerous opportunities to meet new people on a fairly consistent basis.

And if you know me, you know I like to talk to people (or inanimate objects, I guess it doesn’t really matter). But I don’t like to talk to complete strangers in huge groups. That’s just not my element. I like to command the room of 15 people, rather than be a minor participant in a room of 150.

And, my friends, the YSA wards in DC are seriously cramping my style. I cannot attend any function with less than 80 people. I don’t understand how anyone is able to meet anyone and remember anyone. I get a little frustrated when I have to introduce myself to the same person 4+ times. But then I find myself talking with a group of people that I probably met in September and had absolutely no recollection of our conversation or any sticking points about the individuals, who apparently remembered me. (Sometimes it’s just as bad to find yourself on the other side of the equation).

My DC philosophy is that I didn’t need to befriend any females. Let’s be honest. I don’t want to attend another bridal or baby shower. And if I have to play another game of make a toilet paper wedding dress, you may get a real reason to use that much toilet paper… And to add insult to injury, nobody has ever bought me a set of Pyrex mixing bowls or some fancy kitchen gadgets that I could use just as much as them. I’d like to have a “Melanie Likes Kitchen Gadgets, Too” party so that I can recoup some of cash I’ve shelled out for the friends that disappear into coupledom never to return. But alas, I don’t think anyone would attend (or worse, get me gadgets!), so I’ve refrained.

But seriously. I have no desire to befriend any females here. I could probably use the strategy to have close female friends to introduce me to their cute male friends. But I’m not. There are just so many people that I need to focus my energies on friendships that will yield better results for the endgame. Am I right? (You know you’re secretly agreeing with me on this one).

I’m not clawing my way past the 8:1 (exaggerated) female to male ratio to find THE ONE. Not.Doing.It. Instead, I’m just going about my business, finding things that I’m interested in, and slowly meeting people and probably not remembering them as they fail to recognize me as well. It’s likely that this strategy will not yield the optimal results (marriage), but I guess I’m ok with that. Because honestly, I have enough friends.

Nerd Alert!

I love Pi Day! I love people getting together to celebrate math and tasty desserts. Who could not love that?



You may not know how nerdy I really am. A couple of years ago my best friend sent me this perfect pi day shirt:



(I couldn't have asked for a better nerdy piece of clothing. BUT I am considering getting a Woodsy the Owl shirt)

My friend's shirt has pi written out to 1000 decimals (or something like that).

We played pi trivia. (I knew none of the answers... not even what ingredients are in the crust of a pie)




BUT Then we played Apples to Apples. I totally dominated. And these are the words that I won. So I think my marriageability is likely in trouble (I'm totally kidding)

But hear me out on my one dispute. The word to match was "fuzzy"; and I put down "fuzz" ... How could she not pick my card? It could not have been MORE perfect! I don't remember what won, but it was definitely lamer than fuzz.