Magic word

This is an excerpt from the instructions on my Trader Joe's organic whole wheat pasta. It seems so Trader Joe's to include the word "please" in cooking instructions, as in, "We at Trader Joe's care deeply about our pasta and about your experience thereof, so although we don't like to be bossy, we respectfully request that you not overcook this spaghetti."

Joey (no relation) had a different interpretation:

Is it like in gremlins when you weren't supposed to feed the fuzzy guys after a certain time? Does your pasta turn into a monster? Please don't overcook!

Free stuff week

Two free things I got recently, but didn't mention in my last post because they weren't art:

1.) a glass of wine at Artomatic, courtesy of Zipcar
2.) a Ben & Jerry's ice cream cone yesterday, which happened to be Free Cone Day

The kicker, though, is the Zipcar mouse pad and a Not for Tourists Guide to Washington, which it turns out I won in the raffle I entered Saturday at Artomatic. Awesome.

Free art weekend

A painting by the nostalgic Turkish guy

Well, once again it's my bedtime and I haven't yet blogged, so I'll make this quick. I soaked in a ton of culture for free this past Saturday without even going to the Smithsonian. MM and I started off with the Japanese Street Festival, which concluded this year's Cherry Blossom Festival. While the bastardized pan-Asian cuisine and landscape architects from Portland did not get me feeling very Japanese, we did see some interesting displays of dancing, drumming, and swordsmanship.

Next stop was a temporary exhibit of Turkish paintings just down the street from The Ninth Floor. Unfortunately the name of the artist escapes me--it's something fairly long and, well, Turkish-looking. The paintings were surprisingly nostalgic. I liked the colors.

All this was very family-friendly; for the hipster free art experience we had to travel far--almost to the airport, in fact, to a place called Artomatic. It's an annual showcase for local artists that takes up two floors of a large office building in Crystal City, one of the Virginia suburbs. The artists each get their own little space to take over, which lends itself to an almost dreamlike experience. In a few steps I went from something involving a large circle of live grass, to wax sculptures resembling sea anemones, to symmetrical black and white photos of naked breasts. There was a ton of art, so much that I eventually gave up on seeing it all. I did make a point, though, of seeing all the Peeps dioramas.

Blooming

I like DC much better now that the trees are in bloom. Here's a picture I took a few days ago on my way to work. Even the pathetic triangle of dirt on 17th and New Hampshire that passes for a dog park was bedecked with beautiful white blossoms.

Yesterday half of our office went down to the Tidal Basin (where the famous Japanese cherry trees are) for a picnic lunch. The famously ephemeral blossoms were near their peak, and breezes sent blizzards of little white petals swirling around their throngs of admirers.

Last night brought an impressive hour-long thunderstorm and hard rain, and on the way in this morning most of the cherry blossoms had been washed from the trees, revealing new green leaves.

Tourists

One nice thing about living in DC is that it's easy to impress out-of-town visitors.

A few weekends ago NSCV came down for a festival involving Flogging Molly, a pseudo-Irish band we both like. M.M. came out with us, and I introduced them both to Turkish food one night and Ethiopian the next, both at restaurants within walking distance of my place.

This past weekend G.R. made his first trip to our nation's capital from his new home base in Delaware. G.R. is naturally enthusiastic, and actually pays attention to things like the Supreme Court, so he was like a kid on a sugar high. If kids on sugar highs kept dropping the F-bomb and talking about evolution.

So what could have been a somewhat brutal post-St.-Patrick's-Day slog around the mall actually turned out to be quite fun, with stops at the Botanic Gardens, the Canadian embassy, and the Museum of Natural History. I may have even learned some things about evolution.

Australians

In my ongoing desperation for content, I've resorted to telling other peoples' stories. Here's an email a Virginian colleague of mine (I'll call her V.C. for short) forwarded me yesterday:

>>> <> 3/14/2007 4:47 PM >>>
Subject: Fwd: "Slug" loses umbrella...

Colleagues,

From time to time on the Front Desk we receive calls that are a little out of the ordinary; one follows:

Earlier this morning (14 mar 2007), I received a call from a lady named [V.C.], who had a query she described as one you probably don't get every day. Ms [V.C.] had ridden into the District this morning utilising the "Slug" system most Washington workers/Virginia residents use. Ms [V.C.] advised she had had a thoroughly engaging conversation with the driver, and wished she had asked for her name; a wish that became all the more urgent when she realised she had left her umbrella in the Embassy staffer's car. The only info Ms [V.C.] had was the lady worked here; was Australian; drove a shiny red car, and was (today) wearing a yellow pants suit.

I promised I would keep an eye out for such an ensemble, but have been unsuccessful so far.

Minister/Counsellor (Management) and Consul-General, with an eye to the impending weather, has graciously allowed this e-mail to go out to all staff throwing Ms [V.C.] on your collective mercy.

Ordinarily, I would ask the staffer to call me, and I would then connect her with Ms [V.C.], but as we are about to close (and given the somewhat random nature of Slug encounters), Ms [V.C.] has agreed that her contact details can be published, and the staffer can contact her direct:

[contact details]

Again: Australian Lady; Shiny Red Car; yellow Pants Suit (today, at least) carrying an umbrella she can't readily account for.

Regards,

[friendly Australian embassy front desk man]

Within minutes of this email being sent out, V.C. was chatting on the phone with the now-famous yellow pantsuit lady. Not only was she reunited with her umbrella, she got a ride back to Virginia at the end of the day. And you know what? It didn't even rain yesterday.

Winners and losers

Just a short rant about TV. Why are networks still making tired sitcoms with tired ensemble casts (hot women, loser-ish unattractive men, and their smartass kids) and tired laugh tracks? I ask because, as a fan of Comedy Central's always-fresh Daily Show, I was interested to see The Winner, the network show that Rob Corddry left the Daily Show to star in. I think I caught the pilot on Sunday, and boy was it dull. Also it's set in 1994 for some reason (a very minor plot point in the pilot revolves around the O.J. Simpson police chase), as though to hearken back to a time when shows with laugh tracks could still be considered good--original, even. Or maybe innovations such as cell phones and email make things too complicated for the writers. Despite a few good lines and Corddry's brilliance at playing a clueless loser, I expected better.

Contrast this with, say, the Sarah Silverman Program, another brand-new addition to the TV landscape. Like The Winner, Sarah stars an unlikable, clueless narrator. Also like The Winner it features highly improbable plot lines, but Sarah takes absurdity to a different level. In one episode, she adopts a 10-year-old daughter for a day and grooms her to win a talent competition; meanwhile, Sarah's gay neighbors are arrested and harshly interrogated by Homeland Security, during which they snickeringly brag about leaving a bomb in a police car. Turns out that... well, I wouldn't want to ruin it. There will be plenty of chances to see the episode as Comedy Central re-runs it ad nauseum. My point is that the writers of the Sarah Silverman Program understand that in eschewing likable characters, plot arcs, and believability, they've stripped the show's appeal down to being consistently, knee-slappingly funny. Which it is. (Warning to sensitive viewers: the following clip would not be allowed on network TV).



And lest you suppose that being on a network constrains The Winner to breaking out the same old laugh track, please take 30 minutes on Thursday to watch 30 Rock on NBC. I'd review it, but I did promise a short rant.

Nosy Samaritan

Last night while waiting for the bus I noticed a wallet sitting on the curb. There were other people around, but none of them seemed to be looking for a lost wallet, so I picked it up and took it home. It turned out not to be very interesting: no credit cards, no money, just a Howard University student ID, Blockbuster membership card, Safeway gift card, AAA membership card that expired in 2001, and business cards for a lawyer, a florist, and a mortgage broker... I started to wonder if the guy who lost this wallet would be very excited about getting it back. Maybe I could use his Howard University card to get student discounts and see how often I got called on it--no one really looks at those cards anyway, right? But I found his social security card sandwiched in with all that worthless plastic, and figured he'd miss that eventually.

Then I noticed, turned backward behind the student ID, a driver's license. I was happy to have an address, but closer inspection revealed that not only did the license have a different name on it than everything else in the wallet, but it had expired in 2003. Now here was a mystery: Why was a 31-year-old (according to his student ID) carrying around someone else's expired driver's license, but not one of his own?

Unfortunately I'll never know, since I dropped the wallet off with a security guard at the Howard dorm across the street from my building this morning, and she didn't ask for my name. It occurred to me later that I should have added one of my business cards to Mr. Smith's (his real name) collection. Then if Mr. Smith had taken the hint and called to thank me, I could have plied him for information. Sigh.

California girl

Just got back from a week in San Francisco: part work, part play. I hadn't been to the West Coast at all in two and a half years (except for Peru), so it was very exciting. There are myriad things I could blog about from the trip, and maybe I will if I'm feeling ambitious lately, but I think for now I'll just say that it was a fantastic trip, and that I got to catch up with friends from college, friends from grad school, friends I met in Ithaca, and people I've met at various meetings, so it was action-packed.

NSCV was there, and got me a new tacky souvenir pig. It's official: I am the pig lady. But please do not send me any ugly pigs. It's only cute if NSCV does it.

Obama's Space

In the wake of yesterday's announcement, www.barackobama.com has added a crazy social-networking component where you can create a profile, upload a picture, search for other supporters, find campaign events to go to, blog about how much you love Barack Obama, and even track your personal progress in raising money for the campaign. Best of luck, Barry--I just hope you don't get sued by Rupert Murdoch.

Even though I'm very, very happy that Obama is running, I'm disturbed that he's running almost two years before the election. If this election sets a precedent--and don't they all?--I'm looking at having presidential campaigns running for half of my adult life. Makes me seriously re-think wanting to live in a democracy.

"Food"

Yesterday our office held its annual white trash cook-off, a tradition that began... last year. While some might view our trying to out-do each other by making creative and disgusting dishes out of processed food products as an ugly expression of East Coast-liberal elitism, I submit that we were in fact departing from liberal elitist stereotypes by shunning political correctness.

While there was no formal judging process, in my opinion there was a tie for the most creative/disgusting prize between Twinkie sushi and litterbox cake. The litterbox cake was actually not so bad if you could get past the fact that it was topped with Tootsie Rolls sculpted to look like poop. Twinkie sushi, on the other hand, looked cool but tasted unbelievably gross.

Another purchase, another blog entry

My blog's been going through a slow time, but nothing inspires me to write like a major purchase. One of my goals for this year is to decorate my apartment, and I took a step in that direction this week when I bought this mid-century bed I found on craigslist. How awesome is this? I think it goes particularly well with my 40s building, and maybe even the TV that's almost as old as I am. My stuff isn't just old anymore--it's vintage.

When I finally wrestled the box spring and mattress onto the new frame, the top of the bed turned out to be an inch shy of three feet off the floor. It's a reminder of where the phrase "climb into bed" comes from.

Unfortunately Rocky is not as enamored with the bed as I am. She hid in the closet for over two hours starting when we brought the headboard and footboard in. When I finally managed to coax her out, she stared fearfully at the new bed and then went back into the closet. I've disturbed her sacred hiding place.

I Heart Hodgman

Having nothing to blog about lately, I'm going to fall back on a time-tested blogger trick: borrowing other people's content. Not just any content, though--John Hodgman/Jon Stewart content. Hodgman is not only hilarious, he's everywhere I want to be: NPR, The Daily Show, hocking Macs. Which leads me to that stolen content:

Flickr

For all my readers who've been losing sleep about how I can't walk and will probably lose my job and end up on the street, have no fear. I limped for less than 24 hours and am walking (even running for the bus) quite normally now. But the bruise now covers nearly my whole foot. You can indulge your morbid curiosity here.

Speaking of which, my first disgusting foot picture has gotten 27 hits on Flickr in the few days since I uploaded it. Compare that to this picture, which I'm partial to, and which has gotten exactly 0 hits prior to blog highlighting. I mean, I snowshoed into the mountains during a blizzard for this picture and risked ruining my new camera with wet snow, and I think it came out rather well. But apparently all Flickr viewers want is prurient shock value.

Ow

Picture this: I'm sparring in tae kwon do. I jump up, spin 540 degrees and kick my six-foot-tall partner on the side of the head so hard that he flies across the room. I bruise my foot in the process.

What actually happened was that I was doing forms, which are these sort of formal routines--not upper-level forms, but forms that involve a lot of emphatically stepping into new positions and punching and such--and I stepped wrong. I fell pretty dramatically, which is more embarrassing when you're doing something like stepping emphatically into a new position than it is when you're doing something that's actually... hard. But I prefer that you continue visualizing the first scenario.

Being clumsy, I've rolled my ankle plenty of times, and I've always been fine. But now I'm a little worried that I might have broken a bone in my foot (ironically, just three days into my new workout-six-days-a-week regimen). I think it's just a bruise, though. I'll see how it feels in the morning.

Taxidermy

How hilarious can taxidermy be? Find out here.

Lesson

I've observed before that when I blog about needing/wanting something, it's often miraculously delivered to me: a DVD player, a corkscrew, a digital camera. But I wasn't thinking about that history when I blogged last week about how brown and depressing Pueblo and its environs were. Sure enough, whatever gods there be sent me a three-day snowstorm. Maybe you think that's no big deal because you think it snows all the time in Colorado, but Pueblo is no Buffalo: it gets 10 inches of precipitation a year, and when I was a teenager there I wore sandals for most of the winter. (Ok, so some people thought I was crazy, but I still have all my toes).

While pretty, the snow left me stranded at my parents' house doing nothing while I would rather have been somewhere else doing nothing. One plus: I got to go snowshoeing. Allow me to recommend my debut Canon filmaking project, a clip of our dog trying to hitch a ride on the backs of my mom's snowshoes.

The lesson, in case you missed it, is that I need to be careful what I wish for on The Ninth Floor.

Today's the Day

The day DC goes blissfully smoke-free, that is. Hooray!

Oh, and it's also the day of Ford's funeral. But you already knew that.

Photographer

I got a new camera for my birthday/Christmas, which means I can now take my own pictures of tumbleweeds. Yay! My pick for the blog was going to be one with horses in it, but I went with reindeer and cacti instead.

Home on the Range

I arrived at the Denver airport (on time) yesterday afternoon to find the place looking somewhat lived in after the snowstorm that closed it down for two days. The line for security stretched around the baggage claim (pretty significant, given the size of the airport), and there were announcements asking people to wait until four hours before their flight to get in line. Four hours!

Two hours down the road, the snow was melted but my sparsely-populated hometown had made international news for its own severe weather: a tumbleweed blizzard. The wind had been high and this summer must have been a bumper time for tumbleweeds, because they piled up so high at the front of my parents' house that they rolled over the roof and filled up the back deck--my mom could only let the dog out the side door. (Disclaimer: I have no idea where this photo was taken. One would think that when tumbleweeds make the international news there should be lots of pictures of them online, but no such luck. However, this could very well be Pueblo West).

Each time I leave Pueblo (it's a little east of Pueblo West, for the uninitiated) I forget just how desolate and depressing this place is. Maybe it would help if I didn't always visit in the dead of winter, when it's brown and windy most of the time, with no natural greenery to alleviate the stark ugliness of the box stores and paycheck loan places and the lonesome stucco houses.