I Know About Eloise!

Good news: McDonalds gave away free breakfast burritos this morning.
Bad news: They were still overpriced.

However, my iced coffee was worth every penny. I realized that it was rather stupid to order iced coffee when your insides already felt like ice, but I guess it goes with the outdoor theme. I’m ready for spring. For cherry blossoms. For skirts. For not feeling like a fire-breathing dragon every time I push air out of my mouth. For new episodes of The Office. For graduation. For May. May is particularly exciting. This is when Lori is coming.

I am currently watching Lost on TV. I am convinced this is the most complicated plot line conceived by man. I do not know how they keep connecting all of these things. Becca, Cameron and I are going to see The Other Boleyn Girl tomorrow. This movie can only end in tragedy. But I am still intrigued by it. I'll let you know how it is. Arrivederci!

Shoutouts to George, Obituaries, and Movie Adaptations of Lengthy Novels

I love running, I really do, but running in sub-freezing weather was a new experience for me. This morning, the city of Alexandria hosted its annual George Washington Birthday 10K. I, along with around a thousand other Alexandrians, braved the cold to pay homage to our nation’s favorite president. We all got t-shirts with his face on it. Very exciting, but not in a middle-eastern dictator kind of way. I always shy away from attending political celebrations with 30X20 posters of faces being waved around like kites. You want to stay away from those.



If your rally looks like this, you might want to find a nearby ethnic restaurant and wait it out looking as un-American as possible.

Anyway, at the starting line I realized I was standing next to a girl wearing a Florida State beanie. Turns out she is from Tallahassee, went to Lincoln, and attended Florida State. What are the chances? Her and her husband worked at the Tallahassee Democrat together and met in the obituary section. How romantic. I can hear small talk from their first date,
“How was work today?”
“Oh, well, you know, four funerals and a cremation. How about you?”
“Two funerals and a Viking raft burning. Might be two-column coverage.”
I can’t make too much fun. After all, my parents met in prison.

Tonight I walked to Target and I wandered through the movie section. Target has good $5 movies. It wasn’t five dollars, but I still had to pick up Pride and Prejudice when I saw it was on sale. Now, normally I like books much better than the movie counterpart, but there are a couple of exceptions. Pride and Prejudice is one of those exceptions. I suppose I’m betraying the female sex by saying I’m not a Jane Austin fan, but I willingly confess that I only made it through 250 pages of Pride and Prejudice. It made me a little sick with all of its self-seeking, frivolous dialogue. I mean, really, how can five girls spend each and every day walking around the house, spinning in swings, and doing very little other than creating drama wherever they go? It’s hard to get through 700 pages. However, Kiera Knightly and Matthew MacFadeyn make you forget about the triviality of the pages their conversations were taken from and the movie is quite enjoyable. So, if you haven’t seen the newest movie version yet, I highly recommend it. Good night, everyone. Until we meet again, I wait impatiently for my own Mr. Darcy (minus three or four hundred pages).

Happy Thank Your Local Salt Miner Day!

So apparently the Federal Government gave a two-hour delay to its employees this morning because of the nasty weather. I, as an intern, am not on their list. When Linda tried to put me on their list last week they said that they do not want any interns or contractors to be on the list because they will leave soon anyway. That is sweet of them. So...here I am. No one's really here. Gives me time to write a blog post.

I did something new yesterday. I walked in ice. Before yesterday, I thought ice was pretty. You make sculptures with it, you eat it, you put it in sweet tea. Today my eyes have been opened. It's slippery, it's wet, it's cold, and it wants your legs to break. Water and steam are welcome to any parties I might have in the future, but H20's solid form does not merit an invitation. My views of salt were just as equally challenged, however. I am not a huge fan of salt. I like salt-free pretzels, low-sodium potato chips and I avoid adding salt to really anything. But salt battles ice quite nicely. There are these little men, I don't know where they come from, but as soon as the ice hits they come out with these fertilizer machines and cover the ground with ice. They're like elves, but taller. (Actually, they don't really look like elves at all, they look like very cold, under-paid laborers, but I still get the vision of the elves that sneak out at night to make shoes.) It's a slug's nightmare.

Anyway, you'll be happy to know I didn't even fall once. (Or, maybe, like Joe and Dean, you are hoping for an "I almost died today" story. It will have to wait for another day.) But, waiting for the bus last night I had to restrain myself from laughing at the people sliding across the street in front of me. It really wasn't funny...but it really was. Have a great day, everybody, and if you see a salt miner, thank him.

Where Have All the Chickens Gone?

My Uncle Richard lives on a farm in Arkansas. There's not much around. Let's face it; it's Arkansas. However, he does have a neighbor a couple miles away that has a chicken farm. You're probably picturing in your head something like this-



Let's go with something like this:

Let's go with four of them. There are thousands of chickens in each one.

Now, a couple weeks ago there was a tornado about eight miles from my Uncle's house and it hit his neighbor's chicken house. The guy lost 8,000 chickens. That's a lot of chicken. Hopefully he had chicken insurance. However, Kenley brought up a good question. Where did all the chickens go? I mean, we all know gravity. What goes up must come down. How would you like to be the person over in Tennessee who wakes up with 700 dead chickens in his front yard? Not me. So, this week, if you spot some of the missing chickens, give me a call. I'll pass on the information to my Uncle's neighbor. I'm sure he's out looking.

Have You Seen This Chicken?

Call
555-6875

Just some pictures of where I live (if you're curious)

This is my room. :0)




















My kitchen is kind of dreary. It needs some coloring pages on the fridge.


















This is the view I get in the morning from my office building.


















The most important part of any commute. :0) I have two within sight distance of my office. Yeeesss.


















This is my apartment building. Clearly I do not belong in it. Not exactly my socio-economic class. I'm not complaining, though. ;0)

That's about all I've got so far. I'll work on getting some more when it's not dark outside. It's dark when I leave the house and usually dark when I get home, so I have trouble taking photos you all would be interested in. That will be my Saturday project. Arrivederci!

Someone's Gotta Turn Phil the Other Way

Not having a car makes me feel as though I'm back in Kyiv again. Riding the metro, dragging bags home from the grocery store, searching for bus stops...running after busses, it's something that I associate with Kyiv, which makes me think of Lori, which makes me smile. :0) Today I went on a running adventure to find places to shop. I discovered that past the Target is a New York and Company, a Best Buy, an Old Navy, a Starbucks, a Subway and a grocery store. These are all very good finds. So, after I went home and took a shower, Becca and I journeyed to the grocery store to stock up for this next week. We have to make sure to do all of our shopping on the weekends, because when we get home during the week it's already dark and we can't walk to the grocery store. I decided to splurge this week and invest in some peanut sauce. I was going to make some, Jenshka, but i figured it was more expensive to invest in all the ingredients, so I just bought some. I can't wait to make stir fry. :0)

Anyway, happy Groundhog Day to you all. I guess ol' Phil saw his shadow today, so we're in for six more weeks of winter.



Looks to me as if Phil needs to lay off the Twinkies. I was very disappointed that I can't seem to find "Groundhog Day" on TV. I need a little more Bill Murray in my life. It seems like TBS always has it on all day, but this year they decided to play the "Fantastic Four" instead. Clearly a superior movie...not.



So next year, Carli and I will have to have a date and make sure we're in the same city and country to have a Groundhog Day marathon. Until then, "Do you ever have deja vu, Mrs. Lancaster?" "I don't think so, but I could check with the kitchen."