Let this post be an open invitation for anyone who wants to come visit us at the beach. We’d love to host you — whoever you may be! (Unless of course we really don’t know you, then that would just be weird.)
Anywho, Grey and I had a pretty non-eventful holiday weekend planned until my friend Kris called me yesterday morning and said that her and her husband Craig had decided to come visit last minute. All of a sudden our weekend went from yardwork and errands and maybe some beach time — to an instant party when the two of them and their little girl, Emmeline, showed up. Or, as much of a “party” as two pregnant chicks (Kris is 9 months along), their husbands, and two toddlers can have. We stayed up past 11:45pm — that has to count for something anyway. And who knows — we always have Sunday night to get nutty. You never know what sort of insanity an intense game of Catch Phrase or Pictionary may take you!
So please — come on visitors! We miss our DC friends and we promise we won’t put you to work on our home improvement projects — even though we somehow roped our last two sets of houseguests into doing stuff like laying sod and planting shrubs, but hey, you’ll earn your keep and get a tan!
Kris and Craig and Grey and I -- in our pre-baby days when white wine and Yuengling fueled every get-together we had.
I know there are many downfalls to Facebook (it’s a time sponge, it hurts kids ability to actually speak to each other, people sometimes use it for creepy reasons, etc), but I honestly think the good outweighs the bad. I love it for two main reasons: the stalking and the birthdays.
First of all, it’s so much fun to peer into other people’s lives through their wall posts and pictures. It’s great that you can go years without having contact with a person and then friend them on FB and instantly know how many kids they have, where they work, and how their hairline or waistline is fairing. Amazing.
The second reason, is that it makes you feel so darn great on your birthday. The fact that the FB powers-that-be post your date of birth allows everyone and their brother to come out of the woodwork to send you birthday greetings on your big day (those of them that aren’t trying to steal your social security number and identity, anyway). I think that’s pretty neat. Yesterday, on my birthday, I heard from tons of Penn Staters, Washingtonians, Erieites — and even a few former students. It was fantastic! I felt so loved!! And popular! It was like an instant self esteem boost, which, when you’re turning a year older and look like you’ve swallowed a basketball, is much needed. Thanks, FB, but also all the friends that sent me the lovely birthday greetings. You made my day!
Thanks also to my two favorite crazy boys for making it a perfect birthday! (I love this totally insane cake cutting shot. Can we ever have a normal family pic?) Also, please ignore the "It's a Boy!" on the cake...pure speculation at this point!!
The thing I miss most about living in Virginia is my friends. Since my Delta Delta Delta days at Penn State, I hadn’t had such a tight knit group of girls with whom I could talk about absolutely anything. In fact, it always seemed like our book club was the place where we had the most hilarious conversations, so it makes me sad I’m missing out on that tonight while all my NoVa friends yuck it up.
When we started the club five years ago, no one had kids. The funny part about this was that when it was a pre-baby book club, all we talked about was labor and delivery. I’d say 99% of our book club conversations revolved around what we heard about women pooping on the table during labor. Ironic, because none of us even had babies — so what did we know?
The truth is, once you’ve actually given birth (or at least in my case), you could care less if you poop on the table or not. In fact, during my last labor, I could have taken a shit on Grey’s head and I wouldn’t have cared. Indeed, I could have dumped on an entire room of people and not batted an eye, but I digress…
The point is, I always knew we could talk about anything during book club and I’m very grateful to have been a member for so long! And who knows, next month I’m going to a new club here at the beach, so maybe it’ll be the same way. I have a theory that if you give women from any state in the country a few glasses of wine and some appetizers they’ll all wind up talking about third nipples, poop during labor, and celebrity gossip. It’s in our blood!
Here's a pic we snapped at BC a few years ago. No clue why we all rubbing our nipples. I think we were making some sort of reference to Pride and Prejudice or Grapes of Wrath? This is a very intellectual crowd, as you can tell.
Today was my last day of work at Washington Life. It’s amazing to think that it’s been just shy of two years and today I put all my stuff in boxes and gave Kelly my emergency flashlight and stash of odd perfume. I will be starting a new job on Wednesday, which I’m thrilled about, but it is tough to say goodbye to the people who you spend more time with than your own family. Kelly and Ali are my work family (and probably legal spouses considering how close we sit) and I am going to miss them terribly.
I don’t know who in the journalism world declared it fine for everyone to sit on each other. Have you ever seen the newsroom of a major paper? You’re lucky enough to get a cubicle and even then, your neighbor is just a piece of plexiglass away. Well, Kelly, Ali and I were short a few pieces of plexiglass. We really should have just shared a chair and worked from one communal brain.
And that’s just part of the reason why I’m going to miss them so much. Today Ali told me that I should watch Jersey Shore to stay relevant and so that people don’t think I’m old. I grimaced at her when she said it, but it was probably some pretty good advice. I have been wondering why everyone is so intrigued by that pudgy girl in booty shorts who tans herself the color of a Halloween pumpkin.
Kelly is always reminding me to be a good human and loves to solve every single problem in the office. She probably sits around and rewires the place after work, that tech savvy gal, but when she’s there during the day, she really works her butt off.
The three of us started a fake sorority together. It’s called KAK (clever I know), and our symbol is the dove. We have bonded over bread binges, nights where we actually slept at the office, and bad theme parties. When I go out of town or to a meeting, Kel and Ali like to print enormous embarrassing pictures from my past and hide them in my drawers. The little dears. WIll anyone publicly humiliate me in such an adorable way at my next gig? I don’t know. But I do know that it has been amazing working with Kelly and Ali over the years and I know I will see them all the time. That’s why god invented happy hour after all.
Kelly and I at a black tie shenanigan. How I will miss basically sharing a chair with Kelly in our tiny office.
Ali was my intern for a year before she joined the squad and I was so lucky to have her! She is one of the only people on earth who can read my "I'm doing an interview" handwriting.
While I love airplanes and flying, nothing in the world compares to train travel. The longest train ride I ever took in my life was from Beijing to Ulan Bataar Mongolia. It was about 24 hours through China and Outer Mongolia and I loved every single second of it.
Mary-Alice, who I traveled with across half the world, and I had our own cabin and spent half the trip with our heads out the window, half naked, airing out our souls. That is until night fell and the train would randomly stop in the middle of nowhere. Then we prayed that our souls be saved.
At about two in the morning, in the middle of Mongolia the train just stopped and dumped out the passengers for two hours as they changed the wheels. The tracks in Mongolia and China are different so all the wheels of the train had to be changed and it takes a while. Let me tell you, there is no place that feels like the middle of nowhere like Outer Mongolia at 2 a.m.
I thought that was going to be my favorite memory of the trek, but I was wrong. Just before the Chinese officials boarded the train to check our visas and our cabins, our Mongolian train conductor came to Mary-Alice and I and asked if he could hide some produce in our berth. We of course said yes as Mongolia does not have much farmable land and who were we to deny innocent people of food. So we stuffed our entire room full of produce and kept our mouths shut.
When the border patrol came in, we all but glued our butts to our beds to keep them from finding the contraband tomatoes. Could we be thrown in jail for aiding and abiding the transportation of vegetables across national borders?
I’ll never know because no one was the wiser. When Mary-Al and I finally arrived in Ulan Bataar and headed for the platform, our conductor called for us and threw us a tomato as a thank you. And yes, I kept the thing until it was basically ketchup.
Mary-Al and me with our wonderful train conductor. This is what my eyebrows look like when I let them go. Now you understand...
As my colleague Kelly Fisher said after I sent her the site younghouselove.com, “they have single-handedly inspired me to take better care of my living room. I now know that things are better when they’re neat!” Sherry and John, the stars of the site, met and fell in love in New York and then bought a small house in Richmond, which they completely flipped. Kelly is also from Richmond, so she feels like she’s BFF’s with them even though they’re strangers.
But I understand where she’s coming from. It’s hard not to adore Sherry and John and their story, which they spell out for you in detail. We know how they met, what they do, where they got married, how much their wedding cost, and every single step, price, nuisance and joy of flipping their house.
When I read their blog my confidence in my handy(wo)man skills shoots through the roof. Of course I can retile a floor, paint an entire house, do some stonework, and jack hammer through a wall. And then I try, start crying, have to call my Dad and it all begins again.
But still, I want to do it and even TLC and all their home repair shows couldn’t give me the confidence that John and Sherry have.
DIY here I come! I already feel one step closer to my dream claw foot bathtub.
When my friend Mary-Alice and I trekked around the world, we ended up being totally broke in Hungary. We had money before and money after, but in Hungary we were paupers. I am guessing our parents bailed us out, but Budapest just brings back memories of a stale crust of bread and a lot of walking.
Looking back, I really don’t know why we were so broke there. Are there no ATMs in Budapest? Did we spend it all on boos and goulash? I have no idea. What I do know is that our lack of money forced us to break the law. Tired as can be, we really wanted to take a cable car down this humungous hill, but we had zero cash. So we made up an elaborate scheme to shimmy under the turnstiles and hop on the car without paying.
As I subtly crawled under the turnstile and Mary-Al did her very best distraction song and dance, the 200 pound stout woman who ran the place looked down just as I was mid crawl. With the furry of Satan’s handmaidens, she started screaming in Hungarian and coming at me with her arms extended. Visions of her squeezing my head till it popped off flashed before my eyes as I backed up on all fours, stood up, and obeyed Mary-Alice’s ingenious command of “RUUUUUUNNNNN!”
We headed down that hill as fast as our impractical travel sandals could take us all while turning our heads to see if the thunderous Hungarian roar was hot on our trail. She was not. We were exhausted and broke, but we were not beaten up or arrested.
Did I learn any life lessons from this? Ehh, sure. Don’t break the law. It is wrong. But I still waited till I had $19 in my bank account to fly home that summer. And I had a blast because of it. As we all know, fun and money are not always linked and sometimes being a broke backpacker with no common sense is the most fun of all.
The charming cable cars of Budapest. Just not meant to be...
Some colleges have frat parties. Some have entire cities to use as their drinking playground. Vassar College has one bar/club on campus and it is in a dorm. For four years, I thought it was cooler than Studio 54 ever was. And well, I might still.
Here is the thing about Matthew’s Mug, our one and only campus hangout, as it was the only place to go, everyone hung out there. Have a crush on that tall guy in chem lab? You’ll see him at the Mug Friday night. There is no searching for your crush at Vassar College. He will be at the Mug, he will be drinking, and you might just have a chance.
For those co-eds who all but slept in the Mug, you were given the title of “Mug Rat,” and I wore my label with pride. I would even go on Monday nights to drink beer and play Trivial Pursuit.
Besides a place to pick up your main squeeze, the Mug was great because everyone danced their butts off. Alvin Ailey or not you went hog wild on the floor because everyone else was. As a rather mediocre dancer, I always tried to make my way to the middle as one of my greatest fears was being stuck on the outside and having the whole school watch me shake my butt off tempo. It happened a few times and I think I’m still scarred from the experience.
But it was all worth it. The Mug was like St. Tropez meets New York State and we treated it like we were in a rap video. I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
While this picture may not scream "hot nightclub!" to you, this is where the Mug dwells, in the deep dark basement of Main Building.
My dear friend Lauren who is like a sister to me, just had her first baby! And guess which moral-free cad they selected to be her godmother? Me, of course. I’m thrilled! Here is the thing about me and babies. I recognize their cuteness, but they kind of scare me. I mean they just need you so much. You can’t forget them somewhere or casually leave them on some shelf somewhere. You have to attach them to your boob and never let go. Scary!
I recognize that I’m pushing 30 and this whole mentality should probably change. Being around Stacey and seeing what an amazing (and fun!) mother she is to Ollie has really helped. She has made me realize that you can still have a life and have kids and be hot. And now that my friend Lauren has knighted me fairy godmother to her first born, I feel like my fear of leaving a baby on a shelf will diminish even more.
I actually love the idea of being a godmother or an aunt more than being a mother. This is probably due to the fact that you can swish in with a present and a kiss and get a lot of love. And also due to the fact that one of my favorite movies is Auntie Mame and well, Rosalind Russell just made being an aunt the most fabulous thing since the high heel. I can’t wait to take little Mairin to the baby spa for a teeny tiny mani pedi, or to the children’s museum to make a mold of her butt in hot wax or something like that. You know, the good stuff!
Thank you Lauren for trusting me to be Mairin’s godmother. I promise to do my very best!
I’m not on Gchat much. At Washington Life, I’m usually too busy to go out for lunch or write a personal email, so sadly chat is not in the cards. But there was a time when I worked from home that my friend Nate and I would chat for hours a day. We would pretty much have a constant conversation going with each other for the whole nine to five workday and never ran out of things to say.
Nate and I dated in college and I don’t remember us endlessly blabbing. I think we just spoke to each other a rather normal amount. But get us on “paper” and man oh man do we gooooo on.
But I love it. I love chattering with someone when it just flows. And with Nate it always flows. We talk about who we’re dating, about what we’re writing, and lots of Vassar gossip. But in a girl/boy way, so lots less OMGs and exclamation points.
One year for Nate’s birthday, I spent weeks printing out our Gchats. I would stay after hours at work monotonously loading conversations and hitting the print button. But man was it worth it. About a thousand pages came out of the printer, I had them bound in four volumes (after making myself a copy too) and shipped it all off to Nate in Miami.
I doubt either of us read them on a daily basis, but it’s nice to know that they’re there along with all those memories and a diary of our lives. Some of it is petty and some of it hilarious, and all of it I am happy to have sitting in a peaceful pile in the basement.
Nate and I just love to blah, blah, blah on Gchat. It's very junior high of us.
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