little town, full of little people

i'm bummed tonight because i went to get a hair cut because i wanted an inch off and i ended up with 3 inches off :( and i was just loving my long hair. but. it's only hair, it'll grow back. and now the ends aren't crispy which is always a nice feeling.

don't let the smile fool you.

aside from thaaat.. aren't mondays fantastic? i'm always so ready to see everyone by the time monday rolls around. the 'sandwich artists' at the subway by work are getting to know me now. i switch up the bread, but they know everything else. now i just have to work on CVS man. i buy a raspberry arizona iced tea from him every single morning.. and at this point it's been 3 months, and we still act like strangers. i just don't know what to say to him. we're stuck in a rut.

time to keep practicing the french twist. i seem to have lost an entire thing of bobby pins.

p.s. don't you wish your brother was cool like mine? this is the song from mulan.

me: lets!

get down to business

to defeat

the hunssss

Matt: did they send me daughters

me: when i asked!

Matt: FOR SONSSSSSSS

me: for soooonnnssss

we can go anywhere

well, regardless of whether or not all of my friends up and left me to enjoy thanksgiving with their families, i continued on with the new tradition of sunday brunch, this time featuring the newest DC transplant, marc. in spite of his chronic tardiness (half an hour, friends), marc is good people. he's done lots of interesting things and i appreciate that i can talk about thailand and asia with him and he knows what i'm talking about and is happy to recount his own experiences.

if you've ever done anything that most of your friends and family haven't done, you can relate to the awful phenomenon of telling stories about moments and experiences that changed your life for all of 6 minutes before their faces glaze over and you've lost any hope of regaining their attention. it isn't their fault, but it does make you feel a little like an alien. that's why it's meant to be that i share a room with miriam, who will happily spend hours on end recounting asian fab stories with me.

while i'm on that though, it's a good time to say thank you again to those of you who stuck with me during blonde in taiwan. i was always excited to know that you would be just as excited as i was to learn new things and experience weird asian stuff. even though i was the furthest i've ever been from home, i did feel very connected, and that was all thanks to you.
now to all of these pictures. after brunch, i headed down the hill to rock creek park which is the park in the woodley park area. as you can see from the second picture, it's less of a park and more of a grassy hill with a four lane road in the middle. not quite zilker, but it worked for me today.

i counted 8 spiders crawling either on me, my book, my jacket or the surrounding area so i eventually headed home feeling creepy crawly. julie and julia is a really nice little fluffy book though. lots of swearing, which i wasn't expecting. but it's really entertaining and her writing is engaging and you feel like you really know her.

loook this is my name in chinese 梅根小姐

hear them ring

today was a lot of fun and very touristy. my mom's sister, aunt margi, was in town. she, her boyfriend [of 24 years or something, what do we call him?] and his parents and i roamed around downtown and ended up at the national gallery of art. lots of interesting paintings in there. we ended up in the creepy part for the first half.. lots of paintings of dead people and other creepy things.

they had to go to a tour at the capitol so i stuck around the american indian museum and had delicious lunch.. which didn't seem that expensive now that i'm used to DC prices. my totopos con pollo was $8. and deeeelicious.
apparently every single native american tribe in america contributed at least a little money to the museum, so they all own a little piece of it. their flags are hanging across the rotunda.

today was the 20th anniversary of the bill that approved it passing so they had a lot of cool stuff going on. i stayed to watch a family sing a couple of traditional songs and dance. in the middle, there's a giant 'sawdust carpet' made of colored sawdust. i wish i had taken a better picture of the thing itself. it was really impressive. and they're going to sweep it up in 3 days!

other than that, i'm just enjoying these lazy days. funny how you'd do anything to be able to take a nap at 4pm on a work day but napping all day long for 4 days gets kind of old.

i made cranberry sauce because i had so much fun doing it at becca's for thanksgiving. who knew it was so easy?

1 cup of sugar + 1 cup of water + 1 package of cranberries. boil for 10 min.

they start off shiny and then get dull and then pop open like pop corn as they heat up. and here' s the secret to making cranberry sauce: cranberries are sooo sour on their own. you neeeed to make sure every one pops open so it can be filled with sugar syrup. i just pop them with my fingers once its cooled down.
voila! it makes 2 1/4 cups.
here's a picture from the football game last week

let your heart be light

there was kind of an awkward moment at work the other day when someone asked if it was OK to put christmas music on and two people shouted 'NOOO!' but now that it's officially christmas season, i am christmasing it up. though this whole legitimately cold weather thing may be a little too much for me to handle. it's 40something degrees outside and my body is not having it. even with a fluffy hat, gloves and a wool sweater.

thanksgiving was a success at becca's. it was a lesson in turkey 101. it ended up taking two hours longer than it was supposed to.. probably because i can't stop myself from opening the oven to check on it rather than looking through the door. who has that much self control? no one. anyway we had a really nice time with a couple of nirav's friends from college. the pumpkin pie was a hit. i just covered it with whipped cream.

applied for a job today! time for a shower, flannel jammies, a glass of wine and a movie. hope everyone had a happy thanksgiving.

hot sun dancin' on the river

god bless country music. it makes me feel like i'm driving out to the lake.

wellll i made all of the food i'm bringing to becca's tomorrow for thanksgiving, and it was a bit hit or miss. i had a bit of a pie meltdown. the filling overflowed over the edges but i figured once it went in the oven, it would set up and be fine.. not the case. one edge collapsed and a river of filling flowed out of one side and burnt in the bottom of the oven. finally i just scooped a few spoonfulls out of the middle.

then when i was taking it out of the oven, i gouged the side of it with the pot holder. whoops! now it looks a little like the surface of the moon. but whatever, it will taste yummy. i'll just cover it with whipped cream and no one will have any idea. :)
the green bean casserole is perfect though! woo! and the macaroons, which i never ended up taking a picture of, are pretty, crispy and tasty.

today is a big day because one of the girls from my circle of friends in middle/high school had a baby! she's the first one. baby drew. 4 lbs and something ounces, he came a little early. i can't believe we're old enough to be married with babies.

did i mention that my family is having thanksgiving dinner at the tiny new house? here are the latest photos:

each one is different

funny how holidays make you homesick. i'm thrilled to be where i am. i've seen/done things that not very many people ever get to experience and it's all been amazing beyond anything i'll ever be able to explain.. but there are still those days when i miss my other life.

hugging little kids all the time is a big one. you don't realize how much you miss those little cuddly moments until you have no little kids to be sweet with.

joyce is getting so big! every time i see a new picture of her, her face is getting longer and her eyes look different. still cute as ever, but so big!

i got an unexpected call from taiwan this week from the kuo's. usually i call them on saturdays but this time they called me. they keep asking when i'm going to come back. i told them this summer, so i better find a job and start saving my pennies.

maybe it will be different when there's a whole new group of teachers there. for now, it just seems like everyone's there but me.
funny how i miss taiwan so much more than my family. probably because we talk just as much as we did in taiwan. now we're just an hour apart rather than a day apart. majjy sent me a bunch of hats, scarves and gloves today so i'll be toasty in this silly DC cold.

anyway enough of thattt. it's just one of those days/times of year i guess.

the prime minister of india arrived in the US today. it was president obama's first state arrival. the streets were lines with american and indian flags all around the white house complex. the ceremony was moved indoors to the east room because of the weather. it was good for the people inside, but it meant that the general public had to be turned away. a lucky few got to watch inside though. there's a pretty picture on the flickr page of mrs. obama and the first lady of india in their green and orange dresses to match the flag of india.

ooh and this prettier picture of the first couple at the state dinner, from if the lampshade fits.

night breezes seem to whisper

good newsss! my AC adapter shipped in a mere 3 days and i'm back in business. and thank goodness because i've been bursting with this story.

so saturday afternoon we had a little football game. we were supposed to lose big. the staff, while not overly athletic, far outmatched us. our strengths were an asthmatic and a girl who was on her high school football team. our two other prospects were both out sick. they had 30something people and we had 12. but we came out ahead in the first quarter with 2 touchdowns so we were feeling amazing. late in the second, the staff scored.

then we were in the 3rd (we were only playing 3 quarters), i was running up behind the guy with the ball, about to make an outstanding tackle and he elbowed me in the face by accident. my nose kind of hurt but i thought i was fine until i looked down and there was blood eeeeeverywhere. before i knew it, the entire staff was crowded around me asking if i was alright. i was mortified.

after a couple of minutes, the bleeding stopped and i sat on the sidelines clutching a very bloody handkerchief and watched the end of the game. we scored one more time, making it a final score of 3-1. they awarded me the game ball and i got to hold the trophy. two guys also lifted me up on their shoulders. i don't usually mind attention, but i was ready to just disappear after that. embarrassing!

so that was kind of an ordeal, but now everyone knows my name.

yesterday i went to brunch at tryst and then lunch with people from work at this place called baked and wired. they have cupcakes and coffee. we made a little stop at jcrew where i bought this top i've been thinking about for a couple weeks. it's much cuter/pinker in person.

(j crew.com)

anyway i have to get going but i'm thrilled to have my laptop back and i'm looking forward to catching up on what everyone else has been up to for the last couple of days.

stars shinin' right above you

well. bad news. my AC adaptor on my laptop is toast, so i'm out of business until some time next week when the new one arrives. fortunately with my fancy phone i have email and facebook, but i can't update my blog from it so i'll be off the airwaves.

it should be a low-key weekend/week though. tomorrow we have a staff vs intern football game which will be a lot of fun. i'm slightly concerned over my lack of tennis shoes. i'll be running in silver ballet flats :)

happy weekend! see you next week.

the land of the sun

it's a week from thanksgiving which means it's a week from the socially acceptable time period for CHRISTMAS MUSICCC!! the hardest part about being in taiwan in december was missing out on the christmas goodness in america. no red starbucks cups. no christmas music in the grocery store. no red and green everywhere you look. i think of myself as a summer girl, but christmas is a whole other thing.

anyway i guess i shouldn't get ahead of myself. right now i'm looking forward to thanksgiving. i'm making green bean casserole, pumpkin pie and becca's mom's hot fruit salad. have you had 'dump cake?' ..we were just talking about this the other day at quizno's how there are some things i would never order because i'm too embarrassed to say the name. like 'sammies'. and tonight at the crepe place all of the crepes have stupid names, but i just ordered mine by ingredients. OCD? afraid of small scale public humiliation? who knows.
ANYHOW dump cake, while the name is not so nice, is delicious. it's a can of crushed pineapple, a can of cherry pie filling, topped with a box of yellow cake mix, topped with half a stick of butter. it might be a whole stick. half would probably work. but it is deeeelicious. so bad for you, but so good.

dinner with this boy marc tonight. he has:
attended school in..
switzerland
hong kong
canada
worked in..
australia
india
interesting hm? ..and he read shantaram.

it's good to see you

spent the morning pulling up broccoli and planting garlic in a very fancy organic garden. giant compost bins, about 20 brooms hidden behind a tree, a beehive. it was awesome once the sun came out. brr it is so chilly in the shade.

then this evening i got to take a really fancy tour. i will happily email you details if i haven't already.

tonight on the metro there was the sweetest blonde 3 year old girl sitting on her dad's lap asking a million questions. the guy sitting next to her was terribly attractive and couldn't stop himself from giggling.
why is that man sleeping on the metro?
why does that girl have a bike?
her bike is too big, it will get hit by a car.
how can that man sleep on the metro?
do you see her dress?
i'm not sleepy at all. i could stay up all night.
finally attractive guy said 'these are all questions i think to myself but that i would never ask out loud.' if it wasn't so late at night i would have gotten off 2 stops early with him just to chat him up. am i becoming one of those creepy people? i have a weakness for sweater vests.

i change shapes just to hide in this place

welllll i thought i was going to have exciting new crush news for you but that just didn't end up working out. but it did kind of wake me up to the fact that i'm going to have to move out of my familiar circle of friends if i want to meet any potential new boys. so. look forward to awkward stories of random outings. isn't it funny how it just seems to be one of the laws of the universe that you can never find someone when you're looking for them? frustrating!
jamil told me about this random indian food truck that pops up in different locations every week, and we finally went today because it was in farragut square. you have to follow it on twitter (yuck) to find out where it is that day. but man it was deeelicious food. i guess i never ended up getting a picture of the actual food, but i had pumpkin curry and chicken tikka masala with rice. $6.
(photo from washington post online)
...i was so excited about the food that i didn't notice that this guy was in costume. when we got back, jamil and lona were talking about the guy's fake mustache and i could have sworn it was real. didn't even see the turban.

apparently there's also a random korean food truck and a random cupcake truck. not so excited about cupcakes, but i could go for korean.

big day tomorrow! i have to be at work at 8:15. just picture me at the most famous garden in the US.

girls become lovers

i just don't have enough time to type all of this right now so let's do..
friday: beer pong tournament down the street. my team (colt for heisman) lost, but i got to meet my friend andy's roommate, marc, who recently moved to DC. we had a lot of fun. and i learned how to play flip cup. i guess i've always known.. but i haven't played that very much.

saturday: miriam and i went to see where the wild things are. it wasn't fantastic. maybe if i was more into the book as a kid or something? but it was just an expensive activity. spending $11 on a movie? i don't think so.american chinese food.and we had american chinese food from down the street. i spoke chinese to the owner and he was less than impressed.

that night we went to some bar in adam's morgan for karaoke. no one from our group ended up singing. we just got hit on by random creeps. i remembered why i hate random bars on saturday nights and have made a vow to myself not to go to any more of them.

but! today was lovely.
miriam and i went to eastern market which is a street with a bunch of tents set up with people with paintings, art, jewelry and food.
this is just a random wall but i thought the lattice was pretty with the leaves.
i had jalapeno and cheese tamales for lunch there and they were sooo yummy. there was this one building full of deli counters. it was amazing. i was in food heaven.
then this evening, abha and john and i went to a wine bar. then john, miriam and i went to marvin again for mussels and french bread dipped in the juice. man. i could live on that stuff.

but the most exciting part of the entire weekend was when we were finished with dinner and john said hey let's just check out what's behind this black unmarked door.. and we opened it and there was a staircase with a man on a stool with a list. we obviously weren't on the list so he just said 'let me see if there's room inside' and he disappears.. comes back and opens this other door and then we were magically inside a speakeasy!
turns out they serve prohibition era drinks. i don't know how people find out about it, but it was relatively full. i ordered some variation on a mint julep. it came in the traditional metal cup with a big chunk of ice on top. kept me warm all the way home.

and that was my weekend.

square cut or pear shaped

just checking in to say i'm not MIA. headed out the door but i'll update tomorrow. happy weekend :)camp counselor 2006.

apple of my eye

you know you wear skirts and dresses too often when people's first reaction when they see you is 'are you wearing pants?!' three separate times, friends. chris has even started calling me 'pants'. pretty funny. i just feel better in skirts.
prom '02. i feel like all of me is the same except my arms have gotten fatter over time. :)

when i was in high school, i literally wore skirts every single day. i didn't even own a pair of jeans until i was a junior and then it was a big deal when i showed up in them one day. that seems silly to me now though that i live in jeans when i'm not at work. i just didn't know what i was missing.
high school megan. more evidence against short hair.

are you experiencing the winter dry skin yet? you know when your skin gets so dry that it's itchy and feels like it's going to crack off your face? hate that. the clinique famous yellow lotion is a liiiittle too heavy though.
all i can think of is girly stuff tonight.

the most wonderful day of the year

it's 11:11 on 11/11!

oooh mannn i can hardly wait to tell you about something but you have to wait until this weekend.

well we had veterans day off so i slept in until 9, read a few chapters of shantaram, did laundry, miriam and i went to a coffee shop in spite of the rain and general dreariness. i've never lived somewhere where it drizzled so much. a guy on the elevator told me it's supposed to actually pour tomorrow. i don't believe it.

miriam & i threw a quick dinner party tonight. we had one vegetarian and one lactose intolerant person so we ended up with DIY tacos so you could just leave out what you don't eat. it went over well. becca and nirav brought sangria. we played apples to apples which is so much fun with people you know well. john blew us out of the water.

it's weird having a day off in the middle of the week. i actually looked up the time of the texas football game because i was convinced it was saturday for a couple hours.

life is a hiiighway

thank GOODNESS the world series is over because glee is back this week!

i just have nothing to say right now. no work tomorrow! it will be a day of catching up. laundry, groceries, random stuff.

at subway today:
guy 2 ahead of me in line gets a meatball sub with provolone and honey mustard dressing
me: honey mustard on a meatball sub?!
guy in front of me: i was just going to comment on that too
meatball guy: it's delicious.
guy: you can go ahead of me
i order 3 cookies
guy: those look like delicious cookies
me: i'm not giving you any of my cookies
guy: i tried
me: have a good day.

p.s. dear marisa,
there is nothing good about spring other than the new leaves on trees.
xoxo
megan

look at tiger butter. it is so funny most of the time.

just a little bit caught in the middle

i have the kind of hiccups that feel like your lungs are going to cave in. no fun.

tonight everyone went bowling at a very special bowling alley and i got 4th. jonny had 109 or something, next was 98, 97 and i had 96. it's nerve wracking to bowl when 20 people are watching you. but we had a good time.

every season except spring has things i look forward to. winter is right up there with summer. some of my favorite things are..
hot drinks
exfoliating and lotioning
flannel jammies
flannel sheets
thick sweaters
layers
a heavy blanket on top of your bed
watching movies on the weekends
pink cheeks
earmuffs
feeling cozy
nog
spiced cider and mulled wine at parties
christmas cookies and peppermint bark
wearing socks

i'd imagine everyone likes those things. did i leave anything out?

p.s. not a coincidence- a bunch of the teachers in taiwan have been traveling to thailand lately, and i watched a travel show the other night about thai cooking and they were in bangkok where i visited and they showed how fish sauce was made. and this weekend my faaaavorite blogger is in bangkok.

don't let me go

breakfast: butternut squash risotto leftovers
lunch: 1/3 of a loaf of olive bread from the farmer's market
snack: chocolate glazed krispy cream donut
happy hour: chips & queso and a margarita
dinner: butternut squash pasta, green beans, french bread and apple crisp at becca and nirav's

no wonder i weigh 5 lbs more than last week. let me followup by saying that i don't diet/worry about what i eat or get on the scale with any kind of regularity. i'm just sayin.

today was beaaaauuutiful outside. 70s, sunny, breezy. abha and i went to the farmer's market, i read a couple chapters of shantaram with the windows open, olive bread in hand. john, abha, her boyfriend pedro and i went to lauriol and had margaritas and chatted over queso. pedro had never had queso before. that is a travesty.

if you've never had queso before, pllllllease find some in your area or just make it. the easy way is 1 brick of velveeta + 1 can of rotel which is basically diced tomatoes and peppers with some lime. it looks disgusting and the whole process is kind of gross, but it is delicous.

i'm way behind schedule. exciting week ahead!

jeffy

..while creeping around j. crew.com with me on skype..

"what i'm gonna do is go buy a badass suit. and i'm not gonna ever wash it or take it off and it's just gonna get nasty. where you can just see the nasty. and then i'm gonna wear it to formal parties and pretend like i don't look disgusting."

"ohmygod who would pay $80 for a soft v neck argyle sweater?"

and he sent me this video which is pretty funny actually.

touching hands.. reaching out

i just had one of 'those mornings' this morning. i changed outfits literally 10 times, was running late, realized i left my phone at home once i had gotten to the metro, and there was no raspberry iced tea at CVS. i ended up going back to my apartment on my lunch hour because i felt so off without my phone.

i'm trying to think of something else to say, but i think i'm just out of ideas tonight. it's getting truly cold in this city and it's just so nice to be inside, under a blanket, with the heat on.

i'm thinking about cutting my hair so it has a little more movement.
too short. and the bangs. i had those until i was 19, friends. this was an impromptu photo shoot (by myself) while i was reading a book for english as a sophomore in college.
too long.
wayyy too long.
too layered.just right. i think.

your golden wings

this is one of those days when a picture is going to say 1,000 words because i'm running late and i want to get through a chapter or two of my book before i pass out at 1130. these pictures are gram's house leftovers. i always like to see inside other people's houses though, don't you?
this is the downstairs bathroom. my mom liked the border so much that she changed our kitchen wallpaper so now it's the border in our kitchen.
see? ours is up high.
back to gram's. this is the porch and it's my favorite place in the house. it was an addition that's more or less just stuck to the side of the house on the second floor. it feels like you're in a tree house. there's no better napping spot on earth. and they bring you snacks if you just sit there long enough.

mom sent the light-up garland for gram's birthday.
spanky made those hanging halloween things. i still have an extra if someone needs some handmade halloween cheer for next year.
could it be any more grandparent's house in this picture?
'be my guest'.
aunt tiny, gram's sister, found a box of old stuff. this is gram's autograph book from school in the '40s. they all signed with funny little rhymes that i wish i could remember. stuff like 'roses are red, violets are blue, no one at school is as sweet as you.'

time to read! woooo friday!