goodbye 2009

well it was a nice last day at the grandparent's house. the roberges came by to say goodbye and madeline stopped by. we had mussels and beef stew for dinner, yu-um. i'm all packed up, showered and i think i perfectly timed my book so i have a chapter to read tonight and a chapter or two for the plane. some call it neurotic, some call it good planning.

alex guppy's mom finally wrote on her blog about alex's surprise visit. he hadn't been home in TWO YEAAARS since he left for taiwan, and he flew home and surprised her on christmas eve. he told me about it when i was in taiwan and i diiiied keeping it a secret, but i did. i'm not the world's best secret keeper, truth be told. but he knocked on her door and she flew into his arms. sounded adorable. he must be going through some serious culture shock though. america is no taiwan.

time to explain some things to gram about the computer and saving pictures before bed. dc tomorrow! i'm kind of excited. hope it isn't too snowy or cold.

so i can be taller than

i think i'm on to something. forget test screenings. i know how you can tell how seniors will react to a movie or tv show: the spanky snore factor. here's how you calculate it.. sit spanky on the couch in front of your desired movie or show for an hour and see what percentage he snores through.

the theory is not widely tested yet, but here are the preliminary results:
julie and julia: snore factor of 50
cable news: 40
national news: 10
dirty jobs: 60
now here's where it gets interesting.
funny girl: 5
something's gotta give: 0! not a snore in the house
megan's home movies: 30

we've applied for the patent.

today was pretty low key. we packed up the remaining christmas cookies and shipped them to texas. made/ate pea soup. BLTs for lunch. mike rowe dirty jobs this evening. i hate that show sometimes because it's always hilarious when you watch it a) by yourself or b) with jeffy. but every time i hype it up and show it to a stranger, it's never funny. tonight he was pulling a truck out of a frozen lake. not funny at all.

nobody is gonna rain on my parade

10 things that only grandparents do
1. save 10 green beans in a glass container for the next day
2. begin sentences with 'now you're not going to understand this, but..'
3. force feed you cookies
4. throw your favorite foods in the shopping cart without asking
5. pick up the coupon books from the outlet mall information booth
6. read the VCR player manual
7. call the helpline on the back of the VCR player manual
8. carry around three handkerchiefs at all times
9. know exactly in which room, in which drawer, lives the jewelry cleaner (i'm an English major too.. do you believe it?)
10. knit 3/4 of your scarf and give you all the credit

we just finished watching funny girl after we successfully navigated the VCR.

oh i forgot to tell you about last night. my cousin donna, her husband scot (1 T), and their kids zach (14) and hunter (4) came to visit on their way to the great state of maine. i haven't seen hunter since he was a baby so he naturally didn't remember me.. although he knows who i am because he has 2 cousin megan's: big megan and little megan. i'll let you guess which one i am.

anyway he was shy at the beginning but once gram told him i was a teacher, it's like a door opened. before i knew it, we were playing hide and seek and he was ordering me around like a pro. megan! you hide this time. megan! you count to twenty thirty and i'll hide. megan! come look at my game.

little kids are so much fun. i need to find some when i get back to DC, if i stay.

le vie en rose

christmas was fun at gram and spanky's house. the christmas tree was up before christmas eve which is unusual for me. we usually get a sad tree at the last possible moment at our house. i didn't hint for presents this year but everyone did very well. now i'm warm and i have christmas socks to last a lifetime.

i was more excited about my brother getting an iphone than i was about anything else though. he's had a cracked phone for forever and my mom and i have iphones and jeffy has been left out, but now he's in our club. he sent me a couple of pictures. i think he likes it. hopefully he'll figure out all of the cool stuff it can do that mom and i haven't learned yet.
aunt carol heads to a party in another state tomorrow so it'll just be the grandparents and i hanging out for my last five days. we'll find things to do in spite of the snow and cold. it snowed all day long today.

hope everyone else had a merry christmas! let us know if you need a shipment of cookies. we're swimming in them.

christmas eve

i'm pretty sure this photo speaks for itself.

let it snow

well today was the end of a tiny era. i finished julie and julia, the book.. aaand i watched the movie. it wasn't near as wonderful as the book (movies never are, are they?) but it was fun to see. it's a shame because she has so much more personality in the book. i think i might read her blog this year. she seems like someone you'd want to be friends with.

a million cups of tea later, we're headed to bed. i'm looking forward to tomorrow! christmas eve is one day closer to christmas.

called the kuo's from the command center in gram and spankys room. grandpa just kept laughing at me speaking chinese. there are so many words that get lost in translation. cold (leng) sounds just like busy (mang) over the phone. i was trying to say it's so cold here, but he thought i meant it's so busy. nuances! fun to talk to them, either way. they're excited that it's christmas tomorrow in taiwan.

over the white and drifting snow

spanky in the hat gram knitted.
wooo gram and spankys house! it is so fun to be here and especially when everything is christmasy. we've already visited with half the neighborhood. this morning we went to breakfast with carl and madeline, long time friends. carl had all kinds of questions about the taiwanese healthcare system, and i, taiwanese ambassador, was happy to fill him in. i have nothing but good things to say about their version of socialized medicine.
these are boxes that ornaments came in that a certain blonde girl colored when she was 5.

this evening we went to the great state of maine for dinner at alexander's, our favorite italian place, with the roberges, who are arguably my favorite friends of my grandparents. mr. roberge and i share a birthday, so we have a special connection. they are too funny. they told lots of funny stories about their days when they owned a store, and their house is even more christmasy than ours, which is hard to believe. it's funny and sweet how everyone wants to tell me every story they can think of that involve my family, many of which i hear year after year, but you don't get tired of things like that.

when i got here, gram took me over to the tree to show me an ornament with a baby painted on it. it's me! when i was 1 or so i guess. mrs. roberge sent away for it.

anyway that's what we've been up to. a little shopping, a lot of eating, some christmas cookie baking. i'll try to update periodically but i don't always make it to the computer. hope everyone else is having a merry christmas or whatever you celebrate at your house :)
here's jeff at the new house looking creepy tonight. and if you look very carefully you might see a corner of ms. ripley.

all is calm, all is bright

there are 2 best things about snow. 1 is that it's so cozily quiet. it's not creepy quiet where you know if you scream, no one can is around to hear you (all single girls think about this on our way home at night). it's quiet even though snow is falling around you and it seems like it should sound like something because so much is going on. but it's just still. i love that 'sound'.

2 is how everyone turns into a little kid. when i walked to lunch yesterday, people of all ages were sliding down a hill on everything you can imagine. surf boards, boxes, sleds. lots of people just came outside to play or walk around. it was a lot of fun.
time to do the last minute packing before bed. early flight tomorrow! woo grandparents house.

snow is glistening

it is a BLIZZARD. and here are my plans for today:

lunch with a girl from work. straighten out overcharge on dry cleaning.
read at a coffee shop in adams morgan for 3 hours. visit abha in dupont.
have dinner with john. party at brians. in the snowwww. i brought my spend the night stuff in case of emergency. so i think i'm all set!

4am update:

i ended up getting a misscoded dry cleaning bill fixed, met lona for lunch at open city, got pooped on TWICE by birds who were up in the rafters by the heaters, spent 6 hours at becca's reading, chatting and watching the sopranos while the snow steadily fell all day long, then i headed out to meet my roommate at a party. then we spent an hour waiting for the metro home and ended up chatting with these two fellows about a whole bunch of topics. and now i'm home after trudging through 2 feet of snow. long day.

sleighbells ring

it's snowy again!

i haven't been around snow in long enough that it's still fun and magical for me. last time it snowed in DC i stayed inside all day so this was the first time in a looong time that i've heard that crunch under my feet and had snowflakes stuck in my eyelashes. so much fun.
a little blurry. goodnight!

peace, peace

the picture [we've all/i've] been waiting for:

who do you see first? ..maybe not the best day to wear my pink ruffle top.

let's get a closer look.

my hand was on her baaack!

o come emmanuel

i don't know the story of how my parents ended up together well enough to tell it without heavy editing.

my favorite story about them is really about me. my mom had a tumor on her pituitary gland that was taken out when she was 21. the doctor told her that her hormones would be screwed up and that she should check in with a fertility doctor if/when she thought she wanted to have kids and they would figure it out.

actually aunt carol told me this weekend that my dad had come to her after he found that out.. my dad really loves kids.. and asked her about what he should do since he knew my mom probably couldn't have kids. but aunt carol said if he loved her enough to marry her, it would no problem to adopt kids.

..here is the church and here is the steeple..

anyway they had just gotten married in august and they were going on a napa valley wine tasting tour that my dad had paid big bucks for and was excited for it to be a romantic weekend. so they were sitting in a restaurant, about to have a glass of champagne, and my mom took one sip and got sick. just looking at alcohol made her feel sick to her stomach.

faj was super angry that he had paid all of this money and my mom wouldn't drink any wine. it got to the point that she thought she was an alcoholic because of her reaction to the thought of alcohol. she called my grandma and gram said all of her symptoms sounded like a pregnancy. my mom said impossible. but lo and behold, it was me.

i think it's cool that my mom was that in tune with her body that it wouldn't allow her to drink alcohol when she was pregnant. and i'm a miracle. we'll end there for tonight.

my dad circa 1984.

as time goes by

one of my favorite bloggers has been posting the stories of her life and it's been so interesting. it made me want to tell you my favorite story about how my grandparents met.

my grandma was working as a switchboard operator for the phone company back when you had to call the operator and switch the lines. all of the switchboard girls lived in the same hotel. my grandpa was just returning from germany and i thiiiink he was staying in a nearby hotel with his friends.

..she's really going to appreciate this photo.

he had a big crush on my grandma so he used to wait outside the phone company so he could walk her home at night. but there was a little catch.. he was engaged. and my grandma's friends told her so. so gram refused to talk to him even though he continued to wait outside for her day after day. finally, one day he told he her was no longer engaged.. and she let him walk her home.

the rest is history.

my dad was also engaged before he reconnected with my mom. that's a story for another day.

it's now or never

this weekend was a whirlwind. i went to maryland to help my aunt's friends pack for an impending move. friday night, their neighbor met me at a faaaancy club downtown which i had no idea existed. i walked in, wearing my work clothes, which fortunately that day were pretty cute in navy wool pants and ruby red patent leather flats.. and i'm surrounded by staff in tuxes. i googled it while i was sitting there and it said visitors should be wearing business attire and can not use electronic devices for any reason.

we had a nice chat driving home and i spent the weekend hanging out with my aunt and her friends. they have a beautifully restored house from the early 1900s i believe. we toured around downtown chestertown, ate yummy food and drank lots of tea. they're cat people, so i was covered in white fur at all times, but other than that it was really nice and relaxing.

i'm not used to being around people who are my parents age who never had kids. they're definitely a different sort of people. this couple had a beautiful wine cellar and a serious china collection. their new house has an entire closet that runs half the length of the house full of china.

this is an exciting week! last week for the majority of us at work. i'm coming back in january, but most people aren't. it will be weird without them. but we'll have a good last week. i want to find a party dress that works for parties with my friends and parties with my grandparents. that could be tricky. this was 2007's dress at the party becca and i hosted at our apartment.

$20 at the gap.

mix and mingle

i'm just on my way to bed but i had a lovely weekend and i'll tell you all about it tomorrow night.

for nowww.. how's this for a chain of non-coincidences?

there was a kid, will, in my high school. we weren't good friends, but i knew he was moving to another part of town and we only had six weeks left of tenth grade. i was telling my mom about it one day and she said that was silly, he should live with us (my dad did the same thing when his family moved in the middle of high school). i proposed the idea to will. he thought it was silly. my mom called his dad. he thought it was silly. will went to a new school for 2 weeks, found out it would be impossible to assimilate, and came to live with us.

will and i became very close friends over the next 2 years. the group of friends that merged became the group we still hang out with now.

will taught at this summer camp in DC one year in college. he had a great time.

the next summer, he was dating my best friend, becca.. so becca and i worked at the camp with him that year.

at camp, i met alex guppy (who tried to win me over all summer, might i add). but i had a crush on his friend jerry, who was a counselor in the other half of the camp so i never saw him. but i always felt like i should have gotten to know jerry.

fast forward to the year after i graduated. i was working at a small publishing company in austin. the owner had a random thing for southern china, so we had a woman who came in and taught chinese classes twice a week.. even though it was completely unrelated to the job. so i learned 20 sentences of chinese.

after i had been there for a year, i get a text from alex guppy, who tells me that he's been in taiwan for a year and that jerry is applying too. i'm thinking 'i know 20 sentences of chinese and i've always wanted to get to know jerry.. why dont I go to taiwan?' so i apply 3 days later. we both get accepted, and we're in taiwan 2 months later.

then i had been there a year and i was feeling homesick one weekend so i read absolutely everything and watched every video on a certain govt website.. which led me to apply for a certain job.. which landed me in DC.

and that is why there are no coincidences.

giddy up, jingle horse

i wish you could just be honest in job applications. i want to be able to write 'when i say efficient, i mean seriously efficient. your biggest problem will be that i'm constantly asking for more to do.' but you just can't say that. anyway. the job count is up to 9 now. fingers crossed!

today was a really good day in spite of the plummeting temperature. i gave in and skipped my daily raspberry iced tea ($1) and bought a hot chocolate at our local coffee shop ($2.70).. which reaffirmed my belief that buying powdered mexican hot chocolate and tiny bottles of milk and making my own hot chocolate work is worth the slight headache.

i don't know if i've mentioned the man who stands outside of this sushi place every morning. he kind of reminds me of fajjy except he has white hair. same mustache and droopy eyes though. anyway this man and i smile at each other every morning and this morning i was particularly stiff because of the cold and he said 'it's freezing out! you need a real coat' and i said i knooww i'm frozen. so i'm all excited for when i get my christmas coat so i can show the man.

one day i'm going to stop and talk to him. i'm sure he has an interesting story. and he isn't homeless. i'm not sure what he does. he was out there on tuesday when we went to the indian food truck too. so there's a tiny project.

saw a special dog today

what child is this

..guess whereee!

that's gingerbread covered in white chocolate. the little black thing in front is bo.
so i wrote the christmas 'newsletter' this year. i'm interested to see how much maj tweaks it. we have very different writing styles. it was kind of weird to write it since i kind of missed out on texas 2009. but it worked. i guess you can't miss tooo much when you talk to someone in the fam every day.
me & miriam


these wreaths appeared to be real leaves all hooked together and then sprayed with red patent leather-like stuff. they were so beautiful. this is the hallway connecting the east wing to the west wing.

amazing day in washington today.

p.s.

the fire is so delightful

well, in the spirit of holiday wish lists, here's mine. there's only one thing, and it's a wool coat from j. crew. i've always thought that they were too expensive to ask for (around $200), but since i don't need/can't carry anything home with me, it's easy to choose just one thing that i've been thinking about for years and years.

this one is my fav. i think blondes are so pretty in navy.

i made chicken and wild rice soup tonight and it is delicious, if i do say so. the rice wasn't fully cooked in the first batch i ate.. which i just figured out when i went to put it away and the rice was fully puffed. whoops. maybe that's why it feels like i ate soup made of rocks.

there's a tip though. wild rice at giant: $16 for a tiny box. wild rice at trader joes: $5 for a giant bag.

i leave you with this amazing speech from NY state senator diane savino about why we should legalize gay marriage. she is so right on. it's 7 minutes, just listen to it while you read the news or whatever you do online.

with space to swing your arms around

we've officially entered winter. this picture is from saturday, but it still feels chilly. the ground is frozen. maybe i've fallen a few too many times in this town, but my legs feel really unsteady walking on the frozen ground. it's like you're waiting for the feeling of falling on an ice rink. i've fallen flat on my butt 5 times in 3 months here.

so i just got off the phone with the kuo's and mr. kuo wanted to know if i had a boyfriend and when i was coming to taiwan and what i'm doing for christmas. then he says love you, i say love you too, and he says 'very good!'

speaking of a bit of taiwan.. i finally opened one of my bags of tea. it is so fascinating to brew tea from real leaves.
i forgot the water needed to boil the first time around, so not much happened. i dumped the water out and started over. but you're supposed to wash the leaves first anyway so i guess it was fine.
eventually they all opened up. i allllmost cried drinking that tea. it felt like i was just sitting in the tea house with alex guppy and the tea lady, discussing how it has kind of a flowery taste in your throat afterwards.
anyway i'm trying really hard to get both feet in DC. this week i'm going to make up a cover letter for political jobs and just blitz the listservs from now until the end of january. if all went perfectly according to plan, i'd find something before i have to move out of this apartment and just seamlessly move into a real place with a real job. the hopes are pretty high, so we'll see. keep your fingers crossed.

sweetly singing

i'm late to bed so i'm just going to post pictures from this weekend from other people's cameras

this one isn't this weekend.. it was from the wine bar last weekend or a couple weekends ago with john and abha. and me and my "long" hair.

friday we had mojitos at abha's before going to dinner. this is me, john and marc. and the new hair.

saturday night we wall watched the UT game. becca, andy and i are on the couch. abha, john and marc's friend ryan are in the next row. then marc and this guy chuck/charles who's in law school. he took chinese in high school but i don't really understand anything he says.

today was a lot of fun. miriam and i went to the neighbors for brunch. we made a dutch baby. it looks fancy but it's one of the easiest things you can possibly make.

then this evening a whole bunch of us went to marvin, my fav restaurant, ate delicious mussels and chatted in the candlelit ambiance. it is so nice in there and the food is always good.

after dinner, we gave up our secret hangout and showed everyone where the speakeasy is. nine of us smushed into a 6 person area, but it was cozy. if they don't have a drink you want, you can tell the server what you like and he'll suggest something to suit your tastes. the guys were having fun with that.

i invited one of our newest friends, brian, to dinner and drinks and he was delightful. we met him a month or so ago at the beer pong tournament but i didn't even say hi to him then. he's outgoing, super nice, really intelligent. he's going to be a fantastic addition to our group.

sad that andy's going home, but it was nice to get everyone together for so many things while he was here.

p.s. aunt carol's dutch baby recipe
3 eggs

1/2 c flour

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup milk

2 tbsp butter, melted

oven 450, butter 10 inch skillet or pie platebeat eggs, add flour, stir in salt milk and butter

pour into cold, really buttered pan

bake 18min

drizzle 2 tbsp butter over, half a lemon, dust with a bunch of powdered sugar

i haven't felt so much like a 5 year old in a long time.

john texts me and says: winter wonderlandd!!!

which wakes me up

i read it and jump out of bed, look outside, run into the living room, hair rumpled and puffy eyes from just being asleep and do the squeaky yell to my roommate to my miriam "it's snowingggg!!!!" and then stand at the window for 5 minutes just looking at the snow while intermittently squealing.

andy and marc headed to the capitol but i just woke up. we had a fun night last night. well, a fun day. andy, bec, abha and i met up at lunch for crepes downtown. it was bizarre to see all of them on my lunch hour. then i took abha and andy to work! and they got to see what everything was like. i forgot how it all looks through fresh eyes. pretty exciting.

so then after work we all met up with more people and had drinks and had dinner at a sorta mexican place. not delicious but not bad. and the restaurant is really pretty. i was just happy to talk to my friends who have been friends for so long. i like how they all felt the need to tell marc and nirav myyy embarrassing stories but we never got into any of theirs. some of johns i guess.

later we met up with one of my favorite people from work and it was nice that he finally got to meet them. it's funny/awesome when worlds collide like that. i think it gives you much greater insight into who someone is. and i'm so proud of my friends and how we all fit together.

so that's my weekend. and now snow! and the big 12 championship tonight! it's going to be awesome.

everywhere you look

two stories, friends.

so i walk to work in theoretically comfy or at least flat shoes and then bring other shoes in my bag. lots of times i change before i get to the office so the shoes i walk in end up in my bag. this results in a layer of leaves, dirt and general crap in the bottom of my purse.. which gets under my fingernails when i'm digging around for my badge or my keys or whatever. so today! i decided to take everything out and dump it out.

so im sitting in the break room at work and i take everything out and shake my purse over the trash can. i was talking to someone so i wasn't really paying attention to what came out, and tonight when i was walking toward the metro i went to reach for my metro card and i realized that it was in a pocket that doesn't close and i accidentally threw it awayyy!! and it had SIXTY FIVE DOLLARSSSS on it!.

bad words came out of my mouth that never, ever come out. i was so upset and mad at myself because i know they empty the trash every night so it was gone.

but five minutes later i remembered that i wrote down the number and saved it in my wallet andd registered it online. so, all is not lost. it's just going to be annoying to get a new one and get it recharged. so that was a stressful success.

the other story is less of a story and more of a cool thing.. but i have this friend jill who i met when we were both trying out to be RAs our sophomore year. neither of us got it, but we had the same math class so we sat together and we've been friends ever since. we lived together in the dorm junior year when i got back from studying abroad. so at one of her birthday parties, i sat next to this guy, anand. we talked for 2 hours or so over margaritas as we were sitting there. that's the only time we've ever been together in person, but we catch up over facebook every 6 months or so.

it's all to illustrate how amazing facebook is in that you can meet someone for 2 hours and stay in touch with them even though you never see each other. and it's also to say that anand is one of those people i felt a special connection to even though we chatted so briefly, and now we keep in touch and it's like we've always been friends. so thank you, facebook.

glooooooooria

this is one of the coolest people in the worldd. he has some stories to tell. can you imagine being the person who smooths over all of the problems that pop up? amazing.

easy day. volunteered at a high school, went to a bake sale, listened to a cool talk, read a little bit at the end of the day. piece of cake. what's not a piece of cake is this weather. today was frigid and light rain that came at you horizontally, making umbrellas almost obsolete. and i busted out the berry colored wool beanie with a pom pom on top. i think jonny was embarrassed to be seen walking beside me.

i obviously need some of these $300 handmade moccasins from j. crew

are they serious?! seriously though they do look pretty toasty, don't they? i think i'd rather have 4 sweaters, 2 pairs of shoes and some pants.

funniest moment in a long time: my friend was going through a security gate and she started talking to me and wasn't paying attention and somehow the turnstile bar came right up between her legs and she let out a little yelp and got temporarily stuck for a minute while figuring out how to swing a leg over one side. we both giggled uncontrollably until the security guy also started laughing. it took us 7 minutes or so to get it out of our systems.

parumpumpumpum

sometimes i wish i was a guy so i could just wear a gray/black/brown suit, white shirt and different colored tie every day without having to think about it. instead, i'm armed with 7 cardigans in all shades of the rainbow, a couple of white shirts and a couple of other solid colored tank tops.. which is boring in its own right, but i feel like a canary yellow cardigan stands out a lot more than a yellow tie and thus you have to pay slightly more attention to how often you wear what, as a girl.

i am so exciteddd because miriam is home and andy is flying in from austin tomorrow! i haven't seen him since my birthday.

almost our entire core group of friends will all be together briefly.

random observations about the hill: each office can decorate however they want. some are full of stuff from their state, some are generic office-y. some are filled with friendly, engaging people.. some are filled with office drones who have had the joy sucked out of them, or maybe never had it to begin with. there are cute boys, dressed up women, lots of mahogany desks, navy carpet and doors that slam hard behind you.

i spent a few hours this morning going from door to door, handing things out.

p.s. you know at least one person who will be going on this tour next week! i'll fill you in.