Full House; long weekend
Been back in DC for a few days... here's a quick recap:
J. picked me up from the airport on Saturday afternoon (Thanks, JD!) and brought me to his house so I could hang out with K. and "Hannah banana." I have to say, it was heartwarming that the little one was so excited to see me! She was sooo excited that she didn't stop talking for the whole four hours I was with her! I should have taken a picture or two, but I was too tired, either from flying or from being on the receiving end of all that Hannah energy. Wow. I brought her a little stuffed armadillo - I figured she didn't need another teddy bear - and she knew exactly what it was! (Apparently there was a Dora/Diego show about armadillos, there's even a song!) So that was a big hit. Then we played with puffy stickers, read books, and generally jumped around for a while, until it was time for me to go to Bailey's to watch the first USC football game of the season.
Woo hoo! USC won! Bailey's was packed with Trojans fans. It was a bit of a slow start... only 16-7 at halftime, but our new QB, John David Booty (heh. great name) turned out to be pretty good, and threw three touchdown passes in the fourth quarter alone. Mom and I left after the third quarter, though, as it was approaching midnight. (I think we probably would have left a little earlier if we had realized that it was on regular ESPN and not on satellite.)
Sunday (after recovering from late night watching football), I went to brunch with the pub quiz girls. I missed the girls so much! It was awesome - we stuffed our faces at the Whitlow's buffet, giggled a lot, and generally made a nuisance of ourselves in the restaurant. But we were so overjoyed when the waitress brought us coffee, we made her day! After meandering through Barnes and Noble like a "herd of literate bison*," we had to say farewell. :( [teft detherrent, anyone?]
Then mom and I went to Costco. (E. drove me there in her fancy-shmancy new car! Next time someone offers you a ride in a new Saturn, you should take it. Comfy ride, good turning radius, excellent highway pickup, and seriously powerful a/c vents.) and even though I had just finished a brunch of eggs, 1/2 waffle, bacon/sausage, and a pile of crab legs, a person (ME) just cannot turn down tasting day at Costco. Actually, it was beneficial, because we ended up buying the caramel-apple pie to serve as dessert for the CASC meeting on Tuesday.
As we were pulling up in front of Costco, mom called to tell me that Agassi had lost. Dani TM'ed me the same news at the same time. Mom was in tears. Unfortunately, the store only shows movies (not real-time tv) on their sale tv's, so we couldn't watch Andre's tearful farewell until we got home. But by then, they were showing it over and over on every station and every website, and we were in danger of saturation. Sunday night we went out for dinner to a sushi place on MacArthur Blvd. It was very good and not terribly expensive - Bryan took the takeout menu so he can call ahead and go pick up food. :)
When we came home from the sushi place, Dad had come home from his week of antiquing in
Maine. He brought home an afghan! No, not a blanket, not a person from the middle-east... a life-sized stuffed afghan dog for my aunt, who is a former breeder/handler and now a show judge. I had to take a picture - Alfie (that's his name, it's on the dog tag!) looks so real!!
Monday (after recovering from late night watching US Open tennis), mom and I first went to her friend Sally's house to water the piano. (Yes, I said water the piano: apparently, if you're a serious pianist, you have a fancy system to keep your piano humidified, and since Sally has been out of town, the piano was getting dry.) Then we went to the gym. I did a serious weight/cardio workout - Tina would have been proud - while mom did water aerobics. Monday afternoon I did some catch-up work that mom had saved for two months. Someday I'll have to teach her how to do some of this herself...
The rest of the day was all about cleaning up the house, since we were having the CASC people over for dinner on Tuesday. It's actually very impressive how clean the house can be when certain people put their minds to it. ;)
Tuesday was pretty boring... work, making guacamole and pasta salad, setting up for guests... Then the nice man appeared with our brisket, chicken and salmon from Rockland's - YUM. Well, ok, Texas bbq brisket is better, and we had something of an argument over whether Rockland's, Red Hot & Blue or Old Glory is better... I'd go with OG, RH&B, and then Rockland's, in that order (at least in the DC area. In Austin, Salt Lick, County Line and Rudy's.) However, Old Glory is in Georgetown and parking is a challenge there, so RH&B won out most often when I was here. I miss the pulled pork!
That's enough for now. I'm tired, and Andy Roddick is playing Lleyton Hewitt, so I have to pay attention. Tomorrow night is Blake-Federer... that's gonna be something.
J. picked me up from the airport on Saturday afternoon (Thanks, JD!) and brought me to his house so I could hang out with K. and "Hannah banana." I have to say, it was heartwarming that the little one was so excited to see me! She was sooo excited that she didn't stop talking for the whole four hours I was with her! I should have taken a picture or two, but I was too tired, either from flying or from being on the receiving end of all that Hannah energy. Wow. I brought her a little stuffed armadillo - I figured she didn't need another teddy bear - and she knew exactly what it was! (Apparently there was a Dora/Diego show about armadillos, there's even a song!) So that was a big hit. Then we played with puffy stickers, read books, and generally jumped around for a while, until it was time for me to go to Bailey's to watch the first USC football game of the season.
Woo hoo! USC won! Bailey's was packed with Trojans fans. It was a bit of a slow start... only 16-7 at halftime, but our new QB, John David Booty (heh. great name) turned out to be pretty good, and threw three touchdown passes in the fourth quarter alone. Mom and I left after the third quarter, though, as it was approaching midnight. (I think we probably would have left a little earlier if we had realized that it was on regular ESPN and not on satellite.)
Sunday (after recovering from late night watching football), I went to brunch with the pub quiz girls. I missed the girls so much! It was awesome - we stuffed our faces at the Whitlow's buffet, giggled a lot, and generally made a nuisance of ourselves in the restaurant. But we were so overjoyed when the waitress brought us coffee, we made her day! After meandering through Barnes and Noble like a "herd of literate bison*," we had to say farewell. :( [teft detherrent, anyone?]
Then mom and I went to Costco. (E. drove me there in her fancy-shmancy new car! Next time someone offers you a ride in a new Saturn, you should take it. Comfy ride, good turning radius, excellent highway pickup, and seriously powerful a/c vents.) and even though I had just finished a brunch of eggs, 1/2 waffle, bacon/sausage, and a pile of crab legs, a person (ME) just cannot turn down tasting day at Costco. Actually, it was beneficial, because we ended up buying the caramel-apple pie to serve as dessert for the CASC meeting on Tuesday.
As we were pulling up in front of Costco, mom called to tell me that Agassi had lost. Dani TM'ed me the same news at the same time. Mom was in tears. Unfortunately, the store only shows movies (not real-time tv) on their sale tv's, so we couldn't watch Andre's tearful farewell until we got home. But by then, they were showing it over and over on every station and every website, and we were in danger of saturation. Sunday night we went out for dinner to a sushi place on MacArthur Blvd. It was very good and not terribly expensive - Bryan took the takeout menu so he can call ahead and go pick up food. :)
When we came home from the sushi place, Dad had come home from his week of antiquing in
Maine. He brought home an afghan! No, not a blanket, not a person from the middle-east... a life-sized stuffed afghan dog for my aunt, who is a former breeder/handler and now a show judge. I had to take a picture - Alfie (that's his name, it's on the dog tag!) looks so real!!Monday (after recovering from late night watching US Open tennis), mom and I first went to her friend Sally's house to water the piano. (Yes, I said water the piano: apparently, if you're a serious pianist, you have a fancy system to keep your piano humidified, and since Sally has been out of town, the piano was getting dry.) Then we went to the gym. I did a serious weight/cardio workout - Tina would have been proud - while mom did water aerobics. Monday afternoon I did some catch-up work that mom had saved for two months. Someday I'll have to teach her how to do some of this herself...
The rest of the day was all about cleaning up the house, since we were having the CASC people over for dinner on Tuesday. It's actually very impressive how clean the house can be when certain people put their minds to it. ;)
Tuesday was pretty boring... work, making guacamole and pasta salad, setting up for guests... Then the nice man appeared with our brisket, chicken and salmon from Rockland's - YUM. Well, ok, Texas bbq brisket is better, and we had something of an argument over whether Rockland's, Red Hot & Blue or Old Glory is better... I'd go with OG, RH&B, and then Rockland's, in that order (at least in the DC area. In Austin, Salt Lick, County Line and Rudy's.) However, Old Glory is in Georgetown and parking is a challenge there, so RH&B won out most often when I was here. I miss the pulled pork!
That's enough for now. I'm tired, and Andy Roddick is playing Lleyton Hewitt, so I have to pay attention. Tomorrow night is Blake-Federer... that's gonna be something.
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