Love the extra hour!

I was pleasantly suprised to find an extra hour to my day this morning!! LOVE IT!

It's been a fun weekend: one happy hour, an Indian dinner with cool people, 2 halloween parties and an otherwise relaxing weekend. Oh we went to "mortage school" through our credit union on Sat. a.m. as well. It was very informative. I don't think we are ready to buy, but when the time comes, I will have these materials to refer back on, which will be nice.

I think we might try and see Rosa Parks lie (lay?!) in state. She is there from 6 until midnight tonight and then for some hours in the morning.

Wedding Recap

So Ed and I woke up yesterday and drove 4 hours north to NJ. The ride went very well considering that 95 at times can be terribly congested. We were pleased with the time we made, and went to the the hotel so we knew where it was and then went downtown--very cute--and then got some lunch at a family-owned Italian place.

We met up with 2 of edge BC friends and changed in their room and then boarded a bus at about 3 for the church. It was a Byzatine catholic church, so they had some interesting twists, one including wearing a crown of leaves. Anyhoo, the ceremony was performed by edge priest from college, Father Don, and it was very nice.

Okay, now for the good stuff. So we get back about 6 and have an hour to kill before the cocktail reception. We hang out, and then head down at 7. The hotel was a gorgeous historic hotel with lots of dark woodwork with a great turn-of-the-century feel. Anyway, I was starving and started scarfing down food. The food selection was amazing: a carved meat station, a hot pasta station, a cook to order crepe station, a station with paella, a mussel and shrimp stew, and lasagna, and then the final table was about 15 feet long and had cheese and crackers, roasted vegetables, salsas, hummas, fresh mozarella, brushetto etc. As you can tell, there was just a tremendous amount of food--alot of which was "substantial". Ed and I had a discussion that this was the dinner--no doubt. The RSVP did not ask for a selection. This was it, which was great. The food was fantastic, so I keep eating. I am almost stuffed when I overhear someone commenting that need to be "saving themselves for dinner". UH OH. DINNER????????? This was the dinner!! Everyone was 100% sure of it. Except was were 100% wrong!!!!! I was full. I had no more room to eat. I managed though--an appetizer (which incidentally was this interesting tort with potato filling and cheese toping), salad, salmon, vegetables, potatoes, cake, ice cream and biscotti to go with the coffee later...i had a new understanding of what it meant to be "full". I seriously can not tell you HOW much food there was! And it was tremendous.

It was almost too much. I kinda feel like that did it to have "the wedding that everyone will talk about", but maybe they just like to feed people. Anyway, the rest of the evening was really fun. They had an awesome band and the actual dinner was in this gorgeous conservatory with chandeliers etc. We are now in NY at Patrick's apartment and are heading off to soon: a museum? a show? the city is ours...we'll see!

In other news, I know there are some excellent blogs out there, but seriously, Danny's this week is hysterical. If you have 2 seconds, check out the picture of him stuck in the bathroom window while he ponders the thought "can you be arrested for being stupid?"...seriously worth your time

Men's Suits and Crate and Barrel

Last night we went to the mall and picked up Ed’s suit that he bought and had to have tailored. Men do have it easy in my opinion. For one, there stuff really doesn’t go out of style. They can buy a suit and literally wear it for 5 years or more. Granted, they pay more upfront (than say what I do on dress pants and a sweater), but overall I think they make out cheaper. Plus, it is easy for them to put together an outfit in the a.m. I suppose this is by design.

Then we went to Crate and Barrel to get a wedding gift for the wedding that we have on Friday. I really love that store—very classic, clean lines. I remember it being more expensive though. Honestly. Does anyone agree? We bought 3 different sets of glasses for $44. I mean some stuff is more expensive but I thought it was more in line with a Pottery Barn, but it seems there prices are more like a Pier One or Target. Anyway, I went through the store doing a mental wedding registry. I love playing games with myself.

Weekend Recap

I have been fighting terrible allergies or a cold and it had made last week really tough. On Friday, we went to TWO—count ‘em—two parties. Those who know me know that I am lucky if I don’t fall asleep before 9 p.m. on a Friday. Anyway, one was a mini reunion of Ed’s china trip and the other was a birthday party. At the birthday party, we ran into a group of friend’s from Ed’s old office. They (this is a collective pronoun to include people from the office and their friends) are looking to start a book club. I, myself, along with Kevin Mauro have been looking to join a book club. Perfect!! I am excited and slightly intimidated because half of this crew went to non other than Havvvard (insert pretentious accent), but they are fun and interesting people and our only rule is that there can be no nazis except for Todd and he is only nazi about our 1 rule that “noone can be a dick”. Fair enough.

Saturday, we were awesomely productive in the morning, getting to the gym, getting some things picked up and I got to the tailor to finally get some pants taken in! That alone was a huge feat. We got some culture on in the afternoon checking out two fascinating exhibits at American history: one on polio and the other on Brown vs. Board of Education. We then went to a play that night called “Hauptman”. It was about the Lindberg kidnapping/trial. It was done at a community theater (Stephanie knows the director), and despite the stereotype of "community theater", the acting was actually really great.

Sunday, I made the mistake of taking some allergy medication that made me drowsy—aka walking zombie—from about 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. I did manage to get some groceries and do a few things around the house, but ended up taking a nap because the exhaustion was just overpowering. I had to succumb.

Matt Laurer Uses Ed's Quote

Last week Congress approved a $1 billion loan package to help the people of the Gulf Coast. Usually these loans are forgiven, Congress added language that makes sure none of these loans will ever be forgiven and the people of the Gulf Coast will have to pay back all of the money they get.

Ed wrote a quote for Carolyn about how Congress has taken the forgiveness clause out for the people of the Gulf Coast but similar loans for the people of Iraq to rebuild include loan forgiveness.

Matt Lauer used his quote (or the idea of it) when interviewing the president. Bush doesn't exactly address the issue in his response.

Lauer: "Some Democrats complain that there was wording was taken out of that rebuilding package -- a forgiveness clause -- that has traditionally has been included in loan packages in the past. ... Would you ask Congress to go back in that legislation and reinstate that forgiveness clause."

Bush: "I think what Congress said is that the previous loans were limited to a relatively small amount of money. These loans are a much greater amount of loans. And what Congress has said is that you'll have five years to repay, plus an additional five years to repay. And so I think it's the kind of package that Congress was comfortable with giving and I was happy to sign it."

Lauer: "Carolyn Maloney, who is a Democrat from New York ..."

Bush: "You're quoting a lot of Democrats today Matt. That's interesting."

Lauer: "She said that we aren't asking the people of Iraq to pay back the money we're spend there. Why are we asking the people of the Gulf Coast?"

Bush: "The people are Iraq are paying a heavy price for terrorism. A lot of people are dying. ... These people are working hard to establish a democracy and they're paying a serious price. ... One of the things I suggested was keep the politics out of New Orleans and Mississippi as we all work together to rebuild these communities. And we got people here who have volunteered their time from all over the country. They didn't say I'm a Democrat and I'm going to work here or I'm a Republican and I'm going to come and work here. They said I'm an American and I want to contribute. And the reason Laura and I here is because we want to encourage other Americans."

Columbus Day Blues

Aaahhh, I didn’t want to get up this a.m. Mostly because it is Columbus day and I would say 80% of DC is not working today, but alas, I am. For some reason knowing that others did not have to go to work made me not want to go either. Plus side—plenty of seats on the Metro.

Had a nice weekend with Ed’s mom and aunt in town this weekend. We haven’t been tourists for a while, so we saw some things that I haven’t been to in years: FDR memorial, changing of the guards at Arlington, and there were two exhibits at the American History museum that would have gotten by me—one on polio and one on Brown vs. Board of Education. We are so spoiled here that we don’t maximize our gift of having abundant and free museums.

Anyway, I am still bitter about being at work.

Fun weekend!

We had a fun weekend! We went shopping on Saturday for work clothes which we both need. I got some great purchases (and deals)! I bought black heels (I am trying to be more dressy at work), brown work pants, a t-shirt at BRepublic that I got for $1.25 because I had some money left over on a gift card, a courderoy blazer, and 2 necklaces (again trying to be dressier). Ed didn't find what he was looking for, a new suit, but that's okay. I was a little overwhelmed by the mall, though. It is so overstimulating.

Sat. night a group of 10 of us met at our house (we had to move the party outside) and headed to Blob's Park Polka Palace. It was great! They had German dancers for Octoberfest. It feels so good to get out and dance. I felt like an old timer (maybe because there was a large contigency of them there) who would go out dancing every weekend. Anyway, cheap beer and eats to boot--Blob's simply rocks.

Sunday we worked out and did some grocery shopping. We then went to dinner club for greek food at Sarah's cousin's house (she was dog sitting). Um, I want to steal their house. Perhaps I will just move in and see if they notice. It is a cute brick colonial decorated just how I would do it. Anyway, we had a great time and eat each course in a different room because we could.