he said. she said. a married couple's blog.

Tuesday, May 31

Last weekend was a pretty relaxing one. Keith and Shadé came down for a visit and a BBQ with Glen, Sarah and Emma. We put some finishing touches on the backyard (sand around the concrete stones finally), and generally tried to take it as easy as possible.

Things are about to get crazy.

Take-off-work-so-we-can-get-things-done-around-the-house-crazy.

Plus, we're starting on our busy social schedule for the summer. Honestly, I have like 10 friends and my summer social calendar is packed. How can people handle having more?

Friday, May 27

water water everywhere

Water main break outside the office. Some poor guy in a Caterpillar hit the pipe right on the corner of New Hampshire and 22nd and M, NW. But, this means I get to go home. With the water off, the cooling system in the server room will have to be brought down, so they'll shut off our internet, email, vms, everything. Good times.

Thursday, May 26

too early

So I'm walking down the street to the office from the Metro this morning, and I hear a guy come up on my right and say "Hi!" like he knows me. I say "Hello," thinking that it's Doug or someone else I actually know. It's not. "We've been playing commute tag the past few weeks, he says." No reaction from me. Never seen him before in my life. "I used to have hair." Still nothing. Sorry guy. "I'm Tom*. You work at Urban, too, right?" "Yes. That is right." So at least maybe he wasn't lying. There are 400 people here; I hardly know a fraction of them. I think he thought I was one of the newer research assistants or something, because he was quite taken aback when I told him I had been working here for just about 4 years. He asked a lot of questions in like half a block. I threw a couple "my husband"-s in there for good measure and I'm safely in my office now. All this before coffee!

I don't know if he was hitting on me, or just trying to make friends, or what, but man was it awkward. I forgot how much talking to strangers stresses me out. Learners in the Learning Lab is one thing. I'm not expected to make small talk if I don't want to. I get to know them, and then we chat. Plus, I'm not there to make friends. The two minute conversation with "Tom" was so nerve wracking. I hope I never have to do it again, honestly.

______________
*Not his real name.

Wednesday, May 25

never been good

I've never been able to handle jealousy very well. I've never been good at hiding it. But I'm working on it. I am.

Monday, May 23

sunday sunday sunday

Just hung out yesterday afternoon. We had a slightly crazy morning: somewhat impulsively put a contract on a house in the morning (which we didn't get). The afternoon was decidedly more lazy. I took photos of the clouds (more at flickr) while Brendan and Glen went to Lowe's.

Then we had an imromptu cookout (always the best kind) and played bocce. What I didn't get pictures of was Brendan and Glen trying to kick one of Emma's balls over the house. It was too dark, and we were all a little too tipsy, for pictures.

Friday, May 20

soggy

My feet are so soaked. So are my pants. I should have brought an extra pair of shoes and pants today. Maybe I'll just have to go shopping at lunch time...

Wednesday, May 18

back from the dead (almost)

Got back from Orlando last night after putting in 12-14-16 hour days followed by nights that usually didn't end until about 2:00. Then had to be at work at 7:00 on the later days.

So I'm pretty tired. So tired, in fact, that I doubt I'll be making it a whole day in the office today.

No incriminating photos this time. No photos really at all. It was Orlando, so it pretty much sucked.

Not as much drinking this time, though. Maybe I'm growing up.

Or getting old. Can't decide.

I'll be back to normal in a day or two.

Monday, May 16

head stand

Today I feel like someone is standing on my head. No wait, not just standing, but also jumping. Ugh. I don't normally have allergy problems, but there are just some days when the pollen is at this point where I can't stand it. Usually, it's only a couple of days, so I don't take any of the medications... Of course, today it doesn't help that the guys who mow a lot of lawns in our neighborhood are here doing their thing. I have to say, they don't seem to good at it. The weed wacker keeps going on and off and on and off. Talk about annoying. So the pain is two-fold (it was three until I had coffee), pollen and noise. Don't get me started on why a person with a little postage stamp like us needs to hire someone to cut their grass... We should actually start paying Glen! We only have the front to worry about mowing and two thirds of the time, Glen gets bored and cuts the front from his house to ours. I suppose taking care of their cats for a weekend and running around closing both our windows and theirs in the thunderstorm is a fair trade.

In other news, classes start tonight. The summer is usually really light. And since today is the very first day, I'm expecting only two or three learners. There hasn't been time for people to feel like they need extra help. Of course, I should see quite a few people who will just pop by to say hello at break time. This term is only 10 weeks, so it ends mid-July, and the next one won't start until after Labor Day. They want me to teach a "real" class, with a curriculum and a text book and homework and the whole deal, in the Fall. I just don't know if I'm ready for that. I didn't know if I was ready for being the official teacher of the Learning Lab either, but it feels like a bigger step. I have a certain freedom and flexibility in the Lab. I get to work on what the learners what to work on, I don't have to cover anything. And it changes from week to week what people need because different people will come. Plus, I get to really know each learner as a person. I really like that. I'm afraid I would lose all of that in a real class. The learners want me to teach another class too, but I think that's because I'm so flexible in the Lab. They can chat, they can do what they want. I'm generally a really nice person... In a real class, I'm afraid that I'd be much more of a hard-ass. When it comes down to it, I don't think I'll be anyone's favorite anymore if I take on the Math Applications class. I really love being a favorite. It would really hurt if that went away. Selfish, no?

Sweet Lord. They have their machines on again. Christ. I don't want to have the windows open to let more pollen in, but I don't want to have them closed either, because it's so damned nice outside!

Wednesday, May 11

all alone

Brendan's on his plane by now, on his way to Orlando for his office's annual meeting. He'll be back Tuesday. I'm used to it by now, it's the third year he's gone. Orlando is a much calmer town (I imagine, anyway) than last year's location: New Orleans.(This is what happened last year.)

Sure, I guess I'll miss having him around, but I'll be plenty busy... An excursion into Old Town this weekend with my mother and grandmother, teaching starting up again Monday... Plus, I'll be too busy playing my records (yes, real vinyl ones) that he doesn't like really loud and cooking food he doesn't like to smell cooking, and hogging all the covers to really have time to be emotional about it.

Monday, May 9

side trip

We took a little side trip this weekend before visiting the mothers to the "box factory". It was probably a factory of some sort (I'm too lazy to look it up at the moment), since it's on the river, but there's a broken sign that says "PAPER BOARD" on it so in high school, it became known as the box factory.

Anyway, there's a set of a few of the photos up on flickr.

women

So this article was only mildly interesting until I got to the end

"Personally, if something is meant for my 'hu-ha', I don't think I'm going to put it on my eyes," Hoffman added.

Now that, is priceless.

Thursday, May 5

medium rock

so mike doughty has started to grow up. last night at the show he proclaimed that small rock was dead, and long live medium rock. pretty good. early solo shows were populated mostly with soul coughing tunes, with a few of his own stuff mixed in. with the new album, the soul coughing is sparce (i believe there were only three, maybe four). plus, he put janine in the middle of the set, and no firetruck. trying to break away from the past and move on, i suppose. he did include a great version of "the gambler," though.

of course this is all tough to hear, because i had the "mike doughty backup singer" directly to my right. specifically a gentleman that was singing EVERYTHING way too loud. now, i'm all for rocking when you're at a show, but please, PLEASE keep it down. i don't even mind people singing, it's just that this guy was so f'ing loud i literally had to stand there with my hand over my right ear in order to enjoy the show. it's just not very courteous to the people around. all he needed to do was keep it down a little bit.

if that wasn't enough, about 5 songs into the set, the "mike doughty backup dancers" decided to push their way into the middle of the crowd. so i'm trying to enjoy the show, and then a drunk gentleman about 6 inches taller than me stops directly in front of me with his girlfriend leading the way. he proceeds to block my view from every angle when i try to move, and then, to make it worse, they start dancing. i turned to jess and actually called them the mike doughty backup dancers, band i think i said it kind of loud because in a song or two they left again.

but that didn't stop the guy next to me from singing. at least he didn't sing during "white lexus" because then we would have had a problem.

it's always a good show, though, except that we normally don't get back home until almost 12:30.

Tuesday, May 3

cool kids

Yesterday, we got our copy of Mike Doughty's new album, Haughty Melodic. It didn't come out until today. Wow. Are we cool or what? (It's called pre-order.) It's nothing that I haven't heard before. He's been doing all the songs live for some time now, but it's nice to have them all in one place, without crowd noise behind it. We'll hear them again tomorrow, too. Because that's what we do.