Birthday Excitement!

I turned 29 this past weekend! Woo-hoo!

 

But before that excitement, however, I had the honor of a visit from modmate Kate. Kate was in town checking out George Washington University. I have really only walked through the campus on my way to the Kennedy Center, so I couldn't really offer Kate much info. But we did find this enormous GW head.

 

We also hung out and enjoyed some tasty Ethiopian food.

Then my sister arrived! Since she flew all the way to help me celebrate my birthday, and since I'm leaving the East Coast relatively soon, I figured the obvious choice was to indulge in my favorite thing out here....the beach. It must seem like forever since I've mentioned the beach on this blog. 

This time, however, we headed to Ocean City, MD. We stayed at the ever-classy Flamingo Motel. Although I thought I had thoroughly prepared myself, the Flamingo Motel still managed to surprise.

 

We counted no less than three different shades of teal porcelain in the bathroom. There were hoodlums, yes hoodlums, in the parking lot right outside our door making lots of noise.

The furniture was a delight - my bed had a floating leg and a total of one very noticeable spring on the right side.  I can't even talk about the carpet.

One less than ideal happening was that Delta lost my sister's luggage. This was after numerous delays and re-routing. We went straight from the airport to Ocean City, about three hours away. So we were surprised and delighted to hear that Delta would deliver the bags there. I think we all know where this is going.

This was an all too common sight during the weekend - my sister on hold with Delta. The suitcase did not get delivered to Ocean City. After loosing track of her bag completely, Delta made the obvious choice of not holding the bag at Reagan when it arrived like we asked, conveniently located for us to pick up. Instead, they decided to fly the bag to Atlanta and then back to BWI. This was clearly faster and had the awesome consequence of moving the bag even farther away from us. Go Delta.

 

We arrived at the airport for her departure a little early so we could finally pick up the bag. More shenanigans ensued, but to jump to the end of the story, she and her luggage made it safely home.

But before it came to that, we enjoyed a lovely, albeit hot, weekend in the city. We brunched at one of my favorite locals.

 

Following last year, we celebrated the 4th with a baguette, some tasty cheeses, fruit, and veggies and hummus. Is two years enough to call something a tradition? This year, however, we picnicked on the white house lawn. We staked a claim a little ahead of the fireworks in order to ensure a good view.

 

Here's our view of the white house. We expected the fireworks to be exploding above it (and behind it). And we were mostly right. Unfortunately, they were above it, behind it, and to the right. Exactly behind that tree. Within 30 seconds there was an uprising of people (ourselves included) which made a mass exodus to a new vantage point.

We were still able to find a spot to sit and enjoy the fireworks. 

On Monday we did some kayaking on the Potomac. I didn't take any pictures for fear that my camera would need a tetanus shot if it fell in. It's been recommended that swimmers of the Potomac get tetanus shots. I know enough about that to know I don't want to know any more about why you would need a shot after being in that river.

After a long, hot, sweaty walk back from the boathouse, I was very sad to drop my sister off at the airport (although glad to see her reunited with her luggage). However, I came home to a surprise birthday cake and champagne celebration with my roommates. So awesome of them! 

 

And now I'm 29.

Beach!

Summer is here and that means it is time to take advantage of one of the best things the east coast has to offer...the beach. Some friends and I headed out to Rehoboth Beach, DE for the weekend.

 

I think this picture pretty much sums up our entire weekend:

That was gross, D.C.

WARNING....graphic images to follow. Please do not read or scroll down if you have a weak stomach.

So two days ago I returned from my early morning row to a small house crisis. My roommate calmly told me that we had a small problem....a rat had died right outside our front door. No big deal, I thought. In many of my previous living situations I have had all manner of critters, and I have dealt with them before. I began gathering several plastic bags with which I was planning on disposing of our rat. Taking my bags, I walked to the front door and stepped out. My voice immediately raised 10 notches, and I came quickly back inside. The size of this dead rat was well over anything i could deal with with a few measly plastic bags. It was enormous. And gross.

After using a few techniques from Psychological First Aid, my roommate and I were able to form a plan and attack the situation. She had a snow shovel; I had a broom. We finally corralled the dead rat into about five plastic bags, and then into another trash bag. I'll leave the details of this transfer out, but know that it was gross, and it might have involved some tears. We then bleached the heck out of the broom.

Here's the culprit (I am including this picture by request)....he's about the size of a brick. Nothing like waking up to this guy in the morning...

Irrigation Camp

I recently spent an absolutely lovely weekend in Nebraska with the fam. I had the pleasure of bringing my friend Maria with me. Maria is from a city, so we had to break her into the farm life.

We started with a tour of how cows are milked.

Maria bottle fed a calf.

Then we held baby pigs (my favorite).

Home clothes were required for this visit. We also introduced Maria to the Nebraska delights of Runza and Valentino's. Good stuff.

Yesterday, one of my VS housemates was in DC. We thought it would be a brilliant idea to rent a tandem bike and traverse the Mount Vernon trail, all 36 miles of it. Having never ridden a tandem bike before, I had the mistaken belief that we would hop on like any regular bike and away we would go.

This was not the case. Getting started on a tandem bike with two people who do not know what they are doing is NOT easy. I seriously thought we would have to turn right around and take the bike back. It was one big wobble-fest. And not just "ooh i feel a little uncomfortable by how much we're wobbling". It was like three feet of severe swaying before we tipped completely over. Three feet might be generous. But we eventually learned how to communicate, figured out a rhythm, and ended up having a very pleasant ride. It's an absolutely gorgeous trail. And once you can figure it out, tandem biking is very, very enjoyable. I rode as stoker for most of the trip, or the person who sits in the back. After about 5 miles of clenching furiously at handlebars that do not move, I finally relaxed and let go. We decided that if we ever did it again, I would take a book or newspaper to read during the ride. Tandem bikes do have the nickname "divorce maker", which I now understand. It really does take a lot of communication and give and take to make it work. And I could see how people could get really mad and frustrated if they weren't working together. If you ever try it, be sure to take someone along to laugh at your first attempts, because it is a truly humbling experience for someone who thinks they know how to ride a bike. 

Jib Ho!

On Saturday I had the awesome opportunity to crew on one of my coworker's sailboats in a regatta (a regatta is boat race for those of you who are not nautically minded). I have never been on a sailboat before, and had no idea what I was getting into. It was awesome. 

We were sailing a Cal 25, named Cal Tip'n. This is a picture of her, but not when I was sailing her. I had seen pictures of the boat beforehand, and to be honest, thought it was a fairly small boat. And while it is relatively small, I was amazed at the amount of work it takes to race her. The ideal crew size is 5 people - which totally surprised me. I didn't even think 5 people would fit on the boat. But boats are amazing like that - always bigger than they look from the outside.

My job was to man the main sail. This requires the least skill, as you can probably already guess. One of the things that surprised me the most was the extreme angle at which we were tipped a lot of the time. All of the crew jumps to one side after trimming the sails to prevent falling overboard but also to become "rail meat". This means you're not doing anything but sitting and distributing your weight in the most advantageous way.

This is not the same type of boat we were sailing, but it gives a pretty clear idea of how tipped the boat will be, as well as some good rail meat.




Also exciting is when you deploy the spinnaker. Our race was a winward/leeward race. This means that we went both directions in the wind (that is probably not what it means at all, but that's how I took it). So when we were sailing downwind, we would lower the Jib (the front sail), and raise the spinnaker. Neither of the below was our spinnaker, but it gives you an idea of what they look like. The fun thing about spinnakers is that most of them are really colorful. So when all the boats rounded the buoy to being the downwind part of the course and raised their spinnakers, it looked really, really cool.

Also surprising (although it probably shouldn't have been): it is HARD to pull a sail against the wind. It's like running with a parachute. I really thought my guns would be up to the task, but I definitely found it challenging. Lesson learned.

News

I am now a Huskie. I will be beginning a Ph.D. program at the University of Washington in Seattle this fall in clinical psychology.  I am so excited. It seems I just can't stay out of school, but hopefully this will be the last stop for me. 

This will, of course, mean quite a bit of change for me. I'm leaving behind my carefree evenings in favor of homework, will be moving from coast to coast, and for the first time ever, will be leaving my beloved maroon behind. In all my previous educational experiences, first as a Thresher, then as a Cougar, and then as a Pioneer (and a kinda big chicken), I have always supported the maroon.

 

But for all the changes ahead of me, I really couldn't be more excited. Getting a Ph.D. is a goal I have always been working toward, and I'm glad to finally be at this point. I think I might be most excited about never having to apply to a Ph.D. program again. 

I didn't plan on telling everyone at work so soon. I'm not leaving for four months yet, and thought I would be able to keep it under wraps until a little bit closer to my leaving date. That didn't even last a day. With a spooky sixth sense that I didn't know he had, my boss called me into his office the very first day I saw him after learning the news. He told me they were making some hiring decisions that depended on my longevity and wanted to know if I was considering going back to school. Now, it's one thing to not say anything, but when asked outright, I couldn't lie. Besides, it would be pretty obvious in 4 months when I'm suddenly leaving for school. So I told him my news, thinking we could keep it between ourselves. Ha. Within a week, everyone knew I was leaving. So the cat is out of the bag, and I can now talk about it freely without worry of the e-verse biting me in the butt.

Last Days in Hawaii

So this is a little late....but my last three days in Hawaii were spent on Oahu. Most of my time was spent at the conference, but I did get to enjoy the island a little. I took a surfing lesson.

I stayed at the Hilton Hawaiian Village. It may not have been the nicest, but it was by far the most excessive place I've ever stayed. And it was gorgeous.

The hotel complex had over 100 shops and restaurants, at least 5 pools, and who knows what else.

The hotel had a lot of wildlife.

I didn't really get it, but the hotel also had penguins.

Of course, before I could leave I had to make sure I wasn't accidentally taking any lava rocks with me.





And just for my wonderful brother-in-law, I captured a picture of this rare noble beast of Hawaii.