Personal choice

We've been in this office for six months, and I just noticed the "Personal Choice" button on the microwave.


I cannot for the life of me figure out what it's for.

A holiday haiku

Jules and I are going to see The Nutcracker tonight, as is our tradition. This is the seventh year and, for the first time, we're not sitting in the nosebleed seats! Should be a whole different ballgame. In honor of the occasion, I have composed a haiku:

Ballet es okheh.
Long, limber apendages...
Pepe likes the girls.

Why yes, I'd love a piece of garlic chive...

...thank you for asking.

Yay for weekends. The Worst! Week! Ever! is finally over, a fact celebrated this evening by a holiday cocktail party at B's house. As B and his roomies could not have anticipated that this would be the Worst! Week! Ever!, it was really just a happy coincidence. (Or maybe it was the Best! Week! Ever! for them. Who knows, really. I digress.)

Anyway, this week was quite trying, for reasons that shall be discussed at a later date (one of which led my boss to inform me that I have every right to be bitter for the indefinite future...but again, I digress). But tonight's soiree offered the perfect antidote to the hellish week, notably in the form of champagne, copious crudites, and star-shaped brownies. And, of course, sparkling conversation and witty banter. A good time was had by all (except perhaps B, who is under the weather and left his own party to go to bed early...alas).

I also discovered a remarkable new (to me) thing:

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you....garlic chive buds. I find them fascinating, I don't know why. They remind me vaguely of hay stalks, but are much more visually appealing. They taste rather like onion, as chives do, and I'm pretty sure that someone took a picture of me chewing on one like a farmer. Anyway, they're cool.

Heard...

...at Zaytinya on Saturday
Waiter: [describing the "Chocolate Visne"] It is delicious. You will fall in love.
Ed: [conflicted] But I'm already in love.

Godiva chocolate and a toilet plunger

Two things that I saw a guy carrying on Connecticut Avenue this evening.

Team Scrabble: An Exercise

Playing Scrabble in teams is not easy. You don't want to reveal your strategy contemplating a turn: "Ooh, we can play 'UARTET' off that Q and we'll get a triple word score!" Doesn't work. So you're reduced to grunts and vague pointing. As demonstrated by this exchange at 11:30 on Saturday night.

Bailey: If we had a hm, we could do this.... [arranges tiles]
Hannah: Ah, nice. Although we'd get more points if we played off that last letter and did this... [rearranges tiles]
Bailey: Which last letter?
Hannah: The hm right there [points vaguely].
Bailey: I don't see--
Hannah: That one.
Bailey: Yes, yes, OR we could do hm hm hm.... like this. OR hm... [rearranges tiles] hm.
Hannah: That's a proper noun.
Bailey: Dammit!
Hannah: How about...[moves tiles]
Bailey: Nice!
[Hannah and Bailey wait for their turn.]
Bailey: Oh wait, doesn't that word have two of these [points to letter]?
Hannah: Oh. Yes.
Bailey: Oh, wait, wait, I got it...[plays tiles]
Hannah: Well played!
Ed: [reads word] "JAGUAR."
Hannah: The animal, not the car, therefore not a proper noun.
Ed: Aren't they both?
Hannah: Animals aren't proper nouns.
Bailey: Jaguar, ROWrrrr! [makes clawing motion]

Wellies and Car Stuff

It is snowing. Yay! I have no meetings or anything, so I decided that today is a jeans day. I'm also wearing my wellies:

They are a curious shade of reddish pink. JCrew calls them "cayenne." CZ and I think they're really more watermelon.

This is also the first snow we've had since I got my car. I went outside this morning, suitably booted and bundled up, to commence defrosting and scraping the car windows.

**Here I need to break in for some backstory. When I got my car, Mom presented me with a huge bag of Car Stuff, everything I could ever possibly need for my car: Jumper cables, polishes and cleaning supplies, first aid kit, special hammer that performs the dual functions of smashing the windows and slicing through the seatbelt in the event that I drive into a large body of water, etc. **

Anyway, I got out the bag of Car Stuff and discovered that she had, indeed, gotten me everything I could ever possibly need for my car. Except an ice scraper.

Things that are awesome

Getting home late from work on an evening reminiscent of the tornado scene in The Wizard of Oz and finding an awesome parking space (aka Princess Parking).

To blog or not to blog

I've been debating about this blogging thing for a while. When I first floated the idea to Gretchen, I received the Eyebrow of Sisterly Derision and a less-than-enthusiastic response: "...really? Isn't that, like, for people in their 30s?"

So much for that.

In subsequent months, I formed a theory: Gretchen is not of the blogging generation and, as such, is not my target audience for the "should I have a blog" poll. The facts are these:
1) Many bloggers seem to be around 30. (NOT ALL. This is a generalization based on the handful of blogs I read regularly.)
2) I am in my mid-20s. To me, 30 is not so far away.
3) Gretchen is 21. Mid-20s is not far away, but 30 is basically a decade. (A decade is a long time. A decade ago, I couldn't drive yet.)

A couple of nights ago, after one vodka-cranberry and a conversation with J and Heather, it seemed like a much better idea. And here we are.