Snow Day

I have a snow day today. I slept in, (dreamed of sugar plums and stuff, obviously), woke up late and have since listened to all the Christmas music I could whilst cleaning my bathroom and getting clothes ready to pack for my trip home. You might have heard, but the DC area got about 2 feet of snow this past weekend. It was magical! Here's how it went...

Friday at work everyone was placing bets on how much it would snow. "Oh come on," one person said, "they always predict feet of snow and we never get it...I say we'll get 4 inches, max." Another two guys made bets over and below the 8 1/2 inch mark. Well, we got everything those weather peeps predicted. On Friday night I left my church's Christmas party about 8:45 and it was snowing. The drive home was fine because nothing had accumulated yet, but by Sunday morning my car was snowed in completely. All Friday night and Saturday and Saturday night it snowed. There wasn't a moment when it wasn't snowing. It was amazing, I tell you! Roomie K and I went for a walk to the park, played on the playground equipment, met a neighbor for a snowball fight (even the snow was really too powdery for packing) and enjoyed the great outdoors. It's amazing how astronomical amounts of snow (for this area) bring out the nicest and friendliest in people. I said "hi neighbor" so many times my throat was sore. Okay, I didn't really say that. How cliche. What I really said was, "Hi, looking good [referring to anyone who was snow shoveling or cross country skiing or perhaps sledding], keep up the good work! Lots of snow, eh?" It was great. Saturday night when Roomie K and I walked to our old neighbors' house for movies and hot chocolate, we just walked right up the middle of all the main roads, singing Christmas carols and waving to passers by. There were more pedestrians on the road than there were cars. The snow was so soft and beautiful and piled up so high and we pretty much wandered through a winter wonderland all day. Of course now the snow has been plowed and salted and it's started to melt a wee bit so it doesn't have that picturesque quality anymore, but at least I don't have to be at work! Here are some pictures from the best snow day of the year, Saturday, December 19th.

This is our 5th roommate, Diego The Cardinal. Well, he wants to be our 5th roommate. He tries every day to break into our house through the windows. After months of trying, he has yet to be successful.

This is our newest roommate, Roomie W. This picture was taken about 2 minutes before he gave up on freeing his car from the mounting snow drifts.

You think this is a lot of snow? We haven't even experienced half of it at this point.
My phone's ringing and it takes a lot to get to it. Roomie K and I are headed to the park to play in the snow. Play ground equipment is so much more fun when there are 15 inches of snow on the ground. Especially twisty slides.
Maybe I fell off this thing a couple times. Maybe. Doesn't mean I'm too big for it! Errrr...
Ah tranquility. Snow, I love you forever.
It was delicious, as you might imagine. Thought about making those snow drinks Mom and us kids would make on a good snowy day, but it never happened.
Time to go home after a good afternoon of rough housing in the snow. My pants were really wet.

Too Hot to Trot

T-day. It happened. It was awesome. My pumpkin pies were delicious. Okay, they weren't perfection. To be quite honest, the crust (I made from scratch) was overdone and the filling was made with Splenda cause I was too lazy to go to the store for real sugar. However, I worked with what I had and it turned out just fine. Fine enough for me to have consumed almost a whole pie in the span of four days. Boy did I eat. But that's for later. For now I relate to you the semi consecutive adventures of the Thanksgiving weekend.

Wednesday was pure bliss because The Secretary let all us non-essential Smithsonian workers out three hours early. Now that's what I'm talking about. Thanks, G. Wayne! You're a good man, Charlie Brown! So Wednesday I got home, made some pies, made some pizza pie with Roomie B and just hung out like it was my job. However, I couldn't get too rowdy because I was poised to wake up at 6:30 AM Thanksgiving morning to drive out to Centreville, VA, for the Virginia Run Turkey Trot 5K. Me and the two Roomies B & K were running proudly as the PHC (penthouse club - cause we all live on the second floor of our house, natch). Disclaimer - I'm NOT a runner! I know I've mentioned this mutliple times in the past, but let me reiterate. I'm not a runner, peeps. I had never in my life run a full 3.2 miles and I did not anticipate starting on Thanksgiving morning. My last and only other 5K took me about 48 minutes or so cause I walked half the time. So I wasn't about to run the whole thing this time. And let me tell you something else, I made it known. I used every opportunity to let my patient roommates know that I was not going to be fast and that I wasn't expecting them to wait on me because I was such a turtle and blah blah blah. Of course, they were too nice to listen to my not-so-subtle hints and they stuck with me. They even refuse to acknowledge that they would have had a much faster finish time if they hadn't been tracking with me. So kudos to those angels of mercy. And you know what? I ran it. R-A-N it. The whole thing!!! 3.2 miles!!! I didn't walk ONCE! WHO LET THE DOGS OUT?????

Um, seriously. I was so impressed with me that I couldn't handle it. Well, not whilst I was running, but rather once I could see the finish line. I wasn't impressed with me when I was having fantasies of falling and breaking my ankle so someone would have to carry me the rest of the way. I had all sorts of beautiful daydreams about maiming my legs or falling over crying or something - anything so that I wouldn't have to run the rest of the way. And I am such a BORE when I run! Okay, a Scrooge. Not even a bore, but a straight up Scrooge. I can't think about anything else but the movement of my legs and arms and I really have to concentrate so that I don't wimp out every other 2. So I can't be all jovial and talky and laughy like my roommates who are in much better shape than I. They were making jokes and being fun and then there was me, trudging slightly behind them, the biggest frown on my face the whole time. Breathe in, two three, and OUT, two three, and IN two three, and OUT two three. And spit. (And don't try to give me advice on the whole "mental" aspect of running and all that hooey. I don't care. It sucks.) And I feel every stomp I make on that pavement. So if you ever ask me to go on a run with you, beware, I'm grumpy. Oh, but everyone else was having a good time. There were over 4,300 runners out that day, many with turkey hats and some in costume and all with smiles on their faces. Ugh, happy runners. But let me tell you, when I saw that finish line and realized that I really could handle running the entire way I started sprinting. I looked at K & B like yes-let's-do-this-thing (and they were probably surprised that I remember how to be a pleasant person) and then we all started cheetah-ing towards the finish line. Made the trek in 34:41. HUZZAH! My mood lightened considerably from that point on.

So after that bout of pure awesomeness (on everyone's part - thanks again to the angels of mercy for their great patience and forbearance...and my guardian angel who was keeping my lungs pumping the whole time with no help from me) we got a little Starbucks to celebrate and Roomie K and I headed to Fairfax, VA, for Thanksgiving dinner at her parents house. Good times, noodle salad. Well, no noodle salad, but plenty of other good food. Kristen and I actually cooked the turkey ourselves. I know! What a weekend of firsts. Pies, miles, poultry. The rest of T-day was spent indulging in good food and drink, laughing with friends and playing board games. That night Roomie K and I headed home with great plans to sleep as long as possible until sometime the next day.

Friday = BLISS! I did nothing. Repeat (w/ slight alteration): practically nothing. Unfortunately woke up earlier than I'd hoped, 8:30 ish, but spent the rest of the day lounging in the library, reading, eating pie, watching movies, and not venturing outside at all. All in my pj's. Well, until about 7 or so at night. By the way, I'm rereading Mansfield Park and I love it. I want to read it aloud to myself in a terrible British accent but that would be weird cause other people would hear me. It made me reminisce about the first time I realized that I loved Jane Austen. It was Aunt Jan and Auntie Beverly who got me hooked on the Austen. Shout out! Anyhoo, Friday night Roomie K and I decided we simply must have a Christmas tree. We went to our favorite local Home Depot and got this precious little fir tree just right for our library. We decided not to decorate until the morrow, read some more, and retired for the night.

Saturday morning I woke up to go see Uncle Cracker at 9. He popped my back and put those electrode thingies on my back again. They make my muscles spazz a little, so it'd be kind of funny to see me, face down on the table, my shoulders popping and locking to an unheard beat. I kind of laughed at me. He says I'm doing well and that my appointments can be more spread out. I say, no thanks. I'm not a repeat doctor visitor. In fact, I'm hardly a doctor visitor at all. His staff should anticipate me calling to cancel my next appointment and then never calling back to reschedule. My back feels good and I'm done with doctor visits for 2009 (*knock on wood*).

Saturday early afternoon I was off to Baltimore with Roomie K and her mom to check out an antiques place in the former industrial district of the city. (It's called Housing Werks or something like that for all you Google fiends.) The stuff there wasn't very appealing because it was all very unfinished and haphazardly strewn about, but the building was impressive and it was cool to imagine how I'd use the old circus sign in my new cool industrial-style decorated house with exposed brick and contemporary furniture. Or whatever. Next stop, B-more's Little Italy for lunch at Cafe Gia. Delicious sausage ravioli. Yum. Then a little walk to Fell's Point and the drive back to DC. The rest of Saturday we spent shopping for shoes (not I, I was just the encourager), buying Christmas decorations, and trimming the tree. I haven't taken any pictures yet, but you won't even be able to handle how amazing my house is with lights on the front porch and the tree twinkling in the light of a thousand electric faeries. I'll take some pictures and post them soon. Get ready, for you will be smitten.

Sunday was church, crying toddlers snotting all over my nice navy sweater (cute little tykes with their oh-so-believable crocodile tears), another run, and a Messiah sing. I will expound on the last two items.

Alright, I know that it's not polite or very Christ-like to brag. Jesus could probably do the Ironman and win and he'd be like, "Oh it's no big deal, it was God, not me." Well I'm hardly that free of pride. I mean, I just can't believe that I can run at all, especially because I fantasize about broken bones the whole time I'm doing it. But on Sunday I ran 3.5 miles. The whole thing. No walking. Yes, pride. I'm suffering from it. Whilst running I thought it might be nice if I accidentally stepped off the pavement and twisted my ankle. I thought maybe I could come up with some excuse to start bawling on the trail and wail that I just "couldn't do it anymore." But Roomie K has the patience and encouragement of a saint. She said, "we've hit 30 minutes so let's run till 40" and because she was being nice enough to keep pace with me I thought I'd throw her a bone and not break my leg on purpose. No pun intended. And because I knew I'd run for almost 35 minutes just a few days before I knew that I actually could do it. So I've accomplished my one running goal I've ever had in my life. I can now run a 5K. In fact, I signed up for another one in a couple weeks. WHO AM I??? I'm so NOT a runner, and don't you DARE try to get me to train for anything that has "thon" at the end of it because I might cut you. I guess since it's not killing me, it's making me stronger. Who knew? Ugh.

Oh, and the Messiah sing. You ever been to one of these before? I never had. I walk by the Clarendon United Methodist Church everyday on my way to/from the metro stop and I noticed they were having a Messiah sing on the night of the 29th. I though, fun! I like to sing things about God during Christmas! (And also the rest of the year, thank you very much.) But I had no idea that when they say Messiah Sing they mean that they'll furnish the soloists and instrumentalists and that YOU are the choir. The audience was the choir! I had no clue! And it was pure a-w-e-s-o-m-e! Oh man, I loved it. It was like being in choir again. We sang Part I of the Messiah, and the "Hallelujah Chorus" as the encore. I sang soprano. Um, those parts are really hard. Why was it cool at the time to string 96,000 sixteenth notes together on one syllable? "And he shall puri-fyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!" Handel was all about the melismas, I guess. And I didn't hit every high A, or the one high b-flat, but I got most of them. And I guess I was singing kind of loud cause the people in front of me noticed. Oops. Sorry, I got too excited! They're finishing up Parts II and III in April with another sing-a-long, so I'm definitely going back for that.

So there, that was my weekend. Lots of words to describe what now seems like just a few short hours. But I'm back at work and preparing for my performance review tomorrow morning (gag). But three weeks from tomorrow I will be winging my way to Tulsa. There's something to look forward to :).

Runner out.

Out of Office

That's how I've felt for the past two weeks. I mentally checked out of the office on or around Monday, December 15th, and I haven't gone back. Well, I'm here right now, technically...blogging...at my desk, but still! Mental vacay. This was a busy December, both in the office and out. (And that's not counting the things I had on my calendar but totally skipped.) Why is it that when we reach adulthood the holidays are a lot more overwhelming but without all that childish excitement? Well, I still consider myself capable of childish excitement, but it seems harder and harder to drum up when so many other things interfere. I thwarted the busyness to the best of my ability this month and managed to fill my cup with Christmas cheer despite it all!

First of all, let's talk about the Nutcracker. LOVE IT! It's definitely my favorite ballet. How can it not be, I've seen it close to ten times. This year I went all out for the Washington Ballet's Nutcracker, and it was amazing. Please keep in mind that I have the best going-to-the-ballet-shoes of all time. Why, you ask? Because they look like toe shoes. They're pink and satin-y and they have ribbons that lace around my ankles. They're also freakishly tall and really hard to walk in. Ugh. Even Dr. Scholls can't make these shoes as comfortable as my Merrills. Oh well, they look good...and as long as I take careful, measured steps they feel mostly good. Pair them with a sleek black dress and viola! I'm ready to go. Two of my roommates and I cabbed it downtown to have a leisurely pre-ballet dinner at Chef Geoff's before the show. And I mean leisurely. Don't try to make reservations less than 36 hours in advance of show night, cause then you'll have to eat at 4:30. Seriously, don't do it. The ballet started at 7, so we got there with plenty of time for appeteazies, first courses, second courses, and desserts. It was gooooood. Best butternut squash ravioli of my life. Best ravioli of my life, for that matter. Despite the excellence of the food, libation and merriment at Chef Geoff's, the real magic started when the curtain rose in the Warner Theater at 7pm. Have you been there? The theater is gorgeous. I was breathless throughout the show. One thing I love about the Nutcracker is that it's adaptable. Parts of the story can be worked to fit the tastes of the musical director. I've seen it performed maybe 4 different ways. In Tulsa it's set in 1920's Paris. Septime Webre's setting (for the Washington Ballet) was more traditional - the family home of Clara and Fritz and their parents with the tree that grows and the toys that dance. However, the second half of the show was very D.C.-oriented, and it was splendid. The nutcracker prince was George Washington. The Waltz of the Flowers was performed by the Cherry Blossoms. The Arabian Dance was more of an Anacostian Tribal dance. (Don't ask me who the Anacostians were. All I know is that Anacostia is a stop somewhere on the metro line.) Clara and Drosselmeyer's nephew were transported to their magical kingdom via riverboat. What a delight! I didn't want the evening to end. Luckily, the route home took us right by the National Christmas tree, so the night was Christmas-complete.

Let us not forget that I experienced two incredible shows in D.C. over the past couple weeks. I not only saw the Nutcracker, but I saw the revival of West Side Story at the National Theater. Wow! Forget Tony, I'll never stop saying (read: singing) Maria. Good times, people, good times. So there were other events that kept me busy: Christmas parties, orchestra concerts, visitors, Christmas shopping and family band concerts. Okay, not a family band, per say, but more of a member of my family in a band playing a show. Confused? My cousin Shara's band, My Brightest Diamond (see link at right for sweet deets), came through DC on tour. So I got to spend a cold rainy Thursday night listening to great music with strangers, friends and family. It was awesome. I would also like to give a shout out to Clare & The Reasons, who opened for MBD. They are so good. Loved every moment. Besides that, I played two WMPA concerts that were fun, caught up with friends who were passing through town, and prepared to leave for home.

So that takes care of the out-of-office stuff. Want to know about the in-the-office stuff? Well, prepare yourself. I was an office elf. Blerg. I thought I was signing up for the set-up committee. No, in fact I was signing up for the holiday party planning committee. Rookie mistake. I commandeered the gift exchange portion of the party. I recruited invaluable help from a couple coworkers, but I had to manage the whole shebang, and it was torturous. "Gillian, send out a mass email with the rules for the game so people can be prepared." No problem, done. "Um, wow, Gillian, send us ANOTHER Smithsonian email. Those rules were like a book." All lies, there were three sentences to the whole email. "I never read that email, how do we play this game again?" "Gillian, explain the rules to everyone before we start." ARGH! I will not be elffing next year. No, no, no.

On the bright side, my office won the door decorating contest. We re-themed the "12 Days of Christmas" as the "12 Months of (the Donor Fundraising) Campaign". As you can see from the picture, we showcased each of the 12 months with lyrics and visual representation. But that didn't win us the prize. We also included an audio representation. We sang, well I didn't as I was accompanying on the violin, and recorded ourselves on a digital voice recorder we taped to the door. That's what won us the prize. People kept walking by, pressing the play button and listening to us squawk out the 12 months of campaign. What a treat for the ears after the 5th time, really.

So there you have it. In a nutshell, that's what kept me busy this month. That and reading some really good books, watching some great movies (Marley & Me was phenom), and baking chocolate chip cookies. Plus, I had 5 fabulous days with my family in Tulsa, and now I'm back at the office (supposedly) scrambling to enter all the gifts before our year-end deadline. Well, I will be scrambling again shortly. I needed a break from the scramble. It's hard to go back to work after spending such good times with the fam. I really didn't feel like coming back to the District. Next year I'm taking more time off. Don't feel too sorry for me, though. The fun doesn't stop once Christmas ends. There's still New Years Day, my 4-day weekend including MLK Day and Inauguration Day, my birthday weekend, and so much more. January's going to be good. I can feel it.

Welcome, 2009. Make me proud.

Sounds of the Season

My favorite part of Christmas is the music. Okay okay! Let's be real. My real favorite part of Christmas is celebrating the birth of Christ. Buuuuut! Whilst celebrating the great coming of our Savior, one often finds celebratory words put to...wait for it...music. The secular stuff is pretty good, too. Ready for some trivia? My favorite sacred piece: ooo, tough one - probably "Silent Night." I do love a good "Lo How a Rose," though, and "Good Christian Men Rejoice" makes me jolly. Favorite secular piece: definitely "The Christmas Waltz." Love it, love it, love it. Right now I'm listening to the full Nutcracker score. Gets me every time. More trivia - did you know that "Coventry Carol" was written as the mothers' lament when King Herrod was killing all their infant sons? That's what someone told me at orchestra rehearsal last night. I'd like a second opinion.

As my fellow musicians can attest, this season is probably the busiest one for people who love listening to music, making music, and appreciating music. Especially for those who make music, it's a very busy time. These days I don't make music for money, so my schedule isn't quite as full of Christmas parties and church services as it has been in the past, but that hasn't stopped the music from coming to me, as you'll see.

Last Tuesday afternoon I left the office at 3 o'clock to catch the metro to Bethesda, Maryland. The Washington Metropolitan Philharmonic was scheduled to perform a special one-night-only Christmas concert at the Strathmore Concert Hall (totally gorgeous, by the way) that evening at 8 pm. I will preface this story by stating that this is the longest day I can remember in recent history. You might think it was only 24 hours, but I must have fallen through the space-time continuum somehow. I arrived at the concert hall ready to rehearse for two hours. We had a lot of music to go over. Several guest artists made appearances with the orchestra that evening, so we had to go over our pieces for each one of them. What a disaster! One guy never got his music for a piece, so he was singing along in the wrong key. One guy said he'd only ever played the love theme from The Godfather in c minor, and he wanted the entire orchestra to transpose the piece so he could play it "like [he'd] been playing it for 23 years." We couldn't do that. Let me rephrase - most of us string players couldn't do that, so the guy had to play his oboe in g minor instead. Then, of course, every time we were ready to rehearse with a different soloist that person was nowhere to be found. Ultimately our dress rehearsal ran a bit over time. We all had a sick feeling that the concert would be the same way.

It was. We had less than an hour and a half's worth of music to play. We started the program promptly at 8pm. You know what time we ended? 10:30pm!!! Yes, thanks to our emcee/guest oboist, we ran an hour longer than necessary. Never have I heard a man tell so many stories! And I am now aware that he has not only played at Strathmore, but at the Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, and all over Europe as well. You know what was especially fun? After we played the Godfather theme and our oboe/emcee man had made his "impromptu" appearance he grabbed the mic, tried to make a joke about c minor, said "Hit it, Steve" to our keyboardist, and proceeded to play the entire piece again in c minor. Apparently, it was really important that the audience hear him play this piece in the key with which he was most comfortable. Gah! I worked very hard to school my features. People could have seen me roll my eyes, after all. Well, I heard enough anecdotes and bad jokes that night to last me throughout the entire Christmas season. This man would set the mic down and start walking off stage, then turn around and come back to tell another story he forgot to mention previously. I couldn't tell if the audience loved or hated him. Maybe both. But the icing on the cake was dropped from the metaphorical spatula when this emcee joined the orchestra for our final number, the "William Tell Overture." He fiddled with his chair and music stand for a bit, got settled, looked at his watch and whispered quite conspicuously and in all seriousness to our conductor, "We need to speed this one along, Ul, we're out of time." I just about stabbed him with my bow. Don't worry, at the last minute I remembered Christmas is about sparing, not spearing.

I mentioned that the fateful Tuesday was the longest day in recent history. We concluded the concert at 10:30pm. I walked to the metro, waited for 10 minutes, rode the rail for 30 minutes, switched platforms to catch the next train, waited for 20 minutes, caught the Orange line and walked home from my metro stop. I got home about midnight. Too late for this ol' gal! It took me the rest of the week and weekend to catch up on my sleep. You do realize that missing two hours of work meant I made it up the rest of the week by either staying late or coming in early. Staying late is the bane of my existence, so I chose to come in early. That did not help the sleepyness.

Okay, so that was Strathmore. A detailed description, I know, but you need to realize that the pain you experienced reading my tale is nothing to the pain I experienced living it. Yeegads! You ready for another story about music? Okay, here it is.

Every year the Office of External Affairs, of which I am an employee, has an office door decorating contest. Every office decorates its door. We all vote on our favorite door at the office party, and the winners receive a half day off work. Tempting. This year we had a little office meeting - there are 6 of us total in our cubicle-ridden file cabinet of an office- and decided that in order to be competitive this year we needed to stimulate not just the eyes but the ears as well. I did not volunteer my musical services. No indeed, I was volunteered by another. You see, I generally like to keep it mum around the office that I play the violin. Having this knowledge encourages my coworkers to ask me to play for things like office parties. I always nip that in the bud as quickly as possible, but I can never quite wipe away the disappointment they feel for not being able to procure free entertainment. Plus, this punky's not a solo player. No, I like to play with an ensemble...if the occasional solo is thrown my way just because I happen to be playing the lead first violin part then fine, I'll do it! But I'm not about to set up my stand and be the only thing for people to listen to. Blech. Regardless, my boss proposed a fetching idea for our audio stimulation. "I'll sing," she says, "and Gillian can play the violin." AHHHHHHHHHH!!! I didn't say no, though, because the prize is worth the risk. So tomorrow afternoon I will be playing "The 12 Days of Christmas" with my office's resident flutist. Don't worry, we're just going to record ourselves on a little digital recorder and attach it to our door so people can play it at their leisure while they peruse our display of the 12 Days of the Economy. Or did we decide on the 12 Days of a Campaign? I think the campaign one (think fundraising, not political).

Anyway, I just got home from work after a little practice session with the office arranger/flutist. Great arrangement, by the way. We'll make those Office of External Affairs people proud! Can you believe how much work we've put into this? I mean, JT actually took the time to write out a score for flute, violin and voice. Impressive. And it better pay off! I could use that extra half day to sleep and stuff.

So I rounded out the week with another orchestra rehearsal. We're playing 2 concerts with violinist Jenny Oaks Baker (www.wmpamusic.org) and her repertoire includes some fun fiddley Christmas tunes. "I Saw 3 Ships" does sound much more exciting when you're pretending you're Irish. Attempting to fiddle (a favorite pastime of mine) and playing Christmas music (a favie for life) are going to make these upcoming concerts WMPA's best yet! If you're in the DC area stop by. You won't be disappointed. Plus, I'll wave to you from stage and flash a toothy grin for the camera. Booyah!

(See that pretty picture at the top? That's 925. Nice, id'nit?)

Election Day

I guess elections are a pretty big deal when you live in the capital of anything. The government's hub, if you will. Every day I come home to leaflets, pamphlets and flyers littering my front stoop. Vote Obama, Vote McCain, Time for Change! Blahdeeblooblahbloopers. At least once a day some well meaning campaign volunteer knocks on the door of 925 to find out who I'm voting for and if I need more information on his/her candidate. Don't judge me, but sometimes I just tell people I'm voting for whoever their candidate is. It makes them leave me alone. Or sometimes, if I answer the door with my phone to my ear it makes them go away quicker. Tactics, people.

These past few days have been the worst. Now it's at least twice a day that volunteers stop by. Near the metro stops they congregate in throngs, jumping up and down and yelling at me to vote. Seriously, that actually happens with the jumping and everything. When I get off the metro there are at least four people standing at the top of the escalators, homemade banners waving ferociously in the breeze. Can banners wave ferociously? Well, they do here. Yipes. It's madness, I tell you. Utter madness. I feel like a celebrity. People follow me around, asking me my opinion & telling me how to pose--er, vote. This has been happening for a month now, you realize. Cute elderly folk would sit in the metro just past the gates and give people forms to register to vote. Voting lines have been long as all get out. Not for me though, this ponky voted absentee-style. For whom? None of your dang business.

Government employees don't get Election Day off. Ridiculous, right? I know! We get Inauguration Day off, which is a pretty sweet deal - what with MLK, Jr. day it makes for a nice 4-day weekend right before my bday - but I want today off! They don't know that I don't need to go vote. What if the line is 4 hours long? I should have excused absences! Maybe I need to have a 5 hour prayer vigil before I vote, and then I have to wait in a 6 long hour line. They need to respect me! Oh well, I can't have everything. I do get a holiday a week from today for Veteran's Day, so I really shouldn't complain. Ohp, too late.

So did you vote yet? If I hear that question one more time, I'm going to take out a giant ink stamp that says YES I VOTED, FOOL and pound it straight into homey's forehead. Donezo. Homey don't play that. I'll tell you what homey does play, though...online election coverage during work hours. Yes, that's right. Fine, if you're going to make me work I'm going to keep refreshing Washingtonpost.com like it's my job all day long. As my friend Q says, "I like watching the states turn colors." Totally brill.

So in other random news, I went to my first (and not last) Coldplay concert on Halloween. It was AMAZING. I love when people are awesome live and not just on a doctored album. No, I did not dress up. I don't do costumes. Overrated. But I did jam out and take lots of pictures on my cell phone cause I forgot my camera. Of course, I don't know how to upload the photos to my computer. So you'll just have to picture it in your mind's eye. Coldplay, the Verizon Center, Chinatown DC, me and my roommate Kristen, section 205. Good visual. The band came into the audience at one point to play a quick set and they were only about 60 feet from me. AHHHHHH! Love love love love love them. Alright, gushing over.

Next on the random list, orchestra. We had two concerts last month, and the second one went a lot better for me than the first one did. Mainly, I was well rested. Secondly, I was focused on the notes and better rehearsed. We played at the Church of the Epiphany in downtown DC, and it was great. I love playing in churches, especially when playing sacred music. It just fits. We had a really good turn out, so hopefully people will spread the word about the orchestra. Now that our first concert is behind us, we've started rehearsals for our December shows. You know what that means...Christmas music!!! YAY YAY YAY YAYYYYYYY! I have a hard and fast rule for myself, as do many, that I will not listen to Christmas music before Thanksgiving. I want to give that important holiday its due. However, I just can't help it that I have to rehearse "Coventry Carol" and "I Saw Three Ships" and more before that day. I mean, I have to do it. Sho hate it, she says quite facetiously. WMP is hosting a guest artist for the Christmas...oops, sorry, Holiday...concert and she's fiddling along to some classic Christmas melodies. I'm excited about that part. I do love a good fiddle session. In fact, I've been listening to my Natalie McMasters CD a lot recently. All I want to do is jig around to some good Irish tunes. Story of my life.

Anyhoo, I suppose that's the word. Oh, I should probably tell you that the picture on this post is a little old. It's from this summer when my friends Katie and Alexandra came to visit me and we went to the Lincoln Memorial. I was moved to make a speech...to the ground, apparently. Either that or I'm a very demonstrative reader. Bye bye.