You're somebody special, too.

I don’t know why this story sticks in my mind, but it does. Most of DC is familiar with the exploits of Jessica Cutler – the Washingtonienne who spilled her social secrets on her blog and was subsequently discovered and fired from her Hill job because of it. There was a Washington Post article on her shortly after it all came out, parts of which have always stuck with me – particularly this little section:

From first grade through junior high, Jessica spent one day each week in a special program for gifted and talented children. Jessica and some of her schoolmates describe the program as pure free-to-be-you-and-me fun: Nobody graded them; nobody gave them homework; nobody cared if they finished anything.
Those classes left a mark on Jessica. "They tell you, 'You guys, you are smarter than most people,' " recalls Jessica, whose closest friends remain the girls she met in that program at age 7.
Jessica finds it curious that she and several of her gifted classmates became underemployed slackers with attitudes. She wonders if that traces back to the lessons they learned in the gifted program. "You kind of create your own moral universe," Jessica says. "It's like, well, I like myself. If other people don't like me, then whatever. I'm out of here."


Now, I was one of those kids who were part of my school district’s gifted and talented program. My best friend is a girl I met through that program when I was 9, and I am still friendly with some of the people who were in the program as well (not naming any names here). My husband was also in a G&T program in his school district.

I wonder how much of Jessica’s statement about the influence her G&T universe has a grain (or more than) of truth. I remember sending this article to a friend who was in the G&T program with me, asking him whether it sounded like our own lives in any way. Not the whole sexual escapades part of it – but the entitlement/superiority complex and devil-may-care attitude that I know I feel moments of (although some would probably say more than just moments ;)

Just a thought.

You love me, you really love me!

I’ve been quoted by DC blogs! It’s such an honor, I just don’t know what to say. Thank you to Nancy, my hairdresser, who made that moment possible. Thank you to the woman in the chair next to me, who was having her hair dyed a cute red, for making the comment. And thank you to my grandfather, whose love of seafood was passed down to me, gaving me the memory capacity to remember it all. (Scroll down to "Scenes from a Haircut)

Excuse me, it must be these damn onions affecting my eyes.

So what should I be listening to?

I saw this site linked on Fark.com a couple of days ago but just tonight got the chance to check it out fully. Pandora.com lets you enter in a band or song that you like, and searches out other bands based on your feedback. It's pretty cool for someone like me who wants to listen to non-mainstream bands but doesn't have the time to seek them out.

By the way, consider this post a warning not to drink a homemade latte after 9 pm. It's midnight and I am wide awake. My alarm will go off in about 6 hours. Yeah!

Tornado Watch? Epsilon? What's going on out there?

I can't believe it, but they just reported that we are under a Tornado Watch. At the end of November. What the hell is going on out there? Hunker down folks!

Return of the Gingerbread Latte

It was such a momentous occasion I forgot to blog about it. I had my first Gingerbread Latte yesterday afternoon after I couldn’t take the tedium at work any longer and had to get out of the office for a couple of seconds.

First, a little background history. I was having a delightful coffee date with my good, German friend Christoph at the Starbucks on Dupont Circle. He was drinking a hot chocolate – me, probably a mocha. A woman comes around with a tray of shotglass-sized coffees topped with whipped cream and sprinkles. I taste the Gingerbread latte and I become forever addicted to their power. It tastes like a little Gingerbread man just melted into my latte.

I spend the remainder of the Christmas season seeking out Gingerbread lattes like an addict. Then, about February, my normal Starbucks haunt on Dupont no longer has the Gingerbread syrup (made up of God knows what chemicals and artificial sweetners and flavorings). I try the one on M St. in Georgetown, no dice. Wisconsin Ave, same deal. The Gingerbread Latte has left the building. My withdrawal symptoms were severe and lasted through June.

But now it has returned. An although I search for a bottle of Gingerbread syrup so that I can make my own lattes at home, that search has been in vain, and I am chained to the unholy beast that is a corporate coffee house. Damn them, damn them all!

The only thing that can keep me from enjoying my Gingerbread latte is if I were to see Charlon Heston running out of a Starbucks screaming “Gingerbread lattes are people, people.” Unless he meant little Gingerbread people, which of course would be okay.

Scenes from a haircut

The most hilarious things come from the oddest circumstances. I just recently had my hair pretty radically cut – at least 11 inches – and colored with honey blond highlights and chestnut brown base color. I am very happy with the new look (not to mention that I got to donate my hair to Locks of Love) and I thought that it might be funny to document the series of strange and unexpected reactions to my altered appearance.

There was a woman in the chair next to me while I was having my hair cut. She saw how long my hair was while the stylist was brushing it out, etc. She turned away for a second – naturally the second that it took my stylist to gather the hair in a pony tail and cut it all off – and when she turned back to me gasped, “Your hair is gone” with a very shocked look on her face.

At work, I was entering an elevator while someone with whom I worked was exiting. I said a kind “Hello” and she looked at me with a blank look on her face, clearly not recognizing me. After about a second – while the elevator doors were closing – she said, “Oh my God – I didn’t recognize you!” Clearly.

Numerous people simply reacted by saying, “You got a haircut.” As if I hadn’t noticed.

The best reaction had to be Troy’s, our Crate and Barrel salesman. I walked in this weekend after not having seen him in over a month. His first words were “Your hair looks fab-u-lous.” He’s a Dupont Circle kind of guy – so this was the ultimate compliment.

My husband’s primary reaction has been “Stop trying to look so cute.”

Photos - because I feel like it.

I thought that it might be fun to share some of my favorite pictures from some recent trips.


Here's a picture of my friends Francesco (from Florence, Italy), Rebecca (from Wellington, New Zealand), and Lucy (from Worcestor, England); we've just had a very good pizza dinner in Florence.



Here's my friend Gimi, a wild boar who I adopted in San Gimignano. We're in Rome, next to the Colosseum.


Only in Italy - a parade of Ferraris - about 30-50 of them in all


And finally, here's a link to video I shot while on a cruise on the NOAA R/V RONALD BROWN. Those are Atlantic Spotted Dolphins under the bow!

Thou shall not covet thy neighbor's job

Life is such a drag sometimes. Take work for example. The office that I am in is one where you are busy, busy, busy for a short period of time and then bored for the interim periods. As you could probably tell, this is one of those boring periods. I like the work that I do (in theory) and the office that I am in, but there are a couple of other offices that I would really love to be in, and the tragedy of the situation is that one of them is literally on the other side of my cubicle. So while I am sitting around doing piddly-work to pass the time, I have to hear their awesome conversations. It takes all my effort not to jump over my wall and scream “Employ me. Take me. Please.” I am going to try and do my major rotation in that office – so I want to approach them as professionally as possible, preferably without slobber on my mouth.

Deep Thoughts

This morning I was fortunate enough to get a window seat on the train on my way to work. There is something so relaxing and peaceful about traveling on the train. I had a book with me – but found myself instead staring out the window deep in thought. It’s amazing the things that float in and out of your mind when you just let it wander. It’s a shame that the US doesn’t invest more in rail travel as an alternative to cars. We’d probably have a nation of much smarter people – what with all the additional time to think and daydream as opposed to focusing our attention on road rage and imagined offenses that require a revenge cut-off or finger flip. This is definitely one area where the Europeans have us beat!

"All I want is what I have coming to me. All I want is my fair share."

Now that Thanksgiving has passed, its time to think about ourselves and what we want by December 25th. Gotta love this time of year.

But really, there are a couple of things I really look forward to at this time of year:

- Charlie Brown’s Christmas Special. I mean the old one, not that new one with weird voices and all that.

- Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Because Herbie didn’t want to be an elf, he wanted to be a dentist. This is on CBS Wednesday, November 30th this year.

- Mickey’s Christmas Carol. Really any Christmas Carol, I just love Dickens’ story in all its incarnations.

- New York City. There is nowhere else that the energy of the season hits me harder than when I am walking down a beautifully lit-up Park Ave or seeing the Rockefeller Center tree. I try and get there every year the weekend before Christmas, and this year we have tickets to see Carmen at the Met. Merry Christmas to me!

- Christmas cards and letters. Because I like letting people know what’s going on with me, and I love to hear what’s going on with others.

- Roasted Nuts. This is totally something I got into in Germany, but when I find roasted hazelnuts and almonds with their sugary coating, I just go crazy.

- Cutting my own Christmas tree. We haven’t had a tree for the past three years, mostly because we spent way more time everywhere else and not at home, but I loved walking through acres of trees, looking for just the right one, the cold air nipping at your nose and your cheeks. Maybe we’ll do it again sometime soon, but the cats always hide under the tree and drink the water. Eh. But the memories are nice.

- Old Christmas songs. Somehow driving home from visiting family during the holiday season just isn’t the same listening to NPR. I much prefer listening to Burl Ives, Frank Sinatra, Andy Williams, or Bing Crosby belt out the classics. Thank god for the all-Christmas song radio stations this time of year. But no more Jingle Bell Rock please!

I was going to complement this list with a “What I hate about the holiday season,” but there are enough humbugs out there. So I’ll keep this positive and challenge you to think about what you like too!

My name is Brett, and I have a problem.

I realized that night that I have a very serious problem. A shameful addiction, really. I like bad movies. Not all bad movies, mind you, but ones that fit in a specific genre. For example, the movie that made me aware of my shameful addiction was on last night. I could not not watch The Family Man with Nick Cage and Tea Leoni. I love most movies that use the “what if you lived another life” schtick. These are always terrible movies – like 13 going on 30 – but somehow I get sucked into them. The archetype of the genre, however, I have to admit I absolutely hate. The movie is, of course, It’s a Wonderful Life. Can’t stand it. At all.

My name is Brett, and I like to watch bad movies. The last corny, terrible movie I watch was The Family Man last night. I hope that there is a support group for this.


P.S. And I just love Tea Leoni. Such a great name for an actress.

Stand in the place where you live

According to this Washington Post article, if the town I lived in were an incorporated city rather than a living example of suburban sprawl in its worse incarnation, it would be the second largest city in Maryland. Weird. Ideally, I could support a tax that would provide public services and promote some kind of sense of community, but Germantown is such a mish-mash of neighborhoods, subdivisions within subdivisions, and big box monstrosities that I don’t think that a separate tax would do anything. We had a stronger sense of community in the neighborhood I grew up in – hell I don’t know any of my neighbors by name save one. Stupid Maryland.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Things that I am thankful for this year (in no particular order):

My health
Being finished with graduate school
My in-laws going elsewhere for T-giving dinner this year
My job
My family’s, husband’s and cats’ health
My car being a well-made Saturn (at 175k, he’s still running!)

Things that I am decidedly not thankful for…

The Amazing Race: Family Edition. What a load of crap
Desperate Housewives: What a load of crap
Politics, including the lack of a viable third party, the acquiescence to and acceptance of Americans to sub-standard politicians, the lack of intelligent discourse in the mass media, and Congress’s inability to pass a budget on time, which in turn kept me from going out on a hurricane hunter flight : What a load of crap
Verizon: What a bunch of idiots

Feel free to add your own at will

Clean-up in aisle one

This may be the worst job that I have ever read about. Gross. Isn’t it great that here, in America, entrepreneurs can make a living just by finding a needed service and providing it? Kudos to them!

Bella Venezia

I love Italy, particularly Venice, and in general I love the Italians. Every time that NOVA shows the special on the underwater gates that the Italians want to use to keep water from flooding the lagoon and hence Venice, I watch.

So I pray and pray that the Italians will at some point get their act together and save Venice. This article from the BBC doesn’t give me much hope.

... and her pal Henry

This is Henry. He’s not as precocious as Eliza; he gets scared easily and doesn’t like the doorbell, strangers, or clapping hands. He was our first cat – we adopted him on the 4th of July. We called him Henry after “Tigger,” “Garfield,” and “Tiger” failed. He hid underneath our bed for the first week, and hisses at strange women. So funny.

When we were Christmas shopping for Henry at Petsmart, we walked over to where they have cats up for adoption on display. There was a clipboard hanging on the wall with the names of cats listed – and next to them their status “adopted.” I recognized some of the names on the clipboard; we had been in Petsmart nearly every other week and always looked at the cats. I looked at Ray, and off we were to the SPCA again. We brought home Eliza. Merry Christmas, Henry.

The two hated each other at first. Eliza had to stay with the vet for the next two days to be spayed, but Henry was so mad at us. I remember, crying on the phone with Ray, saying “Henry hates us and he’ll never forgive us.” Luckily, after about a week or two of hissing and spitting and yowling, we had peace at our home. And the cats started getting along too (Ba-dum-dum).

Now Henry occasionally attacks Eliza for sport, and they sleep side-by-side in little cat beds. He’s only 9 pounds, the skinny little beast, and has sharp little teeth.

Introducing... Eliza

I am a cat lover. I am an animal lover really – kind of to the extreme. I once made a boyfriend stop the car and bring a baby bunny rabbit that we had hit to the animal hospital because I was so upset – even though the situation was hopeless. I can’t watch Animal Planet for more than 10 minutes, because inevitably I get so upset I am forced to grab the nearest cat and hug him and squeeze him and call him George (rather, Henry or Eliza, whichever was unfortunate enough to be close by when I needed them).

I have two cats (if you haven’t caught it yet, they are Henry and Eliza, Pygmalion namesakes) that my husband and I adopted from the Chester County, PA SPCA. Eliza is too smart, too fat, and too loving for her own good. Henry is too scared and too timid and likes to go outside too much. They are both indoor cats and spoiled rotten.

Eliza has discovered that if she is hungry at 4 am in the morning, all she needs to do is find a plastic bag somewhere and play in it, making so much noise that one of us will get up. Otherwise she spends the night walking over us (she weighs a solid 14 pounds – she’s no lightweight) to let us know that the food we gave her at 11 pm was insufficient for her needs, and we must get up right now and give her more.

This is Eliza. She once got herself stuck under my dresser, and she is so neurotic she will chew the fur off her paws when she gets bored.

On being from the Garden State…

So as the address for this blog indicates, I am indeed an ex-Jersey Girl. In recovery, really. There are so many negative stereotypes about Jersey girls… that we all have big hair and short skirts and we vamp around malls looking for Guido-type boys driving Camaros or Firebirds. We go to the “shore” not the beach, where you can either have fun in borderline ghetto places like Sea Isle City, Wildwood or Seaside or in really nice places like LBI, Ocean City, Stone Harbor or Avalon.

I’m a south Jersey girl, from the Philly ‘burbs. What exit? For those in the know – I was exit 4 off the Turnpike or 36 off 295. We supposedly spoke with funny accents (although I never said ‘wudder’ for water) and were haunted by the Jersey Devil. We were uncultured hicks compared to our Sopranos-like Northern Jersey counterparts.

The thing about being from Jersey is that no matter how much fun you or others make of the state (What’s that smell? Oh, it’s just New Jersey; Armpit of the Northeast, dumping ground for NYC medical waste) there is a certain bond among New Jerseyians. For example, I recently attended an Orientation program for Presidential Management Fellows, where I got to meet people from all over the US. The people from the Midwest are all nice, the people from the South are nice, and the people from the Northwest were nice. But when Bon Jovi was playing on the karaoke machine, nobody could belt out those lyrics like us Jerseyians. And isn’t that what’s really important.

Whoa, we’re halfway there
Whoa-oh, living on a prayer
Take my hand and we’ll make it I swear
Whoa-oh, living on a prayer

Yeah, you have to pay to leave the state. Yeah it smells funny up around Exits 11-14 on the turnpike. Yeah, there isn’t much “Garden” left in the most densely populated state in the country. Car insurance and property taxes are ridiculously high. Hmm. I was going somewhere with this – but I forget now what it was. Get out while you can!

Almost paradise

I just love coming into work on the MARC train. They have a nice quiet car, where no one talks on cell phones or gabs about God knows what I don’t need to hear about first thing in the morning. You can bring your cup o’ morning coffee or tea – no worries about spilling it or getting yelled at by some Metro jerk (who is happily snacking away on his own McDonalds breakfast). It’s only a 30 minute ride, just the perfect amount of time to breeze through the morning paper or read a chapter in a book. No traffic, no headaches, no worries. And best of all its free to me with the government transit subsidy.

Thank God for decent public transportation – one thing being done with my exorbitant taxes that I can support.

And then there were two

I can’t just let there be one post on the blog. Its too lame. So I have to post another entry.

How about more of my favorite things?

My favorite …

wines are a good Vernaccia di San Gimignano, Mosel Riesling, New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, and Chilean Merlot.

treats are Trader Joe’s microbatch pumpkin ice cream, York peppermint patties, cannoli, and Starbucks’ Pumpkin Spice and Gingerbread lattes (they’re like crack, I can’t refuse).

memories from high school include falling face first off the boardwalk the day after my senior prom, sophomore year homecoming, and seeing Hamlet at UPenn.

random quotes are “isn’t it pretty to think so,” “Frankly, my dear I don’t give a damn,” and “K'Ehleyr was my mate.” (Don’t ask me to explain it, there’s a funny memory attached).

That’s all for now folks.

Post #1

My first blog post – what the hell should I write here? Well, I guess I ought to introduce myself

I …
am a 29 year old woman living in the DC area.

have a B.A. from Dickinson College and an M.A. from Georgetown University.

am happily married.

have a house and two cats.

love to travel, read, hike, and cook.

My favorite …

foods are good Italian (none of that Olive Garden crap), Thai, and Indian.

movies are Gone with the Wind, The Best Years of our Lives, The Philadelphia Story, Roman Holiday, Kill Bill Vol. 1, and Garden State.
books are The Sun also Rises, Siddhartha, The Brothers Karamazov, Gone with the Wind, The Lord of the Rings, and Brave New World.

places are Florence, Italy; London, England; St. John, USVI; New York City; and Venice, Italy.

music is Bizet’s Carmen, Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Smashing Pumpkins, Alice in Chains, Beethoven’s Symphonies, Tchaikovsky’s Marche Slave, early No Doubt, Simon and Garfunkel, early Alanis Morrissette and Madonna, and Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.

color is tropical ocean blue, flower is a stargazer lily, and gemstone is amethyst,

I think that’s enough for a start. Welcome to my world.