Friday, June 29, 2007

Owning a home, without owning your building

Okay, there are some really great things about owning a condo. One, I never have to hassle Matt to mow the lawn, because we don't have a lawn. Two, its easily affordable in DC.

Lately though, its been really frustrating just doing general home improvements. We tried to get a ceiling fan installed in our bedroom, but the electricians said it couldn't be done because the ceiling didn't have enough depth to hold a fan, and also, the only way they could run the wires would be through the outside brick, and obviously, they can't do that.

We thought about replacing our scary little spiral stairwell with a real stairwell, but found out that it would be very expensive (we used the money to pay down a little bit of our mortgage instead).

We're lucky enough to have a private entrance to our unit, but the door has to be replaced now because of several cracks. A contractor came out and said the entire door frame would have to be rebuilt, and to do that we need pre-approval from our condo board.

This was supposed to be the year of home improvements, but so far everything has gone by the wayside. Maybe I'll just go ahead and get the carpet replaced and feel like I've actually accomplished something.

Thursday, June 21, 2007

Worst...first day of summer...ever

Actually, today wasn't too bad in general. Matt and I met up with some friends, ate some crab, drank some wine. What totally sucked was the temperature. A rain storm swept into the area during rush hour and brought a cold front (the second time this month). When I got out of the Metro, the temperature had dropped to 69 degrees, but it had mostly stopped raining. Later as we ate on the patio, another rain storm came through, with huge gusts of wind. We were freezing. However, we did enjoy a gorgeous sunset once the storm blew out of the way. It was bright orange, with gray clouds swept across the sky.

So, okay, the comraderie was nice. But its just wrong to have a summer day in the 60s, especially since is the second time this month that this has happened. I'm pretty sure this weekend will be really nice though.

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Summer in DC

Nothing says summer in DC like families of tourists coming in droves to the city. They walk around in matching shirts, stand on the left side of the Metro escalators--blocking the way of people walking on the escalators--and look around instead of looking at where they are going. Pretty much typical anywhere you go.

Good tourists try not to take up too much room on the Metro during rush hour, and make way for us drones who aren't lucky enough to be on vacation.

Coming home from work today, there was a couple with a very small baby in his arms. The wife was following behind with the stroller, which she proceeded to fold up once she got on the train (good). Someone offered them seats behind me, and they sat down gratefully. After a few minutes, the baby started to get fussy, and you could tell they were mortified, as people turned their attention away from their iPods, and toward them. "Shhh," the dad said. "You don't want to disturb the workers."

The workers. I felt like calling him, "comrade". It was a strange end to an otherwise uneventful day.

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Best of my love

Someone forwarded me a link that tells you what the number one song is for the day you were born. My birthday song is "Best of my love" by the Emotions!
Speaking of birthdays, mine is only two months away. I've been trying to figure out what a cool 30th birthday party would be. I think it will probably involve eating and drinking, but that's about it.

Oh yeah, that song link: http://www.joshhosler.biz/NumberOneInHistory/SelectMonth.htm
Go Spurs Go!

Thursday, June 07, 2007

The Slug Course

For our fourth anniversary, we decided to do a very Matt and Laura thing and go out for dinner (of course). We chose a restaurant in our neighborhood that has a very good reputation among the foodie community, that we hadn't been to yet because it can be a little pricey. Like many high-end restaurants in DC, they pride themselves on using local, in-season and organic products.

Our first course consisted, of course, of salad. I enjoyed a salmon seviche (that's the way that they spelled it, so that's how I'm going to spell it) with greens, and Matt had rabbit with romaine. As we were finishing up our salads, I saw Matt stop and look very intently at his plate. He kept staring at it, and I could tell he was getting very, very ansy. I glanced over at his plate, and saw a teeny tiny little slug squirming on the very last piece of lettuce. It was horrifying, but at the same time kind of amusing. The slug, if that's what it was, kept moving around, clearly terrified. Matt looked completely distraught. He flagged the waiter over (who was very, very good), and said, "There seems to be an animal on my plate, and it seems to be alive," while the slug kept squirming. The waiter was properly mortified, apologized, and whisked the plate away. He came back a few minutes late, apologized again, and said the manager was coming over to speak to us. The manager came a few minutes later, apologized profusely, and offered us a complimentary glass of champagne to give us a few extra minutes to decide if we wanted to continue our dinner. We decided that we wanted to stay, and enjoyed the rest of the meal. We support organics, after all.

All in all, the salad was comped, as well as our bottle of wine, and two glasses of champagne each. All of this without throwing a hissy fit in a nice restaurant, like some people would do. We'll probably go back, but probably won't order salad again. Supposedly, they also have the best burger in town.