Aye Carrumba!

We went to a restaurant in Del Ray with Paul B last night. It was a superb Mexican called Los Tios. The food was great - freshly rolled tortillas, and freshly made salsa. But the very best thing was the margarita's!! We ordered a large one each, and I was pretty shocked when they brought them to the table. These were HUGE! It was the kind of glass that you would literally have to pick up with both hands. It was more a bucket than a glass!! We managed to shlurp our way through two each and were feeling no pain when we left!

The Weekend - the photos

I was pretty tired when I wrote the last post, so there were no photos attached to it. I'm going to rectify that now...

Being bored senseless on the Ghost Tour.

The fountain in Dupont Circle

Sitting in the splash zone. Mum and David at Dupont Circle.

David with his book

Poised and ready to scoff the "Dysfunctional Family Sundae" (yes we did share)
in the cafe at the rear of Kramer books.

Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson

The group shot

The Tomb of Jefferson, 3rd American President,
the author of the Declaration of Independence, the statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom and the founder of the University of Virginia

The weekend....

On Thursday afternoon David and Mum called it quits early and hit the Mall. We met up with them in Macy's where they were undergoing intensive retail therapy. I was too footsore to join in - the perils of stiletto's I guess. We got home, changed and headed out. Mum and I were going to do the ghost tour and the boys were going to hook up with Paul B. The ghost tour was deathly dull - I think that the guide was trying to create a few ghosts, ghouls and spirits by boring people to death as we walked round! We ran away before the end - we couldn't wait any longer for dinner. It was already 1 hour and 15 minutes into a 1 hour tour and we hadn't got to the final tour stop yet!

We bumped into the boys as we were walking home. They were sitting on a pavement table outside the Warehouse with an array of glasses around them. It seems they wandered into Chadwicks for a final drink...which could have been a bad choice!! Mum phoned when I was in work to say that David was a little under the weather. It must have been a flash virus of some sort...

He was feeling a lot better come the afternoon. The three of us took the Metro up to Dupont Circle and went to Kramer Books. They had his book in stock, and this was the first time that he had actually seen it on the shelf in a bookshop! We had coffee and scrummy dessert at the cafe at the rear before heading down to the Sculpture Garden to take in the jazz concert. It was not a journey that was incident free! We flagged down a cab and I leaned into the window to ask it he would take us to the Sculpture Garden. He didn't know where that was, so I asked for the National Gallery of Art, the Mall, the National Mall...he hadn't heard of any of them!! We decided that we would seek a different cab - one that had heard of any of the major attractions would be good! We were crossing the road a little further on. We were at a crossing, there was nothing coming, we got halfway across the road when Mum and I were nearly mown down! The car screeched to a halt about 2 feet (max) from mum. They were going a ridiculous speed and I think on their mobile. We had right of way - you're not supposed to mow down pedestrians on a crossing!!

It was lovely to sit in the Gardens listening to the band. We really must take a picnic and blanket next time though. Stephen got a cab over to join us after his haircut and we wandered over towards Federal Triangle to get something to eat. We had a delicious meal in a French restaurant before heading back over to Old Town for a drink. We got as far as rounding the corner to the bar in O'Connells but were forced back by the wall of noise! We beat a retreat to an outside table and enjoyed the relative peace of King Street on a Friday night (think Piccadilly Circus...).

We did a roadtrip on Saturday! We headed off to Charlottesville, little realising it was so far! Google Maps lied to me - it said 2 1/2 hours journey time, which was long enough, but the SatNav took us a slightly unusual route, so it took us the best part of 4 hours to get there! Monticello (the home of Thomas Jefferson) was really fascinating and Charlottesville itself was nice. It would be good to spend a little more time there though. We didn't really have time to get to the University of Virginia before we had to head home. We didn't want to end up sleeping in the car, pulled up in a layby!

The Outdoor life

We have been busy beavers recently. After my early awakening thanks to a jet lagged hubby we trotted off round to Home Depot to get some mulch for my newly cleared front garden. We got back about 9:30 and spent 20 minutes spreading it “before it gets too hot” – what a joke! We were glowing within 5 minutes! But we persisted and it looks really neat now. All the neighbours are commenting on how much better it looks. Once again, we must have been the talk of the steamy with our untidy ground cover plants! We were the disgrace of the street until a couple of months ago when our landlady finally got round to replacing the shutter beside the front door. The slats kept pinging out, and if you tried to put them back in they would ping out all the more!

With all the heat it was inevitable that we had a thunderstorm later on in the afternoon. It finally slowed from downpour to heavy rain and we braved a walk to King Street for dinner. We had barely gone a block before I was soaked to the knees. My shoes were sloshing with water. I’m surprised I don’t have trench foot now!!

Sunday was more yard work. We borrowed our neighbour Margaret’s jet washer and I did the back garden. Stephen helped by moving the patio furniture out of the way and standing back out of the splash zone. By the time I was done I was soaked to the knees and splashed all over with mud. Well, I hear that mud masks are beneficial for the face! I almost had to brain Stephen when he was talking to Margaret and said “well, we usually do this each year back home”. All I’m going to say is that I didn’t realize Stephen was royalty as I seem to remember that he usually either buggers off to the driving range, or gets the recliner out and sits on the lawn reading the paper….

Mum and David arrived on Sunday. Well, technically they arrived on Monday morning as their flight was delayed by about 3 ½ hours. We had to be up and into work for 7:30 so we told them to get a cab and left them a key. I was surprised that they were up the same time as us in the morning. I thought they might have needed a little more kip!

There was a huge storm passed through the area on Monday afternoon. I looked up at one point and couldn’t see the buildings across the street. On closer inspection it was so squally that the rain was going upwards! There were lots of trees down and general traffic chaos on the way home. We had planned to BBQ, but that wasn’t going to be happening, so we jumped in the car and drove along to Chadwicks for dinner, only to find that the entire King Street area was without power. All was not lost however as we all trooped off to Faccia Luna for salads and pizza.

Everyone was up at the crack of dawn, and Mum and David traveled in with us en-route to the National archives (David is over doing research on his next book). I had one amusing moment during the day. Paul W had an 11am appointment, and the guy turned up about 5 mins to 11. Paul was off at another meeting, so I called him and he told me he was across the street and would be about 5 mins. Joni let the chap know and offered to make him coffee. Paul got back a couple of minutes later. Joni called me to find out if the visitor was back with me, as she had had to leave the front desk for a minute and the chap was no longer in reception. Nope. It turns out he did a runner. He was agitated that Paul was a few minutes late and then he scarpered rather than wait. He missed Paul by seconds. Odd behavior!

We had the delayed BBQ last night. Only one minor hiccup in that we ran out of gas halfway through!! A frantic phone call later and we managed to exchange the use of Paul B’s gas bottle for a corn on the cob and a signature in his copy of David’s book!!

Pop Quiz

Q1. How do you tell if you have jetlag? Do you:
a. Wake up at 6am and poke your wife in the leg until she wakes up too?
b. Go out with your polo shirt inside out?
c. Both of the above?

The correct answer is C.

We were just about to walk out of the door last night when I realised that Stephen's polo shirt looked odd...and sent him back to turn it the right way out! Poor baby was obviously a little tired! We popped along to Paul B's and had a drink on his patio overlooking the Potomac. Very nice. We had a couple of visits from wildlife whilst we were sitting out. The first was from a huge mosquito who tried to saw Stephen's hand off to take back to its babies. The second was from a squirrel who kept coming over to sit on the wall and look at us. We were obviously fascinating to it! Perhaps it was our bowl of nuts he was coveting...

He's Home!

Stephen braved the curse of the 13th and flew home today. I think he was blissfully unaware of what the date was! He was apparently asking the cabin crew why the plane was half empty, and they enlightened him...of course, he has worked out my dastardly plan now. After all it was me who booked the flights!

Stephen took loads of pictures of Malvern and my garden back home. It looks really good! It has filled out a lot in the past year. It looks really mature now. Typical that finally, when it gets to that stage I'm not there to see it in person. The photos made up for that though!

Looking fabulous and lush!

Another view

Who's that spoiling the view of my plants? Stephen enjoying the English summer weather.

No - Not my back garden!! Malvern isn't looking too shabby either!!

Friday the 13th...

It's Friday 13th, and the day is, so far, living up to its reputation! I've had a few moments already today...first I picked up a bottle from the dressing table and went to spritz my hair with product, only to realise (just in time) that it was actually a bottle of aftersun I'd picked up. Then I was just about to leave the house when I had to run back up 4 flights of stairs to check I'd switched off my straightening irons - which I had. I didn't want to get home and find a smouldering wreck!! Then I managed to let go of the screen door and gouge a chunk out of my ankle. Didn't think it was to bad (it was freakin' sore though!) until I got to work and looked at it properly and discovered that it was bleeding all over my shoes... Does anyone have any white heather they can send me express delivery??

Beautiful!

I just popped out to water the garden and I've just seen my first firefly of this summer!

Easily pleased!

I love my Tide pen! I was sitting munching on cherries last night, bit into a particularly juicy one and spurted juice all down the front of my t-shirt. It was new and a favourite so I was a bit miffed. I dotted the spots with my Tide stain remover pen. Nothing happened, so I resigned myself to parting company with it. But 10 minutes later it had dried and the stain had gone. It was a miracle. A miracle I tells ya!!

Stephen has been in the UK this week and from all accounts has had a really busy and productive week. He's flying home tomorrow - yay!! I get my sweetie pie back!! He's going to be having a busy and productive weekend too - although he may not know it yet! I have a list of things that I need him to sort out...first of all, he needs to replace the blown light bulbs. I swear we have blown about 5 in the past week! How come when one bulb blows they all decide its a good idea? I'm having to find my clothes and shoes by feel as both bulbs in the walk-in closet have blown. Which might explain why I got to the door this morning before I realised I had on two black stilettos...which were not a matching pair!! I suppose there is a moral here about not needing 4 pairs of nearly identical shoes...but I'm not going to listen to that "inner voice"!!

Not in the mooo-d for work

I think we're going to have to name Wednesday's Silly Wednesday's from now on. Last week we were wetting ourselves over the pongy plant, and this week we were in uproar over a competition to fire a toy cow over as many cubicles as possible! The cow has rubber bands for front legs and makes a mooing sound when you fire it (like a catapult), and the competition between Dawn and Paul was to get it as far as possible, over as many cubes as possible. The first few attempts made it over one cube (mine!), eventually they were hitting the far wall of the end cube employing various creative techniques. It was hilarious!! Chris picked it up and made to fire it back towards Paul and I immediately dived for cover under my desk. I knew that my head was in the danger zone!! I was right! Paul was in complete hysterics at the sight of me sitting cross-legged under my desk.

After all the fun no-one was really in the mood for work, so we actually knocked off at 5:15 (only a short 10 hour day today!!). I got home after sitting in hideous traffic (which is why I don't leave at 5pm usually!) to a nice surprise. The gardener that I had asked to clear the ground cover plants in the front garden had come a day early and was nearly finished. It looks so much neater now - it had got a little shaggy! He was a really nice man and only wanted $65 to do the job (although that's not what I paid him). He seemed really touched when I brought him out a bottle of water, and he left saying he liked my attitude....which was lovely, but did make me wonder how other people treat him...

Another weather update

It turned out that there was a lot of wilting yesterday. Not so much the plants, but definitely me!! After about 10 minutes of gentle deadheading, sticking 5 plants in a container and pulling a few weeds I was bathed in "glow" and had to go inside, drink a litre of water and stand panting by the air con vent to try and cool down. Damn! It was hot! Today was no better. The temperatures were around 37C, and when you add the humidity it felt like 42C (or so the weather experts are telling us - but in Fahrenheit of course!). They are predicting a cold front on Wednesday. The temperature is going to drop by a whopping 4C. I can't wait!!

Weather update

Another night, another thunderstorm. It was one of those kind of strange thunderstorms where you get almost continual thunder, and the sky was almost continually lit up like daylight with the lightning, but there were few forks of lightning and only a small amount of rain. This went on for about 1 1/2 hours last night. I've just checked to see what we actually achieved temperature wise yesterday. There was a high of 37C and an overnight low of 26C. This morning it is already 30C and its only 9am!! We have a heat advisory, as with the high humidity, the temperature is going to feel like 108F apparently. I'm going to try and get my plants into the window box now and see how much they (and I) wilt over the course of the day!!

To infinity and beyond...

After our long and exhausting week at work, Paul called a Jaleo happy hour for Friday. So we all trooped over the road at 4pm for a well deserved drink...we were having such a good time that happy hour turned into a happy four hours!! We were certainly all very happy when we left!!

Our wild and wacky weather has continued this week. There was a huge storm on Wednesday, during which an oak tree collapsed onto the roof of The Lyceum Museum walkway, totally demolishing it and causing around $1M worth of damage (according to the paper). When we woke this morning it looked fairly overcast, so I headed out in a long sleeved T-shirt and cargo pants. I hadn't realised it was so damned hot! Or humid! There was almost a mist of humidity - you couldn't see the other bank of the Potomac and, even more strangely you could hear planes flying overhead, but couldn't see them at all. It was so hot! We both had a glow about us after 10 minutes!! We had coffee and bagels sitting at the marina then took a wander up to the farmers market where we were drawn by the zesty tang of oranges being freshly squeezed. It was absolutely delicious and I've decided I need to get a juicer over here. It has to be cheaper to buy the oranges and squeeze them, than it is to pay $4 for a cup. And I adore tangy fresh-squeezed juice, whereas I don't adore the sweet stuff you buy in the shops.

I've bought some plants for the window box that sits on our front railings. However, as its over 90 degrees I'm going to have to wait to plant them...for their sake as well as mine!! It is so hot and airless today that it is almost painful to be outside! I only hope that they survive the heat as I'm not around to water them 3 times a day...

We bought them at Lowes (the equivalent of Homebase). We were bagging up the plants at the outside register when the alarm kept going off...It was me! I don't know what I had about my person that upset it, but something did. I actually set the alarm off going into the store!! After I set the alarm off 3 times in 30 seconds just by moving back and forward 4 inches, the lady working the checkout laughingly told Stephen to scram and take Buzz Lightyear with him!!

Pheweeee - what a whiff!!

Today was a fun day! It was busy, busy in work and yet we still found time for a moment or two of complete hilarity...

Moment One: We had a couple of UK BD guys visiting today. They spent the entire time in the office pacing up and down the open plan office yelling into their cell phones. Okay, I get it. It makes them feel important. I just wish they would SHUT UP! Sit in a cube, talk in a normal voice...don't make so much noise that I can't hear myself think! I was sitting there quietly trying to work out why my numbers were $200's out when a loud rrriiiiiipppp echoed round the office. What the ??? ohmigod, someone has let rip with a huge fart. I mean, Hello!! Remember I'm here - this isn't a frat room or something!!! (No anagram intended!)

Now this continued on something of a theme today.... so onto Moment Two.

We had a couple of VIP visitors in today, and we always put the important people in the posh corner office. Our VIP settled himself into the desk and I went off to make a coffee. I knocked. I opened the door. I was assulted by a really bad smell. I fixed my smile. I thought "he must have had a bad scallop last night". I tried not to breathe. I left as soon as I could...

Dawn and I were laughing about Moment One, when we passed the corner office at lunchtime (after our visitor had left for off-site meetings). I dragged her in. She gagged as the place still smelt really strongly of cabbage fart. We then spent 10 minutes running round the office trying to find something to take the pong away, all the time whilst wondering what was in his case that could whiff so much!

After a bit of nasal detective work (they REALLY don't pay us enough!) we discovered that he wasn't actually to blame!! It was actually one of the plants that was whiffy, so we carried it away wondering how on earth our luck would be so bad that a plant would rot overnight in the one office that mattered....

About 5pm I was in Stephen's office when Dawn collapsed through the door and closed it behind her. She was almost speechless with laughter. "I'm glad you're in here. I couldn't tell you this beside your desk" (I'm near the corner office). "Paul's just been in to see me. He poured coffee into the plant yesterday. I just launched my water bottle across the room at him when he told me!!! He ran for cover and into the gents where I can't get him".

Paul is lactose intolerant and one of the guys in the office keeps buying him caramel dolce lattes. He usually gives them to me to dispose of (I give them to the sweet-toothed Americans), but Paul had been handed this one on the way into a meeting with the chap, so he dumped the whole sweet milky mess into the plant when they were distracted...and this was yesterday afternoon which explains why the office was sweet smelling yesterday, and not so much today!!! Scooby snacks all round - the mystery is solved!!

We made Paul go and confess!! Of course the poor visitor has been sitting in this room with the bad smell all morning, probably thinking A.) That the offices smell really bad and wishing he was somewhere else and/or B.) Kerry must think I've dropped a really smelly one. And, of course, I couldn't say anything to him because I thought he actually HAD dropped a really smelly one!!!

This reminds me of a time long ago, in a land far away (Malvern, L block) when Stephen walked into an office and announced "Jesus Christ, something has died in here"...which had me and another couple of colleagues running out of our offices and dragging him out and silencing him, whilst explaining that the "something" that had died was one of the occupants and he always smelt like that!!! Who's right? Who's wrong? Better to speak, or to suffer in silence?? A dilemma!

Yet more weather!

I've just turned the TV over expecting to see Family Guy only to find that there was a special news report running as we have another tornado warning in the county, a bit further south of us. We are getting the same huge thunderstorms as we had on Saturday - someone seems to be chucking buckets of water at the window. I just checked the 10 day forecast for Alexandria and we're forecast to get temperatures of 35C for the next week - with a few thunderstorms thrown in. The Summer heat has arrived. The crippling humidity can't be far behind!

It's off to work we go....

I spent yesterday (yet again!) doing loads of laundry. And Stephen spent it (yet again!) playing golf. Can someone explain how it always works out that way? Oh yes, that's right. If Stephen did the laundry it would all come out pink and the right size to fit a barbie doll. Much as I love to shop I think a weekly replacement of my wardrobe might be a bit exhausting!

Work today was busy for both of us. Stephen spent the day with a phone glued to his ear, and I spent it replying to hundreds of e-mails, sorting out "stuff" and making umpteen travel bookings. Tim had to make a couple of bookings whilst I was out last week and he said today that its not as easy as it looks and I am welcome to that aspect of my job! I had an e-mail from the chap at HRG travel that I usually deal with which said "I missed you, but I think Tim missed you more..." Too true it seems!!

We're gearing up for a VIP visitor from the UK office this week. I was struggling into the house with bags of shopping when my mobile rang, so I let it go to voicemail. Typically as it was the one call that I didn't pick up, it was the UK VIP!!!! I was hitting the redial button instantly as soon as I heard the message!! Thankfully he was in a chirpy mood and just calling to say hello and let me know about a change to his dinner plans tomorrow, so not too career limiting!!

Tornado warning

Stephen had a phone call from Rudy yesterday morning asking if he wanted to play golf, and also mentioning that Northern Virginia had a tornado warning in place. It was hard to believe at that point as the sun was splitting the skies, but true enough when I checked the forecast we had.

At 2pm the sky went black and someone started hosing the windows with a fireman's hose - or rather, that's what it looked like! The rain was absolutely torrential, the street was a river and there was continual thunder and huge (and close) lightning bolts. It was certainly a severe storm - probably the worst we've seen since we've been here. Our power flickered and stayed on but there are around 30,000 houses in the VA region without power, and as many again directly across the Potomac.

Of course, we had no food in the house having just come back from hols, so we had to make a dash for the shops in between storm fronts. We figured that a dozen beers, a couple of bottles of wine and a dozen bottles of water would see us through....oh and a loaf and some goodies from Balducci's just in case things got really bad!!

The Biker Invasion explained

Apparently there is a parade in DC on Memorial Day and the Vietnam Vets, on their motorbikes, roll down the Mall en-mass as part of the parade. It's called Rolling Thunder - due, no doubt to the fact that they don't seem to have silencers on the exhausts and even one bike is loud!