Wednesday, 6 August 2008
I want curry....and I want it now!!
I've just made a serious error of judgement. I watched (as I frequently do) Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares on BBC America. The restaurant featured tonight was an Indian and I've just sat through an hour of people making, eating and talking about Indian food. I have never craved an chicken jalfrezi as much as I do right now!!! I had got over my curry cravings months ago, and now...I want one...NOW!!!!! I should have turned it over immediately. It was such a bad idea to watch it! I was just torturing myself.
What not to wear
I forgot to tell you about my senior moment the other day. And the worst of it was I didn't realise I was having one for several hours!! I was in the elevator at the end of the day when I glanced down and realised that I was wearing a patterned white top....and a black bra! Oh the shame!!! The worst of it was I was on my way to the airport to meet Colin - what a great first impression! - and had no time to change!!
Of course I immediately berated Stephen at length for not telling me! Surely he should have noticed when I was getting dressed that there was a potentially embarrassing underwear situation going on? I was laying the blame firmly at his door anyway! As I normally manage to dress myself without such incidents I'm not sure what was going on in my head. I can only assume that after all my late nights and lack of sleep last week I was actually still unconscious when I got dressed that morning!!
I have had a few minor "wardrobe malfunctions" in the past...you know the kind of thing. You turn around and discover that your wrap top is not as tightly wrapped as you thought and one of the twins is halfway out to saying hello - but this is always in perfectly co-ordinated undies!! Standards are slipping!!
Of course I immediately berated Stephen at length for not telling me! Surely he should have noticed when I was getting dressed that there was a potentially embarrassing underwear situation going on? I was laying the blame firmly at his door anyway! As I normally manage to dress myself without such incidents I'm not sure what was going on in my head. I can only assume that after all my late nights and lack of sleep last week I was actually still unconscious when I got dressed that morning!!
I have had a few minor "wardrobe malfunctions" in the past...you know the kind of thing. You turn around and discover that your wrap top is not as tightly wrapped as you thought and one of the twins is halfway out to saying hello - but this is always in perfectly co-ordinated undies!! Standards are slipping!!
Sunday, 3 August 2008
Irish eyes are smilng
I was flicking through the local paper last night when I noticed that there was an Irish Festival going on in Oronoco Park today. It promised the local pipe band and Irish foods. We've seen the pipe band enough not to be too excited about that, but the thought of Irish food...well perhaps that might mean bacon and sausages sandwiches...
As it was hot and humid and Oronoco Park is about a 30 minute walk away, we parked the car in Cameron St and walked the rest of the way, after dropping into Starbucks for an iced tea (me), and an Americano (him). We got to Oronoco Park and there was...nothing there!!
Never mind, lets take some photos says my own personal David Bailey, pulling out his new super camera. I wandered off a few feet to admire the view, only to have my attention pulled back around by the cursing coming from Stephen. It seems that somehow he managed not to put the battery in his camera!! Luckily I had mine in my handbag...
Oronoco Bay Park sans Irish Festival
As it was hot and humid and Oronoco Park is about a 30 minute walk away, we parked the car in Cameron St and walked the rest of the way, after dropping into Starbucks for an iced tea (me), and an Americano (him). We got to Oronoco Park and there was...nothing there!!
Never mind, lets take some photos says my own personal David Bailey, pulling out his new super camera. I wandered off a few feet to admire the view, only to have my attention pulled back around by the cursing coming from Stephen. It seems that somehow he managed not to put the battery in his camera!! Luckily I had mine in my handbag...
Oronoco Bay Park sans Irish Festival 
A car. Okay - a Ferrari....
Founders Park - the other side of the Marina
We assumed that the festival was maybe Sunday, so we walked back along to King Street. We could hear someone singing Irish songs but assumed that maybe he'd turned up on the wrong day too! It wasn't until we got back to the marina we discovered that the Irish Festival was in full swing - on the grass behind Starbucks!!
There was someone singing Irish songs, the local Irish pubs (except O'Connells) were represented, there were stalls selling all sorts of Irish souvenirs, and of course Guinness. The Irish food that was promised turned out to be Hawaiian shaved ice, cotton candy, BBQ chicken, hot dogs and burgers. About as regionally authentic as the food at the Scottish festival last year with included crabcakes and BBQ!! Oh well, its just as well that I met my Embassy friend for lunch and stocked up with another pound of bacon from the shop!! She arrived for lunch with a cooler packed with bacon, sausages and black pudding for us all - there were about 15lbs of pork products in there!!! We love Heather!!
Getting ready to audition for Riverdance
Saturday, 2 August 2008
The Welcome Wagon
Our company has a great graduate programme that allows new graduate to do stints in areas around the company, getting a view of the whole company and gaining lots of experience. A few luck out and make it to the US. Jacqui was one, and our newest arrival - Colin - is another.
He arrived yesterday and I volunteered Stephen and I to be the Welcome Wagon and go and collect him from the airport. I got a call from the company that had organised his accommodation letting me know that the keys were available and suggesting that I collect them before heading out to the airport as the site office closed at 6pm and who knows what can happen to traffic round the Beltway during rush hour.
Having planned to leave the office at 1:30 it was inevitable that we got delayed and didn't get away until nearly 2:15. Colin's flight landed at 2:40, and with having to get through immigration I hoped we just about had enough time to get there before he appeared! We jumped into the car and legged it in the general direction of the apartments whilst I fought with the overly complicated SatNav. We were there before I got it to accept the address!!
I leaped from the car and into the office. There was a girl behind the desk trying to find a package for a resident. She threw me a look and snapped "what number?".
"I'm here to collect keys for Colin Bennett who's moving in today".
No verbal response, just another look. She eventually found the package for the other chap and swished round the desk and past me. I was immediately in hot pursuit.
"Excuse me, but I'm here to collect keys for Colin Bennett"
"What number?"
"He's moving in today"
"I can't give keys to someone not on the lease"
"He's possibly not going to get here until after 6pm. I was told to collect the keys by the letting agent"
""I can't give keys to someone not on the lease. People generally tie moving in with our office hours"
"Well that's not a possibility. He's currently on a flight from the UK. I'm going to collect him from the airport this afternoon"
This just elicited another stroppy look. Oh dear....
"Right. Let me get my phone. I'm going to call the letting agent and you can speak to him and explain why I can't collect the keys". I turned on my heel and stomped out to the car to get the agents phone number. I was rummaging in the car muttering loudly to Stephen about the stroppy attitude of 20 year old girls when she came out of the office with an envelope of keys and thrust them at me without a word.
We finally got on he road and spent most of the time on I-66 doing a staggeringly fast 25mph. I was pretty convinced that he would be out and waiting for us by the time we finally got there! Thankfully we picked up speed, and immigration was slow... We had about 30 minutes to wait before he came out. I was there with my sign as neither of us had any idea what the other looked like!
He's a very nice young guy, very chatty. We got him back to his apartment (just before 6pm!), and then left him to it as he was keen to go and explore. He's just across from Potomac Yards (Target, Best Buy etc), so pointed him in that direction as he was wanting to go buy a cell phone and have a look round.
He arrived yesterday and I volunteered Stephen and I to be the Welcome Wagon and go and collect him from the airport. I got a call from the company that had organised his accommodation letting me know that the keys were available and suggesting that I collect them before heading out to the airport as the site office closed at 6pm and who knows what can happen to traffic round the Beltway during rush hour.
Having planned to leave the office at 1:30 it was inevitable that we got delayed and didn't get away until nearly 2:15. Colin's flight landed at 2:40, and with having to get through immigration I hoped we just about had enough time to get there before he appeared! We jumped into the car and legged it in the general direction of the apartments whilst I fought with the overly complicated SatNav. We were there before I got it to accept the address!!
I leaped from the car and into the office. There was a girl behind the desk trying to find a package for a resident. She threw me a look and snapped "what number?".
"I'm here to collect keys for Colin Bennett who's moving in today".
No verbal response, just another look. She eventually found the package for the other chap and swished round the desk and past me. I was immediately in hot pursuit.
"Excuse me, but I'm here to collect keys for Colin Bennett"
"What number?"
"He's moving in today"
"I can't give keys to someone not on the lease"
"He's possibly not going to get here until after 6pm. I was told to collect the keys by the letting agent"
""I can't give keys to someone not on the lease. People generally tie moving in with our office hours"
"Well that's not a possibility. He's currently on a flight from the UK. I'm going to collect him from the airport this afternoon"
This just elicited another stroppy look. Oh dear....
"Right. Let me get my phone. I'm going to call the letting agent and you can speak to him and explain why I can't collect the keys". I turned on my heel and stomped out to the car to get the agents phone number. I was rummaging in the car muttering loudly to Stephen about the stroppy attitude of 20 year old girls when she came out of the office with an envelope of keys and thrust them at me without a word.
We finally got on he road and spent most of the time on I-66 doing a staggeringly fast 25mph. I was pretty convinced that he would be out and waiting for us by the time we finally got there! Thankfully we picked up speed, and immigration was slow... We had about 30 minutes to wait before he came out. I was there with my sign as neither of us had any idea what the other looked like!
He's a very nice young guy, very chatty. We got him back to his apartment (just before 6pm!), and then left him to it as he was keen to go and explore. He's just across from Potomac Yards (Target, Best Buy etc), so pointed him in that direction as he was wanting to go buy a cell phone and have a look round.
Happy Birthday QInc
It's QInc's 7th Birthday, so we had a birthday party with cake and ice cream on Thursday.
"Happy Birthday" (in primary blue)
Added to the frantic activity of Wednesday's baseball preparation, Tim was ordering a cake online from one of the local supermarkets. Now, Tim likes to talk and run things by me, but I swear that after he had gone through the cake details (at approx 20 minutes of explanation) for the 3rd time (to me or to people passing by my cube) I was about set to throttle him!! (In the nicest possible way of course!) He was giving really explicit instructions about the colour of the icing and was worried about these some of these (or the parentheses and quotation marks) appearing on the cake.... Dawn was more worried about the icing coming back with a "U" in QinetiQ. And she was right! Thankfully they were able to fix it, and you'd never know it was there!!
Mr Wrongkindofbeer got into my bad books again. He gave me a hard time as I'd not put the chilled beer in the fridge (which was full of food) and had stuck it in the cupboard as apparently "American beer will go bad if its chilled and then allowed to go warm. You don't want to make people sick, you need to throw it out". Now I'd never heard of this, so I did a little web research. What a bunch of hooey! The web information came from a brewmaster of 40 years standing, so I think we can pretty much say he knows what he's talking about!!
I thought the whole beer thing was just ridiculous given that every American (including him) in the office embraces leftover food! They were scarfing down the BBQ leftovers without a thought for their intestinal safety!! I was okay with the salad, but not reheating chicken which had already been reheated when we got it to the office... Still, they were all alive on Friday, so I guess it was fine!
"Happy Birthday" (in primary blue)"QinetiQ" (in pastel blue)
Tim's very specific instructions....
Tim's very specific instructions....
Added to the frantic activity of Wednesday's baseball preparation, Tim was ordering a cake online from one of the local supermarkets. Now, Tim likes to talk and run things by me, but I swear that after he had gone through the cake details (at approx 20 minutes of explanation) for the 3rd time (to me or to people passing by my cube) I was about set to throttle him!! (In the nicest possible way of course!) He was giving really explicit instructions about the colour of the icing and was worried about these some of these (or the parentheses and quotation marks) appearing on the cake.... Dawn was more worried about the icing coming back with a "U" in QinetiQ. And she was right! Thankfully they were able to fix it, and you'd never know it was there!!
Mr Wrongkindofbeer got into my bad books again. He gave me a hard time as I'd not put the chilled beer in the fridge (which was full of food) and had stuck it in the cupboard as apparently "American beer will go bad if its chilled and then allowed to go warm. You don't want to make people sick, you need to throw it out". Now I'd never heard of this, so I did a little web research. What a bunch of hooey! The web information came from a brewmaster of 40 years standing, so I think we can pretty much say he knows what he's talking about!!
I thought the whole beer thing was just ridiculous given that every American (including him) in the office embraces leftover food! They were scarfing down the BBQ leftovers without a thought for their intestinal safety!! I was okay with the salad, but not reheating chicken which had already been reheated when we got it to the office... Still, they were all alive on Friday, so I guess it was fine!
Friday, 1 August 2008
Take me out to the ball game....
Wednesday was our outing to watch the Washington Nationals play the Phillies at Baseball. It had been several weeks in the planning, Tim was very excited and taking care of all the arrangements, and was rolling with the punches...it turns out that the original idea to tailgate at RFK stadium wasn't going to work out as they didn't open the lots until 5:30 and the game started at the new stadium (a shuttle bus ride away) at 7:10. No time to cook the burgers! So having been told that there was a BBQ pit at the side of the building he duly went off and booked that through the building management office. Sorted! Or so we thought! I suggested that we take a look on Tuesday, and quickly discovered that there was only a small seating area, and certainly no BBQ pits....
Time to panic!
Options were:
1) buy disposable BBQ's - quickly discarded as you can only fit about 4 burgers on each one and we were cooking for 30....
2) call caterers. Dawn suggested Red, Hot and Blue so Tim went off to call. They usually want 24 hours notice so they weren't sure they could do it.
Dawn and I continued to swap e-mails on options whilst I was babysitting, until nearly midnight. The next morning I did a web search and came up with Chicken Out. Tim called and they cold do it. Situation saved!! Dawn was going to pick it up whilst Tim and I went off to Costco to buy the rest of the stuff. Just before we left Tim got a call from the Red, Hot & Blue delivery man wanting to know where we were located. WHAT??? Turns out that they could do it, but had failed to actually let us know....
Tim, Stephen and I headed off to Costco and Harris Teeter to get the booze, chips, dessert, ice - all the essentials for a good party, so after a load of rushing around we got back to the office to set up. We decided to hold our alternative tailgate in the office as it was looking suspiciously like rain.
I was busy icing down the cans of Ratspiss Lite when someone came in and had the temerity to complain that we'd bought cans (not bottles) of Lite beer. When I pointed out that there were bottles of Heineken I was informed that he didn't like that, and he supposed he'd have to just drink Pepsi. Surely if you pour the beer into a glass it all tastes the same? Or do they brew it differently for each container type?? He got a look and quickly exited, but that didn't stop him moaning about the food, the location of the tailgate...pretty much everything really.
After being told that parking at the new stadium was not overly plentiful I decided to pre-book a space. We had originally been going to tailgate and park at RFK and bus over, but as we weren't tailgating there, and I didn't fancy waiting on a bus at the end of the game along with thousands of other fans, booking a space looked a great option. The parking lot nearest the stadium was $40, but what the heck - it meant that we weren't walking round a dodgy area of DC. I was gnashing my teeth and swearing at the end of the booking process. $40 parking turned out to cost $49 when you added on all the taxes, fees and, most unbelievably, the $1.75 "delivery" they charged me for printing out the parking pass on the office printer!!!!!!!!!!!!! Tim was huffing when I put out an e-mail with the transport options. "I thought we were car pooling to RFK" he pouted. WHY? It was just another step in the cat-herding process and half the folk were taking the metro anyway. Let me just say.....AAAAARRRRGGGHHHHHHHH!! Were people conspiring to do my head in??
Anyway, people seemed to enjoy the food. They had a nice time getting to know one another. Paul;s kids had a great time alternatively cuddling me, riding round the office on an electric scooter and putting ice cubes down Stephen's back! We ended up with loads of food left over, so we (my 3 little helpers and Lisa) had a fun time trying to stuff it all into the fridges (especially when I found a bag of rotten, liquid primordial soup, that may have once been someones chicken sandwich in the small fridge).
The game was good. Or at least as good as it could be when you're supporting possibly the worst baseball team in America! The Nats lost 8-5, and the game rules are still pretty incomprehensible to me!! I'm actually pretty sure that Americans only really go to sporting games in order to eat themselves sick! There was a girl in front of me who ate: hotdog, popcorn, cotton candy, nachos and washed it all down with beer. As she was pretty skinny I figured that that was possibly her only meal that week!!
Dawn bought be a bag of CrackerJacks as I'd said I had no idea what they were. (Its caramel and peanut popcorn, very tasty!). They were immortalised in the song traditionally sung at baseball in the 7th Innings Stretch - where you literally stand up and stretch! I'd always assumed that it was something to do with the actual game, not crowd entertainment!!
The new Nationals Stadium
Me with Beth and Katie. Lisa and Paul in the background.
Time to panic!
Options were:
1) buy disposable BBQ's - quickly discarded as you can only fit about 4 burgers on each one and we were cooking for 30....
2) call caterers. Dawn suggested Red, Hot and Blue so Tim went off to call. They usually want 24 hours notice so they weren't sure they could do it.
Dawn and I continued to swap e-mails on options whilst I was babysitting, until nearly midnight. The next morning I did a web search and came up with Chicken Out. Tim called and they cold do it. Situation saved!! Dawn was going to pick it up whilst Tim and I went off to Costco to buy the rest of the stuff. Just before we left Tim got a call from the Red, Hot & Blue delivery man wanting to know where we were located. WHAT??? Turns out that they could do it, but had failed to actually let us know....
Tim, Stephen and I headed off to Costco and Harris Teeter to get the booze, chips, dessert, ice - all the essentials for a good party, so after a load of rushing around we got back to the office to set up. We decided to hold our alternative tailgate in the office as it was looking suspiciously like rain.
I was busy icing down the cans of Ratspiss Lite when someone came in and had the temerity to complain that we'd bought cans (not bottles) of Lite beer. When I pointed out that there were bottles of Heineken I was informed that he didn't like that, and he supposed he'd have to just drink Pepsi. Surely if you pour the beer into a glass it all tastes the same? Or do they brew it differently for each container type?? He got a look and quickly exited, but that didn't stop him moaning about the food, the location of the tailgate...pretty much everything really.
After being told that parking at the new stadium was not overly plentiful I decided to pre-book a space. We had originally been going to tailgate and park at RFK and bus over, but as we weren't tailgating there, and I didn't fancy waiting on a bus at the end of the game along with thousands of other fans, booking a space looked a great option. The parking lot nearest the stadium was $40, but what the heck - it meant that we weren't walking round a dodgy area of DC. I was gnashing my teeth and swearing at the end of the booking process. $40 parking turned out to cost $49 when you added on all the taxes, fees and, most unbelievably, the $1.75 "delivery" they charged me for printing out the parking pass on the office printer!!!!!!!!!!!!! Tim was huffing when I put out an e-mail with the transport options. "I thought we were car pooling to RFK" he pouted. WHY? It was just another step in the cat-herding process and half the folk were taking the metro anyway. Let me just say.....AAAAARRRRGGGHHHHHHHH!! Were people conspiring to do my head in??
Anyway, people seemed to enjoy the food. They had a nice time getting to know one another. Paul;s kids had a great time alternatively cuddling me, riding round the office on an electric scooter and putting ice cubes down Stephen's back! We ended up with loads of food left over, so we (my 3 little helpers and Lisa) had a fun time trying to stuff it all into the fridges (especially when I found a bag of rotten, liquid primordial soup, that may have once been someones chicken sandwich in the small fridge).
The game was good. Or at least as good as it could be when you're supporting possibly the worst baseball team in America! The Nats lost 8-5, and the game rules are still pretty incomprehensible to me!! I'm actually pretty sure that Americans only really go to sporting games in order to eat themselves sick! There was a girl in front of me who ate: hotdog, popcorn, cotton candy, nachos and washed it all down with beer. As she was pretty skinny I figured that that was possibly her only meal that week!!
Dawn bought be a bag of CrackerJacks as I'd said I had no idea what they were. (Its caramel and peanut popcorn, very tasty!). They were immortalised in the song traditionally sung at baseball in the 7th Innings Stretch - where you literally stand up and stretch! I'd always assumed that it was something to do with the actual game, not crowd entertainment!!
Take me out to the ballgame,
take me out with the crowd,
buy me peanuts and crackerjacks,
I don't care if I ever get back
The new Nationals Stadium 
Me with Beth and Katie. Lisa and Paul in the background.
Babysiting for bella bambinos
It has been a really busy week! We've been out every night and it caught up with me this evening. I got in from work, lay on the sofa and woke up 2 hours later. I'm still a little bleary! Bed beckons...
So what has kept us out? Well Stephen had a UK visitor over for a meeting in North Carolina so we all went out for dinner on Monday. Then on Tuesday I was being the Full Service EA - NO! not that! - I was babysitting for Paul and Lisa's kids while they went out to see George Michael in concert. Stephen had offered and, of course, the night Paul chose was the night that Stephen was in NC with his UK visitor.... So Mr Kid Friendly was away and Mrs OhmygodwhatdoIdowith3kidsunder10 was left to cope!! Actually the kids were great - absolutely no trouble at all! I spent the evening playing Yantzee with Beth at the same time as helping Josh make an apron (and other works of art) out of paper napkins and sellotape. Its just as well I can multi-task! Katie was just happy to watch Hannah Montana, so she was really easy!
I managed to get them upstairs and into jimjams around about their 9pm deadline, but then failed to get them into bed for ages! I couldn't get them to stop chatting, showing me their latest toy/suitcase/car... I guess I was a totally soft touch as Katie asked me if I could babysit them again this week. Paul and Lisa were quite surprised when I told them. I think Katie is the one they were most worried about reacting badly to being left without Mummy and Daddy.
So far less trauma than I was anticipating! It was probably as well that Stephen wasn't there given his ability to wind small children up to screaming pitch within 30 seconds of meeting them!! It was a late night though...I got home at about 3 minutes to midnight, which just about gave me enough time to get inside before I turned into a pumpkin!!
Last night we went to a baseball game, but I'm getting sleepy (I never really woke up after my 2 hour snooze!), so I'll hold off the scintillating tale of the baseball and tailgate for now...
So what has kept us out? Well Stephen had a UK visitor over for a meeting in North Carolina so we all went out for dinner on Monday. Then on Tuesday I was being the Full Service EA - NO! not that! - I was babysitting for Paul and Lisa's kids while they went out to see George Michael in concert. Stephen had offered and, of course, the night Paul chose was the night that Stephen was in NC with his UK visitor.... So Mr Kid Friendly was away and Mrs OhmygodwhatdoIdowith3kidsunder10 was left to cope!! Actually the kids were great - absolutely no trouble at all! I spent the evening playing Yantzee with Beth at the same time as helping Josh make an apron (and other works of art) out of paper napkins and sellotape. Its just as well I can multi-task! Katie was just happy to watch Hannah Montana, so she was really easy!
I managed to get them upstairs and into jimjams around about their 9pm deadline, but then failed to get them into bed for ages! I couldn't get them to stop chatting, showing me their latest toy/suitcase/car... I guess I was a totally soft touch as Katie asked me if I could babysit them again this week. Paul and Lisa were quite surprised when I told them. I think Katie is the one they were most worried about reacting badly to being left without Mummy and Daddy.
So far less trauma than I was anticipating! It was probably as well that Stephen wasn't there given his ability to wind small children up to screaming pitch within 30 seconds of meeting them!! It was a late night though...I got home at about 3 minutes to midnight, which just about gave me enough time to get inside before I turned into a pumpkin!!
Last night we went to a baseball game, but I'm getting sleepy (I never really woke up after my 2 hour snooze!), so I'll hold off the scintillating tale of the baseball and tailgate for now...
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