Sunday, April 27, 2008

The Weekend

In our endless quest to get as many things done before we leave as we can, Chris and I are having to pick up the pace. Amazing though it may seem, Chris and I have put some things off until the last minute. I know what you're thinking, "Chris and Jaime procrastinate? Impossible!" But it's true. Over the past couple of days, we've been trying to do and see some things here in the area that we've wanted to see, but just haven't gotten around to. On Friday, we finally went to a National's Baseball game in the new stadium. It was great. The team won the game with a walk off home run, the new stadium was beautiful and we weren't even accosted as we walked back to our car through a rather sketchy neighborhood. On Saturday, we went with the Woodburys to Gettysburg. We rented a van so that we could all drive there together and spent the day driving to all the interesting civil war spots. Having studied some about the civil war, it was very interesting. There were some incongruities between what I had pictured the site to be and what they were in reality. For example, I had imagined Little Round Top too be a large hill, but it was much smaller. Also at Devil's Den, I would never have imagined that one day it would be a hang out for teenagers. It was a little disappointing to see people with blankets spread out along the boulders, boys walking around without their shirts on, and teens with guitars loitering at a spot where men died fighting for their rights and freedoms. I expected a little more respect for the area, but what do I know. Beside those things, it was a nice trip. The little Woodburys were really cute and extremely well behaved, and the weather was beautiful all day until the drive home when it started raining. Having visited Gettysburg and the new Nationals Park, Chris and I are paring down of list of things to do before we leave and we hope that we can finish before we start our move back on the 10th.

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

A Bit Of This, A Bit Of That

Our Capitals lost last night. It was an exciting game and our players were in it until the final goal. Chris says that there is no more exciting sports event than game 7 overtime playoff hockey, and I might agree with him (though I haven’t been much of a sports watcher except for hockey and might be a bit biased). After the Flyers had scored the final goal in sudden death hockey, Chris and I stood and cheered for our hockey team who had done so well the last half of the year, I was very sad knowing that that game could have been the last hockey game we’ll see in that building, and we had such a good time going to the games. Hockey has been our thing, we’ve been going to games since we first moved to DC and have been season ticket holders for two years and have enjoyed every minute of it. Now we’re going to have to find something else to do with our time. We are going to be season ticket holders for the Utes, but it isn’t going to be quite the same.
Today I officially turned in my two weeks notice. They all knew I was leaving before this because a friend at work who knew ratted me out, but I officially turned in my letter of resignation today. It was a nice feeling. It’s also a little strange because they are interviewing people today and I’m greeting and announcing the people who are going to be doing my job. I suppose I would be meeting them eventually anyway since I’ll need to show whoever is hired the basics of my job, but seeing everyone who comes in for an interview and then hearing who’s qualified and who isn’t and who wouldn’t fit in the position is kind of weird.
Chris is taking one of his last finals today. He doesn’t usually study too hard while I’m at home, which is nice for me and he said that he feels relatively well prepared for this first test, so I’m sure that he’ll do fine. He only has two more after that, one that is only for a pass/fail grade, so he’s feeling good about the end of his law school experience. This are wrapping up around here and we’re getting ready to start fresh in Salt Lake.

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Business In The Front Party In The Back

Oh yes, I have been known to eat my words. I have the tendency to say things without thinking them through all the way and later regretting them. This time, I did think through the situation a little and thought that I would be okay, but I was definitely wrong. Just look at these pictures and you will of course realize that I’m talking about the deal Chris and I made about his hair. I agreed to let him cut his hair in that most despicable of all hairstyles, the mullet, if the Caps made it into the playoffs. I don’t know how the world in general feels about this abominable hairstyle, but I am definitely against and Chris is definitely on the “got to support the team” side of the question. When I agreed to let him do this to himself, the Caps were in dead last place in the NHL and I didn’t think there was going to be any chance for them to come back. Little did I know then that a change in coaching would make all the difference. I also didn’t know that I was going to be the unlucky one who was going to have to make my husband mildly less attractive. But, I am a girl of my word, so on Thursday night, in front of a high school buddy of Chris’ who was visiting, I pulled out the clippers and committed that atrocity. Not knowing much about how to cut a mullet, I had to improvise and what came out was not a classy (for the mullet) understated mullet. Oh no, it was a dirty dirty mullet. And, we didn’t just snap a few pictures and fix it right away. He walked around all weekend like that. We walked all over DC, going to museums and Arlington Cemetery and Chris was stared at every step of the way, especially by his high school buddy who would break out into a laugh every time he looked at Chris’ hair. Going to the game in his mullet was probably the highlight of his weekend, although he did have to make a very difficult decision about whether he should proudly display his loyalty to the team or wear the hat that he had worn to all of the past games that the Caps had won, keeping up the streak. In the end, I think hat won out, but I’m sure that going to the game with the epitome of the hockey haircut was a proud moment for him. Thankfully, Chris has a job where he has to look somewhat professional, so the mullet had to go, which is good, because that thing had definitely worn out its welcome (if it was ever welcome in the first place).

Monday, April 14, 2008

Visitors


Over the weekend, we had some Salt Lake visitors. Kurt and Kim came out to visit us for a few days and for the most part, we had an interesting time. I got off work for a day and a half, which was great, especially since the weather was so nice and we spent most of our time walking around outside. Previously on this blog I’ve said that I am not a good host, which is true, but I do think it’s pretty fun to take people around to the monuments and the local places that we love to show them what Chris and I like to do, probably because I don’t like the responsibility of making sure someone has a good time at my house and when we go out, it’s the responsibility of the restaurant or monument to make sure we all have a good time. We did have a couple of events at our house, like the official mullet cutting (this will be the next blog post, so stay tuned), so being at home wasn’t quite as stressful as usual.
Anyway, to move on from my tangent of responsibility, we were able to take Kurt and Kim to the usual DC stuff. We went to the monuments at night, which I think is a little better than seeing them during the day because everything is all lit up and beautiful and it was a very pleasant night. We also went to the portrait gallery by the Verizon center, which is my favorite Smithsonian museum. There are so many amazing pictures and relics there that you could spend almost all day there and not get bored. After the portrait gallery, we did desert our friend to go to the Caps game which they couldn’t get tickets too. They went to the Nationals game instead and we hope that they had a good time at that (but I still feel a little guilty about leaving them alone so that we could go to a game, even if they do say they had a good time). The last day they were here, we went to the zoo, which was all great except that there are some evil slushies by the zoo. Both of our friends started feeling ill after having a slushy from the 7 11 across the street from the zoo, which probably put a horrible slant on their entire visit (the slushy was mango something, the wild cherry seemed to be okay). Also, they missed their flight the next morning and had to wait a few hours until they could get on another flight. So, what with the bad hosting, abandoning them to go to the Caps game, the getting sick and the missing of the flight, I would have to say that we are the worst hosts ever and we’re probably lucky that we’re almost ready to go back to Salt Lake so that we can’t torture anyone else.

Monday, April 7, 2008

It's The Best Game You Can Name

Chris and I had a great Saturday. We went to the National Geographic Museum and saw an awesome display all about frogs and they have live frogs good for viewing. It would be a great activity for kids, but was great for adults too as I enjoyed it quite a bit. We then walked down to the Verizon Center for the best Capitals Hockey game of the season. We got our Ovechkin bobble heads by showing up an hour early and were there to watch as the Caps took down the Florida Panthers. It was amazing to see so many people in red cheering for the Caps since the building has felt pretty empty at times this season, but it was full on Saturday. There were so many great things to watch. At one point, one of our players made a goal. It was the first goal that Ovechkin was on the ice for and he jumped up on his fellow goal scorer and knocked everyone to the ground in celebration of a goal he didn’t even score. He was just happy that his teammate had scored. After the game had ended, the most of the crowd stayed in their seats to cheer on the players and coach as they spoke about their amazing season and playoff chances. When the coach (who had spent years and years coaching in the minor leagues and finally got his chance to coach in the NHL) had the chance to speak, there were tears in his eyes as he talked about what a great team they were. He didn’t take any credit for the amazing comeback the Caps had made since he took over the coaching job the day after Thanksgiving. The best thing about the win, though, was the fact that it put the Caps in the playoffs. They were in a “win and they’re in” situation and were able to pull it off. So Chris and I will be going to playoff games starting on Friday and if we suddenly have to cancel plans with anyone who may be reading this blog, you’ll know that it was a playoff emergency.

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Put Your Shoulder To The Wheel

Okay, so I just realized that I have been writing this blog for almost 7 months and have not once written about my job. I’ve sort of side skirted the topic once or twice talking about driving to work, or getting off work early, but haven’t really said anything about the actual job. I would have thought I would have written something about the place where I go for almost half my waking life, but I haven’t. So here goes. I like my work as much as most people like work. It’s definitely not what I had planned doing with my degree (answering phones doesn’t really fit the English category unless you count speaking English to the people who call in and that’s a bit of a stretch) and I would never have guessed that at one point in my career I would be doing work for the accounting department seeing as how I am completely numerically illiterate. But it is so. I’ve been a jack of many trades for my office and have done work for just about every department including customer service, accounting, purchasing and of course the administrative work for the main office. It’s actually been interesting having the opportunity to learn how to do things that I wouldn’t have before and I feel pretty useful since I can help out in so many areas. Knowing so many aspects of what goes on in our office definitely comes in useful when I have people calling in with questions, and since I do have to answer all kinds of crazy calls since (at least in title) I’m just the receptionist, I can be everyone’s happy little helper. I have to admit, it is a little demoralizing being called a receptionist since I do so many other things, but I suppose that every job has its down side. I’m not going to say that’s the only down side, I’ve definitely had a few issues with the company, but deep down I think that the up sides to the job have outweighed the down sides. So all in all, I would have to say that my job has been a more positive experience than a negative one which is more than I can say for other jobs that I’ve had.