(146). Digging Out

Well – today I was *supposed* to be surprising my mom with her Christmas present – tickets to see the Rockettes in DC, followed by dinner at Farmers & Fishers with Nick, Melanie & JJ.  But – alas, last night around 12:30 or so (I think), I checked my email to find that the show was canceled, and alas, we canceled our dinner reservation to go with it.  *sigh* – I had really been looking forward to it.  My mom didn’t seem overly concerned when she unwrapped tickets today to the show that wasn’t happening.  Aaah well.

We dug out this morning.  First, Nick & Jeff dug out Jeff & Mandy’s car, and those two hit the road back to the ROC by about 10AM this morning.  Then Nick and I went out to dig out our cars- according to the meter stick, we got a good 20″ of snow, unheard of down here.  It was light and powdery though, so fairly easy to move without a shovel. 

Digging out my car!

It didn’t take too long, though we weren’t digging with a purpose as we didn’t have anyplace to be.  On the contrary, mom and I baked today for her holiday gifts, and we watched Elf while I attempted to get some miles in on the treadmill (boooo to not being able to run outside!)  We were going to head down into DC tonight for dinner with Melanie anyway, but after taking Pinot for a walk and realizing that it was sort of cold out – we decided against it, and instead attempted to see the holiday light show right here in the Gburg (it was closed) with dinner at Old Country Buffet.  My mom loved OCB, so at least we got that in tonight!  And we watched Christmas Vacation, classic.

A few randoms – so, I’m fairly all or nothing.  Nick sometimes tells me that I see things too much in black and white, with not enough shades of gray.  Which is true – I am.  Especially when it comes to fitness.  If I work out every day – or 5-6 days a week even – I’m golden.  But whenever I try to do the whole ‘moderation’ thing at 3-4x a week, I end up getting lazy, putting it off, and not doing it at all. (You can imagine how good I am at not trying to work out at all.)   So on the whole, I’d rather be at the 6 days a week mark because I just feel a lot healthier.  Combine this with this whole trying to ramp up and train for a race thing.  As I’ve mentioned before, this is (I think) week 20 out of 30, and so far, up until this point, I’ve run exactly what I was “supposed” to run on a given week,  every week up until now.  And then there was yesterday, when 20″ of snow fell.  And the trails were not plowed.  And I hate treadmill running.  But I got a good 8 in today inside (instead of the scheduled 13), which overall, I’m OK with.  Moderation, right? Shades of gray – I’m in them headfirst. But looking out to next week – Nebraska is going to be snowy and frigid.  The next long run is slated for a whopping 15 degrees, with who knows how much snow on the ground.  Which means that I think some/all/most of the runs next week may fall to the wayside.  Which is really bugging me, because I’ve been so darned good up until now.  And half of this whole thing is mental.  Aaah well.  I guess we’ll see how things go once we get back, and do as much as I can this week without being crazy about it.

Video games live at wolf trap

Wolf Trap lawn is more crowded than I’ve ever seen it…gorgeous night, great people watching, and hopefully a great show. TGIF!

Silverdocs…and other Randoms

We kicked off Silverdocs 2009 with a viewing of “Splitting Hairs” last night at the Round House Theater in Silver Spring.  The documentary – and it’s filmmakers – was/were hilarious.  Any 30 minute movie about a beard and mustache worldwide competition must be, wouldn’t you think? Some of the footage was pure gold – wonder why they stopped at 30 minutes.  Anyway.  One of the filmmakers was (seemingly) so excited about the opening that he overindulged in (alcohol?) before the screening and was completely out of it the entire time, which made for an eventful pre- and post- screening commentary.  Note that the text link above will take you to the website of the movie itself, while the picture (should) take you to the AFI commentary on the movie.  Nick and I both thought it had a sort of “King of Kong” feel, and completely dug seeing Phil Olson in person leading the AFI Beard & Mustache contest after the screening.  (I can’t help but think that Nick B-R would be all about this!)

And with that, we’re off to the races with another 6 documentaries over the next day and a half.  Our full schedule is below – let us know if we should be looking out for you at any of these!  Info on each of the movies can be found here.

Thursday, June 18th
	10:30 PM		SPLITTING HAIRS F. Stone Roberts 2008 | Short Film, Special Program | 28 min. BEARD AND MOUSTACHE CONTEST	Round House Theatre
Friday, June 19th
	8:45 PM		BEST WORST MOVIE Michael Paul Stephenson 2009 | Feature Film, Theme: Pop Culture Films | 92 min.	AFI Silver Theater 2
	11:30 PM		CAT LADIES Christie Callan-Jones 2009 | Feature Film, Theme: Senior Interest Films, Theme: Women’s Interest Films | 60 min. FORTY MEN FROM THE YUKON | Tony Massil 2008	Round House Theatre
Saturday, June 20th
	1:15 PM		PARTLY PRIVATE Sterling World Competition 2009 | Feature Film, Sterling World Competition, Theme: Health Interest Films, Theme: Jewish Interest, Theme: Middle East Interest Films | 81 min. KINDA SUTRA | Jessica Yu 2008	Round House Theatre
	4:45 PM		OLD PARTNER Lee Chung-ryoui 2008 | Feature Film, Theme: Asian Interest Films, Theme: Senior Interest Films | 77 min.	AFI Silver Theater 3
	9:00 PM		NO IMPACT MAN Laura Gabbert and Justin Schein 2009 | Feature Film, Theme: Enviromental Interest Films, Theme: The 21st Century Family | 92 min.	AFI Silver Theater 1
	11:15 PM		WINNEBAGO MAN Ben Steinbauer 2009 | Feature Film, Theme: Pop Culture Films | 84 min.	AFI Silver Theater 1

—–

In other random news, this week we booked tickets to Amsterdam!  Woohoo!  Nick is going for the full week for EuroPar, and meeting me in Amsterdam proper on Saturday for a long weekend in the Netherlands.  I’ve never been, and am pretty excited.  Any travel tips?  Let me know – I’ve been searching TripAdvisor thus far and am pumped.

In other travel news – all of the hard work with booking Oktoberfest tents seems to be paying off, as yesterday Frau Rutar (that’s me!) received another table reservation offer via snail mail for Sunday at noon.  We’ve now secured 4 table reservations from noon-end on Sunday!  That’s a lot of beer … and a lot of chicken …  can’t wait

And one more set of travel stuff – I’m working on a new project at work with a demo in Seoul, South Korea in August!  I was so excited to go, before I realized that with the long flight, I’d have to miss a family wedding…and thus, no South Korea for me this summer.  In future phases though, that may be a good excuse to go!

Local news – after 6 years of living in the DC metro area – we just last weekend made it to the Jefferson Memorial.  I dug it.

—-Follow Up —

SilverDocs was the awesome, and is officially something I’d miss if we ever left this area.  All the films were great – looking forward to getting a pass next year!

Weekly Updates

With the cool new phone, I’m trying out the twitter thing for short updates during the week, but I’ll still try to update the actual blog fairly often too!

Last week was really busy for me – I had a subcontractor meeting late on Monday, followed by a big customer meeting on Thursday afternoon.  Between prepping for both meetings, I was at work late lots last week – but the thought that got me through was that I had enough extra hours to take Friday off!

We kicked off our spring bocce season last Wednesday night with a 16-3 victory, and ‘brick red’ tshirts (as opposed to the lovely pale pink we got last summer).  Pinot loved having CJ to hang out with during the game and during post-bocce dinner at Bullfeathers on the Hill.  I think we’re all looking forward to this season!

Thursday was wonderful, well, post customer presentation (that went well too, which added to the bliss) – just knowing that I had Friday off, and that the weather was going to be great all weekend.

Friday, we got up and had a leisurely breakfast at home with Nick, then Nick went in to school and Pinot and I set off to run the Capitol Cresent Trail.  We got done a bit early and hit up lululemon for some new running gear – I’m all about their manifesto.  As a side note, I LOVE the Bethesda shops that allow you to bring your dog in shopping with you and I heart my new running outfit.  Then we set off to meet Melanie for lunch at Brown Bag (well, technically in the park, but the food was from Brown Bag).

Headed home, and then Nick and I set off to celebrate our 1000 days of marriage (woohoo!) at the Italian Pines in Gaithersburg, which had really great Italian food with a home-cooked sort of feel.

Saturday mornining, we were up and at em early, heading out to do the 8 mile MS walk.  The bus ride to the walk was rather humorous because the driver had no idea where he was going, and Pinot was in the bus seat with us, but the walk was a really good time.  It ended at Glen Echo with free subs from Subway.

Saturday night we headed out to celebrate Melanie’s 27th birthday at CoCoSala - all the food was all wonderful, and I loved the ambiance!  (Nick and I almost thought that the food was better than the dessert….)  After dinner, the 4 of us headed over to the Kennedy Center to see Shear Madness, a whodunnit comedy that was rather entertaining.  Ended the night needing a jump, all in all, a great evening!

Today, Nick and I gave Pinot the day off (poor dog, 18 miles the past three days), but we headed out for an early-ish morning run in Bethesda followed by brunch and a leisurely day at home.  Nick is kicking off Dynist week this week at school this evening with his group and all the Wisconsin folks that came into town.

On a seperate random note, we’re thinking about getting bikes!  Yay! 

I didn’t really take many pictures this weekend (shocking, I know) – but Melanie took quite a few with her new birthday camera on Saturday night – I’ll link/upload a few of those when I get them!

NKOTB!!

Thursday night, we went to see New Kids on The Block (NKOTB) at the Verizon Center in DC.  And it was….in my opinion….the awesome!! We met up with about 15 or so other blockheads at Clydes restaurant before the show, where they were running NKOTB themed drinks – so fun.  I loved how much people were into this – I thought I was silly leaving the house with rolled jeans, slouched socks, a flannel around the waist c. 1990, and my original 1989 NKOTB buttons – but these folks outdid me, handidly, and it was awesome.    Nick got to wear my one and only Joey Joe pin – something that I never even let Melanie wear growing up. Our camera was low on batteries, I forgot to charge it – but everyone else took some great pictures. 

Before the show even started, Nick made me feel like a rock star by heading out to the bathroom, and returning with a Cover Girl tank top, which he promptly threw up to me before he climbed back into our row.  What a sweetheart

The show was a lot of fun for those of us that knew most of these songs in and out – the new stuff was fun to listen to.  For folks like my wonderful husband, who knew maybe 3 songs going in – Nick said he had a good time, and was really open-hearted the entire time, with one liners that only he could come up with and dancing around like the best of us.  Let me assure you, it was NOT easy to get up this morning – as it was, I woke up 35 minutes after I should have been at work, flew out of the house in 5 (you can imagine how I look this morning), and I’m completely exhausted – but it was worth it.  Great time

Trans-Siberian Orchestra

Who knew there was a secret cult following? Concert was fun overall!

We heart this musical

Avenue Q on tour

The Grandadddy of all vampire flicks…

Is a 1922 German, black & white, silent film called Nosferatu….which we just happen to be going to see tonight at the AFI in silver spring….

it’s playing with a live orchestra, how cool is that??

Great night

Tuesday 9/11/07 was a good day for us, the latter part of it anyway. Not only were we celebrating 5 years of being together – yep, we started dating on 9/11/02 – but we discovered what we think is the best Thai restaurant in the area && we went to a beer tasting class!

Bangkok 54 treated us well in the 45 minutes that we had with good wonton soup, an excellently spicy salmon in mango sauce and a delicious garlic lovers chicken dish. Wish this place was closer to us – but considering how good the food was, I think we’ll be making special trips to go back!

We headed next door to the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse -which we’ve been meaning to go to for a movie for a long time but just hadn’t gotten around to it yet – for the Washington Wine Academy’s first class about beer – the ABC’s of Beer. And it was good. Not just because of the 8 tastings. The dude was much younger than I thought but knew a ton and was pretty funny – he actually works at Whole Foods in Fairfax – it was like if I’d worked in the cheese shop all this time and was then asked to give a presentation about cheese. Except I’m not that humorous.

So – great night! Found an awesome new restaurant and tried the drafthouse & WWA which had been on the list for far too long! And now we are inspired to go back for more of this awesome Thai food….to finally get around to trekking to Arlington for a movie (& drinks)….and to explore more of these WWA classes! Beyond the ABC’s of Beer, here we come!

La Academie of Cuisine Fall Classes….

…..hrmmm…which to take? which can I convince Nick that he wants to take too? tough choices….but I’m loving some of the class selections this fall…

Holiday Food & Beer – Beer can be the ingredient that gives foods the resonance holidays deserve . Lemongrass and Hefeweizen Barbecued Pork Ribs; Wisconsin White Cheddar and Lager Soup with Dijon Beer Breadsticks; Ale and Herb Braised Onions and Osso Bucco with Gorgonzola Potato Puff; Chocolate Stout Fondue with Blondies and Fruit .

Fun with Food & Beer: Oktoberfest! – Can’t make it to Munich for Oktober- fest this year? Worry not, we’ve brought it to you . German Onion Tartlets; Hand- made Bratwurst; Sweet and Sour Kraut with Cranberries and Apples; Chicken Schnitzel; German Potato Cakes; German Chocolate Cake with Dark Cherry Ice Cream .

Date Night: Sushi – Your own sushi bar awaits . Miso Soup; Yakitori; Ohitashi; Assorted Rolls; Green Tea Ice Cream .

Two Cooking – Bring a friend, date, or family member to work together to create and enjoy an Asian-inspired menu . Duck & Shiitake Spring Roll with Orange Sauce; Papaya Salad; Panang Shrimp Stir-fry; Coconut Milk Custard .