Road trip to Virginia

So I went down to Charlottesville, VA this past weekend, with Sabrina, to visit Gretchen who was finishing up her first year of law school. We had a great time.

I trained down to DC on Thursday night and hit the PSB happy hour. It was great to see and catch up with old coworkers, some of whom I haven't seen in the nearly 2 years since I left. There were a lot of new faces but everyone was very friendly. We ended up heading to Northern VA after the happy hour to continue the festivities and I ended up staying out a smidge late on a school night. Whoops.

Worked in DC on Friday then Sabrina and I headed to Charlottesville around 3:30ish. Yeah, apparently we didn't leave soon enough (doesn't anyone work in this town?!?) because we got stuck in some really bad traffic. The trip that is supposed to take 2 hours 30 mins took nearly 5 hours. It likely would have taken longer had Sabrina's boyfriend, Sean, not sent us directions to cut through side roads to get there. Rural VA is very pretty and made me miss home. SD, not NYC, not too many cows in NYC.

We saw lots of Charlottesville attractions, Bodos bagels, Buddhist Biker Bar, Cane's Chicken Fingers, the Downtown Mall, The Biltmore Grill (delicious drinks) and met a ton of new people. One of whom was nice enough to drive me back to NYC so I didn't have to take the bus. I fail as co-pilot, we kind of forgot to get of 495 and we looped around, about...270 degrees. Again, Whoops.

I've uploaded pictures on my Picasa site to the left. A lot of them are from Monticello (which was very pretty). Anyone heading to Virginia, you should be sure to add it to your list. Charlottesville too. Two, very enthusiastic thumbs up.

As Cool in Person

Heather and Jon Armstrong are as cool in person as they are on their websites: Dooce and Blurbomat. For those that didn't read my last posting, you need to add these to your favorites and start reading! I still haven't read through all the archives though I have certainly tried. It's like when you find a band that you love only to find out they've released 3 albums prior to you hearing about them. It's like Christmas!

I went to the Soda Bar in Brooklyn for their book signing and I really didn't know what to expect. I got there around 6:30 (an hour after it started) and I didn't expect for all of Brooklyn to be sold out of the book or for the ones they had brought, to be sold out in the first hour. I did try to pick it up on the UES but everyone's shipment had been delayed. CURSES!

Anyway, There was a very long line to just MEET Jon and Heather. At one point I saw Jon and was shocked how tall he is. Pictures on the web can be deceiving. Heather is also ridiculously tall as you'll see in my pictures. They were very kind and gracious while I blabbered along about the love I have for them. Oh, and they love my name. THANKS MOM AND DAD! It DOES have an "x" in it. I agree, that is awesome.

The crowd was interesting, I was surrounded by some typical New Yorkers but also some stay-at-home moms that came down from CT "where the Stepford wives was filmed" to be accurate. They were REALLY excited to be leaving their house.

I got a picture with Heather and Jon which will follow when I get home. It's HERE! Tall right?!

Backlog

Ok, you know when you know you need to call someone to catch up but it will be no less than a several hour call and you don't have the time for that? Yeah, well that's how I've felt about blogging lately. I have so much that I've wanted to blog about it'll take hours to update. I'm going to be lazy and bullet it out.

#1 - Funny story: I am currently knitting a sweater that provides the pattern in two forms, one with detailed instructions with what you should do for each of 12 rows, the other looks like this:

I find reading the pattern like this extremely confusing because I am constantly looking at the legend to see what the heck each stitch means.

Well I am standing on the bus and I look down and a woman is knitting something and I look at the pattern above. And then I say, "Are you knitting the Starsky sweater from knitty.com?" and she looked at me like I was crazy. I wasn't sure if it was because she was knitting the sweater, or whether she just thought I was crazy. But of course, she was knitting the Starsky sweater from knitty.com. I assured her I was also knitting it and that I wasn't a savant that went around memorizing knitting patterns. It was entertaining and we discussed the yarn we were using, how much we've gotten done, etc. All in all, pretty entertaining for a Wednesday morning!

#2 - All the fragrant spring flowers are at the flower stands in NYC: hyacinths, peonies, lilacs, lillies. I stop and smell them at one stand or another almost every day. I'm waiting for one of the flower guys to tell me that I'm going to take all the sniff out of them.

#3 - Marc and I are going to go see Jon and Heather Armstrong Wednesday night at the Soda Bar in Brooklyn. I don't think I've blogged about it before but Heather Armstrong writes my favoritest blog www.dooce.com. If you don't already read it, get on it. She is very honest about her family, her struggles and her happiness. Her stories about her 4 year old daughter make my ovaries hurt and make me want to have kids just so I can mess with them. Oh, I didn't mention, she is also hilarious.

So I read her blog every day, encourage all my friends to read her blog, then Marc, Ashley and I talk about her postings, and how we love her. Well, now I'm going to meet her, be in her presence, and I have to practice acting cool so I don't scream in her face, "OH MY GOD I LOVE YOU WILL YOU BE MY FRIEND?!?!" Because I think that would scare her.

#4 - CONCERT-MANIA! - Ok, I blogged about all the concerts I was going to but then didn't follow up on telling you about them.

Hotel Cafe Tour: Everyone set a reminder to look for tix to the Hotel Cafe Tour next January. The show was long, 5 performers long, and amazing. The performers alternated throughout the night and they'd come out for a song or two, then someone else would come on, then they'd do a duet with that person, etc. I got to see Joshua Radin (boyfriend, see previous post), Ingrid Michaelson (love her and her quirkiness), Cary Brothers (just got his CD), Meiko (got her CD) and Priscilla Ahn (she was good but none of her songs stuck in my head).

The concert was 3/24 and I was feeling particularly emotional and then on top of it were all these sentimental singer-songwriter types. I was worried it'd be a bad combo but they're all just so great in person! To the 3 men that read my blog: bowler hats and plain colored tshirts. Wow.

Tristan Prettyman: LOVED HER SHOW! She played a lot of stuff from her new CD. Unfortunately, her new CD didn't come out until the following week so I didn't know all the songs but check out her new album! It's really great. The week it came out her single "Madly" was the single of the week on iTuenes and then she had the 2nd top album of the week. She needs to get the credit she deserves. She was FABULOUS! Then...she had a surprise guest. G.Love came out to do her 2nd to last encore. It was a huge surprise and they have great stage chemistry. They sang their song "Beautiful" and it was great. Again, dudes, plain tshirt and bowler hat. A guitar doesn't hurt either. :)

Sara Bareilles: If you can get to a live show of hers, GO! My friend Rommi saw her live for the first time after hearing her CD once and was blown away. She was absolutely right, Sara is so much better live. The amount that her album producers held her back and gave her a "Little Voice" (the name of her album) shocks me. The girl can belt it, and belt it on key, while playing the piano. I mean, I guess a voice like that can't record well because you'd constantly be turning up and down your ipod so that you don't burst your eardrums. Still. The point of this story is to go see Sara.

#5 - Rebecca came to visit me!!! My best buddy from college and 4 year roommate came to NYC to visit me before she starts her residency in St. Louis. She graduates from med school May 17 and it's so funny to me that she's "practically a doctor". I experienced her doctory skills first-hand when my back really hurt and she fixed it! Like magic! We went to a Mets game, the Gaf TWICE, R Bar and we ate cannoli, and pizza and hot dogs. I make everyone who comes to NYC eat these things, moreso I have an excuse to eat them. Yummmm!