Weekend Weekend Weekend

This past week felt super long. Partially because I had to work on President's Day and only like a quarter of the office was in that day. So, I was super happy by the time Friday came!

Also, it's been a little stressful at work because I'm going out to LA at the end of this week and our board meeting is coming up too. I have a lot to do and only like 2% of is fun.

Mattan, Brie and I made our biweekly dinner plans. And I had originally wanted to go to this soul food place called Oohs and Aahs, because I don't eat soul food very often and I mean, it's a lot of carbs and meat, which is my thing.

Fried Chicken and Waffles--best way to relax on a Friday.

BUT the sad part was that the only vegetarian option on the menu is only available at lunch. So there was literally nothing Mattan could eat. He said he'd watch us eat and then we could go get something else for him later, but that's awkward. So instead we went to &Pizza.

It was pretty cool. And cheap. Which is hard to find in DC.  It's like Chipotle for pizza--you get to pick your toppings as you go down the line and they make it really quick.

They make like long rectangular  personal pizzas? I'd never seen one like that before, but I liked it so whateverrrrr.

Mine was good! And afterward we got frozen yogurt. And I mean...frozen yogurt, to me is always okay, but never that great. But it was nice to sit and talk with them!

Saturday morning I went and got my haircut. (Everyone except Taylor probably got my snapchats) I'd put up a picture but it's not very different  I've come to the conclusion that my hair dresser doesn't see many non-black people, and that's why she's always so excited to do my hair and insists on curling it.

So she curled it and I looked really fancy for when Ridwan came in from Baltimore! I guess med school is busy and blah blah blah so this was the first time we'd managed to see each other despite it only taking like an hour by train to get between Baltimore and DC.

Ridwan being fancy back in '07. (Good thing he doesn't read the blog or he'd prob be mad at me)

He got in sort of late so we didn't do a ton of touristy stuff but we went and walked around the capital, walked around gallery place/chinatown and saw DC things...No museums or anything since they all close between 5 and 7 and Ridwan didn't get to my house til like 4.

We also just happened to run into Brie and her roomie and Elizabeth and her bestie on the street too! It definitely made it seem like I know more people in DC than I really do. You know...so popular I just run into people all over! ...or not.

Then we got Chinese food in Chinatown. But the thing is, Chinatown doesn't really have that good of a reputation for Chinese food as hard as that is to imagine. But the place we ate was good! It has all these ducks hanging in the window and a whole bunch of fish and stuff and feels pretty authentic. God lo mein too!

Then we went to my coworker's party and proceeded to get pretty drunk. The last time we went to her house we each ended up drinking a bottle of wine, and it was that kind of night again.  Definitely some good office bonding, except that there's one coworker in particular we chose to not invite, and it's always hard to like pretend we weren't all together when we talk about our weekends back in the office. But, not like I missed her and I was def fine with her not coming.

Also, one of the guys there went to Notre Dame and wouldn't stop singing their fight song at me--but in like a good natured way, so I had to sing The Victors a lot, and I sort of half lost my voice. But you know, you can't not sing your fight song when challenged to.

So...because I drank so much, we kind of had a slow start to the day. But, we went to the Crystal City Sports Pub and watched Michigan beat Michigan State. NBD. Goooo Blue. I had tater tots. Delicious.

 Now I just have to do laundry and get ready for the week. Big week coming up, but by the end of it I get to go to LA for a couple days, so I'll just focus on that.

Fun Things! (Part 2--If you don't love yourself, how in the hell you gon love someone else?)

The Saturday after TCAB left we went to our friend Stefany's birthday party. She happened to mention that RuPaul's Battle of the Seasons was coming to the 9:30 Club. She was definitely not prepared for how excited I was about it and seemed a little surprised when I explained who every queen on the playbill was.

This is the 9:30 club at capacity. It's no joke.

Then she invited me to go with her! So, obviously, I was super pumped.  We met up for drinks beforehand.  The line was CRAZY long but I knew Stefany and her mom had picked the tickets up from Will Call beforehand so I wasn't too worried. Then we went to go in a little after 9:00 and realized that super long line was the line to get in!!! It sucked, but it moved pretty fast so it wasn't so so bad.

When we got in, Stefany's mom suggested we get another round of drinks. We all got beers. Then out of nowhere, her mom suggests we all do shots too! I mean...it's Tuesday, so why wouldn't you do shots? So we did shots of whiskey. But they were really like double shots. Kinda more than I wanted to drink, but when someone buys you a shot, you can't not take it!

Michelle Visage did a song. Which is not a thing that I knew she could do. I thought she was just known for having huge boobs and hanging out with drag queens, but I guess she has some of her own talents. The the queens came out! First was Alaska. Her song is "Your Make Up Is Terrible":

I thought she was kind of annoying on the show, but I thought she was one of the better performers!

Then Carmen came out. I don't have good video of her because I was like half way back and she spent a lot of time on the floor (kind of a poor choice in my opinion, but she does what she wants).

 The point is she's incredibly hot. And does whatever she wants. Also she's becoming a transactivist, and not just a pretty lady, which I fully support.

Then Manila came out to Spongebob Square Pants because she dressed like a pineapple on the show.

She came back out later too looking like a pin cushion. She even got off the stage and walked into the crowd! I think she spent the most time actually performing.

Next was Phi Phi. I always think she's pretty whatever. I mean pretty, but not unique, you know?

Pandora Boxxx came out and did a stand up set. I didn't get any video because I had gone to the bathroom and wasn't standing with my friends and a super sassy gay guy was bullying me. He was like "Do you want to stand in front of me? Please. By all means. You clearly need to be here more than I do." And it was awkward. Then Elizabeth (Library of Congress Elizabeth) found me and pulled me up to her. Pandora was pretty funny and she also sang a song called Cooter?

Ivy Winters came out and I didn't really remember her very well from the show except that Ru had the most annoying voice for her. But she came out on stilts and did a pretty memorable bit!

Then Mimi Imfurst came out. And she sucks. She did this monologue from Wife Swap or whatever, and this monologue from Precious. Both of which I didn't really like. The first one is like a pretty obscure, old internet reference and I don't think a lot of the crown got it. And like, Precious is and should be a downer, not something a drag queen does for laughs. Also she was dressed as Dorothy.

Michele Visage came out, sang that song Queen Latifah sings in Chicago, which I really liked. Then they tried to make Alaska answer the questions people had tweeted in and it sucked. I think she was too drunk to really pull it off.

Then Sharon Needles came out and was really really weird. I mean anyone who watched the show knows she's weird, but this like wasn't the good kind of weird. This was her performance (make sure you make it full screen so you can fully appreciate it):

She never took the mask off and it was an original song that was a reallllll bigggg downnnerrrrrrrr. Whatever, everyone else was really impressive and it was a super long show!

So long that the metro had already closed. Which normally I don't let happen to me because it's so annoying to get back without the metro. But Stefany assured me she would drive me back. So we got into a cab, talked to our Somalian cabbie and headed to Rosslyn. If you guys remember, Rosslyn is where Zack works and isn't that far, BUT we had to drop off the other people with us, which involved going all the way to the end of the blue line and circling back.

So I didn't get back until 2, felt like crap and struggled all the way through Thursday and White House bowling. But, I'd do it all over again if I could!

Fun Things! (Part 1--La maison blanche)

Since TCAB left DC we've been doing pretty fun things. We were also doing fun things while they were here too. So really, we've been doing fun things for the last month.

This past Saturday we went to the White House for a tour! We might have mentioned it, but the tour we were supposed to take got canceled because of a snow day. Let me remind what a snow day looks like here:

You'll notice, there's not actually any snow. And while I was happy to have an unexpected (paid) day off from work, it was a little disappointing because if we had gone then, we would have seen all the Christmas decorations AND we could've taken pictures. But whatever. Over it.

The tour was really cool! We only went in the East Wing. So it wasn't really like we were on Teenie's favorite show--you have to know someone legit at the White House to go to there. The building itself was actually way smaller that I thought. It's really not that big of a place, but they really do like to cram in artwork. 

Highlights include:

Obama's Muslim Prayer Curtain. Or you know, maybe that's just the decor of the biggest room in the White House. Believe what you want, libtards--it's def covered in Arab symbols.

The China Room. Each president has the option to pick their own china pattern and have it made. Who knew Rutherford Hayes had such weird taste in China--or I mean I guess it was his wife that was the weirdo.

The Blue Room. It's big. Looks a little like Michigan. It's fancy.  There was a secret service guy in there who was telling us a lot of cool facts (none of which I remember).  Since it's a self-guided tour you have to rely on the secret service to answer your questions. I thought they were only gonna talk to us if we initiated the conversation but they were like real tour guides and were super friendly!

You can only take pictures outside so we did that. But, it was raining really hard so we didn't take too many. You gotta take what you can get, I guess.

With my Kruppcake, the guy who got us in!

I was pretty content with just going to the East Wing BUT on Monday, one of my coworkers asked me if I wanted to go bowling at the White House and a like team bonding thing! Uh, duh I want to go bowling at the White House! Also, I got to gloat because not everyone in the office got to go! So, suck it everyone who didn't get to go! (Jokes, they're all nice people.)

So after work we went to a bar to kill some time, picked up our pizza, and picked up beer and wine. It's funny, for the East Wing tour you couldn't bring your purse, you couldn't have your phone out, and you had to be sniffed by a dog.  For this, you could bring whatever food and drink you wanted and security was way more lax.

The bowling alley itself isn't actually that impressive:

It was built in 1947 by Truman and hasn't really been updated, other than to add goofy portraits of the presidents with bowling balls. But you know, you go to say you went, not for the high caliber of bowling. 

We split in to teams, and unfortunately my team lost. It wasn't one of my better bowling performances, if I'm honest. But you know, whatever. I went to the White House twice in a week. I'll probably be living there soon--nbd.

Here's some misc pics:

Samantha who you may (or may not) remember from New Years. Also Barack.

Look at that stance! Also, presidents don't have to wear bowling shoes?

Day 1: T-CAB Road Trip

The time for visiting Rachael and Zack has finally come! And here is the first installment of ya six day series chronicling our adventures in Arlington, VA/ Washington, D.C.!

So this morning we loaded into the cars. Bobby and Ashley had to drive second from Ann Arbor so bobby could leave his car in Cleveland, since he is already from Ohio and this way he can spend less time in a car when we come back Saturday. It was a very adventuresome car ride. Here are some of the things that happened:
-I drove between 60 and 65 mph almost the whole way and rose my gas efficiency by 2.5 mpg, even driving through mountains!
-Bobby promised to move to Texas if Ashley moves to Massachusetts.
-We pretended to be a tour bus for a little bit, driving somewhere near the pentagon.
-We paid a lot of tolls, because Ohio and Pennsylvania are the worst.
-My dad sent gifts for all of ARTBZ, which was very appreciated. Especially the beer.
Upon our arrival in Crystal City (this is where Zachael lives), we took a tour of their fancy apartment. They live here with one roommate and have two bathrooms! They also have a gym and a redbox in the building! They are living the life. Disney should make a show called the Suite Life of Zack and Rachael, because it looks like a hotel here.
After dinner where our waitress hated us, we got provisions for the evening and came back to the apartment for white elephant gift exchange! The gifts were very well done, and we are already using them!
Well now we are playing games, so I should go participate. Bye!

A Zacky in his new habitat