Lately

I had a wonderful visit home. My train arrived on Sunday in the early afternoon and Mommy and Daddy picked me up at the metro on their way home from church. We were all together for lunch at home: Daddy, Mommy, Melanie, Remus, and me. It was so good to see them all again, to see Tuffy, and to just be home (it had been about 2 months since I was last there). We had a fabulous hamburger lunch, stuffed ourselves silly. Mommy had to go to her CS Lewis group’s meeting for dinner, so Daddy took the 3 girls out to the Lebanese Taverna in Tysons, which was great. I’d never been, just heard rave reviews, but the food was excellent, very tasty. Again, stuffed myself silly.

Monday I slept in till 11, then spent the afternoon with Mommy, everyone else being at work/school. We went to La Madeleine for lunch, and then wandered around the town center. For dinner we made a feast: beef tenderloin fondue with Remus’ soufflé. And lots of wine. Again, stuffed to the gills. The power went out at the end of the meal, so we sat talking in the dark, lit only by candles, and drinking wine. It was lovely.

Tuesday morning Mommy and I made ourselves some Irish Coffee, which was very tasty, then had a long debate over the effects of slavery as seen/not seen today. We took a walk through the neighborhood and then dashed over to DSW to buy me some new black working shoes. I chose Sketchers, open like heels with Velcro straps. They’re still giving me blisters, but I’m hoping that will pass soon. Tuesday night Daddy, Remus, and I watched Remember the Titans. I can’t recall what we had for dinner.

And Wednesday I came back to the city. Mommy took me to the metro and I got back to my apartment around 8pm. And collapsed, watching Julie & Julia, and going to bed. Thursday was mostly a re-organize my life day, including applying to a framing job I saw on craigslist. I got a call from the shop in the afternoon to schedule an interview for the next morning. Which I duly went to. And got a call that afternoon calling me back on Saturday for some shadowing, which I went to, and got the job!!! And my first day was Monday. So now I have a full-time framing job at the nicest frameshop I’ve ever been in. God is soooo good. I was getting worried on Thursday and Friday because I was paying my monthly bills and money was getting tight. And God threw this job in my lap. So good of Him, as ever.

My excitement this past weekend was that Remus came to visit! Her bus arrived Friday night, late because of traffic, and we barely made it to our first activity: a Flamenco dance show. I had gotten free tickets through a friend, and we quite enjoyed the show. The woman dancing was very good, but old, which gave an interesting edge to the performance. At first we were both very unimpressed, but with each successive dance the show got better. Afterwards we were both starving, but elected to save our money and head back to my place to eat, about an hour away. But we got back and made breakfast burritos and drank a very-disappointing wine I had bought that day: it was not very good at all, even though it was from France. We talked for a while and then went to sleep.

Saturday we slept in and slowly got going. We went downtown so I could do the shadowing for my job, which ended up taking twice as long as expected. But Remus was very forbearing, and wandered around the neighborhood with my map while I was in there. When I finished we met up and wandered around Eataly, this new mega-gourmet Italian grocery store. It was cool, but insanely packed; almost felt like an amusement park. For lunch we headed over to Little Italy, where I discovered that I do NOT like gnocchi AT ALL (the texture is unbearable); which was sad. I do however, like mozzarella and sausage pizza, and Remus liked the gnocchi so it was ok. After lunch we walked through the Lower East Side to Jujomukti, my favorite tea lounge, where we shared a pot of tea and talked for a while. Then we walked through many meandering paths to Greenwich Village and wandered around there. It’s such a cool area—we liked it a lot. We picked up cupcakes at the Magnolia bakery, and some wine at a wine shop, and then subwayed back home around 8pm for our evening festivities. We picked up food at my grocery, and layed out our dinner: fresh warmed Italian bread with Jarlesburg and Edam cheeses, green pepper and celery with hummus, 3 mangos, and our lovely Chilean wine. We watched The Devil Wears Prada as we ate, the split our 2 cupcakes (chocolate and carrot cake, respectively) into halves, poured ourselves more wine, and watched Rebecca. Remus is still scarred from childhood torture regarding Mrs. Danvers. We finished the bottle of wine, and then proceeded to debate the relative merits of India and China until almost 4 in the morning. At which point we called a truce and went to sleep.

Sunday we got up and decided to spent the remaining time we had together (Remus’ bus left at 4pm) up in my neck of the woods, instead of going downtown. We went to The Cloisters, which is a branch of the Met, an amalgamation of European religious architecture and art, set in a GORGEOUS park right on the Hudson. We could not have had better weather: it was sunny, crisp, and gorgeous. The park was absolutely stunning, the trees were in their fall glory and there were blooming flowers and gorgeous views of the water and the Jersey cliffs. We walked for a bit, then went to a café for breakfast, which reminded me of some Western national park’s lodge. There was a brunch menu that was very overpriced, so we settle on coffee, bacon, and a basket of muffins to split. The bacon was decadent, and there were 6 muffins which we split, also delicious. After we finished we walked up to and around the Cloisters building but didn’t go in due to time. Instead we walked back to my place, grabbed Remus’ stuff and subwayed downtown to where her bus was. We arrived in time to visit a street fair for Remus to make certain unmentionable purchases, and then we stood in line at the bus stop and poof! She was gone. We had such a fun time together: I am so glad that she came up to visit. Other people should, too (hint, hint).

I went to church for the first time in 3 weeks on Sunday evening, then made my way slowly, very slowly home on the trains packed with Halloween revelers. Monday I was up early and headed to my first day on the new job. It was a good first day, nice and easy. I worked 12-6pm, laying into a pile of 50 pieces of art that had to be matted and put into ready-made frames. Didn’t quite finish, but made a good dent in the pile. My coworkers were all very nice and friendly and I found a new coffeeshop around that corner that was very good. After I finished work I went home to eat dinner and then headed downtown again for the strike of my show Follow Me Down. I arrived before the show finished and stood out on the street in the near-freezing weather until people came upstairs to let me in. We worked for about 2 hours, all the actors lending a hand, and got most of the major things done by 1130 when I dismissed them. I then carried my chair and lamp that I had lent the show back home on the subway.

Tuesday I went in to finish strike with the director, but discovered that it was just to be me—she had to work. So I repainted walls and door openings, and swept and moved things to get the theatre back to pristine and empty condition. One of the actors sweetly came in the help me in the afternoon; there’s no way I would have finished without him. We carried doors back to storage and chopped up all our extra wood into disposable sized pieces outside (new experience: cutting lumber with a jigsaw in a subterranean outdoor stairwell in the city). We finished around 430 and I headed home and went grocery shopping.

And then proceeded to cook like my life depended on it. I made a big pot of French Onion Soup, recipe courtesy of Remus. It took forever—like 2.5 hours—to make, but was it delicious. I also made a big dish of Poppy Seed Chicken for lunches at work, and an apple pie. I finished cooking and finally sat down to eat my soup around 10pm. Then I watched about half of When Harry Met Sally, which has been recommended to me forever and I finally was able to stream from Netflix. It was good, but I didn’t think it was as phenomenal as everyone said.

And today I’ve been enjoying my last day off until Tuesday. My new work schedule is Thursday through Monday every week, so weekends have been relocated to Tuesdays and Wednesdays. I slept in this morning, took a lovely shower, cleaned my room, and did various necessary tasks like job paperwork and writing this blog. I just enjoyed a pot of espresso and am about to heat up a bowl of soup. Tonight I’m going back to my Redeemer Bible study for the first time in a couple weeks. Tomorrow it’s back to work for a 9.5 hour day.

I just reread a bunch of the early posts of this blog. It’s funny how different my life was as recently as June, July, and August. I had no idea what was going to happen, was loving my job in Williamsburg, and searching for internships. I was young and idealistic; now I’m old and cynical. :-P Not really, but I do feel that I’ve changed and grown up a lot in the past 5 months. That’s one of the great things about blogs: they capture us as we are at a moment in time. At later moments in time we can go back to reread them and see how we’ve changed.

I’ve been reading Gone With the Wind on the subway this week. Such a fantastic book. Several hundred pages, but so well written that you never get board. I reread Jane Eyre a couple weeks ago, but now I may have to desert my new-found love for Mr. Rochester for an even newer-found love for Rhett Butler. We’ll see. I may do a comparison blog once I finish the book.