DC Cherry Blossoms Festival 100 Year Anniversary

One of my favorite parts of living in a D.C. suburb is when April comes around and it's time for the annual Cherry Blossom Festival. This year it was a particularly big deal as it marked the 100th year of the festival.  It was also a big deal because I wasn't sure I was going to be able to go, and I haven't missed a Cherry Blossom Festival in years; my husband and I make it our business to go every year together.  My new job at an accounting firm requires me to work on Saturdays during tax season and his new job requires him to work on Sundays, so our chances were looking bleak... but fate intervened and I ended up having a surprise Saturday off (Yay people unexpectedly filing for extensions and lightening my weekend workload!).

Sadly we missed the peak cherry blossom weekend and most of the blossoms had blown away, but there is always a tree in bloom somewhere - and plenty of people congregating around the one and only tree blooming next to the tidal basin.

If you walked a little further away from the tidal basin it was possible to find more trees, although the FDR Memorial (which can usually be relied on to have blossoms long after the wind has swept the tidal basin clean) was also sadly sparse.  Still, we managed to find a small grove and snap some pictures.

It was also a perfect day for kite-flying, which was fortunate for the Kite Festival that was going on that day next to the Washington Monument.

This year, with the actual blossoms being so sparse, I ended up people watching more than anything, and what I saw made me really happy. Sometimes, reading and watching the news, especially in the aftermath of Treyvan Martin and with all of the political in-fighting going on and Rick Santorum calling Obama a "Nigg-" before he caught himself, it's easy to think about how awful people can be and how different we all are and how can we possibly get along as one country?  Then I sat and people watched at the Cherry Blossoms Festival and I came away feeling a whole let better about the state of things.

There were so many different kinds of people, speaking different languages, wearing different styles, coming from different cultures, socio-economic backgrounds and walks of life, and yet we were all drawn together to see a thing of beauty.  It wasn't just people from the D.C. city and suburbs, citizens from all over the nation travel to the festival every year, and this year in particular. We were all there, together, and everyone was more than just respectful of their fellow-festival goers, they were helpful. Everywhere you could see people pausing in their walks so that they didn't interrupt a stranger's picture, or even accepting a request to take a picture of a stranger. Skin color didn't matter, no one asked if you were gay or straight, no one cared if you spoke perfect English or no English at all. Everyone was there together enjoying the beauty of the day, and it really hit me how absolutely wonderful that is.

#73 Attend a Live Comedy Show

I really lucked out for particular Day Zero Goal.  My friend Dru won free tickets for our group of friends to Baltimore's Comedy Factory... sure there's a two drink minimum, and the tickets were only $17, but I'll still take a free ticket over a $17 ticket any day!  Although it would have been worth the money, just FYI.

We had to get to the venue early to receive our free admission, but that turned out to work out in our favor because it's a seat yourself venue and we had a pretty big group.

We sat at those two long tables on the right hand side of the picture, right next to the stage. Because it's easiest to get made fun of if you're right next to the stage. =) The first performer, whom I'm guessing is a Comedy Factory mainstay / emcee kind of guy, had a couple conversations with us, mostly because when he asked who in the audience is married my husband and I were the only ones willing to raise our hands (although there were other married couples in the room).

The warm-up act, Alabama, had a fantastic time mocking one of our guys for his "Justin Timberlake" hat, and he particularly enjoyed another one of my friend's fantastically loud and expressive laugh.  She made a good counterpoint for another patron's laughter who was sitting opposite from us on the other side of the stage.

Alabama had us rolling. He spent most of his time interacting with the audience and kind of making things up as he went along, although he had a few observations / things to say that were obviously pre-planned - and absolutely hilarious.  While talking politics he mentioned President Obama and started talking about how cool and hip and good-looking Obama was when he was first elected. Then, Alabama went on to say, "I saw him on TV yesterday and I thought it was Morgan Freeman up there!"

Much hilarity ensued.

I was actually rather disappointed to realize that he wasn't the main act... that is until the main act got up there and started. Tony Woods was an absolute riot.

He had hilarious jokes, witty observations, and a fantastic feel for the audience. There was some interaction with the audience... he stuck with his spiel but had absolutely no trouble at all side-lining and changing things up in order to accommodate what was happening in the room. Granted, I was a few drinks in at this point, but I was also crying I was laughing so hard at some parts of his routine. His description of a bison - "I know what a bison is, it's a cow with an afro!" and his subsequent demonstration of how eating bison meat makes you feel, had us rolling.

I really hate going into Baltimore. I avoid it as much as possible. It's a bit of a drive, in addition to the fact that I find the streets hard to navigate. But it was well worth it for this. Comedy clubs are now high up on my list of things that are a lot of fun to do!

#72: Attend a professional live theater performance of a show I've never seen

This is not a show I was ever interested in seeing, to be perfectly honest. My husband has seen it and it's not one he was ever interested in seeing again. Both of us had an incredible time watching Olney Theater's production of it.

The show was fun, funny, nostalgic and heart-touching. It was like reading the comic strips all over again. Every scene was just another little comic strip vignette... was there a plot? I'm not sure. Obviously Charlie Brown was searching for something, a little light in his life, a little direction for himself, and I'm not sure if he ever found it, but I really enjoyed watching him and his friends just live out their daily lives.

The stage was a little sparse at times, but the acting was fantastic and the props, costumes and set all contributed to the comic-strip feel. My husband really enjoyed the production because this production made little modern day tweaks to the script which brought some of the most surprisingly and delightful moments to the stage - such as Snoopy and Sally's rabbit hunt where they suddenly broke out in Beyonce midway through.

I was also delighted to walk in and see someone I knew onstage... the incredibly talented Vishal as Shroeder, rocking out with amazing vocals as usual - and also fantastically obsessive about Beethoven.

My number one favorite character, however, was Sally. That is a ridiculously amazing part. And the actress was fantastic, great comedic timing and her squeaky yet growly voice cracked me up.

all in all it was a thoroughly enjoyable show, a great date night, and it made me want to get out and see more theater more often, especially at Olney where all the seats are close to the stage!

#70 AFI's Top 100 Movie List: #94 Goodfellas

"Goodfellas" is, predictably, about a group of guys who think of themselves as "good fellas," which, the main character explains in the movie means a "good fella to know."  Personally, after watching the movie I'm not sure why anyone would want to know any of them. While they have their own moral code, which is strictly followed, and lead fantastic lives of wealth and privilige (for a time, anyway), they also live in constant danger from both law enforcement and each other.  

 

 

There were a lot of great things about this movie.  Most interesting to me is that it was based on a true story, as told by a mobster turned Protected Witness, who was still alive and in the Witness Protection Program when the movie came out. Normally I'm not a big fan of mobster movies, but I really enjoyed this one. Part of it was the acting, which was fantastic, and part of it was the storyline. It was fascinating even before the end of the movie when I found out it was based on a real man's life.

The movie begins with a lot of class and glamorization... 

 

Henry Hill is the main character and he narrates the majority of the film (occasionally parts are narrated by the voice of his wife, Karen).  

 

We hear from the beginning how Henry always wanted to be a gangster, dreamed of it even. He was impressed by their clothes, their lifestyle and their power. He started by running errands for the local mob and was taken under the wing of the mob boss, Paulie, by the time he was in high school - not that he was going to school.

 

 Although he eventually rose to be a respected and well-liked mobster, he could never be officially "made" (which I guess is kinda like being inducted into a leadership position) because he wasn't Italian. But he made enough money and had enough power that he never seemed to mind.

 

I don't want to give away too much of the story. Suffice to say that the acting is fantastic, I really enjoyed watching all of the characters (even Joe Pesci's, and he tends to seriously get on my nerves). I thought the way the movie went from glamorizing the lifestyle and the power of these men to showing Henry's decline into drugs and the gritty reality of violence and death within the mob was great.  The plot was smooth and seamless, transitioning to a kind of fairy tale into something almost nightmarish. With friends like his, who needs enemies? 

 

 

Mostly I appreciated that it wasn't the kind of in-your-face graphic violence that I see so much of today in the movie theaters. Violence is one thing, but it shouldn't be the main point of the movie and the plot should never play second banjo to the graphic effects. In Goodfellas you get an intriguing and exciting story, just the right amount of violence, and some seriously good acting.  I'm really glad this movie was on the AFI's Top 100 list and that I got to watch it for my blog! Even though it wasn't one I was really interested in, it drew me in and kept me there anyway.

#33 Friend Recommended: Darkfever by Karen Marie Moning

I think I need to get more book recommendations from Courtney, we obviously like reading a lot of the same things!

 

I'd never heard of Darkfever before she recommended it to me, and I didn't look up anything about it before I started reading.  I saw it on Amazon's Daily Kindle Special for .99 and jumped on it - what a deal! Even more of a deal when I started reading and found out how good it is. Although Karen Marie Morning apparently usually writes romances, she's stepped away (just a little) from that genre with this wonderful fantasy novel... that has a lot of seriously sexy romance in it. But it's not your typical romance novel, not even your typical fantasy romance novel, because this book has more blood, guts and violence than it does sex.

 

Now, I don't want to hype this book up too much, especially because about 1/3 of the way through Darkfever, although I was enjoying the plot line and all of the side characters, the main character, Mackenzie aka Mac, was seriously grating on my nerves. She's 22, extremely shallow and completely convinced that she can take care of herself and take on anything and anyone... even though she's never been anywhere more dangerous than occasional trips from her small town in Georgia to the nearby city of Atlanta. *face palm*

 

Still. The interesting plot and other characters kept me going. See, the Unseelie Sidhe (evil fairies for those of you who aren't up to date on your fantasy) are escaping the prison the Seelie Sidhe (good fairies... if there is such a thing) put them in and are invading our world through a portal in Dublin, Ireland.  Mac gets involved after her sister is murdered and she goes to Dublin to seek justice, never realizing that in order to do so she's going to have to immerse herself in a fantastical world that she's never believed in and always thought was stupid... however, it's hard to ignore a Sidhe when you're staring it in the face. Most people woudn't get the chance to but, lucky Mac, it turns out she's special kind of human, a sidhe-seer... the term is pretty self explanatory so I'll leave it at that.  So she's searching for her sister's murder and getting caught up in a world that she wants nothing to do with, and realizing that her sister had already been somewhat immersed in this world really plays havoc with her sense of reality.

 

And in the middle of all of this are the two walking sex-pots of the series, Jericho Barrons who is... someone? Something? helping Mac. Or is he helping her? Or is he just helping himself? The man is a frustrating mystery of walking sexiness. Although Mac isn't interested in him (she likes a man with good moral fiber, and makes the quip that the most fiber Barrons gets is when he walks down the cereal aisle at the grocery store).  V'lane is the other posssible romantic interest: a Seelie Prince with the power of sex. But Seelie doesn't mean he's a good guy, because sex with a fae is addictive and can be deadly (I really appreciate that Ms. Morning actually researched her Sidhe lore and didn't just make something up, the mark of a good fantasy novel!).  Both of them are possessive over Mac, but not just because she's pretty (although there's def some male territorial hilariousness going on), but because she's the first person they've come across that can sense the evil they need to find and destroy (I'm summing up here, it's so much more complicated than this).

 

Now... you might think that I've given you a whole bunch of spoilers here. Nope. You'll get all this information in the first third of the first book. This is not a quick and easy romance. It's not even a quick and easy fantasy series. The series is 5 books long (I love reading an already completed series) and is full of twists and turns and unexpected developments. Plus, some seriously fantastically drawn out sexual tension. 

 

Even though I was unsure about the first book, I'm glad that I didn't put it down, and I was completely hooked by the end of the second book. In fact, I enjoyed this series so much that I bought them all and have added them to my bookshelves. This is a big deal because I've been trying NOT to add books to my bookshelves, that was the whole point of getting the kindle! But for my favorite books, I like to have them around so I can read and re-read, and this series has now been added to that list.

#38 - Savannah for St. Patrick's Day

Savannah, GA, for whatever reason, has the second largest St. Patrick's celebration in the U.S. - and this year they had the largest parade! Chef Hubby's Mom and Husband live in the historic district and were wonderful and nice enough to let us invade their home for this epic celebration, which shuts down several of the main streets in the city.

Katieschmatie and her husband came with us, which meant that I had a buddy to dress crazy with, which is always fun!

The celebration starts several days before St. Patrick's Day. We got there on a Thursday and got to watch the streets get progressively more full every night.

Friday night the celebrations were already starting, and even though it rained between 8pm and 9:30 it didn't keep people from filling the streets again by 11pm:

We got dressed up on Friday, although not as crazy as our plans for Saturday:

Chef Hubby had a lot of people asking to take pictures with him cuz he looked aaaaaaawesome.

Saturday kicks off with the parade. People start lining up in the squares and along the parade route at 5 am to get good seats - the best ones are the ones that will provide some shade.

We walked around to take pictures of the parade route, along which (for some reason) there was a genuine bald eagle - who was not thrilled by the large crowd:

The parade has bag-pipers, high school marching bands, families with generations of Irish in them, local businesses, Vietnam vets, New York fire fighters, etc. etc.

Oh, and there was a goat. That was painted green.

 One of my favorite things to see, however, is the soldiers.

 By the end of the parade every one of them is covered in lipstick from girls running out from the crowd
 and kissing them on the cheek. They also get beads, and this year I saw some with boas.

Half the fun is looking at the crazy costumes of the people watching the parade:

This year, Katieschmatie and I were two of those people... and everyone wanted their picture with us!:

It was hard to go more than a couple of blocks without being stopped. And when we saw someone else dressed awesome, we would ask to get a pic with them too - like these two guys with the amazing mustaches!:

Saturday night City Market and River Street were packed. There was always space to go if right next to the stages was too crowded to stand right in front of, and the music was fantastic. So many people, all intent on having a good time without getting violent or riotous. Just rowdy and fun loving.

Dried Strawberries

So my new job at an accounting firm during tax season has definitely had a detrimental effect on how much I'm able to blog, however it does not have a detrimental effect on me making new recipes!!!!

This is one I was particularly excited about because I'm very picky about my strawberries. I don't like bad spots or the ones that look like they're not quite ripe, and after a few days I don't want to eat ANY of them because they seem a little mushy. It is these unlikely candidates that I decided to dry out in the oven and see if that improved their quality any.

It was an extremely successful experiment.

The steps are easy.
1. Wash the strawberries and preheat the oven to 210 (mine was probably closer to 250 and it worked out fine)

2. Core them (which means cut off the leafy crown and then - if you're like me - use a knife the take out the little core.

3. Cut them in half and lay them out on a baking sheet.

I wasn't sure if the direction they're facing would make a difference. So I did both. It didn't make a difference.

4. Sprinkle them with a little salt and pepper. I did notice that the strawberries with the core facing up held onto the salt and pepper and little better, but it didn't seem to make a difference in flavor to be honest.

5. Bake for 3 hours (or until dried)

I did notice that the ones facing up look a little prettier. They all tasted delicious though. They were like candy! I'm probably going to do this to all strawberries that have sat in my fridge a little too long for my picky self to just eat them. In fact, I'm going to be doing it again today =)

In case you're wanting a super easy and healthy-ish dessert recipe for strawberries, the strawberries that were eaten before making these were eaten fresh with a bowl of chocolate whipped cream... they taste like chocolate covered strawberries but it's less than half the calories!

#21 Buy a Bottle of Wine to open on Mine & Chef Hubby's 10 Year Wedding Anniversary

Buying a wine to age is not as easy as you'd think. A lot of people think that you can just buy any wine, age it, and it will turn into something fabulous. Not so. Especially nowadays, most wines are being made so that people don't have to wait, so that we can just open it whenever we feel like and it will taste delicious immediately. After all, this is the age of the "RIGHT NOW." We freak out about waiting more than 10 minutes to get through security at the airport, when someone doesn't pick up their phone by the third ring and when our internet pages load any slower than immediately. This does not describe a group of people who are going to wait several years to enjoy the wine they just bought, and winemakers around the world have bowed to the demand.

I did some research online. I found out that whites tend not to be aging wines. But neither are most reds. And most wines that should age well start off expensive, and then by the time you're ready to crack into them they're worth a heck of a lot more, because you had the patience to wait. But there's no guarantee that an expensive wine will age well either. Certain wines, usually wines containing higher amounts of sugar are what age best. Originally I wanted to age a wine for our 20 year anniversary, but most of the wines that do well waiting around that long are ports or sherries, and I wanted wine.

I had ordered some wine after a recent wine tasting and was chatting with the owner of the shop about my desire for a good aging wine. He brought me to a very reasonably priced wine that should age very well about 10 years. Alright, I decided to go for it. A 10 year wedding anniversary is definitely something to celebrate!

It's a good thing I took a picture of the bottle because I couldn't for the life of me remember what I'd bought. And I can't just go look at the bottle, because in order to keep Chef Hubby and I from accidentally drinking it before we're supposed to, I put it in a wine box and taped the top shut.

Just in case this isn't enough deterrent, after all one or both of us might (in a state of hazy boozyness) forget why I taped this wine box shut. So I put a little note on the top too.

Woo!!!

Storing the wine to age was easier than I thought too. I asked Chef Hubby what I should do and he said to keep it in a place where the temperature won't fluctuate much (not that we have anywhere to put it but a corner in our apartment, so check) and turn it on its side so that the cork doesn't dry out. And check. Stored.

Now I just have to wait 10 years. Well. 9 years, 6 months, 1 week and 3 days. I can't remember the last time I had to wait that long for something. If ever. 

Baked Cream Cheese Spaghetti Casserole

 I love spaghetti. Mmmmm noodles. This is not the most healthy recipe in the world. But man is it delicious. And I absolved myself by making it slightly healthier by using ground chicken instead of ground beef. And light cream cheese.

It was delicious.

Served it with garlic bread and delicious lemony garlic-y green beans.

Ingredients:
12 oz spaghetti
1 (28 ounce) jars prepared spaghetti sauce
1 lb lean ground beef
1 tsp Italian seasoning
1 clove garlic, minced
8 ounces cream cheese
1/2 cup parmesan cheese, grated

1. Preheat oven to 350 F degrees. I'd also take the cream cheese out of the fridge at this point so it can start warming up a little since it's going to need to get melty.

2. In a skillet, brown the ground beef until cooked through; drain fat and stir in spaghetti sauce.  Set aside.

3. Cook spaghetti according to directions on packet.  Drain and place cooked spaghetti in bowl.  Add cream cheese, Italian Seasoning and minced garlic.  I put the cream cheese on the bottom and then put the spaghetti on top so that it would help melt.

Stir until cream cheese is melted and the spaghetti is thoroughly coated.

4. Lightly grease a 9x13" pan.  Spread a small amount of meat sauce in the bottom of the dish.  Put spaghetti on top of sauce and top with remaining meat sauce.  Sprinkle parmesan cheese on top.

5. Bake for 30 minutes, until bubbly.

 Yum so totally delicious! Very filling too, especially when served with a good veggie, so I actually ate JUST the portion size. Which is something I usually have trouble with. It also had great re-heat values for lunches.

#31: Take a Vacation with Someone Other Than my Husband

I love my husband and I can be admittedly clingy when it comes to spending time away. Also, I had never been on a one-on-one vacation with my best girlfriend, who has been my best girlfriend for the past 11 years, and that just seemed wrong. So I decided that for her birthday I would use a Groupon (Yay Groupon!) to take us out for a girl's weekend away.

I found a nice deal, 2 nights for the price of one, at the Chesapeake Inn in Urbanna, VA. It sounded nice: only 2 1/2 hours away, quaint small town, extremely popular Oyster Festival over the summer, hiking, an hour away from Williamsburg and the inn had bikes that we could use if we wanted to. I checked in with Katieschmatie, got the go-ahead and got the Groupon! We were super excited for our girl's weekend away. And if we'd known the bikes were actually SURREY bikes that look like this:

we would have been even more excited to go. As it was, we were pretty excited to see the bikes, period!

Fantastic Chef Hubby made some amaaaaaaaaaaaazing granola for us to snack on during the car ride:

Now, Katieschmatie and I set out on this weekend looking forward to some downtime. We've needed it. Our months have been insanely packed for well... months. First there was my wedding, then the holidays, then just insanity with social activities after the holidays. Leaving for a weekend away felt like a huge relief. We were looking forward to small town life and some enforced relaxation.

Enforced relaxation is definitely the way to describe it. Urbanna is insanely busy in the summer but during the off-season there is nothing to do. There are no clubs or bars, the restaurants have bars but all of the restaurants close at 9pm on the weekends. All the shops close at 5pm. The closest movie theater is 40 minutes away and you can't look up what movies it's showing online, you have to call and listen to their listings (which set us giggling as we had flashbacks to our middle school days). Every time we would get all up and raring to go one of us would say: "So, what can we do?"

We'd pause. Look around. Check the map, which had a schedule of events, however the events only happen March - November. And then we'd look at each other and say "Nothing. There is nothing to do."

It was exactly what we needed.

We explored the town, which is beautiful, both on the surrey bike and on foot. The Chesapeake Bay was a mere 10 minute walk from the inn. You couldn't ask for a more beautiful sky either.

Our first night there we drove the forty minutes to the movie theater to watch This Means War. Cute and fun. We got home at 9pm and refused to get into bed because we knew we'd fall asleep, and neither of us wanted to call our husbands to say goodnight that early. We were pretty sure they'd judge us. So we knit and read and then watched Wedding Crashers on TV before finally calling it a night around 11pm.

The next morning we were up at 8am, which horrified Katieschmatie. She hasn't been up that early in awhile. Had breakfast in town, which was delicious. Wandered around the shops, which had closed before we were able to get to them the evening before. We found a Thrift Shop which was having a sale, and filled up a basket of clothes for $4. We discovered that beer and wine is a heck of a lot cheaper in Urbanna, and doesn't have the obnoxiously high tax that Montgomery County puts on booze. So we stocked up.

For the afternoon we headed to Williamsburg, VA, since it was only an hour away and we didn't know what else to do in Urbanna (unfortunately neither of us care much more fishing and we didn't have a boat).

We came back to Urbanna in time to catch the Open Mic night at the Oyster House. 3 local guys with guitars, a keyboard and a ukulele, good harmonies and voices. We had a blast listening to them and eating delicious food (homemade bread pudding in a bourbon cream sauce YUM!) until the restaurant closed at 9-ish. After that we went back to our room and found what is possible the most dangerous show on TV: Animal's Planet's "Too Cute," a look at seriously cute animals. The episode we caught featured puppies. I can't even tell you how badly I want a puppy now.

The next morning I took another walk around town before we packed up, heading to Something Different, a restaurant just outside of town, which truly was something different and their food was amazing. We bought a lot of seasonings and sauces to take home and I can't wait to make some brisket!

All in all, it was a very fun weekend and exactly what we needed. On the ride home we both commented about how we felt truly relaxed for the first time in ages. To be honest, I can't remember the last time I felt that refreshed and relaxed after a weekend. It made me realize I need to slow down a little, say no occasionally to making plans, and enjoy myself rather than exhaust myself.