How did I make it to Friday?

Life seems to be whirling by. Days get longer, months get shorter. How does that happen? Just another time paradox. I can't tell you how lovely it is to have warmer weather here in DC. A balmy 55 and Samantha pulls out her flip-flops for getting to work.

Even the rain today is wonderful. It makes me feel at home away from Seattle, plus it is significantly whittling away at those large piles of snow still left from the February storm. One of the piles has been blocking the path to the bus stop for more than a month and forces every one to climb over it or step straight into the muck.

Last weekend, my friend Aaron and I went biking ride around the Mall. We talked about going again tomorrow morning but I think the rain and "urban flooding" (otherwise known as large puddles) may keep my exercise indoors. I convinced Merissa to try this yoga place in DuPont that I still haven't even been to yet! I have never done yoga actually so trying it out tomorrow should be funny for all the on lookers, at the very least.

I am starting in a new position with my same company, in the same building. Different folks but still working for ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). It will be a whole new challenge. I am getting very excited to start full-time on Tuesday (my current position closes on Monday, March 15, the Ides).

And I am really excited for my birthday this year. March 22 I will be 27 years old. That isn't too bad. I have made it this far without completely messing up. I like being older and growing in confidence and hopefully wisdom. Thank the Lord we don't have to stay 12 for our whole lives

Mischief's new favorite location

Mischief's new favorite location since we returned successfully from Christmas at my parents is the couch. Specifically my green soft throw blanket. She has progressed from just sleeping on it to snuggling under it, digging until it wraps around her. I noticed in the last few days that she has had threads between her nails, tufts of something. I found out this evening. . . blanket.

Needless to say I am putty to my kitty. She is been pretty chubby and I worried during Christmas that I was making the chubby worse. Since we have been home however, Mei-mei has not been eating that much and I have been trying to find the right combination of food for my girlie-girl. I am sure that my mother is right and kitty will settle in and get to eating me out of house and home. I am just a worry-wart and would feel better if she started sooner rather than later.

Christmas was an odd celebration this year. With Western Washington state completely snowed in for all intents and purposes the celebration was rather more quiet than normal. It took until the end of the stay to even be able to find a way to travel safely out and about and visit. After being diverted from my original landing time to Spokane on Saturday the whole trip seemed shorter than normal. My sense of time is all off.

The Twilight Zone marathon on Sci-fi channel for the New Year's has provided almost endless enjoyment for me. I do love the mystery of the unknown! Added to it all interspersed today with Chuck that I had recorded and been saving to watch without Samantha, who really doesn't like it!

Riding in the rain

When I left Georgetown from class, it was drizzling heavily. I tried walking and talking on my cell with my umbrella up and leading my bike. Unfortunately I was at least 1 hand short for that, so it didn't last very long. I decided the best thing to do would be ride my bike home. Faster so it might have worked to keep me less wet. I arrived home completely sopped, but I throughly enjoyed it. It felt fantastic to be completely soaking as I powered up the hill home. I can sincerely reccomend it. For a short journey anyway!

There's something about the Blommer

The science library at GU, that is. It just makes me want to write! Most obviously about myself and anything else I can think of. However today I actually have news and fun stories to tell!

Starting with yesterday. I went on an interview with my cousin Hope's company. It went really well. I enjoyed meeting the different company recruiters and dressing up to look the part. Office attire is so fun. The interview process lasted two and a half hours, though it was fairly free form, so its not like I was being grilled under lamps for that long. Although there was brief mention of finding salt and pepper.

By that time, I needed to catch a bus into town (it was in Mclean) and make the switch so Hope could have a car to come home in. I arrived barely ontime to my first MCAT prep course (ExamKrackers) and found out no the class or teacher. I hung out talking to another kid waiting, a 5th year senior from University of Missouri named Osa. After the interview, I was primed to make friends and connections with strangers.

The class, unfortunately, which was to have started at 2pm had been moved to 6pm. This was something I had been trying to avoid because it made commuting out to Dulles area of northern Virginia impossible. But I stuck around the District, shopped Marshall's and Target at Columbia Heights and ended up with a really cute pair of shoes, which placed different blisters on my feet than the ones I was wearing. It thundered and lightening royally and had started to spit rain about the time I moved from eating a sub for lunch to drinking Starbucks coffee (grande skinny vanilla, as always).

The torrents of sheeting rain had tapered to a soaking pour by the time I left to catch the Metro back to campus. But the walk to the Howard campus was several blocks. Even though I had time, I decided not to wait for the bus. I was going to enjoy the rain. Even though my glasses were impenetrable from rain drops and my nice ironed shirt (lets face it, it had already been had!) was completely soaked. I was very thankful I had worn a small cami underneath, since I would a been showing more than I am normally comfortable with! I had no hope of arriving anything less than looking like a drowned rat, when a Prius stopped at the curb and the man inside rolled down the window. I was a little sketched out until an umbrella was outstretched. I laughed and said, "you feel that bad for me? Thank you so much." I think I heard a "your welcome" from the car as it immediately pulled away from the curb, the window not even beginning to roll up yet. It was a wonderful thing to do and made my day. Probably even my week.

The class turns out to have been a sponsored one for Howard University students, so there were only three of us who did "belong." It also meant we were the three who had paid the most for the course! But though I think pretty much everything I learn in the class will be redundant, the repetition is exactly what I need to totally kick the MCAT out of the park, which I feel is a real possibility.

Class ran long. I ended leaving before it was done. I am guessing it continued for at least 20 more minutes. I had a bus to catch that left L'Enfant Plaza at 10:38, which I hadn't anticipated being problematic. Well, it was. Trains take longer at night. And guess what? The exit to the correct corner (D and 7th) was completely closed. When I left the Metro station the clock said 10:35pm. I started running up the escalator. And thought I had had gotten lost in a mall or something. Luckily I chucked my pride and asked for directions from a security guard right there because even after running down the block (in heels with blisters no less) I just barely made the bus. They were about to pull out. Since it was the last bus of the night, and it already arrived at 11:30 pm, I was completely sunk for public transportation if I missed it. Praise the Lord, I made it. It made for a long day, pretty rough. And I can't express my thanks to Hope enough for staying awake and about long enough to come get me at the bus stop, especially since she had to be up early this morning to leave for another round of work.

Thank you, Hope. For the many helps.

Lastly, a funny story from my best friend, who suffers through the trials and tribulations of being a middle school teacher in the Bronx for only 11 more days of school. Two years over with. Maybe they were well spent. I know you sure feel spent. So during the course of staff meeting with all the teachers, her principal notes that "she helps out with all the children on all 8 continents." For those of you not perfectly remembering your fifth grade geography and counting slowly in your mind (as I did) making certain that what just sounds wrong actually is wrong. There are 7 continents, and she is probably only involved with helping children on the 6 inhabited ones. Apparently now the teachers at the school talk about the outreach to penguin children.

TMI to totally nothing . . .

Yes, just focusing on MCAT prep, living at my cousin Hope's, and not being required to constantly check assignments online has moved me from telling everyone, everything, all the time to nothing, rarely and never. Its not all entire intentional. I have been puttering around with few terribly exciting developments. I started taking practice MCATs. My first today went entirely well and I have 5 more practice ones to go, so its all only going up! I hoping that my amazing, fantastic unbelievable score will carry me easily through admissions, although I am not holding my breath for that. I start seriously ear marking my AAMC book which lists schools and with various pertinent information. I am excited beyond belief but prayerful. In an admissions environment which keeps saying that they are not relying as heavily on MCATs, I am hoping for a more in that direction, even! Oy.

That's pretty much my life right now, along with applying for jobs. I am interviewing on Monday, but the position is entirely non-medical, which is an obvious drawback. Pray and hope that something wonderful will come along here soon. I have a little bit of breathing room for studying thanks to my parents (wonderful parents!) gently encouraging me and backing me up for it.

Family life around the Benitez-Murphy-Everheart "clan" has had some ups and downs recently. My cousin's son graduated from high school today, the first of the younger generation. Payton and Hailey (another part of my "cousin's-children" generation, and my generous house sharers at the moment) have just about finished the regular soccer season. Though Hope has the joy tomorrow of sharing her wedding anniversary with Father's day and one last soccer tournament day. Hailey has been off and on sick, however, for the last two weeks and capped off today's long but successfully rainy day by a round of stomach upset. All five who live in this house pray that this bug remains quarantined and short.

Ok, now that is pretty much my life. Although I do have the joy of extending congratulations next Saturday to a long time friend getting married. And perhaps more importantly (just kidding) she is moving in the DC area. That makes two new DC additions. Hurrah for recruiting people to the crazy weather, pretty but weird DC.

In the midst of storm there is a rainbow

This does no justice to the weather yesterday. I biked to Dulles airport from Hope's to catch a bus into the district. Shortly after everyone got on the bus, the rain started sheeting down. At one point all the cars on the toll way were pulled off because visibility was so bad. Several tornadoes touched down in the area and many areas were without power last night. I waited for almost an hour and a half for the bus as the line of customers lengthened. The orange metro line which runs west lost electrical power between two key commuter stations. Though they promised to shuttle passengers, one bus rider said the scene was chaos and that there were thousands milling around waiting for the shuttles. That made the bus line to the airport which also services the Herndon Monroe Park and Ride an easier, if not faster, way home for many who live out in the boonies near Dulles (sorry, guys, it really is far out here! Not saying its not pretty!) When we finally waded through traffic, the rain again started up. My brilliant plan to bike home again was foiled. Thankfully Hope came to pick me up. We stopped at Wegmann's for dinner where this rainbow shot was taken. Quite pretty, yes?

You'd think

You would think that I would want to talk about my biochem final today. Which I most certainly did not ace (Malate has only a "6 degrees of separation" kind of relationship with Pentose phosphate pathway (PPP), but the confusion came because oxaloacetate can be pulled out for conversion by PEP carboxylase to become phosphenol pyruvate then gluconeogenesis. No where close to PPP. Yeah, ridiculously obvious mistake. Actually, it is, that is what is so depressing). But I am hopeful (and distinctly prayerfully pleading) that I could still pull out a pretty good grade.

Ok, so I did want to talk about it. But moving on. Today I wandered over to the Cathedral for a lookie-loo at fair going on. It was the May Flower Fair, or something like that. The Cathedral has this nursery on site, which I must admit to never having been to until today. So the lawn was covered in booths, selling handy crafts, fair trade clothing and carvings from India and Africa,cinnamon almonds. The further I wandered in, the larger it all became. There were teriyaki chicken places, a funnel cake booth (still bummed I didn't have any cash for that) and even a small Ferris wheel (really, REALLY small). So here is small snapshot of my day.
This is the Bishops's garden, actually the last stop on my tour. I feel really silly for not having explored this part of my neighborhood further earlier.
This was the accompaniment for the first part of the booths. The sound of the rides provided the soundtrack for the backside.
Because no acre of D.C. would be complete without the Civil War horse statue (This particular one actually needs greater research to confirm that it is indeed, commemorating the Civil War.)
The longest line to any attraction at the fair was to the ice cream truck.
This was actually the nursery that is an everyday business on the Cathedral grounds. Thought these blown glass globes looked like the old glass buoys my Nana collected. Plus, they were just beautiful.
For some reason Teddy Bear Vine just didn't seem to be an appropriate moniker for this plant.
So starts are joking tour of "What every Cathedral needs." Every good cathedral needs many monks praying. These are the back up guys, ready to rush out when the other guys get sent off to different homes. Unfortunately for them, the birds have found a permanent home for themselves near as well.Every good cathedral needs gargoyles. In this case, these grimacing bad guys seem closer to a kiss than warding off evil.
This Cathedral has a reminder that there was a fallen angel, one with feet of clay.
Ok, this seems a little more Hogwarts than Hunchback to me, but hey, whatever.
All the following (except the last) are in the Bishop's garden. This was particularly touching to me. It is plaque dedicating a bench to a deceased woman, from her parents.
The alum were are at their peak. It was lovely. I found this an emotive piece, a portrayal of the Prodigal Son. I love attempting to make cool shots of pathways. I just keep trying to get them right and make them interesting, to actually show some of what I see. Didn't happen this time . . . but not bad.
I could see that I had just missed the peak of the garden's blossoms. Despite that and the people everywhere, I truly enjoyed it. I would love to spend some more peaceful time there.

And because I always seem to end adventures on the sublime. . . I noticed this truck as I was leaving
Ever wanted to rob an ATM but didn't know how to arrange transportation from the caper . . . here you are. I am assuming this is likely the most ridiculously security modified van, and bears no actual resemblance to its other assembly line fellows in its resistance to theft, however it still seems rather disconcerting. Maybe its just me.

The pollen count is high when . . .

You leave your windows open in a 7th floor apartment near few trees and the table becomes coated with visibly thick residues. Wiping it took 3 paper towels. Thank heaven for today's rain.

Once and again, life;s little oddities

I was searching for a song called "Rain" by Patty Griffin that I heard on Bones (my new favorite show, at least until I run out of episodes anyway!) and I found the song quickly. Itunes even predict from my searching for "Patty" that "Griffin" was going to be my next word (which borders on creepy and cool at the same time). However while noting that she was also featured on other listing I noticed that the artist was listed on an itunes Essentials list for Thanksgiving dinner. I generally check out these lists since my taste in music varies and changes rapidly. What stunned me about this list was not its presence, since there are "Essentials" lists for everything for a Lazy Sunday the absolute must have Tibetan throat singers. This list was special because it was for a holiday that revolves completely around family and yet it had Explicit songs listed. Family, Thanksgiving, Explicit songs? huh? Anyone else seeing the disconnect there?

The Patty Griffin song is pretty good by the way.

As for me, I am mellowing in my apartment, waiting to do any thinking until it drops below 65 degrees. My building, despite the fact that we have now had several weeks in a row of consistently high temperatures (2-5 degrees higher than average) has still not turned the air conditioning on. In fact, they also haven't turned the heat off. So my cooling system is the two windows wide open and now hoping that not too many people will smoke for much longer. Since I seem to be able to smell quite a bit of it going on! It feels very Rear Window. I expect to see a murder and frankly I think a Grace Kelly character hanging around might add life interest for sure.

All this open window business is lovely. Or would be normally. But apparently my move to the mid-Atlantic region triggered latent allergies. Pretty much everyone has them here, it feels like. And so do I now. Argh! The pollen count quadrupled yesterday and has continued climbing today for already obscenely high. And I can tell you, I feel it! As much as I love my bike and riding around, the combined heat and pollen had me hacking like a life long smoker with emphysema. Hopefully I will get soon at least get that cool sexy raspy voice. I mean, one can hope?

Despite being Friday night, I think I will call it a day. And try to get up early tomorrow and enjoy the early morning rather than late afternoon I usually wake up to. Its supposed to be mid-80's again tomorrow and I want to have my bike ride early enough that I can spend the rest of the afternoon studying. In the library. Where its actually cool. You being forced to leave my apartment windows open in the dead of winter because it was ridiculously hot (the heat was ALWAYS on high) was one thing. I mean, when its 30 degrees outside, you want to come home to an apartment that averages the mid-80 without even trying. But when it a hot Spring, the heat indoors becomes significantly less appealing! (Grumble, grumble, sorry!)

She is the onion queen, young and sweet

So I must admit. In another month I will have lived in DC for a total of 1 year and this is the first time I visited the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial. It was amazing. (All the pictures from this particular outing are on the slideshow that is the currently on the right side of your screen.) I had planned on going down to the Mall, almost hitting a couple of tourists and then heading for a longer, harder bike ride on the Mount Vernon trail or up the C and O Canal. However I wimped out at the same time as my camera battery died and I realized despite the fact it was really warm outside (55 degree) and the fact that all the tourists around seemed dressed as though they were in Siberia (I mean, really, yelling at your kid 'cuz he took his gloves off because it was so so cold is excessive). However the wind was blowing and I was riding with thin running shorts on at "high speeds" against the wind. So took lots of pictures and then went grocery shopping. Which was good. I love cereal.

As for the onion queen, I saw them on sale and thought, "Mmmm, sauted onions, good idea." Then I got home and realized I had apparently had a similar thought recently while shopping. Twice. So anyone need two of my three bags of Trader Joe's onions, give me a call. Anyone of the 9 actually onions I own would be pleased to go home with some who will actually be able to use all of them!
Well, on to homework, then taxes. Good times, what can I say. The video is a quick (emphasis on quick) snapshot of the crowds around the Mall for the Cherry Blossom Festival, which started today and brought thousands to town. It really is spectacular to see Capital so adorned.

Despite

Despite possibly failing a test just now, I feel relieved and excited. I had a fairly good day overall. It was amazingly cold. The high was 32 degrees. Freezing. With windchill added in, it was cold enough to delay school in some Western areas of Virginia and Maryland. I got to school half iced over and just in time to miss the first physics question. But I got there in time! Biochem has started to speed up unnervingly but it buildings on foundations. This was smoothed over by the 'cup-o-joe' from Saxby's that went down smooth. Organic chemistry consisted of a question answer period that unnerved me more than anything. But Jonah, Andrew, Dave and I all went to Chipotle after, the Monday tradition, and enjoyed good food and random conversation.

I studied tout seule until our organic lab recitation (where the prof explains the upcoming). Then Lei-ann, Dorothy and I went to dinner (Subway for me). Later Greg joined us. It was fun. We talked about life and crap and everything. It got a lot more stuck in my head than would have otherwise. Lei-ann and I are planning to get together once a week to try this learning technique a little more often. Maybe others will even join us.

The test can be classified as nothing but difficult. However they seem more doable this semester. Somehow there seems to be more rhyme and reason to it all. Hurrah! Lei-ann drove me home (which was wonderful considering the walk to the car solidified my extremities to icicles) and I even got to flirt a little with a nice looking fellow in the elevator.

It should be noted at this point that my father, who has been going through trial by fire in his first teaching job, starting directly into the classroom as the lead teacher in two subjects, has decided to momentarily retrench in responsibility. What form that will take, everyone involved is unsure. Like everything else in my life away from DC and school, it leaves much . . . unsettled. However, I feel sanguine about the change. I know that all three people involved in these decisions are capable: my father, my mother, and God.

Glib words bite you . . .

After I blogged so glibbly about West Coast/East Coast weather, I learned that not only was the West Coast getting snow, then sleet, but that it was also currently getting hurricane force winds and that in fact a few people died (4 at last count). Needless to say I felt bad about complaining about our measley 25-50 mph winds. I mean, when the Washington DC news covers the Northwest, which I generally think they would like to fall off along with California, you know bad stuff is happening! I-5 closed. Its the end of civilization for Seattle!

I still jest, but it is serious, I hope my family is well. I can't imagine losing family so abruptly from something so inconsistent and unexpected as winds and weather.

Well, I am off to study some more . . . as usual. Pretty much all I do these days. Study. Just as it should be. But come December 18th, I am free as a bird! (for three weeks any way!)