Woooooah, we're halfway there! Woooah-OH!

A couple of weeks ago, as I was preparing to enjoy a well-deserved freebie day off after the busy season ridiculousness, I woke up to a cryptic note from the husband telling me to be at Meddlesome Moth at 5:45 (ummm, ok, we had talked about going to dinner, but why are we dining at early bird special hour?), feed the dog before I left (so we're going to be gone for a little while...), and wear comfortable shoes.  I followed up the shoe guidance with a "could my shoes get dirty?" question, which was answered with a maybe...so I really had no idea what I was in for.

Show up for dinner and Carolyn and Allen are there, too - hooray, friends, I like this surprise!  And they're totally dressed normally with their comfortable shoes, so I'm not too worried about things.  Sit down, order drinks, and then Craig somewhat unceremoniously presents me with four pieces of paper.  Ooohh, are these tickets?!?  Lion King is going on tonight at Fair Park!  What, it's not Lion King?  I'm sorry that was my first reaction...as Craig just sighs and shakes his head.  Actually, I had mentioned months ago "oh, Bon Jovi's coming to the AAC!  That could be kinda fun..." and then didn't think twice about it.  Guess who was paying attention?  That's right, kids, all four of us are going to go rock out to Bon Jovi tonight!  Happy birthday to me!  Enjoy some semi-pathetic phone pics of Bon Jovi dashing by and the band doing what it does.  It was awesome.

Because he's ridiculous, Husband also surprised me with a cool new computer as an additional birthaversary present (birthday 10/31 + anniversary 11/5 = birthaversary awesomeness!) - it took a million years to transfer all my files from the old computer, mostly because I have eleventy bajillion pictures.

Also, this whole Windows 8 and touch screen situation?  It's SO confusing and frustrating and I think I'm actually going to have to sit down and read about it so I can actually figure out how to close things.  But give me a week or so and I bet I think it's really cool.

You rock, husband.

Men in hats

It's possible I'm developing a thing for scruffy men in hats.  Possible...but more likely that the hat, scruffy face thing just happens to occur in two men, who makes a pretty tasty burger and wows me with his knife skills (cue sneaky photo of Spike doling out the beverages at Good Stuff Eatery, which has nothing to do with his knife skills but does provide a passable shot of the hat/scruffiness)...

...and the other who puts on a pretty great concert at the 9:30 Club on a random Thursday night (cue least-blurry low light picture of Mat Kearney from recently attended concert):

I really loved his first album, where he occasionally and surprisingly busts into white-boy rap, but his second and latest album is filled with more...well, kinda mushy, less rappy stuff, and totally non-mushy entertaining stuff,and I love it even more.  So, when I found out he would be in D.C. on his latest tour, I had to snag a ticket and go. 

I've been missing my concert time.  I'm lacking some friends here on the same musical wavelength as me, and while I did enjoy Pat Green here in the ci-tay and Josh Ritter with my sissy down in North Carolina, no one really wants to make the trip to Baltimore to see Ray LaMontagne or head over to DAR Constitution Hall to check out Snow Patrol.  So you know what I did last Thursday?  Took myself to a concert.  And I had a really great time.  He put on a great show, even coming out into the audience at one point and leading a mass sing-along.  Cue another slightly blurry photograph from said concert:

Great, great show.  Loved every second of it.  I love live music.  Pick up "City of Black and White" if you're looking for some new tunes - I'm partial to "Fire & Rain" and "Lifeline."  Or ignore me and listen to whatever you like.  That's how I find cool new music, from you people who listen to other things.

Oh, and as a side note...post #100 on this blog thing I've got going on!  Woohoo!  And as I hit #100, I've been here in D.C. about eight months, which means...time to switch jobs and start up something new on Monday.  A little nervous about somewhat limited base knowledge in international tax, but up for the challenge and definitely ready to try something new.

Plus I have iTunes to help me through anything.  Thanks, music.

Love me some books

Just know that when you mention you're going to spend a decent chunk of Saturday at the National Book Festival, you open yourself up to a variety of reactions.  On one hand, you have the fellow bibliophiles who express joy and excitement, and on the other you have those who get a little less excited about the printed word and shoot you an odd look while trying to figure out why this would serve as an inspiration to actually get out of bed.  The festival was started by Laura Bush back in 2001 as a way to promote the Library of Congress, bring together authors and book-lovers, etc. etc.  I was pretty pumped about the chance to actually meet a few authors and hear what they had to say at all of the different pavilions that showcased different genres: history & biography, mystery & thrillers, fiction & fantasy; so on and so forth.

I ambitiously loaded up a messenger bag with six hardcovers, two paperbacks, and assorted other necessities (including a last-minute grab of an umbrella, which turned out to be a rather fortuitous move - sprinkles are not appreciated when you're trying to get your books ready for a signing...or when you're just walking around, for that matter), then walked off to the national mall.  I only briefly regretted the amount of books I was lugging around as I stood in an extra-long Starbucks line, desperately needed my A.M. dose of caffeine, and then came to regret the pile a little bit more when I realized just how popular some of these author signings were going to be.  You know me, I mapped out a plan of attack beforehand to catch so-and-so at Pavilion X at this time to hear to so-and-so speak, then go stand in line and wait for Author Y to sign, then over here then over here...unfortunately, since I wasn't there for the Wilson Kimeli Naiyomahs and Jane Hirshfields of the world, but rather the James Pattersons and John Irvings and Judy Blumes, I had a whole lot more line waiting as part of my day than I would have preferred.

I waited out James Patterson since he was signing at one of the earlier times, and after that hour and a half wait (I'm crazy, I know, but at least I was surrounded by mildly amusing people.  I wish I had a tape recorder for some of what was going on around me) I did at least get to have a ten second conversation with the man...about Texas, of all things.  Thank you, Austin City Limits t-shirt conversation starter.

After a successful signing and sighting, I knew I would never make it through the crazy-long Judy Blume and John Irving lines before they stopped signing, so I just played author paparazzi snagged a couple of pictures.  In anticipation of this event, I managed to track down one of my Judy Blume paperbacks from the days of old (you know, like...middle-schoolish days of old when we're all struggling with the turmoil of adolescence and Judy Blume offers some kind of outlet where you're like "yes, I totally understand how Rachel feels!!" while scrunching your socks and adjusting your t-shirt clip) for her to sign, but alas - the yellowing paperback will just have to continue on with my name scrawled on the title page.  I don't know why I thought anyone else would mistake the book for theirs, but you can rest assured that my loopy handwriting years marked that book as mine.

Unfortunately, all of this line waiting and author listening and walking from tent to tent (loaded down with books, mind you...paper gets heavy) was during on and off sprinkles, which may have contributed to my unwillingness to stand in another line for another hour and a half, but I was determined to make a go of one last signing just to see what this person's reaction would be when I made it up to the table.  You see, I don't really think of Paula Deen as an author.  I think of her as The Queen of Butter.  The Queen of Butter who may put out a cookbooks with loads and loads of recipes calling for butter and bacon and all kinds of other delicious Southerny ingredients.  Which is why I was a little perplexed as to why she was speaking in the Teens & Children pavilion for half an hour. Curious, I trooped over to catch a few minutes of her chatter before deciding to take up a place in line for her signing, scheduled to start at 1:00.  I headed over to the book signing area, scoped out the already-formed, fairly lengthy line of Paula Deen devotees, and guesstimated that I could make it through in about an hour fifteen, hour thirty.  I was willing to wait that out because I had my iPod to keep me occupied AND because I really, really, really wanted this woman to sign a butter wrapper.  Yup, a butter wrapper.  I just thought it would be fitting.

When the kind yet overly excitable volunteer at the end of the line informed a pack of us that she would only be signing "the lunch-box book!  you MUST HAVE the lunch-box book!!  it is possible she will be signing OTHER BOOKS and OTHER BOOKS only time permitting, but we do NOT anticipate that given the number of people here!," I took myself and my perfectly cleaned, beautifully flattened butter wrapper out of line and called it a day.  At least it solved the whole children's pavilion mystery.  Come on, Paula, don't force people over to the Borders sales tent to pick up your latest book!  I didn't think you would be that way!  But for those of you who might be interested, Paula Deen's Cookbook for the Lunch-Box Set is now available from Borders and other fine retailers.

Star sightings

You know how I mentioned I'd like to spend a little time with Reese Withspoon and Paul Rudd and Owen Wilson and Jack Nicholson? Well, if catching a glimpse of them while filming their latest movie counts, then I'm three out of four. Yesterday Stephanie and I discovered they would be filming about two blocks from our office, so we ran a reconnaissance mission late in the afternoon to check out the situation. Our scouting session revealed a lot of cranes and lighting equipment, but no actual filming. Stink. However, it did raise a couple of questions: (1) how were they were planning on clearing out the McPherson Square bums to actually conduct any filming there, and (2) does the handwriting on these "no parking" signs match the handwriting on the "no parking" signs posted all over our block of K Street...possibly implying that they're filming right by the office next week? (when I'm out of town, of course - but potentially cool for Steph)

Then...our trusty blog at Washington City Paper informed us that filming would actually begin at 6 PM. You know, my sharply honed research skills may not always lead to the right tax answer, but I can do a pretty remarkable job of tracking down pop culture news. That counts for something, right? I made my way over after getting out of work a little later than I would have liked, and Stephanie joined me after escaping from her evening grad class. After being shuffled from sidewalk corner to sidewalk corner with a group of onlookers and being admonished multiple times to not use a flash when taking any pictures, we found ourselves right in the middle of Reese and Paul and Owen. Ok, not right in the middle...across the street. But it was really pretty interesting to see what all goes into making a movie.

For instance....why did they have a giant water truck wetting down the street? Was it theoretically supposed to have just rained, or does help out with the lighting in some way? What's the ratio of time spent waiting around versus actually filming anything? How much do they pay the poor girls with headsets whose primary job is to tell us onlookers to please get out of the way?

We totally want to be in this movie. So...Stephanie and I both filled out our extras applications today with Central Casting. Not sure if anything is going to come of this, but maybe we can make an appearance as "upscale pedestrians" or "attractive bar hoppers" or "Charles & Matty's neighbors," all options for today's extras.

If you want to check out all of the pictures from our movie set adventure, check out my Picasa album. Yes, some zooming might be in order to actually pick out those famous faces, but it was a pretty cool city experience.

Apparently the movie does have a working title...

And here's Reese...

And Paul and Owen and I think James Brooks...maybe...

Oh, and those burning questions from earlier - they were actually filming along 15th Street and not in McPherson Square, so all of the bums could stay on their park benches. Will they be filming in front of the office next week? To be determined - I'll have to count on Steph for the updates, though, because it's time for....blog-cation! Tomorrow morning I'm meeting up with Kami and Carolyn at BWI to head into Boston - we're spending a few days in Provincetown, a few days in Boston, and you can rest assured that a great time will be had by all. I can't wait to see these girls!!

Now I just need to find Jack somewhere around town...