Flying the friendly skies

Having spent a decent amount of time in airports and on planes over the last few weeks, I have some observations/rants/diatribes on the whole flight experience:

• For the love of all that is holy, PLEASE do not lean your seat back, therefore seriously impeding my ability to do anything with my laptop and/or knees, unless you actually plan on sleeping. If you promptly lean your seat back and then spend the duration of the flight hunched over your tray not even sitting back in your seat…blerg. I believe that reclined seats are acceptable only on international flights.
• I realize personal space is somewhat limited in those main cabin seats, but let's go ahead and observe some basic rules of personal space bubbles. The armrest is actually a fairly good indicator of where your body mass and appendages should stop - the idea is to stay in your own seat. If you feel the need to poke your elbow 1/3 of the way into my seat, I would like you to just go ahead and pay for 1/3 of the seat. Or at least trim your arm hair.
• How could you NOT know about the liquids, people? If you haven't flown in the last eight years or so, I might forgive you, but for the rest of you, get with the program.
• Please do not attempt to carry on five bags. You get two. And they don't care if you got a great bargain on some comforter and couldn't squeeze it into your suitcase. Who buys a comforter when you're away for business or pleasure? It really must have been a great bargain.
• I have no problem with you bringing a small meal onto a flight that includes what might traditionally be considered a mealtime. You might even be able to get away with a smelly meal as long as you eat it quickly and hand off your garbage. Don't let a smelly lunch sit out with you for eighty-three minutes before you decide to consume it. That's just nasty. We don't want to smell those smells any longer than absolutely necessary.

Ahh, that feels better. Better to let it all out on the blog than end up in a mid-air altercation with one of my seatmates.

Texas...feeds me body and soul

Manny. Gloria. Chuy. Rosa. They're some of my favorites. I consider them close personal friends. Let me share tales of our recent time together.

I was in Dallas last week for a few days on a strategically planned trip to combine work responsibilities with wedding festivities...and a haircut, since it fit into the schedule. I think I may have trust issues with my hair. Anyway, as part of my rotation program here in D.C., PwC pays for two home office visits a year, so I opted to schedule trip #1 to conveniently coincide with College Friend Wedding Weekend. I flew in Wednesday afternoon with enough time to meet friends for drinks and then indulge in amazing meal #1...Manny's. Oh, brisket taco and spinach enchilada, how I've missed you.

Work all day on Thursday, complete with presentation to my group while I attempted to share somewhat helpful tidbits of knowledge. Ding, work requirement fulfilled! We must celebrate at...Gloria's! Major props to dear friend Diana for organizing a rather large group of us a month ahead of time so we could gather en masse and consume excessive amounts of bean dip, coupled with chile rellenos and chicken enchiladas. Yes, I feel my waistline expanding. I'm ok with that...I need this the way people crave nicotine. Are the pharmaceutical companies working on any food patches? That could conquer your cravings? I think there's a lot of money to be made there.

On Friday, I managed to squeeze in a little more Tex-Mex in the morning hours by meeting dear friend and fellow Pdubber Molly for brunch at Cafe Brazil - she went a more traditional French toast route, but I was still dealing with my Tex-Mex tapeworm and needed the breakfast relleno. It was awesome. And it was even better spending quality time catching up with a friend. After kicking off my day with an Anaheim chile and a plethora of chorizo and still needing my fix, I indulged in a Chuy's extravaganza for dinner. Chips with creamy jalepeño and a steak burrito the size of my face. I'm grossing myself out a little bit by reiterating what all I ate last weekend, but what's done is done. I accept the consequences to my personal health and wellbeing and the damage done by excessive amounts of cheese and grease.

Saturday was wedding day! The Vaughns had a full house for the weekend: Diana + Trinity + Duncan + Hazel = the usual gang. Add in me + Thomas + Jessica + sweet baby Addison + Finn the beagle and you've got quite the party. Diana and Jess both had bridesmaid duty all day, so I hung out with the boys and Addy for the morning and afternoon. This included a trip to Rosa's where I exercised little to zero self control in consuming the vast majority of my taco plate dinner. Oh, and I bought a piece of chocolate cake, too - I at least had the decency to bring that home and pretend it wasn't there for a full twenty-four hours before giving in to the chocolate goodness.

The wedding!! I met Jen and Mike, also known as "bride" and "groom" on one July 11, 2009, through Diana and got to know them during and after college, and we've spent many a fall weekend together cheering on the Red Raiders or just hanging out. I'm so glad I was able to make it to Dallas to join them for their wedding day - everything was beautiful, and Jen's smile just had me smiling all day long. Congratulations, you two! Oh, and your festivities also provided us with motivation to go to Whataburger in the wee hours of the morning and enjoy some taquitos. I'm going to add that to the Tex-Mex tally for the weekend. Bacon for me, of course.

And for the awards portion of my presentation...first place and a very large number of gold stars to Carolyn for joining me on three of the four major legs of this Tex-Mex binge. I could eat this stuff all day every day, but I realize we don't all have that genetic makeup (I owe thanks to Dad for that one!), and she was an enthusiastic, willing, and brave partner in these gastronomic endeavors.

"Texas...feeds me body and soul." Ok, feeding of the body has obviously been discussed, what with all of the excessive calories mentioned in the paragraphs above. But feeding of the soul? I had the chance to spend quality time with dear friends and share in the joy of Mike and Jen's wedding, and that did more for me than the food ever will. And you know how much I love the food.

Happy Birthday, America!

Having flown back into D.C. from Boston on July 3, I took full advantage of our firm holiday on that Friday to...ummm...ok, do nothing exciting, just unpacking, laundry, and falling asleep at an oddly early hour, especially for me. I had to get ready to celebrate Independence Day in style, especially here in our nation's capital!

I was faced with a small dilemma for the evening's festivities and firework viewing. Option #1 - brave the crowds descending on the National Mall and attempt to track down friends while maintaining some semblance of a personal space bubble. Could possibly feed off of crowd enthusiasm while catching strains of the National Symphony Orchestra playing. Could be hopelessly lost and subsequently smushed by crowd. Could be amazed...but possibly be disappointed by effort vs. level of amazement ratio. Option #2 - Metro myself out to Arlington to meet up with undetermined amount of partiers for a rooftop bash at Dana's. Could have better position for viewing fireworks from my own rooftop, but it lacks presence of friends. Could be missing out on quintessential D.C. experience by moving further out from the bash. Could save an absurd amount of time in my day by not staking out a viewing spot entirely too early.

Rooftop antics, complete with fireworks, people! We had an absolute blast - it was so cool to see the fireworks going off above the Washington Monument with other fireworks all around the horizon from the suburbs and cities in the surrounding area. And while I think it would have been amazing to be on the mall for the spectacle, we had a fantastic view from a rooftop deck in Arlington. It was also nice to have absurd amounts of food and beverage at our disposal from a convenient kitchen rather than lugging what would have been an extraordinarily full cooler through the crowds.

Also...I've just about convinced myself to get an amazing new camera. Then this won't be fuzzy and show busted pixels (or whatever's wrong that's giving it random white spots...in the same place every time. So frustrating):

I could really get into this roof thing. When you don't have space for things like patios and yards, you find yourself on rooftops, more often than not having a fabulous time with a great view. And usually a nice breeze. And in this instance...a crowd rendition of the National Anthem to accompany the fireworks.

Don't we look patriotic?

Baaahhhston

Time to switch gears on the vacation setting - we're leaving our cozy beach town behind and headed for the city streets of Boston for some further East Coast explorations. After grabbing breakfast and wheeling ourselves and our stuff over to the ferry, we settled in for the ride back across the harbor, vanned ourselves to the Onyx Hotel, and set out to grab some lunch and walk the Freedom Trail. Oh, please see accompany shot of the skyline to get an idea of what the clouds and rain were doing to us for the duration of our stay. Not the most lovely weather to explore in, but at least it was nice and cool!

Clam chowda (more commonly known as "chowder," but you won't hear it like that here in Beantown) in a bread bowl at Quincy Market, yum! Strolling through the Public Garden, pretty! Tracking down the Make Way for Ducklings statue, cute! Did you know the swan boats in the Public Garden have been in operation for over 130 years and owned by the same family for all that time? And that Boston Common is the oldest public park in America? Just a couple of trivia bits for you.

Freedom Trail time! The path is marked through the city by a line of red brick laid in the sidewalk...except for the rare instance where construction blocks the trail and they've been kind enough to spray paint a red line along the plywood barricade. Seriously. Hey, whatever it takes to point us in the right direction! We saw some exceptionally old cemeteries, really old churches, crazy old meeting sites of the movers and shakers that innovatively sculpted this great nation, and...old. Lots of old. Which is just so cool! It's always been fascinating to me to think that Very Important So-And-So stood in the very spot where I'm standing now. We did make it across the Charlestown Bridge and over to the USS Constitution but skipped out on the very last section of the trail (it's a bit of a hike, kids!).

After walking up an appetite, we were ready for dinner at Union Oyster House, the oldest continually operating restaurant in America. You know all the lobster I mentioned before? Well, time for the ultimate lobster treat - an entire one. Just for me. Still looking at me with its beady little eyes and waving antennae. Thanks for tying my bib on, Carolyn. And lobster...you were delicious, even if you were a little messy to rip in half and hack into.

After dinner we headed over to the Bell in Hand Tavern to stick with our theme of "really old" - oldest bar in America! Old old old! This state makes other states look like babies. Karaoke night was rocking the place, too...not quite the same as our drag queen karaoke night in Provincetown but fun all the same. Do you think our forefathers ever engaged in a night of karaoke? Didn't seem very historical, but it was definitely entertaining.

The next morning greeted us with showers, so we slept in and then opted for an event that involved moving around on wheels in a covered device instead of splashing around in flip-flops - a duck tour! These World War II amphibious landing vehicles can take you through the city streets and then splash down into the Hudson and zoom around. Talk about multipurpose. We had a pretty entertaining con"duck"tor (yes, I know) take us through several neighborhoods and share some pretty interesting facts about the city. I didn't realize that a pretty large chunk of Boston used to be...well...water, and that they just filled it in with a lot of dirt and some wooden posts and starting slamming a city on top of it. Crazy, I tell you.

Later on we met up with one of Carolyn's good friends from college (who's currently hitting the books at Harvard) for dinner in the North End (Boston's own Little Italy of sorts...just don't call it Little Italy to a Bostonian) at a fantastic restaurant, the name of which I've unfortunately completely forgotten. Oh, and there's no better way to cap off a great Italian dinner and time with friends than with dessert at Mike's Pastry. Chocolate chip cannoli. I was in sugar heaven.

The next day we donned our umbrellas and walked through the Beacon Hill neighborhood (so pretty!), then escaped the worst of the rainfall by enjoying some rather enormous pizzas at Figs. The rest of the day we explored Cambridge and Harvard, ate some exceptionally tasty ice cream, hung out with our Harvard buddy, ordered in some Chinese, and just enjoyed girl time.

Other observations/comments/silly little things:

• Kami should totally become a dog walker, just like this guy.
  
• It can be a little tricky to extract the edible bits out of a crustacean, but it's totally worth it.
  
• I'm somewhat inspired to make my own cannoli. Or maybe buy the flakey, crispy, delicious shells and just fill them with all kinds of goodness.
  
• There's something about entering red brick buildings covered in ivy that just automatically makes you feel smarter.

Sadly, all vacations must come to an end, and the site of our reunion became one for a farewell. Probably the only reason I didn't cry was because I knew I would see these girls again in just a few days with my upcoming trip to Dallas (which is no longer upcoming...it's already happened. I'm just writing this so long after the fact. Getting caught up, getting caught up!). Oh, travel, I adore thee.

Provincetown

Back from my sanity check vacation! Ok, so I was back from vacation quite a while ago, but you know how sometimes life just gets busy and you have take care of silly things like work instead of important things like updating your blog? It's actually been driving me really bonkers that I haven't gotten this post up already - I doubt anyone else is all that torn up about it, so I'll try to take it down a notch on the self-flagellation.

Anyway, better late than never, and since I'm type-A anal and only believe in posting about events/life happenings in the order in which they originally took place, I have to back up and tell you all about Provincetown and Boston before I can move on things like the 4th of July and Dallas and….ok, better get started.

Over the last two summers, I've had some really great trips with two of my favorite girls - Carolyn and Kami. We've explored the vineyards of Napa and Sonoma, tackled the hills of San Francisco, eaten our way through Chicago, and floated down a river or two. So of course it's time for...airport reunion with Carolyn and Kami in Baltimore! Now, Baltimore is not our destination of choice - merely a stop along the way to Boston and Provincetown for a week or so of Cape Code and Beantown adventures. First and foremost, getting out to BWI from my home in D.C. is a little tricky. It's far, far away. Past the last Metro stop. Then you get on some shuttle bus that's a mystery to me (although probably not that complicated, but I'd rather just stick with one mode of transportation to get out there), so I opted to just drive it. It's far, far away, especially with traffic.

It is a pretty quick hop, skip, and jump to Boston, and after arriving at Logan, we opted to take a water taxi across the harbor the catch our ferry to Provincetown. A water taxi! Again, I'm still that West Texas gal who doesn't quite know what to do with all of this water, so I thought it was kinda nifty to drop our luggage into a little boat and zip across the water. We had a little time to kill before our ferry, so we wandered into Boston for a couple of hours where we discovered cute parks, adorable puppies, and tasty beer from Mr. Sam Adams and his summer ingredients. Refreshing.

Ferry time! We had debated going to Martha's Vineyard for a few days, but the logistics to get over to that little island were a little more than we wanted to deal with, so the ninety minute ferry ride from Boston to Provincetown seemed like a good solution. And it was! We got on board just as soon as the raindrops started to come down and set out across the ocean. A little bit of cheap wine, some cute Italian greyhounds who really wanted to be our friends, and a few sunset pictures later, we made it to Provincetown and headed for our bed and breakfast, the Black Pearl Inn (arrrgh, mateys!).

Ok, let me pause for a moment to discuss a little Provincetown background for those of you out there who might be unaware. It's well known as a gay and lesbian friendly little beach getaway, and I can't tell you how many times I was reminded of that by anyone I mentioned P-town to before heading out. Of course, this was only reaffirmed by the crowd we traveled with on the ferry as well as the friendly gay couple who owns and runs the Black Pearl Inn...and the "I have two mommies" shirts at the gift stores...and a jewelry store named Spank the Monkey...and the entertainment options in town, to be discussed further a little later on. All of that said, it's an adorable, welcoming community with vacationers of every kind crowding the main street and enjoying the seaside ambience.

I'm getting the feeling this could all get a little lengthy, so I'm going to hit on the hghlights of Provincetown:

We had the entire third floor of the bed and breakfast to ourselves, which included a private deck on top of the roof. When the skies cooperated, this was a fantastic place to relax with a cup of coffee in the AM hours…and a glass of wine in the PM hours. Had a great view of the harbor and the cute little town. Ahhh, I love relaxing. An essential component of vacations.

Tons of cutesy shops and galleries all along Commercial Street, the main drag, if you will, of Provincetown. Ok, most of them were cute. Some were….a touch provocative. Or carried clothes that I only briefly considered wearing in the early nineties. Popcorn top, anyone? Thanks for never letting me have one, Mom, especially if I actually expressed that desire.

Lobster rolls at the Lobster Pot, where a blinking lobster told us when our table was ready. Lobsteriffic. In fact, I had several forms of lobster cross my lips in P-town (with more to come in Boston!) - lobster roll, lobster slider, lobster arrabiatta pasta. I think that covers it.

Puppies everywhere! I thought Kami might die of dachshund happiness. Arnold the poodle was also a fan favorite.

Drag queen karaoke at Governor Bradford's. Yes, you read that correctly. Featuring your hostess (host?) for the evening….Dana Danzel, decked out in a shiny silver pantsuit. When we got there, it was a little slow, but the evening definitely picked up and even included a performance or two from the (fully clothed) Naked Boys. Unfortunately, we did miss their naked show. Or maybe that's a fortunate thing - our giggles might have killed the atmosphere or something.

We got some sunshine one afternoon!! In order to take full advantage of the temporarily gorgeous weather, we rented bikes and rode all over - out to a rocky jetty, the beach, the beachy wilderness, all the way through town. So, so much fun, even if I did have a minor sand incident (which slows you down very quickly, just in case you were wondering) and a close encounter with a wrong-side-of-the-road-cycler. Oh, and it was also quite a workout, which I'm going to say justifies everything I ate. Which is not the case at all. But I'm going to stick with it. Look closely and I promise you'll see Kami and Carolyn on those bikes. Photography while biking can also get a little dicey.

When the weather gets you a little down, I highly recommend a cozy room filled with good friends, sweet treats, and a few episodes of Sex and the City. I was actually pretty impressed that our B&B offered a DVD player, and equally impressed that Kami thought ahead to bring the DVDs.

There's no such thing as too many sweets. Chocolate caramel fudge, peanut butter bomb, saltwater taffy, brownie cheesecake ice cream…and that was just me. Mmmm, sweets. Especially beachy sweets like saltwater taffy. I just love that stuff!!

Is there any way to hang a hammock in my apartment? That might look a little odd…but so relaxing. I'm a little bit in love with the Northern Lights Hammock Shop and their air chairs.

For all of the photo goodness, check out the Picasa album, which has the whole trip in there. Boston post coming up shortly. I love Picasa, by the way. You should totally use it if you don't already.

All in all, we enjoyed our beach town time, even if the weather was a little uncooperative at times. There's nothing quite like exploring a new place with some good friends...good friends who appreciate food the way you do. I think I need another bike ride along the beach.