I just had a long weekend full of Santas and sangria with a little dancing for good measure.
Dav and I went to Santarchy on Saturday so we spent the entire day wandering around with a hundred Santas through DC. I took a few pictures with the camera phone but they didn't really portray the madness of so much red and white. Dav and I handed out cookies, whipped cream, and radishes. The radishes were actually more popular early on in the day but as it grew later the cookies took the lead. Whipped cream was a bomb only because we left early to see a dance performance at Dance Place. I'm sure it would have seen glory later in the evening.
After the dance performance we went to a birthday party of a friend of a friend and that's where the sangria came into play. Good times with the karaoke and Dav's trombone, that by the way, he had been carrying around the entire day.
On Sunday I was able to spend most of the day recovering with a delicious chai latte, knitting and two hours of rehearsal.

Global Warmth

Now that I'm a working girl you may not hear from me as often, but I'm committed to keeping in touch. Thanksgiving went well. I met tons of Dav's family; his Mother's husband's family, his Father's wife's family, and his grandparents with close family. Lots of people! Someone of note that I finally got to meet was his brother, Derek. He's been on a sub since the beginning of summer or something ridiculous. He said it was like living in a third world country.
Speaking of the world and in turn thinking of how the end is ever nearing, the weather was incredibly warm today (Not good for the knitting business). It was around 70 F all day so I opened all the doors to let the air come through. I also did a bit of wood chopping for when and if the temperature drops. Wonder how the snowy weather and power outage is going for my folks out in the Northwest?

Party

Our house party went well this last weekend. It was a fairly long day considering I had a rehearsal earlier. We drank lots and danced wild in the front room. Here are some photos I took during the evening. It was a great mixed crowd of about 20+ and everyone seemed to have had a good time. Dav and I went to bed around 3:30am.

(notice the product placement)




My first day of work was last Thurday and it went well. Along with once again having purpose in the rat race, I also get to hone my craft by helping others with yarn choices and dropped stitches.

Activity

I just got back home after a successful interview at Stitch DC. Jessica, the person who interviewed me, was around my age which was a bit of a relief. I was afraid I was going to be stuck with a bunch of middle-aged women. Don't get me wrong, I would get along with them really well. I was just worried that their first impression of me wouldn't be great for a conservative yarn store full of women knitting frumpy sweaters. Instead they seem to be a really friendly shop that focuses on the new trends. I may have a chance to teach some classes as well!

On a different note...I had a fabulous weekend in NYC for Malina's concert. It went really well and my piece was well received. Even Dav liked it (he was afraid of what to tell me if he didn't like it). On top of the show being a success overall, I was able to be with a bunch of great friends. We all went out to a Japanese restaurant Saturday night after the show for sushi and drinks. Good times.

Big Stomachs

I love fall food. The kitchen is filled with the smell of cornbread, baked apple, baked, squash and lentil soup. Lots of warm yummies. I can drink my herbal infusions (herbal tea) now without the worry of being too hot. My hair really needs a trim and I know once Dav is finished cutting it'll be drafty near the shaved section.
Having someone to cuddle with at night is now another huge bonus of cold fall weather.

VOTE

Frustration Venting: thanks blog

Today I worked on my solo for Malina's show. I hate making solos for myself! I knew this would be a headache for me but I really wanted to do this performance for Malina. I'm sure it'll turn out just fine but I'm fighting with the music right now. It seems that in my search for interesting and engaging music I picked a piece that was really hard to choreograph to. Maybe it's just me though. I need to stop analyzing every second of movement and worrying if it sucks or not. It's less than a week away!

I'm currently sitting at a comfy coffee house in College Park. It's nice to get out of the house even though I'm still sucked to the computer. Dav picked me up from the subway after a lecture he went to at the University of Maryland. When he picked me up he mentioned that NYU peeps are much cooler than College Park peeps. Who knows where I'll end up? I like the unknown but I hope I can adjust to the new place we end up quickly enough that I don't go batty. I like new places but I take a long time to settle in to a new environment. Have to end up somewhere. Dav and I just need to make it through this sluggish year of uninspired togetherness. The sluggishness and the uninspiredness is lame but the togetherness is great. Not that I'm not looking for inspiration. More on that later.

Happy Halloween!

The weather is amazing here so I'm excited about dressing up for the DC Guerrilla Poetry mob in the streets of Georgetown tonight. Dav finds these weird events through the DC burner list. Hopefully I won't be called upon to recite much but I can count on Dav spouting and free associating plenty to make up for my lack of verboseness.
My costume was a last minute purchase so we'll see how martian I can be.
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaiourackyish!

Community

I went to a contact jam today in a really nice church parish with wood trimming all around and stain glass windows. There was a huge courtyard garden leading up to the space as well. It's a little far from where Dav and I live but nothing serious. It will be the new permanent home for the jam. Since I've been attending, we've been in limbo with nowhere in particular to call home. In addition to the space being potentially permanent, I was blessed with a nice committed group to dance with this time. It seems like the contact community is very committed in DC. Communities are nice. You end up seeing the same people when you're in a group situation and they end up being your friends, either that or you abandon the group 'cause you can't stand the people. I don't think that will happen with this group.
On Saturday I had attempted to join up with a knitting group at the Murky coffee shop a block away from home. It's a great coffee shop and of course I love knitting so I decided it would be a great opportunity to socialize! One problem. No one decided that it was worth coming that week. It was an online group that I had come across and I guess people don't feel like they're held accountable for things they decide to do in the virtual world. I understand that sometimes I change my mind at the last minute or I become busier on something I'd rather work on, but did that have to happen to all 5 or 6 of the people that had said they were coming? Oh well, I got a lot of knitting done while I drank some nice lychee green tea while Dav worked on his computer.

I think my knitting is calling me right now. I just spent an hour plus trying to renew my anti-virus software so I'm a little computer'd out. Isn't that always how it goes?
Later, Meg


PS for those of you who are new to reading blogs: you can click the highlighted links in my writing for definitions of weird words or phrases I use. The new web page that you link to will have an article or something explaining my highlights.

perseverance vs stubborness

One quality that I know someone must have when knitting is perseverance! Last night I was working on a cardigan I had started on the bus back from NY when I realized that my new stitch counting method has holes. "2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 2, 4, 6, 8, 20..." caused me to be off by exactly ten stitches. I was in disbelief and denial for quite some time and took a little computer break to come back to it later. Unfortunately I was still ten off. After frogging the entire project last night I am finally back to the point that I had reached previously. Probably about 4hours of work. This time I have the right amount of stitches.
Anyway, just so this isn't a boring knitting blog about mishaps, I thought I would elaborate on my thoughts on perseverance. I feel like most of the time I term this quality negatively by saying I'm stubborn. I'm hoping that my knitting project will turn into something great and not a waist of time. Maybe I can rephrase my stubbornness in life into perseverance with an outcome of "great."
It was out of perseverance that Dav and I are together, so why not feel like my dancing will be great after perseverance and not just stubbornness? I don't know if anyone is able to follow my train of thought with this blog. Give me a break! This is just my second posting and I hated English class.

100's of sour patch kids later...

It's still early in the day which is a good thing for me cause without Dav around I've been sleeping in later and later each day. At the last minute I decided to get up and dig through my ever diminishing bowl of coins in order to come up with one more dollar to pay for tap class. I think the dollar ended up composed of 2 quarters, 2 dimes, 3 nickels, and 15 pennies. I apologized to the girl behind the desk mainly because I was embarrassed about my pile and not because I lacked confidence in her ability to handle the coins. Was this a status issue for me?
How retarded is our system when pennies are more of an inconvenience than worth anything? At least when I was little a penny was worth a piece of candy. If you had a whole dollar then you were rich and destined to have a sore mouth from sour patch kids. Luke is a true thrifty environmentalist when I see him take the time to bend over and pick up each and every dirty penny he passes. You're awesome Luke! Maybe all my problems will be solved if I come to terms with my relationship to pennies. I need to go back in time to my youthful ways and admire the penny. Or maybe inflation has just doomed us all.
Here is a little trivia for penny lovers or inspired lovers. good ol' wiki