Lucky

As we made our way over to the Falls Church Cafe Rio for our favorite Cafe Rio/Target run, we were curious about why almost every streetlight was out, but continued on our way without giving it much thought. As we drove up to the restaurant to park we noticed the lot was completely empty and a handwritten sign was taped to the window saying "Sorry for any inconvenience but we are closed due to electrical problems" and then we really started to notice it...


Almost every surrounding parking lot and shopping center was deserted...very unusual for a Saturday afternoon.  Everyone except Target, who we learned upon entering was running on a backup generator, only had a few registers open and most of the lights we out.  It was really weird to shop in  in the dark, a very zombie-apocalypse-feel to everything.  I couldn't even get cell service to find out what on earth had happened since the most we had noticed last night was that it rained and there was a little thunder and lightening for a few minutes.  It makes sense now why Pinterest, Instagram and Netflix weren't working last night.

Apparently, we were just really lucky.  According to CNN, at least 11 people were killed, 3 states have declared emergencies and millions of people are without power right now  because of the storm.  Which is especially awful considering it's about 100 degrees outside right now.  The craziest part is that is seemed to effect everyone directly surrounding us.  Slightly affirming my suspicions that we must be on the same grid as the White House, (we never lost power with hurricane Irene either).  My heart goes out to all those without power right now, and I can only hope they can find a neighborhood pool to cool off, not to mention all the people in Utah and Colorado battling the crazy wildfires. 

I Immediately Regret This Decision

I wore skinny jeans today for our monthly casual Friday and I'm probably going to die walking home. It's currently 103, but according to weather.com "feels like 111" and it's humid.  I've never wanted to stay at work in my overly-air-conditioned office more than I do right now.  We are going to need to find a pool tomorrow...

In other news, who didn't see this one coming?

SCOTUS Schmotus

It's been an interesting day today with the Supreme Court ruling on healthcare...I tried to listen to see if I could hear cheers or boo's outside my office building when the announcement came but alas...I'm way too far away from the courthouse to have heard an audible reaction.  Certainly people here at work have discussed it in passing, but nothing too specific or political. And the world continues to turn despite what all those news commentators had predicted.

Don't get me wrong, it's a very significant decision---not because of a big effect it may have on healthcare (which will continue to be stupidly expensive and completely un-transparent)---but because of the implications and power it gives the Federal government.  I was and continue to be all-for healthcare reform.  The system is messed up.  Medicaid and Medicare are going to completely bankrupt the government, and people with disabilities or pre-existing conditions shouldn't be discriminated against.  I get it.  I'm all for it. Really.

My issue is, this gigantic piece of legislation doesn't do a whole lot to actually fix the problems in the healthcare industry and this act just feels like a huge missed opportunity.  People will continue to be uninsured, get procedures and care and not pay their bills, which will end up being paid for by taxpayers.  Only now, they'll have to pay a penalty  excuse me, "tax" at the end of the year, but here's the thing...the tax seems to be a lot cheaper than paying for insurance all year so where's the motivation?  Not to mention the fact that today's ruling basically says the federal government can mandate you to buy anything it deems important enough through the commerce clause.  Literally.  In all honesty they probably won't (hopefully)...but they could, and that's why this was a big deal.  *Although it's not that different from mandating you to save for retirement, ie Social Security.

And like all legislation the Affordable Care Act isn't all good or all bad.  I think it will be great for old people, or people with pre-existing conditions like diabetes to get insurance.  That will be fantastic.  I just wish it did more to bring transparency and accountability to the industry.  If I want to get my haircut for example, I can call a salon and know much it will cost me ahead of time.  And if they completely botch my cut, I can go back and get it fixed or re-done for free.  With healthcare...you have no idea what things are going to cost ahead of time, and if the doctor doesn't do a good job? You get to pay for the procedure again! It all bodes really well for fraud (picture a hospital ordering all kinds of uneccessary tests on a naive old lady with great insurance just so they can rack up a hefty bill).  Or let's say a nurse doesn't insert an IV correctly into your newborn NICU baby, and the baby then gets a big bubble of fluid under his skin and is in horrible pain for a few hours balling the entire time but the genius nurse just assumes he's crying because he's a newborn baby... YOU get to pay to have that bubble fixed and your baby gets a scar for the rest of his life, and the hospital won't even give you an apology or admit they made a mistake! (yes this actually happened to my sister/nephew).  And it's things like that, that make me really excited for Brody to be an attorney, and it's things like that make attorneys absolutely necessary.  And sadly, it's frivolous lawsuits that have also made malpractice insurance so expensive, which the doctor/hospital then reflect in their costs, which is why health insurance is so expensive.  Wouldn't it be nice if the government or the ACA actually regulated/fixed those problems?  Wouldn't it be nice if a politician actually gave a real answer instead of a fluff soundbite that doesn't give you any information at all?

I don't pretend to know a lot about the nitty gritty of the ACA (I doubt if ANYONE in Congress or even Obama himself has actually read all 2,500-odd pages in it, and let's be honest you know all the Justices made their clerks read and summarize it for them). But again, it just seems like a missed opportunity to really fix this messed up system...and instead it essentially just gave the federal government a LOT more power. 

Let's hope it actually does make things a little better.  And perhaps, and hopefully, this is just a first step in actually fixing healthcare...

Demon Pigeon

There I was, walking to work on the sidewalk and I noticed a pigeon ahead, right in my path.  As I got closer, it turned it's head and stared at me with its red, beady little eye. It was very unnerving to say the least...

And there we were, in a game of chicken. 

I expected it to move into the grass, as most of them do, but no. He didn't move at all and just continued to stare poker-faced at me.  I was 3 ft. away.  Still nothing.  2 ft. Then, as I was about to either kick it or step on it, I went left and walked around it. And still it didn't move. It wasn't eating anything, there was no food on the sidewalk that it was focused on. It was just insane. An insane, freaky pigeon.

That Sad Moment When 80 degrees Feels Cool

After nastily hot and humid temperatures last week (upper 90's) it was a cool 80 degrees last night with a lovely breeze, which made running infinitely easier. The setting/view doesn't hurt either...

...although I was a little upset when a park enforcement guy made us stop running up the steps Rocky-style because it's too "dangerous."  Isn't it crazy how many tourists were still there at 9:30 pm??  Although I must say, the monuments are my favorite at night.

Love /Hate

I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with this city...

 (Those are some pretty row houses in Adams Morgan and delicious Farmer's market berries from Saturday)

• I love taking the metro and avoiding traffic, but I hate having to wait 15 minutes for the train on the weekends
• I love that any time I walk down a street I overhear conversations in five different languages
• But I hate being asked for money every. single. time. I go anywhere. ever.
• I love that when I go running outside my route literally takes me in a loop around the Lincoln Memorial (not too shabby of a view).
• I hate street cleaning in the summers, which means you have to move your car to other side of the street to avoid a $50 ticket, and sometimes (like this morning) it takes a good 25 minutes to find a spot. I don't think they actually clean the streets at all, I think it's just another way for the city to generate money.
• I love that I can go browse any of the 19 Smithsonians for free, any old time I want.
• I kind of hate having to share with tourists though...mostly just the loud, annoying groups of a hundred teenagers (which I totally was one in high school when we came here for concert choir. Oh Karma.)
• I love that I can walk up 18th street in Adams Morgan and see  locally-owned restaurants from all over the world. They're delicious.
• I hate that going to a movie is $12/person for a matinee (yeah prices went up).
• I love Trader Joes, but I hate that it's always so busy that the line wraps around the store.
• I love living in Dupont and having an 8-minute walk-to-work commute, but I really hate having to write that beastly rent check every month.
• I love that there are at least 3 farmer's markets in the city on Saturdays (and Eastern Market), but I hate that the one right by our apartment is on Sundays.
• I love that brunch is a thing here. Everybody loves their brunch on the weekends.
• I love that Brody got this internship, but I'm super jealous of some of the stuff he gets to see and do...
• I love what the humidity does for my skin, but my goodness, my hair. In the thick of summer...not so much.
• I love the memorials on the mall. There is nothing to hate about that.
• I love being here and having this adventure, but we sure miss our family and friends back home!!! (not to mention that I really want to meet my new niece and nephews)

Skills for Life

I instagrammed this the other day, but it was too good not to share on the blog.  This was Brody's parallel parking job on Saturday (which was the day of the Pride parade in DC, which naturally happens in our neighborhood so parking was very slim even by DC standards and we were ecstatic to see an open spot).  Both of those cars were there first. It was incredible.

I will say we have both improved our parallel parking skills immensely over the last year, I may have even pulled a left-side-of-street parallel job tonight on my first try. 

It's getting hot and humid....we have yet to turn on our A/C units and are seeing how long we can go, (we'll see if I can even make it to the end of this post as it's 9:30 pm and still 80 degrees outside).  The humdity and heat combo is getting to the point where it's necessary to always have a hair elastic in my purse, it's really more of courtesy to those around me :)

It rained the other night when we were dropping off our rent check and it was pretty fun to splash in the puddles in my wellies.

And these are a few pictures from one of our last tutoring sessions.  We were released from that calling on Sunday so we can both just focus on our other callings in the ward, but I must admit I was a little sad.  These two are some of my favorite boys and drew me a little flower, so sweet!  We will really miss this calling next year.

Perception vs. Reality

I was a sophomore in college, working part-time at Cafe Rio and a male co-worker was giving me a hard time because he had recently found out that I'd had a crush on him when we had first started working together. It was true, I'd had a crush at first (had being the operative word there), and in my swift retaliation I probably said something along the lines of "yeah I liked you until I actually got to know your personality." Something harsh and mean, but hopefully with enough sarcasm that he didn't feel too bad.  And in my defense, he was a cocky metro with a hugely inflated ego.  But then he said something I wasn't expecting. He said that I should be careful with what I say because, didn't I know that the people who try to look like they have it all, the cocky ones, are always the most insecure? As in himself. It was uncomfortable and I think I apologized but I have always remembered that moment. Because he was being honest. And he was right.

The older I get, the more I can see just how hard some people try to make it seem like their life is perfect. Desperately plastering their blogs, facebook, instagram, and twitter with overly-edited and staged photos of their "life" or at least, a very slim portion of their actual life and you can almost hear them screaming "LOOK AT ME, VALIDATE MY EXISTANCE!!!" And the harder they try, the more I worry about what is actually bubbling beneath the surface of those polished photos and over-the-top self promotion.  And instead of the jealousy they were seeking, the only feeling I can muster is pity.  Because I don't buy it for a second. And, I'm guessing no one else does either.

Of course the opposite can be even worse, when someone posts some overtly-personal detail of their life, a dramatic song lyric, or (the most cringe-worthy for me) they critisize their spouse in a facebook status update.  Like it's any of our business. I guess there is a fine line between total narcissim, and self-loathing. But I digress...

I love social media because it's the most conveniant way to keep in touch with my friends and family, almost all of which now live thousands of miles away.  And I'm not referring to those who's posts are sincere, and are actually informative and meaningful. I love those. LOVE them.  I get to explore Europe, and sunbath in Powell, and see pictures of my new niece and nephew all in the palm of my hand while I live vicariously through my friends and family.  I don't know what I would do some days at work without them to fill the time. And I fully appreciate the irony of my critisizing social media via my blog, but really. Really. The best things in life aren't the faux-candid, photoshopped, wannabe model-shots. The best moments are perfectly imperfect.

Family Fun

Brody's sister Kelsey and sweet little neice Kylie came and visited us last week and it was so fun to see them! Kylie was selected to come to DC and meet with some Senators, Congressman and other high-profile people as a representative for Crohn's disease, and urge legislator's to support the Inflammatory Bowel Disease Research and Awareness Act.  They were pretty busy between meetings on the Hill and different receptions/briefings, but luckily Brody was able to get some time off of work and show them some of the sites during their downtime, including a tour of the White House through his internship :)

It was so fun to spend time with family, and we are so proud of Kylie!!!