Procrastination!

It finally takes a decision to spend an evening working on my MS coursework to procrastinate on the school work to blog.  That and hearing people actually read this!  (Hi, Adam!)

Updates:
(It's been so long since December!)

During the snowstorm (when I wasn't sledding) I was furiously decoupaging (a la my table) a little something for my grandmother's 75th birthday.  She recently asked my sister and I to come up with a list of memories of growing up and visiting her house (which is mere blocks from my parents' house).  I incorporated clip art representations of the memories and photos of us into a decorative platter.  There's a small pic, glare and all, to mask the embarrassing pics of my youth.  The ribbon was something I had laying around to wrap it, but I like the addition.  It hangs on her dining room wall.  My art is spreading.

I left the Baltimore snow of the last post and had a lovely vacation in Sunny South Florida.  It's nice to visit the parents and see the gradual changes of my childhood home to the modern world.  For a while, I would drag my wireless router on vacation to freely use my computer, now they have their own!  A beautiful (Philips) HDTV finally replaced the big clunker (and bigger than mine, jealous!).  I was called over to my grandparents house to work on the problem of "My internet is slow.  Outlook doesn't work" to find that their 5 year old computer only had 256MB of RAM.  Sigh.  An upgrade to 1GB allowed Outlook to run without freezing.

It was a lovely trip and I got to have holiday dinner with both sets of grandparents and more.  Yummy ham and london broil and my signature cheesy potato casserole.  By Christmas evening the eating was over and after multiple family events over the two days I had to go out and go drinking.  I first stopped at a little Hollywood dive bar to see my high school buddy J's band jam.  He puts free music (his and mixtapes of various artists) on his site, so you should definitely check it out.   After a phone call I was rushed to Ft Lauderdale with a promise of a middle-school reunion with my two best friends of that era.  Because I allowed myself to drink by planning on bumming off of the rides of others, I had to endure a $26 cab ride to transport from high-school friends to middle-school.  Seeing the Sarahs was a fabulous time, but I definitely can not keep up with South Florida...the bars are open until 4!  I'm conditioned by Baltimore's last call at 1:30, with the bar clocks set to be fast.

(I'm currently taking a break to watch my cat tear through the house, chasing a big ass fly.  I saw it coming near me, and I woke the sleeping pet to take care of it.  The fly is big and slow so I think Gregory can catch it.  I tried, but I'm no Obama.)

After vacation, I came back and underwent LASIK surgery.  Totally worth it.  No pain in the surgery (the worst was removing the tape from my lids at the end), and discomfort the first night (I had to keep my eyes closed for 3 hours and couldn't sleep, despite the TylenolPMs they gave me).  Sometimes I still feel like I'm wearing contacts and I still reach for glasses in the morning, even though I can see the clock (which I never have been able to do).

At the end of January I took a weekend trip up to Boston.  Visiting Chris was wonderful, and we just ate and drank the town with little agenda.  We had lovely conversations about how grown-up we are (me a homeowner and him doing really well on the relationship front). And both of us at the young age of.....shhh. The hundred year-old house he rents a room in made me yearn for the comforts (and efficient heating) of my modernized home.  I can totally see myself living in Boston at some point.  And my company is headquartered up there...hmmm...


Back to Baltimore for a while, back to projects.  I'll follow this up with a couple quick posts about my recent furniture make-overs.  My current project is decorating the blue wall in the basement, then a wine rack in the kitchen (Dilemma: buy something for around $30 or attempt to DIY something for about $10?  Laziness might win on this one)  Super bowl party this weekend, so the house will also be clean, if anyone can actually get here with the 1, 2, 3? feet of snow we're supposed to get, depending on who you ask.

Momument Lighting

You may or may not know that Baltimore has the ORIGINAL Washington Monument.  While DC's may be taller and more impressive, can you climb up it (no lines to visit) for a $1 donation?  Great views of the city from the top, but it's a one time occasion for me, as those 200+ stairs nearly killed my lazy ass.

Here's a gorgeous pic from Wikipedia:

Last night I wrapped up the drama of getting old housemate's stuff out and getting the bedroom spackled and vacuumed in time to make it out to a Baltimore event: the Lighting of the Monument.  I'm not one for standing around in the cold for parades and firework shows, but this was pretty awesome.  I grabbed a few friends and hit up a great pre-party at Live Baltimore's downtown office for free snacks and hot chocolate (and $1 for Flying Dog beers or to spike your hot cocoa), walked 3 blocks up to the Monument (collecting a free 7-11 reusable shopping bag along the way.  Who knew "the sev" was so community minded and green?), and got a great spot near the show.  Despite sound issues that left most of the crowd questioning "What are they saying?", and a stage not set high enough for mortals to see the dancing Santas and whatever else was up there (but the babies hoisted on shoulders looked like they would have a great view), it was an awesome show.  A bit TOO awesome, if you ask me.  Multiple color lasers? Check.  Extended firework show? Check. Creepy intense rock versions of Christmas songs?  Super weird.  Maybe it was our angle, but the music and the explosions felt more like the apocalypse than Christmas.  

Here are some choice "OMG they're blowing up the Monument!" pics, which are sadly from my iPhone, as I suck at toting my actual camera around:

The bluish strings of lights are the Holiday lights that warranted the ocassion.  Not too impressive, but the fact that they are LEDs are!

So much smoke!

Nice.

Hiked back towards downtown after the show for a Downtown Partnership after-party with wonderfully free wine and food.  The food buffet from Lebanese Taverna reminded me that I should eat there for dinner. (Hey, if these organizations/restaurants fed and boozed me for free, they totally get a shout-out on the blog.  Keep that in mind, businesses!)  Great night with new and old friends!

Busy weekend approaches.  Interviews for new housemates, holiday parties, and other fun stuff.

Baltimore weirdness

The last week of the hotel! (aka renting out the third bedroom to people on craigslist in exchange for money and my family in exchange for dinners) The little sis and her hubby are in town for a bit before flying out to China. Hmmm, what to do... Oh! An email from Facebook. The local bar is having live music, and a "Ratfishing Tournament." The premise? Catch a rat on a string from the local alleys. The heaviest one wins a free beer and the respect of millions. I read about this group in a super long City Paper article about rats (their group is called B.A.R.F. I wish I was making this up) and when I heard they were only blocks away, I had to see it in action. Who needs the typical Fells Point night out when you can sip a Blue Moon while chatting up guys slathering peanut butter on sticky traps tied to fishing poles who will sit at the edge of the alley and hope to reel in a fat one?

So after a nice dinner and the bottle of wine they brought me from Napa Valley, we wandered over and took in the action. There were newbies and people who have been fishing for years. The leader of BARF bragged that he had a conversation with the Mayor that went like:
"You need to stop these tournaments. It's bad publicity for the city."
"Okay, you take care of all the rats, and we'll stop fishin'."

Almost immediately, one was caught. 1 pound 5 oz. Here is evidence:


Justin got close enough to hold it, but as the photographer I kept my distance. Jess also stayed away, but got to try on the official rat hat. Very sexy.



After you see a rat on fishing line, what else is there to see?

Up for tomorrow: Farmers' Market, painting my room, and the premiere of Mad Men. Yippee!