Legen..wait for it..DARY! Holiday in the Caribbean

The delicious food! with Dr. Pepper

Stardate: 65435.7

14:45 - Focus Foxies intimately acquainted with yours truly know my life’s ambition is to throw an epic office party. I mean the office’s send of season 4, Phyllis inspired shindig would be what I am envisioning. I want something magical. Well, this year, I came one step closer to that goal!

In November, I was nominated to co-run the Party Planning Committee (PPC). I immediately started planning greatness for my office Christmas Holiday party (we can’t have Christmas parties). I found a highly rated by Yelp caterer in the Petworth area, and thus the theme was born: A Holiday in the Caribbean. We ordered Sweet Mango Café, a small Caribbean restaurant/caterer. Sweet Mango Café specializes in Jerk chicken, so we didn’t deviate from their forte. I cannot stress that this was going out on a limb because I have never had Caribbean food. I was quite relieved when the food came, and they chopped the chicken up bones and all. You know something is authentic and amazing when they do not bother to use ‘American’ style of cutting meat. The jerk chicken spiced us up, the curry chicken cooled us off, and the fried plantains lit our world up! We might need to road trip up to Petworth for seconds!

Signage at the bar. 'Rebecca' never 

showed

My winnings

While on our Holiday in the Caribbean, we played some really fun games. The first was a drawing game; the object was to draw a person doing something at a place. We picked each of these three factors out of a pile. Other people had to guess what the picture was. I had to draw the Unabomber playing soccer at Disney World.  It was pretty twisted to having to draw that, but someone guessed it. We played White Elephant where Machiavelli meets Christmas in an epic battle not to get stuck with crap. I won a nice little bottle of white wine! #winning

The most epic part of our Holiday in the Caribbean (besides penguin decorations that I appropriated after the party) was the free happy hour I won for our office. We all went to the Mighty Pint for one hour. How many people do you know that can get you rail drinks and Guinness for free? Not naming too many, now are you? It was that awesome. True story.

All the festivities of the day turned out well. I was happy to be a part of making everyone’s day/season a bit brighter. And I have plans for next year…

Jingle All the Way 8k 2011

 Stardate 65418.2

Occupy DC had to move over a bit!

17:30 – As part of a resolution to run more often, I signed up for a 8k fun run called Jingle All the Way. For the Focus Foxies rushing to Google to get a miles conversion, it is about 4.97 miles. We will just round that up to 5 miles. This past Sunday, I ran that race in 32 degree Fahrenheit. If I was back in Texas, I would not even step a toe outside because that is just too cold. Yet, on Sunday, I managed to run those 5 miles and dress appropriately warm for it.

 

The race had around 6,000 runners from all over the DC area that trotted alongside and ahead of me.  I have never seen the roads of DC so packed with people. Literally, a sea of people washed over the nation’s capital trying to outrun their practice times.  Many people dressed in Holiday gear, including Santas, toy soldiers, reindeer, and a few menorahs. I was not as fancy, but I did have jingle bells on my shoes.

My time for the race was 51.18. Not a bad place to start, but I would like to get faster!

BBQ Bus and GovLoop

 Stardate 65412.8

17:30 - Two things you do not yell in a federal building: Fire and/or Free Food! Either declaration will be followed by a stampede of government workers.  GovLoop, a social networking site for government employees, broadcasted the latter, and a bunch of public servants ran out of their buildings. This past Thursday, 500 government workers received free lunch from GovLoop in honor of their 50,000^th member joining. The best part was Food Trucks served the lunch.

Being fortunate enough to work around the L’Enfant plaza, my free lunch came from the BBQ Bus.  Our amazing lunch came with tender pulled pork sandwiches, tangy coleslaw, and chips. Now this BBQ tastes pretty decent. I say this because it is North Carolina BBQ. While I appreciate the finer points of their style, it ain’t Texas BBQ, but a close second.  That is high praise from any Texan.

For those, Focus Foxies, not familiar with GovLoop, they provide a social network for public servants in all levels and positions to connect and trade ideas about making the government a better place to do business.  They gave my friend, Mauricio, a scholarship for writing an awesome essay. It may be a small world out there, but crossing over and connecting different agencies can be hard. I am glad that someone out there is trying to change that.

From one of the 500 public servants who received free lunch, I would like to thank GovLoop and BBQ Bus. It is nice to know that government workers are still appreciated.

Saturday in Annapolis

Maryland State House

St John's College

Stardate 65432.2

4:30 - I have not had the opportunity to explore outside of the DC metro area so when I received an invitation for a day trip to Annapolis, I jumped on the opportunity. Last Saturday, we road triped to the fair capital of Maryland to see what we could see. Focus Foxies, Annapolis may be small but has a lot to offer.

Party Boat

The start of our adventure began at Chick-fil-a. The only reason I include that in the log is for y’all in Texas to know that I still live in a civilized place. It even had Dr. Pepper. Once full, we journeyed onward towards the port town.  Crossing over College Creek, Annapolis greets you with a quaint colonial vibe with their St. Anne’s cemetery, streets named ‘Duke of Gloucester,’ and Maryland State House. The tour of Annapolis started at St. John’s College. I know what you are thinking, Focus Foxies: a liberal arts university in a capital city? Isn’t that bad news bears? Relax; it is not as bad as it sounds. The campus is lovely and uber small; the ‘Johnnies’ grow on you. Next, we meandered to the Maryland State House and Governor’s mansion, which both can easily be walked around.  Security is not tight there to say the least. Fun fact: as the first domed capital building in the U.S., the original State House’s dome was built without the use of nails. When rebuilt in modern times, they could not recreate that magic. From the Maryland’s seat of power, we sauntered down the streets of Annapolis briefly stopping into St. Mary’s Catholic Church (a must see for anyone in the area).  We finally came to my second favorite part of the day: the BOATS! We reached the harbor to see boats docked as far as the eye could see. They even had party boats!

Thurgood Marshall

Robert Brooke Taney

Our final destination for Annapolis was at Galway Bay, an Irish pub. Galway Bay is a cozy little place nestled in the heart of Annapolis and a staple in the local diet. Now I have been told that Maryland crab cakes or crab anything can be the most amazing thing you have ever tasted so I put that to the test and ordered a crab cake. It turned out well, enhanced by washing it down with a Galway Bay Red Ale. Another first try for me was eggnog. Galway Bay serves imported eggnog from Ireland, which tasted out of this world. I should have bought a bottle to bring home.

I could not have asked for a better way to spend a Saturday afternoon. I could live in Annapolis except for the skyrocketing real estate prices. But a girl can dream.

Annapolis Harbor

PR at Partners

Stardate 65420.9

14:55 - Last night, I went to PR at Partners hair salon because I needed to get my hair did, badly. I am not one to fuss about hair issues but my hair style was oscillating from 'no-style' to Alan Rickman's Severus Snape.  Either of these do not qualify as hot in my book. Being in a new city, I took a recommendation from a friend, which came with a coupon, and scheduled an appointment with PR at Partners.

Focus Foxies, when I go out on a limb and try to be cool with my hair styles, the hair cuts tend to be a series of bad 70s cuts. The most defining example of this comes from the seventh grade. As you can imagine, I was too nerdy/dorky/geeky to function, but I wanted to be cool.  At that time, all of the pretty, cool girls had 'layers' in their hair. Young me did not quite get the concept of layers because I had always had a straight cut in back and for my bangs.  So I requested layers for my next hair cut and my 'stylist' (who doubled as my piano teacher. $5 for a cut or piano lesson was the going rate). What she gave me was a 70s inspired shag cut. Google David Cassidy from the Partridge family; that was me in the seventh grade. It was so bad that the next day when I went to the lunch table, people said I looked like a boy and everyone laughed at me. I tried laughing with the joke and my orthodontic work got stuck, preventing my mouth from closing. Damn overbite corrector! Anyways, you can see how I could be a big ball of insecurity to this day when trying something new with my hair.

I have watched plenty of episodes Tabitha's Salon Take Over to know that going to a salon does not equal good quality. BUT, I am in a new fancy city, and I am trying new and fancy things. So, I put aside my upbringing and tried a place out that cost more than 15 dollars. I got played, badly.  Despite my stylist, Huey, being 45 minutes late, I only requested three things. (side note: he showed me a picture of Natalie Portman as what he wanted to do with my hair, and I had visions of looking like Senator Amidala. Expectations way too high for starters. double side note: the picture might have been of Kiera Knightley, but telling the two apart is really hard. See Episode I, but I digress.) The first thing, I wanted to have enough hair to pull back. I work out 4-5 times a week and need a pony tail. Check, easy to do. Second thing, low maintenance is key. He didn't do so great here. I will probably have to put product and blow dry it. Not a happy camper about that. Lastly and most importantly, I wanted volume to my hair. Let me explain you something about a stereotypical Texas woman. We like our hair big. The TV show Dallas was not lost on us. We updated our styles but continue the homage. We like big hair, big personalities and big... well you can fill the blank on that one. So you can imagine my surprise when the 'voluminous' hair cut I got fell flatter than a pancake. It was crepe thin!

Considering there were people sleeping on the ground outside, it was silly of me to walk out balling my eyes out, but I miss Texas so damn much at times like these. Every time I go into a place like this, I feel like I have sucker written on my forehead and someone will take advantage me not knowing anything about anything. Funny thing is, when I got home, the 'styling' Huey did left with Farrah Faucet wing tips. Some things just don't change.