City of Alexandria Jazz Festival 2012

Stardate 65874.7

Hollywood!

12:06 - On Memorial Day, Focus Foxy Rob and I traveled down to Alexandria to a little Jazz Festival. Each year the City of Alexandria hosts a Jazz Festival in Old Town. Yesterday was the 35th anniversary of the Festival's beginning.  We found our way to the Waterfront Park in Old Town Alexandria and listened to the free Jazz Festival. I am not a huge fan of jazz. Well, it would be fair to say that I just don't listen to it, not that I do not like it. The Jazz Festival was a chance for me to encounter live Jazz.

Catching shade under a tent

We listened to  Marcus Johnson and the Barbara Martin Trio featuring Lisa Barnes. The first band featured contemporary jazz, focusing on instrumental music. Fun Fact, Focus Foxies, Marcus Johnson has a wine line coming out called FLO (For the Love Of). The second act mixed a bit of jazz and swing together, playing old standards and their own music. Overall, the festival was a great experience on a warm summer's day.

Focus Foxy Jazz Cats in attendance: Rob and his folks

Grilling with Tequila

 Stardate 65853.4

17:45 - Lately, my food choices have been picked from bar menu options. In other words, my stomach is tired of fried chicken. This may be difficult to believe, but I needed a change in diet. I am challenging myself to be creative with food and widen my variety of recipes used. I plan on cataloging my attempts in culinary greatness.

Most of my recipes come from Pintrest. I figured I would start not too far from the bar area and grill Tequila Lime Chicken. I modified that recipe by using thigh and leg quarters; this makes grilling the chicken take longer. Also, I used jalapeños. The first safety warning I give you, Focus Foxies, is tequila is highly flammable and so are fatty chicken thighs. This fact played a huge role in my grilling/my hand almost burning off.

I paired the chicken with roasted chickpeas and carrots. Roast Carrots have been a staple for me, but chickpeas (outside of hummus) have not been. This let me get a bit creative. I have to say that they are not my favorite, but as I have another huge can of chickpeas, I will give them another try later.

My favorite and most successful parts of the meal were the margarita and raspberry dessert. The margarita recipe came from an ex-boyfriend (it is the only good thing to come from him). You take Simply lime-aid, tequila, and triple sec. the proportions are up to you. I stopped using my shot glasses and started measuring by how my day was going. The raspberries were a light and sweet end to the meal. You take raspberries and stuff chocolate chips into them. It isn’t much work, and the payoff is sweet!

All the recipes are embedded above. I look forward to making more and pin them on a “Things Tried” type of board.

Warrior Dash!

The Spokesperson for Legendary!

Stardate 65852.3

Before the Race

They gave us awesome hats to wear

07:56 - Few things I do combine epicness, mental toughness, and physical prowess. The Warrior Dash Challenged me in all three of these areas. We traveled to Mechanicsville, Maryland to stare down the beast (side note: Mechanicsville boasts of a great Amish community). A 5 kilometer obstacle course, the Warrior Dash was a killer, especially considering my lack of training beforehand. Focus Foxies, I must admit that I let my exercise regiment drop, but I signed up for the Warrior Dash in my exercise days. Also, the dash was a part of my 2012 Bucket List. Once a challenge is accepted, you have to complete it.

Nice action shot!

 So I 'ran' the dash. Climbing over 15 foot cargo net walls, jumping over hurdles, and sliding down a huge water slide may sound like fun and games to you. You should think again because even the slide will take your breath away. I have to say my hardest challenge was the amount of hills in the running parts. Being on a backwoods motor runway, the hills kept coming.

At the Finish Line.

The most important part is that I finished despite being exhausted. I leapt over the fire and crawled in a pool of mud to achieve epicness. My time was 50:57:75 or 15:55/mile. I made 4019th place out of 8815 Saturday participants.

Showing some College pride

Time doesn't matter. I conquered the beast. For all of our efforts we got a beer and later Chick-fil-a. Those are not bad prizes indeed.

Focus Foxy Warrior Rob helped see me to Victory!

PR at Partners: Redemption!

I'm not a space invader!

Stardate 65840

In the middle!

20:10 - As many long time Focus Foxies know, I have had trouble with my hair. I would not describe these troubles as actual problems, but as some major first world problems. I am pretty uncomfortable with the idea of going to a salon, and past experience hasn't really helped that (see Stardate 65420.9). I decided that it was time for another haircut, but this time it would be different. For many years I have wanted to dye my hair and never have. Being a fancy new vixen in a fancy town, I decided to change this. I started looking around, and yes, I did look at PR at Partners again. However, I did not go back to the same location. I went to a different salon with a new hair stylist.

Before

Meets After

 I have to say that my experience went well this time! I went with red highlights. I was afraid of blonde ones because everyone says bleaching is bad. Also, I have always wanted to have red hair. I don't know why. Now, I am a saucy ginger for the time being. I also went with straight across the face bangs. I haven't had this type of bangs since I was little. If I find a picture of it, I will post it. Focus Foxies, I looked cute then, and I can still work it. The red is not as visible in the pictures, but I will get better ones when I get a better camera.

Overall, Krystal did a great job of walking me through the whole process, and I had a bunch of Focus Foxy input. So thank you everyone!

The Road from Florida

Stardate 65839.1

12:24 - From moving furniture the day before, I was feeling near as faded as my jeans. Rob grabbed the wheel of the Penske truck, just before it started to rain. We took ourselves all the way to Washington D.C.  We rode I-95 through the top of Florida, Georgia, South and North Carolina, and Virginia. We finally arrived in DC at 10 pm. Our journey took us through the pines in Georgia, Zaxby's Fried Chicken in South Carolina, rain in North Carolina, and traffic on Sunday afternoon in Fredericksburg, Virginia. We finally got to unload Rob's new furniture into his apartment to make it look good. Good enough for me and Robby McGee.

Focus Foxy Rob and two hitchhikers we picked up in Baltimore made the trip.

Dirk and Peaches made the trip!

Tapas en El Columbia Restaurante

Stardate 65837.2

19:45 - This past weekend, Rob and I went down to Florida to visit his Mom and Step-dad for Mother's Day and to move furniture to his apartment. After a hard day's work, we went to an amazing little restaurant El Columbia, which is a Floridian landmark. El Columbia Restaurant was founded in 1905 by a Cuban immigrant by the name of Casimiro Hernandez. Fun Fact, Focus Foxies, this makes El Columbia Restaurant the oldest operating restaurant in Florida. The restaurant has branched out and opened new locations around Florida; we patronized the St. Augustine location. While it may be the newest, the St. Augustine Columbia Restaurant still maintains the old world charm.

While they prepare all types of Latin cuisine, their specialty lies in Cuban cuisine. Looking at their menu, you begin to appreciate the history of El Columbia. Every menu item has been collected over time and has a personal story to the owner's family and the restaurant. My favorite items on the menu were the tapas we ordered and the mojitos. For our tapas, we ordered Empanadas de Picadillo, Gambas "Barbacoa," and Coca de Langosta (top to bottom in the picture). The empanadas were filled with spiced beef and wrapped in light, crispy and flaky dough; the gambas or shrimp were barbequed skewers of marinated shrimp and red onion. My favorite was the Coca de Langosta; this dish consisted of coca, Catalonian flatbread, topped with chorizo, tomatoes, juicy lobster (langosta) and manchego cheese. Then, they drizzled Piquillo pepper alioli on top to ignite all of the flavors with a touch of spiciness. As for the mojito, it was fresh and had sugar cane sticking out of it. I love experimenting with mojitos, and this one was one of the best I have ever had.

Focus Foxy Rob and his folks becoming Cuban food gourmands with me

Mellow Mushroom on My Mind

Stardate 65836.3

11:45 - I take my pizza seriously. I like a deep dish, mozzarella, and pepperoni. Follow the KISS principle and do not let anything interfere. Mellow Mushroom, the pizzeria, shares my attitude on pizza, but they have a crazy take on pizza. Opening their first store near Georgia Tech, this pizzeria has spread the love to over 100 locations around the US. Mellow Mushroom found its way to the Adams Morgan neighborhood of the District, and it seems to fit in quite nicely.

We wandered into Mellow Mushroom after a failed attempt to use a groupon on Brazilian food. Having a Georgian with me, we quickly shuffled into the Mellow Mushroom. Apparently, these pizzerias are hallowed grounds in the Empire State of the South. To anyone not from Georgia, they sell Shiner cheaply so all are welcome! Considering our hungry state, we ordered dessert first. The honey and cinnamon pretzels take the Mellow Mushroom's famous whole wheat dough and turn them into warm pastries covered in honey and cinnamon. These sticky delights reminded me of the warm memories of sopapillas.

Winner, Winner, Pizza Dinner!

As for pizza, the native Georgian went on the wild side and tried to recreate the Jamaican Jerk Chicken Pizza of his boyhood. This deluxe menu item was not featured so he went by memory when ordering. As for me, I did venture out. I added blue cheese and spinach to my pepperoni pizza. Nothing else. Both pizzas turned out well (mine better, of course). The famous crust was both crispy on the outside and soft pillows of fluff on the inside. Everything was in proportion and that was just peachy for us.

With our thirst and hunger quenched, we took left overs home with us to savor the flavor. Although I wish we could have taken an order of pretzels home. Those sweet honey and cinnamon pretzels keep Mellow Mushroom on my mind.

Georgian Focus Foxy Rob in attendance. 

Cuatro de Mayo Fiesta

Stardate 65812.5

Antes de la fiesta

Durante la fiesta

19:00 -One of the many talents that people from the United States posses is  commandeering smaller holidays in foreign countries and making them drinking phenomenon in our own. I do not think of it as offending other cultures (even though it probably does); I view it as Challenge Accepted! Case and point: Cinco de Mayo, but this is no story of Cinco de Mayo itself. This story focuses (like a fox!) on the shenanigans taking place the day before on Cuatro de Mayo. What is the significance of Cuatro de Mayo? Nothing, Focus Foxies, but I decided to plan a happy hour at my place to gear up for Cinco de Mayo. And gear up we did, so I opened up my back patio for shenanigans.

My decorations

For those Focus Foxies not aware of the wonderful world of pinterest, you are missing out. I have been holding off on joining the cult, but now that I am a part of it, I give you this advice: drink the kool aid, the lemon mint infused kool aid. This happy hour was the best of pinterest put on a table. I had awesome cheesy breads, salsa, margaritas, and hummus. Others pitched in with more food and drink, but the star of the show was the pinterest decorations I made. No lie. I saved old wine bottles and bough flowers to make some neat center pieces. But enough about my obsession with party planning.

 The fiesta itself was a success despite rain earlier. I cleared off the back yard of the magnolia leaves, and we were able to fit 20 or more people back there. That little patio does not look big, but it can pack in a bunch of people. We were able to have our share of my margarita recipe,

Yasnanhia and Justin's sangria, and Mat's Tequila juice. This was an interesting mix considering some people were Tequila virgins and others did not know the power of Tequila juice. Needless to say, fun was had by all.

We eventually and successfully kicked people out of the happy hour to go party on at our favorite spot. By favorite, I mean the only spot we ever seem to go to: the Mighty Pint. Overall, I would have to say that this is one of my prouder events to date!

Focus Foxies in attendance: Work buddies, Suck it, Trebekkers!, Redditors galore, and a few grad school folks. Thanks to Abby, Steve, John, Alex, Durete, Kelly, Rob, Anish, Mat H., Dan, and Justin for bringing things to the fiesta. Thanks Lazer for the pictures! See more here.