Combined Federal Campaign 2012

Every year, the federal government hosts a charity drive for their employees to donate to awesome charities. This charity drive is called the Combined Federal Campaign (CFC), and it is the only authorized charity drive for the work place. This is how it works, Focus Foxies, we, ‘g-men’ or ‘feds,’ give money to the CFC earmarked for specific charities. You can donate to over 4,400 approved charities, which range from health care to housing to youth development charities. This year, I was selected/volunteered by others to represent my office for the CFC. Basically I helped fundraise and get people excited about the CFC.

Supporting the Home Team

One of the fundraising ideas was to do a tailgate lunch, so I took this idea and ran with it. Being very excited about Pro Football this year, I had so many ideas to improve upon this idea. We wanted to keep one thing simple: hot dogs for lunch. They are easy and cheap, two great characteristics for a fundraiser lunch. But my own creative spin on this lunch was to play on the native DC rivalries. Now, the Washington Redskins were having a once in a while good season, yet there is always a lingering Cowboys’ fan base in the district. As sad as it is, they have a stronghold in the nation’s capital. To play on this love/hate relationship, I devised a ‘Battle for the District’ (we added the Ravens in there for good measure). Anyone who wanted to can put in money to vote for their favorite team.  

Someone added the Nationals and Tampa Bay Bucs

Were my colleagues awestruck by the  rookie star power that is the one-two punch of the RGIII-Alfred Morris Redskins offense? Did they wait patiently the return of Ray Lewis and the resurrection of the Ravens’ defense? Or did they support Tony Romo’s offense, the pride of Jerry Jones, America’s team: the Cowboys?

District Focus Foxies will be happy to know that they went with the home team, and the whole event raised about $500. I was so excited to be a part of it all and to help a great charity. HAIL!

Night, Classy Night

Stardate: 66327

15:30 - As explained before, the guiltiest of DC pleasures is the thrill of going to happy hour. It is not the worst of our sins, but it plays a prominent role in our lives. My friend Kelley and I decided to give that driving force a bit of direction in the form of MINT. We set a little group that would have our friends go to different locations for happy hour. We need a change up from our usual haunts. Well, so far it has been successful. We decided to celebrate with a different type of happy hour: a classy happy hour. It just so happened that the latest Bond movie (Skyfall) debuted around the same time. Our happy hour became a Night, Classy Night.

We dressed up in our finest. I was in a cocktail dress, Rob donned a tuxedo and top hat, and others did not disappoint.  We found ourselves a nice cozy corner in La Tasca to share pitchers of sangria. I am sure La Tasca serves other drinks. I just never bothered to figure it out. It may seem lazy, but they just have so many kinds of sangrias. I mean huge jugs after jugs of different sangrias. Each one is better than the last one. We finally tore ourselves away from La Tasca to make our way to Skyfall by way of Bar Louie. I have to say that we were the classiest people in the theater by far. Everyone cheered our initiative.

Overall, I think it was a pretty successful night out with a twist. No one wants to just go out and party like everyone else. I like having different themes and having fun with life. They make for better blog posts.

Sangria sippin' Focus Foxies in attendance: The Whole of MINT (it was the place to be)

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.

All Suck it! Happy Hour

Stardate 65746

Artsy picture with the police in the background. They weren't called on us.

11:45 - Happy hour is a magical time when people sojourn across the district to find the bestest prices on drinks. My party planning skills have been put to good use at the office, but they have not been tested with my friends. I am part of a social sports league, called Nakid (mentioned on Stardate 65379), and within this league, we have a group of connected teams called Suck it, Trebek! Not to brag, but I am the captain of the volleyball team. It is kinda a big deal. Part of the responsibilities of being a captain include planning happy hours for your team. Challenge Accepted! I didn't want this to be just any happy hour. I wanted it to be Legen..wait for it...dary. LEGENDARY.

To accomplish this, I invited the whole Suck it, Trebek! crew. This means the volleyball, kickball, dodgeball, and bar sports teams. Next, I secured a sweet location: Sign of the Whale. We are natives of the Mighty Pint, but we braved the two doors length of sidewalk to go to the Sign of the Whale. What truly makes this legendary is that I worked out a deal with Sign of the Whale. We got the usual specials of $1 Miller Lites plus $3 rail drinks/beers and a whole tray full of food for our enjoyment. Also, I got free drinks for my troubles.

Well, Focus Foxies, the Suck it, Trebekers! respond in mass amounts. We got nearly 30 people to show up for at the Sign of the Whale. Fun was had by all. So if you are in town next time, stop on by our completely successful, very much SWAG-ful happy hours.

Proud and Loud Focus Foxies in attendance: the usual suspects of Suck it, Trebek!

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…

Legendary Happy Hour

Stardate 65372.5

Snagged from the HC website

07:22 - A couple weeks ago, a coworker asked me to help plan a happy our for the office.  Focuse Foxies, DC runs on the concept and execution of the idea of happy hour. Washingtonians love a good happy; hell, we will even invite people form Virginia and Maryland to this merriment out of sheer good will and fun times. The challenge to me was to plan a happy hour for a group in a town with no space on a night before a holiday weekend. Challenge Accepted!

Space, location, and funness were all important aspects of a great Happy Hour bar.  Also, good food is a plus.  I searched high and low in the downtown, Chinatown, and Penn Quarter neighborhoods for the perfect bar for the young and old and all around cheap. Eventually, I went with what I knew to be a tried and true place: Hill Country BBQ.  Hill Country BBQ is where expat Texans go to find tender brisket and cold Shiner pitchers. With that in mind, I decided to bring all of my new coworkers to this Texas oasis.
And it was Legen..wait for it dary! Legendary! Half of the office showed up. More importantly, I used my Aggie connections to reserve two huge booth tables to accommodate everyone. Bonus, I introduced everyone to Shiner for the first time, and they were hooked. I actually have never partaken in the BBQ side of the establishment and corrected that, that night by ordering a brisket chomp meal.  Honestly, it tasted almost as good as my grandfather's pit.  Not bad praise from any Texan.

Everyone thought the event was a great success.  So much so, I earned a spot on the Party Planning Committee and am one of two people planning the office Christmas party.

Focus Foxy Shout Outs: Simon for making the Hill Country Connection