have more adventures

two weekends ago, we did paintball and sang karaoke. it was fun.

Last night, kathleen, evan, <3max<3 and I walked over to the Capitol and watched the national symphony orchestra perform a free outdoor concert.
Today, max and I went over to the movies and saw two movies!! WE SNUCK INTO THE SECOND ONE!!! it was hamlet 2, VERRRY good.
so many adventures!!

This weekend was one long blissful adventure. I went down to DC and was there for a painfully short amount of time. I hung out with max and ihs family, and I think I love them. uhh weird. not in a weird way. in a happy way! I have such fond memories of all of them. I felt so at home. I felt like I could roll around on the couch (which I did), raid their fridge (well I didn’t do that really… but I took a lot of their brita-filter water!) and joke around and laugh loudly. his parents are so cool. my future in-laws. (gasp!!!!! I SAID IT!! :0) I feel like they won’t be the kind to trash talk me when I’m in my 30s (which is the general image I get when I imagine “in-laws”...)
anyway, this might end up a loong entry, so I should try to organize my thoughts.
First night: I got in around midnight, met up with max in chinatown. he looked so handsome I felt like I was dating a movie star. the lights were bright, gaudy pinks and yellows, and it was nice and warm. I felt so surprised to see him, even though I knew I was going to.
We went to his house, and hung out playing with his dog’s, abby and artie. then, we went to bed pretty late. I slept in Grace’s room because she was having a slumber party downstairs.
The next day, max woke me up and we cuddled in bed for a while, then got up and had pancakes. we then set out to go see the play “Diamond Dead”. in like for the place, there was a bench with the word “WHY” carved into it… and max was like, “it figures that at a small artsy theatre like this someone carved “why”..” and I was like, “yeah, on the metro someone would’ve probably written” and said this in a deep, masculine growl, ”’fuck’ or something” and the guy in front of me in line looked back at me incredulously. I felt a little bad for swearing, but mostly confused that he found my random, baseless expletive interesting in the least.
we saw the play, which was odd but good. the cast was pretty talented- not so much at acting (though luckily for them, the play didn’t call for good acting skills) but they were great musicians, and even though the sound equipment was terrible, they were still good.
then we met up with keli and ryan and went to chop’t, which was excellent (see my “no fast food” goal for more info!!) and went home for a while. we were both pretty beat. we were going to see The Wackness in bethesda, but decided against it after some consideration, and instead went to the video rental place, got Kamikaze girls, Cave Dwellers, and the weird al movie. we didn’t watch any of them. we started kamikaze girls, but I fell asleep like five minutes in; the next morning we started cave dwellers, but then went and had breakfast with the fam, which was some deliiicious french toast, and didn’t continue watching. we went in the pool for a while. it was a very nice pool.
then, we went for a walk to politics and prose, a nearby bookstore. I bought a book called “The History of Love” which I’m excited about. then, we went to Marvelous Market and got pineapple slices. We were walking back, eating pineapple, when it started POURING! the rain fell down so heavily, and we were quickly drenched, but continued munching on the pineapple, and held hands and giggled and kissed in the rain. we got back, threw our clothes in the dryer… and then after a while, we started towards chinatown. max’s dad drove us. some lady almost hit us, and he swore, which made the event like ten times scarier, although you could tell he felt bad swearing which was kind of awkward and yet funny. he’s such a nice guy. haha. he called the woman a shit for brains or something like that. aw, parents swearing is one of those weird circus-freak-show sort of events.

anyway, there was a big hubbub around getting onto the bus and I couldn’t (not enough room) and everyone was yelling, and this homeless guy was like, “get ON the DAMN BUS!” which was comical. keli happened to walk by, carrying “Watchmen” which he’s apparently reading. we hung out with him, waiting for the next bus, and went to the national portrait gallery. we sat in the atrium for a while and talked, and went to the top floor and looked at some of the art. there was a horse statue made out of driftwood (COOOL) and a realistic statue of a dirty looking fat lady eating ice cream with the national enquirer on the table. it was pretty cool too. americans… hah. (me? american? n… no..)
anyway, then I got on the bus and left, feeling sad and wishing I had more time with max.
but it was quite an adventure…
I love Max!! :)

I cleaned a lot last night.. it was fun, invigorating.. I don’t know if it counts as an adventure (certainly not a glamorous one) but it was very refreshing, useful, and pretty fun. Plus the house looks great. I swept and mopped the floor in every room!! and cleaned up in general, organizing things etc.
wow my “have more adventures” goal is full of really non-adventurous activities.

Yesterday, after work I decided to finally cook the beef curry dish that I had planned on cooking for a while. I already had all the ingredients, and set about making it.
first I chopped up 2 vidalia onions. man! my eyes were stinging! then, giving a cursory glance to the cookbook, I put the onions in a casserole dish (I took out and dirtied like seriously 5 casserole dishes trying to find a 3 liter one… I finally found a 2.8 and was like, ENOUGH!) with some canola oil and let it cook on medium-low heat. I proceeded to chop up 3 cloves of garlic, occasionally scampering over to the stove and stirring the sizzling onions, getting zapped by tiny hot flecks of oil occasionally for seemingly no reason. Then, I added the garlic and a tablespoon (and then some more cause it smelled good!) of pre-minced ginger. I stirred the stuff around a bit and realized that..! I had forgotten to cut the meat! so I took the veggies off of the hot part of the stove, quickly chopped up the beef chuck, took off all the fat, and reveled in the cold sliminess, which I found oddly kind of cool. Then I looked at the recipe again. “add the curry paste”... but I didn’t have curry paste, I had Golden Curry (the only stuff the store had!) I added that, and glanced ahead at the directions—noticed the words “add tomato paste and beef stock”!!!
and realized I had no idea where the beef stock or tomato paste were.
Max called, and I picked up the phone, half-mad and in an expletive-sputtering frenzy. apparently I scared him a little. but there were more pressing issues at hand!
so I clawed my way through the pantry, found the tomato paste, but.. no beef stock! there was a can of condensed beef broth that I had bought to season vegetables a while ago but had forgotten, and so I used that instead. BUT I had been so flustered, I put it in early! I put everything in in the wrong order after that, couldn’t get the tomato paste can open (I couldn’t figure out the new can opener) and ended up spearing it open and scooping out the paste with a Winnie the Pooh baby fork.
I put it in the oven for 50 minutes on 350, waited to catch my breath from my agonizing flurry of cooking, then put in the potatoes (which I cut into sixths although the recipe called for cutting them in half) and I put them in for about 15 minutes more than the recipe recommended, and they still were a tiny bit too hard. :( I added the peas, put it in for a bit longer, and viola! it was done!
everyone loved it, and I was exhausted.
I thought it was good too. when kathryn was walking towards the front door, on her way back from the doctor’s, she said, “IT SMELLS SO GOOD!!” I was very proud, as I hardly ever cook.

and I am attaching a picture of my masterpiece…
and it is only 350 calories per serving!

I am going to DC to have some exciting adventures. But how about day-to-day adventures?

BRAINSTORMING:
1.) volunteer (always weird and exciting)
2.) karaoke at random bars
3.) explore healthnet on the clock (risky)
4.) plan elaborate pranks?

I can’t think of many more.