The Peep Show

This post is a bit outdated as far as things happening in my life, but oh well, better late then never.

Last year the Washington Post held a competition for people to display Peeps in diorama style. Yes, I do mean Peeps, the little sugar coated marshmallow treats that were originally associated with Easter, but now seem to pop up at every holiday. The reaction was so overwhelmingly positive that I believe that it will become an annual tradition.

This year, I was lucky enough to be able to see the Peep Show in person at Art-o-matic (an art show for amature artists usually put in a building that is being renovated). Below are some of my favorites from this year's Peep Show.


Abbey Road

Lunch building the skycraper (from the famous photograph)

Moving of "The Awakening" (a statue that was moved from Hain's Point to the Capitol Harbor Project, much to my dismay)

Fra-gee-lay! (A Christmas Story)

Project Peepway

The official page including the other finalists is here.

To view 2007's Peep show finalists, click here.

My Twin

I'd like to dedicate this blog to my twin. Many of you may not know that I have a twin, but I do. My twin's name is Elizabeth, and she's a great twin, one of the best to have--and those of you that know her will definitely agree to how wonderful she is. Now my twin may have been born a few years before I was, but miraculously, we are actually the same age. Don't ask, just accept.

So a few years back, my twin told me, "When you are rich and famous, I just want one thing. Just one. A nice beautiful Hummer in my driveway." (This was when gas prices were below $3 a gallon, remember those days? sigh....)

"And what color of a Hummer would you like?"

"Green. That's all I am asking for, a green Hummer. It isn't much, but it would make me very happy."

Again, those of you that know my twin, know that you don't tell her no. If she makes a request, you do it. That's just how it is. I don't think my twin realized that I would fulfill this wish, but, I have a few tricks up my sleeve.

Fast forward a year or so...it was coming up to our birthday, when suddenly I said....I have a job now, it is time for me to buy my twin her Hummer. However, I realized that it was a bit late to have the Hummer delivered in time for the actual birthday. This didn't deter me though, it had to be done this year. So I did it, I bought a brand new green Hummer for my twin and had it delivered directly to her door.

Now every year I call my twin on our birthday and wish her a happy birthday, and so I did this year as well. However, I didn't tell her of the coming delivery that she would be receiving in the next few days, I wanted it to come as a shock when she walked up her driveway to see a sparkling brand new Hummer for her to have fun with.

The day finally arrived, and the Hummer was delivered. My twin said it was one of the best presents that she had ever received and was so excited to play with her brand new Hummer and immediately thanked me for such a wonderful gift.

Unfortunately, I have yet to see the gift, as I have not been able to visit my twin's house since when I bought her the gift, however, I have pasted the picture below from the site that I bought the Hummer from so you can all enjoy the beauty of this fine piece of technology.

Driving a manual transmission

So I drive a manual transmission car. What can I say, I love shifting gears as I speed down the highway. Often people will ask me if it gets annoying to drive in traffic with a manual transmission, always putting in the clutch as you are in bumper to bumper traffic. Sure, that can be annoying at times, but in the end, yeah definitely all worth it. However, there are certain things to remember when driving a manual transmission...

I got home one night and my mind was occupied on something or other, who knows what. I proceeded to get out of my car and shut the door. Out of habit, I immediately locked the car with my keys. I started to walk towards my house when I noticed that my car was rolling backwards down the very slight incline that there is in front of my house. Ack!!!! I had forgotten to enage the parking brake!

Instinctively I ran back to the car, jerking on the handle, only to realize, that yes, I had indeed locked the car. I fumble through my pocket for the keys (this is the part that you are glad for keyless unlocking so I didn't have to put the key into the lock itself) and somehow manage to get the car unlocked.

At this point the car is going slightly faster. My heart is racing as I jerk the door open and pull on the parking brake. Phew! And today must have been my lucky day because there was no one parked immediately behind me--however, lesson learned--don't forget to use your parking brake if you drive a manual transmission! (ok I knew this lesson beforehand, sometimes I just need a refresher now and then).

Fresh Fruit Tart

Well, summer has arrived and with it, fruit is coming on. Now I admit this post is a little bit erroneous in that I bought the strawberries at Costco and thus I could have bought them at any time of year...and the blueberries were actually frozen from last summer (blueberries don't come on here until about July). Nevertheless, it was a nice summer treat. I could re-write the recipe...but instead it is probably just easier to post the website address.

http://www.joyofbaking.com/FruitTart.html

Enjoy!

Lighting up the National Cathedral

So one of the joys of living in a large international city is having a variety of events being brought in. A few weeks ago the embassies opened their doors to visitors and throughout the intervening weeks, a variety of cultural events were presented around town. One such event was a lighting presentation at the National Cathedral. I could go on, but I think the pictures speak for themselves.

Azaela Festival at The National Arboretum

So I have decided to diversify my blog a bit and include other topics besides just random stories. This is the beginning of such posts. So one topic that I am going to do from time to time is different locations that I recommend. Usually these will be in the greater DC area, so those of you that don't live here will be able to see some of the sites without having to pay the enormous cost of an airline ticket. For those readers that do live in the DC area, I hope I will introduce you to at least a few places that you may have not been before.Thus we begin with the National Arboretum. The National Aboretum was established in 1927 by an act of Congress. The Arboretum sprawls over 446 acres and includes 9.5 miles of winding roadways. For more information about the arboretum, please visit http://www.usna.usda.gov/. Washington is well known worldwide for its annual Cherry Blossom festival, however, a bit less well known, but just as beautiful is the Azaela Festival at the Arboretum. Below I have included a few pictures of this year's blooms.

Also, during the same time of year the dogwoods are in bloom. Dogwood is a favorite in Virginia as it is both our state flower as well as our state tree (props to Jill for educating me on this).

Registering for school

Wow, here it was, I was finally 5 year old and I was going to be getting ready to register for kindergarten! A very exciting time for any five year old. My family lived about half of a mile from the elementary school, and thus it was only a short walk.

There is an asphalt path that connects my neighborhood to the neighborhood that the school is in. At the time, it was almost just as fast to walk the path as it was to drive in that the path was a direct route whereas driving you had to go around. Since that time, a road has been built alongside the path where horse fields used to be. However, this was long before construction in the horse fields was ever even thought of. I guess we were pretty practical as far as what we called things then, because the name of this path was, naturally, "the path." Everyone in the neighborhood called it that, where is so and so? oh he is on the path.

About half way down the path from the neighborhood there was an irrigation ditch that you had to cross over on a wooden bridge. Now this was no regular irregation ditch, though. In our mind , it was one of the central ditches in the area, and quite a large one at that. Thus, it's name was "The Big Ditch."

So there I was walking down the path with my mom and we suddenly got to the bridge over the big ditch. At this point I had a great idea! I was going to skip some rocks in one of the side ditches that came off of The Big Ditch. It was a new trick that I hadn't quite mastered yet, but I wanted to try. Well, you probably don't need me to explain this, but skipping rocks in a ditch....well it isn't something that works too well, especially if you are only 5. However....I was 5, and thus the logic of why it wouldn't work didn't really dawn on me.

After a couple of failed attempts, I decided I wasn't trying hard enough, and I really needed to go at it full strength, especially since my mom was ready to keep moving and I was holding up the purpose of the trip. It was decided that this would be the last rock I could throw. I threw that rock as hard as I possible could. So hard, in fact, that I actually followed that rock right into the ditch I had thrown it in. It was quite a shock to land in cold water, and suddenly realize that I was completely soaked through. While it made the delay even worse, I'm sure my mom found some humor in the whole situation as we hurried back home. I changed my clothes and sat at home wrapped in a blanket as my mom took the path back to the school and registered me for school without me even getting to be a part of it.