I spent the entire weekend at the movies. And not just any movies… but action packed, gun wielding films featuring some pretty hot guys.
I love Paul Walker. I also love Joaquim de Almeida and Laurence Fishburne. Which is how I ended up watching this travesty. The predictable plot, the over choreographed fight scenes, the implausible shoot outs, and all’s-well-that-ends-well ending only gave me a greater appreciation for Shoot `Em Up.
Though I’m generally not a huge fan of westerns, my favorite two are Blazing Saddles and Young Guns. That said — Yuma was filled with so much drama. So. Much. Drama. The shoot out at the end was ridiculous. And Ben Foster delivered an annoying, one note performance as psycho Charlie. I was praying someone would put me out of my misery and just kill him.
From the opening tight shot of Clive Owen’s eyes to the credits — this is one of the funniest films I’ve seen in a long while. Apparently the critics don’t share my sense of humor. Or that of last night’s audience who laughed throughout most of the action. One guy belly laughed through entire scenes, egging the rest of us on. Owen should win a prize for his delivery of truly absurd and clichéd zingers with a straight face. If you have not already seen this — go. If you weren’t planning to see it because of the bad reviews — go. It’s bloody hysterical!
Shoot ~Em Up was the perfect remedy to the all-too-serious gun fights of last night’s Yuma and Friday’s Bobby Z.
What films do you recommend? Or not? And what did you do this weekend?
Today I dispensed friendly advice and provided clueless tourists with directions. For a slow weekend — especially in comparison with Labor Day — it was exceptionally entertaining.
The highlight of my day was a man who approached the information desk asking how to get back to Baltimore from DC. Apparently he and his family had checked into a hotel there and took the MARC train into DC to visit the sites.
Well, he was looking for a bus that would take them back.
A bus with a $2 fare.
The train was just too expensive. I was like “Huh?!”
What was this guy thinking? One gallon of gas in DC costs $2.80+ and he’s looking for a $2 bus to take him from DC to Baltimore — 35 miles away?!
Needless to say he was not pleased with his transportation alternatives.
Last week a wise man said to me, “our meals — how we eat and who we eat with — are a microcosm of our lives.” And while I’ve forgotten the point of the rest of the conversation, that lost mind again, his comment stayed with me.
In fact, every time I put a morsel in my mouth, I think about what he said.
Breakfast:
If I eat breakfast, it tends to be cereal with cold milk, a multi-vitamin and a Viactiv chew while watching the TODAY Show, scrolling through email, and applying makeup. More often than not, I eat breakfast alone.
Lunch:
Inspired by Freegan Girl, I’ve taken to pack homemade peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, cold pasta, or salads instead of running out to Au Bon Pain or Cosi. Four days a week, I tend to eat alone while writing or reading or answering email or searching the internet.
One workday a week, I’ll meet a friend or colleague at a restaurant for lunch.
On the weekends, I do brunch.
Brunch:
On Saturdays and Sundays, I meet one or two or three pals out at a restaurant for a leisurely brunch — unless I have to run to the Smithsonian for an afternoon shift at the info desk. Then the brunch is not so leisurely. Last month I hosted Sunday brunch twice and swore it would become a weekly occurrence, only to meet at a restaurant the following week.
Dinner:
I would say four out of seven nights, I eat a sandwich or salad or pizza or sushi takeout while watching a Netflix disc on tv or reading a novel/report/website. The other three nights, I eat out at restaurants with friends.
If my meals are a microcosm of my life, I’d admit that I rarely take the time to focus on one thing. While I’m eating, I’m also talking or writing or watching or reading something else. I also take most of my meals alone. Though I don’t often feel lonely.
And taking into consideration how often I eat out, I am spending a small fortune on tips, never mind the meals themselves. I could have saved up for a month-long cruise down the Nile with all the cash devoted to dining in restaurants this past summer. I think I need to start hosting dinner parties.
While now that I’m paying more attention to my bad habits and know I need to stop wasting as much as I do, I have to agree with Freegan Girl on the whole dumpster diving movement:
“I don’t believe that you can live off a system you’re trying to eradicate at the same time. And if you want to inspire people to act, I think you should start with something they don’t think is completely gross.”
What do your meals say about you?
This morning, on my way to recharge my phone, I got distracted by something on tv. So I walked into the kitchen, poured some cereal, and proceeded through my morning routine. As I brushed my teeth, I remembered that I had to recharge my cell battery. But then I misplaced my earrings and spent 10 minutes looking for them. On my way out the door, as I grabbed my phone to call a friend, I noticed one slim bar left in a flashing red battery icon.
I had forgotten to remember to recharge my phone!
I’ve noticed lately that I do this more and more often. I get up to grab a stamp, only to forget why I walked over to my desk. I’ll turn on the dishwasher, realizing too late that I had already washed those dishes. I remind myself to buy tokens for the laundry room, only to get to the basement with two filled bags of dirty clothes, detergent, and fabric softener and no way to run the machines.
Worse still, I’ll run into my neighbor in the laundry room and completely blank out her name. Until an hour later, while I’m playing Tetris on Gameboy, when I remember her name, her ex-boyfriend’s name, and the name she gave her new laptop.
Or while working, I’ll open a new tab to search for something, get sidetracked by incoming email or a phone call, turn back to the open tab with no recollection of what I needed to look for.
Is it ADD? Dementia? Early onset Alzheimer’s? Just another symptom of growing older?
So I’ve started paying attention to reports and new research on ways to improve memory. And though some studies recommend certain chocolate or moderate drinking or standing on your head while reciting the alphabet backwards, it seems that there are 10 basic ways to boost brain power:
1. Cardiovascular exercise for a least 30 minutes per day ie. a brisk walk
2. Daily cup of caffeinated coffee or soda
3. Green or black tea
4. Reduce stress and become a yoga enthusiast
5. Sleep
6. Eat foods like blueberries and grapes; include supplements like Omega-3 fatty acid, Thiamine, Niacin, and Vitamins B-6 and E
7. Use your brain — learn a language or how to play a musical instrument
8. Learn mnemonic techniques like a memory palace.
9. Organize your life — if you always place your keys on a peg beside the door, you won’t struggle to remember where you last put them.
10. Write in a journal everyday — even if you forget, you can always look back on your own private record.
Do you feel like you’re losing your mind? What do you do to better remember?
The Examiner reported today on new census data that puts the DC’s median income at $52,000. But what is most striking is the economic divide between the city’s black and white citizens.
“Nearly 80 percent of the 108,000 District residents who live below the poverty line are black…. [The] median income for white residents was $88,969, while median income for blacks was $34,484.”
That really got me thinking … $34,484 per year… at a time when real estate in DC is all about new construction, upgrades and renovation… where do these people live when the average monthly rent for a one-bedroom apartment is $1100???
I covet the floor plans at 22West, a new building going up at the corner of New Hampshire and M Streets, NW. Construction isn’t finished yet and already 50 percent of the units have been sold. Pricing for a 948 s.f. one-bedroom apartment starts at $765,500.
How does the average white resident making $88,969 a year afford that, much less your average black resident?
I’m just whining because though I make more than my parents salaries combined when they were my age, I will never afford to buy a three-bedroom 1900 sf anything. And if I feel this hopeless of ever owning a little patch of DC, how does the person bringing in $34,484 feel?
A long, long time ago when I was in college, a group of us were rushing around getting ready to go out. I think we were dolling up for a semi-formal or some other like event.
Anyway, someone turned on a tv and one of the beauty pageants was on. As we took turns running to the bathroom down the hall and stopping in one another’s rooms, the pageant was winding down with the all-important questions.
Miss Louisiana, a stunning girl with long dark hair and a beautiful face, stepped up to the microphone. One of the judges asked for her opinion on affirmative action. She stood there under the bright lights and asked him to repeat the question. By this point a group of us had circled around the television set and I had a feeling something special was coming up. Her answer went something like this……
“Well,” she said. “I believe in optimism and living my life affirmatively. I think everyone has the right to choose to live an affirmative life. Affirmative action is a positive force.”
Miss Louisiana stood at that microphone with the brightest smile on her face. And there was silence. The panel of judges all sat there with their jaws dropped. We all stood there wondering how the pageant princess could have no idea of what affirmative action was. And finally, finally, a row in the audience burst out in applause and hoots of “great answer,” “good job”.
And apparently it happened again!
I must be living under a rock because the first I heard of this was Matt Lauer’s interview with Caitlin Upton this morning. I’m sorry - but she was “caught off guard” and “overwhelmed?” Look at this travesty of an answer:
“I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uhmmm, some people out there in our nation don’t have maps and uh, I believe that our, I, education like such as, uh, South Africa, and uh, the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and I believe that they should, uhhh, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., uh, should help South Africa, it should help the Iraq and the Asian countries so we will be able to build up our future, for us.”
What does this say about the state of education in South Carolina?
Let’s see you take this one for a whirl — “Recent polls have shown a fifth of Americans can’t locate the US on a world map. Why do you think this is?”
Each week, I walk by this mansion at 2118 Massachusetts Avenue. And though I’ve passed by it for years, I never went inside.
Until Saturday. The doors were open with a sign that advertised tours between 1:00 - 4:00 pm. I was planning to go through the American Impressionism exhibit at the Phillips Collection, so I figured I’d be ambitious and do both.
Built for Larz Anderson III and his wife Isabel Weld Perkins by Little & Browne of Boston, the Beaux Arts style mansion was their winter residence and party central between 1905 and Anderson’s death in 1937.
Ground broke on the Anderson House in 1902. When the building was complete in 1905, legend has it three quarries in Italy shut down, emptied of all their marble.
Now, the mansion is headquarters to the Society of the Cincinnati and holds hour-long docent-led tours Tuesdays - Saturdays between 1-4:00 p.m.
Though the artwork is less than impressive, the architecture is well worth the tour. Secret passageways, goldleaf, murals that resemble tapestries, inlaid wood floors and marble everywhere.
On Tuesday, 28 August at 7:00 pm, there will be a lecture and book-signing by Scott W. Berg, assistant professor at George Mason University. He will discuss and sign copies of Grand Avenues: The Story of the French Visionary Who Designed Washington, DC.
There is also a concert series which begins on September 8.
How would your life change if you won or inherited $1 million?
Let’s face it, one million dollars doesn’t have the buying power it used to. From months reading the Washington Post real estate section I know it wouldn’t buy me a house in my neighborhood. Most of those go for at least $1.2.
But it’s still no laughing matter. It’s enough to make some significant life improvements, but not so much that you’d get stalked by strangers from middle school asking for a “loan.”
Here’s what I’d do with my million:
1. Share half with my immediate family members.
2. Apply to anthropology or archaeology programs in DC and take a couple years off work to go to school full time.
3. Travel to dig sites around the world and volunteer while waiting to matriculate in a graduate program.
4. Invest in cameras and lenses to document my travels from site to site.
6. Splurge on some first edition leather bound books.
7. I would take flying lessons and get a pilot’s license.
8. Upgrade to a 2-bedroom apt. with den.
9. Save $100,000 for a rainy day.
10. Put $100,000 in a separate account so that I could donate the interest each year to my charity du jour.
What would you do with your windfall?
I grew up in an environment that valued what is now referred to as “green living.” My parents weren’t tree huggers, but immigrants who had grown up on a very small island.
In the summer, my father would only run the air conditioning on the most brutally hot and humid of days. Half of the backyard was devoted to growing an assortment of fruit and vegetables that included tomatoes, lettuce, squash, cucumbers, peppermint, strawberries, Asian pears, and grapes. We did not eat out. Ever. McDonald’s was a rare and exotic treat.
Leftovers were fed to our German Shepherd or used as compost for the garden.
Every bag we brought home was reused to collect trash. We turned off lights and electrical appliances when we weren’t using them. If the shower ran for more than 10 minutes, my dad would bang on the door and yell at us to turn off the water. My mom spent endless hours cutting patterns and sewing clothes at night. We planted trees, bushes and flowers all over our yard.
In the winter, trees were chopped down for firewood. Instead of running the furnace, we’d light a fire in the wood stove which was miraculously sufficient to overheat the entire 1900 square foot house.
Books were borrowed not bought. Money was saved not spent.
And though I never really felt like I went without, I went bananas when I entered college. Finally I could crank the air conditioning as low and as long as I wanted. To study, I’d turn on every light in the room. The radio, television and hairdryer would be used simultaneously, each drowning the other out. And if I had time, I could stand beneath the shower for an hour if I wanted to.
Fast forward 15 years and you’d think I never learned my father’s lessons of “save today for tomorrow.” The bad habits I picked up in college are still with me today. Bad habits I wasn’t conscious of until my mother stayed with me for one week this past June.
My bare kitchen cabinets and empty refrigerator made her shudder. “What will we eat?” she’d ask. And I’d drag her down the block to Cosi or to one of Dupont’s fine eateries. “Where do you you keep these bags?” she’d ask, holding out three or four rumpled CVS plastic bags. I’d point to a trashcan wrapped with a super duty Glad bag. And when she reached out to turn off the thermostat on our way out, I nearly had a stroke. “Are you crazy? You can’t turn that off. It’s June. In DC. We’ll suffocate when we get back.”
She just shook her head and frowned.
I think of all this now because I just read about Raina Kelly’s Freegan experiment. I wonder how well I’d do if I tried to live carbon neutral?





on Seats 2