Camping in the City: Trail D

Sunday morning we set out to see sites more pertinent to the Dishman clan. Lake took me to tour George Washington University Law School which seemed extremely posh and exciting. There seemed to be a little tension in the air which could possibly be due to the fact that the bar was only 10 days away at the time! They have their own Moot Court where local (which in this case means federal and supreme) judges preside and answer questions to the students. Very exciting. I left impressed. The deal we made with the parents was they would help contribute to the sibling-weekend-o-fun fund if we promised to take lots of pictures. Well, we went one up on them and took pictures for future purposes, like when Lake starts school and will be too embarrassed to take pics at school in front of all his friends. You're welcome Mom and Dad.

I was also excited to take pics with the GWU hippo, although it wasn't as exciting as riding the Wall Street Bull that used to grace the streets of New York, as the size of the animal was slightly disappointing. You know for a hippo, having such a large mouth and all, he was very hard to understand.

After touring law school, we went down to see Baker Botts, Elysa's employer in a few weeks. But not before the city branded me one of their own. I'm pretty sure that the chemicals listed under Sharpie ingredients translate into metro soot and spray-on sunscreen. Unfortunately, the Barnes and Noble across the street did not carry paint thinner.

Camping in the City: Trail C

I should probably explain the Jeep ads. After Lake and I dubbed the weekend "Camping in the City" we walked off the metro and were inundated with these Jeep ads literally seconds later. So it became the official campaign for the weekend. I knew this would be dad's favorite. May the Jeep (fish-mobile) rest in peace.

After fighting off the paparazzi for the future Justice of the Peace, we grabbed lunch and headed to Arlington Cemetery. This is actually a pretty cool place despite the ominous title. For future travel reference, it is worth shelling out the extra $7 to watch your fellow tourists sweating and crawling up the steep hill from the open-air bus. Even I braved the spider-webs in the "windows" of the bus to avoid having to repel back down to the metro station.

Can I take a minute to express my appreciation for the cleanliness of the DC metro system? I've ridden on many undergrounds in my short life and never have I felt okay about leaning against walls or sitting on benches! No garbage! None! It was soooo clean! I wish we had a metro system in Orlando, I'm sure that would make my commute to work much shorter. Although, given that Florida is all marshlands, I'm not sure how much safer since Steve Irwin is no longer with us.

After the cemetery, we were both pretty wiped out so we went back to the brick and mortar "tent" (just go with the whole camping thing, okay?) for a "non nap". We took the evening pretty easy. Had a nice local treat for dinner, window shopped and splurged on dessert. See Lake's blog.

As for my "roughing it" part of the day, I did have a slight injury. Rich and Kristl, you are going to LOVE this. Lake's friend Rich, thinks piggie tails are dangerous. The picture he created for me, made ma a little self-conscious about them. Being as we were roughing it and I didn't have a hair-dryer, I had to have SOME type of pig-tails, I decided to tuck them under to make them "safer". Needless to say, it got stuck in my purse and once I got Lake to quit laughing, he untangled me, but not before taking a picture.

Camping in the City: Trail B

Saturday morning after valiant efforts from each of us to sleep in, we were out and about before 9am. Our first battle with the natives of the day was with the local pharmacist at CVS. Future traveling tip, make sure you do NOT ever have to buy medication off of your insurance plan. Even just 2 measly little pills can cost you short of $20 bucks!

Pills in hand (actually in purse, which was in backpack, which Lake was carrying, so really I had no responsibilities at this point whatsoever other than NOT looking like a tourist) we headed to the Library of Congress. This had to be the single tourist-ish thing Lake had NOT done in DC. I was so excited to be the one to share it with him! I had been a little worried the weekend would be redundant for him, so this was a treat. The Guttenburg bible was quite impressive as was the Reading Room. Although, being our father's children, we sadly spent the most time at Bob Hope's joke file. Yes, dad, we might have forgotten to mention that part earlier. It is not a legend, it really exists and Chris, there were infinite references to golf! All the men in my family would've been proud! For a more historical look into these places, please see Lake's travelblog.

We then headed towards Union Station for lunch. Along the way we had to pass the Supreme Court building. Well, as many of you know, Elysa just graduated from UVA Law School and will be taking (ahem... passing) the Bar in 2 days and Lake starts GWU Law school in a few weeks. So I felt the need to take a foreshadowing pictures if Lake would've been so indulgent. Of course, he couldn't be bothered by his public, so the resulting picture is the one I plan to release to the press in 20 years when he is elected to the Court for tons and tons of money. I mean, a girl's gotta eat, right?

Camping in the City: Trail A

So this past weekend, I flew up to DC to spend some time with my brother, Lake. He and his wife, Elysa, have a new apartment there they have not moved into yet. We were happy to have electricity and running water, but were limited on other supplies, thus the title. I slept on a futon that had been purchased a left on their previous visit and Lake brought along with him an air mattress which he proceeded to inflate himself only proving to the rest of us that he was indeed full of hot air. For those of you who have ever been taken in by Chris' practical jokes, we got him pretty good with a long story about how Lake hyperventilated and we were at the hospital waiting for Elysa to drive up from Charlottesville and I wasn't sure what we were going to do with the rest of the weekend.

Once we had the sleeping arrangements figured out, what got really tricky was the shower situation. As we all know I am a bit of a germaphobe, not showering was of course not an option. I did also promise Elysa to enforce laws of personal hygiene at all times. This presented us with a problem when the shower did not have a shower curtain. Now, I enjoy a good soak in a Lush bath like the next girl, but not to get clean. I do not, at any time, enjoy soaking in my own filth. I am not a pot of soup that will boil out germs. But we are roughing it, so fine. The only problem seems to be, there is no stopper in the tub! There was some serious contortionist stretching and folding with lots and lots of splashing. Let's just say, thanks for sending extra towels Elysa!

Playing around

So I've been wanting to REALLY learn how to use photoshop for awhile now, but I haven't. So I finally made myself sit down this afternoon and take some online tutorials. I played around with a picture of my aunt and uncle taken at Granddad's funeral, that I thought was cute and wanted to see what I could do with it. After a few hours, yes hours. If you are a photo shop master, you probably could've done this if a few minutes, but I'm learning. So here are the before and after shots of what I did. If you know of any good sites or helps, PLEASE let me know!!!!
Before:

After:

Wild Thing

Some advice for all you ladies out there...keep an eye on your men. I understand that in this day and age, most people have to travel for work. No one understands that better than a golf widow such as myself. But it is hard to be away from your husband for long periods of time. To be honest, I sometimes have a hard time trusting him. I never know for sure what he is doing while he's away. For all I know, he becomes a totally different person and leads an entirely new life on the road.

How much trouble could he possibly get into, you ask? For those of you who grew up with Chris, you didn't just ask that question. You know. And perhaps more than you know, but he just let Chad take the brunt of it. But for those of you who aren't familiar with my troublemaker of a husband...

Time out...I didn't want to use "troublemaker" so I googled a thesaurus and I had a good laugh at the synonyms and had to share: agent provocateur, agitator, bad actor, dog, firebrand, gremlin, heel, hellion, incendiary, inciter, inflamer, instigator, knave, loose cannon*, meddler, mischief-maker, nuisance, phony, punk, rabble-rouser, rascal, recreant, rogue, smart aleck, smart a--, snake, stormy petrel, weasel, wise guy. Are those great or what?

Sorry, back to my "rabble-rouser" of a husband....I really don't know what goes on or have any control of his actions. Do I think he would go gamble our life savings away? No. Do I think he will take up clubbing and become a rave junkie? Not a chance. Would he ever be secretly perform for a travelling circus and use the "golf" as a cover? Probably not. Would he get caught up with some hot young thing? Nope. But it's the little things you think are automatic such as...oh, I don't know....personal hygiene? You've mostly all seen my handsome husband as pictured here:


Awww...so pretty! But after 3 weeks on the road of just boys, this is what comes home:

sigh.

Before the Wii, it was just we

In a tribute to times gone by, Lake and I camped out in Grammie and Pop's sun room for a tournament while in Dallas this past weekend. Some of my friends play tennis, some pool, and some card games. The only kind of tournament allowed at the Martino household includes none of those activities. Let me take you on a ride in my delorian with it's flux capacitor. How about an early 90's flashback to the old standby of Dr. Mario? Ah yes, the original Nintendo game. While Duck Hunt was my original favorite, the chuckling dog starts to get on your nerves after awhile and I think PETA banned the game eventually. If they didn't, they probably should have.

Grammie and Pops bought the Nintendo, I assume, in an effort to keep up with the times and show the grandkids how "hip" they were. And they really were hip as Pops would practice while we were in school and when we visited on holidays, he would kick our trash! There is nothing more degrading than losing a video game to your grandpa. For you young ones out there, Nintendo was the first really big game console. and even our parents didn't know how to play them, so props to Pops (we should so make that a slogan!!) for learning it! The only predecessor was Atari and you can only play pong for so long. As a side note, before video game consoles, you had to play on your computer and who remembers Frogger?!?!?

Come to think of it, I don't ever remember us not having some kind of video game. I remember when we had an IBM that had a black screen with green type and a printer with paper that had green and white lines on it...any who, Dad got us this plastic keyboard that you plugged in and could play Muppet games on. Good times. Then there was good old Mavis Beacon typing game who taught me to type. Not the most fun game, but effective nonetheless. I guess in a way, I owe this blog to ole Mavis.

Okay, back to Dr. Mario. If you are so young you have never heard of Dr. Mario, I'm sorry for you. This is possibly the best game ever. Not only do you have to manipulate your pharmacy choices (could this be the stem for all the prescription drug abuse these days?), but you have to kill germs. This alone can get boring. The best option is the 2-player option. You race against each other to kill all your germs first. (Perhaps the stem for my germophobia?) But the single best part of the 2-player game is that if you kill more than one germ at a time, your opponent gets "rained" on with random pills he doesn't need. As it "rains" it plays this annoying little tune that I only wish I could convey over a blog. But I can't. Use your imagination, I know it's in there.

So during our tournament, I quickly remember why I NEVER play against Lake...he always wins! And I would like to point out here as a side note, and a bit of a jab towards Lake, that we only ever owned one video game he couldn't beat. Yep, just one. And it was the only game that was mine. Neither of us could ever get past the second level. What is this intriguingly difficult game, you ask? It is none other than Barbie. Yes, Barbie. We figured out how to dodge all the flying shoes and hats in the stores, but we never could get across all the mall fountains without dying. Sigh. Now you understand why I consider the mall a workout. Okay, sorry Lake (not really), but back to my story.

I realize quickly I am not going to clear my germs faster than him, so I decide to take a different tactic. I wonder if this is how our political leaders plan war...? If I can't beat him, then I'll just torture him. To my advantage, he forgot about the dreaded drug rain. Mwuahahahaha! I finally got him with a really great rain and he jerks out of his chair, jumps in the air, and screams with no intonation, "You just da da da danted me!"

I will never figure out how to play Dance Dance Revolution or Guitar Hero, and even Wii can't improve my tennis score, but I will always be the evil scientist in Dr. Mario who poison's your pharmacy. Da da da danted that Lake!!!!
p.s. I love you!!!!!!!