Pardon My Post

... it's almost 3 in the morning. Am I crazy? I have to be at work in 9 hours (my average per-night sleep time), and I'm writing a blog post.

Oh well.

I'm just too excited/nervous/what's-the-word-for-have-a-lot-to-do-but-it's-not-overwhelming... yet?

JJ and I have been having some very serious conversation lately. We all knew that he was going to be.... going... somewhere... for a while... (see: I'm not supposed to be talking about it online) because of work in the near future (for 4 months). What we didn't know, yet, was what I'd be doing.

I thought I could be a tough girl and work a lot and be fine. Then he went on a couple of work trips and, well... I'm not a tough girl. The funny thing is that I was totally fine being across the country from him (for 9 months) when I had other people to hang out with. Now that I have... maybe.. 4 friends, if we stretch it... in DC, I find that my time off is dreaded, and I can't STAND when JJ is gone.

So there we have it. I am wussing out. Sometime soon (Yonny--not a word of this at work) I will be packing up my apartment, hopefully fitting everything I need into suitcases, and moving.

TO UTAH.

again.

And I'm excited about it!

I've spent the last couple of nights thinking about what I can do to make this move easier. Here are our conclusions:

1. Get some kind of relaxed job--maybe my resume can wait for a little while, and I can just do something mindless for a while? Where I *maybe* have holidays off?

2. Fly. I know this sounds ridiculous, but... We're just going to buy a car when I get out there. We were thinking about getting something new around Springtime anyway, why not just push the date up a schmidge to Fall?

3 (&4). Live with my parents. I couldn't believe how much I missed them in the last couple of months. So much, in fact, that I actually went home for a few days just a couple of weeks ago. I came out of that trip with no pictures (except the ones TJ has still failed to email me), but I loved just being with my family, even if the "annual" crawdad trip was a near-failure. So this will simplify both rent and loneliness.

I guess you never know about the good things 'til they're gone.

Our Trip Across the Country

As you might be able to guess by my absence, we have been busy people!

I recently graduated from UVU, (go 'head and dust your shoulders off:)

And then I went to Las Vegas for a week. I didn't take any pictures there, but it was fun. I stayed with my sister, Micia, and we did a lot of eating out and I relaxed a lot (she didn't, she was still in school).

JJ came out to meet me, and we travelled across the country. Here are some pics from the road:



Hoover Dam:


Route 66:

The ultimate road trip snack:

Us:

Largest cross in the Northern Hemisphere:

Flattest land I've ever seen:


Perhaps the biggest bird poop ever:


Memphis!


Other highlights that we weren't able to record?

> Seeing an SUV with a casket in the back
> Having good weather the whole way, despite the storm in Oklahoma
> Driving 5 extra hours to find a hotel room (due to the same storm)
> Finding out that La Quinta isn't a bad chain, after all
> Eating at a restaurant called Stoby's in Arkansas--They gave us free cookies :)
> Breakfast at a Diners, Drive-Ins, & Dives restaurant called Sophia's Place
> DIABLO BURGER(!) in Flagstaff, AZ. SOOOOO GOOOD! I could eat their fries every day. And then be obese. And still like it.

THE STATS:

Gas: $294.94 (we have to use premium in our Jetta)
Highest price per gallon: $3.38, Chambers, AZ
Cheapest price per gallon: $2.72, Albuquerque, NM

We somehow didn't see any tolls, and didn't have to rent a moving truck. It was awesome.

So here we are in DC for permanent! More posts to come (today)

Yesterday was Heaven

Oh, Heavenly. 70 degrees out, sunny, and JJ got off of work at 3 o'clock.

We decided to take a walk down in Georgetown. Right before I left DC, JJ took me to Georgetown to hang out and have dinner. We were reliving that date a little bit, and I loved it!

We rode the metro to Foggy Bottom, where they have an epically long escalator: I swear it's like 4 stories tall and takes like 5 real-life minutes to ride up.


We got down to the waterfront and walked through Georgetown Waterfront Park to the harbor. In the summer, there are dudes with boats trying to pick up on young college girls always parked around there, but it was just peaceful and sunny yesterday. No cat-calling or loud stereos.

I must admit that I was weak on the picture front this time. I'll try to be better. You see, there were people getting their wedding pics taken down at the park, so we didn't want to rush them.

See how nice and sunny it was?

Unfortunately, during the spring, "they" have to put up a temporary wall to prevent flooding in the little restauranty area at the harbor. They also turn off the fountain. This is what it looks like from the inside, sitting at a table at Farmers and Fishers:

Oh well. We may not have had an ideal view, but we had a lot of fun. The restaurant was tasty, and we had a good time just being us.

That is the obligatory waiting-for-the-metro picture, as we seem to have a lot of those sitting around.

Oooops

I totally forgot to post my favorite pic of us in NYC! Here it is:

Start Spreadin' The News...

When I got to DC, not only did I have pretty pretty flowers, but there was a SURPRISE looming.

JJ has never pulled off a surprise... until now. I've guessed every present that he's given me, I knew when he bought the ring.... he pretty much fails at keeping a straight face.

I got to DC on a Wednesday. He said I'd have a surprise on Friday after he was done with work... and boy, did I have a surprise!

He told me on Thursday night. WE WERE GOING TO NEW YORK! For those of you who don't know about how we met, here's a brief recap:

I had recently been dumped
He was moving to NYC (well, Hoboken, NJ, but... same thing) to go to The French Culinary Institute
We got set-up
We liked each other
He moved
I cried (don't tell, it's a secret)
He wanted to keep dating me
I went to Jersey for 2 weeks to visit my bestie, Katie (holla)
JJ was conveniently in NYC
We hung out a lot
We fell in lurve
He moved back

TA DA!

Since then, JJ and I have always thought that New York was "our town"...well, sort of.

So I was pee-my-pants excited about going to "our town". And rightly so.


We took Greyhound (4 Hours from DC to NYC... $20. Can't beat it), which was only slightly scary. I packed a picnic (PS I went a little picnik happy with our photos, in case you can't tell) lunch of french bread, gourmet cheeses, veggies, berries, and apples, and off we went! Unfortunately... we went off without our digital camera.

"No worries! We'll just stop and get one of those disposables!" he says.
"That'll take $#!+ pictures!" she says (pardon her French).
"It'll be fine, we never look at pictures anyway," He says.
"BUT WHAT ABOUT MY BLOG?!" She says.

Smug boy... too bad all the pictures did end up... well, you know.

We got there Friday night at around 6, checked into our BEAUTIFUL hotel room at the Hotel Mela, and JJ told me that the biggest surprise of all was going to be at 10:30. I was so excited! I knew it involved food (my favorite thing), and he had told me I needed to get dressed up, and I just so happened to have a dress burning a hole in my closet. That's not a saying, but you know what I mean.

We got all gussied up, thanks to my 2 favorite J things of the moment: JJ and J.Crew:

Not so bad, if I do say so myself.

JJ called a cab (with the help of the door man at the hotel), and he whisked me off to LE BERNARDIN, as in, one of the only Michelin 3-Star restaurants in NYC. As in, delicious delicious fish. As in, Eric Ripert. As in... google it. or you could click the link I just provided.

We decided on the $20/per person more expensive, but not highest expensivity(it was so delicious I made up words) prix-fixe menu. I feel like I'm speaking French in this post, because I'm pretty sure not very many of the things I'm talking about are things that normal, not-food-obsessed people know about. And because that was French.


A prix-fixe menu is a menu where you pay a certain price and then get a certain amount of food. These can range from starter-entree-dessert things (think 2 for $20 at Chili's) to 9 course chef's choice menus. This restaurant, being very un-Chili's, served the latter.

It was 9 courses of deliciousness. My most favorite was the first course, which was a thinly-pounded fillet of tuna served raw over a super-thin slice of baguette with foie gras patee spread on it. Dee. Lish. Us!

Here are some pics of the greatness that occurred:

Tiny Desserts (including a tiny donut) / Gelato, mange blanc, and liquid pears / Surf & Turf / Someone Cute

Oh, it was so legendary. And it reminded me of how I found another food weirdo (also pictured above) to share these kinds of legendary moments with me--and he also thinks that they're legendary! What can I say, I'm in lurve. With food? Yes, but also with that guy.

We had all of Saturday and half of Sunday to laze around, eat, walk around town, eat....

Highlights of the rest of the trip: Eating at Balthazar (ordered the raw oysters, they were ultra fresh and not at all scummy), walking around Canal Street and not buying anything (except a coat and some gloves, but those were not on Canal Street, per se...), and eating at Stage's Deli:

I had the Matzo Ball Soup and a Salami Sandwich. JJ had an Open-Faced Roast Beef Sandwich and a Cel-Ray Soda, in honor of his late Grump-pa Balish. Everything was so delicious.

On Sunday morning, we decided to go back to where Stage's Deli is, so that we could get some of the street food we had seen earlier.

We stood at Port Authority eating a Gyro and a mixed Gyro plate. Yuuuummmmmm.

When JJ and I got back to DC, we went and got chicken at Pollo Rico with Micah, and then JJ had to go to bed--some people have to work.

When he got back from work on Monday afternoon, he looked like this:

Poor, tired, little guy. I guess our weekend wore him out. After all, it gets tiring falling in love all over again.

She'll Be Mad That I Hijacked Our Blog...

Even though this is our blog; aside from an occasional comment, I let her run with it. I am too irresponsible and undependable to be trusted to post regularly.

If you read this blog from somewhere other than the east coast, then you may have heard that DC was recently hit with some snowfall totaling 20-30 inches. To put that in perspective if you live in UT and say "so, what's the big deal?"--that's like about 7 feet to you. Here, people have been known to cancel school on the mere threat of snow; half an inch, and it's a sure thing.
So after being snowed in for almost three days with no work or internet to entertain, I decided to go venture out and see what was going on. Here is what I saw:




This "sidewalk" is actually pretty good. Apparently there is no obligation for businesses that own a piece of sidewalk to clear it...ever. It seems that someone needs to fall, break their friggin neck, sue, and win a large settlement to teach them. Good luck with that.



The Key Bridge: a scenic way to get into Georgetown.



The spires of the Georgetown cathedral are pretty iconic. Also, if you see these on your right when driving--you are on the GW parkway and will be heading north for awhile, whether you wanted to or not. Just sayin'.



This area has been suffering an epidemic for many years now. It's a serious condition called "jogging." Infected people look outside at two feet of snow, sketchy roads, temps in the low teens, and say "I think I'll go for a jog." I literally have recently seen joggers darting around traffic as it skids on ice. At what point are the health benefits outweighed by increasing odds of getting hit by a snowplow?



DC "skyline", if you can call it that. Washington Monument on the far right.




You can't build tall buildings in DC, but you can across the Potomac in VA. So whenever movies want to show a gritty urban high-rise shot, set in DC, to build the drama of a bogus conspiracy plot...they actually show Rosslyn. (Also home of a great pho place and a condescending burger joint, btw.)



























Georgetown is one of the older parts of the city. It has gentrified beyond belief (3 million dollar townhouse anyone?) But it retains some of its charm as one of the few neighborhoods with "character" that is also safe at night...I think that's all I'll say. Oh, and those are the stairs from The Exorcist. I used to think that was the scariest movie ever made. Now I think of it when I eat pea soup.



There is also a shopping epidemic. This is mostly due to the demographics of the place; but still, it's outta control. VA and DC are currently in a snow emergency status. Things are borderline disaster here but when you need some $300 jeans, I guess you just need 'em. M Street was hopping!



Georgetown has a cool canal with locks for boats, I guess. They are obviously not in use and have been kept around for purely historical and aesthetic reasons (and to make your townhouse more expensive if it's nearby, I presume).



The Kennedy Center from across the Potomac. The scene of our "we welcome ourselves to DC" date. The pier where I took this pic is, in summer, quite a scene. It's quite a party, replete with pervy old dudes in houseboats and yachts trying to get cute girls on said watercraft. And by "party", I mean gross. I guess that is what rich people around here do.



Nothing to say about this. Just though it looked cool.

After this I walked to the metro and went home. We are supposed to get another 20" of snow tomorrow. That will be interesting. And by "interesting", I mean suck. At least I have my internet back, so I will be streaming a netflix marathon.

The end.

I Had A Really Good Day Yesterday

...despite some bad news.

I got some bad news yesterday, but that's not something I really want to blog about. Actually, I did want to blog about it, but then I took the post off, because it was potentially offensive. For those of you who were lucky enough to check my blog at like 12:35 PM, you were blessed with my ranting and raving.

I spent all day yesterday (my day off) boiling about this situation while watching crappy TV.

After that, however, I had the best talk EVER with JJ (as soon as he got home from work). We finally agreed on how we feel about the situation, which we hadn't before, and had quite the fun time laughing at how ridiculous the whole thing is, and how it's something that would only happen when completely contrived on some kind of awful British sitcom.

Following that, I decided to take a bath to go out with JJ and forget about our situation. JJ then surprised me by jumping in the bath with me (mind you, we're both not tiny people, and our bath is one of those bath/shower combos that 1 person barely fits in)... and then he got stuck! I almost peed the bath, and he got out. I'm sure it was meant to be kind of romantic, but it ended up just being way hilarious.

After that episode, I got dressed, and we headed out. We had decided to take a walk and then go to dinner. We rode the Metro to Rosslyn, then walked across the Key Bridge, down on the riverwalk, and then ended up going back up to M Street and picking a restaurant at random.

We ended up eating at a place called The Guards. It was pretty good, but they were out of both the salad and pie that I wanted. The Crab Cakes, however, were GOOOOOOD!


We then walked to the Foggy Bottom Metro stop and rode home, where I fell asleep watching a new episode of Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations.

Such a good day. I'm going to miss days like this when I go back home--8 days from today.

A Very Shady Maple

Every Christmas Eve, JJ's whole family goes to a buffet in Pennsylvania called "The Shady Maple Smorgasbord". This year, we're going to be at my parent's house (side note: This blog may be called marikaandjohn. etc... but I think we've all realized that JJ likes me writing, he never gets around to it) for the Holidays, and JJ said the day he'll miss the most is Christmas Eve.

That's what got my new brilliant surprise plan in the works. I decided to make our own version of Shady Maple for dinner tonight (he always gets up too early for me to surprise him with a breakfast). So I went to the grocery store, bought all of the stuff, and got started at 3--since JJ was going to be home at 5.

I made biscuits and gravy first, then I made the bacon (a whole package, because Shady Maple is all about eating copious amounts of fatty meats and eggs). Then I got working on the pancakes. One of them became quite a pain in my rear.

Here's the story of the epic pancake:

Number One: I'm allergic to bananas. Like, eat-a-banana-and-die type allergic. But JJ's favorite is banana and walnut (I'm also allergic to walnuts). After figuring out how to get a banana open, I started making a GIANT pancake, pictured here:

The pancake filled up the whole pan! I swear I didn't start it this big--It GREW. Good thing I have a GIANT pancake spatula:
It's almost as big as m'face! So I go at the pancake with the flipper, and....
I think you can tell how I feel about this:
I decided just to put it in the oven with everything else while I made another of JJ's favorite pancakes, Peach and Brown Sugar. I made a peach, brown sugar, and pecan one for myself.
Then I decided to make our house look more like Shady Maple...

Seeeeeeee? Almost as awesome as my Christmas decorating scheme.

JJ was very happy with the dinner, anyway, and here he is after he ate his first course, a biscuit and gravy with eggs:



This picture is of the bacon after we were done:

And JJ after he's done eating 2 giant pancakes, a few strips of bacon, and 3 biscuits with gravy... and more than half of the 4 eggs I scrambled:

It was so much fun to see JJ happy! It wasn't the same as regular Shady Maple, because there weren't any whoopie pies, shoo-fly pies, doughnuts fried in LARD (which is a word you hafta capitalize always), plethora of soda machines, or millions of fat people, but... I made it feel more like Shady Maple by wearing a soup strainer on my head (like the Mennonites that own the place...okay, they wear traditional hat-thingies. But they look like soup strainers!).


...I'm officially Shady Maple Crazy.