National Walk for Epilepsy

This morning Jim and I participated in the 2009 National Walk for Epilepsy on the Mall. It was misty and a little cold and the ground was in the process of reverting to the swamp that D.C used to be, but we had a great time! The walk started at the Capitol end of the Mall, walked all the way down past the Washington Monument, looped past the World War II Memorial and back up the other side of the Mall. On our way back, we made a slight pit stop to ride the Smithsonian Carousel, which neither of us had done before.

As a team, we raised $310 - thanks to everyone who contributed. If you would still like to make a contribution, you can follow the link above and search for either one of us as a participant.

Most of you know that Jim has seizures (that is why he gets a purple shirt and I get a white one) that are well controlled with medication. He has had them since he was 12.

For those of you who are looking for a celebrity sighting, here is a picture of Greg Grunberg, who stars in Heroes. He has chaired the event for the last three years in honor of his son who has epilepsy.

Arabesque

On Sunday, we went to the Kennedy Center for the final day of the Arabesque festival.

We were given tickets to see the Debbie Allen production, Oman...O Man!, which is a story of an Omani and an American boy who are roommates at an international military school. They both learn a great deal about each others country and each other.

We also took some time to see some of the exhibits. This picture of me was taken on a very large, flat, platform bed covered with pillows. There was also a display of Arab wedding costumes in the Hall of States and Hall of Nations, jewelry and calligraphy that superimposed the script for various words to form elaborate pictures.

Some Enchanted Evening

Tonight, we were lucky enough to attend the coolest thing ever at the Kennedy Center. The staff members were offered free tickets to the program, Some Enchanted Evening: A Musical Birthday Salute to Senator Edward M. Kennedy. This was a 'by invitation only' event.

The evening was hosted by Bill Cosby and featured Lauren Bacall, Denyce Graves, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Phyllis Newman, Kelli O'Hara, Bernadette Peters, Hal Prince, James Taylor, Frederica von Stade, Colm Wilkinson, Lizz Wright and Karen Ziemba. John Williams conducted the orchestra. There was a retrospective film shown on Kennedy's life and Carolyn Kennedy and Al Hurt presented him with the Profiles in Courage award.

The concert was attended by Mrs. Obama, the Bidens, Speaker Pelosi, Senator Reid and about 1000 members of the extended Kennedy family. Senators Lieberman, Feinstein and McCain were in the house and I am sure there were many more D.C. celebrities there. As a special guest, President Obama came on stage at the very end of the evening to lead the house in singing Happy Birthday to the Senator.

Back in School

My next accounting class is scheduled to start tomorrow, but I have already started the first unit. I was so not engaged when I signed up to take this class. It is scheuled to end in June, but I would really like to get ahead of the game if at all possible.

I am excited about it - this is the second of the prerequisite classes that I would need if I decided to continue on in the career program. This is a series of accounting classes that I would need IF I wanted to sit for the CPA exam. We'll see how this one goes, but it's always nice to have options.

Right now, it's pouring down snow. I am hoping that it snows enough that I can't get out of the parking lot in the morning :)

Restaurant Week

This week was Restaurant Week. Usually, I make it to two places, but we only got one this time around. Jim and I made a day of it in the District on Saturday. We spent a few hours in the morning at the Natural History Museum, because they had a new exhibit called Written in Bone that I really wanted to see. Take some time to check out the link - it was fascinating and I got to touch actual bones in the forensic lab. It was probably as close as I will ever get to my dream of growing up to be Quincy (or if you are not old enough to remember Quincy, Kay Scarpetta).

After the museum, we went to Zaytinya's for lunch. It is a Greek/Mediterranean small plates restaurant with the same executive chef as my other favorite small plate restaurant, Jaleo. The restaurant is really bright and open, decorated in white and blue like the Greek flag. We shared all the plates (except the lamb which I can't eat).

For round one, we ordered the Fattoush, which is a tomato, cucumber, radish, pepper and onion salad in a lemon vinaigrette, and the Bantijan Bil Liban, a crispy fried eggplant with garlic yogurt.

Round two was Spanakopita and Adana Kebab, skewered ground lamb, grilled tomatoes and sumac onions.

The third round brought Shish Taouk, which was grilled chicken, tomatoes and sumac onions, and olive oil poached salmon with spicy eggplant and green olive tapanade.

Both the lamb and the chicken were served in these beautiful copper tangines. The plating of all the dishes was just lovely and everything tasted fantastic.

For dessert, we had the Greek cherries and vanilla yogurt, with ground pistachios and the Turkish Delight - walnut ice cream with goat milk yogurt mousse and honey gelee.

In case you were curious, Zaytinya means olive oil in Turkish.

Happy Valentine's Day

We had a very nice Valentine's Day yesterday. First, The Boy brought me these beautiful flowers on Thursday evening.

Then we had tickets to see Avenue Q at the Warner Theatre. The show was very funny, especially if you are into profane puppetry. Definitely not a family show, no matter what it looks like. There is full frontal puppet nudity in this show. This is a gorgeous theater and our seats were really good even in the nosebleed section.

When we got home, I made cornish hens, wild rice and broccoli for dinner and individual peanut butter and chocolate chip cakes for dessert and we had a bottle of wine that The Boy's mother had given to go with it. We used the cd from a friend's wedding as our background music.

I got one more gift yesterday as we were finishing up our meal. I was having a terrible time getting a good picture (shiny things don't photograph well for me) so here is a better picutre so you can see the details.

Finally...

Well, I have finally moved in with The Boy. I actually still have a few things to get out of my apartment this weekend, get is all cleaned up and turn in my keys, but it's mostly done. I have to tell you, it is nice to have all of our stuff in one place. No more of my shoes being in one house and my sweater in the other or vice versa. And we both will be able to save a good bit of money.

Also, we finally had our first snow last week. This is a picture of the parking lot from our side door last Tuesday. After we watched three cars slip and slide in the parking lot, I decided that I would work from home. I got more work done than I usually do at work - fewer interruptions.