Inauguration Madness

In case you have been living under a rock, this is Inauguration Weekend. Otherwise known as, "Don't even try to leave Northern Virginia" Weekend. The DOT/Secret Service/Lord knows who else has closed every single bridge from Northern Virginia into the District. This means that anyone who is attending any of the festivities, or God forbid, has to go to work, has to take public transportation.

This would be all well and good, except for the fact that our office is sponsoring the first ever Children's Inaugural Ball at the Washington Historical Society tomorrow afternoon. This event is the only thing that is kid-friendly all weekend. It is also free. It also filled up one day after we started taking RSVPs and has a waiting list of over 1200.

Sadly, it is also going on at the same time as the giant concert at the Lincoln Memorial. All of the staff are thinking about sneaking out the back door and going to hear Bono.

Our party is going to be great and I'll post pictures this weekend after it's over.

Don't forget that I will be on Jeopardy! on Tuesday; someone tape it for me in case it's preempted here for more inauguration coverage.

So Long, 2008

Well, I did a terrible job of blogging during the end of the year, so as I am waiting for the boy to get home from work and getting all dolled up to go out for New Year's Eve (dinner at Rustico and dancing at the Kennedy Center), I thought I'd take a minute to tell you all that I love you and that I hope you had a great 2008 and I wish you an even better 2009.

Rebecca

Letterboxing

Jim had today off of work and it was way too glorious to stay inside, so we went letterboxing.

Letterboxing is kind of like a scavenger hunt for adults. Letterboxers hide small, weatherproof boxes in publicly-accessible places (like parks) and post clues to finding the box online on one of several Web sites. However, clues to finding some of the most highly-sought boxes are passed around by word of mouth. There are about 20,000 letterboxes hidden in North America alone. Individual letterboxes usually contain a log book, an often hand-carved rubber stamp and may contain an ink pad. Finders make an imprint of the letterbox's stamp on their personal log book, and leave an imprint of their personal stamp on the letterbox's logbook .

Here are some pictures of our letterboxing adventure. We printed out the clues for five letterboxes. Fortunately, they were all still in place. We found this one under a log. These are a spider stamp and Ariel that we collected today. We had so much fun that I am sure we will go again, although we may have to wait until spring.

Halloween Party

Jim and I went to a Halloween party on November 1. He was a great sport and said that he would dress up in whatever I wanted but to please be merciful. So, we dressed up like the 50s so he could wear his own clothes. Since we hadn't eaten dinner yet when we left the party, I suggested the Silver Diner, since we were dressed appropriately. I made the waiter take our picture. I'm just a little bummed that you can't see the poodle on my skirt. I think we were totally cute.

Happy Halloween

Here are the pumpkins we carved for Halloween. The pictures aren't that great since I took them with my phone, but the witch is at Jim's house and the cat in the window is at mine.

Jeopardy! Update

On Friday, I was in a taxi cab on my way to the Kennedy Center when I got "The Call." That's right, kids. I am going to LA to tape shows (I hope it's more than one show) on November 12 and they are scheduled to air in January. The Jeopardy! people continue to say on all the official paperwork that a call to come out is still not a guarantee of an appearance, so I suppose it's possible that I might not make it on the show, but they were pretty certain on the phone that I would get on. That's really all that I can tell you until after I tape the shows and even then I can't discuss the results.

In the meantime, I am watching a lot of Jeopardy! and studying. Yes, Katherine, I am using the placemat. Feel free to email me random trivia questions.

September 24, 2008

On September 24, I flew home to check on my family and help out my former co-workers at the Haven. They lost some staff and didn't get the new accountant trained before the old one left, so they asked me if I would come down and help her out for a couple of days. Like I would say no to a free plane ticket home. My sister says I am a 'rock star accountant' and is writing me a theme song.

If I didn't get to see you when I was home, I'm sorry that I missed you. I'll be back for a few days around Christmas.