The mood in DC was very festive all around, lots of sexy cops, sexy nurses and people dressed as bananas. It was quite a mix. The concert was really fun, and I even had the opportunity to enjoy a crystal light slurpee on the way home. Who knew they existed? Refreshing and delicious, and sugarfree.

Since Gary and MIchelle live in a Virginia suburb we were all set to visit the boy museum near their house on Saturday. When we woke up and headed out for breakfast it was about 65 degrees so we changed our plans and decided to go to Great Falls Park instead. The park was Great! there were Falls! It was GREAT! FALLS!

It was super cool, and the weather was unbelievable although none of us were dressed for hiking we still had fun.

My favorite part was the sign in the ladies room that said “Do not fall over the edge, You will DIE!” There was a whole bunch of people so I didn’t take a pic, but now I really wish I did.

We hiked around all up and down and all over the place, Michelle in her leisure suit and everything. Poor thing thought we were going to Eggspectation! 

Whie Gary was busy pondering life on a tiny rock

And Matthew was busy climbing up to the top of mountains

Michelle and I sat here for a while, just enjoying the day without trying to get ourselves killed

*and also really irritating the shit out of that chick who was trying to meditate on the rock next to us. 

What did I tell ya, good times had by all!

So that’s what I’ve been doing. Pretty much eating dinner and getting right into bed. Matthew was here all week but worked until midnight so I didn’t really see him, and then he left for Maryland. I’m free to do whatever I want all the time and that happens to be catching up on Pushing Daisies and Top Model. 

Wha? Is anyone surprised?

Last weekend we did actually leave the house and drove to Montreal for my niece Liliane’s first birthday.

As expected there was quite a bit of this:

There was a also a bunch of this:

of COURSE some of this:

All leading up to this:

ahhhh,

“The Return of the Homemade Skillet Pizza – Francophone Version. Pizza Takes Montreal”

If only they made a really huge circular cast iron pizza skillet thingy we would really be in business. The teeny skillet is a little scary, well…for some people.

It took about 9 hours to make a bunch of mini pizzas that we all split when it came out of the oven, so you’d get 2 bites every 15 minutes. Thankfully we had some wine chilling for Liliane’s party. (Sorry that you didn’t get any delicious rosé Theresa’s friends, we had to wait a long time between pizzas!) All we did all night was make teeny tiny pizzas, wait the 10 minutes for the oven to heat back up and then 2 minutes for them to cook, shove them down and repeat, repeat, repeat. Lucky for us we had the idea to make a salad to go with it. Oh the salad. THE SALAD as it is now known. We did not get pictures of THE SALAD because we were too busy enjoying the act of taking multiple bites in a row but it was so amazing I have made it 2x since we’ve been home. Oh, its just a salad you say? Well you are wrong, its THE SALAD!

Don’t worry, I took some pics when I made it last night.

You’ll just have to wait.

“Hey! I take Jetblue ALOT. Like 2 trips in the past 2 weeks. I love you guys. Anyway i just had to say that on 2 of the 4 flights (home to vegas, then to Ft Lauderdale) the TV at my seat did not work. DID. NOT. WORK. Both flights were fairly full and I wasnt going to move to a middle seat but I just wanted to say that i was very very sad. Could not believe it happened to me twice. I am on flight BLA on Tuesday the BLA, seat BLA. Can you please please please make sure the tv works.  thanks!!” 

I just got this back:

Dear Mr. Kart,

Thank you for contacting JetBlue Airways regarding your last two flights with us. We appreciate the  opportunity to respond to your concerns.

We regret that you were unable to enjoy JetBlue’s inflight entertainment on your recent flights. It is unfortunate when there is a malfunction of this kind, especially twice to the same valuable  customer! To make up for not having this complimentary service available on your flights, JetBlue  has issued an electronic $15 voucher to you per our Customer Bill of Rights. The information needed to redeem the voucher is below. Please be aware that JetBlue vouchers are nontransferable and may be redeemed online near the end of the booking process or when you call 1-800-JETBLUE (538-2583).

We hope the following link will provide you with all the information you will need regarding booking your reservation with a JetBlue voucher: (taken out so you don’t steal my monies)

We thank you for choosing JetBlue Airways for your jetting needs Mr. Kart, and we look forward to serving you again soon.

Sincerely,
Tammy
Customer Commitment Crew

Thanks Tammy. I don’t know who this MR. Kart is but I’m totally using his voucher!

PS- Please go visit Dooce and watch this. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE. Beware, its obscenely shocking and scary.

True Blood

Weeds

Gossip Girl

90210

Project Runway

Mad Men

Supernatural

and, um, Tabatha’s Salon Makeover.

I know what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas but thought I’d share some of my highlights…

My awesome suite at the Venetian

Spending time with out-of-town friends 

Dinners at David Burke. 2 words. Wedge Salad.

Stupid private jokes brought on by lack of sleep (rubber chicken microphones, having a conference, calling pedro back)

Post show massage at Canyon Ranch

So I know it seems like I didn’t leave the hotel. That’s because I didn’t. We got there Wednesday night and walked to the Wynn for dinner. After that we just grabbed dinner at the hotel after work, or went directly to bed.

Here is the single photo I took while there – It’s a pic of my friend Carolyn at Woo on our last night in Vegas. Shortly after ordering this drink we left because it was too hard to understand the menu.

Attn Woo: Your food is delicious but overpriced and confusing. CHEERS!

I don’t know what kind of insanity I was expecting but it was all very civilized.  We met at a coffee place to pick up our headset thingies and headed out. The tour guide was adorable and funny but for some reason the rest of our tour didn’t seem to think so. Before we even walked into the market she made a crack at Mark (apple is not a vegetable) and I knew we would be friends. I think the rest of the group had zero sense of humor and were only in it for the food and because their wives made them go. I mean we were only in it for the food too but come on now, they made no effort to have even a little fun which was kind of a drag. Anyway, first stop – Donuts.

Watch as Matthew makes it look like he is paying attention so people don’t notice he is going in for donut #2 or maybe #3. I don’t blame him! They were tiny, hot and sugary. Deeeelicious!

Of course we saw the place where they throw fish. It was loud and there were tons of people there but we did try some smoked salmon. I didn’t take any pictures because there were 500 people there taking pictures.

One of the rare vacation photos of me and I’m jamming a peach into my mouth. Luckily the fruit was already cut up because I’m the messiest fruit cutter ever. I think it is because of the shape of fruit. I can’t imagine its me.

Jess and Mark perfecting the LWC – Listening while chewing. We had to do alot of that.

There was of course a ton more walking/eating. We had some outrageously good clam chowder and I never thought I would say that. I’m still shocked! I dislike clams AND creamy soup but I didn’t want to look like a loser in front of the losers on the tour so I tried it. I guess if you are going to try it for the first time, you might as well try award winning hall of fame chowder. It was great in a teeny sample cup but I don’t know if I could eat a whole bowl. Other highlights included piroshkys (meh), cheese (amazing), and this ridiculous cherry and peach salsa that we ended up going back for after the tour ended.

It was a beautiful day and the tour was fun and informative about the history of the market. I’d definitely do another tour with them, possibly the Downtown Seattle one that started 3 days after we left…grrr. The group (of deadbeats) was a little bigger than I like but hey, that’s what we get for doing something touristy on a Sunday morning.

Since everyone reading this knows us I am assuming it’s also known that we just got back from a 2 week trip to Vancouver. More on that later. While we were there we drove to Seattle for the weekend to see good friends Jessica and Mark. We stayed at their awesome house on the top of a mountain about 20 minutes from downtown and silently (okay vocally) wished we lived there about 72 times in the 2 days we stayed there. They have wifi and chocolate milk. We almost moved into their guest room. 

We arrived Saturday around lunchtime ready to eat. Jess directed us to Lunchbox Laboratory in Ballard. Although I am not a huge burger fan Matthew is so it was pretty exciting stuff. When Jess brought it up he was sort of faking ambivalence but I knew inside he must have been all “OMG!OMGOMG!!TOTALLY!OMG!” Matthew and Mark both enjoyed their prime rib cheeseburgers and Jess and I split a regular burger and some fries. The place is adorable, tiny with mostly outdoor seating. I chatted for a few minutes with the owner who was astounded at how busy it has gotten but seriously, she cuckoo crazy cause its super awesome. Basically you choose your meat, then cheese and other toppings and sides. Then you um…choose your milkshake. Mark is obviously the smartest guy around because he ordered the nutella milkshake and choked back every last bit. I stuck with root beer because I knew where we were going after burgers and didn’t want to be too full. Very big mistake. I am still regretting that decision. NUTELLA! MILKSHAKE!

After we finished our burgers we had a bit of a back and forth about WHICH cupcake place to try. Jess recommended Trophy Cupcakes in Wallingford but I rallied for (and won) a visit to Cupcake Royale in Ballard which I had heard about a bazillion times. Ballard is a bit of a destination and is billed as the “Brooklyn of Seattle”. We walked around and window-shopped a bit and Jess talked me out of getting a green shellacked rock tea light holder as a souvenir of Fakewestcoast Brooklyn. As for Cupcake Royale…YUM! It definitely passes the delicious cupcake test. I was getting kind of worried about the West Coast after the Sprinkles debaucle of April ’08 but they were really really delicious. I’m not usually down with such a tiny icing-to-cake ratio but meh, what can you do. I totally forgot to get a photo of the storefront, or inside, or the cute tshirts, or us in the shop but here are the cupcakes!

So although Ballard is no Brooklyn it is definitely cool and I can’t wait to go back. While walking around we stopped into one of the galleries and Jess went all nutty-nuts over some Cakespy display. Apparently Cakespy is a thing I have never heard about. I quickly fell in love with her little pictures of cupcakes out and about and Jess bought me one to replace the green rock disaster! More pics to come on that and the rest of our exciting weekend.