I woke up New Years Day to my neighbors screaming at each other upstairs at 7am. It made me feel not so bad to be sleeping alone. Sometimes being alone isn’t such a bad thing!

So I spent my first weekend of 2009 in Puerto Rico on back to back layovers. I got to spend one layover by the beach laying alongside the pool working on my tan. The second layover I took a nice long walk along the old fort wall promenade at sunset and took pictures. It was certainly nice being in 75 degree weather, if only for a couple of days.

The ’09 career change plan has been put in place. I had my first informational interview this week with a woman I work with at The Phillips. It was sort of a trial, since I know her, but she did give me plenty to think about, as well as some connections to follow up on. I also have an interview next week with a marketing director at the Smithsonian. I also have sent emails to a few other people. I’m interesting in doing something combining tourism and arts promotion in DC.

I have big vacation plans for next month and its time to start thinking about my itinerary. I’ll be flying to Japan to visit a friend in Tokyo, and then he and I are going to go to Vietnam! I haven’t thought about it much, but its about 6 weeks away now and I just got a book on Tokyo from the library. I figure its time to take one last big “harrah” vacation with my flight benefits before I leave for something else.

The first half of this month I’m flying my behind off, but come the 17th, I am off for most of the month. I’ll be off just in time for the inauguration. I might be go down to the big to-do, but I also have friends that live 2 blocks from the security zone, so we may just sit and watch it on TV with our hot toddies and nearby bathroom. If it is sunny and mild, we may just step out a walk a few blocks over to see what is going on. It will be a pain to get around that day. The city is closing down all the bridges across the Potomac river and driving/parking will be horrible. I’ll be glad when its over!

Then its off to Kansas City to see Dad and Stephanie and see the Australia photos…

Christmas in Germany

So I recently got back from a trip to Germany to visit the Frankfurt Christmas market. Its not the most gemütlichkeit of markets (plunked right down in the middle of a busy shopping strasse) but hey, beggers can't be choosers. I did get my fill of gluewhein and sausage, tried some honey wine and schnaps and did some Christmas shopping. One of the main things I was on the prowl for was mulling spices for my wine, but apparently I was too early and the stores hadn't put it out yet. Luckily there is a German deli in DC that carries it!

My Christmas party last weekend was indeed as success. I was a little fretful when I woke up in the morning with sinus pain and thought briefly about cancelling. But a nap in the afternoon straightened things out. All in all about 35 people showed up and in the end only 1 bottle (out of 22) of wine was remaining along with a 1/2 liter of vodka. And there were no left overs to clean up!

So now is the run up to Christmas. I mailed all boxes last week and I have foregone cards this year. I just didn't feel like spending the money or time to do them. Maybe next year. If all goes well I'll get a standby seat on the last flight direct to KC on the 24th and then come back to DC on the 27th.

Christmas season is starting

and I haven't even gotten over Thanksgiving yet!
I woke up on Turkey day to cold but sunny skies. Elsa and I met John and Auggie for a walk around the cemetery and then Scott picked her up to take her up to Pennsylvania with him. I cleaned the bathroom. I spent the afternoon at the house of my friends Steve and Jayson and some of their friends. Had some great turkey and big slice of carrot cake for dessert. I could barely keep my eyes open at 4pm! Unfortunately, I wasn't in the position to just slide down to their basement for a nap. Things broke up around 5pm and I went home, where I promptly realized I was alone on a holiday and that was a bummer... The blues stuck with me all weekend during my trip to Calgary, but I'm perking up this week. Prior to Thanksgiving, I had called in sick with a headcold, and so took 12 days off. When I have too much time on my hands, I tend to over analyse things.
So now its time to look forward to a new month. So far I have 4 holiday parties lined up and decided to throw one of my own - why not! I'm hosting a gleuhwein (hot mulled German wine) party on the 14th. Now I need to figure out how to make it! For Christmas I am going to try and fly home to Kansas City (assuming my dad makes it back from Australia. He's flying on passes, so you never know....). I'll have back up plans in the event that I can't make it home since I don't want to sit around feeling blue all alone (Elsa will be in PA again).
Won't be doing any shopping this year. I'm keeping my $$ for myself! I find it amusing that the powers that be have just decided that we are in a recession... which started last December! I'm working tomorrow and then meeting with my career counselor friend on Friday to get started with a "networking" plan. Hopefully I can start networking at my first Christmas party!

Rami Kashou

Project Runway fans will be jealous: I was mere feet from Rami Kashou, season 4 runner-up. He was in town to speak at The Phillips Collection. The Phillips has a exhibition on right now from Christo and Jeanne-Claude, the "drapers" who were responsible for The Gates in Central Park two years ago. I had been working on the marketing campaign for the event as was excited to see that it was a full-house.

He spoke a bit about his life story, then took questions for 45 minutes or so. The best questions were asked by a few small children in the audience, including things like, "did you feel cheated when you didn't win"? The kids didn't beat around the bush.

I would have liked to hear him speak about how his work related to that of Christo and Jeanne-Claude (thereby tieing it into the exhibition) but I was pleasently surprised to hear him talk about his work and life in relation to the Palestinian occupation. He chose his words carefully, and steered clear of turning the event into a political discussion, but he did touch on the fact that his purpose in life, as he sees it, is to "exist" in spite of the turmoil in the world.

Yet another trip to Brussels

Keith, Eric and Britt

Yes, Brussels is getting old. But this trip was actually nice for once.
I flew to Brussels the day after my cruise (for work of course) and had the pleasure of flying with an (almost) all guy crew, several of whom I've known for several years.


After a relaxing afternoon at the coffeehouse down the street, we headed downtown to the Reserve, a bar just off the Grand Place owned by a UA customer service agent.
Someone was having a birthday. Never did quite figure out who that was, but hey I got some birthday cake, so I was happy. After a multitude of beer rounds, none of which I had to pay for, we looked a bit different than on the plane:

So we headed back to the Place for a light dinner. This is my favorite old-town square in all of Europe, and everytime I am here something is different. I think they are stringing up the lights in anticipation of the Christmas market which will start in a few weeks:

The Cruise

Yes I know I'm behind....

After a lovely lunch with some facebook acquaintances on the 24th (and an unsuccessful shopping expedition for a new swimsuit) I flew down to Fort Lauderdale on Sat the 25th and immediately ran into Michael from Rhode Island in line, which was an auspicious start to a nice week. The ship, Holland America's Eurodam, was nice (and brand new) but they were short staffed and not on top of their game and it was apparent from day one unfortunately, as my room wasn't cleaned properly when I arrived and I don't think I met my cabin steward, well, ever during the cruise. Most of the time they are there to greet you as you walk in your cabin and point out the amenities. Not that that was necessary for my inside cabin. I found the lightswitch on my own.

This was my third cruise with Aquafest, which does gay group charters on mainstream ships. Rather than chartering the ship (as some groups do), they put together large groups (we were 350, down from last year due to the economy) at prices more economical (for my wallet at least) than whole-ship charters. We had our own private parties every night, plus afternoon t-dances, which I usually skipped because it coincided with my naptime. The fun straight folk are often bummed out the they aren't "allowed" in - its kind of funny...

The day goes something like this: get up, eat stewed prunes (my ship tradition), work out, lay by pool, eat, lay buy pool, nap, get up for cocktail hour, have cocktails, dinner, change for party, attend the evenings party (with cocktails), roll into bed in the morning.

Our dinner/cocktail group: Michael, Michael, Eric, Greg Paul and Scotty.


Me with Michael and Scotty from Houston.

I only got off the ship twice. In San Juan, Michael and I took a day trip to El Yunque, the only rainforest in the National Park Service (a factoid for your next trivia game). We had a nice hike, and believe it or not, it rained on us the moment we got out of the van (I had to remind myself I was in a rainforest after all).


The big party of the week was of course the halloween costume party. I have included some of my favorites below:

All I could think of was a washed-up Whitney Houston


The Andy sisters as Alpine milk maids...


The Twisted sisters, who packed blue knee high plastic go-go boots and managed to find a use for them in each costume night.

There is a big contest with cash prizes. If they had a category for most inexpensive, last-minute costume I would have entered with my toga. As I was neither particularly creative nor outlandish, I watched the parade from the sidelines...

My second venture off the ship was to Holland America's private Caribbean island for some beach time (had to put my foot in sand at some point).

I thought I would be sad to come home, but unlike years past, I felt fairly calm and truth be told I was exhausted! It was nice to come home and sleep in my own bed, if for only one night before I had to go to work again...

Buy one Get one Free

Greetings from Washington, D.C. on a beautiful Saturday afternoon, where I should be outdoors, but instead am inside blogging.
Elsa was kind enough to let me sleep in until 7:36am this morning before putting her wet nose in my face. My bed is a platform style, so my head is directly at her eye/nose level. My last bed sat up much higher, so she couldn't nose me, but she did have a knack for half-jumping up on the bed, and a wet nose is a more gentle way to wake up.
We had a nice morning at the cemetery and then I had something of a first: using the grocery store circular and using coupons!
Now I know in theory that coupons are a good thing and get you stuff, but I never really paid much attention to them, chiefly because I wasn't the one doing the cooking, nor did I really need to think about watching my money. Well of course that has changed, and so the last couple of weeks I've actually started to pay attention to the ads in the food section of Wednesday's Washington Post. Imagine my excitement when I saw that Harris Teeter was having a buy one, get one free sale and Safeway was having Redskins weekend specials! Conveniently, both stores are only one block apart and both have parking. Highlights of Harris Teeter were the buy one get one free laundry detergent and coffee. Safeway sold me 2 jars of pasta sauce (already on sale for $4) and then threw in two free boxes of pasta. I then used an additional $10 in coupons.All told, I saved over $55 off list prices for things I purchased today, and I am now a confirmed coupon clipper!!!
Spent a couple days in Brussels this week. After running all over in Argentina last week I was in the mood to relax, and I never made it past the cafe on the corner down from the hotel. The evening was spent watching a DVD I checked out from the library (free too - see a theme here??) called The Kingdom with Jamie Fox and Jessica Garner. It started out as a political thriller, segwayed into an action/adventure and ended on a real bleak note that really made me take pause. I actually spent an hour watching the DVD extras and apparently they created a much tamer (tho not happier) ending because they thought audiences couldn't handle the ending as written. I agree!
Sat with some worksheets that my neighbor dogwalker Peter gave me to start thinking about career changes. He works as a career coach and is not cheap, but has agreed to cut me a deal on his hourly rate and work with me ala carte so that I get just the things I want, which are really help with a resume and trying to determine how to package my skills in sussinct language. And he's encouraging me to dream big and not settle for a "stepping stone" job, at least not right away. I've gleaned from my writings that what I really like about my job now is the travel and the freedom I get from not being bound to a desk. But there are quite a few negatives as well and there are all sorts of new career opportunities that would let me travel and not be stuck at a company with its morale in the crapper. I worked on a 747 this week (and will again the day after tomorrow) and we are now feeding business class passengers snack boxes; its totally embarassing when you consider that other airlines, like Continental, are still serving hot meals in coach.. for free!
So that about all the news I have this week. Just lounging on the chaise listening to my tunes thinking the house is starting to feel like home....