Brightwash

Anna-Claire turned 30 and had a party at her adorable new house. There was a “Gods Must be Crazy” costume theme, hence some of the strange party-wear. Ginny, as always the amazing gift giver, gave us both metal prints, mine was of Chuck! I love sharing my birthday with Anna-Claire every year. It’s like having a well spoken, older and more respectable twin.

For my birthday in Virginia Beach – Mike, Mike & Emily took me out for sushi at Kanpai. We got to eat at the floor table!

Mike’s friends Parker and Leah got married at this crazy Japanese garden I never new existed in Virginia Beach. It was a small family wedding and I was honored that I got to be there. At the reception a standard poodle climbed the fence to hold my hand.

Earlier this month we went down to Wilmington, NC to get Mike’s gigantic tattoo started. I really like the illustration and I think Mike will be really happy with it, he’s already delighted with the line work.

July 4th has always been a good time for me, rowdy weddings, bbq (the sides), bean salad, fireworks, gin and tonics, swimming… but this year I was totally beat from the move, work, life. The fun must go on apparently – we managed to celebrate Marie and Tommy’s 1st anniversary, go to a drag show, start a garden (we live upstairs? we’ll see), go to another BBQ, watch 3 movies about midgets (Troll, Troll 2, and Willow), AND find this rare dead puffer fish on the beaches of Virginia Beach. We also found this lovely dog, he played fetch in the water for hours.

Carried away with the filters, my apologies. My apartment complex has a nice big pool, so some friends came up / down for a pool day. Mike made mojitos and grilled for us.

I like to ring in my summer in the rain with a beer pyramid, mad libs and Marie Garrenton

Ginny turned 27 this week. A-C made a Mighty Boosh themed birthday dinner at Kobe on Friday. I think Ginny liked it – so it was a success! I think Japanese steakhouses are fun even though I don’t eat the meat.

More weddings for me and Mike this fall, good wedding times. Tim and Alisha got married in Roanoke last month! They had a fun, pretty reception in their cute backyard. There was a candy table, pirate costume and Dan Mills - the only thing missing was Satchel. I had never been to Roanoke before, they have hills! Our hotel had breathtaking views of high end signage.

Wednesday is my favorite day of the work week because usually someone comes to visit me in the ‘burg. Today I had 2 real visitors! (Marie and Annie) and 1 virtual! (Anna-Claire). I need to take a cue from A-C and light my home with something other than TVs and laptop. :/

Mike had a birthday this weekend! I made him open his presents while he was still asleep and we went to Animal Jungle and had parrot times. Well, Mike did – I found the giant bird room really intimidating – I think Mike will secretly go back this week. We had dinner with his friends and watched “Starcrash” – a dubbed shitty ass space movie from the 70’s. There was a redneck robot in the movie, Elle – I wonder if he had the equivalent of a foreign hillbilly accent in the original (Italian?) version?

In June Marie had a bridal tea – it was soo pretty (and hot out)! The lovely ladies from her church prepared delicious teas, sandwiches, treats, and punch. This tea party got me crazed on cucumber sandwiches, but after reading an intimidating Wikipedia article I gave up on my dream of only eating cucumber sandwiches.

Also in June I was able to attend Drupal Design Camp at MIT in Boston. It was a quick trip, and I learned a lot in spite of my failed laptop and met some very fun Drupal people. This was the first major design/front-end event for Drupal I believe, and it was much needed as there are many mysteries in designing/theming for Drupal. If interested, this is the session list complete with slides and videos (if available).

Marie then got married! It was quite a party for a Thursday.

In July I had a birthday (we had no six candles!). Then my dad and I went to the beach and he and Annie helped me move into my new apartment in Williamsburg!

Now I’m in my new place! Mike put together my dining room table, it’s solid as a rock. We had pool times this weekend and found some mexican food. It’s kind of lonely but I’m sure I’ll get used to it, I’ve lived alone before I can do it again! Soon Seven will be here and hopefully she won’t quit me and pee on everything.

Ginny threw me and A-C an awesome birthday bbq! She is quite the hostess, gift giver, and party planner.

I’m having a really good (busy) time. This is Annie and Shelley hitting the water with Marie on her wedding night. I won’t say I feel like I’m in high school again, because I don’t! But it’s nice to see good things happening for all your old friends.

I guess “biphasic” is another word for sleepy bum, which is what I am. Thank you Wikipedia. A lot of things have happened and are happening. I am pleased to announce Kelly got married, there were kebabs. She has also upped her blogging efforts. I met Laura’s baby Oliver. Mike met everyone he didn’t know already. Ginny lived in a beach house last week and invited me and A-C for a visit. I got us lost in Virginia Beach, but we did eventually make it. We ate tacos and swam and listened to my $5 boom box.

I am having a really annoying “quarter-life” crisis that I guess should have happened last year (when I turned 25, I plan to live to 100 and that’s it) – I whine at Mike and anyone who will listen about my future. Someone punch in the face.

Happening: My dad has a birthday this Friday! This is huge if you know about his no good very bad year. He is a champion! This weekend I’m going to Boston for Drupal Design Camp at MIT. I’ve never been to Boston, too bad it will be a quick trip. Then after that my good friend Marie gets partied, tea’ed and married.

Ginny at the beach in her saucy robe

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LOL Grey Gardens – Courtesy of Jezebel. Pictures of the house when Little Edie sold it (bonus captions!)

Muxtape – is back! For now it is only for artists, and they’ve created this awesome 3 x endless grid of squares. Love layout limitations, people do much more interesting things when they have few options!

Susan Year Itch – Susan’s renamed movie blog. I helped make this!

Paul Gilbert – this is a guitarist Mike likes. He insisted his site was bad/crazy in a good way and it is. A tangled awesome web of pages. Real funny – see Sentences.

Kelly is getting married next week! Her bachelorette party was real fun. Small amounts of food and large amounts of alcohol… and hallway dancing boyz club. 3 years later things look pretty much the same – minus the degrees, home ownership and marriages. (Theirs not mine, I have regressed!)

This weekend I did notable(?) stuff. Friday night I got to go see Girl Talk at the Norva with Mike, wasn’t sure what to expect but it was great! My shoe broke as soon as we got inside and I had to hobble about, but it’s ok I’m no dancer. Saturday we made sushi for the first time and it worked! Our fillings were salmon, asparagus, avocado and cucumber. We also had sake and it tasted like rubbing alcohol. Next time I am going to try to make it with the rice on the outside. Annie and Flza came down for the evening and we watched Slumdog Millionaire against Flza’s will. I was underwhelmed.

This weekend was great! It started out with a new work chair on Friday, followed by party potatoes and vodka with Mike. Saturday I had a voicemail from my friend Tim saying he was in town for the Shamrock marathon. I got to meet his fiance Alisha, and Pete and his lady were there as well! We helped them carbo-load for the race at a sushi restaurant and then we played video games at Flipper McCoys.

We went to Dick’s this weekend too and I fell in love with this pedal boat – I mean I really really want this thing. Unfortunately, I think I need a lake/pond, a trailer and a car more powerful than a Saturn to realize my pedal boat dreams. So maybe I’ll just get a bicycle for summer. Dick’s also made me want to go camping, Annie and Flza said they were down! I don’t have any gear though, anyone know of good/cool/cheap camping gear, or have advice? Where should we go?