Frankenstorm Strikes DC

Hi friends!  Sorry for the prolonged absence, but Hurricane Sandy kind of threw a monkey wrench in the first two days of this week.  See how I always come up with great excuses for being a bad blogger?!

First, I'll talk about the weekend.  Dan went home for the weekend again, so I spent some quality time with family and friends over the weekend.  On Friday night, I went to a goodbye happy hour for my good friend Maggie, who I have known since second grade.  She is leaving DC to go traipse around Southeast Asia for a few months, and will then be back in Western MA for a bit while she applies to grad school.  It was nice to get to see her one last time before her trip.  Lauren and I then met up with some other friends at Mad Hatter for a late happy hour/dinner (a.k.a. me inhaling one of their happy hour-size pizzas because I hadn't had lunch and was ravenous).  I went home and got a good night of sleep in preparation for an 8-mile run on Saturday morning, followed by moving Lauren in to her amazing new apartment.  Luckily, she and her old roommates had done the bulk of the work the previous weekend, but there was still some heavy lifting involved.  Afterward, I was again ravenous (do you sense a theme?) because I hadn't had time to grab food after my run/before moving.  I went to the grocery store and stocked up, and spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning the apartment, doing laundry and eating.  I felt particularly domestic that day haha.

On Saturday night, I went to a house party with some girlfriends of mine, which ended up being really fun!  I had been debating my costume for a few days prior to that, and was having trouble coming up with something.   I really didn't want to go the short and sexy route (it's funny how having a boyfriend makes you question re-wearing Halloween costumes of the past haha), so I began rifling through my winter clothes to find inspirtaiton...when I happened upon a beret.  Right then and there, it was decided that I would be French (several people, Dan included, pointed out later that I should have gone all-out and been a mime, but that would have involved painting my face, which I did not have the slightest interest in haha). After the party, some people in the group decided that they wanted to walk to H Street, which was about a 25-minute walk away, much farther than advertised.  We spent about 10 minutes at H Street Country Club and then cabbed back to Lauren's, where we slept on the floor of the empty apartment.

On Sunday morning, delirious from lack of sleep, I went about my normal daily routine (gym, shower, breakfast) before metroing over to my parents' house.  We went to mass and then hung out in front of the fireplace in the living room as the weather grew more and more ominous outside.  While watching some football (full disclosure: I was half-watching), we thumbed through old photo albums, offering a running commentary.  I knew I was a large baby/child, but I hadn't remembered that, when I wore shoes as a baby, they cut off the circulation in my Christmas ham legs.  Jeez louise, was I ever a porker!  After dinner, as it started to rain, they drove me back home, so that I could be there waiting when Dan got back.  When I had texted him about getting together on Monday, he suggested that he just come over on his way home and stay, since we were most likely going to have to hunker down during the hurricane.

We spent the next two days hunkered down, rarely leaving my apartment (I went to my amazing gym, which stayed open throughout the storm, both Monday and yesterday, and Dan and I made a last-minute grocery store run before Whole Foods closed when I realized that, while I had enough food to make dinner on Monday, I didn't have anything to make on Tuesday.  I am a grazer, so I could have gotten by just fine, but I felt like Dan was going to need something a little more substantial!).  Even though we were both working throughout Monday and Tuesday, it was so nice to have him sitting on one couch and me on the other, working away and taking the occasional break to show each other something funny (or something less funny, like a picture of the storm's damage).  We both focused on work during business hours, but, after that, we turned the focus to each other.  We ate lots of yummy food (seriously, thank God the gym was open!) and watched lots of funny shows (episodes of Modern Family and Celebrity Jeopardy), which helped distract us from the storm that was raging outside.  Despite some brief flickering of lights and having to bail water out of my balcony a few times, we really lucked out, neither losing power nor having to deal with a flooded apartment.  We were fortunate to be able to cook yummy food (okay, I cooked and Dan helped/provided moral support).  And, moreover, we got to spend some wonderful quality time together.  We both remarked last night at how much fun we had had (despite having to work during the day and being confined to the house) just hanging with each other at home.  I was really glad to have him there with me, and there is no one else I would rather be house-bound with during a hurricane :)  That said, hopefully we can go a little while without another one!

I hope you all survived the storm okay!  I am keeping family and friends in the NJ/NY area in my prayers especially, as I know that they all bore the brunt of the storm.