Drumroll Please...

Okay, I know you've all been on the edge of your seats since yesterday (ha!), so now that everything is confirmed, I can share that Dan and I are going here next month:

Faneuil Hall and Waterfront

Beacon Hill

Make Way for Ducklings, Commons

Fenway!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! In case you hadn't guessed, WE'RE GOING TO BOSTON for a long weekend in July!!!!!!! I am utterly and completely failing at containing my excitement at this point, so I can only imagine how much I'll be smiling once we get there!  As I'm sure I've mentioned, I am a true New Englander at heart, so any chance to go home, especially now that my family lives in D.C., is a welcome one.  We are going both to visit Boston itself and to visit Dan's younger sister, who I have yet to meet (she is in college and, thus, is always away at school when I see the rest of his family).  I'm really excited to meet her, as well as to show off my home state to Dan.  A little over a month to go!  I really can't wait!  July is going to be a fabulous month :) 

The Little Victories in Life

As you could probably tell from my post on Tuesday, I was really bumming hard about the possibility of having to pay nearly $200 in charges from physical therapy on my knee that I got two years ago.  Theresa, the wonderful, wonderful woman from the hospital's billing department, called me at the end of the day on Tuesday, both to let me know that she was still working on getting ahold of the insurance company, and also to make sure I was having a better day.  I was so appreciative of her kindness throughout this entire process, and made no secret of that to her.  It is people like her, working in a field where many others are very snippy and rude, that make a difference.

I got a massage on Tuesday evening, thanks to a gift certificate that Dan got me for our anniversary.  I am generally not the type of person who loves receiving gifts (if you will remember from a few posts ago, the receiving of gifts is not one of my love languages!), but Dan's gift was so incredibly thoughtful, and who was I to turn down a massage?!  I had been meaning to use it for a while and sort of randomly settled on that date.  Little did I know that I would actually be in need of a massage (and maybe a few cocktails as well) after the nightmare of earlier in the day.  The venue was incredible, and so serene, so that definitely put me in the right frame of mind going into my massage.  The massage essentially ended up being a sports massage since, as a runner, I have a lot of kinks that need to be worked out (much of this is due to my aversion to stretching, which I know is something I need to take the time to do).  She went to town on my IT bands, which are incredibly tight, as are my quads, apparently.  The masseuse was applying "medium" pressure, as a result of which I had to summon all of my self-control to not cry out in pain (I was wondering to myself the world of pain that I would have been in had I elected for higher pressure).  Nonetheless, it WAS very relaxing, and I was actually so relaxed that I felt really lightheaded afterward.  I had to stop at CVS on the way home, but it was all with the knowledge that Indian food and the latest episode of The Bachelorette awaited me once I got home (I'm not even ashamed to say that I have watched every episode of this season).  It was the perfect end to what started out as a less-than-perfect day!

At the end of the day yesterday, Theresa called me to say that everything had been resolved, that the copayments that they were showing me as having paid canceled out all of the charges that I was being told that I owed.  I made sure that that applied to the month that I still have not been billed for, and she insisted that it did.  However, I am incredibly doubtful that the book is fully closed on this one.  I made sure to put Theresa's direct line in my phone should I be unnecessarily billed again.  I had an overwhelming amount of relief yesterday that these charges, at least for the moment, appear to be resolved.  However, I am still waiting to hear about those pesky x-rays.  If I can escape these two incidents without owing a cent, I will consider myself very lucky.

As usual, this weekend is already getting packed with activities, but I'm looking forward to it!  I think it will be a nice mixture of time with family, friends and Dan.  Also, tomorrow I will have a very special announcement.  No, this isn't what you think it is; I am not engaged/pregnant/moving/getting a new job/going to grad school, or whatever else you might think it might be about.  But you'll have to wait until tomorrow to find out what it is :)

Insurance Woes

So it's been a while since my epic showdown with Comcast, and I guess the universe decided to spice up my life a little bit.  I was just floating along easily, filling my mornings before work with reading my many books rather than making daily, hourlong phone calls to Comcast.  So maybe my life was getting just a little bit too easy.

On Sunday afternoon, after a weekend away from my apartment, I came home to find an explanation of benefits from my current insurance provider for an x-ray that I got last July (Question #1: Why am I getting this nearly a year later?  Great question!  That has yet to be determined. Question #2: Why am I being charged for an x-ray when my insurance is supposed to cover all of it, especially since I had a written prescription from my doctor that I brought down to radiology with me?  Another great question!  Apparently, my insurance requires the doctor to submit a pre-certification form for all outpatient radiology services.  Thus, they now want me to pay because the doctor failed to submit that form, not only for that July x-ray, but also for one that I had in November, which I have not yet been billed for.  I am cursing myself for getting running injuries.)

Last night, I had a bill from the hospital waiting for me, which I assumed was related to the x-ray.  WRONG!  It was ACTUALLY related to the physical therapy that I received TWO YEARS AGO when I had a knee injury!  I paid the copays for this physical therapy (out-of-pocket and with itemized receipts, to be reimbursed later by insurance) at the time of service, and they were telling me that I owed $30.  Well, $30 is obviously not that much, but I called the hospital's billing services office to get more information about where this charge could have been coming from and why I was being hit with it now.  The customer service rep that I spoke to was the nicest person I have ever interacted with in the healthcare sector.  She said that, although I could certainly just pay the $30 and be done with it, she would recommend that I call my previous healthcare provider to hear their side of things and maybe get the charge removed. 

Well, I called them, and they told me that, not only am I responsible for that $30 charge, I also owe $150 for service in June.  WTF???????  I called the rep at the hospital back, sobbing over the phone, and she was so incredibly sweet.  She told me that she would look into it personally for me and see if we could come up with a solution together.  Thank God for this absolute saint, Theresa.

I guess it just really took the wind out of my sails to think that all of my debts to society are paid and then be told, in two separate incidents two days apart, that I owe over $300, all of those charges that I do not believe that I owe.  I was telling my coworker about it this morning, because she heard my sobs from my office as I talked to Theresa, and she said, "Wow, you make me not want to go to the doctor, ever."  Now that I know that I have a proclivity for tendonitis as a result of my running, I will not be going in for any more x-rays and wasting my time and money.  Okay, my rant is over.  Hopefully I will have a much happier post next time!

There are two bright spots to this otherwise crummy day: 1) this hilarious video that my coworker shared with me; and 2) the fact that I am getting my massage after work.  I couldn't have picked a better day for it in terms of needing to work out some tension!

We Survived the (non) Tornado!

This weekend, I tried out a lot of new places, or just generally had very quintessentially D.C. experiences, which left me with a smile on my face by the end of the weekend. 

On Friday evening, just as I was getting ready to leave work, we were ordered (by a screaming, upper-level administrator, the same one who flipped out during the earthquake last August) to seek shelter in the parking garage, since there was a tornado in the vicinity.  I was completely unaware that there was even a tornado threat, and despite the insistence of both staff members and Georgetown's emergency alert system that tornadoes were headed for Northwest D.C., the tornadoes did not hit anywhere close to the city.  But, thanks to that administrator's reaction, my heart started beating a few ticks quicker.

Having survived the non-earthquake, I made it over to Dan's in one piece, and, after getting caught in the rain both on the way to and from dinner, we checked out H St., where we met up with some of his friends.  Now, I had heard good things about H St., particularly that it was a pretty lively place.  However, I did not anticipate the rain keeping everyone inside, because it was like a GHOST TOWN there!  Definitely not as lively as I was expecting.  We went to a Biergarten (and yes, I kept pronouncing it like I was German for the entire night haha).  It was a cool place- or, rather, I could see it being cool if there had been more people there.

On Saturday morning, we took a nice run.  It was the first time I had done a run from Dan's place before, so he took me on his normal loop (at the end of which I was totally spent; ask Dan and he will tell you the same hahaha).  Once showered and changed, we headed over to Georgetown, both because Dan needed to pay a visit to the Apple Store to fix his never-used work phone (which took over an hour and was incredibly painful) and because we had planned to check out Taste of Georgetown.  I had attended Taste of Georgetown a few falls ago and really enjoyed it, as many of the neighborhood's best restaurants have a limited tasting menu there.  I had forgotten how difficult it can be for me at food festivals like that one, both due to my vegetarianism and the fact that I am allergic to nuts and shellfish.  There were two gazpacho dishes, both of which sounded great to me...but they had either pesto or crab, so those were a no-go.  I ended up finding a delicious polenta dish and some falafel, and Dan loaded up on sliders and a pulled pork sandwich.  Then came the fun part, dessert.  I had seen a sign for a Filomena dessert, a raspberry chocolate mousse cake, that sounded divine, and I hoped more than anything that it was nut-free.  When I pranced triumphantly back to Dan with my piece of nut-free cake in hand, he said that I looked completely gleeful...probably because I was.  That cake was quite the experience.  Dan also enjoyed his slice of blackberry pie.

After finishing up at the Apple Store, we braved the crowds at the Natural History Museum before getting so overwhelmed by tourists and exhaustion that we went back home.  The only time we left the apartment for the rest of the night was to go to Dairy Queen.  Obviously.  We couldn't bring ourselves to walk up the hill to go to dinner (we got delivery), but we managed to work up enough strength to drive about 20 minutes to DQ.  The fact that we were on the same page about the importance of DQ is one of the reasons why I love Dan so much :)

On Sunday morning, when he hit the links, I met up with my dear friend Cat, who I studied abroad with in Strasbourg and is now in D.C. for the summer.  We grabbed a yummy brunch at New Orleans Cafe in Admo, and then I got to see the INCREDIBLE place she is staying in for the summer (seriously, I was so jealous).  She is one of those friends who, due to the fact that she has been living in Europe for the past few years, I do not get to see nearly enough, but we always pick up right where we left off the previous time.  I am so lucky to have met her, and look forward to many adventures together in D.C. this summer!

The rest of my Sunday was decidedly lazy, complete with my customary trip to the gym, cleaning the apartment, doing multiple loads of laundry and catching up with Allie, one of my very best friends, via Skype.  Due to the fact that we are both incredibly busy, we had tried, and failed, to schedule a Skype date since my birthday, so we chatted for about two hours.  Talk about someone who you can really start back up again with as though it has been no time at all since you last spoke.  She is a truly wonderful friend, and I am so lucky to have her in my life.

This week is (shocker) another busy one for me.  I have a massage tomorrow (I am finally cashing in the wonderfully thoughtful anniversary gift that Dan gave me back in March), which I couldn't be more excited for!  Sometimes, a girl just needs a massage!  Also, we have decided that we're officially going to Boston in July!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am so delighted to be going back to my beloved Massachusetts, if only for a long weekend, so I will undoubtedly be bouncing off the walls until then!

A Lesson to Learn from Peggy Olson

**SPOILER ALERT: If you, like me, did not watch this week's Mad Men episode, do not read this post**

Okay, now that that's settled...Dan and I haven't watched this episode yet and, while I did not set out to spoil it for myself, this article, which I found on Huff Post Women, seemed to good to pass up.  I re-watched Miss Representation last night with two dear friends (click here for my original post on the movie) and it inspired a really thought-provoking discussion.

One of the main points that the film makes is that women, because we are beaten down by the media, which constantly tells us that we are just not adequate enough to be the "ideal woman," do not seek leadership positions in government, business, and entertainment.  As we were discussing the movie afterward, we all had the same underlying concern: none of the three of us wants to be a CEO of a major multinational corporation or the first female president.  We don't feel that way because the media has beaten our self-esteem to a pulp (although we're not denying that it can have that effect); we simply do not aspire to positions like that.  After watching the movie, we felt as though the expectation was that we burn our bras, throw away our makeup and march to The Hill to begin our political careers in earnest.  Is there something wrong with us for not wanting that for ourselves?

However, in reading the article above, I extracted some pearls of wisdom that I found to be helpful in answering this question.  No, we do not need to aspire to those top positions, but we DO need to understand what our market value is, and we DO owe it to ourselves to demand the compensation that we deserve, which directly correlates to our market value.  The article points out (and I would completely agree with this) that men have an inflated sense of self, and will always try to negotiate more money for themselves, while women, having neither a knowledge of what they are worth nor a desire to rock the boat with new colleagues by demanding more money and appearing "demanding" or "bitchy" from the outset, do not negotiate in the same way that men do.  How does this tie back to Mad Men?  Well, Peggy, after years of mistreatment (getting passed over by male colleagues, some of them less talented, on accounts, and having these same men take credit for the work that IS rightly hers), sees the delight and decides to jump ship from Sterling, Cooper, Draper & Price.  Again, I have not watched this episode yet, but I imagine that I will be cheering.  However, the problem is that, after having been beaten down by her male colleagues for years and being subtly reminded of her second-class citizenship based solely on her gender, has no earthly idea how much she is worth and, thus, goes into the job search unprepared.

The author suggests that the best way for women to educate ourselves is to research what women in comparable positions are earning so that we can go into job interviews with a solid number in mind, as well as a number of reasons as to why we are worthy of that amount of compensation (because we still, in this day and age, have to justify that to some people).  Be your own advocate, ladies!!!

Oh Mad Men...despite the fact that its characters sometimes make me want to rip my hair out (Dan and I both agree that, if a character were to be killed off sometime this season, we would want it to be either Pete Campbell, a truly despicable and miserly creature, or Betty, who, for all intents and purposes, is still a five year-old child) and the dialogue exhibits such blatant misogynism, racism and classism, I can't help but be glued to the television screen.  I am very intrigued by Megan, who, other than Peggy, is the strongest recurring female character on the show, so I continue to watch, despite Pete's philandering and incessant self-pitying whining and Betty's childish behavior.     

The Official Start of Summer!!!

Gosh, with how hectic this weekend was, I feel like I need another long weekend to relax!!! It started off with our summer favorite, Jazz in the Sculpture Garden.  In case some of you don't know how this came to be an obsession of mine, a few weeks after graduation two years ago, Lauren said that she had heard good things about it and that we should try it.  Thanks to the combination of relaxing by the fountain (since we were both working part-time at that point, we had ample time to get there early enough to nab prime seats by the fountain), sipping the sangria that is completely overpriced but entirely worth it, and chatting while we listened to soft jazz, we were hooked, and went essentially every week that summer.  And from there, our obsession was born.  I look back on that experience very fondly, since Lauren and I were some of the only girls from our college friend group still in the city, so we did essentially everything together.  It was one of our fun little adventures together, and now we have been able to expand the group :)

Jazz with the girls!

My parents pretending that they don't know they're in the picture haha.  Love them

So anyway, my mom had been kind enough to save seats for us, and I was able to leave the office early enough to meet up with her and chat before everyone else (Dan, a group of my girlfriends, and my dad) arrived.  It was a beastly hot day, but my mom (unable to indulge in her favorite activity, tanning, since she is on an antibiotic and being in the sun for five minutes makes her feel as though her skin is burning off) had gotten us seats under the tree, so it was really refreshing.  It was great to see all of the girls, some of whom I hadn't seen in a while.  So, for me, Friday, the first day of Jazz, marked the official start of summer.  Afterward, we went and checked out the amazing view of the city from my dad's office building, before grabbing some beach supplies (cooler, umbrella) from them and stopping at the grocery store to buy lunch for our beach trip on Saturday.

View from atop my dad's office building

We were up at an ungodly hour for a Saturday (5:15) in the hopes of making it to Rehoboth without getting caught in gridlock traffic.  Luckily, that early-morning wake-up call (yes, even though I wake up earlier than that during the week, it was painful for me) paid off, and we didn't hit ANY traffic...phew!  The most difficult part of the trip was finding parking meters where you could park for more than three hours at a time (Dan, wonderful guy that he is, volunteered to leave the beach every three hours to move the car, but I refused to let him do that, pointing out that, by the time he would be moving the car, it would probably be impossible to find another spot.  When we were leaving, he acknowledged the wisdom in that rationale, because there was not a spot to be found!).  We were finally able to find a spot on a side street where you could park for ten hours, AND we utilized the app with which you can pay for parking, thus not having to worry about getting change.  Genius, truly genius!  Anyway, we found our little spot on the beach and set up camp for the day.  All in all, we were there for about seven hours, so we got some good reading time in and had ourselves a nice little picnic lunch.  It even got warm enough (it reached the low 80s by mid-day) that we went in the water.  Now, I am a total water lover- when we go to the Lake, I will often swim for hours on end- but my rational side was telling me that it was still late May, and that, naturally, the water would be frigid.  However, when you have been laying out for several hours, you throw caution to the wind and go in.  It was, predictably, shockingly cold at first, but felt wonderful once we went under.  After we left the beach, we decided to skope out the rooftop mini-golf course that we had spotted from the beach.  I had also been wanting to challenge Mr. Golf for a while :)  Sadly, I still lost, which I will blame both on the fact that he is a better golfer than me and on the fact that I hit my leg on a cement brick and my leg was gushing blood on the back 9.  Obviously that was the primary reason for my loss haha.  So, while I owe Dan a homemade dinner and certainly lost some of my pride (not to mention some skin on my leg), I DID win a free game at the end.

You can kind of see some of our sunburns in this one (and also the hordes of people on the beach in the background)

After a much-needed shower when we got back home (at this point, we realized the extent of what turned out to be pretty terrible sunburns; seriously, come Sunday morning, we were both moving pretty gingerly), we went to Georgetown for dinner, which, despite the number of people on the street, was actually kind of deserted.  That is one of the things I loved about this weekend; it seemed like hardly anyone was here, which made getting into retaurants a breeze!  We had dinner at Ristorante Piccolo on Saturday night and waltzed right in, as we did at brunch at Martin's the next morning.  We were able to make it to an earlier mass because we got breakfast in such a timely manner! 

I ended up spending Sunday night at my parents' house, which is always a nice change of scenery (particularly since I had not seen them in a few weeks).  We went to an adorable and delicious French restaurant called Bastille in Alexandria (kind of off the beaten path, so you it wasn't mobbed like the places on King St. tend to be) and then just relaxed at home, just what I needed.  On Monday morning (bonus day! Yay!), I met Dan for breakfast at Ted's Bulletin, which I have raved about time and time again.  Once again, the pop tarts did not disappoint, even though the service, sadly, did.  I went back to my parents' house for a quick workout before heading to a barbecue at my friend Maggie's.  The barbecue was a lot of fun and there was some great food, but man, did the stiflingly hot weather take a lot out of me!  I was only drinking water because I was feeling dehydrated, but I had to go inside and lay on the couch for a few minutes because I was feeling a bit lightheaded.  Oh well, 'tis the season...

I collapsed in an exhausted heap into my bed last night, because, even though many of the weekend's activities involved just "hanging out," the combination of the heat and the sheer volume of commitments tuckered me out.  That said, I can't wait for the craziness that I'm sure this summer will bring!!!  Sorry to the return to long posts...

Some Laughter at My Own Expense

I have had some highly weird things happen this week, so I felt like I had to give you all a nice laugh on this lovely Friday.

To start with, I was rifling through my wallet on Tuesday to find my ID so I could get on the bus, and what should I find but someone else's credit card....?  In a panic, I feverishly checked for all of my own cards, only to find that they were all present and accounted for.  This was a serious head scratcher, being that I am not in the habit of stealing other people's credit cards.  So then I did a little bit of investigating.  I looked the person up on Facebook, hoping that I would be able to find them.  In fact, she and I had a mutual friend, Patrick (one of the people whose going-away party I went to last Saturday night), so I immediately figured that, when I went to close out my tab at the first bar we went to, they must have accidentally slipped another card under mine without me realizing it...until three days later. 

I sent her a Facebook message, apologizing profusely and providing her with my idea of what could possibly have happened.  I told her that I was sure that she had already canceled her card, but that I would be happy to return it to her, and that I swore on my life that I had not used it.  She sent me a very nice message back, saying that she appreciated the message, even though she had already canceled her card.  So yeah, that was the day when I randomly ended up with someone else's credit card (after unknowingly having walked around with it for three days)...oops.

Incident #2 occurred last night, when a group of us went out to dinner at Rasika to celebrate (or mourn?) Colleen's final night in DC.  At one point during dinner, she turned to me and said, "Oh, guess what I found when I was packing up the apartment, hidden in the closet under a huge pile of things?".  Somehow, I had a hunch as to where she was going with that, so responded, with quite a bit of trepidation, "The router?".  "Yes," she replied, and I just had to put my head in my hands for a moment.  If you will remember, back in the fall, I was in an all-out battle with Comcast over an extra router that they said I had but that I insisted I didn't.  Being that I was not at home when they installed our cable and internet gear, I never laid eyes on this second router.  Nonetheless, I spent six torturous weeks on the phone with Comcast, even having to go so far as to make an unhelpful trip out to the Comcast facility in Rockville, trying to avoid having to pay for equipment that I was certain we did not have.  Gahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.  So then the question became what to do with this newly-appeared extra router.  Colleen offered to throw it away, but, after thinking about it for a moment, I thought better of it and asked her to keep it to give to me later on, in case, for whatever reason, Comcast decides to hunt me down.  I think none of the people present knew whether to laugh or cry, fearful that I would forget that the incident was over and would snap at them anyway.  Well, I did no such thing.  I kept my head in my hands for a minute, and then I laughed, an exasperated laugh.  C'est ma vie...

Long weekend, anyone??? Today is the kickoff of Jazz in the Sculpture Garden, which is almost as good as Christmas. I will be recovering from this weird, weird week with a glass of sangria.