Jelly Belly's

I have been going to the campus cafeteria lately for lunch, and they always have some goody by the register i impulsively buy. Last week was no different. Waiting at the register for me was an assortment of jelly bells. I had to have them.

If you dont know this about me, I am a jelly belly expert. I know most of the flavors and can identify upon sight which jelly bellys i like and which will be nasty.

There are however a few that look the same no matter how good you are at jelly belly flavor spotting. I usually leave those for last so that I dont have to eat the gross ones. For example Light brown could either be delicious root beer, or nasty coffee flavor. Orange: Orange or cantaloupe.

The problem is I've now reached the bottom of the bag and all that is left are flavors I know I don't like, or the mystery flavors that I cant tell. But I must keep eating them because I don't want to miss out on a good flavor. So now its like a mine field of flavors. Wish me luck!

Trivia Night!

If you know me at all, you know my absolute favorite thing to do is go to trivia night.

From the moment I knew what trivial pursuit was I made my family play with me all the time. My mom bought me any trivia games she could find, and my best Hanukkah present was when Emily gave me a small electronic trivia game I could play with myself and not bother other people (maybe middle school or early high school). Not to mention the endless hours emily and I spent on the phone reading each other trivial pursuit Genus (not genius) edition cards.

The day after I turned 21 (literally) I found myself in a bar to play trivia, because after all that was the perk to being 21 and getting into bars right?

I've started up a herd of people to play trivia in DC too, we've tried the pour house, we've tried stetsons, we've tried a few others and settled on Fado's Trivia. The food was good, the teams were competitive, the questions were reasonable, and the company was great. For four straight years I've gone to fado as many mondays as humanly possible. This past year it all slowed down :( My previous trivia buddies either went back to school or moved away or both.

About 2 weeks ago I got an email from Becky that her super smart boyfriend was going to be in town last night and to save the date for trivia! I did, and invited Joe and Kate and we showed up at Fado at 6:30. Trivia was cancelled! WHAAAAAAAAAAAT?

Becky Justin and I picked up and moved to four courts in virginia. I had always thought about going there, but never wanted to switch. It was AWESOME. It was less crowded, but just as competitive if not more, same type of questions, and better food. We even almost won prizes. We were in the running for having a perfect round, but lost in the tie breaker question, and overall placed maybe in the top 5. Pretty sweet!

Sweeping the weekend

As i'm sure you all watched as intensely as I did, The sox swept the yankees this weekend and it was awesome! The shinning star of the weekend was also my favorite, Jacoby Ellsbury, the human flash...he even stole home!!! Great weekend.

The weeekend was actually really busy, but bar mitzvahs and family stuff so its not really worth blogging about.

Citronelle

We had Reservations at 7:30, but at 6:30 peter met me at home, flowers in hand, and a new cute haircut. It was going to be a great night

We got to the restaurant and we had a table waiting for us in the corner of the wine room, whites behind peter, reds to the left of us.

We got a bottle of reisling to split.

The non ordered starter was
* Quail egg (yes, i ate it out of curiosity)
* spinach gelatinous square of sorts
* one perfectly sauteed cherry tomato

The Appetizer
* Peter had Mock Beluga caviar (really pasta pearls with squid ink) on a bed of lobster meat served in a caviar tin on fake ice
* I had four different what looked like egg but non of which were
-The scrambled egg was realyl pureed green beans with some seasoning
-the hard boiled egg was really mozzarella cheese with a little yellow something
-the poached egg was really a corn puree
-the sunny side up egg was really melted Gruyere cheese with a little yellow something

This course was yummy and VERY creative!

The Main Course
-Peter got Skate wrapped around crab meat
-I got a six part veggie sampler which included awesome mac and cheese, some sauteed veggies, something that looked like cous cous but was really finely chopped potato, and this great layered thing fried potato layers and mashed potato layers

Also great food, This restaurant really gets a ton of points for being creative, but even more for being creative without sacrificing taste.

at this point we were going to get a cheese plate, but un ordered it because we were so full.

Non Ordered dessert
- Orange flavored whipped mouse square with raspberry sauce dribbled on it

Dessert
-A chocolate sampler plate that consisted of home made kit kat, chocolate popsicle, chocolate tart, and one other thing i cant remember.
-We got the special occasion cake and specified anniversary, so we got a 4" diameter chocolate shell with a happy anniversary sign on it. There was shaved gold flakes and fruits all over it. We dug in to find layers of ice cream, cake, and whipped cream. Best anniversary cake ever :)

Non Ordered post dessert dessert
-a sampler of 4 different types of finger food desserts. my favorite was what looked like a chocolate truffle, but when you bit in, it turned out to be a chocolate covered grape!

I have no complaints for the night, except that I wish i hadn't had the bread before the meal and left more space for the meal itself!

We already started saving coins for our next visit there :)

Manicures and Fancy Dinners

1. I got probably the worst french mani/pedi last night. I went to Hollywood_nails (yes they have an underscore in their name). I walked in at about 6:30 and didn't leave till about 8:30. How did it last so long you ask? well the manicurist moved at the pace of a snail in molasses. Also she didnt really speak English, so when I said "dont cut my cuticles" I shouldn't have been too surprised that the next thing she did was cut my cuticles. She also tried to make my nails as boxy (and un even)as she could with pointy corners until I asked her to make them round, to which she told me she thought they already looked nice...they didn't. And the best part is that the white lines of the french manicure are so thick they take up about half my nail and is not cute and delicate at all. I can give myself a better french manicure!!

2. Tonight for our anniversary peter and I are going to a fancy dinner at Citronelle, the best restaurant in DC. We are VERY excited :) I've been told that peter even called to confirm and let them know I'm a vegetarian (since its a fixed menu). I probably wont have time to blog about it tomorrow morning though b/c I have a 8:30 am presentation to give, so Look for the write up on friday instead.

Weekend

First off happy Patriots day.

This weekend was fun, a bunch of us went to Annapolis for Lindsay and Katie's bday. We started off with a fun boat ride on the woodwind, which you may recognize as the same boat they took out in Wedding Crashers! The best was when they asked for volunteers to help raise the sails and all of a sudden this guy with a curly mullet and round mirrored glasses. Katie goes "omg!" and then turns and his wife was standing right next to her with her perm and pink track suit. It was right out of a movie.

We then went back to katie's house for bbq on the water before returning to annapolis harbor to go to Pussers for some pain killers. On a whim Peter, Kate, Justin and I rented a hotel room so we didnt have to go back to va at night. best idea ever!

Anyway it was great weather, and a great weekend! I'd do it again :)

Friday Randoms

1. Joe and I saw the watchmen again. I still like it a lot, but I realized more this time than last how long the movie actually is.

2. Fresh 94.7 played the new radicals you get what you give last night which was the first decent song they have played yet (i dont try and listen, i just go through all my presets)

3. Someone stole my hub cap in silver spring last night! wtf. This has happened before and i spent like 30 bucks to get a new one on ebay. Do i do that again only to get stolen again? or do i just leave it? I dont know yet.

I think we can make this work

This morning, at 5 am, Peter left for Wisconsin till tomorrow night.

Peter: I really think we can make this long distance thing work
Rachel: I dont know, long distance is really just for high school seniors that want to get laid.

;)

Radio again

I was trying not to blog about this because I use to complain about these things a lot on the blog so you are probably all sick of it. But Its been about a week and I cant hold back anymore.

One of my favorite area radio stations (preset #2) 94.7 The arrow, with some great classic rock, has changed to Fresh 94.7. Its always very disturbing when this happens, I was driving into work one morning, and it was already on the station from the night before, and I was expecting to hear some classic rock.....but no. I heard what could only be discribed as cheezy old school girly rock, and not the good kind.

This station promises Today's Fresh Music....

Songs I've heard:
* I dont want to wait - Paula Cole
* Some Alanis Moressett lesser known song but i forget which one
* I dont want to be - Gavin Degraw
* Genie in a bottle - Christina agulara

Does that sound like music of today to anyone?

No. It sounds like music from my high school days, and i'm comming up on my 10 year reunion this year.

Fresh FM...You are now THE WORST preset on my radio dial.

Go Wizards?

Last night (thank to Lem again) peter and i went to the last wizards home game. It was almost an exciting game except with seconds left the wizards lost their lead and never regained it :( In other words, as soon as antwan jamison was injured and went back to the locker room, the team fell apart.

My big surprise came in the first quarter when I wasnt really paying attention to the raptors and i hear over the loudspeaker "basket by mensah-bonsu". WHAT? How did I not know Pops was playing for the raptors! how exciting! For those of you that dont know what i'm talking about, for four glorious years, I watched exciting game after exciting game at GW. This of course was thanks to star player Pops Mensah Bonsu. I immediately texted laurie out of excitement. She already knew. THEN on the jumbo tron they show wolf blitzer watching the game from the stands! Did I somehow time travel back to 2003 at the smith center?

Junk mail

I think junk mail people are getting more creative lately.

First I got one that was hand addressed and in a fancy envelope and looked like it may have been a wedding invitation. I opened it and it was a dr's office advertisement instead. wtf. I got tricked.

The second weird junk mail i got just looked fairly interesting, it was a tv ratings thing so i was thinking maybe they wanted me to be a neilson person and i'd get to keep awesome shows like gossip girl on the air. So i opened it up to find TWO dollar bills in there, and a promise of 5 more if you send in your response to thier questionaire about what TV and radio you watch and listen to etc. At first I was thinking sweet, i'll totally do that, plus they already gave me 2 bucks so why not. But then i looked at the form and they ask for all my information. And then I got to thinking,what on that sheet was worth SEVEN bucks to them? probably my information and not the answers to my questions. No chance i'm filling out that form now.

Happy Passover

Passover started at sundown last night. The Barnett's were very nice to invite us over for the seder, and they cooked wonderful food. I very much enjoyed this seder.

Now begins a week of salads and matzo-pizza. Should be particularly interesting since peter just bought a costco size bread and will be taunting me with it all week as he eats his sandwiches. oh well.

A little passover surprise occurred when we returned home. In the elevator area in the garage was sitting a box. (i will post picutre maybe later). The box read "How to Play Air Guitar" "free air guitar inside". So basically I believe this is just a well marketed empty box. It had a 5 dollar price sticker on it from barnes and nobles. I did not take it though, I figured it was only right to leave it for its rightful owner. (it was still there this morning though)

More Dreams

Last night i had a very clear dream, and the funny thing is during the day time its also my dream. I had a dream that I was hanging out with Dave Grohl and we were like bfff. We were just hanging out and having fun. Then leslie called me and I had him pick up and she predictably freaked out (as i would have done too). It was a cool dream. Then i woke up and had to go to work super early....that was less cool. Oh well.

A few random points

1. Weekend in boston for my grandfather's 90th was fun.

2. On the flight back to DC the pilot kept saying "if you all look out the left side you can see ___" and it was like NYC, and philly he was pointing out. BUT having just seen the episode of west wing where they made the reporters look out the left side so a air force plane could fly along the right and re fuel it without being noticed I kept looking out the opposite side of the plane than the pilot was directing, and the girl next to me seemed really confused and probably just thought I didnt know my right from my left.

3. On the shoe front, I got a few new pairs this weekend. It turns out Nike Bought cole haan a few years back, and have finally started incorporated them into cute pumps, so i got a wedge and a sling back and oddly enough are really comfortable!

GW alumni event

So i finally felt old enough to go to an alumni event, so last night Puja and I found our way over to tonic to go to a SWE/SEAS event.

It was predictably awkward. At first puja and i sat by ourselves to catch up, but strangers kept inching towards us, so eventually we just got up and sat with some other people puja knew (she's more popular than i am). It was cool chatting with other alums.

We didnt stay more than 30 min though and had dinner at johnny rockets in 2100penn. Its a good thing that wasnt there when i was at gw b/c i'd go there all the time.

Anyway, i'd say the alum event was a success and i'd go back to another one, but not too frequently.

You got me Costco, nice april fools joke

I went to costco and bought what I thought was a bag of normal oranges. They looked particularly delicious and as soon as I got home i opened one.

It had weird red swirls in it as if the orange was actually bleeding. gross. I've had blood oranges before but they do not look like this at all. Then i went to look at the bag "italian table oranges", those are just normal oranges right? so i freaked out that my orange was infact bleeding.

Then, thanks to the internet i looked up Italian table oranges and found out that they do in fact have red swirls in it, and it was safe to eat. Phew. That was a close one.

April 1

Ok so today is april 1st. I actually hate april fools day jokes and havent played one since I was really little and switched my mom's sugar for salt to trick her for her morning tea. Oh That same year I also taped the sprayer down so when someone turned on the kitchen sink they got soaked. Those didnt go over to well and I try not to participate in anymore pranks.

Its totally ridiculous that every year people go through the entire day wondering if people are pranking them.

For example yesterday we got a company wide email that today time keeping was going to be down, then b/c of responses they sent out a second one saying that wasnt an april fools joke, and then a third one saying the second email also wasnt an april fools joke.

Today I have in my inbox 3 emails from rsafran1@roadrunner.com I dont know this email address or who it could be, and all three have attachments. So far i havent deleted them because part of me wants to know what the attachments are, but the rest of me knows better, and is particularly nervous since i heard about the april fools virus. :( oh well