What the Blog?

When it's winter, or even just a Friday night after a long week, sometimes you just want to drive. Sometimes you forget that your destination is a hip 'up and coming' neighborhood that went, in 6 months, from relatively easy to park to a pain-in-the-butt. So, we found ourselves returning home last night 17 minutes too late to our car, to find a $100 parking ticket. $100. It'll be beans-and-rice for the next couple of weeks until our egos and wallets recover from that mistake. I managed to escape parking tickets in every other city I've lived in, but somehow they've found reasons to ticket us at least five times here. Out of those, I'd say only one or two were legit, but fighting tickets is even harder here than in San Francisco. You actually have to pay an extra $10 to fight your ticket, which they supposedly refund IF you win. Sneaky, DC. Very sneaky. Today's post is an exercise in whining. I know it's a new year, and we are definitely working ...

We're back! And what an amazing trip it was. As much as I love the holidays, right down to what *some people* (cough, cough...sapun...cough cough) call "overdone" music and decor, it was pretty amazing to step away from the advertisements and enjoy a peaceful break. Oh yeah, and warm weather. We spent two weeks in Buenos Aires and Bariloche, Argentina, the first trip either of us had taken to South America and the first stamps on our brand new passports. All those empty pages, so many stamps to get... We left with great memories and a hope to return again (and a new leather jacket:). We also celebrated New Year's Eve on the plane, which much to my dismay, did not include either champagne or a countdown even though we crossed three time zones and thus had multiple opportunities to celebrate! Bummer.  However, we did make it to Houston for a 10-hour layover, where my wonderful parents fed us, drove us around, and dropped us back at the airport, refreshed and ready ...