good 'new' and bad 'new'

last week, in the self-same day, i experience 2 things that would fall in the category of NEW in my life. and it turns out that they are pretty much on opposite ends of the spectrum from each other. one i would love to experience again. one, i don't really need to ever experience again. (unless, of course, it was like delivery or take-out.)

so today, i wanted to share with you my good 'new' and my bad 'new' from last week. please plan your weeks accordingly. hahaha. or not.

GOOD 'NEW':

ELIZABETH WALSH

so my friends, brendan and kelly walsh, welcomed their first child into the world on july 3rd. it is a little girl, and her name is elizabeth. and last week, i got out of reheasal a little early and i got the chance to sneak over to the walsh residence and meet miss elizabeth myself! and she was a delight...plus, i'm pretty sure she liked me. i mean, she kept passing gas as i held her. that has to be a good sign! so, in celebration of this good (even GREAT) 'new', i wanted to introduce everyone to baby elizabeth!

honestly. look at her. 12 days old and already smiling for pictures.

Elizabeth looks at dad...making lame faces at her....

"can you believe this guy?" she says, through her expression, to me.

elizabeth looks up to uncle matt to see if he is paying attention to her.

i mean honestly....she is so dang cute.

and this picture makes me laugh....her expression is hysterical!

a little 'color accent' magic touch.

i mean....THAT beautiful little baby came from THIS?

BAD 'NEW': Ross' choice for food

so i came home after seeing baby elizabeth, and ross AND tyler were both home. anyone who knows the 3 of us knows that we're never around and rarely see each other. ross had been talking about us going to cafe romeo around the corner from our house. tyler and i are staunch fans of georgetown cafe - also near our house. but ross isn't convinced by its magic, and swears by the magic that cafe romeo has to offer. well, it offered something. good food? sure. better than georgetown cafe? never. desireable restaurant to actually, physically go to? NOT in the least.

you'll see.

Ross starts rounding up the troops for the march up to cafe romeo.

Ross proudly leads the way.

we arrive....

at the final destinaton!

Ross proudly shows off the interior. (and my 'sketch radar' started to go off.....)

Ross swears by the lavash rolls. And I've tried one he brought me home once. They were a delight. I have been known to crave them.

Ross discusses the menu choices with Amy...his girlfriend.

Tyler considers HIS options...and how he could make this night shift down the street to the Georgetown Cafe.

And then with our orders placed, we found ways to pass the time.

Ross is excited for his lavash roll.

Tyler. Um. No clue. I've got nothin'.

My lavash roll. They really ARE quite delicious.

And then the trouble starts. Yes - it was on the ground and not on our table...BUT STILL...it was on the ground RIGHT BY our table! And it was HUGE. I'm pretty sure it could've picked UP our table and moved it.

Here Ross shows where he karated chopped at the wall, while the above offender tried to get away. As you can see in the close-up on the right, he did NOT get away.

THIS was one of 2 cockroaches we saw crawling around the Cafe's patio that night.

Post-dinner B&W photo shoot. On everyone's mind is the thought: atleast we didn't see a rat.

Um. Never mind. Yes we did.*

*the rat wasn't actually seen ON the Cafe Romeo grounds....but right off the grounds - basically on the next door property. It was a fast sucker so I didn't get the clearest shot. But it's there. Running away.

Not-So-Wordless Wednesday

(so last night...roommates tyler - shown here - ross and i walked up to a little neighborhood dive restaurant called cafe romeo's. more to come on that. we were walking up 35th street with ross leading the way - i was a few steps behind him - and tyler was in the back. all of the sudden, from behind, i heard tyler belting out 'part of your world' from the little mermaid. i quickly snapped an over-my-shoulder picture. this is what i got. complete with him using the ibc root beer bottle as a microphone. it was....well...you can see for yourself. i mean, he brought his skills. he was committed to this performance. all i can really say is: you go, ariel.)

a weekend of tours

so....i spent the majority of my weekend doing tours. 5 to be exact. (one of them was last night in complete torrential rains. and tons of fun. my group and i laughed the entire time as we woooshed through the puddles and sheets of rain.) as a side to spending the weekend doing tours, it also narrows the scope of who you spend your weekend with. i basically spent my weekend with the people on my tours (including 84 year old pancho from mexico city - who called me 'mateo' and kept yelling "mateo! this is the best thing i have ever done!") and my fellow tour guides!

saturday night after we were done, voci, megan, scott and i went to austin grille for dinner and then megan, scott and i all ended up riding the same train in the same direction....so in our 'free time' together, i decided to introduce the concept of motorboat pictures to them. although they were good sports, it turns out that neither one of them are too good at this form of photography. oh they tried....bless their hearts. and scott showed some promise....but overall, it was a bust in the pantheons of motor boat pictures.

thanks for trying, kids! better luck next time.

here are scott and megan. scott recently had his appendix out. you can't even tell.

here they are in more natural lighting...loosening up for the camera. complete with matching shirts.

attempt #1. scott is on to something. megan...not so much.

attempt #2. both stay about the same.

attempt #3. perhaps glasses might help, scott thinks. they don't. and....megan looks basically the same in all 3 shots. so...not the most fruitful night. but a fun metro trip, nonetheless.

Wordless Wednesday

japan. enough said.

so....we know japan tv fascinates me. most of the time, delights me to no end. this time...i don't even know how to describe it. i mean...these kids are creepy. and what the crap? orlando bloom!? seriously...what is running through his head during this thing? i wish i wish i wish i spoke japanese!

a huge shout out goes to blog reader jen - who was referred to the manderson report by joshy c - for passing this link along. seriously jen...i am forever in your debt! without your help, i'd never have these creepy, piano-playing kiddie pirates in my life!

as josh pointed out in his email to me...this video is a lesson in committing to your art. from the get go, these gals show us how it's done!

ENJOY!

life can be so cruel

yesterday, between my 10am tour (which ended at 1pm) and my 2pm tour, I went to subway with some of my tour guide co-worker friends. we were talking about one of the newer guides, and how in the past week or so, he had lost someone on a tour. that's right....just drove off and left them somewhere. (luckily another guide came along after them and found them and brought them back to the office.) sitting there, as we were talking about it, my mind couldn't even fathom how you could just leave someone. i stress at every stop we make, because i'm trying to count heads as we leave...making sure everyone is accounted for. i slow down as we round corners, so i can tabulate every helmeted-head that rolls around behind me. i mean - we're not talking about letting someone fall behind....i'm talking about losing a person. i became very vocal in the conversation and said, 'what kind of an idiot just drives off and leaves someone!? you have to always count and re-count and make sure you have everyone!'

well, sign me 'embarassed after my 2pm'. we were 4 blocks from our office....i had a family of 7 with me, and after we talked about the u.s. naval memorial and they all rode around a bit, i said, 'are we all ready to go?' they all said 'yes!' so we started rolling up towards the portrait gallery and over to our office, figuring everyone in the group had accounted for everyone else. when we got to the gallery, i turned as everyone crossed the street, and counted. but i stopped counting at 6. i quickly re-counted...and said, 'we only have 6.' the family looked around, and everyone started to say, 'oh yeah. where is regan?' i quickly rode back down 2 blocks to the memorial, but she was nowhere to be found.

when i got back, johnny (the dad) was on the phone with regan (who, at this point, it should be noted, is a married adult with 2 children), and she had riden off at the naval memorial and when she looked up, we were gone. but luckily, karen (another guide) and her group came rolling up behind regan and took her under their wing - bringing her back to the office.

luckily karen came along. un-luckily, karen was at lunch...when i vocally recounted my feelings of it taking an idiot to lose someone on a tour. luckily, we both laughed about it a lot. un-luckily, i found out the hard way how it really isn't too hard to lose someone in a quick moment. luckily, it all worked out in the end. un-luckily, i'm going to be the newest story around the tour office of 'the idiot guide who lost someone.'

thanks, life. lesson learned.

Wordless Wednesday

To Our Northern Neighbors

shainin/lancman '08

saturday evening, i went to the wedding of a co-worker from WSB....miss christine shainin! it was quite an event...from the wedding ceremony at the beautiful st. aloysius church in d.c. down to the incredible food at the reception....four seasons georgetown-style. that's just the circles i roll in, people. deal. haha. but seriously...it's probably the fanciest thing i've been to in a long time...if not forever. (right up there with centennial high school's 1991 junior prom...themed 'under the sea'. magic.)

the entire evening was great...but the most fun was table #20 - in the back corner and filling 8 of the 10 seats with friends and spouses from WSB. our extra 2 turned out to be christine's trainer and her husband, and they were just as fun and fit right in! the food was ridiculous (hey collin, remember the mini rueben sandwiches for appetizers? mmmm) - the music/band was off the charts - and the laughter and friendship was flowing! and to the entire make-up of table #20, i am deeply sorry that i got the only chocolate soup with mini-donut. and for the record...i did ask one of the dudes in charge if there were more....and he shot me down.

i luckily had my camera and spent the evening snapping some photos of the craziness...which of course i'm going to share with you here today. i've had various requests to not include this or that picture...but for a fair representation of the evening, most of the photos i took will be shared. and that includes the motorboats.

congrats christine and walter! and thank you both for an awesome evening and a chance to celebrate with you both! have a blast in hawai'i!

an action shot: christine and her father, richard, walking down the aisle.

l-r: david and christine farrell (christine is christine's boss), barbara, maggie and brett. everyone but david is 'wsb' in this photo.

let the party begin! l-r: collin and shanna wheeler (shanna is wsb), maggie molpus and brett schwalbach.

the ladies of team cf: maggie, christine, christine and barbara.

the flowers were beautiful. and then i started playing with some color accent, as well. i'm just that crazy.

maggie sat straight across from me....and everytime i looked up, this is what i saw of her, through the vase. lookin' good, maggie!

2 of my favorite people at the wsb ever! christine and shanna, celebrating christine's big day!

everything was delicious....but the desserts were the only things that got photographed. shanna, collin and i were very, VERY excited abou the cheesecake dipped in chocolate on incredibly long skewers.

maggie and christine enjoy the apple crumble...with the incredibly small spoons.

good food, good music, good friends.

NOT the bride. She was a favorite of table 20 all night...to watch and at times, even mock. i mean seriously....white? AND fake hair? she's lame.

things went south fast....and before we knew it, it was motorboat time! shanna starts things off....

and then got collin in on it, too.

i mean...wow.

bride christine gets in on the motorboat action...while maggie mugs.

maggie tries to teach brett the art of proper motorboat.

brett gives it a shot.

hahaha. i don't even know what was going on in this picture...but it delights me so.

i love it when the bride seriously commits to having a goooood time! congrats, shainin!