The Return of 2 Amys

We first came to DC straight from our Oregon Coast honeymoon on a red eye flight. After 16+ hours on planes and in airports we finally managed to guide our cab driver to our previously unseen apartment complex. One excruciating hour of paperwork latter, we finally received the keys to our entirely empty apartment, and more importantly, its promise of sleep. Before collapsing into unconsciousness we managed to muster the energy to fish out the air mattress from our luggage and inflate it.

At about 4pm we finally stirred awake to an apartment devoid of anything except us, a few pieces of luggage, and the echos of our giant angry stomach growls. A quick Google search using pirated internet later and we found our way to a nearby pizza place, thinking that pizza would be the perfect, basic food for tired travelers craving a nice, normal meal.

Ha. 2 Amys was our first introduction to the fact that our corner of DC doesn't just do normal food. 2 Amys is a certified authentic Neopolitan pizzeria. It uses authentic ingredients, wood burning stoves, the whole deal.

In our exhausted, starving state it almost seemed cruel to have to decipher a menu using Italian words like rapini and cockles when we were expecting nothing more exotic than Hawaiian. We each ordered the item that we could best understand, and hoped for the best.

The first sighting of mana couldn't have looked as good as those hot, cheesy disks did descending on our table. After the first taste that none of the prior confusion mattered. We wanted to scarf the whole thing down in one gulp, but not savoring such deliciousness would have been a crime. It tasted amazing, the way food only can when you haven't eaten for almost a day. Their crust was thin and flaky, with little crispy black bits from the wood stove. The toppings were rich and flavorful, the mozzarella obviously fresh and creamy. It was perfection.

We didn't go back for a while, largely because I thought that there was no way it could actually have been as good as my feverishly starving mind had first experienced it. I was wrong. The second time, it was almost better.

It's still one of our favorite places to go out to eat. Even with 40 minute average waits to get in and a loud and crowded dining room, it's well worth it for that delicious pizza. When the weather gets warm, there is nothing better than waiting outside in the sunshine, chatting, people watching and eagerly anticipating that first bite.

We don't go out that often during the winter (it's such a pain to go anywhere in bad weather without a car), and even when we do, it doesn't always work out. With the return of Spring, I hope we can give date night a comeback, and I couldn't think of any place better to get things going again than 2 Amys. I was right, after the first bite tonight, it felt like falling in love all over again.

Ides of March

This morning, as we were getting ready for the day, I crept behind Zach and mock stabbed him in the back. He dramatically collapsed to the ground in a faux death keel, while sputtering out "Et tu Brute?"

We're such nerds.

Happy ides of March everybody. Be careful, ok? If you see lions in street, run. (Although, that's just generally good practice.)

I was traumatized by TV - Thank goodness

My childhood was so much better than what kids today have. Largely, because children's entertainment back in my day was crazy awesome, emphasis on the crazy.

On a lark, I started watching bits of Labyrinth today. That is a hot, glittery pot of crazy.

My generation of girls got to jumpstart puberty with David Bowie and his err package. What do kids today get? The Jonas Brothers?

And Labyrinth wasn't the only ode to the crazy and dark. We had: The Last Unicorn, Beetlejuice, Gremlins, The Secret of Nimh, The Black Cauldron, Ferngully, Rock-A-Doodle, Power rangers, He-man and She-ra, Smurfs, The Brave Little Toaster, Thumbelina, Pee-Wees Playhouse and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Anastasia didn't have to many dark moments, but the very idea of a kids movies based on the Russian revolution is a bit sketchy. Those are just off the top of my head, I'm sure there is plenty more.  Supposedly sweet things like Care Bears and My Little Pony were clearly the result of a bad acid trip. Even PBS's Sesame Street had its moments (trashland, anyone?) Nothing was safe.

The world has become so drab, safe and Disneyfied. Even with pop starlets. We grew up with the hot imploding mess of Brittney. Miley's trying, bless her heart, but the girl just doesn't have the crazy in her.

Looking back, its hard to believe the dark and terrifying things my parents let or even encouraged me to watch. And my parents were the type who forbid Clarissa Explains it All and other Nickelodeon fare for fear of it giving me an attitude problem. Who cares if I can't sleep at night, so long as I don't talk back?

Really, I'm glad that I got to delve into some of the freaky things in life. We like to think of childhood as sweetness and light, but we forget that kids are naturally a little dark and gruesome. Sure, sometimes I played nice sweet games of house with my barbies, but just as often I came up with crazy stories of despots beheading other dolls, magical monsters alternating between viciously attacking the barbie dream boat and feeling sad because being called monsters hurt their feelings, or my little ponies caught up in loveless marriages. I don't think I'm alone in that. The world is terrifying and big and unknown for us as kids. It can be a little hard to deal with. I'm glad I had entertainment that let me explore the darkness with the hero/heroine and then guided me back to the light. It's good for kids to engage and learn how to deal with the crazy. At the very least, a little imagination never hurt anyone.

I suppose childhood today isn't all bland. They do get the genuine sweetness and imagination of Pixar, but we had the golden age of Disney Musicals, so that's a wash. I take that back. Start singing "Lets get down to business' or any other catchy Disney song in a room of 20 somethings, and half the room will start belting it out with you. We win. I don't know how they're going to grow up into decent people without that early dose of crazy nonsensical terror, but I wish them luck. Or they can just get Labyrinth on DVD. Either way.

Drabbles

• Yesterday neither of us had school, but there wasn't any active snowfall, so we went on another grocery expedition. We didn't have any immediate needs, but I couldn't handle being the apartment all day for the fourth day in a row. The store was even crazier than the pre-storm stock up session. I've never seen so many entirely empty shelves. We ended up just getting floss, peperoni and tomatoes - mostly because those were some of our only options. The lines for checkout went all the way to the back of the store. Fortunately, we ended up chatting with an Australian guy. And when I say he was Australian, I mean full out Australian. Not only did he have the great accent, but he had this outback looking shaggy coat on, plus he made fun of American football (he's right - compared to rugby, it is kind of pathetic). I half expected him to pull out a bowie knife at some point. Oh, he was also hot in a rugged sort of way (although lets face it, any decent looking guy with a great accent is hot). Mostly it was just fun to have some company. Its easy to feel a little isolated sometimes, especially in a city like DC where people tend to be kind of uptight (poor social skills don't help either). I love meeting people who are just effortlessly enjoyable to be with - it's a skill I hope I can develop.

• It's a good thing we went escaped for a brief moment when we did, because somehow the 4-8" we were supposed to get today has turned into a crazy blizzard. I can barely see out the window. I tried taking a picture for your visual enjoyment, but then decided no one was interested in seeing a grainy white blur. 

• I never though I would say it, but I kind of miss school. I'm not good without structure. When I feel like I have all the time in the world, it's hard to get motivated to actually do anything. 

• Although, I did manage to get motivated enough to make banana bread out of the sad black bananas I've been meaning to turn into bread all week. There were too many bananas for one batch, but too few to double. So I made a 1.5 batch, with the .5 becoming muffins. I also remembered that part of the reason I went into law was that I thought it would require less math skills than other more businessey professions. (I was wrong about that. Law is all about money. Just like everything else.) My efforts to up the recipe by 1.5 weren't the most successful. I'm not sure what I did wrong exactly, but that bread is really salty and kind of greasy. The salt part isn't that shocking, as I'm not sure how to do 1.5 pinches of salt, but the greasy part is odd considering I replaced half the butter with low-fat yogurt. This is why I avoid baking in general, and experimental baking in particular. Oh well, smother the bread with enough butter and honey, and it's fine. 

• That's pretty much it. Let's see if I can motivate myself into doing something somewhat productive, especially considering I have no idea when I'll be able to rejoin the outside world again.

Ninja moves

So, I recently clicked the little button in blog settings to allow my blog to show up on search engines. Given that the blog url is incredibly non-anonymous, my name isn't exactly common, and there are several pictures of me on the very top of the page, it seemed silly to think that not allowing my blog to show up on Google searches was actually protecting my privacy. You can't exactly protect what isn't there. 

I didn't really give it any thought or expect a dramatic or even noticeable increase in blog traffic. However, I am now pleased to announce the first random Google search that brought complete strangers to my little blog. The phrase? "Why yes I do occasionally break out into ninja moves"

People, if I'd known I could expect such awesomeness, I would have made the change far earlier.

I hope the squirrels believe in universal heath care

As I was waiting for the bus this morning I watched two squirrels play some weird hybrid of tag and hide and go seek. They would chase each other around the tree in a flurry of squirrel excitement. And then one of them would just freeze like a rock. And the other one would kind of freeze to, and then slowly poke its head around the tree, like its trying to sneak up on the other squirrel, and just as its about to catch site of the other one - BAM, they're off again. I could not stop laughing - and when I'm still not quite awake, that is a decent feat. Also, have you ever paid attention to a squirrel running? They do this great bounding leap thing, sort of like an elegant gazelle bounding across the Savannah - only it looks kind of ridiculous because its a little squirrel running for no apparent reason across the lawn in front of my apartment building. It's a great way to start the morning.

Of course, despite their adorableness, squirrels have a well known nefarious side. When I was in high school the teenage boys in my ward (congregation) had some horrible luck with squirrel related attacks on camping trips. For example, one guy was sleeping in a mummy bag - which as many of you may know leaves you pretty much stuck in a really tight bag, with just your face sticking out - so when a squirrel decides to hop onto your face and maul you with its little squirrel claws, there really isn't much you can do besides scream. Most other reported squirrel attacks were fairly minor, just squirrels throwing things, or taking things, or staring menacingly. And honestly, I'm not entirely sure that any of these supposed events are actually 100% accurate - but that's not particularly important. What is important is that the youth in the ward developed some grand mythology of squirrels as conspiratorial masterminds, bent on world domination. A squirrel dashing away would be a spy reporting to the master group. Buried nuts were really secret communication devices. Forest fires are caused by intersquirrel conflict, as the various factions vied for control in a horrifyingly vicious serious of coups. Little things like that. For a group of teenagers, this was a high form of amusement.

Despite their possible nefarious plans, or possibly because of them, squirrels always make me smile. Also if they ever succeed, I think they would be benevolent overlords.