things i learned in costa rica

-not only is it totally acceptable to eat rice and beans at every meal, it's pretty much expected. had i known this earlier, i would have shunned smoothies, yogurt and oatmeal ages ago. rice + beans = HEAVEN (actually, it equals casado, but that's another story).

-there is a reason they call it the rainforest. because IT RAINS. a lot. and in rainy season, that means pretty much every single day. however, just because it's raining (and i'm talking like the second flooding of the holy land kind of raining) doesn't mean that costa ricans will call off any sort of outdoor activities. including ziplining. apparently, being soaked to the bone and strapped into a 20 pound harness while hiking half a mile up a mountain is not out of the ordinary for them. i also learned that it takes me a solid 20 minutes of misery to get over myself, embrace the suck, and actually enjoy something i was previously complaining about. this is how one ends up hanging upside down from a cable hooked to a tree 30 feet above the ground in the pouring rain. only in central america. i highly recommend that everyone do this at least once, though. despite the rain and the bird sized mosquitos, it is a rather thrilling experience.

-wild monkeys cannot be trusted. don't ask me why, just take my word for it. and never let them know that you have bananas. it's all downhill from there.

-costa rica is apparently where laptops go to commit hard drive suicide. so that slide show you worked on for over a week to show your parents on their 40th anniversary? GONE. your entire itunes library? GONE. every photo you've taken in the last 5 years? GONE. which brings me to another lesson that i learned while in costa rica: BACK YOUR SHIT UP. (ok, i'm being dramatic, i didn't lose EVERYTHING, but i lost enough to feel it where it really hurts, and the fools at the mac store are all like, "oh we don't do file extraction, you have to take it to a specialist for that kind of data recovery." HELLO, YOU are the specialists, are you not? clearly, they don't really mean that "genius" part of "genius bar." fools.)

-when you are ten latitidunal degrees north of the equator, tanning does not work the same way it does back home. you know why it's hotter down there? BECAUSE YOU'RE CLOSER TO THE SUN. so, laying out with no sunscreen on because you want to "get a little color" on your legs is really only going to lead to sunpoisioning (my mother can attest to that). i may be the only person in history to come back from a week in costa rica no tanner than when i arrived. i like my skin and i want to keep it. that means putting sunscreen on. more than once a day. and wear a hat while you're at it.

-no amount of bug repellant will protect you. we literally had about 20 lbs worth of mosquito repelling supplies between the 4 of us and i still look like i have the chicken pox. but that's because i'm the person who gets bitten while everyone else around me is like "what bugs??" my mother has always said the bugs are attracted to me because i'm so sweet but i'm calling her bluff. i think they just know how much it pisses me off. those mosquitos...they're organized. i expect a coup any moment now.

-costa rica is an amazing country with beautiful, friendly people, delicious food (when you leave your hotel), bizarre looking wildlife (like that raccoon looking thing that niki let kiss her in the ear), and very tiny horses. they aren't so much into paving their roads or putting their dogs on leashes. oh and also, one must watch out for niki from now on. she went and got herself ordained as a minister (that's "The Rev" to you!), and i'm a little fearful that one day i'm going to fall asleep around her and i'll wake up married.

vay-kay-shun

i'm not entirely sure how this happened, but it's monday again. normally i would complain about how quickly my weekend went by and i don't feel rested because i kept myself so busy because i don't know how to sit still and just relax on the weekends and whine that 3 day weekends should be the rule instead of the exception, BUT...i am kind of glad this weekend went by so fast. it means that i am now less than a week out from my trip to costa rica and since i haven't been out of the country (because i don't count canada, even though they do speak all that crazy french business in montreal and have different money and eat weird things like french fries covered in cheese curd and gravy) since 2008 and my passport is ITCHING to get the hey out of town. so we're trying to plan what all we're going to do while we are there and i think it's going to amount to a whole lot of nothing, which i'd like to say is fine with me, but i have never been good at relaxing anyway and there is only so much poolside reading and mai thai sipping i can do before i start getting bored and antsy and annoying the crap out of everyone that i'm with. so we've been looking into some "adventure tours" like ziplining (which i want to think i'd be ok with, but honestly, i'm really not sure if my inner ninny baby could handle this) and snorkeling, but what i really want to do is go horseback riding on the beach. i want to say i'd be down for diving or snorkeling because i've done both before and loved it, but that's when i was young and fearless and my older and wiser self is now consumed with fear of jellyfish to the point where i can't even look at them without going into full body paralysis. maybe i will be able to get over myself long enough to prove that i can too get into the water without being stung or freaked out or abducted by monster jellyfish and carried away to the depths of the ocean where i will be forced to serve the jellyfish queen until the end of time. this has happened to at least 3 people that i know of.

but i do have at least 3 books to read (yes, 2 of which i have already read once before), and i am bringing my tennis shoes because this place is supposed to have a nice gym and if i'm going to be privvy to all inclusive eating and drinking for 7 days, there will be lots of working out to counter that. plus i will have my family and they are pretty much a walking reality show anyway, so that promises to be amusing at the very least. anyway, i doubt being bored in costa rica is anywhere near as awful as being bored sitting at a desk for 8 hours a day, and i am, in fact, rather looking forward to being bored out of my mind at the swim-up bar that graces the hotel pool. i am also looking forward to living in sundresses for an entire week and not once getting up in the morning and thinking, what am i going to wear to work today?? because, oh, that's right, I DON'T HAVE TO GO TO WORK TODAY. i hope costa rica is prepared....

i need a weekend...to recover from my weekend

i finally managed to make it up to new york this weekend to visit a friend that i am forever promising i will visit but then i never actually do. it was a perfect weekend to make good on that promise, for as much as i love dc, i really did need to get the hell out of town and pretend like i was on vacation, even if it was only for a few days. i always forget that new yorkers are all vampires and don't do anything until after 10 pm, so the weekend of eating dinner at 11 and then staying out until 3 or 4 caught up with me pretty quickly and i am feeling rather like a hot mess today. although, when it's new york that is the reason that you are left feeling like a hot mess, i guess things can't be all that bad. i love that damn city. it's crowded, it's dirty, there is trash everywhere, it smells, it's loud and i constantly feel the need to wash my hands...but there is still no place on earth quite like it. i did manage to have the best sushi i've ever eaten in my life, see the cooper union building i've been itching to get my eyes on, find $50 on the ground (which was spent about 5 minutes later- damn that city is expensive!), buy about 3 pairs of sunglasses and a hat for my costa rica trip for around $10, go for an awesome run through central park, play beer pong (because i'm still 20 in my head), and get about 8 hours of sleep all weekend. so. there is my explanation for feeling like a hot mess. i am pretty sure that new york and i could never be in an exclusive, long term relationship. i love dc too much and in all honesty, i think dc would make a better life partner than ny. but every now and then, it is nice to run into the arms of ny for a weekend, just to remind myself that that kind of instablity (in small doses) can be very, VERY fun.

an open letter...

dear mr. "the situation"-

i had every intention of writing the a-holes over at MTV a frosty letter of grievance for continuing to churn out waste of space buffoons such as yourself and promptly declaring you to be celebrities. i now have to put up with fools like you and snooki and heidi montag and lauren conrad and j woww (which is not even a real name, by the way) and audrina patridge and the list goes on and on and on and yet none of you contribute ANYTHING of ANY value to society. NONE. but then i decided that MTV isn't holding a gun to america's head and telling us to watch or die, and that these people actually become "celebrities" because we are dumb enough to see them on tv a couple of times and then obsess over them and their silly catchphrases and get caught up in their lifestyles of doing nothing (yes, mr. "the situation," i'm saying going to work out, tan, and do laundry do not constitute as a worthwhile lifestyle) and then whaddaya know just like that, they are on the cover of trash magazines and CNN is reporting on how high snooki's bump was that particular day and i think it just goes to show you what a bunch of dumb ass fools WE the american public are.

i do, however, want to make a request of you and it's that you put your damn shirt down. yes, i see you work out. yes, i see you are hairless as a chinese crested terrier. no, i am not impressed. not only am i not impressed, but i am also not pleased, because i see more and more people walking around using the heat as an excuse to strike a "situation" pose themselves and hello, america, i do not want to see your pasty white underbellies when you are covered in sweat and your chest could easily be confused for a shag carpet. see, mr. "the situation," as a "celebrity," you have a lot of power and with that power comes a choice to use it for good or for evil. your influence is doing me no good and i implore you to reconsider your "situation" and keep your shirt on. think of it as doing something different for a change. making the ladies work a little harder for it, if you will. i don't feel this is asking too much, so i do hope that you will at least sleep on my request.

if you could also do me another small favor and go away and take all of the rest of your jersey shore cast members with you, i would really appreciate that as well.

please and thank you,

me

the reason for my tardiness

it finally hit me today why i tend to be late to work in the mornings. usually i have no problem getting on the metro, most of the time there are a few seats open, or if i have to stand, i pretty much have my precious bubble of personal space all to myself. this is because i get on the train between 8:50 and 9am. when one gets on the train in order to be AT work by 9 am, one finds themselves crammed into a car with about 497 other people who are also trying to be at work by 9 am, which is pretty uncomfortable, especially when it's 98 degrees, the car a/c is clearly not working properly, and you have 4 elbows in your face. this kind of sardine like lifestyle is obviously not healthy for me or my personal space, so i think i am perfectly justified in traipsing into work a little on the late side so i don't have to start my morning off with strangers breathing all over me. is that too much to ask? no. i didn't think so.

is it just me???

or does anyone else think that lady gaga is starting to resemble a punk rock version of the secretary of state?

that is all. carry on.

no. sleep. til brooklyn.

i know i say this all the time, but this time i really mean it: i am OLD. i went to dinner last night and had 2 martinis (which were delicious by the way) and still managed to get in bed before midnight. so of course i wake up at 3am with a pounding headache and have to get up, take excederin, get my trusty ice pack out of the fridge and arrange it and my smooshy pillow in a cocoon around my head so i can go back to sleep. and after all that hoopla, don't you know, i can't go back to sleep. maybe it's because i had put my head on ice and my mind was subconsciously afraid that i would fall asleep and wake up in the year 2185 after being frozen for half of eternity, maybe i had too much on my mind (such as pondering what i was going to wear to work the next day, what i should do over the holiday weekend, whether or not i want to get a tattoo...), who knows. all i can tell you is i got out of bed at 3am and by 4, i still was wide awake, staring at the ceiling. by 5 i figured it was a lost cause and considered getting up to go for an early morning run but my head was still pounding so that was out of the question. but 7am finally showed up and i dragged myself out of bed (although i did also briefly consider calling in sick and laying by my pool all afternoon) and into the shower with my headache still fully intact. which makes me wonder...what the hell are they putting in martinis these days?

i may suggest to my boss today that we adopt the 3pm "siesta" so that i don't feel quite so much like my face is going to fall off by the time COB rolls around. people in europe do it all the time. i'm not saying that i also want to start doing the double cheek air kiss kiss thing, cause i actually dread that whole crazy ritual (seriously, how do you know which way to go first??), but those europeans are totally on to something with their afternoon naps. and their 4 hour lunches. i'm just saying. i'm freakin tired.