pretty

Balloons are fantastic

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Birthday balloons!

These are from my team.  They arrived shortly after I got in this morning.  Then they sang Happy Birthday (they were goaded into it by someone walking by).  Then they took me to lunch (and told the waiters it was my birthday, so there was more singing) where I had to deal with this indignity:

Don’t ask what’s wrong with my face. It got stuck that way.

Then I got back from my lunch and was greeted with these:

After much confusion (the card only said “Surprise!”) and many texts, Mom finally admitted to sending them.  So I’ve got LOTS of balloons.  Mom’s are coming home with me.  I’ll probably take my work ones home tomorrow.

I think my favorite rendition of Happy Birthday so far was Gaby and Corey’s (sorry, Dad – yours is classic (for us), but hers is cuter).  It comes complete with cha-cha-chas at the end of every line.

It’s been a really nice birthday so far.  I think I’m going to have to reschedule my birthday dinner for another night, though.  I’m completely stuffed from lunch, and I really want lots of Indian food.  I don’t have it in me to enjoy that tonight.  But hey – that means more birthday time for me!

Mugs!

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Guys, I have more mugs!  Really cute ones!  For reals, see?  My sister loves me.  The bamboo one has a panda in it!

I’m afraid I have a mug problem.  You’ve seen a sampling of my other mugs before, and I just got these three new ones (the floral ones are really good for deliciously sweet coffee on snowy days).  Well, last week I saw more mugs I MUST HAVE.  (Except that I don’t need them.  I just want them.  Really, I don’t know where I would put them.  We’re out of cabinet space.  But really, I want them.  Want is not the same as need, so I won’t get them.  I’ll just drool from afar.  Because I can’t have them.  Even though I want them.  We’re trying to stop accumulating stuff.  Really.  No more new stuff.)

The London mug

I can still admire them, though.  They’re made by Villeroy and Boch, and they’re part of the New Wave Caffe collection (cities of Europe).  There’s one each for London, Paris, Rome, and Berlin, with matching plates, and they’re adorable.

I would only want them if I got rid of all of my other mugs.  Which I will not do.  Why do I have a mug thing?  I don’t really have a shoe thing.  I have a book thing – isn’t that enough?  It’s not like I display my mugs.  …  No, I’m not going to display my mugs.  Back to these particular mugs – they’re not cheap.  Not crazy expensive, but we’re talking $20 a mug (when they’re on sale).  And that’s not including the matching plates or the cool spoons you can see in the picture I took.  So, yeah, maybe we are talking crazy expensive.  They’re MUGS.  I’m not spending $20 (or more) on a mug.  Boom.  Talked myself out of my muglust.

Confession – sometimes I enjoy my commute

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I love the George Washington Memorial Parkway.  There.  It’s like a load has been lifted from my shoulders.  Yes, it’s a road, a HIGHway even, but I don’t care.  I love it.  Particularly the stretch between the Beltway and the Roosevelt Bridge.  (It’s like the Merritt Parkway in Connecticut, but better because you can see the Potomac River on one side.)  I would love it even more if it were a country road, two quiet lanes instead of four busy ones, but I guess I can’t have everything.   I love it in the summer when all the trees are leafed out and they meet overhead and the sunlight is filtered through the leaves before it gets to the road, and I love it in the fall when all the leaves change color.  I found out this morning that I even love it after the leaves have fallen.  The trees were shrouded in fog this morning, and with the branches peeking through – it was really nice.  By the time I crossed the bridge, the fog had burned off downriver, and the sun was coming up over the monuments (always a beautiful sight), but upriver it was still foggy, like really foggy, and all I could see was the top of the National Cathedral.  I wanted to pull over to take a picture, but there’s no place to do that on that bridge, and I wasn’t in the mood to get killed this morning.  Instead, here are some pictures I’ve taken from the GW Parkway on other (sunnier) mornings.  I solemnly swear I was at a complete stop when I took these pictures.

See all those brake lights? NO ONE was moving.

 

The river’s so pretty.