Happy Birthday, dear Valerie!

Ruth here, and sorry to disappoint y’all again with the lack of pictures and details regarding my more adventurous undertakings. I have the pictures, and I even have notes from my ventures with the Supreme Court, Gettysburg and Harper’s Ferry, but what I am lacking is ti/me and motivation to start writing these posts earlier in the day so I can get everything recorded and downloaded. I also don’t feel like researching the Web sites from Gettysburg and the Supreme Court to make sure all my information is accurate tonight. Also, work and school seem to have caught up with me at last! I have three short writing assignments to finish and two longer papers to write, and then today was actually given TWO new projects to work on, and this in addition to the daily hour and a half or so that I spend reading up on and making lists of the art news from around D.C., the country, and the world. Whatever happened to wasting time in the office!?! Just kidding—I really do like to stay busy, and am having a lot of fun and learning a lot in this internship. There’s definitely been a few difficult moments (phone duty, I am looking at you), but the benefits of working here have been great (check that I got in my mailbox today, I am looking at you!). Oh, and good news about phone duty! As of last week, our ticketing office moved to the shop, so now the receptionist doesn’t have to relieve the ticketing person at noon, meaning we don’t have to relieve the receptionist until 1 pm for lunch! Voila ~ only ONE HOUR of phone duty coverage a week! Call it an early Christmas present, a springtime miracle, a tender mercy...whatever. I can’t thank whoever was responsible for it enough.

The weekend went by pretty quickly. Friday and Saturday (I promise more information on both dates is forthcoming) were both occupied by scheduled Barlow Center things, for the most part. After the trip to Harper’s Ferry, Valerie went to spend the rest of the weekend at her mother-in-law’s house, and I enjoyed my lone wolf time in our room. It was nice being alone for a bit—I got to turn the air down to the coolest number (somewhere in the 40s...but I doubt it was telling the truth). Valerie is an exceptionally cold-natured person when it comes to body temperature, and I—as y’all know—am perpetually sweating (Twilight fans alert!!!!!!!!!!! Valerie = vampire; Ruth = werewolf!!!!!!), so it works out well for us to sometimes be apart :) When we’re together, of course, we compromise. At night, she wears socks and blankets and I throw off pretty much every article of clothing that I can while remaining somewhat decent. We’ve talked briefly about rearranging our room to put my bed under the air vent and her bed by somewhere warmer, but I think both of us are too lazy to actually do anything. It’s almost mid-March, anyway, and we’ve managed to survive this far. Valerie was suffering during January and February, so I guess it’s my turn to endure the humid heat for the next two months. I am beginning to wish I had packed more spring-ish outfits and less heavy-duty fall/winter stuff. Sarah, we SO are going shopping when I get back!

Sunday was a good day. I got up, got dressed, went to church all by MYSELF (smiles proudly), met a cute boy on the way to church (sigh of rapture), met a nice lady on the Metro who turned out to be Jamie Hartman’s aunt and helped her find Jamie at church (Jamie is a fellow intern here—she’s supercute, supernice, and, well, just super in general! I love Jamie!), had a really great sacrament meeting and Sunday School (we’ll just not talk about Relief Society, shall we?), and a wonderful munch’n’mingle session afterwards! This ward does M&M every other week like clockwork, and I’ve come to appreciate it greatly. Especially when the food is as good as it was this past week—baked potatoes with sour cream, butter, cheesy lasagna sauce, and chips! I didn’t realize how much I have missed eating baked potatoes here until now...

After church there was a baptism, which was kind of neat. I felt a strong confirmation that the truth was being spoken during the talks about baptism and the Holy Ghost, and also felt nostalgia about my own baptism, and excitement for the growth of the church in Washington D.C. Oh, and a bit of annoyance towards Michael Bean, who kept pulling my hair for some ridiculous, immature reason...;) Wanted to see how long it was, my foot!




After the baptism, I took the Metro home and spent what was left of the afternoon doing miscellaneous things. I cleaned up our room, made Valerie’s bed to surprise her on her birthday, made her a card (Noelle decorated our door and also made her a card), and met with my visiting teachers, Brooke and Laura. I also went for a walk to the Lincoln Memorial and talked with my family on my phone while admiring the view from the uncrowded back side of the Memorial. It really was a beautiful night, and there were plenty of visitors there to make me feel safe (unlike the Night of Great Terror of Bridges, or whatever I entitled that one time—shudder!). And it was great, as usual, to hear everyone’s voices.

Sunday night was great, and I didn’t even have any trouble adjusting to the time change! There was a lot more sun in my eyes on the way to work, but the walk home actually seemed better. And there was a beautiful breeze on the way home, too—just lovely. I had gotten out of my office right on time and was walking home at a steady pace. Then, as I was walking past the White House and observing all the people lined up at the fence to take pictures, Michael came up behind me and grabbed me, which scared me enough to jump, but luckily not enough to scream or anything. I’m pretty sure the first thing I thought was, Why in the world would I get attacked while I’m walking past the WHITE HOUSE, where all the police are!?!? But anyway, we chatted—and argued, as we inevitably will—the rest of the way home, and managed not to get hit by any cars in the process. He has a rather dangerous habit of trying to beat all the lights by running across the intersection just before the opposing lights turn green (whereas I prefer to beat the lights by just walking very quickly at all times). Our differences have often led to his racing across a street while I prudently—yes, PRUDENTLY—decide to wait for the changing of the light in my favor. I tease him for risking his life when he usually just waits for me at the corner to walk across anyway (so we can continue our argument), but he insists that the thrill and satisfaction from beating the light (and escaping the fate of a broken neck for one more time, apparently) is reward enough. Tsk, tsk (*shakes head reprovingly*).


Here are some quick pictures of the pre-birthday preparations:

See how nicely I made her bed? I even messed my own bed up so it would look nicer by contrast, ha ha (No, Mom, I'm kidding. OF COURSE I make my own bed every day. This was taken Sunday night, just before I went TO bed. I even washed that brown blanket the other day.)

Noelle and my "cards," made from the scratch paper in the Barlow Center's computer room. If you can read the top sheet on my card and are scratching your head, just know that, yes, there's a story behind it, and yes, there's a REAL card underneath that one.

Our door looked quite festive!

Well, it’s time to go to bed here, and I honestly can’t think of more than the following two words to say to wrap up the post: Good night!