Monday Marchness....or Marchy Mondayness - take your pick!

Note: This post is all Monday. It was written on Monday, about Monday, and intended to be read on Monday.... very late on Monday. Possibly Tuesday. But with a sense of recognition that it was written on Monday, and possibly a nostalgic feeling of fond remembrance towards Monday. So please forgive my deception in changing the post option dates to make it appear as though this was posted on Monday, when in fact, it was nothing of the sort.


It snowed all night, and so Valerie and I were in high hopes of not having to go to work today. We even woke up and got out of bed, we were so excited!!! And then we looked up the federal government Web site and saw the rather ambivalent “Delayed Arrival” sign...which means, “Ok, you caaaaaan come late or stay home if you HAVE to, but you are SUPER LAZY for doing so and should feel GUILTY about it ALL DAY.” We both ended up chatting with our employers to get the real deal, and both of us had a pretty nice deal: Valerie didn’t have to go to work at all! Score! And I got to go in late—like around noon. Score! I actually didn’t mind going to work today. The walk there and back is great exercise, and work was actually kind of fun without any museum visitors (no one felt like braving the cold wind...especially to see a museum that was in between exhibitions) to crowd things or the receptionist there (she took the day off—SCORE!) to worry about. Everyone was feeling kind of lax and lazy with the cold weather, and I even got to go home a few minutes early. So yeah. Work was a doozy today.

Tomorrow is going to be a little wilder. We’re having a big corporate event all day and they’ll be swarming around the area where I usually work. So my new office for the day is going to be either in the library on the 4th floor, or upstairs with Michelle and Vivian on the 5th floor. If I’m on the 5th floor, I won’t have to worry about working around the receptionist, running upstairs all the time to get stuff for Michelle and Vivian, and dealing with the delivery guys who Security always sends to the 4th floor (some guys came today, unfortunately, and were asking ME what they needed to do! Yikes! The receptionist wasn’t there to direct them, and I was actually only one of two people on the 4th floor at that time. Neither one of us knew really anything about helping delivery people...). But if I’m on the 4th floor, I might get to see Reese Witherspoon (shhh- it’s a secret!), who will be coming. Eeeeeee....tough choice! Hey—I have phone duty that day! Maybe, just maybe....she’ll be there between noon and 2 pm. IF THERE’S ANY JUSTICE IN THE WORLD.

Aside from the snow and the chilly wind, the weather wasn’t too bad today. The roads were fairly clear, I only got drenched once, up to my ankles, and didn’t have a problem with ice, really, at all. I’m very hypocritical now, because I would like to have nice weather for Wednesday (I get Wednesday off work ALL DAY, because I’m going to watch the oral arguments at the Supreme Court—yay!!!!), but freezing cold weather and a ton of snow for Thursday (so I can get work off...yup, I’m lazy). But of COURSE I would spend the time catching up on my homework and my emails and my blog and my laundry and yada yada. I’m not COMPLETELY lazy.

FHE was interesting tonight. We held a “service auction,” where the participants all come up with acts of service they are willing to do and then everyone bids for the items. The “acts of service” were mostly “offers of free food,” with a few strange random acts (“I’ll take a walk with you down the Potomac River,” “I’ll watch Moulin Rouge with you,” “I’ll hold your hand for 15 min,” etc), and some old-fashioned massages (I offered up a neck-and-shoulder massage, which went fairly quick and cheaply to a girl roomie friend). I thought about offering to wash dishes, but...meh. People should wash their own. It’s a matter of principle! I saved all of my paper $100 and used up $90 of it to get the one and only item I really wanted—a free personal tour of the Capitol building, offered by two girls who worked there. So yeah! I’m going to tour the Cap-i-tol!

Afterwards we ate chips and a few of us hung around to play this card game, “Nerds.” It’s kind of intense, and has a tendency to bring out the more weird/random/competitive/tempermental aspects of people—i.e. Not-the-best-game-for-someone-like-Ruthena-to-be-playing. But on the upside, I and my partner—Andy Evans—won the game by a resounding 20 points. I’ve only played the game once before, with Andy again as my partner, and as I recall, we won that game too. So, go us! Quite a team of vicious nerds we be ;)

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Sorry for not posting this post earlier; it’s difficult to manage my computer now with the clicker button broken, and I wanted to wait until after Tuesday to spill the “R.W.” news, just, y’know, in case. I’m also sorry for not catching you up right away on my Tuesday and Wednesday. The former was one of the busiest days I’ve seen at work, and the latter was one of my laziest days here in D.C., minus the morning/early afternoon hours, which I spent in attendance at the oral arguments at the SUPREME COURT!!!!!!!! If you hadn’t guessed from the ten exclamation points, it was Uh-MAZE-ing. More later. I promise. And pictures!

Ok, here's ONE to whet your appetite.


Ladies and Gentlemen, the Sup--REEEEEEEEEEEME KORT! At roughly 8 am this morning :)