blue artichoke

GC and I have decided to become Redskins fans. Here's why:

1) I was raised on Redskins football. I never paid much attention to it, but I knew that Dallas was The Enemy.
2) I have a set of 8 Redskins tumblers. I use them as stemless wine glasses.
3) I remember some of the words of the Redskins fight song.
4) We live in Washington, so the Redskins are our local, hometown team.
5) GC saw, liked, and bought a Redskins hat.

So, in our new roles as fans, GC and I went to the Redskins v. Rams game on Sunday. It was supposed to be a blowout, favoring the Redskins. It was an upset. The Rams won. The Redskins have asked us to stop being fans. It seems we're bad luck. Perhaps we'll remain fans, but in the comfort of our living room, where we can sit on a comfy couch, drink beer that we can afford ($8/bottle at the stadium!), and where fistfights only rarely break out.

Though our seats were very close to the sun, we could see pretty well, whenever the overzealous fan in front of me sat down, that is.

This was my first live NFL game, so it gets added to my 31 New Things List!

It's a sporty week for me: Saturday night, I went to mixed martial arts fights. Sunday, the Redskins game. Thursday, I'm going to another DC United soccer game. I'm becoming quite the sports fan. I'm almost to the point where I wear only sweatpants and sports jerseys. Almost.

Getting to Know All About You: What's your favorite sport and/or team to watch?

Posted by Blue Artichoke at 05:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Mmm. Last weekend I was cursed with the evil eye, which is so weird because I've recently gotten (re)interested in Evil Eyes and have been doing a little bit of research. About a month ago, I heard about a Turkish festival, which got me thinking about Turkey, and how I almost went to Istanbul for study abroad in college. The selling point was a paragraph in the brochure about the evil eye. I ended up going to Zimbabwe instead, but have always wondered what I missed out on in Turkey. If the Turkish festival (which I went to last weekend) is any indication, I missed out on a lot of good food, good music, belly dancing, colorful bowls, metal platters and jewelry with beads that look like eyes. Like evil eyes, or, rather, evil eye amulets.

In my research on Wikipedia, I learned that the curse of the evil eye is really just someone looking at you with envy, and from that, you're supposed to get your comeuppance. There's also an element of wetness to the evil eye, namely if you're cursed, you dehydrate and wither. Which brings me to why I think I was cursed. Since Sunday, I have had a sore throat. A dry, sore throat and withering energy. See, cursed. It lasted three days.

So, what I'm getting at here is that I haven't done very well with my October resolution. I had that one day last Thursday where I overexerted myself and couldn't walk, sit or stand without grimacing for 3 days (Friday through Sunday), then was cursed for 3 days (Sunday through Tuesday). Yesterday I got back to it and belly danced (even though I missed it in Turkey, I found my way to the dance via another route). Today I got myself back on track with the heavy weights. And I stretched afterward, so hopefully I'll be able to walk tomorrow!

Getting to Know All About You: Who do you think deserves a comeuppance?

Posted by Blue Artichoke at 06:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

MySpace or Facebook?

I've been asked by several people recently if I'm on either one. I'm not. I've been resistant to both, kind of in the same way I resisted text messaging, but also because it just seems to be so much work. I have friends who spend a lot of time updating their profiles, changing the background, colors, songs, blurbs, quotes, etc, as well as reading and commenting on everyone else's page changes and posts. I have other friends who detest both sites and the people who populate them. I've been somewhere in the middle, not caring, but also not "getting it."

I have pondered starting a page on one of the sites, but have been paralyzed by my unfamiliarity with the image associated with each site. Is one more acceptable for grown-ups? Do they have different purposes? I'm at a loss here.

This week I spent a considerable amount of time on Facebook, adding work-related events, so I got the opportunity to see a glimpse of what it is all about. To be honest, I'm still a bit bewildered. Sure, I'd like to be in closer contact with far-flung friends, but do I really need to know when someone has drunk too much caffeine to read or wishes the fire drill would end so they could go back inside? Mmmm... probably not. But I also don't want to be left behind.

Getting to Know All About You: So, which is it? Facebook or MySpace? And why?

Posted by Blue Artichoke at 08:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I’m so happy that it is October. It is one of my favorite months, along with May and sometimes June. I’ve forgotten what autumn is like in DC, but the weather is getting crisp and cool and leaves are starting to change color. October makes me want to hike, hay ride, rake leaves, roast large hunks of meat and bake desserts. And wear sweaters while I do those things.

I have no plans to hike, am missing a hay ride this weekend, have no yard to rake, but I do have a pork loin that I will roast tonight and I made a pan of brownies a few days ago. It had been quite a while since I baked any sort of dessert, and the brownies lasted only two days. We haven’t had much opportunity to practice restraint lately. They were delicious, but a pound or so of fudgy brownies weigh heavily in the belly. Which brings me to my October resolution: to spend more time up in the gym just working on my fitness. I tried to do this in August, along with avoiding sugar and grains, but that proved to be too much. I could do one or the other, but not both, and I chose the restricted diet and abandoned the fitness aspect. This month, however, I’ll once again attempt to create an exercise schedule. 30 days to Hardbody! I started yesterday with a belly dance class. I’m not sure how much of a workout it is, but it requires more movement than sitting on the couch watching TV or reading, so it counts. Today was a bit more rigorous and involved weighted squats, lunges and deadlifts. What was supposed to be a 35 minute workout took me almost an hour and a half, because I had to stop to pump more air into my stability ball (which required finding the bicycle pump, losing more air than I added because the plastic needle kept breaking off, and a break while I looked up new stability balls and air pumps on Amazon.com). I didn't even get the chance to do the complete workout, because I've overplayed my Abs Diet 2 exercise DVD. It kept freezing and stuttering; I did about a gazillion chest presses before I figured out what was going on. And, that required another session on Amazon.com to order a new copy. I did make it more than 3/4 through the workout and I’ll probably be sore tomorrow, but in the meantime, I’ve got a pig to roast. Happy October!

Getting to Know All About You: What does October mean to you?

Posted by Blue Artichoke at 06:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)