She Shoots, She Scores

I find myself feeling a little spoiled. To be perfectly honest, I really love my life in DC. I live in a great apartment, I work for a good company and for good people. My work may not be the most interesting or important work but it does allow me to maintain a certain level of comfort that frankly, I completely enjoy. I haven't packed a lunch for over 2 years. I haven't ordered a pizza at home in over a year because a buffet of them are available every Friday for lunch. As far as the ridiculous materialistic side of my work (and probably life in general) goes, I really want for nothing.

I have enjoyed a bit of a lucky streak lately. My company owns seats in a box at the Verizon center that I have had the privilege to enjoy more than once. Since moving to DC, I have been to 6 different concerts and professional sporting events and have only paid for tickets one time. Last night was another freebie for Kate. My old roommate, Favre, from the house-who-will-not-be-named emailed on Friday to invite myself and our other former roommate, Rocky, to go to the game on Sunday. He didn't say what game (hockey, basketball, pro, college, etc) but the word 'free' was in the invite so I of course said yes.

I am well aware of the phrase 'beggars can't be choosers' but when it comes to seats, even when the tickets are free, I don't want crappy ones. The only time I paid for my seat was for a Wizards game. I paid a whopping 20 bucks and got what I paid for - second to last row in the ENTIRE arena-so high up the players were but specks running around on a postage stamp of a court. This is no way to watch a game.

I met Favre and company at a bar before the game for a quick drink and catch up session, then the tickets were handed out in case we were separated.

Oh
My
Goodness.

Wizards vs. Pistons
6 rows back from the court, close enough to watch the Pistons lose and awesome enough to not feel entirely guilty about staying out too late, drinking too much, and paying for it dearly all day today at work.

I love my life.

Feeling Hot Hot Hot

Let's just sum up this week (even though it's only Thursday) to be known as the week of bored frustration. Not frustratingly bored, just bored frustration. I made some colossal mistakes at work, which although somewhat funny now (I somehow confused Santa Monica and San Francisco and thus sent my boss to SFO instead of LAX, which he was thrilled about...it's just California - how far apart can places be? Oh......), another boss has the flu/SARS/plague and has been out, so I've had plenty of time to be completely frustrated about one teensy weensy work issue that was supposed to be solved a month ago and was officially shot down yesterday, and thus Pissy, thy name is Kate.

I took out my frustration on my usual target - the cutting board. I decided to make a nice spicy chili which would a) give me many, many things to chop chop chop, b) give me an excuse to drink some beer and c) have a nice therapy/cooking session, which I haven't been doing much of lately. I found a great recipe for ground turkey and black bean chili and went to town.

When I threw the spices in (chili pepper, cayenne pepper, and cumin oh my!) it looked like an awful lot of heat but oh well, I thought, that's what the beer is for (not that I'm drinking when angry, it's to kill the burn! see! Not abusing alcohol, just loving it for its medicinal qualities!).

I let it sit and simmer for a good 40 minutes, letting all that smoky flavor work its magic, then was starving and was more than ready to crack open some high quality Yuengling. I scooped it up, properly garnished the dish, the set it down. (I am a lukewarm soup eater. I don't like hot liquids of any kind - (that's the devil's temperature!) I prefer all drinks, soups, etc to be a nice moderately hot but more cool temperature before it touches these lips.)

I flipped on to my embarrassing addiction of a tv show, gave my soup a song to cool down, then dug right in. And promptly burned my mouth. Burned it bad enough that it would not have mattered if I had a half dozen habaneros in there, I wasn't tasting a thing. Bummer.

In other news, AI has a new ending song. I haven't really ever watch the show (no really, I haven't) but for some reason, I'm a little addicted this year. Last night, the unveiled the new we're sorry but nobody likes you song - "Celebrate Me Home." Won't even try to lie about it, I completely teared up (maybe it was a delayed reaction to my tongue injury...but probably not since I tear up every time it comes on my iPod) - I LOVE that song. I can't say I'm too thrilled Ruben is trying to improve on the perfection that is Kenny Loggins but wow, nicely done. Daughtry's song was good, the "Had a Bad Day" was ironic and almost a good song, but they really did finally nail the all important aspect of the show - song selection. Well done, AI peeps, well done.