THE WEEKEND I MET OBAMA

Well, I didn't technically meet him, but I saw his house. Same difference.

Over Thanksgiving weekend I went to DC for the first time and spent the weekend with Lauren Richey, who was not only a fabulous host, but more than anything just a familiar face that felt so much like family on my first Thanksgiving away from home. It was such a great weekend. We had plenty of sight-seeing, eating and laughs to fill several blog posts, and because I wanted to share so many of the hilarious and memorable moments, I kept putting off the blogging... but it is time. I may not be able to get into the details of our adventures, but I'll share some pictures for now and maybe a couple a stories here and there. Otherwise I think this post will be left behind forever.

{THANKSGIVING DAY}

I pretended to be involved in the cooking process, and then enjoyed a very impressive Thanksgiving feast prepared by the amaaazing Lauren Richey and friends.

Here we are in Lauren's mansion with her friend Lisa before the meal:

And here is Mr. Bird:

And here we are, completely STUFFED and plopped on the floor to rest our tummies:

And, of course, here we are learning the Hannah Montana Hoe-Down Show-Down Dance (duh. its a family tradition):

{MUSEUMS, MONUMENTS & MUST-SEES}

I spent a fair amount of time walking around FREEZING DC exploring the sights, and other than the frozen snot, I loved every minute of it. I spent one day exploring alone and ended up in awe of the First Ladies' dresses and in sobs at the Holocaust survivor stories.

Here is a picture from inside the Holocaust museum, which left me with puffy eyes:

And here are some pictures from throughout the weekend while visiting the must-sees of DC:

(embarrassingly enough I may have been just as adamant that I visit Target as I was about visiting the monuments. Definitely counts as a "must-see") I filled the cart, and forced an exhausted Richey to follow me up and down nearly every aisle.

{GIRLS WILL BE GIRLS}

We will shop, and we will eat. And that is just what Lauren and I (and her amazingly fun friend, Lisa, who joined us for some of the adventuring) did.

...Starting with Adams Morgan and Ethiopian food, which is neither delicious nor easy to eat, but it was a very fun experience nonetheless!

And then venturing on to a yogurt store where Lauren aced all three of our trivia questions because of her brilliant geography knowledge, which (along with our stamped foreheads) earned us some pretty cheap yogurt.

This place was hilarious. Lisa was thrilled about the karaoke (keep in mind this is a small yogurt store with no more than five other customers at one time) and of course I instantly made clear my lack of interest in participating in any such activity.

...skip to about 6 minutes later...

I am standing up, mic in hand, busting out the moves to Bye, Bye, Bye, and singing with no shame. Lisa calls me out about my initial denial of participation while I am in my most passionate moment, and we all nearly fall over laughing at my ridiculousness. (meanwhile the other customers are 100% ignoring us. If you didn't know already, we are pretty cool.)

I think someone spiked our yogurt, because later Lauren and I were dancing circles around one another singing out, "look look we're in an old person parade, la, la la, la, la!" in the middle of the metro platform, and then the craziness continued as we put on a dance show for every one once INSIDE the metro, and even further continued when I "mooned lisa with my pants on," which is really not as juvenile as it sounds, I promise... ummm... yeah. That right there was the low point. Lauren and I, I think, had a mutual understanding/realization at that very point in time, that we had let ourselves get out of control and were probably indeed intoxicated, and sat down quietly trying to recover some dignity. I think it was too late at that point. But dignity or no dignity, we had a good time and for just a few minutes were completely in our own hilarious moment that could not have happened had I been with anyone else but my pseudo-sister.

um, hi. this is officially my longest post ever. if you are still reading this, you get a gold star.

I guess the rest I'll just wrap up with pictures... I have too many stories to tell and it is getting very late. (Surprising to any of you that I am still up at this time? Didn't think so.)

So lastly, here are some pictures of our shopping/eating trip into Georgetown and our breakfast at Eastern Market:

This last picture is one of my favorites because it was right after we walked out of Georgetown cupcakes with a half-dozen cupcakes in tow, when Lauren looked at me with such innocence and said, "I think I may have gone overboard." Haha, well-said, Lauren. But ya know what? Do they really expect people to be able to resist walking out with an entire BOX of cupcakes? I don't think they do. And I also don't think that "overboard" is such a bad thing at all. Especially when it includes red velvet and chocolate coconut cupcakes...

Wow. I feel like I need to sing a Julie Andrews goodbye song after a post like that, to you and you and you-oo. (Not that even three people will have actually made it to this point in the post...)

But if you have made it through, your name is probably Lauren Richey or Momma G, in which case I can safely say,

I love you and good night! :)

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN

AKA probably no one, because it is pretty close to Christmas and even though I haven't done ANY shopping (shhhhh), Santa Claus is probably all ready to go. But if its not too late, these are my wish list items for this year:

{which can be bought much cheaper at Burlington Coat Factory, I hear...}

or these {well, not this specific kind, I just want some good headphones} 

OH JOSHUA, HOW I LOVE THEE

Joshua Radin is so good. Do you know his music? If not, please listen to this song, and this song, and this song... and then keep listening to more, because all of it is just wonderful. I went to his concert a few weeks ago, and it turned out to be for the taping of his live DVD. I can't decide if it was because I was in the audience or because of the DVD that he decided to put on such an exceptional concert, but I tend to gravitate toward the former. When he played his encore, out of the entire concert hall, guess where he decided to stand? Check out the video below. Yep. I know: it is almost too much to handle, but it's true. I was deeply in love with the man by the time I walked out of the doors.

I am such a lucky girl. Have I mentioned that lately?

SCREW YOU, MAGIC 8 BALL.

Before I get into how wonderful my weekend in DC was, I'd like to take you back with me to a very emotionally trying incident which occurred yesterday at the Restoration Hardware in Georgetown.

Lauren thought it would be a fun game to play with the magic 8 ball that was, for some mysterious reason, being sold at Restoration Hardware. I mean, yeah. When is a magic 8 ball NOT fun? She had every right to make such an assumption.

Lauren: "Will I ever get married?"

Blue Triangle in 8 Ball: "Most Likely."

Lauren: "Will Carly ever get married?"

Blue Triangle: "My sources say no."

Lauren: "Will Lisa ever get married?"

Blue Triangle: "Definitely yes."

{Not cool, ball. What did I ever do to you?}

Lauren, second try: "Will Carly ever get married?"

Blue Triangle: "Doubtful."

Lauren (now thoroughly entertained): "Will Carly die a virgin?"

Damn Blue Triangle: "Most certainly"

Lauren, searching for redemption as she feels my mood begin to plummet : "WILL CARLY EVER MARRY???"

The Little Devil Ball: "Definitely no."

After about 4 more frantic shakes in search of a promising answer, the best we received was, "Try again." At least that left some room for hope! But, no. We tried again, and BOOM! No again. So after an evening and following day of convincing myself that my Patriarchal blessing is more accurate than a magic 8 ball, I say screw you, magic 8 ball. I hope you are given to a really naughty boy this christmas who throws you down the stairs to see if you bounce.

FYI, 8 ball, you won't bounce.

I {RED CROSS} NY

This past Wednesday was Corporate Service Day, and with an opportunity to miss some work and still get paid at my fingertips, I jumped at the idea and became a team leader. I chose to work at the American Red Cross and we ended up with the biggest group of volunteers of all the 20 projects being done that day! It was hilarious being team leader because everyone expected me to know exactly what was going on and be in charge of all these people who in any other circumstances would have been telling ME what to do. Stella and I were assigned to the job of mural painting, and everyone else went to work doing other fun little crafts and jobs. We had an amazing day painting and picture taking.

My most embarrassing moment of the day was when the head Red Cross guy came in and said, "Who is in charge here?" And I, in my pipe cleaner glasses and camera in hand, whip around and say "That's me!" Then I quickly turned around to go shake his hand and trip on a cord and send myself flailing across the room toward him. GREAT first impression. Niiiiice, Carly.

NO MORE PITY HERE

I've been enjoying myself here in the big apple lately, and I've got the pictures to prove it!

SERENDIPITY- A girl's night out to the famous and delicious Serendipity. Notice the loincloth-clad fellow in the background of the group pic. He made the meal taste even better.

5K IN CENTRAL PARK- Not a long race, but still a bit of a challenge for you know who. I love Central Park though, even when on a freezing-cold-with-too-many-hills run.

SLEEPY HOLLOW- I took a little trip to upstate NY with a few good friends and saw thousands of lit pumpkins at Sleepy Hollow! This was so amazing— I would highly recommend it to anyone. And what was almost equally as great: being in a car and driving through Wendy's. Yep, it was thrilling.

THE CLIOS WITH A SIDE OF GOOD NEWS

On Friday my partner and I were invited to go with a few of the most senior level people in our company to the Clio Awards Event! As I'm sure you are too, all we were thinking was, "Why the heck did he invite the two junior freelance people to come to this amazing event, when there are hundreds of employees between his rank and ours, and pretty much no one below us?!" (I put the "pretty much" in there for my own ego's sake, but there actually is nobody below us. I am very aware and feel no shame.)

The event was amazing and the food was even better. We were loving it. Oh except that we were invited the day of and were told it was casual. That was a lie. It was embarrassing.

So the event was great, yada yada, but the part that really made this a night to remember is that we were invited because our boss wanted to tell us that we are going to be offered the positions we've been working for, Junior Art Directors! (I'm art for now but they are letting me do some copy too.) So no more freelance for me! No more complaining about the price of healthcare either! We were both ecstatic and the way that our boss decided to tell us was really flattering and memorable. It was a great night and neither Stella nor I could wipe the smiles off our faces. We had to escape to the bathroom like two giddy school girls just so we could let out our excitement, which we attempted to capture in this picture:

In this economy, I just feel really grateful to have a job, and I think my search to find something outside of healthcare won't end, but I am just going to make the most out of this amazing learning experience while I have it!

I AM VANITY, FOR THE HUNDREDTH TIME.

Halloween snuck up on me this year, and as such I found myself absolutely costume-less about an hour before the night's festivities began. SOOOO, the party that my group of friends planned to go to was The Seven Deadly Sins and I thought that everyone would be finding different unique ways of showing the seven sins. I decided to do vanity (to which Skylar said, "oh thats fitting!" haha thanks?) After chatting with Sky about last minute ways to pull this off, I thought that this could be a clever way of doing something in the few minutes of preparation that I had:

{left to right: pride—she had peacock feathers and other things, envy, the angel to help people overcome their sins, wrath, and vanity}

I showed up to the party where NObody was dressed to theme and I've never been asked what I am so many times. There is just something disheartening about having to explain your lame excuse of a costume a million times over to people you are just meeting.

Oh and on the way home on the subway, there were two guys dressed as Mormon missionaries making out and yelling things about Mormons. Goooood times.

A WONDERFUL SURPRISE

This made my October! Three packages in one week, and another one last week! I'm so spoiled.

There were even cinnamon-scented pine cones to remind me of home! Thank heavens for moms!

I AM CONCERNED.

... I think I have officially gone insane.  

Not, "oh man I want to leave this place" insane, or "i need a day off" insane.  No, I mean like "I am talking to myself" insane.  Like, "How do people get like this, don't they have families?" kind of insane.  (that last one may have scratched the surface of over-exaggeration, but you're used to that by now, right?)

I have started to make telling the story of my life to myself as it happens a nearly CONSTANT behavior.  Really. I can hardly think like a normal person anymore (i guess i never really did, but stick with me here).  Need an example of this disconcerting behavior to understand what I mean? Here ya go:

{actual situation} a homeless person turns around to me with a handful of money and tries to hand it to me frantically, saying "Free money!"

{what a normal thought process may have been} "Woah that was weird. What if I would have taken the money? Would he have let me actually take it? How cool would that be?How strange [soft chuckle to self]." End Scene.

{the exact words that went through my mind during said occasion} "As I was walking down one of the darkest streets in Manhattan, heading toward my oh-so-classy women's gym, a homeless, shady man whipped around to me and literally shoved a handful of money into my face, begging me to take it. He was saying, 'Free money! Free money!' At that moment there was not a question in my mind as to whether I should take it.  Obviously not— I mean, how much sketchier can you get?  But as I walked away my mind reeled with possibilities of what could have been the consequences of reaching out and accepting the offer."

As I am walking down the street I narrate my life as if I am writing some fascinating story that only I get to enjoy.  I'm not kidding! haha I know it's funny, but that doesn't make it a joke!  It's my LIFE, people!  Should I seek professional help? 

NY PITY WEEK

I've been down on New York.

I don't know; it may just be the weather, or just the loneliness, or just the college withdrawals, or just the cost of living, or just the distance from EVERYone. But I have a good feeling that it's a nasty mixture of all of the above, and some. There just doesn't seem to be much that makes all the downsides worth it these days. I initially came here to have all the most amazing advertising agencies at my fingertips, and I am at Ogilvy, but working on pharmaceuticals is getting less and less "fine for now" by the day. And the 45-minute subway/freezing rain-trudge commute to get to this not-so-fine-for-now job isn't improving the matter one bit.

SO. I treated myself to a little jaunt over to the upside of living in New York. Here's what I did to remind myself of why I am paying a crucial organ to be living here:

1. Saw "In the Heights" on Broadway with Kaite Ray (weird to say RAY!).

2. Saw Colbie Caillat, Howie Day, and Trevor Hall in concert.

3.Went to Shake Shack 3 times, AND gave the famous Burger Joint a try.

4. Saw Wicked for FREE! with Kaite again... and we got to meet lots of the cast after the show!

{this is the girl who plays ELFABA, the wicked witch!}

As you can see, I did a pretty good job of comforting myself this past week and a half. But before you get all jealous of my fun city life and whatnot, let me just add that although there are not pictures of this part of my life, I worked till 2am on Monday night, until 8 or 9 almost every other night, and then had to work all day Saturday until the play at 8pm. So its not all fun and games. But yeah, life can pretty fun here... all I needed was a little Guh-linda and Elfaba to cheer me up!

STUFF THE DUFFLES!

My closet BEFORE my trip to Utah:

My closet AFTER my trip to Utah:

(Not to mention a hefty addition to the coat closet in the front room)

Haha— pretty dramatic, huh? I'd say it was a profitable trip indeed. Now if I could just trade all these clothes in for some fashionable ones... hmmm.

FALL LEAVES AND CANDY CORN... AND HOME.

This past 3-day weekend I took my first trip back to Utah. Siiiiigh. It was amazing and full of reminders of "the good ol' days." Simple living is so NOT overrated. I spent the weekend wondering what I was doing living in NY, but then as soon as I got back on Monday it all felt so natural again. I won't lie, the trip got me rethinking some plans. I'm looking for the perfect fit... city life that is a little more "me," if that exists. I'm on a hunt. Any suggestions?

I was welcomed by great friends and candy corn and fall leaves and {the next day} family and so many flooding memories. It was a good time and a much-needed escape. It was so good to see family, too. I need to be closer. New York is just too far.

I'm missing this already.

CAUGHT IN THE ACT

I wanted to blog about being on the plane to Utah and having the entire row all to myself, and, naturally, I needed to take a picture of myself in order to make a complete post. This was not as inconspicuous a task as I had originally planned. God bless the Mac for having the intelligence to install a massive flash into their Macbooks, and gosh darn me for not having the intelligence to anticipate it. I may as well have stood up and announced to the entire plane, "Attention: I am taking pictures of myself while sitting alone. Please continue to sleep through the flashing lights." It was quite embarrassing. But because of this massive flash, look how CRAZY the picture turned out!

I COULD CRY.

This weekend I'm going back to the land of best friends, above-ground transportation, and the lemon-berry cream slush.  I'm so happy I could cry. I've missed it so.

(I am aware that this picture was taken in Oregon, not Utah, but what matters is the people not the place.  And right now, all that matters is that I will see their faces in ONE DAY!) Like I said, I. could. cry.

Also, totally beside the point, can we please take a moment to be grateful for high-quality cameras which we are all so blessed with, because the picture above was taken from a disposable, and it SHOWS!

NOT A FAN, MISS THANG.

A few weeks ago I went to see the Tyra Show with Casey, Angie, Kelsey, and Chateau, and I must say that I will never support that show again! (Except by watching the Vaseline episode on youtube over and over again, of course) First and foremost, the girl is a wench! (I was going for some dramatic effect in my choice of words—hope it worked.) She acted like she was on a no-audience set and never even glanced at us! She seems like she's a girl's girl on film, but she is only aiming that charisma at a camera, not the crowd! She didn't welcome us, she didn't smile at us, she CERTAINLY didn't come in dancing. Let me tell you what, she is no Ellen. She was very snobby during commercial cuts and didn't even show the volunteers who came up on stage to be part of a competition so much as a fierce look.

ALSO, we filmed all of our reactions before the show as they were feeding us emotions to act out. Here's what went down:

Fat Flamboyant Guy: Okay now act like she just said something you agree with.

Carly: nodding in focused approval

FFG: Nod even more now. Look at your neighbor like, "oh yeah Tyra's got that right."... Even more. Big nods!

Carly: Looks over at Casey now agreeing to some unknown thing as if her life depends on it.

FFG: okay now start cracking up hysterically....

...AND SO ON...

So, what I'm trying to say is, if you happen to watch Tyra on whatever day I end up on the show, and I am agreeing with abortion or adultery or wearing no underwear or anything like that, please do not judge me. I was merely acting as best I could in order to end up on daytime television. That is everyone's life goal, right?! After seeing how big of a diva Tyra is, I definitely lost any respect I ever had. But on a brighter note, I had a good time with the girls! Chateau was stuck sitting with the dudes on the other side of the audience because this show happened to be a boy vs. girl game show. Lame! Poor guy.

CUPCAKE BANTER

Magnolia or Crumbs? Crumbs or Magnolia? It is such a pressing topic, as I'm sure you can imagine, that I find myself smack dab in the middle of cupcake banter at least once a week.

So here is my stance, once and for all:

OBVIOUSLY Crumbs, as faithful Keep It Tight readers should remember from an earlier post, is FAR better than Magnolia's. But my opinion's validity is plagued by my lack of multi-year experience, so I will borrow Rustin's validated view of the saga:

"Magnolia DOES have good banana bread pudding, though. If they just took their cupcakes and SOAKED them in the pudding, they might be edible."

-Rustin Reidhead, multi-year opinion-maker

FLAT

Stella: "You're hair looks really flat today, Carly."

Carly: "Thanks."

{Awkward silence}

I think it's time for a haircut.

EVERYONE THOUGHT HE WAS 24 AND I WAS 18

He is 16 and I am 22! I wish I could have at least ordered a drink and made him sip a sprite to differentiate our age, but of course, I was stuck with a Shirley Temple. What a lame-o.

{10} DAYS OF SUMMER

I'm a little overwhelmed by the thought of having to blog about specific happenings in Hawaii... it was great to try to get my head to stop moving at the speed of light and calm down a bit. It was amazing to be in the sun and swim in the perfect water. It was depressing to come back. That is pretty much the story, beginning to end.

I swam really far out from the boat one day with Luke and a member of the boat's crew and after tons of swimming and James pointing us in the right direction from back on the boat, we landed smack in the middle of a huge school of spinner dolphins. They were playful and swimming all around us, and there were a few babies the size of footballs. It was unreal.

I lived in Oahu for a summer and had a few edible requests, which I am sure doesn't shock those of you who know me... and everything was just about as good as I remembered. Mmmm. Especially all those shave ices, malasadas, and Haleiwa Joes. I will post a bunch of pics when I have time!

New York, I'll be seeing you in about 24 hours! :)