Notre Dame game

Georgetown crused through the Fighting Irish. Nancy Pelosi even came to the game. Sugato, Claire, Mikhail, and Alex Ennis made a fine crew.

New Years Eve

On New Years we debated much on how to go and have a good time while also getting Alex to his 9am flight to Switzerland with his amount of luggage. Ultimately we decided to take the 1:30am bus back from Port Authority to Harrington Park. Arriving in town, we walked through Times Square, declined to stay, walked through Rockefeller Center, and made our way to Greenwich Village, where we found our designated bar, the Red Lion, and plopped down for the night awaiting Emilie et al. After eating, drinking, we killed time waiting by building placemat creations and by playing Apples to Apples, and wonderfully literate card game which Amanda and Deirde had introduced me to when I was last at their place. Rousing ourselves in time to woop and smooch as we danced to covers of Nirvana and Sublime at midnight. A good night, till we got back to New Jersey at 3am to find the car towed. I went back to the city with Alex and Sandy around 5am to catch my 8:30 bus back to DC.

New Jersey

After that we went home to Harrington Park, New Jersey. In the morning Sandy and I hit the trails looking for a fabled "horse pit" into which old residents would drive horse so that they could be in a better (dead) state when they were shipped off to the glue factory. We didn't find it. We did find llamas though.

Brazilian Girls

In New York I met up with Alex and hoped around, found Sandy, did Chinatown, searched for a top hat for Alex, and went to see the Brazilian Girls at Irving Plaza. Music was pretty good, but not a great concert. Lousy opener followed by an hour and a half wait. During the concert, a smoke machine popped sending foul smelling dust over most of the crowd. Petar, resident artist kept us company by painting badly on large sheets of canvas. At one point he painted a very attractive naked woman. That must have got some girl thinking, and during the show, he came out onto his patio, up and left of the stage, with one who proceeded to undress and pose. Management evidently disliked the idea, and with some force he was requested to not stay. They must have been thrilled when during Pussy lead singer Sabina invited girls from the audience to come up on stage and remove their tops while she lit a joint and tore up pieces of paper with Bush and Dick (Cheney) scrawled on them. Catch the video below.

Botanical Garden

I took my great aunt and my mom's cousin to the national botanical gardens on the 28th, the day before they would ultimately take me up to The City. Nice plants. I put my money where my mouth is by buying a Virginia flag at Union Station afterwards.

Christmas Tree

Since my Dad had surgery on his shoulder last month, his arms has been in a sling, and I had to take on more responsibility this year with regards to the annual tree cutting pilgrimage. I also recognize that it is only a matter of years before our tree farm sell it's 110 acres to developers, destroying one more vital piece of my childhood. So I took my camera along this year. Karen, my cousin, and her boys, Guthrie and Austin came along to help, even though they didn't get a tree this year.