cheeseburger in paradise

my burger craving has been raging out of control, so i finally gave in and got a burger bowl yesterday at big buns.

it was pretty good, but a burger on lettuce is just not the same.

smitten kitchen

in the wake of my dental surgery and subsequent weeks-long soft-food-only diet, i seem to have lost my ability to plan and prepare a decent meal. my trips to the grocery store have been few and far between, and my culinary creativity has been pretty lacking.

it's been a little sad.

but i got back on the horse last night, as it was my turn to host the poynter crew for our monthly dinner. i made the mama bear's gazpacho recipe, plus grilled pizza (pear and gorgonzola (ABK thought it was apple and gouda but that's OK. these things happen), peppers, mushrooms and artichoke hearts, and peppers artichoke and prosciutto), and homemade peanut butter cup ice cream for dessert.

we scarfed everything down so fast i don't have any pictures, so you'll just have to take my word for it that the meal a) really happened and b) was delicious.

i should also mention that key players in my triumphal return to the kitchen were AWD's blendtech and EH's grilling skills. and her pizza pan.

it felt good to be back.

lose the battle, win the war

we pried ourselves away from the television and our heat index-induced coma and headed out to manassas this weekend for the 150th anniversary re-enactment of the first battle of bull run.

they say it was a steamy 80 or 90 degrees when the battle was fought.

it was a steamy 100-plus degrees when we watched the battle be re-enacted.

i am not going to come right out and say that this makes civil war soldiers wimps, but i think you can see what i am getting at.

put it this way. we saw two re-enactors pass out from the heat. but we didn't pass out from the heat.

so there.

we also saw one guy get bucked off his horse, and then his horse bolted.

i do not think that guy is a wimp.

it was hard to get really close to the action, but here is what it all looked like from our perspective.

all in all, it was pretty cool. in the age of insurgent warfare it's sort of hard to imagine soldiers lining up on a field and shooting at each other until one side wins, but that's basically what happened.

i also learned (or perhaps re-learned) that it was the battle of bull run (or the battle of manassas if you happen to be a confederate. i'm not judging) where stonewall jackson got his nickname. before then he was plain old thomas jackson, which is what i plan to call him from now on.

and i learned that if you sweat enough the color from your grey jersey knit dress will transfer onto your undergarments, so it was a pretty informative outing all around.

the best part of the whole day was when a confederate regiment walked by us and one of the soldiers shouted out, "on to washington city!" (in character, presumably), and the guy standing next to us shouted back "how quick can you get there? we need a lot of help. you guys might have the right idea after all."

i guess it's like the old saying goes: if at first you don't secede, try, try again.

hands down, best abbey i've ever seen

i realize that we are sort of johnny-come-latelys on this, but AWD and i started watching the british miniseries "downtown abbey" and basically we are obsessed.

the drama! the intrigue! the delightful british humor! the joy of imagining yourself as a turn-of-the-century aristocrat!

it's pretty much all we've been doing for the past three nights (every time we finish our last episode of the night AWD says, "so. what are we doing tomorrow night?" like he even needs to ask), and i don't even feel bad about because with a heat index of 115 degrees (that includes 1,000 percent humidity) what else are we supposed to do but lie around like slugs watching TV?

nothing, that's what.

a stitch in time

is it too late to talk about what we did this weekend?

no? good.

for one thing, we ordered AWD's wedding band. it's a looker.

for another thing, we also solved the mystery of the missing wedding invitations, which means that furthermore, we restored my mental well-being. i mailed those suckers today and i can't even tell you the sense of relief i feel. well, actually, i can tell you. the sense of relief i feel is monumental. even if nothing else gets done, we can have a wedding.

three cheers for that.

also, we had brunch at kramer books, and went to the u street farmers' market, where we saw this sign.

which was appropriate because then we went to see the new harry potter.

the relief AWD felt at finally seeing the movie was, i gather, akin to the relief i felt at finally mailing our wedding invitations. i am pretty sure he said something like, "now i can get back to living my life."

our review of the movie is two thumbs up. we laughed we (i) cried, we (i) clapped and it all wrapped up very nicely.

maybe even more nicely for us than other people because after the movie we went to a harry potter-themed birthday party and had homemade butter beer that we (i) loved.

sunday we hung out with jen who was up from georgia to win soldier of the year (yep. we roll with high rollers) and then sunday night i left for a quick work trip to indianapolis. i was back approximately 26 hours after i left, which is sort of just the right length of time for a work trip, i think. i mean, if i could just stay in those cozy hilton beds all day long, i would be happy for work trips to stretch out indefinitely. but, since i can't, 26 hours just about does it.

the only other news i think you're missing is that my stitches came out, but still no burgers for a few more weeks. i've graduated to solid food, which is good news, but i still have to cut it up and chew it on my back teeth, which is starting to be a pain.

i am back to brushing my teeth and kissing, though, which were my favorite two anyway.

first we got engaged. then we took a bunch of pictures.

the wedding invitations are stuffed! and my sanity is restored.

of course, now i am fighting the urge to rip open every envelope to make sure that i gave the right inserts to the right people because i have myself completely convinced that i didn't.

but, my dutiful and cheerful helpers (thanks, EH! thanks, miss angela! thanks, janelle!) assure me that i was very organized (first time ever) and that everything is just as it should be (i'll believe it when i see it) and that all is well (this is probably true).

i will say that, though the wedding invitation process is basically the least fun part of the whole wedding process, it did get done a lot more quickly and with a lot less heartburn than i was anticipating.

unless, of course, all those envelopes have been stuffed incorrectly. in which case i will die.

so, to distract me from this current panic, let's look at some of our engagement pictures! i don't want to spoil the surprise for any of you who will be getting one in the mail, so i won't reveal those.

i will reveal these ones, which we took outside the dairy godmother frozen custard shop, site of our first date.

and i'll reveal these ones, which we took around georgetown.







and, how about these ones, which we shot around dumbarton oaks, one of my favorite spots in all of the district of columbia.











and those are just the outtakes. so you can imagine how great the ones are that we are actually sending out. if i put the right one in your envelope, that is.

first we got engaged. then we had a party.

i just finished addressing quite literally hundreds of wedding announcements. and AWD did hundreds, too. because we are getting married, remember?

we had a little party to celebrate this whole business of us getting married a little while back. basically, it looked like this.

{all photos by the lovely and lustrous dallas graham.}

as i am sure you can deduce, it was a lot more fun than addressing hundreds of wedding announcements.

in fact, it was a dream.