Is this the line for Air and Space?

So, if you're one of the two people still reading this site, I guess you'll be the first to know...so, have you heard? There's a recession going on. I know, I know, it may come as quite a shock...I'll give you a minute to let it sink in.

In case you're still not sure, I was just given a little more proof today. Turns out MeadWestvaco has decided to eliminate 2000 positions, and while I had illusions I would survive the cuts, I was sorely mistaken. The end of February will find me unemployed for the second time in a year. But this time, it's not self-imposed. Self-imposed was so much more fun.

Didn't think I'd find myself asking this question on this here blog for the second time in 10 months...anyone in Richmond want to employ me? Or for that matter, Tracy? Or 10 of my closest friends? Again, did I mention that we're in a recession? Where are the soup lines? On a happier note, though, I spent my blissful, pre-unemployment Tuesday in Washington DC for the Inauguration! Yay glimmer of hope. Obama, please get the job done. If you didn't hear, a few people showed up for this thing: Also, if you didn't hear, it was kind of a historic day. We greeted the newest rock star...um, I mean, President, and there was something kind of monumental about it. I forget what it was.

If you can't tell, people are a little happy about this...who knew?

So weird. I thought it was just us.
So yes, Jen, Wes and I made our way to the Inauguration, thanks to my wonderful parents, who dropped us off at the metro at 5AM, then picked us up after we froze our asses off with 2 million people, but then picked us up after we celebrated...our only goal after the inauguration was to find a warm place to get nice and inebriated (what, us?). We found a great place, then met with a group of Canadians who had decided 2 days prior to spontaneously drive down for the Inauguration without a place to stay. My kind of people. By the way, in this photo, I was trying to look pensive about our new President, but instead it just looks like I'm about to pick my nose...

But the highlight really was our new friends:





The end of the night, of course, involved Wes trying to take a photo of the trash left on the street and almost missing our metro stop, but we managed to make it back to my parent's place without incident.

Thanks Jen and Wes, for actually making it out...and providing plenty of laughs, apparently it was to be the laugh before the storm (that's how the saying goes, right?).

Road trip to Toronto, anyone? Probably should go before I lose my car, my free gas, my computer, my job...my source of income. Wow, who knew? "Your position has been eliminated" is a pretty sucky thing to hear. Whatever doesn't kill you makes you funnier though, right? Don't worry, I'm sure I'll get funny about it soon.

Let's hope, at least.

Everything in nature goes south in Winter...so why do we go North?

So since it appears that my job has become intent on me never seeing my apartment ever again (selling envelopes is HARD), I have some time to kill to thank all of our friends who made this New Years one of the most kickass in history. Although my liver may never again recover. And I know we joked a lot about losing brain cells throughout the week...but it's mostly because we lost so many that we couldn't think of anything else coherent to say.

We continued the Virginia-New York coalition (otherwise known as the Southern Aggression, or Uncivil war) by driving me, Geoffrey, Kelly and Jenn up to Hunter Mountain in upstate New York. Throughout the week, we were joined of course by Tracy, and about a dozen blue-tongued, cougar-miming, sometimes British and sometimes Mexican New Yorkers.

We started out the week with some quality outdoor activity, like tubing:


Of course, when we signed the release of liability forms, quoting possible "catastrophic injury," we all laughed, but that was before I asked the guy at the top of the hill to "spin me" and instead he launched me directly off the track, screaming down the uphill portion at 30MPH. After plowing through 2 signposts and stopping only by colliding with some unsuspecting tuber, I found I had taken a hook to the eye.

Ouch.


Luckily we had- was it Jack or Julia? Chilling in our yard to help ease the pain:

Lisa, Laura and I were quickly given the opportunity to prove just what squealing little girls we are when the "chalet" we were staying in proved to have a rodent resident:

Pretty sure if we had petticoats we would have lifted them.

I also made some of my specialty, jello jiggler shots, though they went especially quickly when we made the first and second place winners (Lisa and Tracy) finish the two plates on the table:



For some reason, though, Lisa and I felt the need to stay up progressively later and later each night, so when most of the group went skiing in the beautiful fresh snow New Years Eve:


instead, Lisa, Ann, Tom and I woke up at approximately 3PM and scrambled to find something outdoorsy to do before the sun set. After finding 500 phone numbers that all led to the same "not-working-today" dude in Hunter, we finally found an open and operating location where we could take out snowmobiles...kind of slowly, though I still managed to almost tip off the track more than once. But man, we looked like badasses:

But of course we had a sober New Years, and had no fun at all.








Somehow, New Years day, we actually got up early enough (maybe had something to do with the fact that we- by that I mean I- didn't watch the sun rise the night before) so a group of us finally got out skiing for reals.
Look- it's Lisa not falling down!


We had a blissed out full week of no cell phone reception and no rules other than Geoffrey (aka "Dad") attempting, to no avail, to suggest that we get to bed by 3 some night. The final night, Geoffrey, Jenn, Jo and Laura created the story "Nemesis," which, if you want the recap, set aside 2 hours of your day and be prepared with tissues when Katie the evil vampire queen is killed. It's a tearjerker.

I, however, joined Kelly, Lisa and Ann in a night of poker and a game I created called "drink" (when someone says the work "drink," everyone drinks...if you want a copy of the rules email me). For some reason, this inspired arm wrestling.

I'll lie and say I won.
Round two might not have been the best idea though.


Every good week needs a few proper injuries.

New Years resolution: sell more envelopes!

Does DC count as travel?

Katie here- So it's fairly safe to say that no one is reading this blog any more, seeing as I haven't even looked at it in months, but I thought I'd toss something out there as a little tribute. Because in a roundabout way, this whole last week was linked to our travels, because Johnnie Finn, an Irishman we met in New Zealand, continued his tour of foreign locales by visiting Richmond!

We brought him first to DC, where he tested his strength:


After that warmup, we had him lift GIGANTIC beers:




We then introduced Johnnie to a creepy, possibly haunted, pumpkin patch to find pumpkins to carve and try not to get killed by some child of the corn. For some reason, in the middle of some hay maze designed for midgets, there were a group of goats hanging out by a couch that when looking at Johnnie would scream "BLAHHHHHHGH":



The price was $20 for as many pumpkins as you could carry for 3 feet:


Is that a gourd in your pocket or are you happy to see me?


So for halloween, we came up with what might have been the stupidest and least functional idea ever, but it did get better once I figured out how to get a straw through the screen for easier drinking. Along the trend of all the "sexy cats" and "sexy nurses" and whatever, we decided that lobsters and bulls were extremely underrepresented in the "sexy animal" genre (Tracy was the bull, I was the lobster, and Johnnie was inexplicably a large horse):



(The cameraperson told us to "be sad"- Wes took Johhnie's horse head):


And then, Johnnie got to witness THE BEST DAY EVER IN OUR NATION'S HISTORY, November 4th. To quote Wes, we partied like it was 19 fuckin 99. Uh, yeah Johnnie...sorry about making you fly with a hangover! GOBAMA!

We're in the big time now!

Okay, since Tracy is clearly far too humble to brag, I thought I'd bring it to everyone's attention. Finally, after months of praying and hoping, our dreams finally came true- we were publishedin one of the most celebrated newspapers of our time, The Chester Village News.

Now, try not to get too jealous- you, too, can achieve international fame to this level, if only you have travel "seeping in my veins" like Tracy does. (Really, Tracy? Seeping?)

Obviously, this is an internationally distributed newspaper, but in case you didn't get your copy today, this is the front page:


Global Trekker: Chester native drops everything to travel the world.
By Elyse Reel
Jul 30, 2008


Among Waugh's overseas experiences was glacier hiking in New Zealand.

Perhaps one of the most tempting dreams on record is that of dropping everything and just going – quitting your job and taking time to jet around the world.

That’s exactly what former Chester resident Tracy Waugh did last December. Fed up with her high-pressure job in New York, she and a friend submitted their resignations and hopped a plane to Thailand.

As her father, Miles, is Scottish, Waugh is no stranger to overseas travel; she’s traveled with the family to visit Scotland nearly every year since her birth, and last year, she visited Thailand and Cambodia. But that has never abated her intense fear of flying.

“I’m horrifically afraid of flying,” she admits. “You have to strap me in and practically give me drugs! But I have to travel. It’s seeping in my veins, and it’s something I have to do.”
In the end, Waugh’s love of travel won out over her fear of flying. By the end of her four-month travels, she’d made stops in Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, New Zealand, England, Scotland, and Ireland.

Beginning her journey in Thailand was a natural step for Waugh, as her brother and sister-in-law, Iain and Jennifer Waugh, teach in Chanthivurri. “Iain speaks fluent, amazing Thai, and he took us everywhere,” Waugh says. “We even got to be in a commercial!” The segment, for which Waugh received 12,000 baht (equivalent to 50 American dollars) for twelve hours of work, was to promote the Thai equivalent of Red Bull.

“The title translates to ‘bird spit,’” says Waugh. “They extract the fluids from birds’ nests. It’s supposed to make you youthful and happy. It tastes like candy, actually!”

Such surreal experiences weren’t limited to Thailand. In Laos, Waugh and her friend Katie discovered just how much the international community cared about American politics. After a two-day trek through the jungle, they attended a tribal ceremony where village elders tied bracelets to their wrists. “We’re sitting and sweating like crazy, and one of the elders is tying on a bracelet and chanting,” Waugh recalls, “when he suddenly says to me, ‘Do you like Bush or do you like Obama?’”

American culture, Waugh discovered, had permeated nearly every country she visited. “I learned so much about other people and the way they view America,” she says. “Sometimes it’s really good; sometimes it’s really bad. But the undertone of everyone I spoke to was that America is awesome. Even with something negative, there’s respect underneath it – except Bush. Everyone hates Bush.”

On some occasions, Waugh was even able to change others’ perceptions. “We came across so many people, especially Irish and English, who would hang out with Katie and me for a day, and they would say, ‘We thought all Americans were loud and had a “we own the world” attitude, but you guys are really cool, and you’ve changed our perceptions on America.'”

As she traveled, Waugh found herself changing, too. “I was sad and pathetic in New York – working all the time, on my BlackBerry all the time, and I didn’t realize what I was missing,” she explains. “Even in the beginning, when I began traveling, I was worried and nervous about flying and the money. But when I arrived in Thailand, I just thought, ‘This is awesome; I have to keep doing this.’ It made me look at things in a whole new way.”

Now back in the States, living in Richmond’s Fan District and working in Chester, Waugh doesn’t see her travels coming to an end any time soon. “I’ll be going back to New Zealand and Ireland,” she promises. “Every year, I hope to go somewhere. Right now, my friends and I are trying to plan a South American trip. We’re a little nervous, but we’d still like to try that in the next two years.”

Now a seasoned traveler, Waugh encourages others to try it, too. “Everyone that I’ve ever met – even if you’re deadly afraid of flying – should do this,” she says. “Ireland’s so close, and so is Scotland.” Not only is a ticket to Ireland relatively inexpensive for international travel ($500), she notes, but “it’s really easy to get around, and the people are incredibly helpful.”

There’s even a chance for intercoastal romance: “In Ireland, I met about seven of my girlfriends,” Waugh says. “We got so many proposals from drunken Irishmen!”

ereel@villagepublishing.com | 751-0421


© Copyright by Village Publishing

Top of Page Comment on This Article

2 parts alcohol, 2 parts white trash and all parts fun

Okay, quick pre-note from Katie: Tracy clearly wrote the beginning of this post, and while I am damn proud of my pink flower crocs and old lady Walmart visor, I'm not exactly wanting to advertise my pantlessness so I only did a little revising.

And now, to Tracy's part of the post:
Our first camping trip of the season could not have gone better.

A little unknown fact that Atlantic City has a plethora of campgrounds and it is our mission to destroy everyone of them.

After making the hellish drive to Delaware to meet up with Katie we headed the rest of the way there. Katie is a born navigator, I am a born driver. However, after the 7+ hours it took me to get to the horrible horrible town of Newark where she is training, I could no longer stand getting behind the wheel.

PS- never ever let me navigate. i. suck.

We had a great time with the NYC group, basically acting like idiots as per usual but this time it was our pleasure to hang with the most entertaining WT's ever.

Pics...

gross


grosser


group


lance dance


And Lance wasn't alone- (hi, Katie here again)- Claire, Suzy and I rocked the macarena:


And there was some sort of square dancing going on:


I think everyone can agree, however, that the highlight of the entire weekend was at the very end. After the Jimmy Buffet lookalike concert, the macarena, the square dancing and the limbo stick, the DJ called everyone into a circle for their summer tradition. We had had one too many beers to be skeptical, so we joined the circle, held hands with those next to us, and joined everyone in singing "Proud to be an American" as two girls stood in the middle waving small sparklers:



Oh, and in regards to why Tracy claims I lost 35 friend points in the period of 4 hours...pretty sure it has nothing to do with my lack of fashion, since it's not like she has any more shame than I do, and I'm pretty sure it has nothing to do with my dancing, since I'm AWESOME. So I have to guess that it's because on the drive back, when I was navigating, I managed to miss the exit by about 30 miles...so before continuing her drive to Virginia, I made Tracy turn around to go an hour out of her way to drive me back to Delaware. oops.

dear katie- i cannot believe you erased your pantsless picture. you are dead to me. it. is. over.
-tracy

thesbians

As most of you are aware(especially if you are a lesbian in Richmond) I have been hanging out with a lot of lesbians since I moved back to VA. And by a lot, I mean a lot.

Yes they try to recruit me, yes they hit on me, yes they are loud, yes they are butchy, yes they are crazy, no I'm not a lesbian, yes, I, like, commas.

I guess my only point here is that they are super fun. For example:

jelly balls