Posted in Thoughts, Travel, tagged Thoughts, Travel on May 14, 2010|
First, check out Dan’s new personal blog — it should keep you updated on his (and our) activities: http://wastedbrains.com.
Second, my former colleague, Kate, is on a venture round-the-world. Check out her blog, The Kate Escape. But fair warning, it might make you so jealous that you spit: http://thekateescape.tumblr.com.
Posted in Thoughts, Washington DC, tagged Thoughts, Washington DC on April 25, 2010|
I have been pretty excited about this spring — and it’s not just that springtime on the east coast is beautiful (though it is) and that the days are getting longer (though I love that too), this is the first spring since I finished undergrad three years ago that I will remain in the same physical location throughout the season. I am eager to experience this season of change from a stable place. The year after I finished undergrad, I moved to Honduras in February, arriving right at the beginning of what they call their summer, which is in fact their dry season. The following year, after finishing my first year of grad school, I moved to Seattle for the summer to intern on the health care team at GAO. Last year, I moved to Colorado after finishing grad school, and then over the summer, I moved again to DC to begin working at NACCHO. While the spring air in DC is filled with the scent of cherry blossoms and change, I am looking forward to experiencing the changes from the same one-bedroom apartment on Capitol hill.
Posted in Thoughts, Washington DC, tagged Thoughts, tourist sites, Washington DC on March 7, 2010| 3 Comments »
Last weekend, my litter sister, Kelly, flew to DC and completely surprised me for my birthday. She and Dan had been in cahoots. I am amazed by how many people were able to keep it a surprise. I came out of my building after work on Friday expecting to see Dan and was shocked by the gorgeous tall woman standing next to him, who I soon realized was my little sis. Friday night we grabbed appetizers in Dupont and then Kelly went off to surprise another one of her friends at Georgetown University.
Saturday, we walked through Eastern Market and joined my friends for dinner in Georgetown followed by a piano bar in Barracks Row. Sunday we walked the Mall a bit, saw the Capitol and the Washington Monument and went to the Holocaust Memorial Museum — allowing Dan and I to check yet another place off our DC tourist map. I found the museum to be more of a memorial than a museum, and it didn’t teach me much I didn’t already know — though as Dan pointed out, I was a history major, so maybe most people don’t have the same knowledge of the time period. I was searching for a greater understanding of “how” — how an entire population, an entire world, could know what was happening and do very little to stop it, how a people can allow themselves to be interned. I know about the horrors, but I understand less about how. Maybe Rwanada and Darfur help explain how. The museum is powerful as a memorial, and an important one. One of my friends commented on the shoes — an exhibit showing rows and rows of shoes piled on top of one another — shoes that were abandoned outside a gas chamber. And though I am aware of differences, my mind flashed back to what another friend, who was living in NYC at the time, had said about 9/11 — “it was the shoes, the shoes outside the buildings.”
Kelly and I finished our weekend with a movie at home on Sunday night. It was wonderful to get to see her and catch up on some of that sister stuff that is sometimes tough to share over 2,000 miles.
In somewhat related news, Dan, who has a genuine gift for such writing, has updated his Yelp profile to include reviews of some of the restaurants we have visited in DC, funny and insightful. If you are looking for a place to eat in DC, or just want to know more about what we have been eating since we got here, check out the reviews.
Posted in Thoughts, tagged family, Thoughts on December 23, 2009|
Kelly Anne Miller has started a blog. Check out her experiment: http://kellyannemiller.blogspot.com/
Posted in Washington DC, tagged Thoughts, Washington DC on October 17, 2009| 4 Comments »
People have been clamoring for pictures of our place. We spent weeks ordering furniture and hours building it. But slowly we have emptied our apartment of ALL of the boxes and taken some pictures (though admittedly one box full mostly of duplicated kitchen equipment is just in the car waiting to be taken to a good will.) We finally got some rugs down and the curtains hung. All that’s really left is returning a few extra things to Target. It’s good to be settled in to, because it is finally nearly impossible to deny the coming of winter. I walked home from work in the dark the other day and it has been raining for 3 days straight. I could see my breath when I walked Spot this morning and the radiators are on. Dan and I are cuddled in our hoodies in bed wishing we lived in central America, though the leaves are really quite pretty.
Check out Dan’s blog if you want to see the embedded version and hear more about our apartment and our neighborhood.
Dan spent almost an hour figuring out how best to upload some pictures of our place, and I am going to shamelessly steal his work here.
(or browse these pictures on picasa)
Posted in Thoughts, Washington DC, tagged Thoughts, Washington DC on October 5, 2009|
I spent part of last week on a business trip to Arizona. It is looking like Arizona will be one of the first states to have all of its Local Health Departments complete Project Public Health Ready. My trip was followed by our first weekend in our new apartment that we did not either go to Target (Dan forbid it) or build at least one piece of furniture from Ikea. It was quite liberating. We spent time both Saturday and Sunday sitting in the sun, reading and eating the waffle breakfast special at the nearby coffee shop. Spot enjoyed trying to steal bites off our plate (and anyone’s who was innocent enough to pass close to her). We walked around the fish markets and had an appetizer by the Waterfront. We explored Chinatown, took Spot to the park to play with other dogs (twice) and Dan hooked up our TV to the cable and to the WII. Little by little we are starting to settle in.
You can get to 
Erin Miller 