Mr. Scott goes to Washington - Act Three, Scene One: All in the Family

Alright, team.

Once again I've left posting on this blog for far too long, so I'm going to plan, tentatively, to post three entries or so in rather quick succession. This particular entry is going to document the period from my last post (Oct. 18, I think) until Sunday, Oct. 23.

As I mentioned in my last post, on Tuesday (Oct. 18) I went to another meeting of the President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform. They decided on their final recommendations, and are going to be releasing their report at the beginning of November.

On Wednesday (Oct. 19) I went to a Senate Agriculture Committee meeting where they were discussing what programs to cut in order to bring their budget in line with the Senate's budget reconciliation legislation. I went in with low expectations, but it was pretty interesting stuff, actually.

On Thursday (Oct. 2o) I finished my reports from the previous two days, and then went to meet my mom and brother (who I sometimes affectionately refer to as Jerko) for dinner, as they had flown in that afternoon (yes, loyal readers, it appears my previous online guilt-trips paid off!). I tried to get us reservations at the Capital Grille (which is this very fancy looking steak house on Pennsylvania Avenue near the embassy) but they were booked. After far too much discussion, we decided to go to Matchbox, the awesome pizza place I ranted about earlier. We didn't end up getting there until probably 8pm, so after dinner I hopped on the subway and headed back to Virginia.

I took the day off on Friday (Oct. 21), and came into the city in the morning to meet up with Mom and Elliot for brunch at their hotel. From there we walked down to the World War II monument, which Mom was eager to see since it wasn't there the last time she was in DC. Then we visited the American History Museum, then the Natural History Museum, and then went to the National Gallery for gelato (or, in Jerko's case, pizza).

After that, I took them over to the embassy to see where I work, but since there was a reception being held in the building I couldn't take them to the 6th floor to see the swanky view of the Capitol. I also got my flu shot at the clinic the embassy was having - as I'm sure you know, I never turn down a free innoculation.

From the embassy we walked over to the International Spy Museum, which was pretty cool, and Elliot and I managed to successfully complete our assigned covert operations. Mom, unfortunately, forgot her alias as soon as we walked out of the briefing room, and presumably ended up in a Turkish prison. That took us probably until 6.30 pm or so. After a stop back at the hotel, we headed off for a late dinner at a fantastic southern restaurant before turning in for the evening.

That was quite a day.

On Saturday (Oct. 22), we slept in a little later, and were joined for brunch at the hotel by my friend Claire. After brunch, we headed out to Arlington National Cemetary, to allow Elliot to fulfill his pilgrimage to see Taft's grave. We wandered all over the cemetary for several hours, before heading back into town. That evening, Elliot and I went to a Washington Capitals hockey game. They played quite crappily and were massacred by Carolina, but it was still fun to go see the game with my brother.

Sunday (Oct. 23) morning I took the family down to Reagan National Airport for their flight home, before returning to my apartment. Once there, I wallowed in homesickness for a bit before doing some homework and then vegging out for the afternoon. Wow, too many "homes" in that paragraph.

Well, this concludes my first catch-up posting. If I were you, I'd expect more soon. Then again, if I were you, I'd also post more comments.

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Oh, I forgot to mention that when I returned to my apartment I flipped on the TV and watched several hours of cartoons. For some reason ABC Family was having a Marvel Cartoon Marathon, including the most amazing episodes of Spiderman which guest-starred The Fantastic Four, Iron Man, Captain America, and Storm (that's Mistress of the Elements to you). It was breathtaking. Just thought I should share.

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Mr. Scott goes to Washington - Act Two, Scene Eight: To Bea or not to Bea

Hello again, kids. This was another busy week, which I'll now describe in detail.

On Tuesday morning I went to a meeting of the President’s Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform. The panel has already held 10 meetings, and will be presenting its final recommendations for possible changes to the American tax code to President Bush at the beginning of November. So, in their last few meetings (I attended another one this morning), they are discussing and analyzing various proposals for tax reform.

Wednesday morning I attended a symposium on American natural gas infrastructure encompassing the effects of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the current status of the infrastructure, and future prospects for the industry at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. That afternoon I went to a panel discussion at the Center for Strategic and International Studies on the future of US-India civilian nuclear cooperation. It was a really interesting discussion, and one of my favourite policy events so far. I wrote a report on it, which got forwarded on to the Department of Foreign Affairs in Ottawa.

After work on Friday, the Embassy hosted a reception for the members of the Canadian Solar Decathlon team, who had been competing in the solar house-building competition on the National Mall over the previous couple of weeks. One of the solar guys was this creepy quasi-Latino with one skunk-stripe of grey hair. He took a bit of an interest in Claire, which I found particularly entertaining.

After the reception, a number of the interns from the embassy all went out for dinner in what is starting to become a bit of a weekly routine. I had a very long (and very interesting) conversation with my friend Kristian, an intern from Puerto Rico, about their situation regarding statehood, about Canada’s history and political climate, and about the demographic shifts currently going on in the United States. It was pretty cool. Also, I had the most amazing pizza of my life. It was a flatiron steak pizza with grilled onions and mushrooms... kind of like beef stroganoff on a pizza crust. Sublime.

Saturday I lounged around for a bit and went grocery shopping, and then attended an exciting intern party being thrown by Trish, one of my co-interns at the embassy. There were a bunch of my friends from work there, so that was lots of fun...

SCENE DELETED

...after returning home I ended up debating politics with my roommates until about 5 in the morning - it was great. And Sunday, as usual, was pretty uneventful.

On Monday we had a couple of speakers, and then I had class. The first guy wasn't particularly interesting, but the second guy was not too bad. His topic, the media and freedom of the press, had a few items of interest... he went on a notable tangent about whatAmerica should have done to gain more friends abroad, including shipping tampons to Russian women after the fall of the Soviet Union. He had the greatest voice - like a slightly more manish Bea Arthur. I could close my eyes and practically hear her - "Freedom of speech must be given to the most beautiful women. Then the large women. Then the petite women. Then the large women again..." Or, for those of you who prefer the Golden Girls to Futurama, "Ma! What do you think Russian women wanted? Copies of the Declaration of Independence, or a box of Kotex?" (Bea Arthur emphasis added)

Alright, I'm exhausted and need to get to sleep. So, I'll update this again in a few days. I'm happy to report that I successfully guilted my family into coming to visit me, so my mother and brother will be coming down Thursday - Sunday. Understandably, I'm quite excited.

And again, I'll end with the empty promise to update more frequently.

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And now for a few personal messages:

Uncle David/Mirela - I'm curious to know how your trip out West was. Maybe you guys should start a blog...

Lizzie - Email me with your email address! I'm sure you'd like a personal message and some photos...

Derek - If you don't post a comment on this Bea Arthur storyline, I'm going to smack you like that prissy Rue McClanahan!

Mr. Scott goes to Washington - Act Two, Scene Seven: Rainy Days and Holiday Mondays

Well, loyal readers, I've made a bit of a mistake. It's been so long since my last posting that I can't really remember everything that's happened since. So, as much as I know you love reading the minutiae of my day to day life, I guess I'll just be covering the highlights.

But never fear! I'll try to be as verbose as possible.

Friday night (that's September 30), Claire, Brendon and I went to the Washington Capitals' pre-season game against the Pittsburgh Penguins. None of their good players were on the ice, but it was a lot of fun - we picked out a few shoddy players to cheer on (Mine were Orpik and Hussey. Brendon picked Fata, though as I pointed out, he was sadly unable to drive the opposing team into the Sea), and supported them wildly.

After the Capitals game came (for us, at least) the main event - a hockey game between the Canadian Embassy and the FBI to raise money for Hurricane Katrina relief. It was great - we spent the game hurling random patriotic barbs at the FBI team, and switched over to French halfway through, because we felt we should. Although since our French was rudimentary at best, we ended up having a lot of "Allons-y, Canada," and more than a few "Zut, alors!" Also, there was this rather vocal black woman from the FBI sitting down the row from us, who told her own team they were playing like little girls, and then heckled me for heckling them. It was enjoyable. Anyway, we won (although not as dramatically as I expected), which is good because I don't think I would have heard the end of it from that woman if we'd lost.

Umm, I didn't do too much that weekend, I think... I ended up spending Saturday night at my friend Jake's apartment, just hanging out watching Comedy Central. It wasn't classy, but it was fun. And then Sunday I used as my standard day of napping, laziness, and getting my homework done for Monday.

On Monday we went to the Inter-American Development Bank for a little lesson on what they do, and how they do it. From there we had a couple of hours to kill before going to a ridiculous resume work shop. After that was over, Claire, Kristina, and I went out to Georgetown and sat in this gigantic Barnes and Noble, where we read for a couple of hours before our class. Class ended, thankfully, after only an hour and 15 minutes, so I actually got home in time to catch the tale end of Arrested Development, which was nice since I've been going through withdrawal. Then, like every other Monday, I watched the dramatic conclusion to the two-part Prison Break from the previous week. Aren't I doing a good job of skipping the minutiae?

The week was fairly uneventful, just more of the same old jazz. On Tuesday night I went out for dinner with some of the girls from the typing pool (being a couple of my co-interns) to this really great Indian restaurant called White Tiger up in Capitol Hill (the neighbourhood, not the Capitol building). All I could think about was Siegfried and Roy, and their quest to find a 'final solution' to rid the world of the 'unclean' Orange tigers [edit: Thanks, Warren! Post a bloody comment, damn you]. But, it was nice to get to know my coworkers a bit outside of the office, and we ended up having a really good time.

Now, in the interest of brevity we'll skip ahead to Friday (October 7) .

Claire's parents came into town this weekend for Thanksgiving because they're loving, caring people and didn't want her to be alone for the holiday (not that I'm accusing MY family of anything...). So they came by the embassy to see where Claire works, and then took us out for lunch at the national gallery's ridiculously opulent 'cafeteria.'

It poured rain Friday and Saturday, when I spent this weekend house- and cat-sitting for one of the trade development counsellors at the embassy. It was a pretty sweet deal: I got to trade my crappy apartment for a glamourous town house (seriously, you wouldn't believe the size of this place!), they left me their truck to drive (with diplomatic plates no less!), gave me some cash (nothin' wrong with that!), and granted me full refrigerator privileges (I have nothing else to put in parentheses!). I stayed there until Sunday afternoon when they came home. I returned to my apartment and had a nap.

Sunday night, being last night, I went out for dinner with Claire and her parents. We met up at the Foggy Bottom metro stop near their hotel then we walked out to Georgetown, where we ate at this really swanky place called Sequoia. It was located right down on the waterfront, and had an absolutely amazing view of the Kennedy Center and the Watergate Hotel. It was very nice to get a chance to spend some time talking with the Marchants this weekend, and Mrs. Marchant astonished me with her knowledge of my family - based purely on their comments from this blog.

As far as today, I slept in quite late (read 1pm) and then finished up and submitted my homework that was due. Currently, I'm working on my blog and helping my good friend Tyler with his stats assignment. It's amazing how much of that probability crap one can retain.

I think I'm going to take a quick jaunt to the grocery store (which will hopefully be open) to pick up a few provisions for the week, and possibly buy a rotisserie chicken or a turkey sandwich or something for my thanksgiving feast. I'm also debating the merits of buying a pumpkin pie, should the store happen to stock them. I know it can't compare to one of my Grandma's pies, but I guess it'll have to do.

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Now, before I conclude, I want to take the time to register my disquiet with my dear friend Fraser's newfound sense of Scottish nationalism. What's next Fras, a Canadian republic? Bah!

God save the Queen.