Sorry sorry sorry!
Hey everybody! Sorry I haven't posted these last two days. My parents got up here Thursday night and I've been spending as much time with them as possible.
Thursday was a pretty awesome birthday enveloped by extremely boring work. Jessie, Brendan, Erica and I went to Pete's for breakfast where I got breakfast pancakes which they bought me for my birthday. I was very sweet and we had a great time. Once we got to the House, I was doing...oh hell, I don't even remember what I was doing. But there was lots of sitting on the floor in a corner behind the Page desk trying to keep my mind occupied. I helped Ben out some and established that some intern in the District office has been logging on my IM. So if you get any weird IMs that don't seem like they're from me, they probably aren't. So the day dragged on somewhat, but after work, I pretty much ran back to the dorms to meet my parents. Who didn't get there for another 10 minutes or so because, well, DC is kind of the suckiest city ever.
My parents are here!!!! We went out to dinner at this Salvadorian place near the dorm which was really good. Mom claims it was the best meal she ever had. I wouldn't go that far, but it was fairly amazing. Then we decided to walk around the Capitol and that I'd show them what sites I could of where I work from the outside. So as we're walking around, I point out that if the flag on top of the chamber is up, then the House is still in session. And the flag was up. So I called up to the DC office thinking that maybe someone would still be up there, even though it was like 8 at night. And Todd, the Congressman's Chief of Staff, picked up the phone. I told him where we were and that we were hoping to get passes to the House gallery for my parents (my ID gets me everywhere -- how awesome is that???) and he said that that'd be great and to come on up. So we get up to the office and it's Russ and Todd sitting around. It was quite possibly the coolest birthday gift I could have gotten. We sat around and talked with them for about 40 minutes and it was really cool. My parents have met Russ, but never really gotten the chance to talk to him much. And they'd never met Todd. So that whole experience was absolutely AMAZING.
And we found out that Russ's legislation on international family planning (distributing condoms to developing countries) had passed after a really, really tough debate. I was so proud of him for that legislation and I was so worried that it wouldn't pass. I had had to do statements on the Republican side during that debate and almost strangled someone. It was so painful how AWFUL the Republican debate was. They were saying that giving contraceptives to developing countries meant that the organizations who were given said contraceptives would then be free to spend the money they would have spent on contraceptives themselves and put it towards abortions. Wait, what? What money that they're spending on contraceptives? Really? Cause I think with the high rate of HIV/AIDs, other STDs,families that are too big to support, and therefore,unwanted pregnancies and dangerous abortions, it's clear that, A) these countries do not have adequate supplies of contraceptives and B) distributing these contraceptives would not INCREASE the number of abortions but rather DECREASE the need for them drastically. The supposed "right to life" doesn't seem to be siding very much with life in this debate, or many others for that matter.
So that legislation passed with the provisions for distributing contraceptives through foreign countries. Which I am EXTREMELY happy about, and extremely proud of Russ for. Now the question is whether or not the President will veto that legislation.
After speaking with Russ and Todd for a while, we took the gallery passes and walked over to the Capitol and sat in the gallery for a while listening to some foreign operations debate. I wasn't quite sure what was going on...But I was able to show Mom and Dad the different tasks that I do on the House floor and other cool stuff like that. It was very neat getting to sit in there late at night and seeing different people that they recognize (and hate), like Roy Blunt.
And then I got back to the dorms for the night and Jessie calls me into the kitchen and like 12 people burst out singing "Happy Birthday". They had baked me homemade cookies and we listened to music and hung out until curfew. It was so amazing! There are some really really cool people here. And I doubt any of them are reading this, what with the sucky internet access and all, but I want to thank them again so so much! That was such a perfect ending to my birthday.
Then yesterday I was doing runs and ended up just helping Ben out with some little tasks until it was time for me to leave for the day. I had talked to Ms. Keading on Tuesday when I did flags, where you get off around 11, and struck an agreement that I'd work all day when I had flags if I could leave early yesterday. Which she was fine with. So at 11:30, I left work and met my parents who had again gotten lost because of this awful city. And we walked up to this bakery, Firehook, which is apparently a chain, and got a couple different desserts. I had a mini banana cream pie that was AMAZING. I love that place. But I think it was way cooler when I thought it was one of a kind. And then we packed up my dorm and walked to the Metro stop -- not the Metro right by my dorm, no, the one like 3 miles away. I still do not quite know why. Dad seemed to think it was quicker. Oh well, I like walking.
So we dropped our stuff off at the hotel -- they're staying at the Ritz! -- and the room was really hot. Apparently they had been struggling with the AC in the room the night before, so we they sent an engineer up who said that he fixed it. So we went to go get lunch and shop around a bit and then came back to check and see if the room had cooled down. It hadn't. There were actually two visits from an engineer saying that he'd fixed it...I don't quite remember when the two happened. But anyway, it hadn't gotten fixed. So we called the front desk and asked if we could move rooms and they were a real pain in the ass about it. They put up all this pretense of being ritzy, pun intended, opening doors and saying "welcome back", but then when we actually need help with something, they were rude and it took forever to get a hold of someone. They were going to send another engineer up, but we said no, just to move us to another room. It clearly wasn't getting fixed and we'd already had people coming in and out of the room for an hour. It was like 10 at night and we were done. So they told us that they'd put us in room 606. After like half an hour of waiting for the key -- why they wouldn't let us just go down to the desk and get it, I don't know -- we finally went to room 606. To find that 606 was NOT an empty room. We opened the door and there was a laptop and bottle of soda sitting on the desk. Luckily no one was there, but nevertheless, the situation was EXTREMELY amusing, in a really irritating sort of way. It was almost, but not quite, like something out of one of the Vacation movies.
Well, Giovanni, the manager who spoke with a heavy accent and then informed us that he had lived in San Francisco all his life, was not as amused at our walking into someone else's room as my dad and I were. He was extremely apologetic and put us up in a suite on the top floor. Which is really really nice. And I have my own room for two nights (well, one now), which, love my parents though I do, is really nice after having lived with two other people for the last two weeks. So everything worked out well in the end. But it was not all that fun dealing with. Amusing, yes. Fun, no.
I'm not quite sure what the plan is today. There's talk of renting a car and driving up to Annapolis during the day and then seeing the monuments tonight. I haven't gotten a chance to do that yet, except for the brief car tour through the city with Ben after he picked me up. So that'll be cool. And I had really wanted to do it at night, which will be awesome! I'm very excited about that. And I will most definitely post about it either tonight or tomorrow morning. Oh, and I have high speed internet! It's only for a couple days, but it's so wonderful! You have no idea how much I've missed high speed internet. And all of you. I've missed you all terribly. But probably none so much as my parents, who are now here!!! :-D
Thursday was a pretty awesome birthday enveloped by extremely boring work. Jessie, Brendan, Erica and I went to Pete's for breakfast where I got breakfast pancakes which they bought me for my birthday. I was very sweet and we had a great time. Once we got to the House, I was doing...oh hell, I don't even remember what I was doing. But there was lots of sitting on the floor in a corner behind the Page desk trying to keep my mind occupied. I helped Ben out some and established that some intern in the District office has been logging on my IM. So if you get any weird IMs that don't seem like they're from me, they probably aren't. So the day dragged on somewhat, but after work, I pretty much ran back to the dorms to meet my parents. Who didn't get there for another 10 minutes or so because, well, DC is kind of the suckiest city ever.
My parents are here!!!! We went out to dinner at this Salvadorian place near the dorm which was really good. Mom claims it was the best meal she ever had. I wouldn't go that far, but it was fairly amazing. Then we decided to walk around the Capitol and that I'd show them what sites I could of where I work from the outside. So as we're walking around, I point out that if the flag on top of the chamber is up, then the House is still in session. And the flag was up. So I called up to the DC office thinking that maybe someone would still be up there, even though it was like 8 at night. And Todd, the Congressman's Chief of Staff, picked up the phone. I told him where we were and that we were hoping to get passes to the House gallery for my parents (my ID gets me everywhere -- how awesome is that???) and he said that that'd be great and to come on up. So we get up to the office and it's Russ and Todd sitting around. It was quite possibly the coolest birthday gift I could have gotten. We sat around and talked with them for about 40 minutes and it was really cool. My parents have met Russ, but never really gotten the chance to talk to him much. And they'd never met Todd. So that whole experience was absolutely AMAZING.
And we found out that Russ's legislation on international family planning (distributing condoms to developing countries) had passed after a really, really tough debate. I was so proud of him for that legislation and I was so worried that it wouldn't pass. I had had to do statements on the Republican side during that debate and almost strangled someone. It was so painful how AWFUL the Republican debate was. They were saying that giving contraceptives to developing countries meant that the organizations who were given said contraceptives would then be free to spend the money they would have spent on contraceptives themselves and put it towards abortions. Wait, what? What money that they're spending on contraceptives? Really? Cause I think with the high rate of HIV/AIDs, other STDs,families that are too big to support, and therefore,unwanted pregnancies and dangerous abortions, it's clear that, A) these countries do not have adequate supplies of contraceptives and B) distributing these contraceptives would not INCREASE the number of abortions but rather DECREASE the need for them drastically. The supposed "right to life" doesn't seem to be siding very much with life in this debate, or many others for that matter.
So that legislation passed with the provisions for distributing contraceptives through foreign countries. Which I am EXTREMELY happy about, and extremely proud of Russ for. Now the question is whether or not the President will veto that legislation.
After speaking with Russ and Todd for a while, we took the gallery passes and walked over to the Capitol and sat in the gallery for a while listening to some foreign operations debate. I wasn't quite sure what was going on...But I was able to show Mom and Dad the different tasks that I do on the House floor and other cool stuff like that. It was very neat getting to sit in there late at night and seeing different people that they recognize (and hate), like Roy Blunt.
And then I got back to the dorms for the night and Jessie calls me into the kitchen and like 12 people burst out singing "Happy Birthday". They had baked me homemade cookies and we listened to music and hung out until curfew. It was so amazing! There are some really really cool people here. And I doubt any of them are reading this, what with the sucky internet access and all, but I want to thank them again so so much! That was such a perfect ending to my birthday.
Then yesterday I was doing runs and ended up just helping Ben out with some little tasks until it was time for me to leave for the day. I had talked to Ms. Keading on Tuesday when I did flags, where you get off around 11, and struck an agreement that I'd work all day when I had flags if I could leave early yesterday. Which she was fine with. So at 11:30, I left work and met my parents who had again gotten lost because of this awful city. And we walked up to this bakery, Firehook, which is apparently a chain, and got a couple different desserts. I had a mini banana cream pie that was AMAZING. I love that place. But I think it was way cooler when I thought it was one of a kind. And then we packed up my dorm and walked to the Metro stop -- not the Metro right by my dorm, no, the one like 3 miles away. I still do not quite know why. Dad seemed to think it was quicker. Oh well, I like walking.
So we dropped our stuff off at the hotel -- they're staying at the Ritz! -- and the room was really hot. Apparently they had been struggling with the AC in the room the night before, so we they sent an engineer up who said that he fixed it. So we went to go get lunch and shop around a bit and then came back to check and see if the room had cooled down. It hadn't. There were actually two visits from an engineer saying that he'd fixed it...I don't quite remember when the two happened. But anyway, it hadn't gotten fixed. So we called the front desk and asked if we could move rooms and they were a real pain in the ass about it. They put up all this pretense of being ritzy, pun intended, opening doors and saying "welcome back", but then when we actually need help with something, they were rude and it took forever to get a hold of someone. They were going to send another engineer up, but we said no, just to move us to another room. It clearly wasn't getting fixed and we'd already had people coming in and out of the room for an hour. It was like 10 at night and we were done. So they told us that they'd put us in room 606. After like half an hour of waiting for the key -- why they wouldn't let us just go down to the desk and get it, I don't know -- we finally went to room 606. To find that 606 was NOT an empty room. We opened the door and there was a laptop and bottle of soda sitting on the desk. Luckily no one was there, but nevertheless, the situation was EXTREMELY amusing, in a really irritating sort of way. It was almost, but not quite, like something out of one of the Vacation movies.
Well, Giovanni, the manager who spoke with a heavy accent and then informed us that he had lived in San Francisco all his life, was not as amused at our walking into someone else's room as my dad and I were. He was extremely apologetic and put us up in a suite on the top floor. Which is really really nice. And I have my own room for two nights (well, one now), which, love my parents though I do, is really nice after having lived with two other people for the last two weeks. So everything worked out well in the end. But it was not all that fun dealing with. Amusing, yes. Fun, no.
I'm not quite sure what the plan is today. There's talk of renting a car and driving up to Annapolis during the day and then seeing the monuments tonight. I haven't gotten a chance to do that yet, except for the brief car tour through the city with Ben after he picked me up. So that'll be cool. And I had really wanted to do it at night, which will be awesome! I'm very excited about that. And I will most definitely post about it either tonight or tomorrow morning. Oh, and I have high speed internet! It's only for a couple days, but it's so wonderful! You have no idea how much I've missed high speed internet. And all of you. I've missed you all terribly. But probably none so much as my parents, who are now here!!! :-D