a day of virginia wine with ellie

Ellie came to visit about a month ago. On paper, she came so we could see the Veronica Mars movie together on opening night. As loyal marshmallows, seeing it together and on opening night was the only possible option (if that made zero sense, can I recommend an Easter weekend spent binge-watching the series on Amazon Prime?). Her visit was perfectly timed for other reasons, too. She was here the night that I found out I got the Rangel Fellowship. Let me tell you, that girl can scream. We were in the packed movie theater on Friday night, around 10:15pm, waiting for the movie to start, discussing whether to get a small or a large popcorn to share (priorities). Ellie went to grab the popcorn and a soda while I had the job of holding our seats (a very serious job, no doubt). I opened the email and saw the "congratulations" in the subject line, and my entire brain turned to mush. I jumped up out of my seat on autopilot, and like 20 rows below me, walking towards the exit, Ellie started waving her arms and motioning for me to sit back down (i mean, this theater was seriously packed, and we had prime seats we did not want to lose!). I couldn't form a real sentence to try to tell her what was going on. I just kept saying, like a broken record, "I gotta go!" And Ellie read right through me and she just knew. So she started jumping up and down, and screaming. No, really. Screaming at the top of her lungs "congratulations!" and "holy shit you got rangel!" and so we met in the middle and hugged and jumped up and down together. (Mid-hug, she got the attention of our seat neighbors... i mean the whole theater was watching us anyway, so it wasn't hard, and asked them to save our seats. she is a very good friend and just as good a multitasker!)

In addition to seeing the movie (amazing) and having one of my closest girlfriends there to celebrate with me, we also used the weekend as an excuse to do something we never did while we lived together in this fine city: get out of the town and out to some vineyards. It was Ellie's first time at Virginia wineries, and we picked some winners.

We started at Hiddencroft Vineyards, where the dessert wines surprised the heck out of me by being so similar to ice-wine that I had to ask if they somehow use similar techniques (it's not nearly cold enough in Virginia to do so, but our tasting guide said that many are, in fact, processed in a similar style as ice-wine!). In my opinion, the dessert wine is what they do best. That and the views. They're situated on a whole lot of land off a literally beaten path... we drove down a gravel and dirt road for miles and even called to make sure we were heading in the right direction. There's a small creek and a ramshackle old barn that begs for exploration and adventuring, which is exactly what Ellie and I did, wine glasses in hand.

Next, we ventured over to Doukenie, a popular northern Virginia winery that we were excited to finally try. The most impressive parts of the winery were the scenery (including a beautiful lake) and the man who did our tasting. He was hilarious - sardonic and dry and, ultimately, very friendly. The wines were lacking. He did everything he could to help us find some we enjoyed, even allowing us to taste some reserve wines. There was one red (a 2010 Merlot) that captured our attention. Overall, this winery is a "miss" for me. Skip it and head to...

North Gate Vineyard! Oh my. This is my kind of winery. It's small, green, and the emphasis is truly on producing quality wines. We enjoyed everything we tasted. The dry Rose and the Petit Verdot (2011) were the standouts. We stopped in at the end of the day, less than an hour before they were closing. The winemarker's birthday was that day, and the staff brought out a cake, and everyone still there (including us) sang and wished him a happy one. It has that feeling - of being welcomed, home, comfort, warmth. It was the clear winner of the day, and we'll be back.

And that is how Ellie and I do a weekend reunited. 

life lately | february

In the spirit of "better late than never," I'm time-traveling back to February. These "life lately" posts are some of my favorite to write... it's a nice snapshot into my year, you know? It's so easy to forget the details when life moves as quickly as it does these days, and I want to remember. As I was looking through pictures from February, even just a few months later, I had several "oh yeah!" moments. A stolen moment in Boston when Zan struck a model pose in the middle of a snowy street by a light pole that cracked me up. Playing fetch with Theo on one of those rare warm days, a reprieve from a long winter, and how full of energy and excitement he was to be running on grass and not snow. I saw a lot of movies, too, with my colleague and friend Jess and with Zan - Dallas Buyers Club and Philomena were my favorites this year.

February was a blur. It's a blur now for me, looking back. In a lot of ways, it was an in-between month for me. I was waiting to hear from grad schools. I found out that I was a finalist for the Rangel Fellowship and was waiting (and preparing!) for my interview. I was waiting for it to be warm enough to wear anything but layers. I was completely living and breathing and existing in this state of "what if?" I was afraid to breathe too deeply sometimes, to take in the possibilities, to acknowledge that all my career goals and dreams and aspirations could come true.

It was a month of bated breath. Of soaking up the small moments, putting one foot in front of the other, trying to manage my hope and contain my happiness of all that might be, trying to wait it out, live in every moment, but also begging the clock to speed up, for days to fly by, so I could know finally know what my future would hold.

1: Our winter of wandering the side streets and canals in Georgetown continued into February. I love this shot of the canals at night.
2&7: This is the winter that never ends... yes it goes on and on my friends! Zan made a snowman... a very well-endowed snowman, at that, while throwing snowballs at Theo and drinking wine. It felt warm that night, even with the snow coming down.
3&4:  I think I'll go to Boston! I don't know what's with me and the song lyrics today? But hey! I'll roll with it! Zan surprised me with a trip to Boston for Valentine's Day, and it was the snowiest, coldest romantic getaway and those kinds are underrated. (The hat I'm wearing was a gift from my long time friend Melanie. Y'all are in luck because she just opened an Etsy shop with all of her homemade goods!)
5&8: The night that I found out I was a Rangel Finalist, Matt, Ryan, Zan, my girlfriend Staley and her husband Brian, and I all went to happy hour to toast. Matt gave me the best congratulations card - well, half a card, I should say. And half a candy bar and half a piece of gum. Because I was "half way there." After, Zan and I celebrated the best way I know how - with sparkling wine and pizza - at Alba Osteria, the newest Italian restaurant from Roberto Donna, one of my favorite chefs in DC. I also love his restaurant Al Dente.
6: Funny story, Zan and I met at a bar 4 years ago while I was on a pseudo-date with the bartender... who happened to be one of Zan's best friends. Zan came in and sat down at the bar, and we were fast friends; we got together a year later. We're still good friends with that bartender, who invited us to Catoctin Creek Distillery one Saturday when he was guest bartending. Per usual, his drinks were incredible. (You can taste his cocktails regularly at  the Green Pig in Arlington.)
9: Duke Ellington, eternal on the campus of his school. Zan and I were goofy tourists in our own city that day.
10 & 11: Theo and I were walking up to our favorite dog park when I noticed this creepy giant panda chilling out on a neighbor's front porch! I mean, what do I even say to this?! It's amazing, is what. 

booked | costa rica

To celebrate our two years and my next chapter and take a breather before my internship this summer and grad school starting in the fall (phew), Zan and I are headed to Costa Rica for a little over a week in early May. Can I tell you how excited I am? I've barely touched this trip. Barely researched (for me). Barely laid my hands on a spreadsheet with an itinerary. Barely booked a thing. In fact, we've booked nothing except the tickets to get us there and home. (And the home part seems optional to me.)

This trip isn't how I normally travel. It's not a chance to squeeze every bit of culture, new experiences, and sites into the eight or nine days. This trip is, can I even say it? A vacation. A true, honest to god, vacation. We won't be jumping from city to city (very much) or staying in a handful of airbnbs and hotels. On this trip, we're going to see a thing or two within a day trip from San Jose, and then we're parking ourselves in an airbnb in Cahuita on the Caribbean coast, just north of the backpacker-friendly Puerto Viejo, for 5-6 days of beaches, national parks, drinks with locals and ex-pats, sloth-spotting, and excessive R&R.

That is, if I can stay strong and fight the temptation to research every nook and cranny of that beautiful country and book our time until it's filled to the brim.

Stay strong, self, there's a Caribbean paradise just around the bend of this month.

ps - I nabbed our tickets off of Spirit Airlines for less than $350/each roundtrip! (Including fees for a carry-on bag.) 

a matt interpretation of a cyndi day

For Christmas, Matt and Ryan gave me a fun-filled, jam-packed day in Virginia. In the card, they wrote clues to what we'd be doing: in the air, underground, and of the earth. Actually, Matt and Ryan didn't intend them to be clues but a fun way of introducing what they had planned for the day. But because I'm an eternal 8 year-old, I tried to solve the riddle.

"Underground" was Luray Caverns, an enormous cave discovered in the late 1800s. Today, visiting the cave is a commercial experience, but it's still astounding. The stalagmites and stagtites have grown together in some places (and we spouted those words off like we remembered which was which!). The highlight of the cave is a reflecting pool. The surface acts as a mirror for the formations around it. It's mesmerizing.

In the cave, the second we saw the paved path, Matt and I cracked up.

"This is a Matt interpretation of a Cyndi day," he joked.

"In the air" turned out to be climbing a rock wall and going ziplining. Matt had diligently researched the best spot somewhat near the Caverns in Virginia. He talked it up all morning. He and Ryan were stoked for the ziplining, especially. The website boasted numerous activities and groups of friends and families having the best time ever.

When we pulled up, there were no cars in the parking lot. The office is a ramshackle shed. The climbing wall is a three-story slab of wood. And the ziplines were literally just through some trees.

"This is definitely a Matt interpretation of a Cyndi day."

It. Was. Perfection.

I don't know what it is, but of all the things that Matt and I have in common, ironically fun things are our favorite. We love it when something doesn't look or pan out like it sounds like it will. We once stopped during a road trip at the world's dinkiest water park. We rode every ride in 30 minutes. If you ask me to this day what my favorite water park is (though I'm not sure why you would?!), I'd tell you the one in Amarillo, Texas. We're really talented at making very silly things feel like the grandest in the world.

This place was our heaven. Zan, Matt, Ryan, and I had it to ourselves all afternoon. Not a single other person showed up. Just when we thought it couldn't get better, the guy running the whole shindig offered to let us go zipining for a fraction of the normal price. We were already planning on doing it, but we were really sold then.

We had to learn to put on the "brakes" and how to turn and pull ourselves across the line if we had to. Of course, I was the only one who got stuck... repeatedly. My arms got a serious workout, and the guys all got a serious laugh. The small bases we landed on were rickety and small, and Zan practically hugged the trees for dear life.

After all that, we had lunch in a tiny town on a real life Main Street that felt like the Georgia that Matt and I know. They had homemade ice cream - just about literal icing on the cake, if you ask me.

Exhausted, we almost went straight home. But we still had "in the ground" to experience. Cleverly, that was a visit to a winery. The views were better than the wine, but wine-tasting with Matt is the real fun of things anyway.  ("I get... hamburger patties in this one. And a hint of shoe sole.")

I'd usually describe my perfect day as one on a barely-marked trail with a map I can't really read (because turn it in circles 10 times and just start walking is my map-reading strategy).

But this day, seeing the kind of Saturdays I seek out through the lens of friends giving me the greatest gift - knowing me and my interests and finding ways to enjoy them with me? It was incredible. I'll go on a Matt interpretation of a Cyndi day any day.

capitol cutups

A Mormon missionary from Ohio attending the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in DC noticed Zan's Wittenberg University jacket and struck up a conversation.

I can't figure out where to take this blog post from that little snippet of memory, but I felt like it had to be documented somewhere. I would have ignored the guy, if I'm honest. I have little patience for being proselytized with religion or conservative rhetoric - call it a casualty of growing up in in the deep south. Zan didn't. In fact, they talked for so long the lanky college kid who swam in his suit jacket had to sprint to catch up with his group.

While they talked, Zan reminiscing about his old college stomping grounds, I leaned over backwards with my camera in my hands, my back arching just as far as it could and shot pictures of the National Mall upside down.

A family asked us to snap their picture in front of the Capitol Building.

Zan and I took turns planking in front of the Capitol steps, taking pictures of each other - "Just one more!" - to see how long the other could last.

We took pictures of ourselves, trying to get the Washington Monument right in between us, and failing every time. 

It was that one rare sunshiney day in the midst of a never-ending winter.

I'd wanted to go hiking, but after a book club brunch, and a walk through Eastern Market, we said why not just walk some more right here? And we took off to the Capitol, my camera in tow, and it was just as good - if not better - than our original plans. 

I could use 100 more of these days, and then 100 more. With the sun shining, and laughter in our eyes, and a willingness to goof off on the steps of the Capitol Building, proud to live in this city and call it home.

That kid from Wittenberg. I think he stuck in my mind from that day because this whole career of mine that's right in front of me - just two short years away - it's rooted in being open-minded and willing to listen, even when everything in me wants to walk away. Zan wasn't just diplomatic, and he didn't just patiently deal with the kid. He really engaged and listened and enjoyed talking to him, differences and all. That's what true diplomacy is all about. Hell, that kind of dialogue is just the thing we need in that beautiful, tall dome we call the Capitol.

a hike in rock creek park + transitions

All of the greatest experiences in my life have required me to adapt. To be uncomfortable until I know nothing else. To find joy and contentment in my initial discomfort. Living abroad was certainly that way. I didn't know how to eat with chopsticks when I arrived in Japan, let alone how to speak to my neighbors in Japanese or even how to work the washing machine. Every day there was a new challenge to tackle. Until suddenly, it all felt commonplace, comfortable, my new normal.

The same with going to school out of state. And taking my first solo trip. It was to Mozambique after a girlfriend bailed on me. I was scared out of my wits when I got to the airport and had to figure out how to get to my hostel. In the end, that trip lit an eternal flame in me for adventuring by myself, and for finding my way into - and out of - crazy situations.

Right now I'm going through it with living with Zander. We've planned and worked for this moment for a year, and now that it's here? It's uncomfortable and strange. How much food do we buy for two people? Do I have to watch another car/fishing show? Do we do our laundry together or separate? I'm so fiercely independent that the walls of that small one-bedroom apartment feel like they just don't have enough air sometimes. But I know with a little patience, and a whole lot of trial and error, this will become my new normal, too.

The same was true with adopting Theo. In fact, maybe more so than any other decision in my life. Adapting to his schedule, planning walks, skipping happy hours, hiring a dog walker, playing endless rounds of fetch, training him -- it didn't come 100% naturally to either of us. But now our routines are so intertwined that I don't need to set alarms anymore because he wakes me up at the exact same time every morning. And without thinking, when I get up from the couch to use the restroom or get a glass of water, I open the back door for him to go outside. As I brush my teeth in the morning, it's second-nature to pour him a cup of food.

If you follow me on Instagram, you might have seen a few of these pictures from a recent hike Zan and I took with Theo. Mr. Man (one of Theo's many, many nicknames*) is spending the summer (or at least a month or two) with my mom in Georgia until Zan and I can rent his place and find one of our own that allows dogs. It's a weird transition. My space feels awkward without Theo there to share it with, to insert himself right at my legs, or put his head on my lap, or to walk by my side in the woods.

It's strange, and it's awkward, but it's the right choice for right now. I thanked my mom for the billionth time the other day for taking care of him when she already has a dog and several cats and a bird (a zoo!) to take care of already, and she said, "This is what family is all about."

Before Theo made the long car ride down to Georgia, we took him on an early spring hike in Rock Creek Park. It looked like a gray day with clouds that threatened rain, but on the trail everything was golden, more like early fall than a persistent winter. It was a fairly easy hike, but Theo laid down in every puddle of mud he found, every pond he could stand in, and chased every stick Zander and I threw. That dog is seriously the joy of my life, you can't tell, right? He and Zander and some golden woods, and I am the luckiest.

A lot of things in my life are in transition right now. I'm leaving my job in less than a month to start an internship on Capitol Hill. I'll be in graduate school full time for two years after that. Zan and I have to move again in a month or two. Zan and I are making big decisions and asking big questions about what our future will look like now that my career is decided (and decidedly nomadic).

Many things right now are up in the air, but I know for a fact that I'll always look back at this time as one of the best of my life, uncomfortable transitions and all.

We hiked the 3 mile Northern Loop in Rock Creek Park. Check out Active Life DC for hike details! 

*Theo's other nicknames: Baby Bear, Pumpkin, Mama's Boy, Little Man, Munchkin Man, and Theodore (generally reserved for VIP guests and/or when he's ignoring me). Never, ever Teddy.