March 31

March 28

Last Wednesday was a doozy. Actually, all last week was a doozy. Wednesday was fun, though, because we interns got to go tour the white house. It wasn't as much of a letdown as the pentagon tour. There were lots of beautiful rooms. I heard before that a problem that the white house and governor mansions have is that congress rarely wants to help fund the repairs and upkeeps of these houses. I don't blame them. I'm not sure how I feel about some of my tax dollars going to making sure their houses are alright. Well I suppose I could look at house expenses as part of their income. Anyhow, it was beautiful inside, and Jon snuck some pictures. It was fun to finally be reunited with Kelsey! In the green room… which is clearly green, Jon asked “is this the red room?” Kelsey thought he was joking and I was just dumbfounded. I asked “what color is this room?” and he said “red” where I promptly did a face palm. He finally figured it out when he saw the sign that said “green room.” Every room after that we would ask “now what color is this room?” it was really funny. Then we all took pictures outside and bonded as interns. It was also fun to look at all the photos in the white house of first families, and other famous people to go through the white house. There was a picture of Rutherford B Hayes and I told Kelsey that my stuffed rabbit is named after him and she thought it was super cute. There was also a picture of John Travolta dancing with Princess Dianna. 

 I'm so sorry for all of these for being sideways. IDK why blogger loaded them sideways... they were right side up. Oh well..

 There are so many pictures of Jon because these were taken on his computer and he sent  them to me for some reason so now i'm posting them all on here for some reason enjoy!

Jon sneaked pictures in the White House! tsk. ;) this is the painting of George Washington that survived the fire, i think.

After that, we wondered to Metro Center and Kelsey took me to some English food chain place called Prets a mange and it was yummy. The boys thought it was girly food and too expensive so they weren’t happy. They went to get a second lunch while Kelsey and I went to H&M for some shopping. One of her good friends at BYU is having a bday and she said that she’s like a BYU hipster which made me laugh. It was fun to shop with her.

The Royksopp concert was that night. I got home and had a panic attack about not wanting to go out that night. I always have to force myself to go out at night but then I’m usually glad that I did. It was raining hard core, so it took a cab there. I hate bringing extra things to shows because then you either have to pay like ten bucks to valet them or hold on to them all night and hope not to lose anything in the madness, so I went without a coat. I went with Macy and Chris, the press dude. It was so fun hanging out with them outside of work! Macy and I got along quite well. We were just giggling and being stupid.  They were actually dancing too which was awesome! This one guy that was pretty short was standing like RIGHT behind me the whole time and I hit him with my butt a couple of times which was awkward. But we had a blast all in all. All three of us took a taxi back and it dropped me off like six blocks away so I had to walk six blocks alone at like 1:30 in the morning. Thankfully my street is so super quiet. I called Dan on my way to feel safer and I didn’t see a soul. It was a good night. But after my trip to Cody and then the super late night on a work night… it was exhausting.

 Sorry there are so many. I didn't feel like editing... :) but that's Macy and Chris, and the first act was John Hopkins.

 You can see i didn't have much time to get ready for this... Macy looks great though!

 Chris fails at the self portrait.

 we struggled with camera settings. i think i have finally figured it out since then.

 D'oh! why'd he have to move just then! It would have been an awesome picture. oh well..

I don’t remember much from the next day of work… I had a tour for two postal masters. One was from Powell and said that dad gives her shoulder injections. I hope she remembers to tell him that I gave her a tour! One lady was the post master from Moose and she was English. She kept saying things like “This is why I love America!” she moved to America and then married an American, so she came by choice before meeting a dude. It was so great, though. I love hearing about how Europeans love America and why they came. In the tour of 21 8^th graders last week, one chaperone was from Czechoslovakia and moved to the states and he talked about how great it was to come to the states and see all this. It’s really great to hear Europeans rave about the states. I think the states get too much crap from people. Anyhow, the Powell lady was a tough cookie at first, but then she started joking and talking. They were both so chatty that that tour lasted forever. It was really fun. I’ve also gotten a couple thank you notes for these tours.

Later that day, I totally passed out in my office chair. Welchie was shooting rubber bands at me the whole time and I didn’t even budge. A couple staffers took note while walking by. Brad went up to Macy and was all “jeez, what did you do to her??” haha, it was really funny. Macy was laughing at me pretty hard.

On Friday, absolutely nothing happened. Welchie and I manned the front for just a bit, but that was about it! I’ll have to ask him about it when he gets back. That night I just went straight home, too. (Welchie just informed me that we did… NOTHING) I did read all of the ensign online though! That was cool. It wasn’t riddled with religious pictures online so I didn’t feel too… awkward I guess. Or in your face I’m reading scripture stuff.

On Saturday, I decided to go meet with Welchie at the Cherry blossom festival opening ceremony and I got Jon and Miles to tag along. One of Miles’ roommates, Jamey, came along too. It was fun to just hang out with a group of kids in the middle of the day and not drink and just hang out and be stupid. I joked that there would be modern dance at this festival. There was no such thing and I sat down on stairs because it was just boring. I heard string music and I joked with the guys how there were people modern dancing with their cellos but Jamey went to check it out and he was excited and told me to go look. I went and lo and behold: modern dance! It was crappy boring stuff, though, so I went back to the stairs. It was pretty funny though. We also found that the stairs were nice and comfy for a nap. We all walked back to Union station and had smoothies and the boys got food. Not me. The smoothie filled me right up. Then we headed to our place, and Welchie had to go his way back to Prince Georges county (he informed me that there were two more murders there the other day… ugh). That morning, I tried making up some Chinese orange chicken mixture. I took dishes out of the dishwasher to use that I wasn’t aware weren’t clean. I’m also not entirely sure I cooked the chicken all the way… I’m really surprised I didn’t make myself sick…

 In the National Building Museum

 Kelsey and I decorated our desk space

 Work... it makes us tired. That's Jon, Miles, Jamie, then me.

 watching the crappy modern dancers with Miles and Jamey

 Crappy modern dancers

On Sunday, Jessica couldn't come get me. By the time I figured that out, it was too late to do anything else. It takes an hour and a half to get there by metro and then someone has to come get you. I was stuck without the sacrament for the third week in a row! And I will miss it next weekend too for obvious reasons (conference). Needless to say, I was not happy about that one bit. I have no idea why Jessica didn’t come to get me. I read a lot of the BOM and cleaned and did all my laundry. 

March 31, 2011

I just went to a photo op with Senators Ensign and Reid from Nevada. I was just standing in the LBJ room in the capitol with the boys and I look over my shoulder to see that Senator Reid was right there looking at me! I turned around and stuck out my hand and said “Hello senator! My name’s Hanna, I work for Barrasso, and I go to BYU.” (I stuck in the BYU because I figured it was less in your face than going “I’m LDS too!!”) He first mentioned that I had beautiful red hair. He asked if I was from Wyoming, and I said that I indeed was. He said he had spent time in Rawlins for a murder case. He said it was a good place for a prison because it’s cold and windy. He then asked the boys where they go to school and when they said UW, he said “well she’s the smartest one out of all of you! BYU is very hard to get into.” I said “I appreciate that senator” and he just said “it’s very hard to get into.” And then he turned right to me and said “you know that only 10% of the world’s population has red hair?” and I said “yes, we’re a dying bread” and he told me that his mother had red hair and that he used to have strawberry blond hair and he loves it. I was incredibly flattered. I was also glad that the boys mostly kept quiet. Jon didn’t even realize that was Senator Reid. I think he thought it was Ensign!! Haha. Ensign came up later, but Welchie dominated that conversation as he usually does. Again, it was me that first noticed him and stuck out my hand to say “hello senator!” Welchie answered all his questions. Oh well. Ensign was impressed that we work for Barrasso though! 

They went up to the front of the room to give speeches. Senator Reid was up first. It was a pretty good talk. He talked about how we’re making a budget for this next year, and after all this arguing, they finally settled on a budget that the house originally tried to pass but couldn’t (and one I believe Reid was ok with in the first place, but the rest of the dems weren’t). I know that Reid was more for working with the House on lowering the budget unlike Nanci Pelosi. He then said that Nanci Pelosi messed up and he was disappointed with her and then he went on to praise Boehner saying he has a tough job keeping his spot because he has to please the republicans, and democrats, while also trying to please 50 or so republicans that Reid called “crazies.” Really, he didn’t say much I didn’t agree with, but I know that’s because he was being very cautious not to say anything disagreeable because half the people in there were there to meat Senator Ensign. Ensign was up next. He just talked about how now that we have an agreement on the budget; we need to work through what things we want to cut funding for. He mentioned entitlements, then the other stuff not including military, saying that we don’t have a whole lot of options for cuts if we ignore the military and entitlement programs and leave those the same or add to their funding. Again, nothing I didn’t disagree with, but that makes more sense because I agree more with his politics than Reid’s.  One thing I did notice with Reid was that I did feel the spirit while being with him. I thought that was incredible. Well I like him a whole lot. I just don’t agree with his politics. Maybe I can use my charm to change his mind someday ;). Well that was an instance where having red hair really was a blessing! I love how I stand out to people enough that they feel comfortable enough to come talk to me. It happens quite a bit on the hill. My red hair is a great ice breaker! … Usually with older men only, but oh well. Oh, I guess old ladies, too. (btw, expect a photo with me and these two senators to come in the mail sometime later).

Well, I need to back up to Monday, now.

Monday was not very interesting, really. I did nothing all morning that I recall. It was just good to be back at work after a long weekend… What’s wrong with me? Haha. Well, I did nothing all day, but then Kelsey came in at around noon and her mom, her aunt, and her little cousin came in to get a tour with her! Her aunt and cousin are LDS and from Powell. They’re Diane Winter and her daughter Kinsey Ashby, and then Kelsey’s mother, Cheree. I went up to meet them and we discussed how mom taught Diane’s step son in Seminary and how I’m doing the huge Thorofare trip. Little Kinsey is going to go to Powell high so I asked her about it and said “oh, well, Cody high is a little bit better, but that’s ok” with a wink. Then they went off on their like… two hour tour :).

I had to do something really interesting. A school group of about 100 8^th graders from Delaware came to meet with their senator, Carper. Carper requested that they all get a staff led tour, but members of staff are only allowed to have 15 people with them at a time, so they had to ask around other offices to get volunteers to help out. I was the lucky person to get that job. I went to meet them at the designated spot and other volunteers were there, too. A Quirky redheaded boy that was also there to help out asked where I go to school, and when I said BYU, he went on to go “rise and shout, the cougars are out!” Apparently he is a big BYU fan but goes to some prestigious school out east. He asked me if I liked it out here, and I said that honestly, I was bored a lot because all the kids here go and drink and I don’t feel like joining him, and that drunken people aren’t that fun to hang out with. He said that east coasters are a lot classier when they drink. (idk about that… someone puked on Macy’s arm once at a bar…) and then he went on to be like “what do you think about Provo?” as in it is some horrible place but I said that I liked it. People there do more than drink, SLC is right there, there’s outdoors stuff, etc. he didn’t buy it. Oh well. He can continue to have that east coast self righteousness. Well, I had my group well, two chaperones and 13 8^th graders. The first thing I asked them was if any of them had ever been to Wyoming. Some adults had. I informed them that I’m from Wyoming. Well we had to be super quick about our tour. Those 8^th graders were chatty! They asked so many questions I could hardly get any information out. I actually didn’t mind so much about that. That meant that they were super interested in everything in the capitol and I had fun answering their questions and bantering with them. I know this is surprising to a lot of people but I actually get along really well with middle schoolers, so it really wasn’t all that bad. I had to stop by Boehner’s office and talk about how the republicans just took over the House which I was happy about but I wasn’t sure about the rest of those kids because they’re from a pretty liberal state. They didn’t have any clue what I was talking about, but one of the chaperones and his son were happy about it. I’m not sure I had any idea what was going on politically at that age either, so I don’t blame them. We all had to meet in the rotunda so Senator Carper could come talk to them. He gave the longest speech ever to them! I was like “come on, senator! These are 8^th graders! They don’t give a crap and won’t remember anything you say.” And of course he said a bunch of really liberal things that I didn’t agree with. At least the kids weren’t paying any attention. That was interesting, though.

On Tuesday, the boys and I had a photo op with Senator Cornyn from Texas. That picture should be going to the home address, as well. There’s not a whole lot to report from that. We just showed up at his Texas Tuesday breakfast and waited in line to take pictures with him. In the line, we met with an Ethiopian who was very talkative.This guy wanted to get public transportation better in TX, like a train between Austin and a couple of the other huge cities down there. I’m sure in Texas that would be a useful investment. One thing I did disagree with was putting a train between Las Vegas and Southern CA because that’s one of the busiest streets ever. I disagree with that because no one would ever use that train! When people go to California, they want to have their cars with them. It’s a lot cheaper to just drive than to take a train and then rent a car down there or take cabs everywhere. I think a train there would be a waste. I also disagreed with is aversion to having Sarah Palin as the VP.  He said that the only reason she was chosen was to appease the female vote and compete with Obama that way. Welchie brought up that Palin was chosen because a lot of people weren’t happy with McCain’s centralism and so he added an extremely conservative woman to his campaign to appease the super conservatives. Also, Vice Presidents really do NOTHING.  They’re supposedly the president of the senate, but they’re never there, and even if they are, they don’t do anything but sit there. They also go on trips that I guess are fairly important, but not really. I’m not really sure that a VP should swing a vote that much just because the VP position is really very useless.  This Ethiopian did say how lucky we are to be in this country. He also said that he voted for Bush both times because he thought he was a principled man. I can agree with that. Over all, it was interesting. He took his picture with us after. The picture with Cornyn wasn’t that interesting. I went up to him, shook his hand and said “hello senator.” He asked where I was from. Click. Next person.  We met the intern for Cornyn, and she was nice. I saw one girl there in a pretty hootchy outfit for meeting a senator. The intern informed us that she was Miss Texas (the hootchy outfit makes sense!) and Jon immediately wanted to take a picture with her.

Because of that incident, we looked up who Miss Wyoming is to see if she was as cute (yes she is) but then I discovered that there’s also a Miss Wyoming USA which really confused me. Why the heck are there two Miss Wyomings? That’s when I discovered that there’s a Miss USA AND a Miss America. I had no idea! Miss America sounds more legit just because they actually have a talent and question and answer section.  Welchie knew that they were different, so I had to make fun of him for knowing that, lol. But then I was looking up to see if there were any famous of successful Miss Wyomings or Miss Wyomings USA (nope… although there has been a couple who were Miss Congenialities.)

JB surprised us by coming into our part of the office. I had my shoes off and I was crouched in my chair as usual when he burst through the door. He was SUPER jolly! He asked “are you cold?” and then to the general public “does anybody have a blanket??” and then he went back to Jon’s part of the office. He was chatting all chatty like. He was all “now I have to go to a super important meeting! Just kidding, it’s not that important. But my other meetings are important!” and then he whispered in Jon’s ear “no they’re not haha” haha, it was funny. Dan, the chief of staff also comes back a lot and calls me Ovaltine now. When I was sick, our office was out of hot chocolate, so I had to bring my own! Haha, I heard about that a lot from everyone. It’s like when I had a cream soda in here everyone kept taking a double look and asked if I was boozing up at work.

On Wednesday, I had a quick little tour for some high schoolers who were there with the outreach program. I think they were from Jackson, but I’m not sure. They were nice. I know they were tired but they were troopers. One girl was an artist so she had a lot of fun looking at all the stuff. I told them about how the statue of Abraham Lincoln was the first statue in the capitol that was done by a woman and how she was only 18 at the time and the teacher did that whole winky thing to the artist girl. It was cute. I had to hurry though because they had a meeting with Lummis right after. It was fun.

We had our DeMint photo op on Wednesday. Kelsey got to go to this one with us this time. It was fun. We practiced with Jon how to introduce himself. With Cornyn, Jon was all “hi, this is jon…athan knight” so we practiced for DeMint. He did much better this time.  Again, nothing much to report on. This time, the photos will be dropped off at our office, but I’ll prob just mail it home after we get it. I also had lunch with Kelsey that day which was nice. I usually have lunch alone, although I have been eating with the boys a lot more lately. I also stayed up till two so I could sign up for my classes for fall. Darn time difference!

This email is getting so super long! It’s filled with fun stuff, though, so I hope you read through it all. Well, there’s some boring stuff mixed in… but it has been a fun couple of weeks, that’s for sure!

Just for fun: Orrin hatch is awesome! He writes music. Wikipedia has this to say about him:

Orrin Hatch plays the piano, violin and organ. Fueled by his interest in poetry, Orrin has written songs for many. (On the advice of U2 front-man Bono, he has put several of the songs under a pen name, "because it's you, man.")^{[citation needed]} He co-authored "Everything And More," sung by Billy Gilman. In addition to his job as a United States Senator, Hatch has earned over $65,000 as an LDS music recording artist.^{[citation needed]}
Hatch also has a history in arts management. In the early 1970s he was the band manager for a Mormon-themed folk group called the Free Agency. The Free Agency was made up of members of an earlier Mormon group called the Sons of Mosiah, that was formed when guitarist David Zandonatti and vocalist Ron McNeeley relocated to Utah after their San Francisco based psychedelic group Tripsichord music box disbanded in 1971.
Rock musician Frank Zappa composed a guitar instrumental entitled "Orrin Hatch On Skis," which appears on his album, Guitar (1988).
Hatch's song "Heal Our Land" was performed at George W. Bush's January 2005 inauguration.^[40]
Hatch has even written works that count as hymns, often working with Janice Kapp Perry.^[41]
Hatch appeared as himself in Steven Soderbergh's Oscar-winning drama Traffic (2000), in a brief cameo in a scene set during a Washington D.C. cocktail party.^[42]
Soderbergh later featured one of Hatch's songs, Souls Along The Way, in his film Ocean's 12 as background music for a scene in Hatch's home state Utah.^[43]
In 2009, at the request of The Atlantic correspondent Jeffrey Goldberg, Hatch authored the lyrics to "Eight Days of Hanukkah",^[44] described by Goldberg as "a hip hop Hannukah song written by the senior senator from Utah."

You can watch his Hanukah song here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XND3Naa6N5o

Here’s a funny follow up story on it in the news: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/09/us/politics/09hanukkah.html

Love and miss you all!!

p.s. here's my schedule for next semester:

Unknown (29 Aug 2011 - 08 Dec 2011) Class Schedule

Course	Sec	Sec Type	Reg#	TC	L Q	Hrs	Class Period	Days	Room	Bldg	Course Title	Instructor
HIST 221	001		02858	024		3.0	3:00p - 5:30p	W	253	MARB	U S Since 1877	Johns, Andrew L
HIST 304	001		10493	000		3.0	3:00p - 4:15p	TTh	B060	JFSB	European Expansion	Harreld, Donald Jame
PL SC 150	002		04637	000		3.0	1:35p - 2:50p	TTh	271	RB	Comparative Governmnt&Politics	Jacoby, Wade Anthony
SFL 110	002		09712	004		2.0	11:00a - 11:50a	M	B037	JFSB	Food Preparation in the Home	Smith, Marcia Laird
							3:00p - 5:50p	M	B061	JFSB
SFL 224	002	EVENING	07749	004		3.0	4:30p - 7:00p	Th	171	TLRB	Marriage Enhancement	Crane, D Russell

Hour Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday 11:00a SFL110 - 2 11:00a - 11:50a B037 JFSB 12:00p 1:00p PL SC150 - 2 1:35p - 2:50p 271 RB PL SC150 - 2 1:35p - 2:50p 271 RB 2:00p 3:00p SFL110 - 2 3:00p - 5:50p B061 JFSB HIST304 - 1 3:00p - 4:15p B060 JFSB HIST221 - 1 3:00p - 5:30p 253 MARB HIST304 - 1 3:00p - 4:15p B060 JFSB 4:00p SFL224 - 2 4:30p - 7:00p 171 TLRB 5:00p 6:00p

It's a little heavy in the afternoon, but i think it should be fun :) i hope... it leaves me plenty of time for working in the mornings, too. Now i just need to set up a job!

March 22

March 22, 2011

I had my trip to WY last week. It was amazing to be able to go home for the weekend! I’m so pooped though.

Before leaving for my trip, I did my laundry. It always bothered me that the dryer didn’t have a lint catcher, but I just figured it got blown through some tube or something. While I was drying my cloths, I smelled burning. I saw there was tons of lint stuck in the door holes, so I tried to tweeze them out. Nothing was really coming out when I found where the lint catcher was hidden! It’s in the door. A blanket of lint came out. Some got stuck in the little space where the lint catcher chills and I tried to tweeze it out too. No luck. I then went to get our vacuum cleaner to use the tube on the lint. The vacuum cleaner is like a child’s play thing. It’s tiny with no tube sucker thingy. I just shoved the lint catcher back in and hoped for the best. I’m so glad I figured out about the lint catcher before we all burned in our sleep! Clare witnessed it all. Hopefully she told the other girls. There was so much lint it was bursting out of the lint catcher slot! Oy evay.

The next day, I had to get up to be ready for a shuttle to pick me up at four in the morning. I accidently woke up at 1:30 thinking it was 3:30 and got ready and went down by the door to wait. The time came and went so I called in the office and asked if I missed my shuttle. The dude asked me what time it was and I said “four thirty” and he said “no…  I’m pretty sure it’s two thirty.” And I felt all stupid. I didn’t dare go back to sleep because I was afraid that I wouldn’t wake up again. I was up since 11:30 Cody time! I think that, for some reason, I thought that my phone was set to Cody time so that’s why I got up at 1:30.

I ordered a shuttle to come to my place to pick me up. It was so nice to just ride a shuttle to the airport. I got to the air port in plenty of time so I lay down on the ground with my bags as pillows and an alarm set on my phone. I had to turn every fifteen min or so because my hips would start to hurt. I’m glad I set my alarm clock because if I hadn’t, I would have missed boarding. My alarm went off and people were just starting to line up to get on board. There was like a whole family sitting around me and I felt weird and groggy as I had to get up and get in line.

I found my seat and got settled in. A lady came by me and complimented my bag. We started chatting about all sorts of things. We talked about working, school, drugs, marriage, etc.  I told her that I was a junior at BYU and she asked how I managed to escape being married so far. I laughed and she told me how her brother is LDS and all his kids went to BYU and got married super young. She told me about her son who graduated from a super expensive private school and got a nice job but got fired soon after because of the bad economy. He had to move back home with her and her husband until he could find a new job. She works for the Marriott as a golf instructor and the Marriott manager got him a job as a golf guy and a food guy for a year until he decided what he wants to specialize in. The lady said that she got that golf course started from the beginning with that manager. She used to be a single mom and had to work really hard until she met her current (Greek) husband who encouraged her to be more serious about golf and I think she said she was pro or semipro at one point. She now works part time as an instructor at the Marriott. She talks about how it’s nice to have the main Marriott people to be LDS because they give people Sundays or Saturdays off depending on what religion they are. They also let men off on paternal leave when their wives have children. I thought that was pretty neat. She also gets amazing discounts at Marriott resorts and goes golfing on different resorts a lot. Her daughter works for the airlines, too, so traveling is pretty cheap for her. That sounds like a great set up to me! We also talked about how dumb doing a lot of drugs and alcohol is. She talks about how her one son was in that private school and she kept saying annoyed that he is a follower so she talked about all the trouble he got into and how her nephew is in prison for five years for robbing his grandma at gunpoint so he could get more drugs. We both wondered how you find certain drugs. That’s always confused me. We also talked about how the LDS church now days encourages women to get educations because we never know when she might need it. The lady thought that was good because she got married at 18 and it lasted for 11 years but eventually fell apart and she had to support herself, but she was never pushed as a teenager by her parents so all she did was get high. That made me laugh.  (She lived in the middle east as a teenager). She admits that her one bad habit is smoking. We also discussed the balance of pushing your children but not forcing them to do things they don’t want to do.  Should a parent push their children to practice piano all the time when they don’t want to? My best idea is sign them up for a bunch of things at first, see what they like best, and let them specialize as much or as little as they like. I’m just afraid that they would be too much like me and be too lazy to get good at any of that… it’s still a mystery to me. Anyhow, it was good to talk to someone like that. At one point when I mentioned BYU, the boy in front of me (who was coming on way to strong to the girl next to him) turned around and called on the name of Jimmer and told me to look up “teach me how to Jimmer” on youtube, which I have yet to do… I also passed out after a bit and the lady told me after we landed that I snored. Oops… I swear, my sleep is just getting weirder and weirder. Really gory dreams about death, vivid sleep talking, and now snoring… oh dear.

Being home was grand! I got to stay up late with the family and Dan every night, we went to the cabin, and our ward’s annual Dutch oven cook-out/freeze. Mom knows how to throw a party too! It was good to see so many people. Dan and Papa bonded over business talk which made me happy. There were a lot of people there that I didn’t quite recognize who remembered me, though. And I forgot a lot of names… oh well. The best for me was seeing the Bullingers! I loved their kids, but I haven’t seen any of them in like four or five years. The three oldest are married! It was really great to catch up with them, though. They are a fantastic family. I also spoke at Cody high to some students about my experience on the hill and spent a good amount of time talking them into getting an education, but I also talked a lot about politics. The teacher almost argued with me about health care, but Dan said I shut him down. I didn’t even know I shut him down or that he was trying to argue with my ideas of socialism. I basically just told him that other countries that have socialized medicine are smaller, are possibly better at budgeting, but the states would just take our money and not use it as much for health as we would like and that the countries that are socialized are always used as examples as being good with socialized medicine, but that they are in fact in debt over it themselves.  The family also went bowling which was fun. I finally have found someone worse at bowling than me! That would be Kirsten. Not by much though. We both need to practice. I’m already way better than I was when I would only get gutter balls.  Saturday night, little Clara said “please don’t go. Pretty please with a cherry on top” and it broke my heart. The ride back to DC wasn’t quite as eventful, but boy am I beat from it! Riding the shuttle back home, I was actually pleasantly surprised to be kind of happy to see the capitol again and to get home. It was nice. I still miss Cody, but being excited to be back in DC, no matter how minimal the excitement was, is comforting. I was expecting dread! Now I know these next two months will be manageable. 

 

I was chilling at home and let my brain melt by watching tv for a couple hours. Clare and her friend came back to the apartment. I actually like this guy, though. He’s really nice. They told me how Michelle and Max, the intern from Enzi’s office, were on a date and were hanging out all last weekend! I guess she went to Capitol Hill club to check it out after I told her about it on Friday night and met up with Miles, Jon, and Welchie there. After that, she went to their usual bar, Hamilton’s where they met up with Max and they hit it off! I think it’s so funny how my roommates hang out with the Wyoming boys out here. It makes me giggle. Well, the next night, Clare, her guy who we call Boston (which is where he is working), Michelle, max, and Jon went out and I guess Michelle and Max started making out and Boston caught them. Man, stuff goes on in my apartment when I’m not here! I really like max, so I wouldn’t mind seeing him around the apartment more. Same with Boston. I approve. It’s so bizarre when two of your worlds collide like that, though… as in WY kids and roommates. They like the Wyoming kid’s country charm, though, and I don’t blame them.  

Work yesterday was fine. I fell asleep with my head to the side and my neck hurt way bad when I woke up. Welchie was kind enough to document it. He also shot me with a rubber band in hopes of waking me up but I didn’t even flinch. Jon and Welchie make fun of my sleeping (I’ve fallen asleep at a couple of lectures before) and my random hiccups. I actually really like those boys. I’ll miss them when this is all over. We had lunch together and Jon told us about how one night, when he was drunk, he got in a car with a G to get a ride home. The G had cocaine and a “girlfriend,” who I suggested was probably a prostitute and Jon thought I was probably right. The G kept offering stuff to Jon but Jon said he just wanted a ride home and miraculously, he made it there safely. He did have to convince the G that he wasn’t the police, though. Goodness… I’m glad he survived! What a story! Welchie also had one night where he got so drunk, he woke up the next day in his bed, not remembering how he got home. Lucky the kid got home alright. Welchie said he drank a lot that night because he was depressed that he maced the office. Jon and I were like “no… really, it is fine! It was actually kind of funny!” but for some reason, Welchie is really depressed about that. Jon also told us about how he almost got arrested for public drunkenness when the police took him home after giving his brother a DUI and jon was all “Ociffer! That’s my brother! Don’t mess with him ociffer,” and just giving him crap. Finally, as the officer had had enough, he said he was going to arrest him but Jon ran to his house and pounded on the door and his dad opened up and the police shook his head at Jon’s dad. Jon said he got a huge lecture that night. The story was pretty funny when Jon was telling it. Welchie and I sat up front for a little bit, but that’s all we did yesterday… Jon’s been busy marking photos for the senator to sign. That’s all he does, poor kid. I also introduced them to the wonder that is BYU culture.  I told them about filling your canteen, NCMO, and other goldies. It was funny.

Today, Welchie and I had a tour for 21 people, a bunch of middle schoolers and their chaperones from Jackson. They were all so great! This group of kids really paid attention and cared about what we talked about unlike other kids that come through here.  They also asked questions and answered my questions. I asked them if they knew the gods on the fresco from Percy Jackson and they did! I had to inform them that those were the roman equivalents but that that was still very impressive. I got to do the rotunda, crypt, and hall of columns. the tour went well.

I also had to organize the supply closet. That went well. It was actually kind of relaxing, but you all know how poorly organized I am. Kathi said that it looks much better, though, so that makes me happy. That only took me about an hour. I must say myself; it does look a lot better in there. There’s so much junk in there, though, that it will never look that great. someone else commented in a pleasant way that it will be nice to have a clean closet. I guess it was alright. it was quite satisfying. I was also trying to talk the boys into going to the six flags in Maryland this weekend. Jon’s all for it. We may have to work on talking Welchie into it more. I also had lunch with Welchie and we talked about why I didn’t go to UW among other things. I’ve also read some of the Ensign online. Kathi is setting up photo appointments with other senators too! I’m excited about that.

Well, that’s all for now.  Kelsey missed last Monday because she was in the hospital for something she caught in Haiti. Maybe I’m glad I didn’t chose to go after all when BYU was going last summer… I think she’s better now and I will be seeing her tomorrow when we do our white house tour! I also have my Royksopp concert tomorrow with Macy and Chris. I will have to check with them how we will coordinate this. I’m stoked though!

The other day, Macy called me into the office because a package I had sent to the Cheyenne office never got there. I had to buy high ball glasses and send them to Cheyenne. The next week, I found out that I was supposed to buy a ton of other things to send to Cheyenne too, but I didn’t know that at the time. I was nervous about that but didn’t tell anyone because I figured it was too late. Anyhow, like three weeks later, Macy told me that the package never got there and was mad at me and it was awkward. She was all “you lost aver $100 worth of stuff!” but only I know that I only lost $22 worth plus mail. It’s good and bad… somehow. What an odd situation. I think I’m glad the package got lost and I didn’t get in trouble for not buying the other things. I gave all the receipts from that errand job to Kathi and she could have easily figured out I didn’t send all the stuff. Another possible explanation is that they got the High ball glasses but nothing else, so they just assumed that the rest of the stuff got lost in the mail. Well, whatever it is that happened, at least not as much money was lost as we thought. Oops. I totally dropped the ball on that one. And it was quite awkward. I hope I didn’t already tell that story. I think it’s a good one though.

Also, another health care bill was introduced RIGHT after Erin introduced hers and us interns got it passed out. Phew!!! :)

Well that’s all i’ll write for now because I have a feeling I will have a lot to write about tomorrow with the white house tour and concert. I love you all so much! Have a good one. Miss you all already. 

p.s. Jessica, who is a press person for Orrin Hatch, says that the press people and the legislative people always argue about stories that should go out and the kind of press interviews hatch should do. They wrote a bill about immigration and they wanted Jessica to set up a press interview about it and Jessica was just like "you never know what he's going to say about immigration! it's not a good idea! so now whenever i see legislative people in the press shop and they're arguing, i giggle. Also, i found out that Orrin hatch is the coolest senator ever because he has a legitimate music career and he even wrote a Jewish song called 8 days of Hanukkah. observe the personal life here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orrin_Hatch and his music video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XND3Naa6N5o . I like how he is a pimp and shows his prayer roll in his shirt. The interviews about it later are hilarious. You should look them up. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/09/us/politics/09hanukkah.html . ok, i get to go home now :) i'll ttyl! loves!