Post Hunt VICTORY! (Atonement for Peeps Diorama travesty)

MY TEAM WON THE POST HUNT!* Mr. TA and I only decided to participate in this scavenger hunt/brainteaser game last night. I thought I would be useless because I'm crappy at crosswords. But the stars aligned, (and one of our team members had done a similar puzzle race in Miami 6 or 7 times), and we came in first! I even contributed on several of the legs (by knowing that you can send a text message to a 5-digit number, and noticing that R2D2 and C3PO are map coordinates.)

This is now my third major life victory, following the Care Bears coloring contest in 2nd grade (prize: a large Pizza Hut pizza), and the quasi-militaristic drill competition at dance team camp (prize: a ribbon, and Tiger Paws glory). The award here was definitely better ($2000 split six ways!), and it was also probably the only time I will be photographed with one of those huge checks. Yayyyy!! I now officially forgive the Washington Post for the miscarriage of justice that was the Peeps Diorama contest.

*This news is much too awesome to worry about destroying what remains of my moth-eaten fake anonymity.

I am happy to buy you a going-away beer at a non-glittery DC location, Justice Souter

I am happy for Justice Souter that he's retiring so he can go hiking.  I would not mind doing that myself.  But why must the articles about him always say how he dislikes DC's "glittery social scene" as though it's self-evident that that is what DC is all about?  It is certainly possible to live here without constantly going to cocktail parties, appearing on Sunday talk shows, and schmoozing with elected officials.  For example, I have managed to avoid all those things for the last 6 years without even trying very hard.  (Without trying at all.)  (If anybody wants to drag me to a fancy cocktail party, or have me appear on a Sunday talk show, I would probably not object.)  In fact, you can even go hiking in DC.  I have gotten lost in the woods behind my house on more than one occasion.  There are even deer back there! 

Indeed, I have been having a resurgence of DC pride lately.  This is partly because our house has probably lost so much value that we can never leave so we might as well look on the bright side, and partly because we saw State of Play last weekend.  Yes, that's the movie more widely known as The Movie In Which Russell Crowe Lives In Mount Pleasant!  And while parts of the movie had very sketchy DC geography--a girl walks down the street in Adams Morgan and then gets on the metro in Virginia, come now--the Mt. Pleasant parts were right on.  Russell lives above Pfeiffer's Hardware and Heller's Bakery, and they really filmed in that apartment, so you can see the Heller's sign both in the establishing shots and from the inside-the-apartment shots.  And, he meets a shadowy Blackwater-type informant in the bus stop across the street, and it's really the bus stop! 

Anyway, I think Justice Souter might have liked DC better if he'd lived in Mt. Pleasant, is all.  If you are a secret self-Googler and are reading this, Justice, I am happy to have you over for a beer, or meet you at Wonderland or something.