Weekend Report: South Pacific at Wolftrap and Grilling

What a wonderful June weekend. Friday night’s patio plans were slightly stymied by an unexpectedly disruptive storm (Trees down! Tornado warnings! Welcome to summer on the East Coast!), but friends and food and my living room floor sufficed.

Saturday afternoon, SpeedyKate and I basked in the glory of truly beautiful weather at Wolftrap, this super cool national park/6,800-seat indoor/outdoor theater in Virginia. We saw South Pacific from the lawn seats and it was sooo nice (listen along with this blog post). It reminded me of Shakespeare on Lake Tahoe that my family goes to every summer: nice weather, a hill, people with picnic baskets, blankets, and beach chairs on all sides. Wolftrap’s summer lineup looks pretty awesome – we will definitely be returning.

We returned home around 6, and went for our first roommates run! Three miles around the neighborhood were quite nice, though we accidentally stumbled upon an El Salvadorian soccer game letting out of RFK Stadium. Soccer fans are CRAZY. Next time we won’t run through that mess in only sports bras…

Sunday was equally glorious. Per usual, I visited my refugees in the morning. We practiced vocab via Scategories and they loved it! (I teach them English -- my only true qualification being that I speak English -- but so far it seems to be working quite well.)

In the afternoon, Nikki and I made our way out to Alexandria to attend a bar-b-q hosted by some other BUSkiers. As expected, it was delicious: chicken kebabs and corn on the cob and lots of fruit salad. Thanks to these friends, I will forever think of grilling and skiing together - AJ used to bring a grill onto the ski hill with us. Mid-race-day burgers anyone? Yes please. I made a variation on these cookies (recipe tomorrow). 

The guest list was a mix of rock climbers and foreign policy people. I got into a deep discussion about the LRA and US policy with people who were informed and interested! Aaahhh how I love DC.

And that, my friends, was that. Hope you had a good weekend too!

Weekend Report: Two Gentleman of Verona & the Newseum

I’ve seen a lot of Shakespeare plays in my life, and I’m pretty sure that Friday night’s “The Two Gentleman of Verona” was my favorite Bard experience to date. 

LLC joined me to see my friend from home star in the play. Natalie Mitchell acted in my last DC Shakespeare experience (“All’s Well that Ends Well”) and was awesome in “Two Gentleman!” 

The play was set in semi-modern times, but with Shakespearian elements (i.e. the costumes were Shakespeare-ish, but made of modern materials). It sounds a bit odd, but it actually really worked. The WaPo review calls "Two Gentleman" “the ‘Gossip Girl’ of the Shakespearean canon,” and I totally agree. Each scene opened with a banner setting the scene,  and they were kinda sassy, which guaranteed that the audience started every scene laughing (i.e. “The Duke’s Court at Verona. It’s a nightclub. The kind with $20 drinks. Ouch.”).

There was modern music too – Coldplay, Ben Folds, and U2, to name a few –  and the characters sang! Plus, (how’s this for a fun fact?) this is the only Shakespeare play with a dog, and he’s absolutely adorable. 

Afterwards LLC and I met Natalie backstage in the “green room” to congratulate her on a great performance. We also got to meet all the stars!!! I’m not going to lie, LLC and I may or may not have had a giggly-fan-girl moment when we shook Valentine and Proteus’ hands… 

Theater reviews aren’t normally my jam, so I’ll leave you to read someone else’s. The play was great and if you’re in DC I strongly suggest you go see it. (It's at the Shakespeare Theater Company’s Landsburgh Theater until March 4.)

I started the next morning (Saturday) with a ten-miler on the Mall (the long run puts the tiger in the cat! Ten points to whomever can tell me who says that).

Then I met LLC and another friend to explore the Newseum. I’ve never been (blasphemy!), mostly because it’s a bit on the pricey side and as a spoiled Washingtonian I feel that all museums should be free...

But with a Groupon in hand it was time to see what the Newseum had to offer.  It really was impressive. The permanent collection includes parts of the Berlin Wall (love me some Cold War), and the Pulitzer Prize Photographs Gallery. I especially enjoyed the special exhibits: Photo Finish: The Sports Photography of Neil Leifer, and G-Men and Journalists. Plus it has a great rooftop view.

The day was a bit exhausting – that museum is HUGE – but totally worth it. 

Sunday night I (and the rest of America) watched some footgame with friends. The food was great and the company was awesome, but alas, the wrong team won. Womp womp. (Before you go all crazy-fan on me, note that I just referred to it as “footgame” and gauge my level of seriousness about the sport accordingly). 

Hope you had a great weekend too!

Weekend Report: Jersey Boys and Hot Chocolate 5K/15K

On Friday night I saw Jersey Boys, a musical full of music that I didn't know I knew so well! (How’s that for a confusing sentence to start your Monday morning?)

But really, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons are awesome. You probably know a lot of their songs – Big Girls Don’t Cry, Bye, Bye, Baby, December 1963 (Oh What A Night), Can’t Take My Eyes Off You – to name a few.



Before the show, SpeedyKate, Ex-Co-Worker-Rachel, and I met for dinner Ella’s Pizza. We split the special that had calamari, anchovies, and capers, the “Genovese” (pesto, parmesan, fingerling potatoes & prosciutto), and the “Pucillo” (tomato sauce, smoked mozzarella, prosciutto & fresh arugula). I think the Genovese was my favorite – potatoes on pizza are surprisingly delish!

And after the show, thanks to SpeedyKate’s awesome connections, we got a backstage tour! We walked through the dressing rooms, then onto the stage where we saw all the set pieces and quick-changing areas. They have all real instruments, which are pretty awesome, and “historically accurate” props.

On Saturday morning, I got up before the crack of dawn to cover the Hot Chocolate 5K/15K for the Washington Running Report (read my article here). 


It’s a good thing I wasn’t racing - the race was a logistical nightmare: traffic, cold, and an hour-late start. "I think the logistics were set in such a way to weed out the weak,” said my teammate Chris. (If I were racing, I definitely would have cried multiple times through the experience.)


But everyone I talked to did surprisingly well and enjoyed the course, so that was a win - congrats to all my CAR teammates!!!


I may not have run the race, but after a 5:30 wake-up and series of transportation shenanigans, I definitely deserved a good brunch! I met LLC, 6x6, and LOTR-Emily at Matchbox, a pizza place that also has amazing breakfast. I went for the lox and flatbread (cream cheese, capers, red onion, oven roasted eggs), and we split the cast iron skillet cinnamon rolls. Sooo basically brunch was huge and really good.

Then Saturday afternoon (the day just kept going and going and going), I stopped by the National Gallery for a brief visit to my favorite exhibit, then walked around the Sculpture Gardens and Capitol.

Sunday I really wanted to go see Zoo Lights and eat fro-yo, but unfortunately that was not to be...there's always next weekend! 

Weekend Report: Race Reporting and a Play

I worked all day Saturday, so Sunday was my one weekend day to fit it all in. 

(I think I may have a problem saying no. People ask me, Mollie do you want to____? and inevitably the answer is yes, regardless of all the things I've already booked into my day.)

I awoke at the crack of dawn that was actually not as dark as expected (thank you daylight savings!), and headed to Freedom Plaza to cover the Race To End Women’s Cancer 8K for the Washington Running Report. (Check back - I’ll add the link when my article is posted.)

I’ve never done a race report quite like this. I write up reports for Examiner.com, but it’s a lot less official - I don’t usually go to each race and interview people at the finish. So this was a new experience, and it was fun! 


The power of carrying a notepad and pen is amazing. Imagine someone without these accoutrements walking up to you and starting to ask personal questions…it would be weird, right? But then put that notepad in hand and pen poised for quotes and suddenly everyone is more than happy to talk to me! 

I’m hoping to do more of these in the future. :) 

After the race, I metro’ed all the way out to Silver Spring, MD. For those of you unfamiliar with DC’s public transportation, that is a ways. And for those of you who do know DC, the metro stopped at Ft. Totten because of track maintenance and I had to take a bus the rest of the way. Ugh. 

Metro whining aside, I met up with my co-volunteer to visit our new family of refugees! The Congolese family I used to work with moved away at the end of July, so I’ve been reassigned to a Haitian family who just arrived in America. 

They speak French but no English, so we jumped into practicing basic language. (“Point to the TV…ok…repeat after me, ‘the TV is over there,’ etc.)

The visit took a bit longer than I expected, plus of course the metro shenanigains added quite a bit of time to my journey, so I didn’t get home until 4pm. That meant one hour to write and submit my race report and get myself dressed and ready to go see a play. Panic face. 

It’s amazing how fast I can type under duress. 

My friend picked me up at 5 and we headed to the Fort Fringe theater. The play was called Squirrel or The Origin of a Species, a performance of the Capital Fringe Festival. I’m no theater connoisseur, so I’ll say that it was totally bizarre but completely amusing. The actors were really into it, and the plot was a bit disjointed, so it was more like watching improve than a normal production.


I love quick and witty dialogue and semi-obscure references. The work is based upon short segments originally written as podcasts, so it's pretty random.


According to this review:

The script was written by Michael Merino and divides its dialogue between an American Gray Squirrel and Charles Darwin in cargo shorts. As the Squirrel, Carlos Bustamante contemplates art while Ian LeValley’s Darwin contemplates science, and together their relationship evolves according to Erik Erikson’s eight stages of psychosocial development. If that sounds complicated it’s because it absolutely is, but the acting is crisp and the dialogue streamlined, enough so that Squirrel’s overall effect is like running through a Baskin-Robbins of ideas rather than being piled down with philosophy textbooks. The complexity becomes part of the fun, rather than an obstacle.

It was fun - I like any live performance!

After the play we went to dinner at Guarapo, a Peruvian restaurant in Arlington. I don't usually venture outside the District...but this place was really good! I got the salmon and it was cooked perfectly. (Menu here for the curious.) Now I'm going to have to learn how to make  tacu-tacu (a Peruvian lentil and rice cake) because it was satisfying and delish!

And that is all - all in one day - I'm tired. Hope you had a good weekend too!

A Cultured Weekend: From Shakespeare to Hobbits

Oooooh, this weekend was cultured!

One of my friends from back in the day (i.e. pre-elementary school) is in a play in DC. Natalie and her sister are the same ages as me and Sister1, so we spent a lot of time together as children. 

My first Shakespeare experience was with Sister1 and Natalie and Alicia – I was about 9 years old, and our families vacationed together in Tahoe. We all went to the Tahoe Shakespeare Festival and saw As You Like It. Since then, I’ve seen many many many Shakespeare plays overlooking Sand Harbor – so I’m pretty well-versed in Shakespeare’s comedies.

Thus, it seems fitting that 14 years later (sidenote: OMG 14 years!?!?!) I attended Natalie’s first professional performance in the Shakespeare Theater Company’s rendition of All’s Well That Ends Well. 

And I really enjoyed it! The play has received mixed reviews, and obviously it was a bit confusing in parts (as all Shakespeare experiences are), but I thought it was great! The costumes were interesting, and the theater wasn’t too big. And Natalie, of course, was a super-star! She plays Diana, a beautiful Italian town girl who helps Helena (the lead) trick her husband into sleeping with her.

It’s called All’s Well That Ends Well, but I’m pretty sure that Shakespeare was messing with us there. I mean, Helena ends up with a jerk of a husband who she really loves for no apparent reason…but I guess we’ll chalk that one up to poetic license and/or a different time period.

LOTR-Emily and I felt pretty special as we gave the ushers our names to get into the “green room” afterwards. We also learned that CRS tickets are Complementary Reserved Seating, which means that you get your tickets and wait in a line, and a half-hour before the play starts they assign you any available seats.

So theater? Shakespeare? Culture? Check!

But the weekend did not end there. Sunday I hosted a Lord of the Rings Hobbit Party. OMG yes.

Let me explain LOTR-Emily. She hadn’t been assigned a blog name until now because I couldn’t think of a good one! We lived together for most of last year, do yoga together every week, and she was the recipient of the Caramel Birthday Cake. But this weekend the true awesomeness that is LOTR-Emily came out in full force.

You may remember my nerding out LOTR rampage. It started with an email to all my friends in DC: “Hey, not sure if you’re into LOTR, but if so you should totally come to this with me!” Turns out LOTR-Emily is way more into LOTR than I am (She has a Ring! And a cape! And all the extended versions of the DVDs!).

And so she had the genius inspiration – we should celebrate Bilbo Baggins’ birthday!!! His birthday is September 22^nd (this Wednesday), but we thought we’d start it early. The extended versions of the films are at least 4 hours each, so you can’t possibly do it all in one night.

So Sunday we chose The Shire as our food inspiration and watched The Fellowship of the Ring.

What is Shire food, you may wonder?

Well, hobbits are all about food. They eat 7 meals a day: breakfast, second breakfast, elevenses, luncheon, afternoon tea, dinner and (later in the evening) supper.

They love growing things, so we had a veggie-heavy dinner, with desserts of course!

-   Potato, cauliflower and carrot pot pies

-   Mushroom and potato stew

-   Green salad

-   Bread and smoked gouda, brie, and cheddar cheese

-   Peanuts and caramel corn

-   Chocolate chip zucchini bread

-   Cupcakes

-   Tea

I like to think that Shakespeare and J.R.R. Tolkein would have been friends. They were both creative and adventurous and loved to write. Basically I just enjoy both their works – from All’s Well That Ends Well to hobbits, it was quite a weekend!