OUT & ABOUT

NICEST REMINDER OF COSTA RICA THIS WEEK: the massive treefrog statue outside the National Geographic building is just like the one we saw but couldn't photograph in Tortuguero! Awww.

I still haven't managed to get this whole working thing down yet. Even though I've only had to do three days of development work (and allegedly half a day of online election stuff, but that's fallen somewhat by the wayside), it's felt like I've been working all week.

I just don't seem able to get down to it - I'll sit at my desk at 9.30am but then just noodle about on the internet or write emails or do online banking or whatever, until about 12.30pm. By which time of course, it's time for lunch, so it's usually about 2pm until I actually start work in earnest, which means, to make up a full day, I have to work until 11pm.

So I've been really tired all week and the amount of work I actually get done represents a fraction of the time I spend sitting at my desk. Of course the irony is, when you're in an office, it's quite unusual to work 9 hours solid - there's much noodling about on the internet that goes on - but working from home, I feel bad if I don't do the whole time expected of me.

Fortunately this week hasn't been *all* work and no play. On Monday, we took the metro up to Friendship Heights, to an old-school diner that plays a different classic movie from the 60s or 70s every night, while you eat your supper. It was really cool - to watch the movie, you sit in a room off to the side of the main diner, where it's dark and quiet. Though it's kind of budget, in that the windows are plastic sheeting and the screen onto which the film is projected is one of those pull-down ones, which in this case had runkled up in one corner, so distorted the film a bit.

But we saw 'Five Easy Pieces', which we'd never seen and really enjoyed - it was a cool thing to do on a Monday night and hopefully we'll become regulars. There were only four other people watching the film and their programme is great, so I'm looking forward to filling in the unforgiveable holes in my film-watching history.

Dinner and a movie. Literally

It was such a nice date night, that we got off the metro a stop early and wandered home from Woodley Park, through streets of nice houses and by Kalorama Park.

On Tuesday I had lunch with my friend Cindy, who works at National Geographic and whose husband is an actor who we saw in that terrible play ages ago? We haven't seen her since going for dinner with her and Jim back in June, so it was good to see her again. We ate in the Nat Geo cafeteria and caught up all about our respective summers. Cindy's really into the election and has everything crossed for Obama. She's also doing the Big Sister programme, which I'd really like to've done, but didn't get myself organised in time to commit to the 12 months required.

Cindy showed me around the Nat Geo building, which is an amazing place, located in part in an old stately home-type building. She also showed me the studios, which gave me a small pang of wanting to be back in TV production, but then I remembered how crazy busy her life is and thanked my lucky stars I'm having this break this year.

Dashing back to get on with work, I bumped into Fun Zoe at the post office, which made for a nice neighbourly feel. Then when I got back to the apartment, Max had emailed me this article, in which Aaron Sorkin imagines a meeting between Obama and Bartlet (the president from The West Wing). I totally agree that the idea that Obama is elitist is ridiculous, when he was raised by a single mother and got to where he is through sheer grit, determination and talent - surely the definition of the American Dream - while McCain has literally countless houses and is mega-rich.

And if it's an education rather than wealth issue, then why is elitism a bad thing? Don't we want the people running the country/world to be cleverer than us? I really can't understand this absurd notion that the commander in chief should be someone you'd like to have a beer with, rather that someone with sufficiently superior intellect to cope with situations way beyond the ability of most people.

And the ridiculous thing is that Obama would be an awesome person to have a beer with! He plays basketball, watches The Wire, loves his wife and daughters more than anything, goes to church, has a hilarious sense of humour and is friends with George Clooney - pass me the bottle opener! PLUS he's spectacularly intelligent and has an inspiring vision for the future of the country which will have positive effects around the world. And his smile is nice.

We were meant to go to a baseball game at the Nationals stadium here in DC last Friday, but I was working so late that we had to miss it. Then I discovered that the season is actually drawing to a close, so snapped up tickets to one of the final games and went along with Cindy, Jim and four of their friends last night.

BACK ROW: Jim & Cindy, Tim & Holly (friend of Cindy's from Nat Geo)
FRONT ROW: Maxy, Greg & Rachel (friend of Jim's from drama school)

The team is terrible - the Nationals have lost 99 games this season - and our seats were terrible (right out in the outfield and *under* the scoreboard), but it was nice to see their new stadium and to watch baseball here in DC instead of having to go to Baltimore for the Orioles. The match was so bad that by the 7th inning or so, the stadium was nearly empty from people realising it was a lost cause and leaving, but Jim and Cindy's friends were really fun and we had a good night. And we got these snazzy Nats scarves for free! (I had to pay for the cup, which I've since regretted, on discovering there's nowhere in our kitchen to keep it.)

I guess that's the last baseball we'll see while we're here. Oh well, roll on basketball season! I was sad, because Jim said that American football games (or 'football' games, as they're known here) are impossible to get into. All the seats are either only for season ticket holders or cost such an arm and a leg that you can just forget about going. College football is apparently way easier to get into, but I want to see the Redskiiiins. It's a shame we're not really chummy with Sarah and Geoff anymore, because Geoff said he could get us into any sports games we like (he does the screens and technology stuff for all the big stadiums). Hey ho.

Judging from the size of the massive cup I had my diet Coke in, it won't surprise you to hear that I wasn't at all snoozy when we got home, so we were able to stay up and watch Letterman. It was really astonishing. Apparently McCain was meant to be on the show last night, but cancelled at the last minute, saying he was suspending his campaign to go back to DC to sort out the economic crisis.

Letterman was LIVID! I mean, really furious (you can watch some of it HERE - I think there are six installments of his ire). He's usually pretty apolitical, in fact I think McCain announced his run for the presidency on his show, but last night he just went nuts-o, banging on about how terrible it is that McCain cancelled, how awful it is that he can't leave Sarah Palin in charge of his campaign but has to suspend it, and all this. I thought his remarks would be limited to his opening monologue, but he just kept going on and on throughout the show - every time he came back from an ad break, he'd say, 'It just stinks. Something isn't right...' and go off on another rant about how terrible McCain is! The coolest thing about all of this was that Keith Olbermann stepped in as a last-minute guest and we heart him.