Bright colors, tart drinks, Latin rhythms, and good friends come to mind when I think of Cinco de Mayo.

In the past, I’d meet friends out at the now closed Tequilla Grill or Vida to celebrate. Here’s a new list of DC’s vibrant Mexican restaurants

Tonight, being a school night, I’m going to finish writing my remarks for my aunt’s retirement party.

I’ve been working on this brief speech for three days now, struggling to capture the right tone. It’s tricky. I want to honor her, yet don’t want to be overly sentimental… want to be respectful yet funny, or at least not so serious.

In other words I want it to be perfect.

Expectation:

When I was four years old, I fully expected I’d grow up to be the best grade school teacher in the country, beloved by my students and praised for my superior instruction technique. At 25 I would be married to a prince disguised as a doctor, and live with him and our two perfect children in an old colonial up the street from my parents and my brothers and their families.

Four years later, I traded my future career in education for dreams of Solid Gold … the variety show. I was going to be a Solid Gold dancer and marry Andy Gibb.

At age 10, I was inspired to be an astronaut like Sally Ride. If she could travel to the stars in Challenger, then so could I. I covered my ceiling in glow-in-the-dark constellations and begged my parents to take me to the Quonset Point airshow. I would marry a pilot who would watch our kids and talk to them from orbit on a videophone.

By junior high graduation, algebra forced me to concede defeat. I might one day fly in a shuttle as a space tourist, but never as an astronaut. Instead my love affair with words and stories blossomed.

In high school I devoted my energies to drama (and melodrama), humanities, languages, photography, travel, and writing. My high school yearbook immortalized my lofty goals – I would learn Mandarin and study international relations, graduate from Georgetown University with degrees from its foreign service and law schools, and one day be named U.S. Ambassador to China. Oh…. and meet John F. Kennedy, Jr., and seduce him away from Darryl Hannah and have a *small* Newport wedding.

I couldn’t wrap my tongue around those Chinese tones so I changed my major to journalism and settled on a future as Lois Lane. I crushed on the wrong guys, brushed off the right guys and at graduation decided I’d meet Mr. Right out in the real world.

As a career woman I have fun, work hard, date, travel and like to think that time has tempered my expectations.

Now at 35, I just want to work for myself, travel the globe and buy some property. Oh, and meet a nice, employed guy to take to family functions, swap gifts with, and who doesn’t repulse me when he leans in for a kiss.

Is that really so much to ask?

Happy New Year! What did you do on the first day of 2008?

I woke up early, a bit disoriented. What day is it? Oh yes — the first day of a brand spanking new year. And I had plans… big plans.

I was going to get to the gym by 9am, then jump in a Zipcar and buy groceries, budget for 2008, replace the black gloves and scarf I left in Massachusetts over Christmas, do five loads of laundry, clean the kitchen, set up a blog for my brother, and read through all my email.

But one look outside and I decided to burrow into my white down comforter and read one more chapter of The Third Secret. Ten chapters later, I put on the tea kettle and after a quick scan of the cupboards, convinced myself to put off that trip to social Safeway.

Naughty girl that I am, I almost talked myself out of doing laundry too. But three loads later, I was still reclined on the couch reading Steve Berry’s thriller.

I phoned some friends, left messages with family, and finally let go of my well laid plans and vegged out to the last six episodes of Battlestar Galactica Season3.

In all, a most comfortable start to the new year.

Congressman Jose E. Serrano of New York inserted language into the spending bill to provide quarters for the District, Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands.

The local government will design the flip side of the quarter.

If it were up to me, I’d have Tai Shan yank one of the fingers of The Awakening hand while surrounded by cherry blossoms.

How would you design DC’s new quarter?

When it comes to Christmas stockings, I tend to give practical gifts that are needed than clever, but useless, trinkets. This year I’ve stocked up on:

5. candy canes

4. AA batteries

3. penlights

2. SD cards

1. flash drives

What did you buy in bulk this year?

Ding-a-ling-aling Dingaling … Ding-a-ling-aling Dingaling …. I’ve been listening to iTunes’s holiday radio station for the last month. Here is my list of favorite songs based on how high my happiness level jumps when one of the following songs comes on.

6. I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Clause - Jimmy Boyd

5. Blue Christmas – Elvis Presley

4. Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer – Dean Martin

3. Last Christmas – WHAM!

2. It’s Gonna be a Cold Cold Christmas – Dana

1. All I Want for Christmas (Is You) – Mariah Carey

And though I have yet to hear it on iTunes radio, I need to mention The Twelve Days of Christmas because it’s on constant replay through my mind.

What have you been listening to?

Tis the season for drinking hot cider, eating chocolate marshmallow Santas and sucking on candy canes while watching Christmas classics. When I take a break from decorating the tree or stringing up blinking lights, I watch:

7. The Family Man

6. Love Actually

5. Frosty the Snowman

4. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

3. Yogi’s First Christmas

2. Home Alone

1. It’s a Wonderful Life

Which flicks put you in the holiday spirit?

I tried to describe what snow smells like and came up with nothing useful. That’s not the same as saying I wouldn’t recognize the smell if I came across it.

Snow is wet and clean and sharply cold.

For me, the smell of snow is usually mingled with the smell of gasoline (of the school bus idling as we all tramp through the snow and up the three steps to our seats) or smoke (sitting in front of the wood stove after being outside in the snow for a few hours).

What does snow smell like to you?

There are some scents that not only bring back memories but can wholly transport me back to a specific moment.

8. snow

7. smoke from the wood stove (or a fireplace)

6. plastic tape

5. Old Spice

4. Nivea hand lotion

3. pumpkin and pie crust

2. cinnamon

1. pine

Which smells cause you to travel back to a specific holiday memory?

Happy October — or not so happy depending on your perspective. I want to know what happened to September.

I’ve got about 15 draft posts to finish editing and publish to this site. So I’ll be publishing in reverse as I complete them.

Where does all my time go?

• visited the Encompassing the Globe exhibit at the Sackler Gallery. I am enamored with armillary spheres and astrolabes.
• went to a lecture on Portugal’s Golden Age
• learned about Malta’s prehistoric temples
• spent time at the Portuguese American Leadership Council annual meeting and attended a reception at the ambassador’s residence
• visited my ancient globes, maps, armillary spheres and compasses everyday for three days before the exhibit closed (yes, I can get obsessive)
• christened the back bar of James Hoban’s on Dupont Circle with a glass of scotch
• listened to four White House press secretaries reminisce about their jobs
• learned about Timbuktu
• watched Knocked Up
• traveled to Philadelphia for the first time
• went through the King Tut exhibit at the Franklin Institute
• walked through the Amarna exhibit at the U Penn Museum
• watched The Kingdom
• stalked some of my favorite authors at the National Book Festival
• went on a diet

So how was your September in a nutshell?