Also: I hate everyone on the Internet

It was quite a weekend here in DC. Friday night featured an hours long getting ready party at my house, where I got to watch Alyssa use her Arkansas and cheerleading backgrounds by teasing the shit out of Kate's hair. We put on a ton of eye shadow and hideous outfits and went out for falafel and dancing. Andrew, Mary and I shared the world's strongest drink at the Black cat, immediately became too drunk to be in public anymore, retreated back to my house and fell asleep watching Blue Crush. SO, it was a pretty great evening.

Saturday I made it to one of the three BBQs I planned on attending. Partial Amanda Fail. But! I did manage to concoct a delicious orzo pesto salad out of things I had in my house/grew in my garden. Just let the food processor form a holy union between a big handful of basil, two or three big handfuls of arugula, a few cloves of garlic, a healthy dose of shredded gruyere, some chopped walnuts, some chopped pine nuts, a touch of salt, some crushed red peppers, and oil as needed (I used both olive oil and walnut oil).

While that's coming together, I sauteed some onions, zucchini, squash and mushrooms just until they started to soften a bit. Mix that all together with the orzo I didn't mention cooking (but hey, for your orzo salad, you'll need some cooked orzo. go figure.), and voila! You have a delicious side for a "congratulations on getting eloped!" bbq.

Back to the rest of my weekend: the bbq was delightful. As I slowly recovered from all that delight, I started watching series 2 of Skins, newly arrived from Netflix. Man is that a good show. No trumped up very special episodes teaching kids lessons on how to make serious decisions. Just real, gritty, intriguing teen characters, doing real, destructive, honest, twisted, truer-to-life-than-riding-a-rowboat-to-your-neighbor's-house-and-climbing-in-his-window things (but probably much much grittier than anything that happened in my actual life as a teenager). Told amazingly well and acted by an incredible cast. Highly recommend this one. (Obviously, start with the first season. It's very character-driven and they don't dumb anything down to bring the audience up to speed on what's happened in the past.)

After a few DVD/nap filled hours, it was on to Sunday's main activity. Not content with just one communal meal with all my friends in the weekend, Miller and I went to the fish market and picked up a bushel and a half of Maryland's finest. We proceeded to use plenty of old bay, and made an incredible feast -- crabs (of course), grilled corn, hot dogs, watermelon, frozen snickers (a Mattos family tradition after crab picking), light beer and basketball finals. It was an aggressively American summertime event, and it was bliss.

And now! It's back to work, but more excitingly: Dirty Projectors and TV on the Radio tonight! Harlem Shakes and Passion Pit tomorrow! Top Chef Masters on Wednesday! Avett Bros on Thursday! Collapsing into a heap of exhaustion and rock overexposure on Friday!