October 2007 Activity -- Improv

Monday, October 29, 2007
7:00pm-9:30pm
Felix Lounge, Adams Morgan
Washington, DC
Cost: $30
Instructor: Shawn Westfall
http://www.improvdelivered.com/

Important things first: Amanda was rocking some seriously hot shoes: red patent rounded toe wedges -- but wait, there's more -- they had leopard print heels. What up, fashionista?

Once again, this was a Professionals in the City event, and once again (like our massage class), it was held at Felix in Adams Morgan. (Note: probably the one reason we all agreed to do this was the fact that the bar is open during the class at Felix -- nothing like a little liquid courage to help you try improv for the first time.)

Although we were all pretty apprehensive about this one, this may have been THE BEST activity we've done to date. The instructor was awesome -- he made us all lose all inhibitions within the first few minutes (even without the benefit of roofies...well, as far as we know) and taught us a lot. We did some standard improv exercises like "zip zap zop" and "emotional party" and all had to take turns participating in scenes. We also had to do an exercise where we stood in the middle of a circle of students and sang songs as loud as we could (solo).

We took a refreshing cocktail break about mid-way through the class -- just after a HUGE rat scurried across the floor. (Gotta love DC).

September 2007 Activity -- Wardrobing Tips

Wednesday, September 19, 2007
6:30pm
Nordstrom, Tyson's Corner, VA




After sending in our sizes/coloring/styles/clothing needs to the Nordstrom personal shopper --she promised that she would have rooms full of clothing and accessories that met our needs/styles/lifestyles. Amy called to follow up with her and found out that she was "out sick" on the day of our dilettante activity! Surprising for Nordstrom...but in true customer service fashion, they sent over their top salesperson from the Pentagon City store, who did her best to find us some fashions that met our needs (though not our pocketbooks, we were soon to discover).


She kept giving Amy size large items (all way too big), picked out suits and skirts for me (even though I wear jeans to work) gave Nicole tons of impractical (though GORGEOUS!) stuff and brought Amanda some really matronly items (even though she's young and cool). Aside from that, it was very helpful (snarf!)
The experience itself was all very civilized, though. We had a suite of dressing rooms that opened onto a cental area with a pedestal and mirror. Perfect for showing off the stuff we liked and even more ideal for the ridiculous get-ups. Our personal shopper brought us cookies and water and kept going to the floor to find additional things for us to try on and exchange sizes (for the petite-not-large Amy). It was also a perfect place for Kathleen to begin changing into and out of things right in the center of the room -- and right in front of the doorway that led into the shoe deparment. ("Hi to my salesguy friends in the Nordstrom shoe department who now know what my underpants look like!")

We learned quickly that the third floor of Nordstrom is not a place for bargains...but it is definitely a place for quality and good fit. It was fun to try on a lot of the things we did. And, we each actually came away with some good purchases: Amanda -- a gorgeous tobacco-colored leather coat and brown knit dress; Amy -- a brown skirt with a great pattern that will look amazing with boots; Nicole -- an awesome runway-worthy grey dress and some cool green cords; Kathleen -- a black shirt and very practical leopard coat. And I do think we all got some pretty good ideas about what looked good and what we needed that we can take with us to H&M.

As our credit cards were cooling off, we headed to Gordon Biersch to have some dinner and sample the Oktoberfest keg that they tapped that day. All the waitresses were in dirndls -- nice touch.