TV, job, vacation - in that order

A lot of stuff is going on right now, and it's all jumbled up in my head so I'm just going to start with whatever I think of first....

First off, I want to say for the record that I would totally watch another season of West Wing with the new, incoming Santos administration. How awesome would it be to watch these characters navigate their first term? Santos (Jimmy Smits), VP Baker (the guy who played Al Bundy on Married w/ Children), Secretary of State Vinnick (Alan Alda), of course Chief of Staff Josh Lyman (Bradley Whitford), an as-yet-unknown position for Donna Moss (Janel Moloney-I'm so glad the writers finally got those two together in the last half of the final season), Mary Louise Parker (my fave!) as chief of legislative affairs, Sam Seaborn (Rob Lowe) as Deputy Chief of Staff, and Lou (Janeanne Garafolo) as Director of Communications. I would TOTALLY watch. But, good thing #593 coming to an end is, alas, The West Wing.

In other television news, I realized the other day while accidentally pausing on The Real Housewives of Orange County on Bravo that the infamously sexist/50s throwback husband "Slade" went to my high school in Anchorage. He was two years ahead of me, in the class of '87. Gross.

Veronica Mars still kicks ass. As does the character Chloe on "24," who is managing to simultaneously help save the country from domestic terrorists while evading the authorities (who are in league with the terrorists) AND having to periodically taser a dude who is harassing her in a hotel lobby while she hacks into top-secret government computer systems.

I will be changing jobs at the end of the summer - I got a starvation-wage gig at a university-based philanthropy and public policy research center for next school year. I will be a po graduate student again but much happier, I hope. One note of caution is that the dude I will work for is a bit snooty in that Chicago - Harvard school way (he was altogether nonplussed by the string of state universities on my vitae). I'll continue to do consulting for a local non-profit, which is my favoritist job. In the meantime, M. and I are going on vacation! Later this summer we're headed to Seattle for 4 days, and continuing up to Anchorage for 6 days to visit my buddy and her family (especially my new godkid). More on the vacation plans later, but we are taking applications for a dog-sitter for our little angel, Frankie: