The Minnesota State Fair

Yesterday, I went to the state fair. I had an awesome time though there weren't any swimming pigs like at the Dixie Classic Fair. I also would recommend not going into the Miracle of Birth center if something (like a cow) is actually giving birth. ::shudder::
Ok, now onto fair show and tell.

Will you look at all those people? It was absolutely packed with wall to wall people.
Fried Milky Way. First of all, will you look at how sharp that stick is? As I was eating it I kept getting bumped into and was scared that it was going to pierce through the roof of my mouth and into my brain. It was delicious though. Better than the fried Reese's that I had last year. The chocolate and nougat and caramel were all warm and melty. Only complaint was that it was too much. I needed like a snack size fried Milky Way.

Dole Whip Float. I've mentioned during previous Disney posts how much I love Dole Whip Floats...just put in "Dole" at the top search box to see my previous posts. I would seriously give up a finger (and possibly multiple fingers) if I could gain regular access to Dole Whip Floats.

Fried Alligator. In hindsight, I'd skip this. It's a good conversation piece, but it doesn't really taste like much other than the breading and the barbecue sauce that I was dipping it in. It was also really chewy which just wasn't that great.

BUT...it did come on a bed of alligator shaped fries.

Did I mention that there were two somewhat creepy gopher mascots name Fairborn and Fairchild wandering around?

TC-ers Love Their Bike Paths

Is this not the most ridiculous bike path intersection you have ever seen!!

Midwestern Graffiti?

The University of Minnesota has the weirdest bathroom stall graffiti that I have ever seen. Normally you expect to see so and so is a bitch or EB hearts RS or whatever, but at the U of M it's the most uplifting graffiti I have ever seen. I leave the bathroom with higher self esteem. My first run in with it I thought was a fluke. There was a poster on the wall for some sexual assault support hot line and people had written things all over it. It said things like "you are amazing. Don't let anyone make you feel differently" and "stand strong. you are not alone." and a quote from Psalms. Like I said I thought it was just a one time occasion, but then today in the bathroom there are things scratched into the paint on the wall. "I lost it, but found myself." "My roommate is an ignorant racist. Please pray for her." "Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans." Seriously, who are these good meaning people defacing property?

All the Pictures I Meant to Post But Couldn't

Finally, I have transferred all my pictures from my camera to my computer, so here's all those pictures that I had previously wanted to post but couldn't.

This is my leftover sushi from last sushi at Ichiban. Going down the left hand side, those are the Fiesta Roll, Fire Island Roll, Tiger Roll, and Salem Roll (my fave). Look how good those look. I really need to find a sushi place in St. Paul. Also, look how excellently they are packed. Good job, Andy. (That has Army training written all over it.)

Zoe's chicken pot pie. Not the Pennsylvania version of pot pie. The rest of the world version of pot pie. My mouth is watering just looking at that thing. That's like a warm hug with a crust on top.

Zoe's banana pudding. It's in a to-go box which is why it's a giant pile. It was still delicious.

Cookout Milkshake. Doesn't look like much. But inside is Reese's Peanut Buttery Icecreamy deliciousness.

Chocolate covered potato chips. Some Japanese guy gave them to my mom. They were actually pretty ok. They needed salt. I'm thinking of coming out with a whole line of chocolate covered crap. Chocolate covered bacon, chocolate covered cheese curls...what else can I cover in chocolate? I thought that I took pictures of the Jumbo Jelly Beans, but I apparently didn't. So you'll just have to check them out here.

I HATE MOVING

So as all of you should know by now, it took 15 days for my things to get from Winston-Salem, NC to St. Paul, MN. It was apparently traveling via Conestoga Wagon and had to slow down because of some people suffering from dysentery (yes, that was meant to be an Oregon Trail reference.) On top of all that, some other shit has gone down since I got here. Brief rundown.

Stuff broken. I'll be claiming about $300 worth of damage. Nothing really horrible just a headless bobble head that's a little creepy.

Couch barely fitting into my apartment. Big purple couch made it through the door but almost didn't make the corner into the living room...but it did. It took the poor movers about 6 tries though.

Not getting mail. I expected after taking two weeks to move that my mailbox would be stuffed with letters or at least a notice telling me to pick up my shit at the post office. Nope. Now (after calling the post office twice) I'm getting mail that is sent directly to this address, but nothing forwarded here...so that's improvement I guess. (Where's my letter from prison, bitches?)

I forgot that there is such a thing as a regular Wal-mart, not just Super Wal-marts. I went grocery shopping at Wal-mart only to find they didn't have things like meat and fruit. They did have cheese and milk and salad dressing and other grocery-y type things.

My car broked. (That's a purposeful statement of poor grammar.) My car got stuck in park. I manually put it in drive and took it to the Honda place. Driving home, I discovered that they had replaced the cover on the manual interlocky thingy.

My first public transportation experience the bus driver forgot to tell me exactly where I should get off like he had promised (though he'll never admit it) and made me get off hella far away from the actual stop. I'm scared to take the bus again.

Minnesota DMV...nuff said.

Oh, and I have no friends here. That is all.

Psychotic Discussion of the Day

First of all, for those of you that are not aware, I have been in moving limbo for the past two weeks. My stuff was packed up on July 28th and until yesterday was in a warehouse in Winston-Salem waiting for a big truck to come rescue it and take it all to St. Paul. I was hanging out at my parents house in Indiana doing random stuff, and having my creative juices sucked from me...hence no bloggage.

A psychotic discussion of the day is similar to my previous psychotic thought of the day posts except that the thoughts were verbalized to someone else. Where my parents live in Indiana, the Goodwill has little huts in random parking lots of strip malls and big box retailers (wow, pulling out the MBA terms there.) The huts basically look like backyard tool sheds, but without doors and with two 2' X 2' holes cut into them for people to put the donation stuff through. My mom and I drove by one and noticed that they have signs that say "No person shall enter this structure." After discussing this, my mom and I decided that a Goodwill shed is probably a pretty good place for a homeless person to hang out. It's dry, and has piles of bags of clothes to make a soft bed. So instead of persuading me not to not climb inside of them as I'm sure was the intention of these signs, these signs have actually made me want to sneak inside of one at some point and see what's it's like. (SN: I've always wanted to climb on the big pile of stuffed animals at the Disney Store. I'm pretty sure those would be pretty soft too.)

The Final Countdown

I'm in Indiana right now waiting with baited breath for the call that will tell me that my stuff is arriving in St. Paul. I called the movers this morning to see if they could give me any sort of update, but all I found out was that my things are still in Winston Salem, which isn't that helpful. This blog is about my last few days in Winston Salem. I had taken pictures of some of the delightful food items that I had eaten, but can't find my cord to transfer pictures from my camera to my laptop which I had packed in an easy to locate location of course. I'm a little sad because there was a fantastic picture of some colorful and well-packed sushi leftovers from Ichiban.

Let's see....where do I begin? I guess I'll start on Wednesday. Last yoga class. I got a hug from Ana the crazy lady that takes yoga...she's ridiculous...and smells like moth balls and oranges which seems about right, but apparently is a well published author. I find her fascinating because she seems utterly confused by the world around her. If aliens landing in the parking lot of the gym, and randomly wandered into the building, I'm pretty sure they'd act about the same way as she does. It blows my mind that she's a life coach or whatever. I had movers pack me which is so worth it. They arrive and tell me that they plan to have my stuff packed up in 2 hours. I'm amazed. It takes them about 2 hours and 20 minutes, but I'm still rather amazed because I have a lot of crap. They however, do a stupid job with box placement. I have one small box in the entirety of my living room, but yet have to scale over dish boxes in order get to my fridge (and my yummy sushi leftovers from Andy and my last sushi lunch...sniffle...which I would show you a picture of, but can't) and I can't close the door to my bathroom because of heavy boxes wedged against it. Can't wait to see how the things are actually packed inside the boxes. I go for my last milkshake from Cookout on Wednesday...Reese's peanut butter cup. I also deal with some recurring friend drama which was not what I needed as I'm getting ready to move...but that's all I'll say about that. (None of you...I promise.)

Thursday: movers arrive. They get sooo pissed with the packers who apparently left a bunch of stuff unboxed. A for instance. My quesadilla maker which has it's own box apparently should've been put in a larger box with other stuff, but wasn't. They get even more pissed when they see that my golf clubs weren't boxed up. Not sure why. Even though I had neatly piled everything that wasn't to be loaded, and said "Everything else goes" I was constantly asked "Does this go?" I wanted to respond "Is that part of everything? then yes." I tried to stay out of the way and as they loaded I cleaned. I got annoyed at having long hair (and excessively thick long hair at that) because as I clean, I shed and find hair everywhere...annoying. For lunch I have a fab chicken pot pie (not PA style pot pie, rest of the world style pot pie--which again, I would show you a picture of if I could) from Zoe's. I return back to cleaning and get a nice surprise as Erik and Will who live across the street (Will doesn't officially live across the street, but for the most part does) come over to say goodbye and chat until Will starts talking crap about the upcoming Wake/ND football game, and I kick him out of my apartment. I take my cable box back to the Time Warner place at the mall which is quick and easy since I know exactly where it is in the mall thanks to helping Kathleen take hers back. Load my car, take a shower cause I'm gross from cleaning. My maintenance guy comes with a painter and they start prepping my apartment for the new tenant. I would've thought they could've waited till I got out. Heard the best southern simile EVER. My maintenance guy was exploring a mystery wet spot on my floor and says "well, it couldn't come from over here because that wall is as dry as a popcorn fart." As dry as a popcorn fart....are you farting popcorn? or is the popcorn itself farting? I love random Southern expressions!

My original plan was to spend the night on a blow up mattress in my empty apartment. Andy convinced me that that was stupid (it was), so I was just waiting for him to get off work in order to check into his guest room. He calls and says he's on his way home. He has some work thing later that evening so I go to pick up dinner at Dioli's before heading immediately over to his place. Dioli's apparently has implemented "summer hours" and is closed...which pissed me off...it's 5pm and you're a restaurant. I don't care if you're mostly a sandwich place or not. I settle for Subway instead. blech, but fits my qualifications of nearby, quick and not total crap...Check in to Andy's place. I eat, and we talk about our day as well as a wealth of miscellaneous other things including but not limited to pickles, gin, psychology, diary farms, etc. It's actually very homey having dinner and talking at a kitchen table. He gets a beer bottle from the fridge and no matter how many times I've seen him do it it still amazes me when he opens it on his forearm. Before he leaves he shows me how to use the TV, where an extra key is in case I want to go somewhere, where towels are in case I have a sudden urge to take a shower, wifi access, etc and gives the all encompassing "help yourself to everything, call if you need anything" host like gesture and leaves. I eventually tuck myself in between the black sheets and lay my head on the gold pillows (Wake Forest colors, of course) of his guest bed and fall asleep before he gets back home.

I wake up to find that he has already left for the gym. How someone can go to bed at 11pm and wake up at 4am, I still don't understand. I help myself to breakfast and wait for his return. He had asked me the night before if I could hang out until he got back so that he could see me off. Of course I could. He gets back from the gym, loads me up with snacks and Diet Cokes for my long drive, and we head out to my car for a somewhat ridiculous, tearful, and sweaty (it was apparently treadmill day for him at the gym) goodbye. I cry for the first half hour of the drive. I had a great time at Wake Forest and in Winston Salem. I met great people and did great things, and my heart is a little broken.