J Sto's blog

2012-02-03T20:48:00.002-05:00

Important Announcement:

Due to boredom and peer pressure from Marcia, I'm now on tumblr. Get more of your Jsto fix at jstothephd.tumblr.com I'm going to try to keep up blogspot too and keep more of my spur of the moment thoughts for tumblr. We'll see.

2012-02-02T19:15:00.001-05:00

STOP THE CLOCK

"Well, it's only been a day but things r deff not gonna work out between me n my boo n its only cuz the distance."

Shortest engagement EVER!

2012-02-01T21:19:00.002-05:00

I...Just...I...What?

Partially I am blogging to keep from having a major freak out. Long story short, a bunch of my data got screwed up, not really my fault, just not knowing how the stupid survey program works. (AKA who knew that question #1 on the survey would show up as question #5 on data report.) But still I reported incorrect analysis to a prof which makes me feel like I screwed up AND it's like 12 hours of work down the drain...fun...

Anyway, the other reason I'm blogging is because my cousin posted this on facebook today: "well i guess someone finally wants to wife me up...and were so inlove i hate this long distance b.s....i said yes of chorse so i guess ill just take this all one day at a time...n pray hes the one."

This literally make me speechless other than to sarcastically say "Yeah, cause THAT is a good idea." So I will let my friends speak for me. Here are the reactions of various of members of my friends and family.

Amanda1: shut the front door

Danielle: He looks like her pimp. (Danielle actually investigated her on fb)

my dad: OMG I almost pee'd myself reading it. (yes, my dad actually typed OMG...this was my favorite response)

Andy: That's some serious poetry there.

Marcia: oh. my. god.

Meredith: oh geez. did they meet via inmate mail?

Kathleen: wait what no!!! She's engaged! Oh god please tell me you'll be maid of honor or something!

Being a part of this wedding may just eat away at my soul.

2012-01-22T08:33:00.002-05:00

Comcast, seriously?

I'm having issues with my one TV. There are four main issues.

A lot of channels have no sound
Some channels have sound for the TV show, but not for the commercials (not sure if this is really a problem)
Some channels are in Spanish...like channels that aren't supposed to be in Spanish....like Family Guy on TBS is in Spanish
This is my favorite. Some channels have director cues in the sound. "He reads over the letter that was just handed to him and sighs deeply."

I'm not sure how cable boxes work, but who knew this was even possible?

2012-01-19T21:21:00.002-05:00

What if Facebook had ALWAYS Been Around?

Last night Meredith and I were talking about Tudor England (we do that quite a bit actually), and I was saying how by time news got to the far reaches of the kingdom, they were like two queens and a religion behind because you couldn't just post it on Facebook...hmmm...what if historical figures had facebook? (and maybe some literary figures as well). Sorry if the whole PhD thing has made me more academic. I'll get back to my normal mindless drivel soon.

Ben Franklin -> Tommy Jefferson: Way to rock the doc!

John Hancock likes this.

Noah: Still need 1 giraffe and 1 unicorn.

Alice is now friends with the Mad Hatter and 3 other people.

Albert Einstein is playing Farmville.

Billy the Kid-> Pat Garrett: Is that Bacon?

Pat Garrett: Yup

Bill the Kid: I'll be right out. #lovemesomebacon

Henry VIII just changed his relationship status from "married" to "it's complicated"

Henry VIII: Bitchz gotta go

Henry VIII unfriended Anne Bolelyn

John Smith: Hanging wit mah boo. ---with Pocahontas

Harry Houdini: Tied up right now. rofl

John Wilkes Booth: Shit's about to get real! @ Ford Theater

Black Beard: Long day of pillaging and plundering. Glad to be back on the ship.

Ebeneezer Scrooge: Ugh...can't sleep. txt me.

Lady Godiva was tagged in 3600 photos.

Chris Columbus: All you flat earth people can suck in @ The New World

Lizzie Borden: SOOOO Pissed.

Picasso: Headed to the docs. Ear issue. Pics to come.

William Tell: Everyone should mind their own business and stop judging my parenting style. UGH.

Nero: Fiddle music + Warm Fire = Perfect Night

Marie Antoinette: Sick of everyone bitching about not having bread. Eat some damn cake and shut up.

2012-01-18T19:52:00.001-05:00

Facebook Posts from an Ex-con

Almost as good as letters from prison.

"still bored..bout to go get ready to go to dinner then i gotta rep my pplz still down and go out to the damn county 4 a v.i. and them mutha fucckers never even wrote me when i was down but fucck it shorty is a RIDA.."

What does that even mean?

2012-01-16T20:30:00.002-05:00

A Love Letter to Trader Joe's

My Dearest Trader Joe's,

I don't know how I ever lived without you (if you can call what I was doing really living.). Ever since Hina and Chiraag first introduced me to you, I knew that we were destined to be together.

I love everything about you. I love that you sell pretentious foods like caviar, jalapeno cilantro hummus, soy chorizo, and meyer lemon cookie thins at unpretentious prices, so that I don't feel like a prick shopping there. I love that when I don't like something I buy at you, that you will take it back without judgment. You just accept me as I am. The person who every once in a while thinks I like oatmeal, while secretly knowing that it will just disappoint me again. But I know that you will be there to take my half eaten oatmeal, give me my money back, and send me on my way with some strawberries or something else I will like. Though the majority of your food is delicious....the garlic naan and paneer tikka masala...delicious!

Please forgive me when I go to Rainbow in order to get some of the things you don't have. You know it doesn't mean anything. Sometimes I just need things like contact solution or molasses and you just don't have it. I'm sorry.

Kisses,

JSto

2012-01-15T21:09:00.003-05:00

Ok, so I Stole This

I just rediscovered mimi smartypants's blog. I laughed at the last two paragraphs of her most recent post that it made me think I was going to throw up and/or pee my pants and was seriously the best ab workout I've had in a long time, so I'm going to reblog it...as is...no need to mess it up with my comments.

"Maybe the chlorine also went to the brains of the water park management, for they displayed a very strange sign (I should have taken a picture but it slipped my mind, what with being all damp/terrified). The sign told water park patrons not to be alarmed if they saw a baby floating face-down in the pool, as periodically the head lifeguard tosses a baby-sized mannequin in there to keep the other lifeguards on their toes. I’m sorry, what? I absolutely will become “alarmed” at the sight of a floating dead baby, and you can’t make me stop.

Also, do we want to be purposely desensitizing people to the sight of a baby face-down in the pool? *puffs cigarette* Ahhh, fuck it. Probably a doll. I saw a sign about it once. Let’s go get nachos."

2012-01-14T19:52:00.005-05:00

Updated Look

In case you haven't noticed, JSto's blog has a new look! (If you didn't notice, then you probably have never visited this blog before, so welcome.) Anyway, I had noticed the blog wasn't loading properly in a lot of browser's, so I finally updated my blogger interface (or whatever computer jargon they used), and this was the result. Let me know what you think.

Completely unrelated. I gave myself a disco nail yesterday....it's what all the cool kids are doing.

2012-01-08T19:53:00.009-05:00

"You Taste Like Sunlight and Strawberry Bubble Gum"

I'm not sure what sunlight tastes like, but it sounds delicious. Don't you think sunlight and strawberry bubble gum would make a fantastic martini? Ok, this post is about some of the delicious food that I ate over holiday break. All of the pictures were taken on Smokey. That's what I've now named my digital camera which leaves off little puffs of smoke sometimes when you take a picture. That CAN'T be good.

The majority of these cookies. I had lunch with Kate and Carmen, and Kate brought me all these cookies. My mom ate the rice crispy treats out of it though. Out of all those delicious looking cookies, who picks the rice crispy treats?

A REAL Philly Cheese steak with sauce and whiz...the way cheese steaks are meant to be.

A salad and half sandwich at Panera that cost -$6, yes that's negative $6. We stopped at a rest area on the way to Pennsylvania. My dad gave me his order and handed me $40 to go get food while he pumped gas. I placed the order, got change and shoved the money into my pocket. I handed it back to my dad...$46. He took the extra $20 back to the girl at Panera, but she wouldn't take it back.

12 courses of meatless dishes on Christmas Eve. We've been invited to this Christmas Eve gathering "for life." They serve fantastic food, but no meat, only fish. They split up families and assign everyone to different tables, so you get to meet new people every year. I almost got my ass handed to me by a state trooper who's husband had asked me to share dessert with him.

Great sushi with Amanda 1. A fantastic Smokey Roll (no relation to my Smokey Camera) that was smoked tuna, and mango and possibly something else, but the tuna and mango were what made it awesome.

Chocolate muffin and hot chocolate. Because what else would you have at the Hershey spa?

A Hunka Chunka PB Fudge Lava Cake Sundae at Friendly's. I love that restaurant.

A Reese's cupcake that Danielle got me from Chocolate world, and then spilled in her car. It look awful, but was delicious.

A Reese's ice cream cake from Dairy Queen (I see a pattern emerging) for my birthday. I didn't like icing on cakes when I was little and so even though my birthday was in December I almost always had an ice cream cake for my birthday. AND it had purple writing on it! We had a tradition of smearing names on our cakes.

Party cake ice cream. Amanda 1 took me to the Turkey Hill Experience on my birthday and they had free samples. I also got to create my own ice cream flavor and packaging. Josh, Amanda's brother in law that went with us, also created an ice cream flavor which the auto-namer suggest be called "African Nut Explosion." Come on. That's funny. On the way there we saw this animal. What animal is this?

A milkshake martini at the Chocolate Avenue Grill. (yes, it came with a refill. It's like when you order a milkshake, and they give you the whole metal thing.) I actually went to this restaurant twice because I wanted a Jess's Favorite Salad in the Whole World, but didn't want to order a salad for my birthday dinner. I told my mom that it tasted just like a milkshake. Her response "Then why don't you just order a milkshake? You just want the fancy glass." Yeah, that's it. I just want the fancy glass.

Lyric is from Matt Nathanson's "Faster". I LOVE that song.

2012-01-05T13:57:00.008-05:00

"Shuffling down the avenue, the raindrops fall like honeydew."

This one is a tough one. I had to look it up myself. This song came on my dad's radio, and we decided that we wouldn't want raindrops to fall like honeydew that that would hurt. Maybe raindrops falling like blueberries, but honeydews are big and heavy.

For those of you that don't know, about 4 months ago central Pennsylvania was hit by flooding. My gramma was flooded out of her house even though her house was like 5 feet higher than flood waters have ever reached before.

We stay at my gramma's house for Christmas, and she had just gotten new carpet (there will be a story about the carpet later in the post) and had just moved back into her house. Her house, however, was not completely finished yet by time we got there.

No sink or toilet in the one bathroom.

No kitchen counters...though we had a piece of plywood to work on.

Anyway, we spent a lot of time unpacking and rinsing out dishes that had been packed up. My mom was in charge of unpacking and drying, I rinsed, and my gramma placed. At one point we were doing a box of antiques, I was so scared of breaking something. At one point, my mom was unwrapping something in tissue paper and all the sudden we heard pieces fall to the ground. Both of our heads shot in horror over at my gramma who...didn't hear a thing. We don't think my mom broke it because all the pieces weren't there, so it was probably broken before being packed. I was also in charge of going through her spices and throwing out old ones and duplicates. I found this:

Dated 1958? Yeah, I threw that out.

Now about the carpet. My gramma had gotten new carpet at the beginning of 2011. It was a pretty green, but it bothered her that when you rubbed it one way it was one color and when you rubbed it the other it was another...like a lot of new carpet. This time she got brown carpet that she thought wouldn't do that, but it does, and it drives her NUTS. Song lyrics were: Margo Rey "Let the Rain"

2012-01-03T19:21:00.002-05:00

"I wanna hold em like they do in Texas please. Fold em let em hit me raise it baby stay with me."

I'm going to have to wait to explain the tie in until I reveal what song this is from. But...this post is about some of the presents I received for Christmas and my birthday.

First of all, I have become really somewhat anti-knick knacks. I don't have room for them anywhere, so I tried to make it clear that I really don't want stuff that I can just sit around somewhere. I don't care if it does have Alice in Wonderland or a leprechaun on it. Luckily my mom got the message and most of my presents were stuff I actually need and can use. However, that being said, I feel like most of my gifts have helped to marginalize my gender as that they mostly have to do with cooking/cleaning. I got a purple Dyson vacuum, a roll of quarters for the washer/dryer at my apartment complex, dryer balls, an olive oil mister, and silicon baking mat. Just to name a few.

Ok, so I have to talk about the Dyson. It is amazing! I put it together last night and have vacuumed 3 times since then. I love it that much! I'm probably the one woman in America who was super psyched to have gotten a vacuum for Christmas. My old vacuum was held together with duct tape. As I said to my mom, "It's like the Kitchenaid mixer of vacuums." I love it so much that I think my mixer is actually getting jealous. I got the "animal" vacuum because apparently my mom thinks I shed a lot. I do.

I also got gifted flights to the Marketing Summit. My dad made a really cute certificate which he presented inside a purse...I think most gift cards should be presented in purses. Ok, who am I kidding. My dad's secretary made a really cute certificate. I had hinted about a million times that all I wanted was a trip to the marketing summit for Christmas. I wasn't sure this would actually happen since my mom is very anti-gift cards, etc and into tangible wrappable items, but I guess packaging it inside a new purse which can then be wrapped alleviates some of that. I was worried because I REALLY want to go to the Marketing Summit and actually get to somewhat enjoy it this year, but I REALLY don't have the money to spend on a flight to Greensboro. Now I just have to convince Andy to let me crash at his place, and I'll be all set.

The other bestest present I got was onesie cheshire cat pajamas. I thought about posting a picture of myself wearing said pajamas, but I don't trust all of you not to pilfer it and post it on facebook. There is a picture floating around that my dad took though. My parents apparently bought these pajamas at Spencer's, which is hysterical in its own right. They're pink striped fleece, and have a tail, and a hood that has the cheshire cat face embroidered on it and ears. See picture here. That is such a lame looking girl wearing them in that picture. I mean I realize I'm probably that big of a loser when I'm wearing them, but I don't want to know I'm that big of a loser. Seriously, I can just tell she sucks at life. I would live in these pajamas if it was socially acceptable. I almost wore them to Christmas at my aunt's house.

I also got a lot of things that have to do with being frigid (gloves, hat, thermal underwear, etc.) and drinking (booze, a fantastic set of Hollywood casino wine glasses...thanks, Danielle). So I'm an alcoholic that lives somewhere really cold.

Ok, if you haven't figured it out, the lyrics were from Lady Gaga "Poker Face." Because seriously, how are you supposed to look on Christmas when you unwrap a roll of quarters? (Remember when I saw Lady Gaga open up for New Kids on the Block a couple of years ago and was like Who the F*** is this weirdo? And now she's like big and stuff. Go fig.)

2012-01-01T20:28:00.003-05:00

"Her daddy wrestles alligators, mama works on carburetors, brother is a fine mediator...for the president"

An explanation. 1) These posts will be about my Christmas vacation. 2) I have all these random lyrics that I would love to work into conversation sometime, but since that will never happen, I will use them as titles instead. 3) Amanda 2 used to send me lyrics when we worked at the Girl Scouts and have me guess what song they were from. I would usually cheat and google them, but she thought I was super smart. I will let you guess, and at the end of the post reveal the song title and artist. No, this is not a gimmick. I'm just bored with blogging. 4) All the lyrics will be in some way related to the subject of the post. This post is about my family. 5) I'm really sick of the timeline and listing format of recounting various events, so I'm going to try to tell about my Christmas break categorized by topic. (Ironic that my note about being sick of lists is in a list, isn't it?)

Ok, so my family. First of all, let's start with the immediate family. My mom and dad are crazy. At one point my dad began randomly saying "Nacho cheese" repeatedly for no reason at all except for the fact that he thought it was really funny. After about the 5th time of him saying it and laughing, my mom a la the Cheez It commercial pretended to check off a list and said "Not Ready." My dad also recently bought an Indiana Jones-esque hat which he thinks is really cool.

Now to my extended family. The most awkward moment came courtesy of my gramma. Late on Christmas morning, she asks my dad "Did you go see your dad already?" My mom, dad, and I all kinda of stare at her in awkward horror until my mom says "uh...he died in February." Painful.

The cousins. My cousin in-law Heidi decided to institute a "boob grabbing" goodbye. So after you hug to say goodbye, you then are required to grab the other person's boob. As much as I wanted to resist this new policy, after you have your breast grabbed a couple times, it's really hard not to reciprocate. Also on that side of the family is Heidi's daughter Aubrey, Aubrey was playing around with my smart phone by changing the settings and stuff. One setting she had on it, made it so that the last text message I received was extremely large on the front page. It just so happened that my last text message had been from Danielle. Yeah. Aubrey took one look at it and said "maybe we should try another setting." Aubrey's sister is Molly. Molly is 18 and brought her boyfriend, Meade, to Christmas dinner. When I asked "Mead? Like the fermented honey beverage?" No one had any clue what I was talking about. Was I the only one forced to read Beowulf in high school? DJ is Aubrey and Molly's brother. His place marker on the dinner table looked like it said "PJ" and so he was referred to as "Potty John" for the rest of the evening because that is super funny to middle school kids.

Now to the ex-con side of the family. Considering this was the first holiday in about 5 years that none of them were in jail, things were pretty uneventful. Dezerae left for most of Christmas, so we only saw her for maybe a half hour. Savon, Dezerae's half brother apparently ran away to pout just after Christmas dinner, but no one realized it for about an hour and by that time he had come back. (He's in like 6th grade, so it's not that big of a thing). Dezerae's mom felt the need to divulge odd family secrets which was also pretty awkward. And apparently at one time, according to her, I had imaginary friends named Foxy and Fancy (not that that's a family secret).

Now to the normal though abnormally large portion of the family. Patrick, the one who thought a roadtrip would be an awesome idea (please refer to THIS post), continued to make fun of the road trip idea for most of the time I saw him and even posted fake route suggestions on my facebook like this:

I appreciate that he sees the utter ridiculousness in this suggestion. We also shared the road trip thing with Molly (the previously mentioned 18 year old) who responded "Why do I feel like Dezerae would get arrested?" I'm glad to see that the utter ridiculousness of Dezerae permeates all factions and age levels of my family. We also played a game of "pass Logan". Logan is my cousin that's in 5th grade and people were basically carrying him around, and you had to pass him to someone who hadn't had him yet. I discovered that I can get out of being subjected to this game by carrying around a glass of red wine. Hmmm...which would I rather be carrying? a 10 year old child or booze...tough choice.

That's pretty much a sampling of my family in a nutshell. The lyric was from "Meet Virginia" by Train. My dad regularly tries to sing this song as "Hey Virginia" or "Oh Virginia."

2012-01-01T08:31:00.002-05:00

Facebook Posts from the Outside

My cousin got released from jail. I know. It's sad. Meredith expressed her disappointment in this news and was trying to plot some way to get Dezerae (my cousin) to continue sending me letters. I told her not to worry because Dezerae and I are facebook friends and now we will have updates in real time. So to ring in the new year, here is the very first facebook post and comment chain from outside of jail. I've edited it down since some of the conversation is redundant, and I will leave my comments till the end though honestly it pretty much will speak for itself. This is from New Year's Eve.

Dezerae: Where's my bitchz at?
Natasha: I got ur bitch right here.
Dezerae: What u doin tonight?
Kayla: Goin to the casino wit my mom lol...she is my designated driver.
Natasha: I'm in wit the kiddies...wat bout u?
Dezerae: I'm tryin to hit this party up in the burg
Dezerae: But I need a bitch to ride out with me lol
Natasha: lol i'm on a 9pm curfew lol i aint doin dat to my self lol
Dezerae: oh yeah i am too lol
Dezerae: nevermind
Natasha: yeah...stay at the crib and get ur swirve on dez...best choice...my opinion! lol
Dezerae: u rite

Ok, now for my comments. As if they are needed. psht. 1) Can anyone be a bitch now? Is there some differentiating factor between bitches and non-bitches? Am I a bitch? And if so, is that a good thing? 2) She's been out one day and already has forgotten that she has a curfew. Yeah, this is going to last real long. 3) I don't know who this Natasha is, and other than the fact that she for some reason is one a curfew, she seems to be a reasonable person. Unless "getting ur swirve on" is REALLY bad.

2011-12-31T17:27:00.007-05:00

A Very Important Conversation

Well, I'm back from PA. Spending the next two days at my parents house in Indiana and then back to St Paul where I'll have researchy stuff to do, but won't start classes until the 17th, so hopefully there will be a ton of bloggage. I apologize for my schizo and sporadic with when I post, but you'll have to deal with it. I can't control my creativity or when blog worthy things happen in my life. Sorry.

Anyway, this post is inspired by my ex-college roommate and fashion Czar, Marcia. I was on her tumblr page and came across this post:

"Bows>lace insert every time. Felicity just wants to be fancy at Christmas, okay? She just wants to be fancy. Re: this post of Nadia's. See that Felicity, then compare with the lace Felicity. THE BEST INSERT IN THE FELICITY CHRISTMAS DRESS IS THE LACE ONE. END OF STORY."

What follows in the e-mails chain that transpired between me and Marcia.

Subject: Are you insane?
Me: I know you're my fashion czar. But lace Felicity was infinitely better.
Marcia: THAT IS WHAT I SAID. STUPID NADIA LIKES THE DUMB RIBBONS.
Me: I thought you said Bows>lace. I apologize for the misunderstanding. I was seriously appalled.
Marcia: Yeah, the formatting is weird. She is at the top, my response was below.
Me: I see that now. I feel so much better now that I know we are in agreement.
Me again: Ribbons would be fine...if Felicity was a whore.
Marcia: I totally put that in Nadia's askbox.
Me: Love it!

In case you have no idea what we are talking about. Felicity is an American Girl Doll whose Christmas dress has an interchangeable front insert. Judge for yourself.

Lace Felicity

Bows Felicity (aka Felicity the Whore)

2011-12-14T16:03:00.002-05:00

Grazie!!

So for those of you that haven't heard the news or heard the news after I was well into the second bottle of wine and didn't really understand most of it, I'm going to Italy in June to present at an academic conference. This IS AWESOME! a) I LOVE Italy and b) I get to beef up my resume in the process (with no out of pocket expense).

But in the process of being super excited, I mistakenly got on the wrong bus on the way home from school. I need to take a 3A home and got on a 3B (possibly? I'm not even really sure.) Anyway, I'm reading and possibly checking e-mail when the bus turns off the normal route and I'm like "oh, crap, what the f*** did I do? So I ding the bell immediately, not knowing exactly where I'm going or more importantly how far the next stop is. Luckily it's not that far, but the bus driver looks at me suspiciously as I get off in the middle of like a bunch of warehouses obviously knowing I'm far from home. The original plan was to get on a bus going the other way, but seeing as I was less than a mile from home, it was 38 degrees out (which is considered "warm"), and I had no idea how long it would be until the next bus would come by. So that was fun.

2011-12-11T19:47:00.002-05:00

Thoughts on Home Alone

Maybe the doctoral program has put my brain on overdrive, but I over analyze everything I watch on TV now. Last night I decided to watch Home Alone, so here are 10 random observations from the movie.

1) Have you noticed the product placement in that movie? Pepsi, American Airlines, Budget Rental Car, Tic Tac. Just to name a few. Seriously there are branded products everywhere. Guess they were hoping Home Alone would do for Pepsi what ET did for Reese's Pieces.
2) You realize it's all Heather's fault, right? If she hadn't done such a half-assed job counting all the kids and mistaking the neighbor kid for Kevin none of this drama would've ever happened. I hope you feel like shit, Heather.
3) Where is child protective services? Seriously, there never would've been a Home Alone 2.
4) They think the old man is the "South Bend Shovel Slayer." Shout out to the Bend!!
5) He puts ONE nail on ONE step and that just happens to be where he steps. Really?
6) And since we're picking apart the booby trapping of the house, how convenient that the burglar happens to go through the open window with the sharp ornaments under it after he had to take his shoes off so that he doesn't just go stomping over the ornaments in shoes unscathed.
7) The dad forgets to close the garage door when they leave. Why the hell was the garage door open in the first place?
8) Kevin asks the people at the drugstore if the toothbrush is approved by the American Dental Association and the clerk says "I don't know. It doesn't say." Well, if it doesn't say then obviously, it's not.
9) Why does he talk to himself so much? I mean I talk to myself, but it's usually to tell myself that I'm an idiot. He like narrates what he's doing.
10) Why do they have a dog door?

2011-12-04T16:41:00.003-05:00

Letter Not From Prison

Get it? Cause she's like out...sorta...so it's a letter but not from prison. Anyway, sorry that it's taken me so long to blog. I've been kinda a mess lately. Anyway, no excuses, I'll just get right to blogging.

"Hey, How are you doing? Im good.. Just a lil stressed! Its pretty stressful being in a city you have no clue about (Uh..I moved to Minnesota.) and you have to travel some place different everyday (I still don't understand why she goes somewhere different everyday, but whatever). I got lost like twice the other day and had to spend 12$ on fair. (that's not where a $ goes and I think you mean fare.) Thank God I got a monthly bus pass for Dec. so I can travel everywhere and not worry...I always end up walking cause its easier.

I have a question? ( a) that's a statement about a question and thus does not need a question mark even though the word question is in it and b)a question for me? oh good!) Do you happen to have an old lil Ipod that you don't really use anymore with a bunch of music on it? (no, actually my current Ipod got recalled and is at Apple. and even if I did the "bunch of music" that would be on an old Ipod of mine, you wouldn't like. Unless you're really into BSB and *NSync.) Petey lost his (Petey is her brother, but not sure what that has to do with me sending her an Ipod) and my dad was spose to send me a MP3 like a month ago and never did. I figured you might have a old one from when they 1st came out or something! (I do, but seeing as I take care of my stuff, don't sell it for drug money, and don't have it stolen, I've only needed one.) I can even just borrow it until I get out of here and I'll take great care of it! (bahahahaha...yeah...)If you do is there anyway you can add some Drake, Lil Wayne, Rick Russ, and Big Sean too it? (So now, not only do you want me to send you an Ipod, but you want me to put music you like on it too?) like all the new Rap...& R&B...that would be awesome...and you can just send it stright too me in the mail...do Ipods need chargers (ugh...my head is starting to hurt just from reading this.) I never even had a Ipod lol (why do I not feel bad for her? oh...possibly because she's never had a job either?) but everyone has them here and they are so awesome if you have an old one or a extra one that would be awesome! (wow..that is a lot of awesome stuff! even if I had a closet of Ipods, I'm not sure I would send her one.)

Well I went to Uncle Bill's (Thanksgiving) and it was awesome (you know what else is awesome? uh...well...I can't think of anything. I was going to say "your face", but that's not derogatory and then I was going to say "your mom", but that's not derogatory either...so...hmmm...) Listen what I came up with. I decided that it would be awesome if this summer all the kids 18 & over (so...I guess this means I'm included in the "kids") went on a road trip so it would be me, you, Patrick, Molly and Andrew. (Oh, my f***ing God...she CAN'T be serious.) Hows that sound? (like a BAD idea.) Do you think we could make it happen? (are we just going to rob our way across the country? or who exactly is this going to be financed? Gas doesn't exactly bubble up from the ground...well...it does...but you know...) That would be so cool so we can get to know each other and just have fun! (Here's what I'm picturing...we're in the middle of West Virginia or some other remote state. I come back to the hotel room after going to grab a Coke from the soda machine and find her OD-ing in the bathtub....second scenario, we get pulled over. Cops search our car...find a gun in her suitcase...any one else want to role play this for me?) If everyones down we should start planning it! (I am NOT down. NOT DOWN! Pretty sure Patrick, who is also responsible, is not down as well.) What do you think? (I think I would rather eat my own eyes.)"

So she goes on to talk about how she has to go to a bunch of "resource centers" every day and how she's trying to get a job or get into school and how she wants a smart phone, but that's pretty much it. I'll try to blog again soon.

2011-11-23T18:23:00.002-05:00

My Daily Bus Ride

I'm currently working on gathering pictures for a post about how my mom is the greatest hostess in the world but need to gather a few more pictures for that. Instead, I thought that I'd blog about something that goes through my head nearly EVERY DAY.

I ride the public bus to school. I actually really enjoy it. I get to read and feel generally good about the environment. I live pretty far from campus, so normally when I get on the bus there are plenty of empty seats. As more and more people get on the bus, I'm always torn. I generally don't want people to sit by me because they might crunch up against me and start to infringe on my part of the seat or they might smell like a mix of BO and ethnic food. (SN: this is not a racist comment. Merely a description.) Then there comes a point where as people are filing on and not taking the seat next to me, that I start to feel like the last kid being picked in gym. Why don't they want to sit next to me? Don't they like me?

2011-11-15T20:32:00.005-05:00

Adult Gummy Bears

In college Marcia and I used to make adult Jell-o, this was my first take at adult Gummies. But I love gummies and booze, so why not? This link was my inspiration. Being a poor yet resourceful PhD student, I decided to substitute the coconut rum that I already have on hand for the vodka in the recipe. I also decided to try a variety of gummies to experiment and see what works the best.
That's all my gummies marinating in coconut rum.

A couple of notes:

1) After about a day of marinating, I was a little disappointed in that the gummy flavor had gone, so basically what I had was coconut rum flavored gummy textured candy. However, after another day (or two) the fruity gummy taste came back so it wasn't so hard core booze tasting. I don't really understand the science of how this happened, but whatever.
2) The marshmallowy backed gummies (typically frogs or strawberries or whatever) didn't turn out that great. The opaque marshmallowy part gets weird.
3) The gummies get big.
See? The alcoholic one is on the right. I wish I had a picture of the gummy worms. They got HUGE, but I had eaten all the non-soaked worms before taking pictures.
4) I don't like that you're supposed to keep them in the fridge. I don't like them cold.
5) They are pretty potent (and delicious.)

Otherwise, pretty awesome. Especially when you're a stressed out grad student. (Of course, these are only to be tried for those over 21.)

2011-11-10T21:09:00.002-05:00

Worst of Winston

1) One word: Bustier. Who wears a bustier to a Winston-Salem bar? Not a club. A bar.
2) The Notre Dame pep rally. Kind of pathetic. A leprechaun alum that wasn't exactly peppy. Music issues. Some old guy messing around with power point. Not really setting the standard.
3) It was freaking cold. I booked this trip figuring it would be a little warmer than Minnesota, but it wasn't. While I was bundled up for the game, my legs were still freezing.
4) The hotel internet that went out every 15 minutes or so. Kinda difficult to get homework done.
5) The hotel's air alternated between heat and air conditioning, so one minute it was stifling hot and the next it was frigid.
6) Oh, did I mention that my flight out of Greensboro was delayed, and I was going to miss my connection, AND they couldn't find me any flights to MSP that night so they had to put me up in a hotel? Not only was my flight at 5:25 am, but I had to wear clothes that I had already worn and go straight from the airport to school. BLECH!
7) Found out that the Marketing Summit is a bucket of hell. I feel like I dropped my kid off at summer camp and showed up at parents weekend only to find out that she's now a crack whore.
8) The $10 meal voucher that US Air gave me. You know what meal you can get at a Marriott restaurant for $10. NOTHING!

I can't think of a #9 or #10, so I guess that must be pretty much it.

2011-11-09T21:24:00.003-05:00

Back in the Dash
This past weekend I trekked back to Winston Salem for the much anticipated (at least by me) Notre Dame/Wake Forest football game. The trip ended up being unequivocally good for my battered PhD soul. There were good moments and bad moments (and some bad moments that were good just because of the humor involved with their badness). I'm going to write this up in my standard Best Moments/Worst Moments format rather than a narrative.

Best Moments:
1) CHICKEN POT PIE!!! Ok, I know that I've blogged about this before. Pure deliciousness. I'll also lump sushi and a Cookout Milkshake in here as well, so that I don't waste 3 numbers all on food. I had also been on a self-imposed sushi hiatus since Labor Day, so it was so good.
2) Seeing the new Notre Dame helmets in person. If you don't know about the whole new helmet thing, you can read about it here. I've said a lot of bitter things about the helmets on facebook because I'm mad that the painting tradition had to go, but they do look really good in person.
3) A Notre Dame victory. While I really couldn't have lost either way, I would've taken a lot more shit if Wake had won.
4) Lots of friends in town. Both Notre Dame and Wake friends. I tailgate hopped to 3 different tailgates enjoying beer and brats and buddies along the way. (I hate the word buddies....it reminds me of Memorial Day in high school band, but that's another story...I just felt I needed another "b" word to go with beer and brats.)
5) Notre Dame fans everywhere. We sure do know how to travel. There was also a blimp in town. Justin, one of my Wake friends, said "A blimp!?! We've never had a blimp at a Wake game before?!?!" I turned to him and said "you're welcome."
6) Joining up with the current Wake MBA second years, for a few holes of bar golf (their scoring was a little different than how wikipedia describes it, but you get the idea). One of the later holes "sleeping with a waitress" was a hole in one. I informed the second years that I found this sexist and was informed that beer golf is a "Gentleman's Game."
7) Staying in a Marriott for FREE on Sunday night. I LOVE Marriott beds. (For the reason why I was in a Marriott for free, see the worst list.)
8) Running into "Donkey" aka Tom Timmermans at the game. His nickname comes from the fact that he looks like Donkey from Shrek. Apparently Mattie Carroll was out at the bars on Friday night, but I missed him.
9) The cute old guy on the plane ride from MSP to CLT. He was on his way to Aruba to celebrate his 50th wedding anniversary. He was sooo happy. He told us fantastic stories and ended by saying if I ever needed anything while I was in Minneapolis to call him. So cute!
10) Meeting Andy's dog Appa.
Seriously is that not the cutest dog you have ever seen! Not only is he cute, but he's soft, and well behaved, and loves to cuddle. Everything he does is pretty much adorable. He was dragging this stick that's twice his size around Andy's yard. Too cute.

Well, this blog has dragged on long enough, and I'm tired, so the "worst of" post will wait till another day. Hopefully tomorrow, but no promises.

2011-11-02T21:26:00.001-04:00

Random Thought of the Day

There are all these posters around the halls of school advertising different research projects that they need people for. The one says "Attention: Cocaine Users with Attention Problems. The University of Minnesota is looking for healthy 18-55 year olds to participate in a study." It always makes me wonder how using cocaine doesn't immediately disqualify you from being "healthy"...it's cocaine.

So I market tested this blog on Kathleen and her response was "I'm totally healthy minus this pesky drug habit!" ha

2011-10-31T20:19:00.006-04:00

A Letter From Captain Morgan

This was posted on the wall of one of the buildings I walk by on my way from the bus stop to the business building. (Please make sure you zoom in so you can read it. I could only make it so large on here.)

I have so many questions about this. I want to call the number and find out.

2011-10-26T20:15:00.003-04:00

The Crazy Bread Lady

This is the picture of multi-grain artisan bread that the crazy bread lady gave me yesterday. I also have a loaf of some sort of raisin bread in my freezer. Yesterday I was on my way home from the bus stop (my bus stop is like two blocks from my apartment complex.) There was a hippy-ish looking 40 year old woman pulling a wagon behind her. All of the sudden she says "You want bread?" I'm like "what?" She's like "It's really good artisan bread! I was just heading back to my car to load my wagon back up." I think I was so confused by these comments that I just started following her back into the alley behind her house. Then suddenly it hit me, was this woman luring me with free artisan bread so that she could brutally murder me? At this point another woman came out of her house, and the hippy bread lady said "Hey, Julie, I got bread for you." And "Julie" answered "great, just bring it by." So apparently this whole bread thing was legit and somewhat normal. The bread lady who introduced herself as Katie (I really have too many Kat's, Katie's, Kate's, Kathleen's, and other Kat... people in my life. I may be forced to let some of you go) opened up the back of her SUV to reveal heaping mounds of various types of artisan bread. I took the round of multi-grain pictured, and she forced the raisin on me. As I walked away, she let me know that I could find her delivering bread around the neighborhood every Tuesday afternoon if I wanted some. She also offered me lettuce before I walked away, which I did not take. I made myself a fantastic grilled cheese sandwich and didn't find any needles in the bread, so I may have to hit her up on another Tuesday. I'm also slightly concerned that it never occurred to me to ask her why the hell she had so much bread in her car.

2011-10-22T15:36:00.002-04:00

Lab Time

I'm taking some time out from immense amounts of studying to blog...since I haven't done that in a while. So I finally get to run experiments on people! YEAH!! Nothing really exciting though...no electric shocks or injections or anything like that. I love reading about old experiments where they could do pretty much whatever they wanted to people. Now it's just basically surveys and watching some videos. When we let the group of people into the lab, they sit at a computer and wait for a lab person (usually me or my fellow first year Chiraag*) to put in an ID number and "condition" so they can start their survey. When they sit down this is on the screen:
Sorry I couldn't find a better picture. It's clearer in the lab. That's some rats on a computer. So basically you're telling these people almost explicitly that they are just glorified lab rats. Nice.

*Andy thinks Chiraag's name sounds like a wine and keeps saying things like "what do you recommend with the trout? oh, we have an excellent '08 Chiraag that would pair nicely" and "This Chiraag seems a little too nutty for me, but has a very smooth finish." I can't look at Chiraag without thinking about wine.

2011-10-15T19:57:00.002-04:00

The Box of Triscuits

Have you ever looked at a box of triscuits? I mean like REALLY looked at it. I was just collapsing my empty box of Rosemary & Olive Oil Triscuits for recycling and started reading the things on it. A few things to note:

Under where it says "Rosemary and Olive Oil" it says "Natural Flavor With Other Natural Flavor." What? I'm not sure what they're trying to say. Is that supposed to be good?

On the bottom of the box it says "This package is sold by weight, not by volume. Packed as full as practicable by modern automatic equipment, it contains net weight indicated. If it does not appear full when opened, it is because contents have settled during shipping and handling." Ok, I understand they put this on there so that people don't bitch when they open up their Triscuits and they're not brimming to the top. BUT...a) I had to google to see if practicable was even a word. You couldn't have said this better? and b) Don't give me that bullshit about he practicability of modern machinery. You're honestly trying to tell me that a machine can't shake the bag a little, make all the crackers settle, and then add more crackers until it's full?

Under the ingredients where there's normally things about it containing tree nuts or whatever it says "Contains: wheat, celery." I get the wheat thing. But is there rampant celery allergies that I don't know about?

My favorite part. On the side panel: "Triscuit. Weave Some wonder. At Triscuit, we believe less is more. That's why we bake our crackers with quality ingredients like Soft White Winter Wheat. Soft White Winter Wheat is grown in places like the Great Lakes region of North America by farmers who are skilled in harvesting this crop. We like to think of Soft White Winter Wheat as a kind of cashmere of wheat because of its soft texture and delicious taste. It's what gives Triscuit its golden color, distinctive crunch and 22 grams of delicious whole grain goodness per serving." Are you freaking kidding me? The cashmere of wheat? bahahahahahaha "Soft White Winter Wheat" must've tested really well with consumers since they mention it three times! It's even listed in the ingredients as "Whole Grain Soft White Winter Wheat." Must be the alliteration that people like. (Mrs. Christ, I'll take my extra credit please!)

2011-10-12T20:35:00.013-04:00

MOBA

In an article I was reading for school (SN: if you haven't heard yet, I had my first official "everyone thinks I'm an idiot" PhD freak out yesterday), they had pulled examples of "bad art" off of the MOBA (Museum of Bad Art) website. I had to see for myself just how bad ARE these piece of art? Here are some of my favorites.

It's a dog juggling rainbow bones. How can you call that bad?

So the runner is not only out, but is getting eaten...that's a rough inning. Not sure what the guy with the bag is doing.

I want that...errrr....chipmunk? And the dog with the sparkly band aid mouth!

That dog make me laugh and is simultaneously disturbing. It takes a heck of a dog to draw attention away from the two naked people in the picture.

The more I look. The more horrified I become. (I normally keep this a PG blog, but art doesn't count, right?).

Is this cat actually eating that guy or just an unfortunate perspective that the artist chose?

Because I've always dreamt of riding naked on something with GIANT CLAWS!

This is legitimately my favorite picture. I want this one. How can you not love that dog's ears?

2011-10-08T20:44:00.003-04:00

Letter From Prison

You may have noticed that there haven't been any letters from prison posts lately. It's not because I haven't been getting letters. It's because none of them have really been interesting. No shanks, no getting thrown in the hole, no fights with her celly. And while all of her letters are somewhat entertaining, well, I'm lazy, and talking about prison tattoos and stuff are just easier to blog about than everyday mundane letters from prison. But I thought all of you were probably super curious about what is going on in her life right now, so...here it is.

"Hey. How are you doing? (I'm pretty sure every letter I receive from her starts this way.) I'm ok. I like the card that you sent me. It's really cool looking that would be a cool painting to hang in your house (I have no idea what card I sent her. Probably something with ballerinas or music notes on it. I have a lot of stationary like that that I send to her because I don't really want to send it to anyone legit. since she said it would be a nice painting, I'm betting it's my Degas note cards, so yes, that would be a nice painting to hang in my house.)

Ok, the way the program works is theres like 86 woman and we do everything as a community so theres like 7 crews (she was talking about being a crew leader last time and I asked what the hell she was talking about) that have specific jobs and they run a certain part of the community and its there duty and we have a crew meeting everyday to get thing strightend (or straightened) out for the next day. (there were 4 "and"'s in that sentence. that's like a run-on on a run-on on a run-on sentence.) theres communication crew, education crew, motivation crew-i ran that crew--our job was to motivate the people during morning meetings (motivate how? I'm picturing like cheerleaders--except in orange prison issue jumpsuits--with pompoms and such) and read daily meditations...environmental crew, (I love how she throws a random sentence in the middle of another sentence and then just continues on her way.) time keepers, safety crew (I'm sorry...there's a safety crew in jail? that seems a little ironic, doesn't it?) I think thats it. I don't feel like explaining all the dutys for each one. (um...you're too lazy to write about different crews when you have nothing else to do but sit in jail? yeah, this bodes real well for a job when you get out.) then theres a panel of 6 people that really run the community which the seniors like the pres and the assiant (that's supposed to be assistant) --me-- (yes, she's the assiant) is the vice basically I did all the scrunt work (I'm sorry? all the what? scrunt work? hahahahaha) I ran the morning meetings and I got all the stuff that needed to be passed up and approved. (oh, how taxing all the scrunt work is. hahahaha)

Andys dog is so cute (yep, that's it. No transition. Just scrunt work directly into Andy's dog. I sent her a picture of Andy with his new dog Appa, who is the freaking cutest dog ever. I mean, it's cuter than a lot of babies.--SN: Danielle, you totally know whose baby I'm talking about) Andy looks alil (alil?) like my BF Ryan ( a: I'm sure Andy will be flattered that he can get such a catch as you and b: how are you meeting all these guys in jail? is this like those women that fall in love with serial killers?) Ryans 32 (she's 24, if you're wondering) and hes REALLY (not only was really in all caps, it was also double underlined) cute if everything works out you'll meet him one day. (oh, I can only hope). Well I guess Im gonna go hopefully I'll be able to talk to you soon! Goodluck at school!!"

2011-10-04T20:51:00.003-04:00

How Not to Spend a Sunday Morning

After the fantastic experience of Saturday night, I set my alarm for 6am in order to make my 8am flight. I wake up at around 5:40am and decide it's not worth trying to go back to sleep, so I get up and head out of my aunt's house (sidenote: I choose not to shower because I'm not really sure where the shower is in her house let alone towels, etc...so I am DISGUSTING). I go to fill up my rental car with gas and am shocked when my credit card gets declined. After paying cash to the sketchtacular gentleman working the gas station at 6am, I call my credit card company. And guess what, they are doing routine maintenance and won't be able to access my account until 11am...FANTASTIC.

I'm a little worried because my rental car was on that credit card...can't get ahold of the rental car company either. I decide to call my bank just to see if anything suspicious is going on there. Nothing weird except that the credit card payment I had registered online a few days earlier was not withdrawn from my checking account...well, that might be an issue.

I fly to Philly and during my layover I decide to try the credit card company again because even though it's not 11 yet, maybe they got done with maintenance early...they did.

CC lady: How may I help you today?
Me: Well, my card got rejected this morning.
CC: We're certainly sorry about that. Let me take a look at your account. ooo...it looks like you're over your credit limit.
Me: No, I'm not.
CC: well we never received your latest payment, so that put you over your limit.
Me: No, it didn't.
CC: because there was no balance, both your charges from your last statement as well as any more recent charges go towards your account, so you're over your limit.
Me: I understand that but I'm not over my limit.
CC: yes, you are.
Me: I had X charges on my last statement and have made Y charges since. If you add them together, I should still be about $1000 under my credit limit.
CC: Oh, you're right. The bank returned your payment because of an incorrect account number.
Me: Ok, so can I pay for that now.
CC: Of course, I'll just need your routing and account number.
Me: I only have my debit card.
CC: I'm sorry we don't take debit.

So, I call my bank (because I'm in an airport and do not have my check book with me). I'm informed that they can give me the routing number but not the account number even though I offer to provide my PIN number, date of birth, mother's maiden name and social security number.

Luckily I do get a hold of the rental car company, and they tell me that since the charge was preapproved, there's no issue there. After getting home, I finally pay my credit card bill and find out that my credit card will be frozen for 7 days...so that's fun.

2011-10-02T20:25:00.002-04:00

How Not To Spend a Saturday Night

After a fantastic time at Amanda 1's wedding reception, I was supposed to head back to her house to spend the night and then make my 8am flight back to the TC (that's Twin Cities). So let me set the scene for you. I am still wearing my strapless bridesmaid dress and flip flops with a light jacket over it. It's raining out and low 40's at approx 11:30pm. I am tired, wet, cold and hence grumpy as hell. I arrive at Amanda's house with the best man (get your mind out of the gutter) who had left clothes and some stuff in their house the night before and his car outside. I insert the key that Amanda had pointed out as her house key into the lock, but could not get it to turn.

After many futile attempts, I hand over the keys to the best man who is sure (as all men are) that my addled woman brain can't handle this simple task...this turns out to be a fatal mistake. Guess what...no dice. After many more attempts (and asking stupid questions like 'are you sure she didn't give you any other keys?' oh, yeah, I forgot she handed me the extra special super secret key, and all these were just red herrings) he says "wow, I just felt the key bend that time." I warn him to be careful that he doesn't break the key off in the lock...cause that would suck (right, Kathleen?) and guess what happens 30 seconds later?? Gee, he breaks the key off in the lock.

After trying to call various people to find out if there is a hidden key at the house and getting no one answering, I finally say "well, I have family in the area. I'm sure i can find somewhere to stay for the night or if not, I'll just get a hotel. why don't you just leave your stuff here and come get it tomorrow? you have your car keys right?" I probably didn't say that as politely as I think I did because...again...grumpy as hell. He says he has his keys but keeps saying things like "but...but...my shoes are in there.." F*** your shoes! I'm cold and tired. Just as I'm contemplating how to break the news that I would be leaving him in the rain and dark on Amanda's porch to fend for himself, Amanda's new hubby calls. Best man tells me he is driving the 25 minutes or so back to the wedding hotel in order to get another set of keys and looks shocked when I say that I will not be joining him on such a jaunt and will be making other arrangement for accommodations for the evening...errr...early morning?

I call my aunt who happens to live on the next street over from Amanda and who, because Notre Dame was playing in an 8pm game, may actually still be awake at midnight. (even though I was cold and tired, I really didn't want to wake anyone up.) I reached her on her cell phone, and while she was not at home, would be there in a half hour. I figure to take that since it would probably take me a half hour to make other arrangements and drive to other lodging. I spend the waiting time removing the 30 bobby pins (I just counted them. It was 30 exactly) from my hair. She finally gets home, and I change into pj's and climb into bed at around 1am. I have trouble falling asleep as I am shivering uncontrollably from standing on Amanda's porch in a strapless dress and flip flops for about a half hour. I am relieved, however, to finally be in a bed and not have to do the ultimate walk of shame by sleeping in my car and arriving at the airport in my bridesmaid dress.

Up next: How Not To Spend a Sunday Morning

2011-09-29T20:18:00.003-04:00

Creative Little Vandals

Every Tuesday and Thursday, I walk by this sign on my way to stats class.

If you can see, it says "No Pie." And then they drew a little line to make the cigarette into a slice of pie. How clever!

2011-09-26T19:52:00.002-04:00

How Academia Ruined Dole Whip

I was reading an article about how mood can affect your perception of products. So if you're happy, you think the product is making you happy and so you like it more. It made me start wondering if maybe I really like Dole Whip because I'm happy when I eat it (at the state fair, at Disneyland/World). Next time I have it, I know I will over analyze whether I really like it or I just like where I am. ::sigh::

2011-09-25T21:40:00.001-04:00

E-mails with My Dad

My Dad: Do you know what a punch buggy is?
Me: A VW Bug
My Dad: Thanks...didn't know why people were saying it and punching people.

HAHAHAHAHA

2011-09-24T18:21:00.007-04:00

My Park

I love the park near my apartment. I love to walk around the lake. There's also a miniature golf course, regular golf course, paddle boats, arboretum, cafe, zoo, and amusement park. None of which I have visited yet, but they're there if I wanted to visit them. I told Kathleen "it's kinda like Central Park, but without the rats and homeless people." There's also a lot of people that walk there dogs there and so there are these signs.

For some reason whenever I read the second part of that, I always picture a cartoon dog drinking a soda and then tossing the empty bottle on the ground. There is, of course, separate paths for bikes and pedestrians (I told you TC-ers are serious about their bike paths). The walking path has stick figures painted on it so you know that it's for walking people. This one, and only this one

Decided to wear a hat. HA!

2011-09-20T20:32:00.002-04:00

Two Random Stories from Academia

1) I'm reading an academic article about personality in animals. Like not just dogs and cats, but apparently fruit flies have personalities? At one point, they're talking about doing research on "Great Tits." Not only is that hysterical in a 16 year old boy sense of humor, but I have no idea what type of animal a Great Tit is, and there is absolutely no way in hell that I'm going to type "Great Tit" into any sort of search engine. I'm thinking it's a primate of some sorts. Later on in the article they give the scientific name of the Great Tit which I can google to discover that it's a bird.

2) Last night I went to bed with my clothes on. Not I fell asleep with my clothes on, but I actually forgot to put my pajamas on and climbed in bed in my normal clothes. Apparently (I still cannot wrap my head around how I did this), I was thinking about school stuff so much that I brushed my teeth, took out my contacts, and then climbed in bed, skipping the very important step of changing into pj's. I woke up in the morning and was like "why the hell do I still have my clothes on?" That is some serious brain drain!

2011-09-17T16:45:00.002-04:00

Amanda 1's Visit, Part 3

Ok, first some explanation. I was actually in the process of writing this blog last Sunday when I decided to get a drink. I sat the laptop on my floor, went to the kitchen, poured myself some Crystal Light, came back to the couch, picked up my laptop and cracked the LCD. My laptop was being fixed for the whole week which is the reason for the delay in the finishing the rest of this story.

Also to note, I got my parka (not in black nor gun metal gray) and boots today as well, so bring it Minnesota winter!

Back to Amanda 1's final day of her visit. It was state fair day. We ate a lot of junk again. We split a fried onion. I had a couple of bites of her fried Snickesr. I conclude that the fried Milky Way is my favorite fried candy bar. The peanuts in the snickers seemed to interrupt the melted gooey deliciousness...haven't had the Three Musketeer yet though. I had a Reuben sandwich, another Dole Whip Float (because I LOVE them) and this:

Bacon on a stick. This was actually recommended by one of my PhD colleagues, but he did add "but I'm Canadian, and we really like bacon." It wasn't that good. It was more like ham on a stick and was really fatty which made it difficult to eat.

Much to Amanda's dismay, there were no animals giving birth in the Miracle of Life center, but we did see a dog being operated on which may have been worse. They had this little room set up with an operating table and the vets and the whole thing. Then they had video screens set up so you could see what the vets were actually doing to the dog, and there was a person with a microphone narrating. Horrifying!!

After eating and walking around all day, we decided it was the time to head to the Train/Maroon 5 concert which was the whole point of Amanda's visit..well, I guess part of the point was to see me, but most of the point. My dad had gotten us tickets and theoretically backstage passes of some sort. I never really know what to expect until I pick up my tickets at Will Call. In the envelope with the tickets were our VIP stickers, and a note that said "Please meet right after Train's set at West Plaza Backstage Enterance. Some from Train will meet you and bring you to the backstage area." Yes, "enterance."

Concert starts. Matt Nathanson opened and was great. He was funny, and the music was really good. I was impressed. If you haven't heard of him (I bet you'll recognize one, maybe two, of his songs), definitely check him out. He was followed by Maroon 5 and then Train. We were seated on the whole other side of the stage from the West Plaza Backstage "Enterance" so we left our seats and headed over there before the encore just so we could beat the crowd. Luckily we got to see a whole security incident because of being on that side of the stage early. This was my first backstage experience that wasn't held in some little random room, but actually outside back by all the trailers and stuff. It was weird. Going back with us was a family who seemed to know the one guitar player, a girl who knew like all the roadies and everyone and her friends, and two somewhat skanky looking girls. We get back there and are just hanging out by trunks full of clothes and stuff. The guitar player comes and escorts the two skanky girls into his trailer. He reappears about five minutes later and asks if anyone knows where his corkscrew is...CREEPY. Finally the lead singer of Train emerges from a trailer. The roadie who escorted us back there says something about not having much time and needing to get him out of there, so we snap a quick picture, and he leaves. Now Amanda and I are just standing there. Everyone else seems to leave or go into a trailer. The drummer is the one we got tickets through, so we're kinda waiting for him, but no one else seems to be coming. I finally ask if he'll be around, the roadie guy says probably not and we leave. IT WAS WEIRD!!!

2011-09-11T12:59:00.002-04:00

What the....????

Has anyone else seen the Denny's commercial featuring this...The Mac N Cheese Big Daddy Patty Melt? They put macaroni and cheese on a burger! I'm like half delighted and half horrified. Minor detail: it's 1690 calories and 99 grams of fat. 9 people want to split one with me?

2011-09-10T18:09:00.004-04:00

Too Funny Not to Blog

So I just finished posting the last blog and went to check facebook before turning off my computer. My friend Ben had just posted what he found on his mailbox. THIS:

If you can't tell, this is an advertisement of sorts for a person that is selling full fur suits that you can have comissioned to have made for you. Apparently they offer saber tooth costumes and you can also order pieces of the fur suit, in case you left the hands to your current fur suit at a party or something. I don't really understand his pricing model though. How are tails more expensive then hands?

2011-09-10T17:21:00.003-04:00

Amanda 1's Visit, Part 2

Well, it's half time of the Penn State game, so I figured I should blog the second day of Amanda's visit. I had been invited to a picnic by some of my fellow Ph.D.-ers. It had originally been scheduled for the previous weekend, but then the family came down with chicken pox. Amanda was a little nervous about being surrounded by future academics, but it was all good because seriously, my co-horts are like the least academic snobbish people EVER. We drank some wine and ate some hamburgers and other picnicky foods. I won over the crowd with my amazing chocolate cookies. (I'm thinking of entering them in the State Fair next year...Blue Ribbon and $8 first place prize here I come!)

After the picnic we did the whole Mall of America thing. Didn't buy anything though. Didn't ride anything in the Theme Park either...I'm going to have to do that some day. We weren't really hungry yet, so we decided not to partake in any of the amazing restaurants at the Mall. By time we got back to my apartment, we were though. We decided to order takeout sushi because that's been one thing that I still haven't found here. Good sushi. We ordered from Mt. Fuji in Uptown Minneapolis because while it was a little far away, the menu looked the best. The GPS decided to hose us though, and it took us a little while to get on the way. I knew where it was taking us wasn't Uptown...in fact, it wasn't even Minneapolis. Finally we got our food home and enjoyed our Gyoza, Edamame, American Dream Roll, Crazy Tuna Roll and Salmon Tempura Roll with the Peach Lindemans we had bought at the liquor store yesterday.

2011-09-09T20:01:00.005-04:00

Amanda 1's Visit, Part 1

I realize this happened like a week ago, but it was also my first week of school. YEAH SCHOOL!! So last Friday, Amanda 1 was arriving for a visit. Her plane was supposed to land at like 10:20 pm CST, which is already well past my bedtime. BUT....her plane was delayed and so she actually landed at 12:05 am Saturday morning which is SOOPER DOOPER past my bedtime. Not to mention there was a crazy traffic jam at the airport baggage claim. Where were cops enforcing the "pick up only. Do not stop and park" thing?

The next morning we got up and like any normal person would do on a Saturday morning, we went to the liquor store. I didn't have ANY wine on my wine rack which is absolutely unheard of. We arrived at Big Top liquors and discovered that it was a discount liquor store. Have you ever been to a liquor store that has a 50% off clearance bin? Bargain shopping and wine?!?! How did you know it's what I've always wanted? Obviously we had to buy like kinda a lot of stuff.
See the yellow stickers on some of the bottles? Those were 50% off!

Then we went to the cupcake shop, Cupcake. We had lunch there too. I had a fantastic black bean burger. We bought cupcakes, of course. You can't go to a cupcake store and NOT buy cupcakes unless you're a communist.

Starting in the upper left corner and going clockwise, those are Amaretto (with actual Amaretto in it), Razz-ma-tazz, Treehugger, and Lemon Raspberry. All pretty delicious. SN: If you come visit me, you will get to go to the cupcake store too because I want to try all of their cupcakes! That's not a bribe. It's just a fact. We returned back to my apartment and watched the neverending Notre Dame football game from hell. The bandaid method apparently applies for football games too. Rather than just drag out the pain, just do it all at once and get it over with. My parents actually left the game early. UNHEARD OF. I told them if Notre Dame had comeback and pulled out a win that they wouldn't be able to go to any games the entire season. We made a pizza and wings in the oven, set off the smoke detector, broke the smoke detector, watched more football, and went to bed.

I'll probably blog Day 2 (and possibly Day 3) tomorrow because I actually don't have that much homework this weekend.

2011-09-06T19:49:00.003-04:00

Fantastic Savings

Today on campus they were giving out free student planners that had lots of coupons in the back. Here's my favorite ones.

"$50 Brazilian Waxing: Quick, Professional, and Pain Free" -- Now, I've never had Brazilian Waxing, but I can't imagine that it's truly pain free.
"Free Pint of Glueck's Beer. Come Party where your parents met." --Not really a selling point for me.
"All Glass Pipes Buy One, Get One Free at Piecemakers. Also selling hookahs, grinders, and scales." AND...
"20%off Glass Pipes at Happy Buddha. Also selling, Vaporizers, detoxifiers and blunt wraps." --Come on. Like any of us don't know what these stores REALLY are.
"Free Bag of Clay at Continental Clay Company." --I don't even know what to say about a free bag of clay.
"Free Pregnancy Test at First Care Pregnancy Center." -- Now that's a deal.
"Free shot of Tequila with Valid ID." -- Possibly the cause of the need for the free pregnancy test.
"$25 off Carry Permit Classes and $3 Off Mace at Koscielski's Guns & Ammo." --what a wide variety of coupon offerings!

So many good deals! Where do I even begin!

2011-09-05T10:13:00.002-04:00

My New Winter Coat

I'm in the market for a new winter coat because if you didn't know it gets hella cold in Minnesota. I like to look at the negative reviews for products because I want to see what the potential issues could be to determine whether they might be a big deal or if the people are just idiots. I came across this one and thought it was worthy for blogging. My snarky remarks are in parens.

"Just to help you make a good purchasing decision: I'm 5'7" and 140 lbs. I'm proportionally sized. (a. I'm not sure what proportionally sized is. Are you pear shaped? apple? box? what? and b. No woman EVER thinks they are proportionally sized.)

I was soooo looking forward to getting the black jacket. (It's a coat. how much anticipation could there really be?) It's not black. Repeat: It's not black. (I think I comprehended what you were getting at the first time). It's gun metal gray.

I have a black jacket and held this one up to it and asked my husband 'does this look black?' And he answered 'no, it's gray.' (Lemme picture this. You are freaking out because your black jacket is not black and shockingly, your husband agrees with you? Smart man.)

I see why people are saying the arms are too short. They are on the short side, but if the jacket had been black I would've tolerated it. (A quarter of my arms freezing? ok. GUN METAL GRAY???? UNACCEPTABLE!)

Overall the medium was a bit too snug. (Maybe your not as proportionally sized as you thought.) Just slightly on the tight side. And when I zipped it all the way to my mouth area and put on the hood it really was too tight. I looked sausagy and silly. (It's a parka! If I zip it the whole way up and put the hood on, I expect to look sausagy and silly.) Not attractive at all. (Note to self: Don't go picking up guys in my new parka.)

I'm actually feeling so annoyed that I'm calling LLBean next and asking them to send me a free return label. (Take that, LLBean!)

It just wastes everybody's time to call a gray jacket, black. (This is a little dramatic. I mean, you just spent time writing this ridiculous complaint. How valuable is time to you?)

On the plus side: it does seem like a warm (gun metal gray) jacket with plenty of (gun metal gray) pockets which is why I wanted it in the first place (in black not GUN METAL GRAY)."

2011-08-29T16:56:00.012-04:00

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?

2011-08-26T10:52:00.004-04:00

TC-ers Love Their Bike Paths

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

2011-08-22T17:06:00.002-04:00

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?

2011-08-18T17:29:00.008-04:00

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.

2011-08-17T20:40:00.003-04:00

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.

2011-08-11T21:17:00.002-04:00

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.)

2011-08-01T10:27:00.005-04:00

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.

2011-07-24T19:34:00.004-04:00

Goodbye, Winston Salem

Goodbye, Winston Salem. Goodbye, yummy chicken pie at Zoe's. Goodbye, crazy lady at yoga that gets tangled in herself. Goodbye, weird jacuzzi tub in my bedroom. Goodbye, waitresses that call me Hon or Sugar. Goodbye, Native Vine Green Tea delicious wine. Goodbye, bartender at West End Tap Room who doesn't mind when certain friends of mine bitterly throw their cell phones across the bar ::cough Kathleen cough::. Goodbye, 2 am "snacks" at Cookout. Goodbye, 2 am pizza and garlic knots at Burke Street pizza. Goodbye, creepy Deacon mascot. Goodbye, elevators from hell at Deacon Tower. Goodbye, Cheryl the lady that works in the student lounge food shop. Goodbye, 2 inches of snow citywide shut downs. Goodbye, bi-polar heating system in the Worrell Professional Center. Goodbye, random log cabin in my backyard. Goodbye, Wake Forest football games that no one cares about. (Hello, Minnesota football games that no one cares about.) Goodbye, donut day. Goodbye, "our" table at Ichiban. Goodbye, having to order unsweetened tea. Goodbye, references to the "war of Northern agression." Goodbye, Dewey's Sugar Cake. Goodbye, Atlanta Braves games on three channels. Goodbye, jar of mini candy bars in career services. Goodbye, weirdly designed Hanes Mall. Goodbye, sexist waiter at the Thai restaurant. Goodbye, maintenance man that always warns me that he might electrocute himself. Goodbye, Red Oak on tap. Goodbye, never wearing a winter coat. Goodbye, Team 9 lunches at Elizabeth's. I will miss you all.

2011-07-23T14:59:00.002-04:00

YES!!

I'm now on Google + (I feel so cutting edge)....it's going to be so sad to watch Facebook slow demise....we've had such good times facebook.

2011-07-22T11:42:00.002-04:00

The Basil Has Been Located

I thought I had told you all about this when it happened, but when I searched for that post so that I could reference it, and I couldn't find it. When I moved to Winston Salem almost two years ago, my mom and I unpacked everything, but two things were mysteriously missing: the basil from my spice rack and a thing of suntan lotion.

This morning I was putting a bunch of packing paper in my recycling bin. My mom had left two wardrobe boxes full of packing paper on my patio when I had moved just "in case I would need it" when I had to move again. If you know my mom, you understand this. Well, I don't need it, so I'm recycling it. I pull up a big thing of paper to move into the recycling bin and what do I find laying there...a jar of basil. I think Andy has put it best: "so much fail." It's surprising, but I have actually not bought a new thing of basil in those two years, and there was really only one time when I wanted basil but just used oregano instead. Now my spice rack it whole again. I know that all my spices were holding out hope that this day would come even when time passed and things looked bleak, and it finally has. Welcome home, basil, welcome home.

2011-07-21T19:06:00.001-04:00

Love This Site

I'm basically sitting around exploring the ends of the internet all day, but doing so led to this discovery. I laughed so hard that I cried.

2011-07-19T11:10:00.007-04:00

The Bridal Shower/Bachelorette Party

This past weekend I headed back to PA (AGAIN) for Amanda 1's bridal shower/bachelorette party. I'm not going to lie. Being a Maid of Honor and trying to plan a bridal shower long distance has not been easy. Assembling a multitude of mini paper purses as favors, communicating with bridesmaids that were sometimes incommunicado, and searching aimlessly for Robin's Egg blue table coverings was not always fun (and did I mention that I'm moving in 10 days), so part of me was just waiting to check this weekend off my to do list.

The bridal shower was nice. All the bridesmaids (is that the Bridesmaids or The Bridesmaids? ha) did an excellent job with their assigned tasks. Of course there were some minor snafus: a late bridesmaid, some forgotten prizes, somewhat loud guests, debate on whether the bows should be made into a bouquet or a hat and a little bit of a time crunch. Nothing major though, and I think everyone enjoyed themselves which is the important thing.

I went back to my gramma's house where I was staying, dropped off some things, and put on my appointed T-shirt for the bachelorette portion of the day.

The front says "Team Bride" and when the bridal party lines up, the back makes up the date of the wedding. (That's why I'm a 0.) Gotta love the construction pink color. The picture really does not do the color justice. Amanda also gave us part of our wedding party gift.

A glittery flask filled with coconut rum! BEST WEDDING PARTY GIFT EVER! Her mom is making us garters to go with them for the wedding. They're heavy flasks, so a normal garter just isn't going to work. After getting myself out of driving (Thanks, Troy, for agreeing to pick us up). We headed off to Hollywood casino. We had dinner at the Sports Bar there and then played a couple of penny slots. I lost. It's fun just walking around in our bright pink shirts. We get lots of smiles and one security guard even saluted us.

From there it was off to the Winner's Circle Saloon for line dancing. Everything was pretty low key as no one really knew any of the line dances until...we started doing shots...and broke out glow sticks. (Everything is better with glow sticks). After shots of Jager (blech...don't like licorice to start with), SoCo and Lime (the lime juice was in with the SoCo. Weird), Creamsicle (Whipped Cream Vodka, Something orange and something with dairy...not good), and a Dirty Girl Scout (delicious except that I started laughing and had it go up my nose), everyone was having a pretty good time. Amanda was not nearly as drunk as she should've been. We're almost about ready to leave, and Amanda says "I've never done a shot of tequila. I think it would be fun." Being the only one willing to take on tequila st this point (and being the Maid of Honor), I order two tequila shots (I should also mention that all these shots were not in shot glass and more than a typical shot). I proceed to give Amanda Tequila 101 lessons ("first you lick your wrist") and convince her to not to take a sip before doing the actual shot. Soon after the tequila, Troy comes to pick us up, and we have a mini-rave with the glow sticks in the back of his car on the ride home.

2011-07-11T13:55:00.002-04:00

Blogging to Avoid Napping

Holy crap, I am freaking tired. Normally, I would just take a nap be done with this whole tiredness thing, but my sleep clock has been all sorts of f***ed up lately, and so I'm doing anything possible to resist falling asleep now. Hopefully if I don't sleep now I'll be able to sleep tonight. Do you know how hard it is to not nap when you really don't have anything to do and have an extremely comfy couch? Hopefully telling you all about my AMAZING trip to Baltimore (and simultaneously watching Celebrity Rehab) will help...plus some iced coffee.

Saturday morning I woke up and was like if I spend another freaking weekend in my apartment doing nothing, I will lose my mind. I still have my AirTran flight benefits. (Or as I now refer to them SWAirTran since they are technically now part of Southwest.) My one issue is that I'm currently having some cash flow issues as my expenses are outweighing my income. It will all work itself out soon, but right now I've been limiting my spending which thus limits my entertainment options. In order to have max entertainment and min costs, I was thinking of flying somewhere ridiculous for lunch or dinner or something and flying back the same day. Then I discovered that there were direct flights from Charlotte to BWI that were open, and my awesome friend Meredith just happens to live in Baltimore. I sent Meredith a text and then first thing Sunday morning I was on a plane (business class, woo!!) to Baltimore. I just threw a swim suit, flipflops and book in my purse and was off. I actually opened my trunk when I got to CLT, but then realized I had no luggage.

Meredith met me at the airport with a Nonfat Vanilla Latte from Starbucks because she's like the perfect friend. We went back to her apartment and picked up her boyfriend Mike. Then we went for breakfast/lunch at Paper Moon. It was SOOO good. They have a bacon milkshake on the menu. I wasn't really in a bacon milkshake mood though. I had a pesto chicken sandwich instead. Paper Moon also had lots of things all over the walls which kept me (the ADD kid) occupied (along with a crossword puzzle that kicked my ass) while waiting for our food.

After changing into our swimsuits back at the apartment, having a beer and making some punch, we headed to the pool. The punch was kinda of the adult version of when you were little and went up to a soda fountain and mixed a bunch of the sodas together. A bunch of stuff from the fridge and a bunch of stuff from the cabinet and voila...punch. We met Meredith and Mike's friend Erin at the pool. She brought some margaritas and some buttery nipple shots. We also were entertained by watching the somewhat tight ass Croatian lifeguard and the ADD 12 yeard old battle it out. Lifeguard benched him for 5 minutes for diving into the pool...kid claimed it was a belly flop. I didn't see it so I can't judge whether it was or was not diving. ::At this point in blog writing Danielle calls and I get distracted by Angry Birds, so writing will resume on another date.::

AND resuming: So the kid is sitting on the side of the pool, and every once in a while when the lifeguard wasn't looking he would "fall" into the pool, which did not make the lifeguard happy. The kid also went into the bathroom, hoping to waste some of his time out time, but the lifeguard informed him that that did not count.

We stayed at the pool for a couple of hours. We went back to the apartment, and I rinsed off and changed. Then we went for crabs. I had never picked a crab before. I usually have crab in cake or lump form, but Mike was nice enough to show me the finer points of picking. I'm a really fast learner. We had a couple of pitchers of beer, but when you're picking crabs you kinda forget to drink because you're so focused on the crab. Luckily, Mike would stop us for "designated drinking times." I was completely covered with salt and Old Bay when we realized "oh crap, we really need to get to the airport." Meredith and I rushed off to the airport. I was pretty inebriated, but luckily they had accidentally printed off my boarding pass for the evening flight when I checked in for the morning flight. Still it was pretty close. I used my secret special employee pass to rush through security. They were boarding Zone 7 (aka the very last zone) when I got to the gate. I walked right on the plane (which was leaving early. what?) and flew back to Charlotte. I hoped the guy in the seat beside me didn't really how intoxicated I was. Hopefully the overwhelming crab smell covered up the beer smell.

2011-07-09T15:09:00.002-04:00

Letter from Prison

You thought there wouldn't be another one, didn't you? Guess what? I kinda did too. At least a decent one that was bloggable...but there is.

"How are you doing? Im ok, well when we were going thru the shutdown alot of people got time added..I ended up getting 2 weeks added (you got time added for doing something wrong? shocking!) so now I graduate (you graduate from jail? that's a graduation ceremony I'd like to see) the program (update: should was moved from legit jail to some rehab/anger management program thingy) Sept. 20th and won't get released until Sept. 25th so thats not too bad only 15 days..guess what I got extended for? (I'd say shanking someone, but I would think you would get more than 2 weeks for that.) for admitting to popping a black head in my cellys ear! (This imagery really disturbs me for some reason.) thats crazy huh? (nope. not really) Its cause it was 'physical contact' and that a cardnal rule. (I'm betting she doesn't really know what a cardinal rule is.) well so anyways theres not really anything gonna on my way. (gonna on my way? what?) so where is Kathleen moving and whats she plan on doing? (it's this thing called work. It might be a new concept for you.) yea it is sad to have to leave all your friends but Im sure you'll find some really cool new ones right away!! (I feel like I'm in 1st grade, and my mom is telling me about all the new friends I'm going to make at my new school.) but at least you can stay in contact with them all on facebook or something! (and that something is apparently google +...SN: if anyone has invites to google + to share, please send me one. I'll make you cookies!!) so whats andy gonna do? (probably go to the gym a lot...that's just me spit balling.) everything will fall in place once you get settled into school..maybe I'll be able to come there and visit you some time! (or maybe not) were gonna throw you a cave party for your 40th b-day. (ok, several notes. 1) this is in reference to my cousin Sandi's 16th b-day that was held at a place called the catacombs, and it was basically like having dinner in a cave. 2) I bet she could throw a kick ass party...not as good as Kathleen though just with more illegal things 3) we're discussing my 40th already? I'm barely on this side of 30.) LOL I want a welcome home cave party! (you just think life is going to be all fun and roses when you get out, don't you? and that's how you end up back in jail...she asked my mom to send her money at her rehab place so that she can have a pedicure and get her eyebrows waxed. My mom said no.) Well I guess Im gonna go."

2011-07-08T10:08:00.002-04:00

Long Trout Winery

Not only does Long Trout have delicious berry and chocolate wines and hysterical wine names like Instant O, Waskully Wraspberry Red, Berried Alive and Sour Cherrieola, but they also have the cutest corks that I have ever seen.

2011-07-05T10:35:00.002-04:00

Televised Fireworks

I don't really understand why anyone would want to watch televised fireworks. I've come up with four scenarios in which I think I would want to watch fireworks.

1) I can't go outside and see real fireworks either because I'm on death row or extremely old/ill and homebound.
2) I'm under the age of two and just like anything bright and colorful, but the loud boom is scary.
3) I'm abroad. I can see if I'm somewhere where no one really cares that it's the Fourth of July, if I can get fireworks over New York on some random channel or even over the internet, I might want to watch just to have a little happy America time in my life.
4) 3 words: Wicked Drug Trip

2011-07-04T19:47:00.002-04:00

Random Sports Post

I'm watching the Phillies/Marlins game (thanks, mom, for calling to tell me that it's on TV) and something occurred to me. Why do baseball managers wear the team uniforms? I mean can you imagine if any other sport did this? Andy Reid in a football uniform. ::shudder:: Or Charlie Weis...good gracious, I would've thrown up at least once during every Notre Dame game. I threw up a little bit in my mouth just thinking about it.

2011-07-02T18:06:00.007-04:00

Photo Show and Tell: Part 2

Three days after arriving back from the cruise, I drove to Pennsylvania. My mom, gramma and I made a sour cherry pie. It was very Little House on the Prairie-esque. We decided to use ALL the cherries we have, and so it turned out to be a ginormous pie. (I think it looks like a spaceship.)
While in PA, I picked up my maid of honor dress for Amanda 1's wedding. It's espresso (or esprosso...as the girl at the shop originally wrote on the order) and celestial blue. This dress is currently being altered: hemmed and taken in at the top because according to the woman at the shop, my boobs are disproportionately small compared to the rest of my body. Thanks. SN: I think this may be the first time that a full body shot of myself appears in a post.

From Pennsylvania, my mom and I flew to Minneapolis so that I could find an apartment for the fall. This is inside the Mall of America. A roller cost AND a log flume. Are you serious?

My mom is apparently a big fan of America's Next Great Restaurant. At the Mall of America we HAD to find the restaurant that the winner opened, Soul Daddy. My mom almost lost it when she saw the winner Jamawn inside.
We flew back to Pennsylvania, and we went to Kate's wedding reception in Pennsylvania. It was at a vineyard, and they had these cute little mints on the table.
Also at Kate's reception, I just happened to match the colors exactly. This is my napkin on my lap. My gramma had been looking at paint chips all weekend, and I color matched my dress. This, according to Sherwin-Williams, is the color Envy.

2011-07-01T11:32:00.013-04:00

Photo Show and Tell: Part 1

I went on a cruise on which my fantastic friend Kate got married. The Carnival Cruise Destiny. Ironic for a wedding, right? This is her very pretty wedding cake. I think that the one design on it looks like an upside down smiley face.

It's also pretty inside. Isn't that the prettiest inside of a cake you've ever seen? It was yummy as well.

She had fabulous food at the reception. Just a few things of note: sushi, spanakopita, prosciutto and melon, deviled eggs topped with caviar and of course, a blue margarita.

Our first port was Key West, FL. They had key lime flavored EVERYTHING including these Moravian cookies which just happen to be made in Winston-Salem. Woot! Woot! Big shout out to the Dash and Salem Baking!!

They also had chocolate covered key lime pie which Alton Brown had named as one of the 10 Best Desserts in America. Plus it's on a stick which makes everything better.

Key West also had the creepiest Christmas ornament that I have ever seen.

Our next port was Cozumel, Mexico. After doing a little shopping (where shop keepers kept asking if I wanted to buy jewelry for my boyfriend...weird) we spent most of the day at Chankanaab. This little lagoon was teaming with fish. If you just sat in the shallow water, fish would swim right up to you. It was pretty cool.
Chankanaab also had a bunch of fake ruins like this one. Unfortunately, the jungle-ish area where the ruins were located was inhabited by hoards of mosquitoes which feasted of me and Carmen (the friend that was enjoying Kate's wedding and cruise with me). SN: Last night I saw the Family Guy episode where Stewie mispronounces the word "ruined" so in my head while I've been typing this, I've been pronouncing ruin as roo-een.
This is Rocky. He split his pants during the "rump shaking" round of the Hairiest Chest contest on the ship's Lido Deck. He didn't win.

This is the Chocolate Melting Cake. (I was super psyched when I searched for a link and discovered this recipe. Someone get me some ramekins stat!) The ice cream came on the side, but I decided to put it on top which was a good decision. I ate this for dessert every night on board the ship except the one night that I decided to have Tiramisu...I regret that night.

Every night we would return to our cabin to find a towel origami. This was my favorite. It's a dog. At port in Miami, we decided to do the South Beach tour excursion which was more like a South Beach drop you off and pick you up later. That thermometer says 105. It might be exaggerating, but it was hot.

2011-06-29T16:32:00.003-04:00

The Final Italy Post

Yes, we've FINALLY come to the end. Unfortunately I have only one picture for this post, but don't worry the next post will make up for it as it's basically going to be a picture show and tell. The last day in Venice we have a 4am wake up call. That's early. The water taxi picks us up at the hotel at 4:45am. It's rainy and icky out. I was kinda hoping (and simultaneously not hoping) to see a Venice rat, but we didn't. It turns out the airport is pretty far away, and we get on basically a water highway to get there. My dad is amazed.

We get to the airport. At the security area instead of having the rollers that you push your carry-ons over to go into the X-ray machine, the whole thing is a conveyor belt. My dad picks up a plastic tub and puts it on the conveyor. He turns away to take off his belt, and when he looks back down his tub has moved about a foot closer to the X-ray machine (as typically happens with moving conveyor belts). He gets extremely confused and looks around as if searching for some way to stop the conveyor. The tub keeps moving along. Just before the still empty tub enters the X-ray, he picks it up and has to move back in the line because everyone behind him (me and my mom) have figured out the moving conveyor thing and are ready to send our stuff through.

We board a KLM flight to Amsterdam (much better than Alitalia). I fall asleep on the flight, and when I wake up discover that the snack fairy has left two wrapped sandwiches on my tray table. I'm starving and open them up. The one is some sort of weirdo bologna looking meat and the other is egg salad. Mmmm....egg salad at 8am, sign me up! I eat it because like I said, I'm starving.

We get to the Amsterdam airport and have to go through passport control. We go up to the blond Dutch guy at the window and hand him our passports. He starts flicking through them and says "I don't see an entry stamp." (Flashback: Bitches in Rome waving anyone and everyone into the country without checking any documentation.) When we explain that that's because we don't have entry stamps we are escorted to an office. They ask if we have our boarding passes from when we flew to Europe or at least an itinerary. After frantically searching backpacks, we don't find any, but do have our bill from the hotel in Rome showing when we checked in. They take that and we get wonderful correction stamps in our passports.You want one. I know you do. As we are leaving the office, two other people without entry stamps who also flew into Rome come in. We still have about 2 hours till our flight leaves for Chicago, so we go to find food. My mom and I end up splitting a quarter pounder and fries at McDonald's. (Don't judge!) We have to go through more security just to get to the gate, and I get the most thorough pat down EVER. There is a large dutch woman who now knows me disturbingly intimately.

The KLM flight to Chicago is great. Good food: chicken curry, ice cream, pizza, warm coffee cake, probably some other food that I didn't write down and don't remember. We have individually controlled entertainment systems in the seat backs. I watch No Strings Attached, Burlesque, some episodes of CSI and NCIS and play some Tetris. I also tried to play Who Wants to Be A Millionaire until I discovered it was all British questions. Plus all the flight attendants are smiley and blonde.

We arrive in O'Hare. Pass through customs and passport control. No problem. My parents are speaking American like normal human beings and no longer saying things like "I think perhaps I might use the toilet before I dine." For some reason being in a foreign country makes you speak like English is your second language. I transfer to another terminal and check in for my flight to Atlanta, plus have to recheck my luggage. Security is slightly confused by the bubble wrapped vase in my purse, but after confirming that is not an explosive send me on my way. In Hartsfield airport, I discover the amazing and life changing Coke Freestyle Machine. Seriously, if you have one of these in your area, go use it. I had a Grape Fanta Zero...who knew Grape Fanta Zero was even possible. Fly to Greensboro. I'm exhausted. My friend Jason picks me up and drops me off at home...Glad to be back.

2011-06-28T09:28:00.006-04:00

Venezia 4: Aimless Wandering

Last full day in Italy. We had seen everything that we pretty much wanted to in Venice but had a few random things that my mom wanted to see along with some random shopping. First we went to the open market. I've always found markets interesting as there are lots of fascinating fruits, veggies and of course, seafood.

After that my mom wanted to look for a letterbox. It would be our first international find. Admittedly, international letterboxing kinda frightens me as letterboxing is inherently suspicious looking. I'm fearful of getting dragged into a foreign police station and interrogated about my suspicious behavior, but it was fine. Then we went to see where gondolas are made and refurbished. We couldn't get too close to the workshop (or the sweaty, shirtless, brawny, tanned Italian gondola makers), but the workshop was located on the side of Venice that we hadn't seen yet, so it was an interesting walk. On the way back to the hotel, we stopped for creme caramel gelato and also shopped. My mom was looking for a little house knick knack, and I wanted a glass vase. Both were found. We went back to the hotel and packed for our early flight the next day. College lacrosse was on TV...oh boy!

We had dinner just beside the Grand Canal. I felt a lot of pressure as this was to be my last meal in Italy, and so felt the need for it to be delicious. It was. Caprese salad, red wine, tagliatelle alfredo con prosciutto. After dinner I bought two of those flavored licorice things.

That one is cola flavored. I also had a blue one that was blue raspberry. My dad discovered that he loved them as well and ate half of them himself. Since returning to the U.S., I have tried to find these everywhere on the Internet and have not been able to. This goes against my previous motto that ANYTHING can be found on the Internet.

2011-06-21T21:42:00.004-04:00

Venezia 3: Murano e Burano

Now that my brain is officially fried from meeting with excessive amounts of professors (according to Andy a grouping of professors is called a "stupid"...so in analogy terms herd is to cattle as stupid is to professors), so I figured I would do something completely mindless aka blog.

The third day in Venice we took the water bus over to the islands of Murano and Burano. I had been waiting to do most of my Venetian souvenir shopping for Murano which specializes in all sorts of glass stuff. Burano has a lot of lace but very little of it is hand-laced (?) (I don't really know what is done to create lace. is it spun like wool?). Most of it is made on machines or shipped in from China, which is cheating. You actually have to be really careful not to buy Chinese knock off glass (unless you want Chinese knock off glass) in Murano as well.

We had lunch in Murano. Gnocchi al ragu and bread that actually tasted somewhat decent. We went to the Murano glass museum which was stupid and in Burano went to the lace museum which was even stupider. We shopped around all the little shops on both islands, and I was pretty exhausted by time we took the water bus back to Venice.

We went to a restaurant for dinner, and I had mystery meat cordon blue for dinner. It didn't say what type of meat it was on the menu. My parents couldn't believe I wasn't going to ask what it was, but I didn't really care. I'll eat anything. Still couldn't tell after I ate it. It was a little too gamey to be chicken, so I'm thinking either veal or pork, but who knows. It was pretty good, so who cares.. I also had a limoncello to drink. It was super sweet. Like a lemon lollipop with liquor. I got stracciatella gelato (the vanilla with shaved chocolate pieces) and then ate one of the treasure chests full of chocolate

that housekeeping leaves on our beds.

2011-06-14T18:42:00.003-04:00

Venezia 2: I Need Some Salad STAT

Well, I'm in Winston-Salem (aka The Dash) briefly...well, like 2 days and then I'm off to PA, MN and then back to PA. I'm taking my laptop along, and I just saw that my hotel in Minnesota has complimentary wifi, so hopefully I'll be able to finish this, do a quick cruise photo blog and be all caught up.

I'm very excited when we go to breakfast at the Danieli that morning. There's hot food: pancakes, waffles, hash browns, bacon, etc. There's also carrot, bell pepper and celery sticks which I snatch up even though it's breakfast in order to fulfill my craving for veggies. I also see that there is a bottle of "Vertmont" maple syrup. Strange? I didn't think that's how Vermont was spelled. Upon closer inspection, I see that the syrup is made in Canada. Seems like our upstairs neighbors are taking advantage of Europeans who don't know how to spell Vermont.

We have tickets to the Doge's Palace secret itinerary tour. (Doge's Palace pictured at top). It's kinda cool because we get to see the torture chamber, the cells where Casanova was held and the Bridge of Sighs. The part I liked the most was looking at the ledges of the prison cell windows where the prisoners carved these ridiculously intricate pictures with whatever they had in jail. Amazing.

We apparently had pizza for lunch. I honestly don't remember this at all, but my trip notes say "pizza for lunch," so I guess I'll believe it. After lunch, we have an assigned time to go into St. Mark's Basilica. At this point, I'm going to talk about the dress code for all cathedrals (except apparently the Vatican where I saw quite a few people slutting it up.) Cathedrals, and churches in general in Italy, require that your shoulders and knees be covered. If they're not, the church will sell you this stylish lab coat/kimono hybrid that's made out of a material that I can't even describe. Sometimes these are sold in little kimono vending machines. Luckily, I knew this and stocked up on pious clothing before the trip. My dad apparently didn't listen to my mom and wore the same pants like 6 days because he brought a lot of shorts...gross.

In between these tours and shopping, we spent a lot of time watching people. Both my parents had come down with colds and didn't really want to do much walking around. We watched a bunch of gondoliers maneuver their boats in what was basically a gondola parking lot. I think I have the steering down and am ready for my own gondola. It can't be that tough. We also watched little kids chasing pigeons in San Marco. I've decided there's a certain age (around 7 or 8) in which chasing pigeons is no longer cute and just becomes somewhat malicious. I had my daily gelato. Pistachio.
Really green! Kinda tasted almondy. We go back to the hotel and my parents take naps...obviously sickly. For dinner, I feel pathetic admitting this, but we go to the Hard Rock Cafe (the gondola parking lot that I talked about previously is actually pictured on this link if you watch the 360 tour pictures change enough). We needed American food. We get nachos and a chicken Caesar salad...heavenly. We got back to the hotel and watch the Red Sox vs. Tigers game. I'm so excited to have a non-news channel in English that I could care less what game it is.

2011-06-07T08:55:00.010-04:00

Venezia 1: AKA Venice

I've resigned myself to that fact that this trip will not be completely blogged before I leave for the cruise TOMORROW! But maybe that's actually better because all of you can get caught up on everything and then I'll dive back in.

Bright and early we head to the Florence Train Station. My dad is always like in a panic rushing around on days we are switching cities. For example, he had brought the toothpaste for the trip. I go into the bathroom this morning to find toothpaste already squirted onto my toothbrush because he HAD to pack the toothpaste. Then we of course get to the train station an hour and a half early and have nothing to do because we don't know what track the train is going to be on. We did have a little entertainment this time as there was a woman with a little, white, unnoteworthy dog. A little Indian girl came up and asked if she could pet it. The woman said sure. Next thing we know there's a whole group of people from India surrounding this dog, taking pictures, posing with it, videotaping, etc. It was like dog paparazzi.

We take the train to Venice. No Italian guy helping us and trying to get money this time though. We take a water taxi to our hotel. My dad didn't believe that there were actually canals all over Venice. Conversation with him and my mom:
Dad: Then we're taking a taxi to the hotel, right?
Mom: A Water taxi
Dad: What do you mean a water taxi?
Mom: There's not cars. It's all canals.
Dad: Really? I thought it was like Disney where there's just one canal that everyone rides around on for fun and the rest was normal.
Mom: Nope.
Dad: Crazy. Benny, did you know that Venice is all canals?
Me: Yep, that's kinda their thing.

We're staying at the Danieli which I've heard (multiple times from multiple people) is featured in the movie the Tourist. The Danieli is kinda decorated like a Paris bordello...or what I picture a Paris bordello as being like. It was all decorated in deep red, dark wood, and gold. Like this.

That was in the hallway, but pretty much everything was like that. We go and get a ham and cheese panini on the street beside the hotel that was supposedly known for good sandwiches. I wasn't impressed. It wasn't as toasty and melty as I had hoped plus the bread is still sucky. My dad calls it "host bread" cause it reminds him as communion wafers...not good. From there we just wander around Venice getting lost, which is easy because most of the time you're following signs like this:
Yes, that is an actual city sign. Helpful, huh? Apparently either way gets you to San Marco. Why am I skeptical? If those don't work there is also this: Sign graffiti or this:
the random piece of paper sign or my personal favorite: Yes, that appears to be in Sharpie. Wonderful representation of St. Mark. We have strawberry gelato and hear possibly the best quote of the entire trip. A girl is stopped at a shop trying on hats, her friend says "that hat looks great on you" and the girl responds "I think I'm too drunk to buy a hat." That's pretty drunk. Then we had dinner on the Grand Canal. It was a little chilly next to the water. I ordered Risotto di Mare. I was a little nervous because on one hand Venice is supposed to be known for its seafood on the other hand if this thing comes out with octopus tentacles on it, I can't handle that. It didn't, and it was ok, not great. I ordered an espresso because I was feeling tired and knew I had to stay awake because we had signed up for a ghost tour. This is how my espresso was brought to me.Great presentation! Still too strong for me, even with the whip cream. We wander around some more and find a small coconut macaroonish pie and a blue licorice stick thing (pictures of that on another day since we're overloaded with pictures right now). The ghost tour is fun and very interesting with lots of good information about the city. I've been on a lot of ghost tours, and it was one of the better ones. We saw the beautiful winding staircase pictured at the top which we never would've found on our own...there might be a body buried in the well beside it. Also, apparently Venice has a rat problem...could've done without that news. We arrive back to the hotel and find chocolates on our pillow. That night I have a dream about the biggest salad bar I've ever seen. I think my body is trying to tell me that I've had enough carbs and need some veggies.

2011-06-06T14:56:00.003-04:00

Firenze 3: So over Florence

It's obvious that I was over Florence by this day because I have absolutely no pictures that I took that day. So you get a generic Italian picture that I actually took in Rome. It's cute though, right? An Italian flag made of flowers. Florence is nice, and I know a lot of people love it, I just felt like there was nothing to do since I was arted and churched out by that point. We slept in and had breakfast and then had tickets to the Uffizi Gallery (only because our hotel gave them to us free.)

My mom was hacking up a lung and so we stopped at a pharmacy for some cough syrup. (I've now been in pharmacies in 4 foreign countries...don't think that's something to brag about). Because we found the pharmacy so quickly, we got to the Uffizi before our appointed entrance time. To waste time we sat on a wall and watched all the street performers getting ready. And by street performers, I mean people who paint themselves like statues or a golden King Tut thing and stand really still...not sure if that can really be categorized as "performing."

In the Uffizi, I'm sure we saw really great and famous art, but seriously, I can't remember anything I saw other than Botticelli's The Birth of Venus, that picture that's been made into a stamp of an angel with a mandolin, and a front and back painting of a naked dwarf. I also can tell you I saw things from all the Ninja Turtles and A LOT of "Madonna e Bambino". Rennaissance painters also apparently thought it was ok to just put whatever saints in whatever period of time. No, St. Peter and John the Baptist were not at Jesus's birth at least not as grown up people. You could also always tell John the Baptist in any painting because he looked like a scruffy homeless person. And St. Sebastian always had arrows going through him.

After the gallery, gelato. I got mint chocolate chip. It was yummy. I was a little hesitant because my mom had previously gotten mint and it was like super minty. Like chewing on a mint leaf minty, but this kind was good. We then went to the Da Vinci Museum, which was kind of interesting, but no very big. I went back to the Piggy Market to buy some souvenirs and then it was nap time back at the hotel. All the go go go had finally gotten to me. For dinner I had tortellini bolognese at a restaurant with this crazy old waiter guy that kept giving us the wrong food because he thought it was funny. He also told me they only had cake for dessert...they didn't, I had tiramisu.

2011-06-06T06:29:00.007-04:00

Firenze 2: Under The Tuscan Sun

Ok, ok, I know I know...I failed on my goal to do two posts a day. I ended up going out to dinner with my friend Jason last night...SORRY. It's kinda ironic though because on this day (in Italy) I also failed on my gelato goal. I did not eat gelato..I did however eat everything else in all of Italy....and even more ironic, on this day in Italy I listened to the song Ironic by Alanis Morissette, so mull that over in your little noggins. I'm debating whether to try to mash all the rest of this trip in or just give up and restart when I get back from the cruise. We'll see how it goes.

Again, I became bored with breakfast. I'm not a big breakfast person to start with, so eating breakfast is kind of a chore. I decided to make myself fantastic little ham and cheese sandwiches off of the meat and cheese platter and basket of breads and rolls. Quite tasty. I also decided to switch up my typical American coffee for a cappuccino. Also a delicious choice. The breakfast location at the hotel in Florence is not nearly as charming as the one in Rome in that this one is basically just on the sidewalk in front of the hotel, so there's all sorts of traffic and people noise. Also, I don't think I mentioned this but Rome smelled really good like a weird alternating melange (new favorite word by the way) of flowers, yummy food, and expensive stores. Florence does not smell yummy. It smells like leather and sewer, so eating breakfast on the sidewalk is not nearly as appetizing.

Today Riccardo, another random father work person, is taking us to some small towns in Tuscany. First we stopped at San Gimignano. (I love that I can butcher this in google, and it actually knows what the hell I'm talking about). We walked around and took pictures and shopped in little cute Tuscany-y shops. We hopped back in the car and drove to Siena. In Siena we had some pizza for lunch...nothing really note worthy about that and Riccardo told us about the Palio that Siena is famous for. It was really hot so we just kinda chilled at the restaurant looking at the bell tower and watching all the people in the plaza. Then my mom decides she wants to climb the 400 steps to the top of the bell tower. This is a ridiculously stupid idea (sorry, mom) for two reasons a) my mom has hip and back problems and was having issues just walking around Siena so 400 steps is going to be a piece of cake (sarcasm) and b) she's scared of heights. My dad says he wouldn't mind doing it either and then they look at me and I'm like I don't really want to, but if everyone else is going, I'm not just going to chill down here by myself. So...off we go. Did I mention it's really hot too? The sign outside the bell tower entrance says the climb is not recommended for pregnant women or people with heart conditions or giddiness. What? Giddiness? I see that the French translation is "vertige" apparently they translated vertigo to mean giddiness. The steps are really winding and kind of big.

That was the stairs, if you couldn't tell. But we get to the top...ooo...the excitement. After coming back down, I guzzle two giant Coke Lights like my life depends on it and try to forget the fact that I will now have dried sweat and stink on me for the rest of the day. We visit the Duomo in Siena (every city pretty much has a duomo). It's all black and white inside and kind of disorienting.

See? After the duomo, it's time for me, my dad and Riccardo to head off to Tuscan wine school. We drink a bunch of wine and learn all about the wine regions in Tuscany, the type of grapes, the Italian wine classification system, and the proper way to taste a wine. Very informative and tasty class. Riccardo is trying to flirt with Maria Louisa the teacher, so that's fun too. We meet back up with my mom who I had sent on a mission to find me an olive oil pourer. No olive oil thing for me, but she does have a present for Danielle...of course she does. We go back to the car, and Riccardo starts being very secretive just saying he is taking us to the "most beautiful place on earth." We start winding through the back hills of Tuscany, and I start wondering how well my dad really knows this guy or if we are being lured to our death. We eventually arrive at the Villa Belvedere which is apparently where Riccardo is staying. It's gorgeous (and where I took the picture at the top of the page.) He has wine, bread, and some prosciutto and salami laid out. It's now 7pm. On normal days we would've already eaten dinner by this time, so I'm pretty hungry and even though I don't really like either, I chow down on the deliciously unhealthy meat products.

After relaxing for probably a half hour and enjoying the view and the quiet, we get back in Riccardo's car and drive through the Tuscan country side apparently to dinner. I realize as I'm gazing out the window that I'm having my own little chick flick moment of reflection: mysterious suave Italian guy behind the wheel, sun setting over the hills of Tuscany, linen pants (because nothing says chick flick and Tuscany like a pair of linen pants. SN on linen pants: I bought this pair of light blue linen pants out of the VS catalog a couple years ago. I love them, but realize that I have no place to where them. Where does one where linen pants? Tuscany. That's where....Riccardo had on linen pants too.) Unfortunately my parents, and the Alanis that Riccardo has in his CD player interrupt my chick moment. Glad to know Jagged Little Pill is alive and well somewhere.

We turn onto what Italians call a "white road" which is basically white gravel and drive on that for about another 20 minutes into the middle of nowhere. In fact, I think we passed the middle of nowhere, dropped off the face of the Earth and then arrived at this restuarant. It is now 8:30 (normally close to my family's bedtime in Italy). We have a full Italian meal. Normally we've been ordering just one course or possibly two if I get a caprese salad. The Italian meal typically follows in this pattern: Some sort of appetizer or salad, pasta, and then a meat course of some type. For our appetizer we have Fettunta, which is this unbelievable grilled bread soaked in olive oil (no garlic on the one we got). Apparently they used the really good olive oil on it for us because Riccardo kept talking about how expensive the olive oil was. I then had ravioli for my pasta course. Pretty good. By this time, I'm tired (we've also been drinking a DOCG chianti classico) and full, so when the meat course arrives I can barely force any down. We get a huge platter of pork ribs with fennel, roasted potatoes and an artichoke salad. Delicious, but just too much food. They offer me dessert and as much as I would love to keep up my gelato a day habit, I just can't. We arrive back at the hotel at 11 to the sounds of a concert loudly going on on the piazza. Doesn't matter as I fall immediately asleep and dream about facebook and e-mail. Sickeningly serious. Probably one of my best days ever.

2011-06-05T11:58:00.005-04:00

Firenze 1: Firenze = Florence

We woke up, and I had a caprese salad for breakfast. I learned that I could eat a caprese salad pretty much any time, any place. The hotel's breakfast buffet had these amazing, huge, fresh hunks of mozzarella, fresh basil leaves, and bright red, juicy tomatoes. Then we cabbed it to the train station. I don't know if any of you have taken a train lately, but it's a little nerve racking for anyone that likes to plan ahead and be everywhere early like my dad. You have to stand and wait for them to post what track the train is going to be on which usually happens around 20 minutes before the scheduled departure time. My dad kept pacing back and forth and checking multiple boards just to make sure it wasn't posted in one place and not another.

So the track was posted, and we rushed over and basically had no clue what was going on: how to get our ticket validated, where our seats are, etc. Next thing we know some random Italian guy is grabbing our suitcases, looking at our tickets, and helping to load us on the train. Seemed pretty nice...until he demanded 15 Euro from us, which we didn't give him. Train ride was uneventful. They gave us drinks and cookies. We get to our hotel in Florence, The Hotel Savoy, and no naked torso sculptures, but instead, this:

How can I not love a hotel that is decorated with shoes? I'll overlook the no pool issue that it has. ALSO, across the street there is a Gelato Festival! Are you kidding me? I get Mango Gelato to break out of my vanilla slump. Delish!

We then just decide to wonder around Florence and see what we can see. We first go by the Duomo (which is a Cathedral). I think that it is possibly the ugliest church I have ever seen. (Pictured at the heading of this post). It's all green and red and icky. There was a huge line, so we didn't wait. We went to the Santa Croce Church instead. More art but also some tombs of important people like Galileo, Michelangelo and Dante, so that was interesting. I made my mom complete a survey for some psych grad students. I basically wouldn't let her leave until she finished it.

Then we went to do some shopping...window shopping at the Ponte Vecchio, The Leather Market and a place that I just referred to as the Piggy Market. The Piggy Market had a bunch of individual stalls mostly selling leather items (that's kinda Florence's thing) and had this statue.
You're supposed to rub the pig's nose for good luck or a return to Florence or whatever. Did it. For dinner, I seriously needed some protein. The carbo load needed to stop. I had Veal Parmigiana...don't get all "poor little vealies" on me...it was yummy. When we got back to the hotel, we discover are room isn't turned out and my bed (the sofa bed) isn't made up yet. We call housekeeping and this maid rushes around a light speed to "turn down" the room. My dad telling her "take your time. it's fine." which seemed to only make her go faster. She laid out this little tray that had slippers and laundry info and A PILLOW MENU on it. There were 8 different types of pillows that you could choose from and order. I didn't though. I just kept the ones I had.

2011-06-04T18:12:00.005-04:00

Roma 4: The Best Meal EVER

Ok, so I almost didn't write this tonight, but gotta keep up my pace. (And I just found myself doing everything to procrastinate writing this, but pulled my shit together to do it.) Last day in Rome.

My mom, the scheduler, had left the last day in Rome open in order to catch up on anything we had missed. We had actually done quite a bit during the first three days and so had very few things we needed to do. My mom thought we should do a hop on/hop off bus tour to get an overview of the city and be able to hop off near any of the sights we still needed to see. We had a little difficulty finding the bus stop and had to ask a woman working in the shop at a museum. She pointed us in the direction, and there was a actually a bus waiting there, so we immediately hopped on. We then found out (after purchasing tickets and being on our way) that it wasn't the tour that Rick Steves or whomever had recommended which my mom then reminded us of EVERY time we got on the bus. Not that it was a bad tour though my mom was convinced there was a better one.

So the first place that we hopped off was near the Bocca della Verita and Circus Maximus. The Circus is what the picture at the top is of. As you can see, it's just a big gravel circle. My dad is convinced that they should hold chariot races there again to attract tourists and make money off of the deal...always the capitalist. The Bocca was my choice to see because of it's place in the movie Roman Holiday...love that movie. I took some cute pictures of it having biting off my hand or whatever.

We hopped back onto the bus and got off at the Castel Sant'Angelo. Boring. But did have the best view from the top. (Why the crap did we hike up that hill yesterday? This was so much better). Art...blah blah blah...kinda Renaissance arted out after the Vatican. After that...gelato time...OBVIOUSLY. Cookie and cream gelato. Realized I was getting into a kind of vanilla-ish slump that will need to change.

Started to rain just as we were getting to our next stop. Apparently a daily thing in Rome. Not enough to cause any sort of issue though. Next hop off stop. The Capuchin Crypt. FREAKY, but yet, kinda wanted to go there. Let me explain. The Capuchins decorated their crypt with human bones and mummified bodies. Like this.

Stylish, right? Don't see this coming back into style anytime soon. I was kinda freaked out. a) The bones were over my head on the ceiling. There were spaces were some were obviously missing. In my mind this means they possibly fell off...if a human bone had hit me on the head, it would've been traumatic. b) there were creepy mummified bodies posed in the various rooms of the crypt. Somehow my mom failed to notice these until the third room. How do you miss a frozen leathery body? On the other hand, I was also kind of amused by the whole thing. I was picturing a Capuchin monk digging through a pile of bones and going "I just need a vertebrae about this big."

We walked back to the hotel and stopped for dinner. Formerly the phrase "Best Meal Ever" was reserved for a meal I had at BoneFish a year ago with Andy in celebration of being named Marketing Summit Co-Chair. Maybe that is still the best meal with all things considered: conversation, atmosphere and food. But this dinner in Rome was the best food I have ever eaten. The one thing I thought I wanted on the menu was Pennette alla vodka con speck....Speck translated onto the English menu as "speck"...hmmm...I asked my mom if she knew what speck was and she said "I think it's one of those gross British things." I was torn because on one hand I really wanted vodka sauce and am not a picky eater and will pick off anything that I don't like. But if speck is con gli occhi (with eyeballs), I might throw up. I then look at the French translation which is "bacon", so I consider myself safe and go for it. Turns out speck is this. Tastes like bacon. It was delicious. I wanted to lick the freakin plate. And then to follow that up I had Tiramisu. YUMMY! During dinner my dad asked my mom if she liked Rome and my mom's response was "eh...it was ok." HELLO? It's ROME!! Standard end of the day ritual...pool.

2011-06-04T07:06:00.003-04:00

Roma 3: Il Vaticano

I already feel myself losing steam on this blogging stuff, but I'm losing steam on a lot of things. It might be because it's so freaking hot here right now I can't hear myself think. Also, I'm running out of pictures.

Day 3 we had a scheduled tour of Vatican City. I guess I wasn't sure what to expect. All of my Vatican City information comes from Angels and Demons and the Borgias. We had breakfast in the garden of the hotel. I had some wonderful pastries, fresh fruit, and coffee. (They steam the milk that they give you for in the coffee so it's all warm and yummy...love that!) Then we walked (of course we did) over the Tibre river towards Vatican City. We met up with our tour guide and went in the Vatican Museums, Sistine Chapel and St. Peter's Basilica. We saw lots of art by Michelangelo and Raphael and possibly other Ninja Turtles. I'm not really an art person, but it was interesting to hear all the details about the Sistine Chapel like how halfway through the people painted get bigger because you originally couldn't see the people in the first three panels clearly from the floor or how there's controversy over the fact that Adam is painted with a belly button or that Michelangelo basically had one saint doing another saint in the ass until someone made it more P.C....crazy Michelangelo...don't you know St. Catherine preferred the Cowgirl position? omg...I am so going to hell. My little brain sensor guy must've stayed in Italy.

After we saw Vatican City, we walked to a little neighborhood nearby where my mom had mapped a gelato stand that was supposed to be one of the best in Rome. She mapped out the best gelato stands near all the attractions we were scheduled to see. My mom has always tried to help me reach all my goals...Gelato goal shouldn't be any different, should it? Wonder if she knew about my gondolier goal? First we decided to eat actual food (I'm sorry, gelato, for insinuating that you are not actual food...you're better than actual food. you are). We ordered two pizzas (one pizza is supposed to serve one person, but they were HUGE). One of them was a white pizza with four cheeses, and the second was margarita pizza (tomato and mozzarella). Both delicious. At this point, my dad and I decided that Italy should just produce the food for the entire world. Then of course, there was gelato, crema gelato. We walked up to a church on a hill to have an overview of Rome. It was ok. I'm not big on the see things from up high thing. As we started walking back down this hill, it started drizzling a little bit and the sky got dark, so we decided to head back towards the hotel and just see things along the way. There was a church on the way (there's churches on the way everywhere in Rome) and by this time the sky was back to being blue and beautfiul so we sat on the steps outside the church for a while. We started to walk back towards the hotel again and suddenly the sky opened up, and there was a torrential downpour. We found a spot on the large porch of a Chinese import store and just hung out until the storm passed and watched street vendors trying to hawk umbrellas. Probably about a half hour.

Continuing the walk (wow, there is like a lot of walking going on in this post), we found a place to eat. In the restaurant beside our table was a giant TV showing Italian MTV. It was kinda weird. Most of the videos I had never seen before, but then JLo came on. Glad the US can contribute something to the world. I had gnocchi with 4 cheese sauce (wow, lots of cheeses today too). It was good, but really rich. We also decided that Italian bread sucks unless it is drenched in olive oil because it doesn't have any salt in it. We continued back to the hotel and went to the pool.

2011-06-03T13:51:00.005-04:00

Roma 2: The Essentials

I'm subtitling this post "The Essentials" because there are certain things that you must see when you visit Rome. You can't go and not see the Colosseum. You just can't. On the 2nd day of our visit we saw everything that was essential to a Rome visit. We had a scheduled Colosseum, Palatine Hill and Roman Forum Guided Walking Tour at 9:30, so we were planning on getting up at 8:15 in order to have breakfast and walk to the meeting place. We didn't ask for a wake up call because we went to bed at 8pm, so surely there would be no way we could sleep 12 hours. We were wrong. My dad panicked at 8:45am when he looked at the time on his blackberry. We threw on some clothes, chowed on some granola bars my mom had in her luggage and started the trek towards the Colosseum.

My mom had printed off walking directions on Mapquest to get us to where we were going to meet the guide. I'm going to be blunt here. Mapquest sucks! I'm sorry if you are personal friends with Mapquest or whatever, but he (because obviously nothing that wrong time and again could be female) screws me over all the time. I ended up just taking a map and planning my own way there (once I figured out where the hell mapquest had taken us). Luckily, McDonald's has locations near every major attraction and has wonderful signs like this

They are actually better than the official Rome tourist directional signs. We make it to our tour on time. I had heard the Colosseum was one of those places that's not as great in person as it is in photos, but I thought it was amazing. It's a 3 hour walking tour. It's great not to have to wait in line at the Colosseum or Palatine Hill, but it's hot and by hour 2, I'm so over it. One good thing about Rome is that there are fresh water fountains flowing everywhere, so you just need to carry a water bottle and refill it anywhere.

After the tour, we were starving and ready for lunch. My mom had found a place during her trip research that was near the Colosseum and supposed to have good food at a reasonable price. We go in, sit down, and after looking at the menu, my dad asks the waitress if they have any pasta. She says no. He looks like someone just stole his puppy. I have a very good chicken curry with couscous, not exactly what I was expecting to eat in Rome though.

We then go to 3-D Rewind, which is supposed to be a 3-D re-creation of what the Colosseum would've looked like back in its prime. It was ok, a little overpriced and a little kidsy for me. From there we headed to the Pantheon (which I repeatedly called the Parthenon, eventhough my mom repeatedly told me that the Parthenon was Greek...oops...really wish I had brushed up on my Roman history before I went). We sat on the steps of a fountain in front of the Pantheon a little while to rest and then headed toward the entrance only to then have barriers put up in front of us that blocked anyone from entering. No one had any idea what was going on, and there were bewildered tour guides with unhappy groups of tourists everywhere. We could see inside, but figured we'd probably catch it on another day. We headed to the Trevi Fountain. I wanted to do the whole throw a coin over your left shoulder for good luck or to return to Rome or whatever, but found it quite difficult because the crowds looked like this.

We found a good view about three levels up on the balcony and I was pretty sure I could throw a coin to the fountain from there; however, the over the left shoulder thing might be a problem. We were too far away for it to be a mere toss. I angled myself so that I could overhand throw the penny (cheaper than .02 Euro...my mom insisted. Of course she did) with my right hand. The other thing that made this slightly complicated is that there were two police officers below me near the edge of the fountain, so I couldn't short the throw at all or would risk hitting one of them in the head....not a good thing I'm thinking. I made it. Actually overthrew and hit a rock in the middle of the fountain.

Next we headed towards the Spanish Steps which were also on the way towards our hotel. As we were taking pictures of the Spanish Steps it began to rain. We high tailed it back to the hotel only to ask for a good gelato stand and head back out in the rain (no umbrella still). Crazy Americans! Gelato today was stracciatella (think mint chocolate chip, but with vanilla instead of mint ice cream). Obviously we then went to the pool before going to bed.

2011-06-03T06:26:00.005-04:00

Roma

I'm going to try to keep up my two blog a day pace...we'll see how this goes. I apologize if you are on vacation or otherwise indisposed at the moment and will return in a week to find a ton of catching up to do. My first day in Rome/Italy can be described as weird and wonderful. We take a cab to the Hotel de Russie and because it is only 9:30 am (Rome time), our room is not ready yet. Nothing like being jet lagged and not having anywhere to go. My mom finds a comfy leather chair in the lobby, curls up and falls asleep. My dad enjoys an 8 euro Coke Light (I still hate Coke Light by the way) in the hotel garden/bar. I decide to go explore the hotel. I find this.

(I stole this picture off of some website because every time I tried to take a picture myself there were people in the pool, and I just couldn't do it without feeling creepy). Little did I know at the time that this would turn out to be the best pool I have ever been in, but I'll talk about that later. About two hours later, our room is all set and we check in. If there was any doubt about the city we were in, this answered it.Nothing says "Welcome to Rome" like a naked male torso on your desk. Apologies if the nakedness offends anyone...it's art. After changing out of our clothes that we just spent way too long in, Guillaume (a guy somehow business related to my dad) picks us up. We walk to a restaurant for lunch. The restaurant (sorry don't have the name...coming to realize that I didn't take very good notes of this trip) has marble sculptures everywhere. Too many marble sculptures. It's not like a sculpture museum. It's more like the storage room of a sculpture museum. This is both wonderful and weird (see the theme coming back). Wonderful in that there's beautiful sculptures to look at while we're waiting to get our food. Weird in that there's a 12 foot naked woman directly in front of me, and a little naked boy above her that I have to stare at while I'm eating. First meal in Italy: Pasta with tomato sauce and bacon (I didn't write down the official name)...delicious!

Guillaume then drives us to two separate catacombs: San Domitilla Catacombs and San Callisto Catacombs. You would think one catacomb tour would be enough, but my mom's pre-trip research said to go to Domitilla for an informative tour and San Callisto for pretty stuff (there's like frescoes, and statues and stuff in their catacombs). Catacombs are (everyone, all together) wonderful and weird for me. Wonderful in that I've kind of secretly always wanted to live in a tunnel. My friend Derek and I once tried to tunnel our way from my house to his house up the block when we were like 7. We started digging under my back porch. We didn't get very far. Weird in that...well...they put dead people there.

After the catacombs, Guillaume drove us (I got the feeling we were pretty much just using Guillaume for his car) to the Baths of Caracalla ruins. We got an audio guide which I would listen to and then summarize the basic points for my parents. Ancient ruins cliff's notes. Guillaume drives us around the city a little bit more and then drops us a short walk from the hotel. On the walk back we stop for gelato...coconut gelato. My first step towards completing my goal of having gelato every day in Italy. The gelato is just wonderful...no weird. My other goal is to make out with a gondolier...or at least a hot Italian guy...or maybe a moderately attractive Italian guy. We go back to the hotel, and my mom and I go to the pool to soothe our aching feet.

Why this pool is wonderful and weird: Wonderful in that it's not just an ordinary pool it has spa jets all throughout it and waterfalls and stuff like that. It's warm like bath water, so you can stay in for a while without getting too hot, but it's warm enough to be soothing. The pool is weird in that all the water features are operated by separate buttons that you basically have to figure out using trial and error. This weirdness is cancelled out by the fact that it is somewhat fun to watch people hit a wrong button and then act like that's what they wanted all along. I crawl into bed completely exhausted and not even caring that the sheets feel like burlap.

2011-06-02T12:14:00.004-04:00

Getting There is Half the Battle

Ok, let's get this going. The original travel plan was slightly stupid, but not nearly as ridiculous as what actually ended up happening. Since I was going to be going to Italy with my parents, they wanted me to fly to South Bend the day before to meet up with them so that we could all leave out of Chicago together, and we wouldn't have to worry about flight delays screwing with us meeting up...or so we thought.

My flight was to leave Thursday from Greensboro at around 11:20 am, connect through O'Hare and get to South Bend at around 4:30pm. I tried to check in at around 8am, but discovered that my flight had been cancelled, and I was rescheduled on a flight for Friday morning. (I received a voicemail from United about 45 minutes later informing me that my flight was cancelled. Little late?) The Friday morning flight would not work since it would mean that I would then miss my Delta flight to Rome. I called United, and they rescheduled me on a flight that evening. Unfortunately it wouldn't get into South Bend until around midnight, but oh well...what were my options?

I call my parents to inform them of the change. My dad apparently finds it unacceptable because about an hour later (9am), his admin tells me that I'm on a flight at 10:15am...keep in mind that the Greensboro airport is about a half hour away. I immediately call Kathleen to come pick me up, we rush to GSO and I make my flight. Whew. Did I mention that not only do I now have to connect through O'Hare, but before that through Reagan in DC AND switch airlines? By some magical power, me and my luggage make it to South Bend. (SN: as I'm sitting on the plane waiting to take off from GSO, having just rushed to make it, all I can think is, holy crap, the DC metro area has the most incidence of near midair collisions. I just rushed to make it on a plane so that I can die in a fireball in the sky...though probably not the worst way to go...sometimes, I know too much about airlines.)

Get to South Bend. Have burgers at Roc's that I had been waiting for since September when we went and it was closed. We went back in January, but it was closed then too. Burgers were yummy. The next day we got boxed lunches at the Honey Baked Ham company (formerly known as--or still currently known as if you are my parents--Heavenly Ham.) We drive to O'Hare at around lunchtime and catch a Delta flight operated by Alitalia to Rome...possibly the worst service on an airline I have ever received. It was about a 7 hour flight (give or take). The airplane itself was somewhat broken down and old looking, but whatever no big deal. About an hour after take off, we're served roast beef and pasta for dinner...not bad, not great. That would be the last time we see the flight crew until they serve breakfast five hours later. The screens showing movies are all broken and wavy, not that it would matter since the sound on our seats doesn't work. We ring the flight attendants to see if there's something they can do about the sound, but no one answers the bell. Other people ring about things, and my mom rings later for a glass of water (since there was no other drink service or anything) still no one. We don't even see a flight attendant pass by that we can ask. Later we discover that there are some pretzels and water out in the galley area (is that what it's even called on a plane? I know a galley is on a ship, but isn't it on a plane too?) that people seem to be helping themselves to. These, of course, run out about an hour later...duh. The crew reappears about an hour before we land and serve breakfast (a warm roll, yogurt, and orange(?) juice)
Yes, it's not really orange. Tasted ok, not really like orange juice though. We land in Rome and are surprised when we are just shuffled through the passport station without having anything being checked or stamped or anything. Apparently, Italy doesn't really care who's entering the country. I'm kinda pissed because I want my Rome stamp, damn it!

Ok, enough for now...next up ROME!!!

2011-06-02T07:08:00.002-04:00

A Little Basic Italian

Well, folks, I'm back and I have a long trip to blog about (with pictures!) I hope you love pictures as much as I do. A big thanks to my bestest bud Danielle for covering for me while I was away (and for not posting pictures of the deer blood and hair on your car). I'm going to be blogging fast and furious to get Italy done before I leave for Kate's wedding cruise next Wednesday. This was originally going to be tight since I was planning on going to the gym like 6 times a day to work off the Italy weight before going on the cruise. However since I discovered this morning (and double checked) that I've actually returned 5 pounds lighter than I left, the gym plan has been scrapped. Sickening, I know. I honestly don't know how this happened since all nutritional guidelines went out the window, and I ate nothing but dairy based products, processed carbs, sugar, fatty meats, fried things and alcohol the entire trip.

Anyway, before I dive right into trip detail, I thought I'd start you off with a few basic Italian phrases. My mom had purchased a Rick Steves phrase books (Danielle and I love Rick Steves and his money belt) before the trip and when I discovered one of his helpful phrases in the food and restaurant section was "Nienti con gli occhi" which translates to "Nothing with eyeballs" I couldn't help but search further for other ridiculous phrases. So here's the format for this post. I'll give the heading that they were listed under. Then the Italian for each, English translation and my snide remarks in parens as usual.

Food and Restaurants:
E migliore di McDonald's? -- Is it better than McDonald's? (It better be. And I feel that by using this phrase you are doing a disservice to all Americans.)
Solo la testa, por favore--Just the head, please. (I am not eating just the head of anything.)
Da quanto tempo e morto questo --How long has this been dead (if you need to ask, you shouldn't eat it)
Mi sento ubriaca fradicia--I'm feeling wasted (Not sure this phrase would come to me at the moment that I need it).
Mangio solo insetti--I eat only insects (I wonder how many people are flipping through the phrase book going...how do I tell them that I only eat insects?)
Posso mangiare il suo cibo--May I eat your food? (greedy, aren't we?)

Travel and transport:
Dove un bel capotreno? --where is a good looking conductor? (haven't we all really wanted a good looking man that knows how to handle a train?)
Mi vende il suo cappello--Can I buy your hat? (it tells you to use this if you get pulled over by the police. I'm not sure if this is a subtle way of asking him if he can be bribed or if Rick Steves is dicking with us.)
Sono caduta e non nesco ad alzarmi--I've fallen and I can't get up. (Ok, Rick Steves, you are dicking with us)
Abbiamo un problema con prostitute--We have a problem with prostitutes. (Meant for hotel situation use, but really so many usage occasions).
Ho peso il mio la fiducia nel prossimo--I've lost my faith in humanity. (A little dramatic, don't you think?)

Health and visiting the doctor
Puzzo--I have body odor (It would have to be some serious stank to be going to the doctor in another country)
Ho una malattia venerea--I have a venereal disease (probably very useful, but I have the humor of a 12 year old, so I think it's funny.)
Ho vermi--I have worms (I'm sorry)
Ho saltato il ciclo mestruale--I've missed a period. (Always good to know how to say in every language.)
Il ml di testicoli--My testicles hurt. (I swear to you all of these were in the book. I am not making this up.)

Relationships--My favorite section
Mettitelo nel culo--Shove it up your ass. (sounds so much nicer in Italian.)
Non essere un figlio di puttana --Don't be a son of a whore. (Already added to my vocab)
Fuma marijuana? --do you smoke pot? (Rick Steve's must be a pot head because there are like four phrases about weed)
Lei crede negli extraterrestri?--Do you believe in extraterrestrial life? (always a good conversation starter)
E allupato? --Are you horny? (Speaks for itself)
Sono avventuroso--I'm adventurous.
Non ho malattie--I have no diseases (this is followed by the phrase "Ho molte malattie"--"I have many diseases")
Faccio solo sesso sicuro--I have only safe sex (how conscientious of you, Rick)
Passiamo una notte di fucco--Let's have a wild and crazy night.
Ti piace questo--How does this feel (I swear the section on sex is bigger than the one on food.)
Questa e la mia prima volta--This is my first time
Lo fai spesso?--Do you do this often?
Fa solletico--It tickles.
Oh mio Dio--Oh my God (wow, I feel like I just went through an entire one night stand in Italian).

Hope you enjoyed, probably be back later today for another post on getting to Italy and maybe the first few days of Roma!

2011-05-31T21:34:00.004-04:00

Two posts, one day

So I feel like I have been a crappy guest blogger. Jsto will be back soon and I have hardly posted anything. So my fun news of the week is this: I have hit my first deer. I can't believe that I have been able to go 30 years (14 driving years) without hitting one. If you live in PA it is almost like a rite of passage to hit a deer. I know people who are on their third or fourth deer. And the best part of my story is: I never hit my brakes. Not once. Not when I saw him. Not after I hit him. The whole thing happened so fast I'm still not sure what happened. One minute I'm driving to work then there was a deer and a loud bang. After further examination it appears the deer may have jumped over a concrete barricade and landed in front of my car, hence my lack of reaction. But I'm not entirely sure.

I'm fairly certain he lived for at least a little bit because he ran off and he isn't currently lying on the side of the road. After I hit him I did eventually regain my senses and pull over, which was no easy feat since I was in the passing lane of a 3 lane highway. Granted it was 5 a.m. but there are still cars on the road that early and they drive just as fast (if not faster) as they do any other time of day.

Once pulled over I got out and inspected the damage. Upon the sight of blood and fur on my car I freaked out and decided to finish my drive in to work. When I got to work I got the facilities guys to come out and check my car to see if it was drivable. They decided to rip what was left of my bumper off and throw it in the back of my car. Apparently the bumper is not supposed to rub against your tires. Who knew? After removing the bumper they tell me that it is drivable but that they wouldn't recommend driving it far. Crap! I was going to go to Florida this weekend......

I go through the normal notifications (parental unit, insurance) and then wondered if I should call the police. I mean it was an accident but no one was hurt and I was the only one involved. I elected to not call which apparently was the right thing to do (I asked one of the statey's at work). He said the main reason to call is for insurance reporting but I assured the cop that there was plenty of blood and fur so there should be no speculation as to what happened.

After work I took my car to a body shop for repair and found out that there is almost $6000 damage and that it is reparable. They weren't going to total my car. Thank god. I also qualified for a rental so the rental company decided to give me the biggest (and possibly only) car on the lot. I have finally gotten accustomed to driving it but I really want my car back. It should be done in the next few days and I can hardly wait. I just hope they get all of the blood and fur off.....

2011-05-26T09:33:00.003-04:00

Philly continued.....

So I realize it has been a few days and you are probably all just dying to know what happened for the remainder of my trip. There have been other fun things occurring in my life lately (actually bad things) that have prevented me from blogging. But my friends, that is for another blog. I will finish my Philly blog first.

So when I left you we were en-route to Philly. On a Friday. At 4 p.m. Do you know what that means? Traffic. Lots and lots of traffic. Add a screwy GPS and it was a blast. At one point the GPS told me to get off the highway and get right back forcing me to do some very scary merging. And the only reason I did it was because I was worried I was getting off on some "business route" of the same highway and didn't want to get lost.

As we sat our estimated time of arrival continued to change. It started at 4:43. Then 4:55. Then 5:02. Then next Thursday. Seriously. We were NOT moving. Lanes turned into exit only. Lanes ended. People were merging from one lane only to merge back into the previous lane. There was lots of merging. Now remember I picked a random address on the same road of the pier since the pier did not have an official address. Thankfully we saw signs for the pier so we turned the GPS off. We followed signs for Penn's Landing and before we knew it (6:00) we were there. Traffic was still shitty and was I getting sick of starting and stopping. I decided that I was parking at the first garage I found and walking the rest of the way.

We found a parking garage attached to a Hyatt and decided to park there. Although it had been raining on and off all day it was actually nice out when we parked. We walked to a map to find where the pier was. When we got to the map there was a couple and random single girl there also looking for the pier. We realized that the pier was 9 blocks away and decide to walk together.

As we walked the couple began to fight. The guy was pissed at the girl for parking where they did. They had to walk 9 whole blocks!! He tried to get a cab but the girl said that there was too many of us and we should just stay together and walk. It was, after all, nice outside. The couple started arguing and he stormed off. The rest of us followed but Derek and I kept our distance. The guy was approximately a block ahead of us but that did not stop him from turning around and screaming at his girlfriend. Derek and I decided that he was probably going to beat her later that evening. Eventually we put enough distance between us and them so we no longer had to listen to them (or provide witness statements). On the walk Derek found a sign that said "no swimming, sewer overflows". Seriously. Ew.

We finally made it to the pier and it was actually pretty cool. There was already a group playing and they were okay. At one point the lead singer asked the audience if there were any black people in audience. Uh....what? Awkward. He then said that we were all a bunch of dumb white people. Sadly it was near the end of their set and they had to go away.

Next up was a group called Fun who were more interested in talking about the impending apocalypse than singing. And I was more interested in the 12 year old girl with perhaps the largest head and largest mullet that I have ever seen in my entire life. She was wearing a lovely tie-dye shirt and maroon pants. Awesome. We also had possible old lady lesbians beside us who were wearing fanny packs. Also awesome. And finally, there were two guys who were standing way too close to one another and may have possibly been on a date.

There were beach balls bouncing around because who doesn't love some beach ball action at a concert? One of the balls was heading our way and some smart ass guy decided to spike it. In doing so he smacked the beach ball directly in the face of some fat awkward guy. Hilarious! Never laughed so hard in my life. The fat guy just stood there and didn't say anything while everyone around him laughed. Good times.

After all this fun Panic at the disco finally came on. During the middle of their set a group of 6 or 7 guys moved beside us and were basically a drunk mess. They eventually pushed their way in front of us and of course they were all well over 6 feet talk. Seriously, we're talking 6'7". They were huge. The one guy started yelling at his friend, asking him why he was so fucking tall. It was kind of funny. The first 10 times. After that, not so much. These guys then decided it was their goal to throw as many beer bottles into the crowd as possible. Thankfully the bottles were plastic and no one got hurt.

I missed most of Panic's set because of the antics of the guys but I didn't mind since I know maybe three of their songs. Weezer went on last and I was surprised how many of their songs I knew. The rest of the concert went on without a hitch and before we knew it, the concert was over. We walked to the car and attempted to drive home. After missing a few of our turns we finally found the highway (thanks to my lovely GPS) and went home. It was way late and I almost fell asleep driving but eventually we made it home (sans traffic) at around 1 a.m. Overall it was a good time and I highly recommend going to the pier at Philly for a concert if you are in the area. Just make sure you leave early enough so that you avoid all of the TRAFFIC. That was for you Nenna.

2011-05-21T10:06:00.003-04:00

Philly, the city of brotherly love....

Hello fans of jsto. As she mentioned in a previous post, our lovely jsto is currently traveling the world, or more importantly, Italy. I would like to think she is on a gondola ride in Venice with some nice hot Italian man meat right now. And if the boat tips, hey even better. Anyways, this is Danielle, dear jsto's bestest of best friends. If you are a regular reader of jsto I'm sure you have read some about me. I was a guest blogger for dear jsto before in which I mentioned that I have a shitty job, no money and I live at home with my mommy. Well guess what kiddos! Only one of those things have changed since I last guest blogged: I now have money, woot woot! The job has changed but it is still shitty but it pays a hell of a lot more than my previous one so I guess I'll stick it out for now. I still live at home with my mommy but I prefer to say that she lives with me, cuz hey, I'm the one paying the bills now.

Anyways, as you can see from my lovely title, this post is about dear sweet Philadelphia, Philly for short. And before I get into the story, I would like to first mention one of my pet peeves (I have many). And maybe it isn't so much as a pet peeve as an observation. You can always tell who the non-PA natives are when talking about this fair city. They always refer to it as Philadelphia, which is just wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. It is Philly. Get it right people. Gah.

Okay, back to the story. About a week ago, a former employee of mine (and now friend) asked me to go to a Weezer/Panic at the Disco Concert. Since I have no life I agreed, despite only knowing a handful of songs by said groups. The concert was in Philly and he asked if I would drive due to lack of funding on his end. I reluctantly agreed, mostly because I get lost almost every single time I drive to Philly. And it is kind of sad because as I drive through Philly there are tons of times where I'm like, "hey, I remember that" or "I've been there before". And yet, I still get lost. Shameful.

So naturally, before we leave I am on a mission to find directions to the Festival Pier at Penns Landing. Unfortunately, it is a pier and therefore address-less. Great. What in the heck am I supposed to program into my GPS? I resorted to typing one of the roads that the pier is located on and to my non-believing eyes, that particular road spans 3 different zip codes. Three! I find the zip code for the pier on the internet and pick a random address on the street in that zip code, hit go, and we were off.

Now my friend Derek is a bit of a queen and since we were pressed for time, he had to resort to putting his eyeliner on while I drove. Not really a good idea. After a few close calls of poking his eye out, he decided to wait until I stopped to get gas. When I got back into the car after getting gas I see an antique automobile pencil sharpener and a mess of pencil shavings all over the place. I also see a broken eye liner pencil and Derek laughing hysterically. I decided not to ask. We get back on the road and the GPS says we should be there at 4:43. Plenty of time to listen to Derek's eclectic music mix and watch the world go by.

And sadly friends, this is where the story is going to end for today. I have many important things to do (watch TV) and this post is getting way long. So stay tuned for tomorrow where you will hear about the fun drive and maybe even a little bit about the concert. Don't you hate cliff hangers??

2011-05-18T15:01:00.002-04:00

10 Things to Do During a Commencement/Hooding Ceremony

Ok, so I'm bored, so you are getting another blog. As many of you know my MBA commencement and hooding ceremonies were this past weekend. They can be somewhat long and boring so here are some things that we did in order to occupy our time.

1) Try to figure out where the crap your parents are in the mass of humanity.
2) Cheer wildly for anyone that has the same first name as you.
3) Enjoy the snacks and beverages that you have stashed away in the weirdo sleeves of your graduation gowns.
4) Look at random people and yawn to see if it makes them yawn.
5) Play hug/no hug. Will the person being hooded hug the person hooding them or will it merely be a handshake?
6) See if you can figure out what's going on by watching the sign language interpreter.
7) Count the number of people in the program that are from your home state.
8) Find the weirdest middle name/name combination possible. Foreign students don't count.
9) Play telephone.
10) Just be generally disorderly.

Fun times. I'm going to miss all my MBA classmates.

2011-05-18T13:22:00.002-04:00

Things That Annoy Me

Last night I was exhausted, not sure if graduation caught up to me or what, but I fell into one of those sleeps that makes you think "Man, if this is what a coma is like, someone bash me on the head right now." (I apologize to all my comatose readers for the insensitivity of this remark.) Then at around midnight, my upstairs neighbor's security alarm goes off. At first, I have like a moment of sheer panic where I have no idea what is going on. Is it my fire alarm going off? No, doesn't sound like a fire alarm. Is it my security alarm? No, don't have one. Then I realize what is happening. I'm a little confused because I thought my upstairs neighbor had left for summer break since I hadn't heard her tromping around or having late night booty calls with her boyfriend like I normally do. Sure enough the alarm continues to blare, and I don't hear anyone walking around up there. I peak out the window...nope, no car in her parking spot. Is someone really trying to break in? I call the police. They had already received the alarm and were responding. Police show up, don't ever talk to me, but I hear them knock on her door and see a flashlight being shined around outside. I never do fall back into peaceful slumber, but I do fall asleep knowing that Winston-Salem's finest has checked everything out.

Also annoying, almost dying. Kathleen's car spun out 540 degrees yesterday on an on ramp to the highway (not her fault) and ended up facing the wrong way with a YWCA bus bearing down on us. We, however, did not die or even get injured.

Can't decide if I'm going to blog about anything from graduation or not. If not, I leave for Italy soon, but don't fear, we may have a guest blogger to keep you all entertained.

2011-05-13T22:23:00.003-04:00

Bunny Haven

My yard has been over run with bunnies. At any given moment, my backyard looks like this.

I've circled the rabbits because if I get any closer to take a picture they hop away and no matter how much I zoom in, you can't really see them in the grass. I'm like super paranoid I'm going to run over one with my car.

2011-05-13T13:13:00.006-04:00

Letters from Prison: Visual

I give her a lot of crap, but this is actually somewhat heartwarming.

My favorite part are the little pieces of confetti drawn throughout the letter. Kathleen likes the balloons that say "MBA".

2011-05-09T16:18:00.003-04:00

Further Proof that Airlines Suck

I realize that since I kinda work (or whatever) for an airline that I shouldn't say that, but I am SOOO fed up with United Airlines right now that I can't even stand it.

Flash back to February: Somehow my reservation to fly back to PA for my grandfather's funeral got screwed up. I had to pay an extra like $50 for the new flight plus a $150 change fee which I was told could be refunded because it was in relation to a bereavement. Trying to get the refund was a pain in the behind: death certificate, wait 20 business days (aka 4 weeks), etc. etc. etc. I call the refund hotline, and it tells me that the refund was processed but returned because of an improper address that I have to mail my correct address to them. Then I received my credit card statement today and find out that not only do they not refund my $150, but they recharge me for the flight. So now i'm double charged for a flight, plus they still owed me the original $150.

I call United. Totally pissed. Can't for the life of me get a real person on the phone. Finally go to their reservations department just so I can talk to someone. "oh, i'm sorry, we don't have a phone number for that. Here's the e-mail address." REALLY? You owe me like $450 and you don't have a phone number for that? So after e-mailing them, AGAIN. I file a formal complaint with the Department of Transportation, which I only know to do because of working with AirTran this summer. The airlines can get fined and crap based on the number of complaints they have against them. So anytime an airline royally screws you over, go on the DOT website and fill out the little complaint form.

2011-05-08T14:29:00.008-04:00

New York: Part 2

Well, I did some laundry, made a grocery list and figured I'd finish out this blog before I lost momentum. Saturday, Marcia and I woke up lazily and I took an absolutely life changing shower in Marcia's fantastic shower. We go to get coffee and a wonderful apple galette from a very eco-friendly place called Cafe O. The weather is absolutely wonderful. Perfect for picking up avocados at the Brooklyn Flea which is great because that's exactly what we need to do. Marcia is defending her title as people's choice for best guacamole at Guactacular on Sunday.

We take the subway to the Brooklyn Flea and after looking around for a while, start the absolute glutfest which we call lunch. We share everything because then we get to try more things. We start off with this:

A fantastic Maine Lobster Roll from Red Hook Lobster Pound. We followed that up with this:

A pork Huarache. And then this:

Grilled corn with cheese, chili powder, and butter. We washed it all down with some yummy limeade. My tummy was sufficiently full. Marcia then fell in love with a Herman Miller chair, so after searching for an ATM (cash only at a Flea market of course), buying the chair, and picking up the Guactacular avocados, we took a car back to Manhattan. There was some debate about whether or not we could take it on the subway, but decided not.

We took Maddie to the dog park in Washington Park. She was still chill as a lot of the other dogs ran around and were totally spastic. It was a beautiful day and fun just watching all the dogs. We dropped Maddie back at the apartment and went for some manis and pedis. I got my toes done in OPI "Purple with Purpose."

Yes, those are my little troll toes. While bright, they were completely shown up by Marcia's fingernails.

Neon is apparently really in now. I then caught a cab to LaGuardia and left my wonderful trip to New York behind me.

2011-05-08T11:59:00.008-04:00

My Trip to NYC

I'm spending a lazy Sunday recovering from my two day trip to New York City. This post is going to be chock full of pictures and links. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to cover my trip in one complete post or if it will be split across two. I'm just going to play it by ear.

My final presentation for my Advanced Branding class was in New York City. Wake Forest was paying for the flight and so I figured, why not spend an extra day to hang with Marcia, my amazing roommate from Notre Dame who just happens to live in downtown Manhattan.

First of all I must say that I was not in the best shape when I boarded my plane in Greensboro at 7am as the night before was the official End of the Year party where like any good Cinco de Mayo party there were plenty of margaritas and tequila shots (and a bounce house with a climbing wall and a slide!!!). I suffered through my presentation and at around 2pm was finally set free to meet up with Marcia (well, there was some slight mix up and I apparently bailed on part of an office tour and may or may not look like a jackass...oh well...school's over).

I hailed a cab (cause I got cab hailing skillz) to Wogie's where Marcia was having lunch with some of her friends that were in from Toledo. I had a beer, drooled, cursed myself for eating so much pizza in my class presentation and watched them devour what appeared to be amazing cheese steaks. Then we went to BLT Burger, and Marcia ordered this:

That's a "Grandma's Treat" which is a caramel milkshake with Maker's Mark in it. I had a "Night Rider" which was a chocolate milkshake with Kahlua and Oreos in it. YUM. I was fading fast and so we went back to Marcia's apartment. Marcia made an amazing goat cheese spread with caramelized onions (cause that's what she does...see?). I watched Downtown Abbey and had her adorable dog, Maddie, lounge on me.
Maddie is the most chill and lovable dog EVER. We then caught the subway and took it to what was supposed to be a rooftop party Uptown. It was really windy and chilly on the roof, so the party stayed down in an apartment. After some drinking, eating, possibly drunk yoga, it either was warmer up on the roof (a little surprising since the sun had gone down) or we just didn't care as much (probably more likely).

Good first day in NYC. I'm going to pause here and will blog the rest probably later today.

2011-05-03T21:48:00.002-04:00

MBA with a Concentration in Alcoholism

Further proof that I may have a slight drinking problem (don't fret, my dear friends, it's really not as serious as I make it sound.) Today was my last day of legit MBA classes. I say legit because I have a skit for Advanced HR management tomorrow which is not legit because a) it's for an HR class and b) it's a FREAKIN SKIT! Here's a timeline of my day:

11am--Business Analytics exam (which was pretty traumatic)
12pm--Drinking in the parking lot
12:30pm--Drinking in my MPA class (SN: During this class, this girl Katy ate 8 Krispy Kreme donuts and then promptly went to the bathroom to throw up.)
1:15pm-- Continue drinking in the parking lot
1:30pm--Drinking on the patio of the on campus restaurant
3:30pm--Drinking in my group meeting for HR (It's about a skit, ok? don't judge.)
5pm--Andy texts me to see when I'm ready to go to dinner. I reply that i'm sobering up at school so that I can drive home. He asks if I just want picked up at school. Of course I do.
5:15pm--I hop in Andy's car, and he says "My God, woman, I can smell it on you." Then after a few minutes says "you smell fruity, what were you drinking?" uh...sangria...holy crap I must've been doing some drinking.

2011-05-02T16:02:00.002-04:00

I Have No Self Control

Lately I've had a history of convincing myself that I will not get too drunk and will leave at a reasonable hour from school functions only to get significantly shit faced and have Kathleen drive me to my car the next morning. This is not normally a problem; however, the end of the year party is Thursday evening and I have a 7am flight Friday to New York city for my Advanced Branding class (and to see Marcia). So while I would like to drive and be able to leave at a reasonable hour, I would be screwed if I have to leave my car downtown. I asked Kathleen how I got to such a point that I can no longer trust myself not to be a total drunk. Her response via e-mail:

"Business school happened to you. In addition to our degree we will all be graduating with a slight case of alcholism! Just sleep it off on the plane! I mean it's the end of the year party, you can't not be a shitshow, that would be wrong!"

This is in line with the other argument that I often get from people when I try to cut myself off which is: "stop being selfish!" When did drunken ridiculousness become some sort of civic duty?

2011-05-02T15:51:00.002-04:00

I'm Not a Computer Person

I've had many somewhat embarrassing interactions with Wake Forest's IT department because I have no idea what is going on with computers. Compared to my mom, I'm a genius, but honestly, I don't know what the hell I'm doing.

I walked into the IT guy's office with a tiny spring in my hand, held it out to show him and said "this fell out of my computer. is that an issue?" Apparently it's not a big issue, but should get fixed.

2011-04-25T18:17:00.004-04:00

"Why Men Are NEVER Depressed"

I got this e-mail from Meredith today and asked her if I could mock it for being ridiculous. She said of course. It's a pretty long e-mail, so I'm editing out some of the more serious, thought provoking points. While I enjoy a good theoretical debate on the wage gap or a female president or the miracles of childbirth, this blog is not the place for it. Here we go. My comments are in parenthesis.

"Your last name stays put (depends on your last name...trust me. I'm looking forward to ditching this name)

You can wear NO shirt at the water park. (Who says I can't?)

You don't have to think of which way to turn a nut or bolt. (I'm a girl, not an idiot.)

Wedding dress $5000, Tux rental $100 (ok, I'll give you that one)

People never stare at your chest when you're talking to them. (really? Gotta say, if boy's got some nice pecs, I'm looking.)

One mood all the time. (dude, I know some moody ass boys)

You know stuff about tanks. (why is this good? Andy did his informational speech on tanks, so I learned some stuff, and I have to say I don't feel like my life has been enriched having known that information.)

You never have to drive to another gas station because the restroom is just too icky. (In the words of Meredith: "is wanting a clean bathroom such a bad thing? sorry that I don't want to catch some disease that the CDC hasn't identified yet.)

If someone forgets to invite you, he or she can still be your friend. (wow...wow...this is some commentary about the bitchiness of women.)

You can open your own jars. (I can open my own jars...thank you very much. I go to body pump.)

Your underwear is $8.95 for a three pack. (pretty sure I could get underwear in a three pack...I just don't)

Three pairs of shoes are more than enough. (Why would anyone want this? I would be so unhappy if I only needed three pairs of shoes.)

You can play with toys all your life. (um...I colored yesterday...this implies that needs to stop at some point?)

You can 'do' your nails with a pocket knife. (but i like getting my nails done...and having them be pretty colors...and coordinating them with my outfit)

You have freedom of choice in growing a mustache. (Darling, that's what waxing is for.)

No wonder men are happier than women. (REALLY? REALLY?...Wanna argue that point?)"

There were more than that that I could probably comment on, but I gotta get to bells, so that will be it.

2011-04-24T20:00:00.003-04:00

My Easter Experience

Having only Friday off and my last full week of classes looming ahead (aka lots of papers and presentations due), I decided to just spend Easter in Winston Salem. I wasn't planning on any Easter dinner plans, just a nice relaxing day by myself until Erik, my neighbor and classmate, texted me yesterday at around 4pm and was like "We're thinking about doing Easter dinner tomorrow. You gonna be around?"

Let me just say that Easter dinner with 5 MBA aged men is a lot different from family dinner back in Pennsylvania. The hit of the meal was the person that brought Stouffer's Mac N Cheese because "making real mac n cheese is so tough. I don't understand why anyone would ever do it." We did actually sit down at a table which was up for debate for some time, but one person at the table was sitting on an end table for the meal because they didn't feel like bringing in another chair. We did, however, leave the Braves game on TV. Conversation topics were also very different from family Easter as I'm not sure we've ever discussed cults, steroids, middle earth, ninjas, Brett Favre's genitals, or cherry cola flavored condoms at my family Easter.

2011-04-22T07:39:00.002-04:00

Happy Earth Day!

It's time for my annual 25 easy ways to love your planet post. I may be reposting some things I've already said before, but that's just because I think they're really important. Plus I want to remind you of some of the basics for some of my new readers. These are all things I do myself. I was reading a facebook post where someone suggested showering in nature in the rain. If you're all about that great. Frolicking naked outside in order to save water doesn't really fit into my life though, so here's some things that do.

1) Cold cook your pasta. I'm starting off with a ridiculous one here, so bear with me. When I read about this in the green cookbook my mom got me, I thought there was no way this would work, but it does. Bring you water to a rolling boil, put the pasta in, put the lid on, turn off the burner and cook for the time directed on the box. The secret is to not peek and keep the heat trapped under the lid. It truly works. At least try it.
2) Check your e-mail on a smart phone or crackberry. It saves the electricity of turning on your entire computer.
3) Give green gifts. When my friend Eli had a baby (who is adorable, ps), a notice came out in the baby shower invite saying she was going to be using cloth diapers. I was more than happy to give her a gift certificate to help with that. It doesn't even have to be that drastic though. How about an organic or local bottle of wine for your next hostess gift?
4) DVR your favorite shows and fast forward through the commercials. Less time with the TV on.
5) Give up your bath poof for a traditional wash cloth. Not only will it save that plastic from the landfill, but poofs have been shown to trap germs and bacteria if they aren't replaced every 3 weeks. (and really, who replaces theirs every 3 weeks?)
6) Buy the Mega rolls of toilet paper. Less waste, and less having to change the roll. Win Win.
7) Pack your lunch using a reusable lunch bag and containers rather than eating out. Saves money too!
8) Learn to drink tea (or coffee...but I haven't gotten there yet) without sweetener or creamer. When I went to China, a lot of times sweetener just wasn't available for tea and I realized how much more I could taste the tea. It saves all those little pink packets from the landfill and is better for your body too.
9) Don't transfer meals to serving bowls. Just have people serve themselves out of whatever you cooked in.
10) Pay bills online or by phone. Saves the paper of checks and the gas associated with all those bills having to be delivered by mail.
11) And while we're on the subject of mail. Call someone rather than send a card to say Happy Easter or Congratulations on your graduation!
12) Save water when washing dishes. Here's how I do it. Start with a mixing bowl that needs washed (or other big container). Pour your dish soap in there along with a little bit of water rather than filling up an entire sink to start. Wash your smaller items (knives and what not) in there first and as you rinse you'll gain enough water to wash bigger stuff.
13) And if you have a dishwasher, put anything you can in that rather than hand washing. Energy star dishwashers are actually better for the environment than hand washing. Seems like a paradox, right?
14) Look for products made from recycled material. They are EVERYWHERE now!
15) Don't put food down your garbage disposal. Most people think this is better than throwing it in the trash. It's not. Of course the most green thing is to not let food go to waste and to compost anything compostable.
16) Look for "Made in the USA". Not only will you be helping our economy, but you'll help save the energy needed to bring that item to market. Did you know the average cotton polo shirt travels 14,000 miles before it hits the shelves?
17) Donate your unused stuff to charity. Not only will you be keeping clutter out of your house and waste out of the landfill, but you'll get some good karma by giving it to someone who can really use it.
18) Want to recycle something (like a computer), but unsure how. Earth 911 will tell you how to do it in your area.
19) Return wire hangers to the dry cleaner. They will reuse them.
20) Carpool. It's always more fun having a friend in the car anyway.
21) Allow your hair to air dry at least part of the way. Unless you're dashing out the door right after your shower (which depending on where you're going may not be an issue anyway), air drying is better for your hair and will save electricity.
22) PLEASE take your own bags grocery shopping. I have two purple reusable bags that I take with me to Wal-mart and that is normally sufficient for all my groceries. I forgot them last week and came home with 15 plastic bags...FIFTEEN!!!
23) Freeze the leftovers. If you live by yourself, like I do, cooking one time means that I have meals for about five days. But sometimes, I just don't want to eat baked ziti for five days in a row, so I freeze the extras and have meals for sometime when I'm time crunched or sick and don't feel like making anything.
24) If you're going to buy disposable plates and cups (which I would rather you not, but sometimes it's necessary), get paper instead of plastic of Styrofoam.
25) Pass the word along. Today is a great day to post something on your facebook page or remind someone to recycle. A little tip can go a long way. (My grandma now uses reusable shopping bags!) WINNING!

2011-04-17T15:15:00.006-04:00

That's Scary

From time to time I post conversations that epitomize the relationships that I have with certain people (Danielle, my mom, etc.), just so you can get a better idea of the people in my world. Today, I went out for celebratory sushi (because did I mention I got into the University of Minnesota...woot) with Andy...here's a conversation that only gives you a slight view of this extremely complex relationship. Background: I have a band-aid on my index finger.

Andy: What did you do to your finger?

Me: Oh, my cuticle is just all red and hurty.

Andy: Cause you were stressed out and picking at it?

Me: No.

(Andy gives me a look of contempt)

Me: (Sheepishly) Yes.

(The look of contempt continues)

Me: I'm sorry. It won't happen again.

Andy: Don't apologize...

(I interrupt him two words in.)

Me: (to my index finger) I'm sorry. It won't happen again.

Andy: That's scary.

(I apologize if the formatting of this post is all F***ed up. Blogger is being a bucket of hell right now).

2011-04-15T08:40:00.004-04:00

Native Vines

Yesterday Kathleen and I went to West Bend vineyard. I had been there before with Amanda 1, and so when I saw a fantastic deal on a tasting on Living Social, I bought it. After finishing the tasting, Kathleen and I sat out on the patio while I had a conference call with AirTran (yes, I had just finished a wine tasting, don't judge). It was only around 3 in the afternoon, and we decided rather than head back to W-S that we should visit some more vineyards in the area.

The next winery we went to was Weathervane vineyard. It was nice. They had some awesome fruity wines (of which I bought 4 bottles) and the only issue was we were waiting for their slushy machine to freeze some wine slushies which never happened.

We next looked to go to Native Vines. (If the web page doesn't load, that's part of the Native Vines experience.) We should've realized something was wrong when my Garmin couldn't locate the address, but our winery map had directions that we thought we could follow, so we just wrote it off as GPS's being stupid and went on our way. We got slightly lost...I still really don't know how. We finally saw a nice looking Native Vines sign on the edge of a wooded area and pulled onto a gravel driveway. The first thing we came to was a sketchy looking run down house with furniture on the front porch and stuff. Kathleen and I looked at each other but then saw another Native Vines sign pointing further down the road....whew...We came to another run down house...still not it...though the sketchy looking possibly former cattle barn with the tires stacked beside it and a haggard looking dog staggering around outside was. There were laminated poster board signs to show us where to park.

Kathleen asked if I thought we would get to take our glasses home from this vineyard (as we had from the other locations). I answered maybe plastic ones. We walk in and are greeted by a nice but somewhat sketchy woman who is in need of a good bra. The room is half tasting room and half office/storage area and smells faintly of cigarette smoke. In the tasting area, there is a big screen TV with the news on it, two tables with chairs, and a variety of random Native American art. She put two plastic cups infront of us and filled a paper dish with some crackers. We discovered the tasting was $5, but we got to taste like 15 wines, and actually more than that because after we were done with the list, she offered to let us taste anything again. At some points, she had to dig through boxes to find the wine we were supposed to taste next. We weren't sure how the wines would taste because she gave us the wrong names for some of the wines and there were some weird descriptions: "We did this one in steel, but it sucked, so I put a bunch of oak in it and now it's really oaky." "We kinda forgot about these grapes, and they were really shrively by time we got to them. I didn't know what to do with them, and my husband was like 'just bottle them,' so that's what we did." They were actually really good. There was only one that we dumped out without finishing. I'm pretty sure that if we had been like "you know what would go really well with this wine? Pot." she would've pulled out a baggie and rolled us a joint. At one point some small kids with juice boxes came in and ran around the office area. So if you're looking for a kitschy winery experience in the W-S area, check it out. Not sure what you're going to get, but that's the fun of it.

2011-04-14T09:14:00.004-04:00

Proof of Concept

I've recently received some gentle suggestions that I need to blog. I don't really have much to post right now...it's been kinda boring around here.

As many people know, I like to bake cookies for my fellow students here at Wake. (Who doesn't love cookies?) I know this is going to cause problems with all of you not in Winston Salem who don't get cookies...too bad. Every once in a while I get e-mails from my classmates with links to recipes or ideas for recipes and something like "can you do this?" written in the subject line. Of course, I can do it. Most recently, I was sent this link. Yes, that's a chocolate chip cookie with an Oreo in the middle. So can I do it?

Of course I can. They were amazing! So now that I know it can be done (AKA proof of concept), next time I'm going to use mini Oreos because the original batch had cookies the size of small children. I'm also working on perfecting Andy's favorite cookies. I have the flavor down but have been asked "Can you give the cookies more integrity? (like literally; not like, the cookies are liars.)" Those cookies WERE liars. Aren't you all jealous that you don't live near me now so that I can perfect your favorite cookies?

2011-03-31T08:12:00.006-04:00

Possibly the Best Letter EVER

This may possibly be the most entertaining letter from prison ever. I realize that we've had some very entertaining letters about shanks in the past, but this one is phenomenal. And since I'm feeling kinda mopey about not having a job/any sort of future plan what so ever, I thought I'd blog. "Hey, how are you? Im good...Im sitting here watching american pie on a 19' plasma (that's one big ass TV if it's 19 feet) from my bed eating ritz crackers, chedder cheese, summer sausage and mustard! samwhichs im so stuffed..it doesn't even feel like im in jail (and they wonder why these people have trouble holding down a job after they get out) i even cans moke a couple cigs here and there were not spose to smoke in blues (i have no idea what blues are) but my celly gets em! don't say anything about smoking we can smoke in browns (don't know what browns are either) though I'll be in browns in around a month..I can't wait! do you like country music? (random) I do now...I like your spring stationary its cute! (why thanks...I use up all my random stationary I had from childhood on her)

Well me and James's relationship is crazy (oh yeah!) I actually met him 2 nights before I went to jail this last time (ha...she has to differentiate which time she went to jail), we really liked each other and he was ther efor me in the beginning I called him everyday, he came to visit me every week, wrote, sent pictures everything he was spose to do and I only knew him 2 days (sounds like a perfect jailhouse romance) I can't even get friends I knew 20 year to do that for me (Meredith, if I go to jail will you write and come visit?) so I really respected him for that! Then I got greedy and told him I wanted $ on my books (that is greedy) and he wasn't feeling that (no shit, he wasn't feeling that) so he stopped answering my calls...he ended up coming to jail a couple months after that for a parole violation (oh, he is a good guy) and I found out and wrote him and we settled all are misconceptions decided to be together and start a family when I came home (oh dear GOD! BAD IDEA ALERT! BAD IDEA ALERT!) then I called a mutual friend of ours last week and she told me what like 4 (this may be a 9, can't tell, but I'm going with 4) other girls are doing for him too...I don't know if its completely true but I wrote him a mean break-up letter so I waiting to hear his explantion! Thats the short version...my lifes like a springer show

thats crazy about the shin thing (i told her about the cancun wrestler guy) you shoulda filmed it and put it on UTUBE (awww...she doesn't know how to spell youtube) Im about to watch 3 hours of Family Guy (alright...what do I gotta do to get thrown in jail?) I love Family Guy. I heard about foam partys they sound AWESOME...I will attend one in my lifetime (so is this before or after you start a family?) That picture (the one on facebook of her face all f***ed up) was the end result of the night I got the charges for fighting Rickay and "stabbing" her BF (really? we have stabbing in quotes?) did I tell you that? apperently she kicked me in the eye...I don't remember though thats the night I met James too (sounds like a wonderful evening) oh well thats a drunken fight for ya (how do you not remember someone kicking you in the head? Do you know how drunk you need to be?) lol (we just lol'ed her "stabbing" someone and then getting kicked in the face.) hope to hear from you soon."

2011-03-27T18:57:00.005-04:00

A Slacker Post I was going to post my latest letter from prison or go through why I currently have 6 half drunk magnums of wine on my counter, but I'm too tired..I was also going to make cookies today and go to the grocery store, those things didn't happen either. I did, however, come across this while I was researching Craigslist for my advanced branding class. I highly recommend reading "Penis Measuring" and "Free Canoe-Not Seaworthy." Enjoy! I'll try not to suck so much later this week.

2011-03-26T10:02:00.002-04:00

Bizarre Things

Here are two things that are related (you'll see), and just kinda make me go "What?!?!". I'm honestly not going to have a lot of comments on them because I really don't even know what to say, and I think the products will speak for themselves.

Breast Milk Icecream: I'm not sure what would ever make you come up with this flavor.

Breast Feeding Baby Doll: I'm pretty sure I didn't know what breast feeding was when I was that age. (Maybe that's because I'm an only child though). And never did I think "man, I wish I had a doll that I could breast feed."

2011-03-21T18:29:00.004-04:00

Two Things to Note

1) Scary Johnny from Cancun friended LT on facebook but has not friended me yet. We can't figure out how he even found her, and his profile picture is super creepy.
2) I said something semi-mean to one of my classmates who looked shocked. He apparently still only knows my golden aura. Andy explained me to him by saying: "You know that thing that comes out of their mouths in Alien? Little do people know that she has an inner jaw of snark that might pop out and tear somebody's face off." Well said, Andy, well said.

2011-03-20T13:17:00.004-04:00

Mexican Baggage Allowance

When you are about to land in Mexico, they give you a standard customs form. Listed on it is the allowable "Goods considered as personal baggage". As soon as I received it, I turned to LT and said "I'm keeping this because it's going on my blog." My comments will be in {} because there are already some () in the original form.

"Goods considered as personal baggage: Goods for personal use, such as clothes --including one bride trousseau {one what? do I own this?}--, footwear and personal toiletries and beauty products, as long as they are appropriate for the duration of a trip; {who determines what is appropriate for the duration of the trip. My mom goes through chapstick like it's candy. Are you going to tell her that 3 tubes of chapstick aren't appropriate for a week long trip? yeah, I'd like to see that} as well as baby travel, hygiene and fun accessories {fun accessories? also, do you need to have the baby with you?} such as car seat, portacrib, baby carriage, baby walker, etc. {were those supposed to be the "fun" accessories?} including their accessories; {big on accessories, aren't we?} two cameras or video cameras including 12 rolls of film or videocassettes; photographic material; two cellular phones or beepers or pagers; one portable typewriter; {hahahahahaha} one electronic personal organizer; one laptop, notebook, omnibook or similar; one portable photocopier or printer; one portable recorder and one projector, {wow...I can't have two projectors for my multi-media presentation? lame.} including accessories; {oh thank God, I thought I wouldn't be able to bring accessories with me} two personal sports equipment, four fishing rods {four? you need four fishing rods?}, three surfboards or windsurfing boards {now wait a damn minute here. I can only bring one laptop, but three surfboards? how is that at ALL fair?} and their accessories, {whew} trophies or recognitions that can be normally transported by the passenger; {oh, I can transport the shit out of some trophies and recognitions} one running machine and one exercise bike; {and I'm going to strap this on my back?} one portable sound recorder or player; one digital sound player or portable CD player and one portable DVD player as well as a set of portable speakers, and their accessories; five laser disks, 10 DVDs, 30 CDs or magnetic tapes, for sound playing {so no photo CDs? how did they come up with these numbers? 10 DVD's, but 30 CDs?} three storage software and five storage devices for any electronic equipment {I guess my photo CD's go in there}; books, magazines and printed documents; {but how many? you're not going to just let me bring unlimited books are you?} five toys {five? do you know how bored I'm going to get with only five toys? and what if I want Army men? I only get five army men? you can't have any good battles with only five army men....mmmm....army men) including collection toys and one video games console, as well as five videogames; one blood pressure self-monitoring device and one blood glucose self-monitoring device or a mixed device {what about accessories? I can't bring blood glucose self-monitoring device accessories? this is crap} and their reagents {is this a fancy word for accessories?} as well as personal medicine (in the event of psychotropic substances, passenger must show prescription); {well, I would hope so} one binoculars {not a pair, just one} and one telescope; two musical instruments and their accessories {how are we counting drums? is it like just one drum? or can a bring a drum kit? and does a triangle really count as an entire instrument?} one tent and other camping articles; {well, shit, anything over my limit I'm saying is a "camping article." centrifuge? camping article.} one set of hand tools and the suitcase, which may include one drill, tweezers, wrenches, dies, screwdrivers, cables, etc. Passengers older than 18 years may transport up to 20 cigarette packets, 25 cigars or 200 grams of tobacco {/marijuana} as well as up to 3 liters of alcoholic drinks and six liters or wine."