Food, Shoes, Booze

Sometimes I think if I actually knew how to use Photoshop I would be unstoppable.

2012-01-19T14:42:00.001-08:00

Unless I was being monitored for not working at work of course.

So who is excited to watch the new B&B? I know Emily and I have been singing all day about needing six eggs and how they’re too expensive.

Fun things

2012-01-17T08:53:00.001-08:00

Dude. Lately there has been a lot of fun stuff happening. Like getting some new wheels! (okay technically that was bittersweet, RIP old car), but all the bells and whistles are fun.

Like when I figured out how to upload a photo to the dash.

Speaking of which, John and I got back together. Raise your hand if you saw this coming. We are nothing if not habitual.

Also I got a root canal. That was less fun. Actually no fun whatsoever.

But it’s always fun to make scary eyes when you’re holding a sharp knife. Crazy fun.

And to act like Frankenstein when you’re rolls are growing… THEY’RE ALIVE

Fun is having a cranberry and jalapeño salsa with cream cheese.

Dad thought it was fun. Maybe that was the mimosa talking.

Mom thought it was fun. But she’s pretty biased. She made me. I made the dip. Heretofore, she can take credit.

Fun was getting my new AARP card in the mail, twenty years early.

Forestry is fun.

As is legally getting a tree to elaborately stage a photo. As is a Canadian tuxedo.

As is skyping. As are turtle socks.

Fun is cream cheese molded into shapes.

Fun is matching sweaters. Fun is 23094830948 Arrested Development motherboy references.

timely.

Fun is Christmas sweaters. Fun is camera timer outtakes.

Fun is having Jessica Simpson/Ken paves products on your Amazon wish list. As is getting a toupee for Christmas.

Spoiler alert: my head is too small to wear my new hair piece. Bummer, right?

Speaking of amazing gifts, check out what my BFF Bowler sent to me. (she sent me the brunette one and kept the blonde, since she lives across the country). LOVE.

Fun is capturing the coveted traveling family pope bust. Fun is gingerbread house decorating.

Fun is a rascal scooter.

Fun is stopping a road trip to visit a Star Trek shrine in the middle of Iowa.

Don’t worry, in the gift shop we bought ‘Shats’, that’s a Shatner hat. It looks like a Beret, but according to him it’s from space.

Fun is a new old sewing machine, and a tutorial from an Iowa State certified home economist. Quick! Get me a project!

Fun is an unseasonably warm day strolling to get macaroons and the world’s best scones from a local bakery.

Here’s to plenty more silliness in 2012. Perhaps without all the dental work and car turmoil. But definitely with the themed food and ridiculous photos. What could be more fun?

I’ll be missing you……..

2011-11-30T14:35:00.001-08:00

It’s been an emotional day over here. I just got the news that my car was totaled and I am utterly depressed.

I all started with a stupid deer smacking into us on a Friday evening drive. For all we could tell, it just smashed the light and rumpled up the hood a bit. It also drove just fine.

Until it didn’t. Now the news is.. well.. horrible.

I am majorly majorly majorly bummed out over here. There aren’t enough times to type majorly. Majorly.
In other news, my siblings will be happy to learn that my unemotional self broke down and shed a tear for my beloved civic… meaning that on the last day of the 11th month, I finally had a 2011 cry. Clearly this proves I am more man than machine. Clearly. Even if technically it was about a machine.
Majorly.

It took me two weeks to reload the staple gun

2011-11-18T10:25:00.001-08:00

I am mighty proud of a little household project I’ve undertaken, despite the fact that I had to get on YouTube to figure out how to reload a staple gun. I know. They are going to take away my master’s degree. Anywhoo. I’ve always had a littleish bed here, in part because my place is charmingly teeny and in part because the prospect of moving a giant heavy frame is daunting (as is Gladys, but you know).

I decided to pick up a few canvases at JoAnns and staple them together. Add batting and your very favorite fabric and BAM. Insta-headboard.

It was easy, minus the gun snafoo. Guns are bad, kids.

I also decided to update an old lamp I had to match the new fun Gray thing happening over the bed. Conveniently a trip home aided in my outdoor and reclaiming needs.

A new modern shade and a little spray paint and primer at least ten feet from the house on an uber windy day.

I may or may not have waited for it to dry while doing a series of cartwheels around the yard. Does fresh grass make anybody else have the urge to time travel to when their hamstrings were totally conductive to such tomfoolery?

I also pilfered a couple of old beat up crates from my parent’s basement. These used to be in my grandparent’s garage and one even had a scruffed up mailing label to my Grandpa’s old air force base!

Last week I also picked up an anthropologie hook for my keys (marked down to $3, score!), which never seem to make it all the way to hook/shelf on the other side of the kitchen. Get in your new home, keys!

Also after three years I figured it was time to trade up my old dinosaur iphone for the latest and greatest. I even traded up for a snazzy new case. ME-OW.

I’ve also had some football fun and festive game day food with Dad.

Spent some QT in the kitchen with mom making a stuffed Acorn squash from the O! Magazine cookbook.

The recipe included:

Acorn Squash
Mushrooms
Bacon
Kale (subbed for Swiss chard)
Parsley
Breadcrumbs
Onions, Garlic, S&P, seasoning, etc.

Mom also gave me a tutorial on my new old sewing machine. I love that bad boy. I am thinking of naming her Maude.

I’ve been spending an obscene amount of time looking at the eye candy on pinterest. This one’s my favorite.

Get it? bahahahahah.

I’ve become addicted to reselling things on ebay, and purchasing resold things with my winnings. Welcome to fall, new boots.

Also I have been a maniac with solitaire (way to get a fancy phone for no reason). Over $10,000 in fake winnings. Out of control. I literally have deleted this app three times and re-downloaded it. Ruining my life.

TGIF!

They call me Doctor Love

2011-10-31T07:16:00.001-07:00

So the day of Emily’s wedding, I woke up alert and with the BEST idea ever. Did it come to me in a dream? A prophecy? That’s so Raven? Oh Snap?!

When I saw the bride I immediately said “ I know you have a lot on your mind right now, but I know what we’re doing for Halloween.” Unfortunately we couldn’t talk about it at length, what with Emily having matrimony and veil placement on her brain. More on that pretty day here.

Meanwhile three months later and a few trips to the craft store, this epic group costume came to life, behold the masters of rock:

The spaceman, demon and star child. Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesssssss!

My $6 silver leggings from ebay/korea came in the ta-da nick of time, which helped. My tiny F21 dress was easy to sew fabric strips to, except for the three hours I wasted trying to make shoulder things stand upright like the actual Ace Frehley spaceman costume. I gave up and went with epaulets.

But you wouldn’t even know from my expression. I am the very picture of happiness.

It was a fun costume. Although smiling didn’t look quite right and NOT smiling always looked so menacing.

Emily’s husband was a groupie.

She made herself a cape and a prosthetic tongue (on a stick) since her natural tongue extension would shame Gene Simmons.

It was a hysterical night. I love Halloween!

Car Talk

2011-10-28T14:44:00.001-07:00

Another major adult moment: Changing spark plugs after 108K miles. From $100 at a mechanic down to the low low price of $27 from the auto parts store and twenty minutes worth of gratuitous thanking of my engineer boss.

In related news the Honda dealership gave me a bottle of engine coolant for FREE. I have got some good car mojo happening. This coinciding with a Halloween candy sugar high = me grinning uncontrollably and skipping around like a fool. I like it.

What’s in a name?

2011-10-27T11:44:00.001-07:00

So mom and I have been on a mission lately to finally get me a sewing machine as my belated Christmas 2008 gift from Santa. That’s a story for another day. However while on Craig’s List looking to pick up a vintage Kenmore, I happened to spot a brightly colored piece of furniture that had my Pinterest heart all aflutter. Aflutter I tell you.

So one week later a teal armoire was mine. That’s right, teal. I love my apartment and continue to put my type-A tendencies to work to find creative storage solutions to a place without a proper closet. You know, like how I have socks in an ottoman next to my sofa. Anywho. Real furniture is expensive, and some assembly required furniture is pretty hit or miss in terms of style and proportion for me. So imagine my delight when this very heavy real piece of furniture was only 100 smackeroos. Smell ya later $1600 Anthropologie furniture.

The color is the best part. Because it is the exact color of the high jump that took me six years to work up the nerve to jump off, I call it public swimming pool blue.

Where did I place this gem you ask? (pay no attention to my hasty (lack of) staging of the photo)

Bam, right when you walk in the door. I relocated the singer sewing table (also acquired via Craig’s List) to live underneath the TV. The wardrobe has three or four blue shelves currently housing vases, serving dishes, my Halloween costume and scraps of fabric for other projects. The shelves are also tall enough to make a really fun Barbie house, which definitely did not go through my mind the first time my 28 year old self laid eyes on the interior. Just saying. It could have been the belated Christmas 1990 gift from Santa.

The woman I bought it from actually picked it up for free out of someone’s trash pile/yard and spent a month painting it blue and distressing it. Formerly it was brown with gold hardware. Yowza. She learned that she had to move and was more than ready to get rid of it. In turn, I was pretty eager to pick it up… figuratively, cause that mother was crushingly heavy.

Now I am not someone who names things often. Unlike, say, my sister who names anything she comes in contact with more than once. That’s a lot to manage. However this funky vintage piece in some way replaces the void left by the antique dress form that once called my apartment home. RIP Beatrice. So in keeping with the old lady moniker (those names are always the best, no?) I immediately thought of the name Gladyce. Similar, starts with GLAD. Hello who wouldn’t want to be greeted by something glad every time they walked in the door.

Except though it rolled off the tongue I had no idea how to spell it. So I googled the first spelling that came to mind.

I thought all baby names were like ‘of the laurels’ or something equally as pleasant. Not so much? Nothing wrong with being disabled, although that feels like sort of a harsh sentence to serve up to the ole girl. We are just getting to know each other. While I was trying to convince myself that perhaps being disabled would make this antique piece one degree closer to being a Kennedy, I couldn’t resist clicking on the enticing Facebook link.

Bahahahaha. I love it.

Still I felt duty bound to explore other possible names. How about the wardrobe from beauty and the beast? After all the ornate hardware could have been French in another life. Her name is Madame De Le Grande Bouche which literally translates to big mouth (she was the opera singer pre beast curse). We do a lot of singing around my place, but five words is a lot to use when casually referring to an inanimate object.

Or even from my now cancelled but beloved soaps, Opal from All My Children (full name Opal Sue Gardner Purdy Courtland). She loves tacky jewelry and doctor phil-esque folksy sayings. I would love to come home to that, but my knowledge of her marriages would have me wanting to use all her names as well.

So there I was already calling the armoire Gladys. The name stuck so I modified the spelling and I like to think that makes her a little more handi-capable.

Come over and see the pretty new blue piece of furniture!

Hoooooooooooooooome on the Range!

2011-10-21T07:25:00.000-07:00

So the other day Natalie let me come out to the ranch and ride one of the horses. Topaz and I got along just fine, I think he even enjoyed the sweet music I was making in my attempts to imitate the season premier of modern family. Oh man, I had a lot of jokes.

He responded by laughing. On the inside.

Technorati Tags: trying new things,wildlife,roy rogers songs,excuses to wear boots

I left my rubles in Russia – part chetyre

2011-10-19T15:00:00.001-07:00

So one day when pressed for time we popped in to a Sbarro Pizza place for a quick lunch. Did I mention those things were everywhere? I mean, on many a trip to the mall growing up I have eaten a deliciously greasy ginormous slice of sbarro pizza, but I can probably count on one hand the places I have seen those things at home. Not the case in Russia. Considering we spent a great deal of time in tourist traps, I saw only 2 McDonalds the whole time, but probably saw a dozen Sbarros. There were 3 in the Moscow airport and you could see all locations from one spot. Madness I tell you.

Anyway, there we were eating. We had spent plenty of time seeking out unique restaurants during our trip, but like anything where you have to eat out ten days in a row, sometimes you just pick the place next door. Inside and seated with our trays of food, we realized that the TVs above our heads were playing back-to-back-to-back Ace of Base music videos. This was just awesome. For one, I had no idea that they had more than a couple of hits, but when each new song would come along, we would happily hum along and discuss which skating rink or school dance that particular song represented to us. As we were watching the bizarre cinematography, moody 90s attire (crushed velvet, leather, army boots, mullets) of this Swedish band of yore, it occurred to me that THAT was Russia as I had come to know and love. Bowler was not as impressed with my ‘aha’ let’s-compare-the-whole-country-to-a-90s-band-generalization moment. I’m just saying, it reminded me of some of the people watching in the city in a totally not a bad thing resemblance. It was deliciously European. I loved it.

But post lunch, we had some more exploring to do from inside the Kremlin walls!

Can you spot the Sbarro still stuck in my teeth? Many more rounds of pictures happened before this was acknowledged. Points for Bowler for finally getting it off my tooth after about four minutes of me saying ‘and now did I get it?’ That’s friendship folks.

On some of the buildings in and just outside of the Kremlin (the Red Square/Kitay Gourd area), the construction was covered up by a false wall designed to look like the exterior of that building. Seriously, can you tell that the picture below has not real windows and a crane peeking out from behind. So much more scenic.

While in the Kremlin it was pretty limited with what we could see. Only so many tickets were available to the exhibits in a few buildings. If you weren’t there at the precise moment they went on sale, Nyet tickets for you. One exhibit we were able to see however was the Diamond fund, which is basically the crown jewels for the last few centuries. Holy smokes that stuff was magnificent. Also if you make jokes with the hilarious Australian ladies in your tour group and raise your voice to laugh you will be promptly scolded in Russian. Then you will get the giggles and it will be worse. Those guards are all business.

And then of course we left a little time for some shenanigans before we left Red Square.

Next stop was a traditional Ukranian restaurant. Complete with kitschy flair for us to use while dining. You know we were all over that.

We were famished by the time we sat down to eat and when bread and mystery dipping stuff was put in front of us we didn’t hesitate to dive in. The proceeding conversation was all of us guessing the ingredients of the then unidentified dip which tasted like something delicious and fatty. Was the base butter? mayo? ‘Guys, I looked it up in the guidebook, it’s lard’. We all exchanged slightly grossed out looks, and then proceeded to eat some more. Fat is tasty stuff, no surprise there.

What was a surprise was my entree. I was trying to order something intriguing with no guarantee on taste or presentation. Nailed it. Our waiter brought it long before the other dishes and accidentally gave it to Bowler first. We looked at it with intense curiosity for like five minutes before asking the waiter what the onion/jello cake was. Turns out, that was my order of ‘Herring in a fur coat’. It was a layered casserole of sorts, served cold, with the fish/potato mix on the bottom and layers of carrots, beets, and beet Technicolor sour cream on top. Truthfully, it was kind of gross. Cold fish in a non sushi type of plating was hard for me to wrap my mind around.

Also, the sickly Bowler had ordered some sort of pear beverage with the hopes it might soothe her throat. When the waiter enthusiastically recommended it after she pointed to it on the menu, he asked Rosley and I if we would like samples. He didn’t know tons of English, but he did use the word sample. What the hell, we thought. Then he brought us large steins (damn, not samples) of a root beer like concoction. Maybe it was more like non alcoholic beer. In any event, it was not a great pairing for a cold herring casserole. It’s cool though, I ordered dumplings also and then helped myself to Bowler’s lard mashed potatoes. Which were the stuff dreams and thunder thighs are made of. Holy moly was that good.

And with that meal (last supper?) our trip had come to a close and we headed back to the hotel for packing and an obscenely early wake up call for the train.

I can’t say it enough, Russia was amazing, wonderful, fascinating, superlative superlative superlative. I am grateful to my friends who made this little adventure happen. I feel so fortunate that I had the opportunity and that all the stars aligned for such a fun and enriching trip.

I also felt like it was such a fascinating time to be visiting Moscow. With communism now twenty years behind Russia, it seems like much had been developed to make the city like other major European cities (technology, global businesses, universal languages). It felt like that place would have looked so different ten years ago and will look so different ten years from now. And that my friends is the beauty of travel. These foreign destinations put their imprint of that point in time in our passport, hearts, minds, and collection of fur hats (which has gone from 0 to 1). You put your imprint, however incrementally, on the local economy and everybody is better off for it. Let’s go abroad again soon, da?

***********

And now, for your moment of zen: Rosley at the crack of dawn in Moscow with too-long pants that were tight rolled, her luggage backpack, duffle full of clinky vodka bottles and some industrial strength tobacco packed Russian cigarettes. A sight to behold.

bahahah.

Dasveedanya!

What is this, Russia? – part tri

2011-10-17T06:26:00.000-07:00

So where were we? Oh yes. We had been having an amazing week in Moscow. We had walked all over the place (I even wore out a pair of flats while over there), seen some touristy stuff and ate a whole bunch of food of varying levels of eye-brow raising texture and flavor.

But enough of the city life. We longed for the fresh air of the country! For the rural Russia where subway systems and Japanese food were not so readily accessible. Where we could hum ‘green acres’ and try to replace the words to something applicably Russian via our phrasebooks. To Sergiyev Posad we went!

This town lies along Russia’s‘golden ring’ which is made up of ancient villages between Moscow and St. Petersburg. We took the train out of the city, without a map of the train system (it was by the grace of God that we finally found the right train to get on, and the train station itself for that matter). We asked people around us, the best that we could, if we were in the right place. When they made a stop and announced Sergiyev Posad (in Russian of course) we had mistakenly assumed we had arrived (not true, it was up next). Getting off on the wrong stop was tricky because of course we had no phones, spoke no Russian and the further from the city we were lessened the chances we could find English speaking help if we needed it. Also some of those rural stops were dirt tracks into a town (you hope?). In short, it was an adventure. So as we attempted to get off on the wrong stop, the Babushka (older lady) a step ahead of us literally shoved us back on the train as it started to move. We frantically repeated the name of the town (at that point the only thing we knew to say), and she pointed in the direction the train was moving. And with that act of language barrier kindness we made it safe and sound to our destination. God bless that woman wherever she is.

We actually had a few of people help us like that over the week. A couple of times when we looked utterly lost and unabashedly tourist-like as we held up a colorful map of the city streets, someone would come up to us and point to the map then point to the street sign in whatever direction we were trying to locate. All the while this good Samaritan would be unsmiling and looking like they could be cast in an Al Pacino movie where the character is incapable of being happy, wears a lot of leather and has a propensity for violence. And yet, there they were helping us. File that under not judging a book by its cover, sub-file cultural differences.

So once in Sergiyev Posad, we were wandering the streets from the train station and just generally walking towards the highest church dome we could see, we came across this beautiful sight:

and promptly inserted ourselves in the view:

Does it now somehow remind you of Florence Italy? It did me, and made me hope to not wait another ten years to jump across the pond. As we got closer we found vendors aplenty:

This village is actually the origin of the Matryoshka doll, there were tons from which to choose. Even ones with Putin’s face if you were so inclined.

This village also is home to the Trinity Lavra, home of the Russian Orthodox Church and their most celebrated Monastery. We weren’t allowed to take photos if they would include the Russian Orthodox monks (which as far as I could tell dressed similar to Greek Orthodox ones). Ladies also required head coverings. Good thing it was chilly enough that day for all of us to be sporting scarves anyway.

Look at the tile work Dad! The inside of these buildings were exquisite and my ho-hum pictures couldn’t capture there glimmering artwork and history in a million years. You’ll just have to take my word for it. It was like being transported back in time, and the detail work was breath taking. Within the cathedral you could light a prayer candle, so there burned one that day in honor of my Grandmas!

We ventured out into the town for a little bit of the local fare.

Which as usual included dumplings. Man oh man do those Eastern Europeans love their dumplings. As always it was served with a glob (which is like five dollops) of sour cream and lots of fresh dill. I also had a Bliney which is somewhere between a crepe and a pancake. No matter how you slice it (is thickness the difference?) it is good with Butter. Am I right?

Then it was back to the train station to begin the very confusing process of trying to decode the train schedule. Eventually we asked enough people and jumped on a train that seemed likely. The exhale we shared after the train started moving towards Moscow was loud. Mission accomplished.

Also getting a mink hat? That mission was accomplished too!

Back next with part chetyre (4) the final installation of my Russian chronicles.

Dasveedanya my druz’ya!

That time I went to Russia – part dva

2011-10-14T12:43:00.000-07:00

So there I was in Moscow with three of my pals. We went for a week in September and it was amazing.

The visit was full of beautiful old churches, less beautiful soviet cinderblock buildings, old USSR propaganda (murals, statues, etc), delicious vodka, unsmiling people but secretly nice people, leather jackets, weird food, medieval villages, boatloads of seafood, fur hats, really confusing signs, and tons of fun. The weather was high fifties, which felt refreshingly fall-like (you have to be a little cold in Russia, right?). Though it rained every day which further contributed to the overall gray like feeling of the city. It made it even more fun to see the colorful painted onion domes of the churches dot the skyline. We packed the days in and got to see a little bit of everything: touristy stuff, ballet, bars. Few people with whom we interacted (waiters, etc.) spoke much English, which I found surprising. But I said ‘Spasiba’ (thank you), they always replied ‘Pashalsta (please/you’re welcome) and by the end I got pretty good at charades.

I feel like it is good for the soul to drop in on a different culture and be a minority for once. It makes me appreciate how easy things are for me in my cushy American life.

But more about the trip you say? Onward!

They don’t make ‘em like they used to, am I right?

So one of the few places were we spent the time and rubles to delve deeper into the history was the iconic St. Basil’s Cathedral (behind us in the big photo). It is made up of ten tiny cathedrals that could probably only hold a few people at one time.

The audio guide probably said iconostasis 700 times. If only I had a shot of vodka every time I heard that… I’m just saying it would have been the full Russian experience.

Hey Dad, look at the tile work!

Caution: wildly inappropriate behavior (this isn’t an active church anymore so its only mildly sacrilegious)

Planking..

Owling is the new planking… so we hear.

Our best Russian unsmiling faces (we were assimilating).

----------------------------------------------> look it is of the world famous Bolshoi Theater (ballet)!

But it wasn’t all tourist photos, we had some crazy food. To be fair, Moscow in many ways was the same as any other major European city. There were sushi restaurants, Italian restaurants, you name it. However I usually tried to order something unfamiliar and even questionable in some cases. Below was at a sidewalk cafe (a Russian chain from what I could tell), I had a salad with salmon (so much fresh fish everywhere there!!) and caviar with a strong mustard dressing. Included with the salad was a pancake rolled up with mashed potatoes, gravy, tuna and peas. Lots of comfort food, it was pretty good! Though predictably the flavors were all over the place, so those with weak stomachs need not apply.

Speaking of weak stomachs, my BFF Bowler got a sinus infection while we were out there. Sad times. Actually Rosley got sick too (the airplane? the greasy food on the go? the rain? who knows) but was able to hold off the full nasal discomfort until our very last day. Meanwhile Bowler had to sit out some of the trips around the city in favor of sleep and trying to explain to the ladies at the pharmacy around the corner that she needed a coughing, stuffy head, night time medication. Now THAT is knowing your charades.

Meanwhile we made a trip to the ballet. The Bolshoi is under construction and the top tier ballets were still pretty out of our price range. We went to a ballet of Hamlet, of all things. Though most of the performance was without dialogue (and hello the program was not in English), occasionally there would be moments where the characters or narrator or God (or someone with a booming voice?) would say things to move the dialogue along. It had been ages since I have studied Shakespeare, and was really missing my iphone for just such last minute story-line researching. However once we realized that Hamlet is the same story line as the Lion King, eeeeeeeeeeeeeeverything made so much more sense. We were all in that age window where we weren’t quite old enough when the movie came out to make the mental leap to Shakespeare. Clever Disney, clever.

Also, in one of our daily romps (and before the sick got too sick), we did a little daytime Russian booze sampling. It was fun!

Inevitably it led to more Elk reenactments for those who weren’t in that dirty Chicago alley last March.

And also a trip to a Hookah Bar (no worries, we just had pineapple smoke/water)

We DID go out big one other night. Ros and Ian had made friends with a bartender and we followed him to this basement club. Seriously it looked just like the bar from Inglorious Bastards, pre violent murders.

This bartender was a former diplomat’s son and spoke fluent English, also he treated us to a tower of booze and flames. Oh boy. The place had a DJ and we were trying to request songs via napkin… which was infinitely more successful than trying to shout in ears above the music in another language. Also though no one besides our bartender friend knew much English, those 90s songs would come on (Bon Jovi, Michael Jackson) and the whole place would sing each one word for word. It’s so funny how western influences are everywhere. There would be people sitting next to you on the subway with t-shirts, purses, etc with English writing. Like the middle aged guy next to me once who was wearing jeans that said ‘surfer dude’… pretty sure he’s not a surfer dude. I wondered the whole ride if he knew or cared what his tag said. It was so interesting. Even in this bar there were random US license plates dotting the walls. South Dakota? You don’t say.

One day we went to a big marketplace on the outskirts of town.

We got to stop in a traditional Russian restaurant and even had some Borsht. MMMMmmmm Beets.

Truthfully most of the places we went had menus printed in both Russian and in English. Although sometimes the English pricing was a bit higher (blarg!) it was almost worth it to have some idea what the heck you were getting. However one place we went, a wine bar, had ipads for us to use when ordering that could easily be switched in and out of languages. Technology win! At that place we had a paella platter (technically Spanish), but the next day it was right back to Eastern Euro cuisine with some goulash. Yours is still better mom :)

Did I mention that the fish was aplenty? Not only were there sushi places everywhere, but it was good and fresh stuff. Sometimes it pains me living so far from a coast. But my do I enjoy it when I can!

And that concludes the first few days of my Russian adventure. Part Tri is coming right up and includes our excursion to the countryside and pictures from within the Kremlin walls. Stay tuned!

From Russia with Love – part adeen

2011-10-13T10:13:00.001-07:00

Technically I’m not in Russia anymore. Also technically it has been like three weeks since I’ve been back home. Nevertheless (is that a word or just three words shmushed together? also is shmushed a word?) I have exciting photos to share and stories to regale you with. With which to regale you. Rats. Apparently dabbling in a foreign language for eight days has impeded my ability to communicate in Engliski. Sorry about that.

Without further ado….. my trip.

So I have this friend, let’s call her Rosley. Also that’s her name. She has been obsessed with Russia since college and all seemed pretty random to us at the time. I will never forget finding the ‘Russian for Dummies’ book in her back seat on our way to a float trip. I might as well have found a severed head. Who would have guessed I would accompany her (along with two other college friends) to Moscow a few years later. Thanks to a too-good-to-pass-up deal on airfare and hotels, it seemed like if I wanted to experience eastern Europe in my twenties (or at all?) now was the time to GO! Not that I needed any convincing. It had been ages since I’d been somewhere beyond the continental 48 and a mysterious far-off place with fur hats and kooky food made my heart skip a beat.

So I have been excitedly planning for this for the past year, but much remained up in the air until the weeks before the trip when my renewed passport came in the mail, and I received my VISA from Russia (you have to have permission to visit, serious stuff). So though I may have mentioned it in passing, I was afraid that fixating on it too too much would jinx the whole thing. Hence the seemingly out of the blue postcard some loved ones received from me with some babushkas.

In other preparation for my trip, I purchased a couple of guidebooks from the used bookstore and then checked out all five Moscow travel books from the KC library. But only one of them would continue in the hopes of becoming the one that made my suitcase. But who stays and who goes? Congratulations, Lonely Planet was the lightest and the most fun to read. Also it had the most pictures. It turns out that 3 of the 4 of us brought that book (one person via iphone app). Great minds think alike? or perhaps we all just choose books like first graders.

So we flew into DC the evening before we were scheduled to depart for Moscow. We had my wonderful amazing heck-ova-guy brother be our shuttle and hotel for the evening. I was especially grateful for his support when he had to wait for us outside the airport for three hours. They lost our luggage. Not even kidding, the trip had barely begun and what with Russia being about 20 degrees colder than in the states at that time, going with the summer clothes on our back wasn’t going to get us very far. After a few stressful thoughts of wearing only ‘i bought this shirt in the Washington DC airport’ in my photos from the Kremlin, all was located and right with the world. WHEW.

Fast forward to the down time in waiting to fly out of DC and what is it that we should find?

The greatest thing since sliced bread, that’s what. Bowler had known that her wedding (blogged about here and also featured in glamour’s blog here) was going to be in the fall/winter issue of Bridal Guide Magazine, but didn’t know much more beyond that. When we spotted it at an airport newsstand we eagerly (understatement of the year?) flipped the pages looking for some small photo or mention. HOLY SMOKES THERE IS A FOUR PAGE SPREAD. I’m not even kidding you, when we found it we started screaming and jumping up and down. Making a scene in the airport probably could have compromised our whole trip (I hear they don’t want a lot of funny business or unattended luggage), but make a scene we did. Worth it. So exciting! Plus as MOH I’m in there too, which makes ‘published model’ amongst my many exaggerated accomplishments to date.

Ten hours and three showings of in-flight movie ‘Kung Fu Panda’ later, we arrived in Moscow. All kinds of sleepy and excited we headed via tram into the city center from the airport.

We spent most of the day wandering around and getting the lay of the land close to our hotel. Though a trip to St. Petersburg would have been the bomb dot com (sidebar how old is too old to use that kind of slang.. or call it slang).. it was an overnight train ride away and with only a week in Moscow we wanted to pack in all the good stuff we could get. Staying at the same hotel the whole week was convenient too and accommodated those of us who neurotically over packed.

Another lesson from Moscow is to not judge a book by its cover. One of the things I was most eager to see was the beautiful medieval architecture. However other than the capital and the churches, a lot of the ornate Romanov era buildings were replaced by simple soviet cinder block style buildings. Our hotel wasn’t much to write home about from the outside (ironic that I am literally writing home about it now?) …

However inside everything was updated, clean and modern. I would have stayed in a hostel over here to make this trip work if I had to, however having the comforts of home in this American hotel was pretty nice. Minus the time I came back to the room to take a picture for you and there was someone in the window. Alarming. Can you see our little window washing friend’s shadow?

So while there we never did get on a regular sleep schedule. I was certain that my body would be up to its old tricks of waking at the crack of dawn. Also because we were never with a tour group or had a set schedule, it was just the four of us out exploring, we didn’t exactly force ourselves to wake early. Sleeping in late and doing whatever the heck we wanted was just one of the perks of this vacation.

Because we are so smart, and also because I am hungry like 23 hours a day, we visited the local grocery store to keep some snacks in our room. No photos allowed, rats. It was the size you would expect for being in the heart of the city, and a lot of things were labeled in both Russian/Cyrillic and English. Hazzah!

One of the treasures of this trip though, was inspired by this blog, where this girl lives abroad and eats a bunch of chips. What could be better?

The bacon flavored chips (left), tasted like smokey goodness. Similar to BBQ chips but with a slightly different after taste. Not bad. The Caviar chips (right) were a different story. The bastard child of a potato and a sea thing, they smelled like the fishiest fish, and the powdery on-chip flavoring managed to replicate that smell amazingly well. A cautionary tale for their other Euro friends to not take fish and chips too literally. Scrunched up face aside, it was fun to try the varieties the rest of the world apparently finds appetizing.

Speaking of food, our other favorite little spot was this popular chain of street vendors that we affectionately called crapdog. Except that it translates to starboy (or something to that effect). Ugly Americans. I know. They stuck the condiments into a hollowed out bun (good baguette bread) and then shoved the hot dog in from the top. Will wonders never cease.

Guess what else we got to see? The Kremlin. Directly behind me there is St. Basil’s cathedral. To my right (well, stage right anyway) is one of the big red wall of the Kremlin (mini capital city, previously I thought it was a building or two, but it’s almost more like the Vatican)… and just out frame is Lenin’s tomb where his actual mummified body that looks like a Madame Toussad’s wax doll is on display. Um, yeah, we opted out of that one.

So that is about all the photos that the ‘ole blog can handle for one day. Back later for part dvah (which means 2, adeen means 1) on our visit to the countryside, ballet, night life, and pictures from within the Kremlin walls.

Dasveedanya!

Technorati Tags: Russia,travel,shut your mouth that's awesome

Quotables

2011-09-23T13:09:00.001-07:00

"...if you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely." -Roald Dahl

Isn’t that the most wonderful thing you’ve ever heard? My new favorite quote.

Sidebar I will be back next week with pictures from my amazing romp around eastern Europe.

Das Vee Danya! (goodbye)

People standing, scrapbook paper and tofu

2011-09-08T10:33:00.001-07:00

If you were stuck on a deserted island… just kidding. These aren’t things I would choose to surround myself with necessarily, however they did make up the better part of my late summer. Mild exercise by way of posing for pictures (and always forgetting to turn in partially sideways and suck in.. Miss Universe style), a boat load of parties and some experimental food I made my sister try.

My buddy Anthony turned thirty and I was on the party planning committee. Several hours at JoAnna’s fabric later I emerged with the makings for an India/Weiner Dog/plant party. Hey, he is a master of many things.

Did you notice how I misspelled Birthday when I was stringing up the paper-on-paper-on-ribbon cards? The party was in full swing for a solid hour before a third-grade-teacher friend of ours spotted the transposing. Oops.

30 is smart.

I wore a skirt that was too small because I got it for $9. After its hip clinging debut it got exiled to Alisa’s closet. I pretended I was a size 2. Hips don’t lie.

Alisa came to visit on a school night (scandalous!) so we could watch the Anastasia movie I had netflixed. I needed my Russia research okay? That is a very factually accurate story.

I made her tofu stuffed shells. Did that just blow your mind? They were pretty good. I lifted the idea from Eat Live Run.

Tofu Shells:

Shells
Spaghetti Sauce
Spinach
Tofu
EVOO
Nutritional Yeast
Italian Seasoning
Garlic

We also made hummus but subbed cannellini beans and added goat cheese. Like crack. I assume. I’ve never actually had crack but I think it’s safe to say it’s like a really good appetizer with lots of garlic.

My pal Jessica also had a birthday and it was a perfect excuse to wear a party dress.

Meanwhile another pal was in the process of LEAVING TO LIVE IN ENGLAND! How cool is that? She is at a boarding school that is hundreds of years old and wears blazers with patches and says things like ‘Brilliant!’ We had to commemorate her leaving for such a worthy cause.

Miss you already my friend!

Then I saw the flaming lips in concert and got to run all around in front of and behind stage thanks to a connected HS friend I have. This show is a hoot. It’s like a cross between a rock concert and a little kid’s birthday party (confetti, balloons, costumes, streamers, sing-alongs)

And I went to a wedding where goofiness was had. Times ten.

have you ever noticed how goofiness and flattering photos are always at odds? me too. worth it. See you in a few weeks with an update on my trip across the pond/world.

woohoo!

Move over Kevin Bacon

2011-08-16T07:58:00.001-07:00

So I have this friend named Kelly. She knows everyone. We seriously can’t go anywhere without her having worked with/dated a cousin of/went to high school with/lived next to in college with/got her hair cut by someone at the table next to us. Somehow she has a story that randomly relates back to everyone. She denies it completely but the rest of us find ourselves in wonderment of it often.

Also it was her birthday the other day, which OBVIOUSLY means we threw her a semi surprise party. She knew we were all getting together, but little did she know Milton and Bradley were on the case (what Emily and I ceremoniously dubbed ourselves after the surprise birthday Kentucky bash in February).

So we did it after work yesterday, except Kelly was the first to get off work, so we banished her to the bed. It’s okay, Blind Boone over there had Natalie to keep her entertained.

Meanwhile the rest of us went streamer and sticker crazy. We also had giant ‘K’ signs that we would wave and what innocently began as a chant, always somehow ended in KKK jokes. Inappropriate.

Don’t worry, Amy did get that cork out… but she lost a few lady points. Probably some teeth too. (not a staged photo)

In addition to snacks like almonds and salsa, Natalie brought the most glorious Salad.

Natalie’s Hoagland Ranch Salad Extraordinaire:

Steak (homegrown, her ranch!)
Romaine (homegrown?)
Mozzarella
Tomatoes (homegrown)
Basil (homegrown)
Balsamic and EVOO

Amy brought Gluten Free cupcakes for the birthday girl. They were also vegan (say whaaaa?) they were very dense, like pound cake. Two thumbs up.

And finally, the piece de resistance. The six degrees of Kelly Hoots game, where over the course of 3+ bottles of wine, we made her connect the dots between random individuals (found friend stalking her FB page), and miscellaneous things like ‘tacos’, ‘boobs’, ‘barfing’, and schools and places we frequent. A hilarious game that kept getting sidetracked to stories and name calling. It was a hoot. Pun intended.

What a way to kick off the week! Happy Birthday amigo!

It’s hip to be square

2011-08-02T09:48:00.001-07:00

Especially when you are cut into squares (okay technically this food is rectangle but the jury’s is still out on that shape’s coolness). That’s cornbread tofu casserole. It’s future’s so bright, it’s got to wear shades. That and Emily+ Lauren + bottle of wine + clearing off the table + clumsiness = food accessories.

Here she is being seduced by the casserole. It’s just so cool. Who can resist? (the people in this photo are real people depicting real events, minimal staging and acting was required).

So I got this recipe from healthy tipping point and have been wanting to try it for ages. Last week’s unadventurous houseguest Bowler put the kibosh on my plans to make it. Never fear, I tortured Emily and convinced her to try it. Not pictured: water boarding, arm twisting, and promises to look at all 4,000 photographer proofs from her wedding.

Pumped up Corn Casserole:

Tofu
Cornbread Mix
Sour Cream
Creamed Corn
Regular Corn
Broccoli

I really really liked this. I love casseroles in general. Easy, one pan, makes for great leftovers, total comfort food. Except nearly all casseroles are super unhealthy. Lo and behold this fair recipe. It disguises the mushy tofu texture, but is heavy on taste and protein. I was smitten.

Next time I’ll cut the pan to half the size so it doesn’t look all small and flat. I like my casseroles like I like my men, fluffy and 9x9. That makes no sense. I know.

Emily of course had total confidence in this recipe and my abilities. The fact that she brought back up food should in no way reflect her nervousness at tofu casserole. Her cantaloupe prosciutto bites were inhaled by me in record speed. Salty plus sweet. That in no way reflected my confidence at the still-baking tofu casserole. Much.

She also brought goat cheese bruschetta. I love that her new place has fresh basil growing everywhere. Round of applause for Emily being only two weeks into wifedom and already achieving domestic goddessness.

Goddessness should totally be a word. Aren’t you jealous you weren’t there to have tofu casserole? (sidebar: this went wonderfully the next day with tomato soup) Or at the very least wouldn’t you want to see your food wearing accessories? Or to hear Emily and I sing it’s hip to be square? I know. We’re pretty hip too. Obviously.

U!S!A!

2011-07-29T14:31:00.001-07:00

Guess who is ready for this weekend's America themed float trip?

Not pictured: my cut off shorts, camo beer coozie, and tiny tee I found on ebay that has an eagle holding a flag --- wait for it -- all bedazzled.
I love summer.

Fruit in unexpected places

2011-07-27T10:30:00.001-07:00

We are like way overdue for a food post around here. Since I have been hosting my college roomie while she’s in town, I thought it might be nice to make a departure from the on-the-go less than healthy options we’ve had lately. Serendipitously, this month’s SELF magazine had several lovely fruit-in-regular-food recipes from which to choose. Seriously: cherry chili, curried plum stir fry, the list goes on. This particular one struck my fancy (i.e. was the easiest).

Fish Tacos with Strawberry Salsa (from SELF Magazine).

Cod (oven cooked)
Tortillas
Cabbage
Strawberries
Chives
Lemon & seasoning
Jalapeños (I used poblanos because I’m a wimp, but totally should have gone for the bigger kick)
Dashes of sour cream. Raise your hand if you’re addicted to dairy.

It was good food and made good times with two of my favorite gals (hi Bowler and crazy Amy) joining.

Sidebar: how awesome is it that strawberries are like a dollar a pint right now?

Snitches be Crazy

2011-07-20T08:52:00.000-07:00

Avert your eyes if you’re sensitive to over the top nerdiness, because this entire post is nothing but shameless fanaticism devoted to the series that has captured our hearts and ABC family weekend programming for the past decade. You know, the children’s series? Also creep alert, am I the only one who thought Harry and Neville were kind of hot in this movie? I know. Chris Hanson. Take a seat right there.

So we had a small party six months or so ago for the second-to-last movie (HP Deathly Hallows 7.1). Amy made pumpkin pasties and butterbeer and it was so much fun I knew we could do that… and more.. for this the very final installment.

Also the planets were aligning for all of my favorite people, who also had fun with these books, to be in the same place at the same time. Bowler lives in San Francisco but was coming back for a reunion, Stokes is moving to London in two weeks, Amy and Chris are moving somewhere far far away once he finishes his PHD in a few months, and Alisa is a temporary college resident who works 23098430928408 jobs and is planning to move to Madison the first chance she gets. YOU SEE? You see how crazy it was that we were all together in Columbia MO at midnight on a Thursday (hello, a school night).

In short, the party was hilarious. The movie was pretty great too.

But let’s back up. When Bowler and I lived together in college we would spend days brainstorming ridiculous ideas for hot gluing things to our ceiling, or using a staple gun and safety pins to make a toga. We were crafty. We cracked ourselves up.

It warmed my little heart when Alisa tackled her first few college theme parties with the same creativity. Also Bowler’s mad deco paging skills got her wedding into Glamour. Oh HAAAAY.

OBVIOUSLY I took the day off work after picking her up from the airport and then we spent five hours at Jo Ann’s fabric getting craft supplies.

Making magic. If only we had spells for this kind of thing. We definitely wouldn’t have melted the Styrofoam. Speaking of which…. I now know that you can’t spray paint Styrofoam. Apparently this is common knowledge? Fail. The golden snitches look like eroded moon rocks.

We brought snacks too. Sterzings (heart! Thanks for sending them aunt Anne!), Treacle Fudge, Bertie Botts Every Flavor beans.

Amy, the most domestic of us all, produced butterbeer cupcakes. YUM. Not pictured is the butterbeer itself (part butterscotch schnapps and part cream soda), and the flasks we labeled ‘polyjuice potion’ that were filled with cinnamon whiskey. If you’re wondering if we took them into the movie theater. The answer is spilled in the bottom of Bowler’s purse.

My darling sister made fun cups for everyone’s butterbeer and pipe cleaner glasses for us.

We brought along an invisibility cloak. It’s a shame you can’t see Bowler and Stokes in this picture. They’re there, I promise.

Of course Bowler made tiny broomsticks and the makings for wands too (feathers, dragon heartstrings, pipe cleaners, etc.)

Remember how scary it was in HP DH 7.1 when the snake came out of the old lady? The following is a dramatization of that event.

Of course when you’ve got wands and butterbeer flowing, sh** starts getting real. DUELING.

REAL ACTION SHOT:

This one was totally inspired by the office, which I’m sure was inspired by a real action movie. You could cut this tension with ~~a knife~~ the sword of Gryffendor.

Another duel, Bowler is fleeing the scene of the crime by tiny broom.

Casting spells is totally the most effective way to solve a domestic dispute.

So after a most hilarious party in which we actually were SUPER excited for the movie, we eventually made our way to the theater for the midnight showing. Man. Midnight showings are great. Why don’t I do this more often? The crowd is cheering and laughing and amped up. And when you go with your buddies, it makes everything ten times funnier.

Wait a minute, is that the sword if ~~Gilbert Godfrey~~ Godrick Gryffendor?

This was my favorite of all 8 films. I laughed, I got choked up (others were bawling like babies), I hurled. And that’s not just the polyjuice potion talking.

Technorati Tags: make love not horcruxes,costumes,ridiculous

Champagne Wishes and Caspian Dreams

2011-07-13T14:45:00.001-07:00

So this weekend months of planning, years of giggling, and a lifetime of dreaming about Emily’s big day came together for one of the loveliest weddings I’ve attended. She and John were all smiles and their excitement and love for the day, each other, and everyone there filled the room. She was radiant. And someone else didn’t look too shabby in an up-do…

BAM. Guess who is a bridesmaid. That’s right, #3 in your programs, #1 in your hearts! Caspian blue taffeta and peacock hair accessories are my jam. Also pay no mind to the barefoot bridesmaid over yonder, she’ll just be doing 10,000,000 Hail Mary’s to make up for it and enduring some dirty looks from the other ‘maids and all grandmas in attendance.

The wedding was at this unbelievably beautiful and ornate church, and the reception was in this posh ballroom and overlooked the KC performing arts center. Or maybe it was the Sydney Opera House. I guess you’ll never know.

They toasted with my aunt Sheila’s pretty painted wine glasses. Get that woman on Etsy!

There was busting a move….

I guess mom learned a little something in Zumba too.

There was lots of dancing.

Lots of sweating. (sweet mother of God it was triple digits that day).

A little bit of planking.

A few photo ops (my Dad is crazy about Emily).

And lots and LOTS of hilarious moments with friends.

Congrats to the prettiest bride and happiest couple ever. Now hurry up and get back from your honeymoon so we can recap and plan your next open bar party.

On Wisconsin

2011-07-13T14:18:00.001-07:00

So I come from many fun food-loving ladies. A long line of them actually. And I’m not just talking about the line for the buffet (pause for laughter).

Anyway once a summer we all get together. How many of us were there? Let’s put it in math terms. my mom + 7 sisters + 2 great aunts (no.. greatest) + 3 nieces + (3 bags of sterzings/chip hoarding by those opening the bags)….. Carry the 2, approximate the number of dudes that came around (easy.. I’m referring to the ones we’re related to) = roughly 15 people. Not too shabby.

In was was undoubtedly our healthiest year ever, the weekend kicked off with a salad bar.

Steak and blue cheese salad:

BLT Salad

Asian shrimp salad

It was glorious. That afternoon included a rowdy zumba class. I would recommend this if you ever want to have your mom intrusively ask where you learned to move your hips like that, despite the fact you are a grown up and learned these things like, a hundred spring breaks ago. We all tried our best to keep up and sweated a BOAT LOAD. It felt nice after being stuck in a car for 5 hours that morning. Plus I’ve got some great aunts with some serious moves.

That evening Teresa, my saint of an Aunt, had a banquet held in her honor. It was a lovely ceremony, everyone was dressed up, no one caught a napkin on fire accidentally at their table. In case you were asking. It wasn’t me anyway. Okay it was me. Don’t worry I put it out NOT with my wine glass. Eh? Eh? who has a master’s degree? This girl.

The next morning we drove up to Madison which I can only describe as the most charming little big city I’ve ever visited. Oodles and oodles of charm. Fistfuls. Boat loads. Insert additional miscellaneous units of measure. My Aunt Trish’s mother in law Joan hosted us for a lovely lunch (book club) featuring the local fare. Cheese. Obviously. Also there were these pasties (not that kind, I know, my mind went there too), which apparently are Welch for hot pocket. The crust was amazingly deliciously flaky and the insides were pretty yummy too. Apparently the miners used to take them to eat for lunch, and they would stay warm and could be eaten with one hand. That’s my kind of meal.

Also this included these yummy saffron raisin rolls.

Later on there was a specific family treat…………. YUM

The next morning, bright and early, we visited Monona Terrace to be in the studio audience for NPR’s Saturday morning live trivia show. Guess what? Mom got up there and won it. Hooray for our new board game and pink flamingos prize.

Before we left we enjoyed a fabulous meal on a restaurant on the square across from the capital. Part of the slow food movement, this place rocked. Every plate was amazing and you’d better bet that we shared.

Here is Anne’s country fried steak putting my school cafeteria’s to shame. What, it’s the only other place I’ve had it.

Lox and Bagel, predictably awesome.

Eggs Benedict- one with steak and one with vegetables. Those rosemary potatoes are the stuff dreams are made of.

Alisa got this dessert parading as breakfast. Orange zesty and buttermilky. Yum.

On the way out of Madison we stopped at Dodgeville and Mineral Point. We lived in Wisconsin while I was born and within a few months of my arrival moved to Missouri where I have more or less retained residence ever since. I have been so wanting to go back, especially when MSN declared MP one of the most charming places in the country. IN THE COUNTRY. Exciting, no? I pretty much told everyone I met on the street. About me being born there that is, they already knew about the town.

So here I am in front of the hospital where I was born. Pay no mind to the fact they probably tore it down and rebuilt it five years ago. That’s the entrance! The Main One! (yes the most photographic shot to be had with me in it too).

Look it’s the entrance to the town! It’s where Wisconsin Began! It’s where Lauren began! It’s where those pants began to get really dirty.

This is mom outside of the tiny apartment where we lived when we first moved to town. She would climb her pregnant self up those narrow stairs.

This is the house where we lived when they took me home from the hospital. Don’t worry, I’m sure the people that lived there were only mostly creeped out by us.

And finally on the way home the sister and I had a rowdy time in Iowa City with our Bar Manager cousin who you should never go drink for drink with ever. ever. Unless you want to ruin your pretty white J crew pants.

Best sister’s weekend yet!

Father’s Day comes but once a year

2011-06-17T14:14:00.001-07:00

My dad…

is the best!

Thanks for 28 years of great dad-ness.

Florida Vacay

2011-06-10T07:15:00.001-07:00

Please excuse my inexperience with Shutterfly as these are borrowed pictures. My BFF and neighbor Emily had a SURPRISE bachelorette party in Florida.

She is marrying into a pretty sweet lake house in Boca Raton. Her sisters-in-law to be were whisking her there for the weekend, that much she knew. What she did not know is that the rest of her bridesmaids would be waiting for her at the baggage claim bar, ready to scare the beJesus out of her as she is officially welcomed to her bachelorette weekend. She was screaming her head off, we were laughing hysterically, it was wonderful.

The rest of the weekend consisted of beach time, pool time, boat time, gratuitous boozing time (hey, it's a party), applying aloe to my sunburned leg time and most of all good times. Our last night in town we went to a low key bar and managed to have a hilarious dance party when we returned to the house. The dance party devolved into a 'do your old cheer/dance routine' party. This was where I showed them the glory that is the MHS fight song. Except that I was wearing a maxi dress, the limited circumference of which turned my high kick into an epic fall.

The best part was that Emily was beyond happy! The other 'maids are a total blast and I can't wait to relive some of the fun next month at the wedding! This past weekend was just perfect!

Click here to view these pictures larger

*There is this ridiculous fad on the internet called planking that made the news because kids were getting hurt, ironically, by laying face down on random objects (they were doing it on dangerous things like bridges and tops of buildings.. not chairs and bars). Obviously we wouldn't pass up the opportunity to participate in such a pointless game just for the jokes.

tubular boobular

2011-06-06T20:09:00.001-07:00

What could be better than a beautiful sunny day celebrating the end to a long (physical and emotional) battle for health? Here's to throwing out the prosthetic, buying sassy new bras, and many more wonderful years of Mom in our lives. Cheers to a beautiful new chapter!

Xoxo

Birthday Girl

2011-06-02T05:56:00.000-07:00

How adorable is she here? Even though my sister turns 20 today, I secretly will always think of her as about seven years old. Though she's just as cute, and just as likely to wear Jellies.

The Rapture necessitates dessert

2011-05-21T20:56:00.001-07:00

What better way to ring in the end of the world than with s'mores, wine, our lists of excuses for Jesus and my BF JT on SNL. To clarify, we used the microwave (no accidentally offensive burn marks from the broiler), and did not use any of the hell fires from the rumored impending apocalypse to melt the marshmallows.

Dessert Deception

2011-05-20T07:17:00.001-07:00

Much like Lane Kim, I have a natural knack for subterfuge. Okay not really, I am a terrible liar. However I did sneak tofu into pudding and fooled at least one person. Victory is mine!

I made ELR Jenna’s recipe, the one I totally meant to do over Thanksgiving (clearly, I am on top of my to-do list).

~~Vegan~~ Chocolate Tofu Pudding:

Bag of Chocolate Chips
Chocolate milk (this could be chocolate soymilk, but since I only wanted 1/2 cup I opted to spent $3 less for the cow’s milk kid size version)
Silken Tofu
vanilla extract

Melt chocolate in double boiler, add other ingredients, whirl in the blender to smooth, refrigerate for at least an hour, do your best evil villain laugh in your head as you present it to others.

like this:

The occasion was Emily’s sweatshop to assemble her wedding invitations. I purposely blurred the picture as not to give away what the invitations look like. That or my hands shake and I was using my iphone. One or the other.

I’ll admit, even I was skeptical of the pudding. Turns out, it was delicious. Natalie and her husband are ranchers, they have high non-tofu standards when it comes to food. The verdict? I’m making this again. Healthy and delicious. Can I get an Amen?

Natalie’s dinner was unbelievable. We had Steak Asparagus Chimichurri Salad. What the heck is chimichurri sauce? That’s what I said. She found it on a blog via the Pioneer Women. Also Natalie has a blog for her ranch: Natalieheartshorsesandstuff. That’s not its name, but it should be. Also Brittanie has a blog too. High five for tech savvy ladies. (not you Emily, go sit in the corner).

This was awesome.

That salad was good too. Looking and tasting. You’ll have to take my word for it on both accounts.

200+ invitations ready. Check!

The time I went to Hogwarts

2011-05-18T15:38:00.001-07:00

Like most people who have ever been within two feet of a Harry Potter book, I am a total nerd about it. There was the time when Alisa and I tried (failed) to knit Hogwarts scarves for the 6th movie premier in November (yeah, we can’t knit at all). By God we still had a party. Or that when one of the books come out I read all 800-1200 pages in 19 hours? I can’t describe it exactly. It’s not hero worship (I don’t think he’s dreamy), it’s not because the clothes and lifestyles are so enviable (although no one was too crazy about SATC movies so maybe that’s a terrible standard), there is no love story for all the ages… and yet, you fall in love with the zillion aspects of their charming world.

Enter my Florida work trip which conveniently gave me a spare day to traipse around Orlando.

I have to say, for someone whose parents didn’t love her enough for a Disney/Universal vacation as a child, I was pretty impressed.

Just kidding Mom and Dad! Considering I forked over $90 for a single ticket all I have no idea how families afford to go. That stuff is ludicrous.

But awesome. Let the tour continue!

There were two parts of the HP part of the theme park, Hogsmeade, where all of the shops (Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley) and restaurants were.

Holy crowds. I forgot how rarely I am surrounded by hundreds of thousands of people and screaming kids. I thought it might be weird to be there alone (hello, creepy adult alert). Except I don’t know how you could do it with a group, there are just so many people. At the very least it got me to the front of rides quickly. Sweet!

The Butterbeer was out of this world. It tasted like butterscotch root beer (I don’t even like root beer!) with some sort of butterscotch cream foam on top. Pure carbonated sugary delicousness. Two enthusiastic thumbs up Orlando. It was 100 degrees and it was pretty sweet so I didn’t end up finishing it. I admit, this would have been nice to split with somebody.

I hope I don't get the mucus flavor

Honeydukes was the candy shop and my oh my was it yummy. Look! Every flavor beans!
Cauldron Cakes!

Treacle Fudge!

Do you think it's white chocolate? What IS a treacle?

However more than Hogsmeade, my favorite part was Hogwarts itself.

You could get your photo taken with some of the Tri-Wizard tournament schools, like this excited person.

he can't wait to post this on facebook

You could watch the Beauxbaton Academy’s girls (Fleur? is that you? yes I had to look up the name of the school) and their Will Ferrell esque ribbon dancing routine. Or you could stick around and see the Durmstrang academy guys do some sort of stomp routine meets military rifle moving sequence (with their walking stick things). Also they did back flips. Those guys were always kind of cute. (does that make me a creep? How old do we think they are here?)

This guy is next to normal

Finally there were the rides. Now there were three rides here and I hadn’t necessarily intended to go on any of them but the shops were too crowded and otherwise that’s the whole HP part of the park, so in I went. Two of the three rides are pretty standard theme park fare. One is slower and fully themed hippogriff style and has tons of Hagrid’s house/hallmarks around it. The other was the Tri-Wizard Challenge that was a buckle in flip upside down go sixty miles an hour ride. Good ride, not so much to do with Harry. Mostly I was just utterly charmed by the last ride, the Forbidden Journey which happened once you entered Hogwarts. It was part regular rollercoaster and part virtual ride. It seriously knocked my socks off. One minute you were being spun around to close enough to touch a giant snake skeleton in the chamber of secrets and another you were face to face with a dragon head that spewed red hot air in your face, the next you were surrounded on all sides by a screen that had you following Harry through the Hogwarts towers via broom. I felt completely and totally immersed in the ride. I’m sure I had my mouth gaping open in wonderment the entire time. Hands down the best part of the whole park. Tip of the hat to you Universal.

seal of approval

So I spent three solid hours there and felt I got to see a little bit of everything. I am not necessarily one for souvenirs (hello studio apartment), so I resisted getting a wand, or commemorative do-dads. Also because the candy (yay) would have melted en route out of the park (boo).
Speaking of leaving the park, on my way out I meandered through the comic section and couldn’t help but take a photo of this appetizing picture.

Money shot

Bret and I used to always jokes about the Cathy cartoons all the time. This killed me.

TGIF

2011-05-13T13:53:00.001-07:00

Am I right?

Smells like the State Fair

2011-05-13T13:52:00.001-07:00

Fried Oreo Sundae. Grossly awesome.

The best part of waking up

2011-05-12T04:23:00.000-07:00

If you have to get up at 5 AM east cost time (4 AM if you're hard wired like me), at least there are banana bread muffins, or as we called them growing up: Ewok muffins. Breakfast of Star Wars champions.

Don't judge

2011-05-07T19:38:00.001-07:00

You know you would stalk the building too. Yes. Yes you would you weirdo.

Bucket list

2011-05-07T18:24:00.001-07:00

Item #69597486369

Check.

Here fishy fishy..

2011-05-07T05:30:00.001-07:00

As I lure the bagel into my mouth. Mwahaha.

Eating all the hot dogs

2011-05-03T17:39:00.001-07:00

No seriously, we are.

Royal Wedding Part Deux

2011-04-29T07:19:00.001-07:00

So just because we already had a royal wedding party six days before the wedding (what? lifetime was re-airing their movie, can you think of a better excuse to wear a hat?), you didn’t think we could resist partaking in the fun at 3:30 AM Friday? Right?

Emily knows where I live. Partially because she lives two floors down, but just in case, I thought the Queen mother could welcome her (and her to-be-SIL Natalie, whom we love, hi Natalie!). Pip Pip, Cheerio!

I heard snickering outside the door as she knocked. Success!

The plates version 2.0

Twinkies and pepperidge farm cookies. Do I need pastry tips or what? I thought my take regular frosting/dye it blue/stick it in a zip lock bag/stick it in the fridge/cut the tip off method, otherwise tried and true, was solid gold. That method was having none of the royal fun. Blimey.

Emily’s mom is a music teacher and she sent over gloves, the perfect final touch!

Except for this perfect final touch. Am I a whiz with crepe paper or what. That may stay up a while. It may also cause you to break out into rounds of ‘Rule Brittania’ or various spice girls songs.

Emily made this amazing savory French toast casserole. It had crusty bread, eggs, cheese, spinach, potatoes, seasoning and sausage from her parent’s farm. So good!

Is she ready to be somebody’s wife or what?

Finally, the main event…

Were you as smitten as we were? Totally worth this lethargic mid-morning state. Happy Royal wedding everyone!

Shout out to my mom and her silly 4AM teacher watch party, and Bowler’s sophisticated viewing tonight!

Keep Calm Carry On..

2011-04-27T10:07:00.000-07:00

If you have a Royal Wedding party six days before the actual ceremony, remember to wave on the red carpet (vinyl table cover) as if it was from your chariot/Pope-mobile/carriage/Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade float.

Remember also to thank your lovely Aunt Anne for hooking everyone up with such delicious treats. Even if someone took a bite out of a shortbread jelly cookie and put it back (ahem sister).

Remember also to tell Aunt Anne that she can seriously rock a Tiara.

Remember to get your sister a cooler, and perhaps a snow suit, considering she ordered the Royal ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins only to discover the people there didn’t know what the heck she was talking about. Perhaps they missed the memo from corporate? Instead they made her a cake that said: Will 4 Kate 4 Ever. She picked that baby up and drove the three hours home with zip lock bags of ice on top of it and the air conditioning blowing full force despite the fact it was barely 50 degrees out. A for effort Sister, A indeed.
Remember that its the thought that counts, not just the presentation.

Remember to wear your crown jewel replicas. (remember when I got that beauty?)

Remember to provide your guests with plenty of party flair.

Remember to NOT grab Prince Phillip’s face mask, since no one knows who he is anyway (the queen had a husband? Where have I been?)

Remember that if you’re going to a Royal party, it is appropriate to wear the Queen’s favorite jogging suit, especially if you have photo evidence of her wearing it (not at all photo-shopped).

Remember that if you are going to a party and stop by GoodWill just hours before, you can have the best outfit of all time. Well played Theresa, well played.

Remember that if you bring evidence of your lineage tracing back to the queen (there are a lot of cousins to keep track of), and Kevin Bacon, you are entitled to the most melty will & kate ice cream cake. Fact.

Remember to tell your mom how rocking she looks with two boobs. Also just in general :)

Remember to have pretty low expectations for the lifetime movie you watch at the party about Will & Kate, but secretly like it anyway.

Mostly I hope to remember these things for round two with Emily at 4AM on Friday. See you there!

Hoppy Easter

2011-04-24T13:02:00.001-07:00

Sugar coma! I hope your day is full of open toe shoes, bear hugs from aunts & uncles, and all the sweets your hypoglycemia can handle.

Bubby

2011-04-11T12:47:00.000-07:00

Bret's Birthday Video

Not to be confused with Bubba (Bill Clinton, be still my heart!). My cousin helped us make an unbelievable birthday video for my brother. It will rock your socks off. Promise.

To my life partner

2011-04-08T06:00:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday to my BFF Bowler. It seems like just yesterday you thought I was the weird girl in plaid capris (trust me, they were cute, she couldn't appreciate them).

Promises

2011-04-06T08:13:00.001-07:00

Seriously, dark chocolate + an inspirational message = automatic mood booster. Wednesday, I think we're going to be friends.

What's a girl to do?

2011-04-05T10:38:00.001-07:00

So it's no secret that I like health food. I want to marry it. Run away together and start our life in a vegetable patch. Skip holding hands in fields of green leafy stuff. Totally normal.

But when Norma from shipping says she got a free ginormous humongous gargantuan taco from the smoky dive bar down the street (paraphrasing), you don't just say no. You step up to the styrofoam like a champ.

It was delicious. It was messy. It makes me want to scrub my face (where miscellaneous bits of taco shell and contents were haphazardly falling), with the hand soap in the bathroom.

For dinner? Back on the produce wagon.

Philadelphia Part 2: The Food

2011-03-28T09:29:00.000-07:00

I have a confession. I think Philly Cheese steaks are gross. Seriously. Uber greasy shredded meat in a crusty hard to eat bun is not my bag.

But I'm such a pro, you'd never know it.

Bret was equally iffy about the greasy mess. We got one with provolone and one with cheez whiz (or as the locals call it, 'a whiz with'). Surprisingly, or not surprisingly, hands down the better of the two was the artificial grossly awesome cheese.

I'm not crazy about it either.

In other news, it seemed to me that there were french restaurants and cafes everywhere. We took advantage of a beautiful one around the corner from our hotel that overlooked the lovely Rittenhouse Square park. The Parc restaurant served a lovely onion tart, otherwise known as a Pissaladière

Sidebar. I could care less about how graceful and lady-like I am when I'm dining with my brother (sorry Bret, you get gross belly scratching Lauren). However despite my attempts at proper etiquette around other people I am SO MESSY. Seriously, once when I was eating an Asian salad I spotted soy sauce at least three feet away on the floor. How the heck does that happen? Or like the time I didn't know you weren't supposed to eat ALL of the artichoke leaf (what? I've only ever had the hearts) and chewed it like rubber for several minutes before trying to slyly transfer it to my napkin. And then I sat on it the rest of the meal. My napkin. I didn't know what else to do with it. Inside I am panicky and feel all barefoot and toothless. Outside there is low lighting, classic music, tablecloths, and grown up conversation. What am I getting at? Well at this very restaurant, Parc, not with my brother but with several work colleagues from around the country, I added another slaps-head-on-forehead moment to my ridiculously messy shaky hands dining self. There was a charcuterie platter of meats, etc. I had unsuccessfully tried to stab the prosciutto spirals with my fork and they were slinging around the table slapping into things. Sigh. I had also been having some trouble scooping up some of the fresh honeycomb on the platter (that was seriously really delicious). However then I attempted to take a chunk of the pâté with my knife and transfer it a mere four inches to my plate. It was crumbly, and my knife was relying on the steadiness of my hand. Doomed. It gets to my plate and the knife slips out and slides off my plate, scooping with it the pâté, which then falls to the bench were I was seated (half the table had chairs, half the table shared an upholstered bench. I was bench side, middle), and then ricochets down into my purse, which was sitting at my feet. Super super classy. Only the guy next to me noticed. I acted cool. I am a professional. Even if on the inside I was feeling gross. The inside of my purse that is. ZING.

But seriously. How much trouble am I going to be in if I have a fancy mother in law someday? It's not like I don't know which fork to use (I've come a long way since the artichoke leaf debacle), I just really am that messy/clumsy. Le Sigh.

Oh yes, and Philadelphia is also where I fell in love with crepes. As breakfast pastries go, I prefer to have a strongish nutritional profile to start my day if I can help it. So once I started looking at them as dessert instead of breakfast, I could see them for the gloriously delicious things they are. My other food epiphany? They are like toaster strudel. A very fancy less processed junk toaster strudel. I am sold.

Don't put me in your toaster!

Lamb of some sort. Ridiculously soft and buttery. mmmmmmmmmmm

Baa

One of my all time favorite breakfasts, Lox and Bagel.

And mimosas, obviously.

2,109,831,209,830,928,309,283,091,283 excuses to order dessert during Birthday week.

I taste like fancy pudding cup

Stone fired pizza.

The cause

The effect.

So I have been wanting a juicer forever. I love the idea of liquefying fruits and vegetables to make fun new concoctions. I read about these things on the Internet and imagine a glorious and lovely taste. So across from the convention center was an amazing place called Reading Terminal Market. It's like an indoor farmer's market meets food court. There are all these little stands and local vendors, all of whom take credit cards and have access to electricity. Imagine the possibilities! Anyway I got a carrot/beet/celery/parsley smoothie. It. was. disgusting. I even have a pretty high tolerance for flavorless health food for the sake of adventurousness and feeling purposeful. It tasted like celery, but not the kind I will eat plain (or with PB or cream cheese because let's face it that's delicious too) but it was SERIOUSLY disgusting. I kept trying to think WWRD? (rocky, in Philadelphia after all), and pictured myself running to the top of the art museum steps and then sucking down this disgusting celery juice. It made me want to puke. And I hadn't even been running. Fail. Epic fail. I still want a juicer though.

Don't drink me.

On the menu for a restaurant in my hotel's hood had this "One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well" - Virginia Woolf. I love that.

I did not love that I sat there for twenty minutes without service. The place was half empty (The only people that like dinner at 5pm are me and the elderly). Three people that worked there walked past me chatting with each other and generally doing bored non-working things. It was one of those obnoxious places that is all swanky and has velvet ottomans instead of enough actual chairs. However, what is the normal wait time to make a drink order? Don't get me wrong, I love service people. I understand the plight of the proletariat! However customer service is not like what it used to be. Youngsters with their rap music. Harumph. I finally got up and went to the restaurant next door to the Devon restaurant, where I had these guys:

Lobster Bisque

Hello lover.....

And Sea Scallops

get in my belly

When I travel for work, I try to load up on seafood. In the Midwest we are kings of steak and BBQ, and it seems foolish for me to order those on the coasts. However while the company is sponsoring my fancy meals, I usually try to order new things whenever possible. Sometimes this backfires, like when I got Branzino, which is sea bass. To my knowledge I've only had sea bass one other time. I went to New Orleans with girlfriends several years ago and we had a big dinner at Commander's Palace. Rosley got the sea bass and it had 'Xs' for eyes and the bones were still in it. It was hard to eat and a little horrifying to look at its eye sockets while doing so. The turtle soup made up for it (sorry my beloved DZ turtles!) I digress. I couldn't remember what the bass tasted like but it had a sassy name on this menu that would have made a great scrabble word so I went for it. The verdict? Kinda fishy. Not my favorite.

However the next work dinner adventurous dish I had was DEE LISH. Instead of going for the recommended lobster ravioli (drool!), I went for the Pappardelle Pasta al la rabbit.

don't worry, be hoppy

Now let me just say, this was flipping awesome. I don't know how much of that was a happy full belly from appetizers and beautiful bread and dipping oils.. or the wine. This had TONS of flavor, which very likely had very little to do with the rabbit itself and more with the tomatoes, herbs and homemade pasta.

However I still couldn't help thinking of this guy:

Or worse, this guy:

I tried to convince myself it was this guy:

(did anybody else read these books in elementary school?)

My guilt was tempered by the reactions of other carnivores:

Well.. you can't win 'em all.

Philadelphia Part 1: Fanny Pack Style Tourism

2011-03-25T15:54:00.000-07:00

How great is it that fanny packs are supposedly coming back in style? Unfortunately for the people of Philly, Bret and I were not sporting them, but we did do plenty of touristy things along that vein. Including but not limited to taking this style bus:

Oh yes we did!

We walked from the hotel to the beauteous city hall that actually kind of looks like Versailles (or as we say in Missouri: Ver Sails, I'm not kidding, that's a town here). Bret had to stop at Starbucks, you know, because he's hip. I made him buy me the cake pop that was 'Birthday Cake' Hello! Appropriate! It was delicious.

Me eating a cake pop in front of the most glorious city hall on the planet.

As we learned with my attempts at self portrait during Brother and I's spontaneous Arkansas trip of destiny, I'm not so hot with the camera.

Here is Betsy Ross's House, or, if you will, a picture of a guy taking a picture of Betsy Ross's house.

Nice Jacket dude

Get back in your phone booth!

Ben's grave where people throw pennies. The crazy lady in front of us told us it was haunted. She did not appreciate our laughter.

Did you know that PHL chinatown is the third largest in the country?

The Statue of Will Penn on city hall is so big in real life his eyeballs are one foot long each. eeeeeeeeeeew

This was supposed to be a picture of the Art Museum's gold statue of Joan of Arc and her horse. You get gold horse feet and partial boob of a guy on the other side of the bus.

Fail

And now... the main event.

AAAAAAAAdrrrrrrrrrrriaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnn

We mumbled incoherently the whole time, and not just because we are out of shape.

So then we decided to head to Paddy's Pub from one of our favorite hilarious and off putting shows, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

Except that even though Paddy's was just a few streets away, we opted for the next door Mac's Tavern, which is owned by one of the characters (slash creators slash actors slash writers)

That's when things went downhill.

We went home ten hours later.

I totally got this guy's number

Stay tuned for Part 2 of Philly where I eat a loveable creature and accidentally elbow a chunk of pâté into my purse. Oh yes, 28 is pretty sophisticated so far.

Breakfast of Champions

2011-03-17T07:04:00.001-07:00

The cupcake is compliments of my pal Emily (as was the sushi/movie musical date last night too). Twenty eight is going to be great!

My new favorite corner of the internet

2011-03-15T14:28:00.000-07:00

http://pauladeenridingthings.com/

It is a hoot.

Family Birthdays

2011-03-15T10:11:00.000-07:00

My aunt/godmother/birthday twin Sheila and her husband Greg came to KC last weekend so we (along with my parents) could celebrate the three St Paddies Birthdays. In the hizzouse.

Greg is a train guru, so first stop was Union Station for some shameless tourism.

BTW twizzlers dipped in chocolate is in my top ten list of things that are better with candy coating. Seriously, try this. It tastes like slumber party.

Not like I went on and on about it or anything.

Happy Birthday to us! (especially Sheila who is 50 now, and mom who celebrated with plastic surgery)

Guess What I Just Got

2011-03-13T10:05:00.001-07:00

If you guessed Princess Diana royal dresses paper dolls then you are correct!

I am now 20% ready for Wills and Kate's wedding.

T minus 6 days

2011-03-11T07:49:00.000-08:00

I hope I never stop being really really excited to have a birthday. I know it's just a day, and I am particularly spoiled for getting one on a holiday and also for getting to share a birthday with so many other people that I love.

Each year is ALMOST as exciting as the year I woke to find the Huffy Sweet Dreams pastel splatterpaint bike parked in my room. I died and went to heaven.

Cake! Sorbet! Oh My!

2011-03-11T07:42:00.000-08:00

Last night my dad took me to dinner and I picked Kansas City's Blue Bird Bistro. Oganic and local food, funky art on the wall, nice tile work (as Dad noticed), a pretty great place. We celebrated a little early birthday with orange cilantro sorbet (unbelievably good!) and vegan cake (mostly good). Not pictured is dad's loud and funny zodiac tie. What a guy.

Happiness is...

2011-03-09T07:38:00.000-08:00

A yellow fascinator hat made with tulle, feathers and a bit of sparkle.

The kind of hat that you found online and fell in love with back when you were entertaining ideas of attending the 2011 Kentucky Derby (which has since been trumped by a potential Russia trip). The kind of hat that Kate Middleton would wear, or my stylish friend Nickie (her favorite color is yellow and she can do no wrong when it comes to fancy/classy accessories). The kind of hat that you bragged about to your friend Bowler, who says to be more fiscally responsible (buzz kill) and resist purchasing. The kind of hat that you then go on to make top ten lists for all the reasons and events to wear such an item (Royal weddings, the 1909 world's fair, the grocery store), all the while being talked out of it. The kind of hat that was given as A VERY EXCITING SURPRISE birthday present from Bowler last weekend whilst in Chicago.

I love this kind of hat.

Chicago: Answering the Call of the Wild

2011-03-07T07:33:00.000-08:00

Remember the time I was in Glamour? The best man from that wedding has recently moved to Chicago. When the Bride and Groom came from San Francisco to visit him this weekend I invited myself along. There were actually a handful of other people in town who where in or at their big day too. Wedding party reunion! We did all kinds of great Chicago stuff. We went to the top of the Hancock building (it was foggy and snowy and visibilty was 0%, but otherwise I hear 94 floors is quite the view).

Dramatization of what a clear view would be

We had street food.. WITH nacho cheese. Yes. Please. High five to our host Roman for knowing just where to go!

We even got tickets to the rodeo. Our male counterparts are city slickers. We Missouri girls know what's up.

Watching Bull riding IN the Bull's home. Appropriate.

It turns out that in high school Bowler spent some time as a rodeo groupie. Raise your hand if you're surprised. She was a wealth of knowledge and explained everything from how it is scored to what bulls are 'good bulls' and what their life is like on the road. She could have been B.S.ing me come to think of it.

She did not pack any Steak Frye Cowgirl attire, so she borrowed her husbands shirt. I think she made it look stylish.

We were most excited about the food and speculated for hours if there would be corn dogs or funnel cakes. We made two laps around the vending area to ensure that we knew all of our options. Except taking our sweet time meant that when we were ready to order they were starting to close! We got the world's saltiest soggiest spiciest sandwich. It desperately needed cheese. We attempted to use our womanly wiles and any cash we had to coerce the workers into letting us have some. Apparently we are not as persuasive as we like to think. Fail.

Hands down the best part of our ridiculously leisurely laps around the building was when we found a stack of paper antlers. We were IN LOVE with them and could not stop laughing. Obviously it was only a matter of time before we battled it out in the street.

In one corner, red boots Elk. In the other corner, the trash talking brown boots Elk. We fought to the death... or at least until the first person was on the ground.

Elk use a lot of 'air quotes' when they're gearing up for a joust

Nothing gets these wild animals revved up like a little Saturday Night Fever

or jumping jacks

Attack! Kill! Mame! Destroy!

Back up... take another running start

Clank Clank Clank, the sound of antlers colliding

The video footage looked something like this:

OH SNAP!

Yup, it was in a puddle. We did not scout the correct street/alley way. Clearly. Super cold. Super wet.

Torn antlers. The defeated elk separates from the herd... back to Missouri

I don't think I've ever laughed so much in my life. Full video of the scuffle is here.

I smell like puddle

2011-03-05T23:38:00.001-08:00

An innocent night that begins with a bull riding competition and ends with a death match in alley. I also confessed to plagiarizing my maid of honor speech and offering the name of my first born to the street vendor that gives us a side of government cheese. Dear Chicago. You are a fun and windy time. The end.

Pa Pa Pa Pa Pa Pa Poker Face

2011-03-03T08:10:00.000-08:00

My sister's sorority had a charity poker tournament. I know as much about poker as I know about how to successfully wrangle a crocogator, so obviously this had disaster written all over it. You would think that our hostess for the evening would have brushed up on the rules as to give clues on how to play to those who made the effort (across the state or country). Apparently she was on silent auction duty instead and was of no help. Fail.

Brother was back in Missouri for work, so he got to swing by. Like every middle child, I couldn't have the entire family together at an event having fun without me, so despite not knowing game rules, or game theory (math joke, high five nerds!), I brought it.

SO...... It turns out I'm not half bad. By that I mean that I sat down and was dealt two winning hands, despite not even knowing how many cards I was supposed to have (two seemed like I was being slighted). There were bidding wars going on at the table for people who thought they had some pretty sweet cards. Turns out I am a hustler. I feel like I should write a rap song about it.

Also a 22 year old guy asked if I was in college there. One of my 2011 resolutions was to wear sunscreen more often. Coincidence?

Note: this was after I cashed out and consolidated chips, gave some to dad, and gave the others to brother to lose. For the record I had a huge pile of them at one point. Imagine me making it rain chips. That line is going in my rap song.

Who want to play poker with me now?

Sincerely,

Life is a Cabaret

2011-03-02T10:45:00.000-08:00

I purchased this belt for $2. Words cannot describe how much I love having a sequin bow tie waist belt. Will I wear it out into the world? Unlikely that there will be an occasion that calls for it, unless I'm in costume, in which case yes please. More likely is that I will wear this, in my PJs, doing chorus line kicks between my kitchen and living room.

What's up Doc?

2011-02-26T10:33:00.000-08:00

Carrot soup from SELF Magazine:

carrots

onions

garlic

cumin

ginger

milk

yogurt

organge zest

***

2011-02-25T07:00:00.000-08:00

Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves.

-- Rainer Maria Rilke, Translated by Stephen Mitchell

*edited: I am not spiralling downward in depression with this as my cry for help, as some might have thought *ahem* Stephanie. On the contrary, I am just a habitual worrier and fussy person about things large (global warming!) and small (I'm running out of tooth paste!), personal (i'm going to die alone!) and trivial (liz lemon is going to die alone!). I saw this and felt instantly peaceful about all of my non productive stewing. Sometimes not knowing all the answers is okay too, even if you're a control freak like me.

Très Jeunes

2011-02-24T09:26:00.000-08:00

I renewed my passport this weekend. Can you even believe it has been ten years?

In related news I would very much like for the weather to be nice enough to do cartwheels outside on the grass.

3D

2011-02-23T08:59:00.000-08:00

It is so distracting you almost don't notice when your sister is stealing all the chocolate (you know, the Valentine's day candy you brought in your purse like the person taking the ticket wouldn't notice the GIANT red heart-shaped box you're toting around).

In related news: Gnomeo and Juliet got four enthusiastic thumbs up (two people, no mutations here). All the songs in the movie were Elton John's and we were rocking out to them all weekend.

PS the ring transfer was as hilarious as I imagined it to be. She loved it and we now have 5% of the costuming we need to watch the upcoming royal wedding.

Glamoratti

2011-02-22T07:01:00.000-08:00

Remember when my college roommate and BFF got married this summer and I endlessly gushed about how pretty it was and how its utter perfection has ruined me from enjoying any other planned event for the rest of my life? I can't imagine why you wouldn't want to indulge in my dramatic over-the-top description.

Except wait. It wasn't just me that thought that....

The Mothership

GLAMOUR MAGAZINE FEATURED THIS WEDDING!!!!!

Click HERE to see where I was in Glamour. That's right. Maid of Honor. In the Hizzouse. Super Exciting.

The Crown Jewels

2011-02-19T07:21:00.000-08:00

I could not wait for my sister's birthday in June. Thus this replica of Kate Middleton's engagement ring that I got from ebay will have to be her Valentine's day gift.

I cannot stop laughing.

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh............ it's a surprise!

My future's so bright, I've got to wear a neon vest

2011-02-16T11:09:00.000-08:00

Safety First

Rosley got these from work, and let me tell you the hard core spandexy athletes running past us were impressed.

The Greatest Appetizer Recipe of all Time

2011-02-16T07:28:00.000-08:00

Dried apricot + fresh sage leaf + bacon + maple syrup = OH MY GOD.

The less raw picture looks like this I took this Friday to Jaclyn's and it was a big hit. Especially with me.

Top 10

2011-02-14T09:49:00.000-08:00

The top ten things PHS seniors would rather have done than listen to me speak about 'careers in marketing' this morning.

1. Gouge their eyes out with forks

2. Stick bamboo shoots up their fingernails.

3. Listen to Ben Stein read an oven manual.

4. Be trapped in a room with Kenny G playing very loudly on repeat.

5. Be stuck in a Chilean mine for two months. (what? too soon?)

6. Get a root canal.

7. Be stuck in Lady Gaga's egg/pod in 90 degree heat.

8. Eat 10,000 peanut butter sandwiches without anything to drink.

9. Watch a marathon of Nicholas Cage movies.

10. Be on the receiving end of a crocogator death roll.

Seriously, this presentation was given to dead silence. Crickets. The only sound was my enthusiasm (and self confidence in speaking and relating to the younger generation) crashing to the ground.

Oh that Real Simple

2011-02-11T07:59:00.000-08:00

I love the magazine. I love the recipe app.

Portabella Mushroom Ravioli
Yellow Squash
Gala Apples
Walnuts
EVOO
Parm

My biggest fear

2011-02-10T07:00:00.000-08:00

Dude. I am deathly afraid of crocodiles/alligators. Both. Equally terrifying. This started when I was ten and read an article in Reader's Digest about how some woman survived a death roll. You know, where they pull you down in the water so you drown and then spin you so limbs/chunks come off that they can take delicious bites of you. It was graphic. Obviously. I totally don't remember how she escaped, the specifics of which I might have clung to to avoid mental scarring. Nope.

I can never live in the south because of this. A shame because I think my straight hair could handle the humidity. I can never move to that nature preserve or join the peace corps. Both of which otherwise would totally happen. I can especially never EVER EVER EVER swim in a pond or lake south of Canada.

Do you know what I heard today on NPR? That the mouth of a crocogator (i can't remember which scary one was specified) closes with the force of over 2200 LBS .... which is the equivalent of a guillotine.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH. scary chomps. scary teeth.

In related news I'm not a fan of these guys either.

It could have been amazing.

2011-02-09T08:18:00.000-08:00

I have a confession. During one of the epic disastrous never ending snowstorms we received, I applied to be on Oprah. Actually I went to the show's website looking to watch the episode from the day before, but instead was distracted by a column that said 'Be on Oprah'. It might as well have said, click here to have all your hopes and dreams come true. Pretty much none of the categories related to me (Are you over 50 and fabulous? Does your daughter love Willow Smith?) except for one. One glorious category headlined with 'Are you a soap opera fan?'

Oprah is my favorite. Remember when I spent my birthday in Chicago a couple of years ago? Yes this was us trolling around the outside of Harpo Studios.

Where we were creepy and taking pictures by doors and vents to the building.

And remember when the women in my family went to the 'O' Magazine live your best life conference last year?

Where we were creepy and taking photos of Nate Berkus from an uncomfortably (for him) close distance

Meanwhile watching cheesy soaps is practically in my DNA. At the very least its something I associate with hilariousness and the women in my family. My mother and her six sisters were avid All My Children fans since before I was born. Christmases included AMC playing cards and autographed photos of Susan Lucci.

Aunts Sheila, Sara, and Theresa, graduates of Pine Valley U.

Mom with Tad the Cad in NYC after I can only assume she was creeping outside of their studios

And let's not forget about the younger generation. My sister and I (thanks in no small part to Soapnet in college), are soap viewers and will bond over gossiping about our not-real-life friends. I mean how crazy Annie is and how lying about paternity tests NEVER works out well and why does everyone in Llandview go to the gym EVERY day now. We get it. Your shirt is off. These conversations go on forever. Remember our recent Dynasty weekend? Yeah, we're now watching all of the episodes on hulu too.

The idea that these two favorites things of mine (O and Soaps) could combine was heavenly. A bi-fecta. A duex-fecta. Whatever two awesome things together would be... this would be that. Plus I could SURPRISE my mom with this (skyping in with mom and sis, skyping in with ALL the women in my family, BEING on the show?).

But alas... for it was not meant to be. TODAY they are airing the soap episode, which means that when I submitted my blurb on our family and our love of soaps last week they were probably already recording it. I realize that those who watch Oprah (daytime television) likely watch soaps too (also daytime television) and everyone who has ever visited the Oprah website could probably make a good argument about how Luke and Laura changed their lives. Basically, we had a snowballs chance and were too late. All is not lost though, I'm still way excited to just watch the episode today, and pretending I'll be skyping in instead.

It could have been amazing though, right?

Bridesmaid of the year

2011-02-08T12:16:00.000-08:00

Emily's getting married in July and has told all of us 'maids to wear something peacock in our hair.

http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/0azCfc1fzF9qX/610x.jpg

Nailed it.

Lewis and Clark have nothing on us.

2011-02-07T07:33:00.000-08:00

Ever since one of my college girlfriends moved to Kentucky after grad school, we have been making pilgrimages down there a couple of times a year. Usually we are good about leaving early, checking the weather, planning accordingly, etc. Except this time it was a comedy of errors getting out of work, getting out of town, getting on the right exits.. you name it. Exploring/navigational geniuses we are not. Friday night we didn't arrive until 2:30 AM and drove through, rain, snow, sleet, and Nickie snoring in the back seat.

However, minus the total of 22 Hours in the car this weekend, it was probably my favorite trip down there to date.

Saturday was kicked off with a visit to the Maker's Mark distillery.

Be honest. I look like I've got side burns in this picture. Do you see it?

The nation's first drive-thru liquor store. Worth a commemorative photo.

Emily dipped her own Maker's Mark bottle in wax. BTW that stuff is disgusting. It tastes like all that awful kind of alcohol I was forced to try on my 21st birthday, and the mint julep I couldn't handle at the Derby. Amy and Kelly were swishing it in their mouths and talking about its 'oakiness'. The other three of us were making faces like we were forced to taste test nail polish remover. Sophisticated we are not.

The mini road trip there was through the back country and it was littered with colorful artwork. Sucks to be that guy.

(sidebar I don't know how to turn these and I can't link this account with my GMail Picasa account. Technology savvy fail.)

SOOO....... Part of the reason for the trip is that three of the five of us girls had birthdays within a few weeks. Their combined ages are 83. So Emily and I decided to surprise everyone with a birthday party.

There were posters with hilarious and incriminating photos.

Pin the tail on some-guy-we-went-to-college with.

Birthday Bingo with hilarious antics that either usually happen anyway or could totally happen with some incentive.

Various dance moves were on the list. In related news I do a mean Carlton.

There was a limbo stick that doubled as a whip, jousting stick, bat, sword, scepter, cane, too-short-skirt-pointer-outer (that almost got us killed), ceiling fan turner-on-er, creepy guy shoo-er-away-er, rifle, whatever the name of that long tube you shoot darts from is, oar, cigar, magic wand and yes so much more.

Emily and I thought our party games were such a success, we were introducing ourselves as Milton and Bradley.

But soon that relationship soured.

Nickie won bingo... she would just like everyone to know.

Kelly lost.

I wish every weekend was this wonderful.

Road Trip

2011-02-04T09:17:00.000-08:00

We will be prepared for anything. Watch out Kentucky!

The Snownami

2011-02-01T15:35:00.000-08:00

Missouri has declared a state of emergency for this insane blizzard. I can't see out my window. I've already watched 10 hours of soaps, eaten all the chocolate in my apartment, curled my hair, tried on all my fancy dresses and spent much 'working from home time' browsing for new swimsuits with a glass of wine.

I think I can cross 'become a hermit' off my bucket list, this is for the birds.

Hot Dog!

2011-01-28T17:38:00.001-08:00

Gourmet hot dogs (Thai dog and the Italian boot), a new party dress, a brisk walk in 58 degree temps, spending the evening with one of my most hilarious friends and planning a trip to Moscow in September. This Friday is really shaping up.

A Major Adult Moment.

2011-01-25T07:18:00.000-08:00

Today I paid off my car.. one month early.

WAHOO!

No one takes me to bed and to the cleaners in the same night!

2011-01-24T09:46:00.000-08:00

So when we wore gratuitous holiday flair for opening presents this year, my sister and I chose sweaters with shoulder pads. The whole night we were making Dynasty references (poses, evil looks, etc.), despite never having actually seen the show. As the Dynasty jokes remained long after Christmas, we decided to educate ourselves on the ways of the rich Carrington family as to actually understand the jokes we were making.

Thus the Dynasty weekend was born:

Mother dearest.

Sisters. Bitter Rivals.

Contempt.

Cat fight!

There was food: cheese ball, bruschetta, and best of all: chocolate/caramel fondue. Mom made this by combining chocolate chips, caramels, and sweet and condensed milk. We dipped marshmellows; bananas; strawberries; angel food cake.

At some point we changed into PJs since sharp sequins on your rib cage aren't conducive for slouching on the couch and stuffing your face. Below is sister breaking down whether or not Michael was actually pointing at Fallon or flipping her off.

It was hilarous.

7 inches of snow.

2011-01-20T09:05:00.000-08:00

..time for cute rubber boots!

Beep Beep, Who's got the keys to the Jeep

2011-01-17T11:10:00.000-08:00

I don't drive a Jeep. I do enjoy Missy 'Mistameanor' Elliot songs from when I was in middle school though. What is she, on felonies now?

Driving home for Christmas, my metal key chain flew off into the crevice between the driver's seat and console, never to be heard from or seen again. Then serendipitously, I got a family crest key chain in my Christmas stocking that very evening. Except that it broke after only two days of use. Fail.

I went several days without key flair before I realized I had a fabulous one sitting in my jewelry box. My Great Grandma's return-to key chain for their cute little house next to the church on the hill that I vaguely remember visiting.

Phone number 5.... as in they were the fifth phone in town? That can't be it, but I don't know what else it could mean.

I love having this with me every day now. I'm sentimental like that. :)

Nawlins

2011-01-13T06:34:00.000-08:00

Remember when it was so hot and muggy outside you couldn't breathe? Sigh. I do. It's -7 degrees right now and as with all post-Christmas snowstorms, I'm over it.

Back when it was warm I went to New Orleans for work, and thanks to work was able to gorge myself on local cuisine. Remembering that helps to offset the regret for not becoming a teacher to get snow days.

Fried goat cheese salad with mixed greens.

Gumbo. Extra stars for presentation.

The best part of traveling for work? Ordering fancy food from room service to eat on the bed while watching cable.

I was watching 'Bringing Up Baby', and man was that girl spoiled. What about his fiancee?

Red Beans and Rice.

Frog Legs!!!!! I DID feel guilt about potentially eating a Disney character (hello, Princess & the Frog). Would it be cliche to say it tasted like chicken?

A pit stop from walking around to get self serve yogurt and look out over the river (FYI this was prime oil spill time and the 24 hour news networks were reporting from this riverfront). Two seconds after I took this photo I spilled all over my chambray dress. Messy eater, party of one.

Talk about serendipitous, a college friend of mine was traveling through New Orleans solo one of the days I was there. Bourbon street it so much more fun with a buddy.

Buttery oyster, fried pickles, fried alligator, the works.

Eggs benedict, my favorite breakfast.

Alligator Ravioli

Flight of moonshine. Can you believe we did this for a work dinner? I can't. Nevermind the fact that I was supposed to sip it politely isntead of tip my head back and down it. I knew that.

The world's best BLT

Homemade salted caramel popsickle. Mind altering.

You must visit this place in the warehouse district. It's fancier next-door neighbor (same owner) 'Butcher' was equally phenomenal.

Is that a strip club sign in that picture? Eh, probably. Oh New Orleans, I think of you fondly as I turn on the space heater next to me.

Delivery!

2011-01-12T06:56:00.000-08:00

A circle's round, it has no end...

that's how long I want to be your friend.

Man versus Machine

2011-01-11T07:21:00.000-08:00

My television remote has not been working for five days. It is driving me crazy. Somewhere someone in the building unplugged something and my screen went fuzzy for an hour. Paranoid it was me, I tried to reset the remote (bonus, I still have my manual), except doing so made it totally inoperable. Even after multiple attempts to restore it.

I now have to walk up to the television to change the channels. What am I, a cavewoman?

Of course this could be the Universe's way of telling me to turn off the TV and go expand my horizons by reading Moby Dick. However I'm going with the much-more-logical possessed remote theory.

Peppermint Patties!

2011-01-10T07:37:00.000-08:00

It's Snowmageddon outside and I even wore rubber boots to work today... with flats to change into. I'm like working girl meets Annie Oakley. That is if Annie Oakley represented cold weather roughing it instead of wild west and guns. Working girl meets... the Abominable Snowman? I'll work on finding a more accurate reference.

The fact that I chose lounging around yesterday dreaming of being picked to be the new 'Quality Girl' and whisked off to Paris seems now like a pretty ineffective use of time compared to getting groceries, gas and preparing for seven inches of snow that has dumped itself on my fair city.

I wish I had chains on my tires. Here's hoping I'm not marooned or starve to death this week.

Although I have a healthy supply of chocolate and 99 luftballoons playing in my head, so what a way to go.

I used Jenna's recipe to make homemade Peppermint Patties for my Boss. These are his favorite candy and his Birthday was Friday. Too bad I ran out of peppermint extract and .... wait for it.... discovered that corn SYRUP is not corn OIL. *slaps hand on forehead* Why do the grocery store powers that be not even put them close together? How am I supposed to know these things without assistance? This revelation and resulting baking fail delayed the gift to Monday delivery.

The first batch I made looked and tasted like crusty dried toothpaste. The second batch I made tasted like heaven. The key was to be heavy handed with the wet ingredients. Although I have yet to figure out a way to coat something in chocolate and make it look smooth and delicious. They always kind of look like they were visciously attacked and smothered to death to recieve a chocolate fauxhawk. Ratio of peppermint to chocolate favors the chocolate. Bad thing?

Practice Makes Proficient.

These say 'Hey I'm a Great Employee Who Deserves a raise for 2011', right? I thought so too.

Get excited Emily, you get the leftovers!

Lazy Sunday

2011-01-09T10:27:00.001-08:00

S'wonderful, S'marvelous

No touching, Read the Sign

2011-01-09T07:18:00.001-08:00

Enjoying a Whoopie Pie at the art museum with Uncle Paul & Aunt Anne.

I'm pretty sure I'm allowed to eat this, even if I'm still not sure which chairs are for sitting (read: proceed through the sculpture exhibit with caution).

A New Year

2011-01-06T14:30:00.001-08:00

Happy 2011! So I've never been a big one for resolutions (mostly because I have the self discipline of Ricky Lake) but I love a good craft project. After seeing this collage project on the fitnessista, I figured I would squeeze in a little more QT with the two foot tall stack of O! and Self Magazines before I finally threw them out.

The result: an Inspiration Board for the new year.

Happy thoughts, encouraging messages, even a few things to which I aspire. A little hokey, but so am I.

Some things are just pretty pictures and should not be taken literally. For instance I don't necessarily want to try to float across the city in helium balloons, I think we all learned our balloon boy lesson.

I've also decided I'd like this blog to be a place where I post more frequently, more randomly, less formally and about whatever strikes my fancy. You can rest assured that food shoes and booze will be included. :)

Next year could be a great year, right?