End of Chicago and Day One

I am home safe and I plan on blogging the whole trip, just a little at a time. Work is crazy after being off for 3 days, so the last thing I really wanted to do tonight was sit in front of the computer. But here is update #1, to be followed by more. And pictures, eventually.

So, on Friday the movers finally finished around 8 and Laura's friends Sheera, Libby, and Libby's boyfriend, Chris, came over. We ate Indian food on the floor of Laura's now empty apartment. It was actually pretty great. Sleeping on the floor was much less bad than I expected it to be, with the help of a yoga mat and a featherbed. We got off a little late the next day (11ish) and did some exciting things, like crossing the Mississippi. The highlight of Iowa was the convenience store, Kum 'n Go. I bought 6 lighters with their logo for all my smoker friends and a cheap leather wristband with skulls on it. It was awesome. We hightailed it out of there because there was a tornado warning and didn't want to be sucked up and then spit back out again. Shortly after that, we saw cows lying down. That means rain or tornadoes or something like that, so we were a little freaked. City girls don't do well in the middle of nowhere.

We managed to make it to the middle of Nebraska that day, and stopped in Kearney (pronounced carnie...like, guy that works at a carnival). We stayed at a Rodeway Inn that actually allowed pets and ordered pizza and chilled.

Speaking of pets...Ruby was a doll. She did puke once, but cat puke is something I'm well accustomed to, so no big.

Overall, good day. The 75 mph speed limit definitely helped things along, and relaxing in the hotel room (with free wi-fi!) after a day in the car was decadent.
Stay tuned for...Wyoming!

Things are not boding well.

Here's an entry I wrote yesterday, but just now got the chance to post:

Even though I am so far having a very excellent time with Laura and Eric, things haven’t exactly been going swimmingly.

Let’s start with my flight, where I was seated in the very last row. In front of me was a man and his 4 year old, and across the aisle from them was the mother and a 1 year old. Next to her was some girl who appeared to be my age and was immediately cooing over the baby next to her, talking in a baby voice. Ugh. The two children proceeded to scream for the entire flight, with the non-relation girl singing pat-a-cake for most of it. I’m not sure which I thought was worse – the screaming or the singing. It was a relief to leave the plane, though I did have to wait for the entire rest of the flight to “deplane” (the flight attendant’s word, not mine). Laura and Eric grabbed me without incident and we drove back into the city to get dinner at this really cute tapas restaurant. The tortilla was good, the patatas bravas not so much. The pulpo, shrimp, and calamares were excellent, as was the flan and café con leche. We retired to Laura’s entirely packed apartment and went to sleep.

Today, the movers were supposed to arrive between 1 and 3. We headed out around 11 to run some errands (go to the bank, grab coffee, etc.)


On the walk home, we ran into this statue:


which I convinced Laura to molest with me.

We got home and Laura got a call around 1:15 to say that they’d be here closer to 3. Fine. Laura reminds them that she can only move until 5:45 and they reassure her that this won’t be a problem.

3:25 – Laura calls the company. They tell her they’ve been unexpectedly delayed by their former job and it will be at least a half an hour before they will be there.

4:25 – Laura calls the company. They tell her they are 15 minutes away.

5:15 – Laura calls the company. They tell her “there’s an accident” and that they will be there “soon”.

5:25 – Laura calls her landlord’s office to find out if she can still move out after 5:45. The girl tells her no. Laura presses her and the girl agrees, but only if Laura is willing to forfeit the $300 deposit she had to put down for the movers. Having no other options, Laura agrees.

5:45 – Laura calls the company. They tell her that the truck to get her stuff has been in an accident and that they have to wait to file a police report.

6:45 – The movers arrive. The boss guy goes over the contract with Laura. He has added fees for packing materials and a fuel surcharge that Laura was told was included. This adds several hundreds of dollars to the cost.

7:15 – Current time. Movers still moving, but nearly done. We’re all starving, not wanting to leave the apartment earlier since we had no idea when the movers would be here. Indian food later.

I'm leaving on a jet plane

Good news, though. I do know when I'll be back again.

My American roommate from Barcelona, Laura, has been going to grad school for her MSW in Chicago for the past 2 1/2 years. She has a summer internship, and then she's done! Cleverly, she arranged to have her internship in Portland, so that she and her boyfriend can stop doing the long distance thing and finally be together again. The bad news? Her boyfriend is going to a family reunion in Europe and won't be around to help her move.
Insert me. Tonight, I'm flying to Chicago, helping Laura with the movers tomorrow, packing up her car and cat, and driving off into the heart of America on Saturday. We're driving for three days, across parts unknown to me as an adult. Near as I can tell, this will be our route:


I am very much an East coast girl, so this will be strange for me. Nebraska? Wyoming? Idaho? All I know is this is a giant belt of red on political maps. Not many big cities, lots of prairie...Donny, I'm out of my element. Luckily, Laura lived in Kansas for several years (albeit in the one pocket of liberalness in the midst of Jerry Falwell land), so I'm counting on her to introduce me to the Midwest. The best part? Three uninterrupted days of Laura, which I haven't had since Barcelona, making it about five years. Last we saw each other was my wedding, where I was quite preoccupied. We have two years of catching up to do, with grad school and life taking a heavy toll on our time to talk, and I couldn't be more excited. I have five audiobooks for us, countless podcasts, and the 'Once More with Feeling' soundtrack. What else could we possibly need?

We'll get to Portland on Monday, and I have a red-eye booked for Tuesday night. The even better news is that I get to spend Tuesday in Portland with Laura, and Tim took the day off to come up and be with us! Tim Scott + Laura + a brand new city? Does life get better than that? So, I'll have a day in the city, dinner with them, and then I'm off to come home. It's a whirlwind trip for sure.

I'll have my laptop and camera (of course!), so I'll try to blog and upload pics as we go along. I don't know what the wi-fi situation will be like, but hopefully you'll hear from me at some point. If not, don't worry, I'll be back! Try not to have any big drama while I'm gone, hmm? I ask that of the world at large, because I'm not sure I'll have access to news and current events, let alone my little corner of the world (both real life and internet). I hope the whole Lexicon trial can wait these five days, because I'd hate to be totally out of the loop on that.

Crack

I read a couple of cooking/food blogs on a regular basis, so I am constantly inundated with recipes that I set aside somewhere to "try later". However, the entire food blogosphere has been saturated by this one recipe in particular, and I just had to see if the hype was true. I used this version of the recipe, but the original post is here.
Turns out, it's so true that I actually had to get up twice in the past sentences to go eat more of it. What you're essentially making is a Skor bar. Remember them? Dark chocolate and toffee? Yeah, homemade toffee. I know, you're thinking "I don't have a candy thermometer. I have no desire to stand over a hot stove for 45 minutes stirring sugar until it turns into caramel, and then cook it until it will become toffee when hardened." Except that it's not hard. Except for the cooling time and injury time, I had this done in about 45 minutes total, baking and all.

Of course, it's just no fun if I don't change it somewhat, right? So here's what we did:

• For crackers, I used lightly salted matzoh (highly recommended)
  
• I should've trusted my instincts and used dark brown sugar instead of light brown sugar. I'll do that next time.
• Instead of the semisweet, I used the semi-pricey bittersweet chocolate chips made by Nestle (they're worth every extra penny, believe you me).
• We didn't have almonds, so I used walnuts and some Frosted Flakes as toppings. We didn't press the walnuts into the chocolate enough, so many of them have fallen off. The Frosted Flakes were an amazing idea.
  
• Instead of fleur de sal, I used French gray sea salt (another finishing salt). DON'T SKIP THIS STEP. If you are even remotely a fan of the sweet/salty combo, you want plenty of salt on the chocolate. It makes everything taste better.
  
• Instead of not touching the molten hot toffee mixture, I swept an errant drop onto my finger, where it immediately fused and caused the most pain I can remember ever having as an adult. This was worse than a migraine, people. Crying from a burn is no fun in many ways. Just look up what happens when your adrenaline pumps like crazy. That's what happens when you cause severe pain to your body. Yeah, it was awesome. After several hours of ice, 4 Advil, and a night's sleep, it seems to be better. Just a little tender and blistered. (It's possible it was totally worth all of that.)
• I would have also refrigerated it after it had cooled a bit, just to help it cool faster. If I hadn't made this at midnight, then this would not have been a problem, but I needed it to be cool before I went to bed.
  

Egads, you need to try this. I'll have some at happy hour today, so if you stop by...

UPDATE: After writing this and sneaking into the kitchen for yet another piece, I decided it might be extra delicious in the fridge, all nice and cold and crunchy. Best idea ever. I just ate a cold piece moments ago, with my third (fourth?) cup of coffee. Heavenly.

chocolate-covered caramel crunch
enough crackers to line a baking sheet
1 c unsalted butter, cut into chunks
1 c packed light brown sugar
big pinch of fleur du sel (optional)
1/2 t vanilla extract
1 c semisweet chocolate chips
1 c toasted coarsely chopped almonds

1. Line baking sheet with foil, making sure you have enough to create a tall rim around the pan. Line pan with crackers, breaking up pieces if you have to, to fill in any cracks. Preheat the oven to 375F.

2. In a medium sized saucepan, melt the butter and brown sugar together over medium heat. Stir frequently until the mixture begins to boil. Boil for 3 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and add in vanilla. If you are using unsalted crackers, add in salt. Pour caramel over crackers and spread evenly with a silicone spatula.

3. Put the baking sheet in the oven, reducing heat to 350F. Bake for 15 minutes, watching carefully that the caramel does not burn.

4. Remove from heat and cover with chocolate chips. Let stand 5 minutes until chocolate melts and then spread evenly with a spatula. Sprinkle with toasted almonds and fleur du sel or whatever toppings you desire. Let cool completely and then break into pieces, storing in an airtight container.

Someone is wrong on the internet!

The internet is full of wonder for me. I can spend hours upon hours learning, reading, ranting, whatever. After my last post, I have spent time looking at opinions of the whole RDR/JKR thing, since there is no real information coming out as we wait for a verdict or settlement. And of course, I have found lots of people that oppose my view. One suggested that anyone who believes as I do needs to get a lobotomy. Considering their egregious spelling errors in addition to their general lame-ass troll attitude, I had plenty of responses to this. However, no one wants to end up like this:

Thanks xkcd, for the reality check.

"I'm so tired of bullshit weddings!"

Man, oh man alive.
We did it. It be done. Will and Shannon are legally bonded.

It was quite the trip to get here, and this weekend was filled with all the crazy of running around and then the whooooosh of relaxation as it all came to a head. I started my Saturday by driving to Philip Pelusi's at the Westmoreland Mall and getting my hair done. The next 3 hours were spent driving on various portions of route 30 to arrange different things that were forgotten or overlooked (decorations for the bridal suite, snacks and mixers for the after party). I would just like to say that if Brett and Andrea were not going to get married at the same place in September, I would be done with Greensburg forever. It's like Monroeville times 10,000. Ugh.

I spent the rest of the afternoon getting ready and taking embarrassing pictures of the bride as she put on her dress. I have chosen not to publish those, so you can have this gorgeousness instead:


The ceremony itself turned out to be 99% perfect. I definitely choked up at times, but I made it through our speech without any actual tears running down my face. But give me a little credit. How many of you could stand up at the front of all the loved ones of some of the most important people in your life and say "It would be hard to overstate Will and Shannon's significance in our lives" without sobbing like a baby (of course, given that Will and Shannon are those important people, lol)? You can read the entirety of the speech here.
Our speech was very well received, and people loved that we officiated the ceremony for them. It was touching and meaningful and very sincere. Their vows were as well, and I finally totally lost it when Will read his. Luckily there was little for us to do after that, so I was ok.

Ceremony was followed by pictures, of course. Will and Shan used the same photographer that we did for our wedding, and he has continued to be awesome (and possibly continued to grow. Guy's like 6'7" or something ridiculous.) I was tall and statuesque with my 4 1/2" heels (taller than Tim Scott!). I lost them before the official dancing, but did manage to keep them on for the hora, which was confusing for 80% of the guests. It was still fun, even though Shannon vetoed the whole chair thing.

The reception was outstanding. The drinks and conversation flowed continually, and I managed to have a good combination of dancing and interacting with guests. I'm glad that I got the time to chat with various relations of the bride and groom. Becky's story about buying a suit for the wedding was hilarious, and I much appreciated the eye roll that Will's uncle Brian made when I mentioned Will's mother's very excited friend who had come up to me to tell me what a touching ceremony it was (at least I think that's the general message she was trying to convey...) by saying "I'm so tired of bullshit weddings!". And Rosie and I managed to take this adorable picture:

(Seriously, she looked so fantastic in that tux.)

One of the best parts was the mended fences. There are not many people that I don't get along with, but over the course of a life, there will be some falling outs. It happened that at this wedding, all of my falling outs were there. One was fixed long before the wedding, another at the rehearsal, and the other two at the wedding itself. Yay, I say, yay. I feel lighter and much better about the world at large now.


The dancing was fantastic as well. Steph and I did an entire rendition of 'Like a Prayer' alone on the dance floor, which was super fun. The time warp was excellent, as usual, though I do have a vicious bruise from my collapse at the end (swollen, red, and bright purple). There were many that got down, which I appreciated.


At the after party, I was the sober one, trying to make sure everyone was all right. I forced food and Gatorade down the throats of those who needed it, and got to laugh at how everyone slurred and fell and couldn't actually focus their eyes. The next morning at breakfast, I was glad to have been in better shape than most. There were people slumped over the tables, vomiting in the parking lot, and even one or two grey-complexioned.

Ahhhh, marriage. Such a serious and solemn event.


(Sorry about the lack of pics of the bride and groom. I didn't really manage to take any! I'm fairly certain the photographer did, though.)

The States of the Union

When I was younger and living all over the country, my mother would keep track of all the states that we went to. Since our family lived on the East Coast and we lived somewhere in the middle (Texas, Michigan, South Dakota) and we were a young not-so-well-off family, we would drive to visit everyone. Because of this and a New England road trip that JP and I took in 2001, I have been to 40 of the 50 states. Here's what I'm missing:

Iowa
Oklahoma
North Dakota
Washington
Oregon
Idaho
Utah
Arizona
Alaska
Hawaii

But good news! At the end of this month, I am flying to Chicago to help Laura move to Portland, OR. So we are jumping in her car, and driving across this great country of ours. I'll fly home from Portland when we're done. Along the way, I'll pick up 4 new states! Iowa, Utah, Idaho, and Oregon. We'll get out of the car, do a little dance, and I can claim those states as my own. I definitely plan to make it to Alaska, Hawaii, Washington, and Arizona in my lifetime, but I'm going to have to go out of my way to go to North Dakota and Oklahoma. It seems silly to go either of those places just to say I've been there, but then again, can I really die happy knowing I've been to 48 of the states?
Where have/haven't you been? Is there anyone who's hit all 50? I know my father has, but he's the only one I know of. Are you close? Does anyone else have this as a goal?

Thank you, Tom.

You always have something to say that's relevant. Sometimes I would rather hear the Ramones sing it, but it's your words that I crave.

I dont wanna grow up
I dont ever wanna be that way
I dont wanna grow up

Seems like folks turn into things
That theyd never want
The only thing to live for
Is today

I dont wanna have to shout it out
I dont want my hair to fall out
I dont wanna be filled with doubt
I dont wanna be a good boy scout
I dont wanna have to learn to count
I dont wanna have the biggest amount
I dont wanna grow up



Well, you build it up, you wreck it down
You burn your mansion to the ground
When theres nothing left to keep you here, when
Youre falling behind in this
Big blue world

Oh you go to
Hold on, hold on
You got to hold on
Take my hand, Im standing right here
You got to hold on

I’m making a note here: huge success.

So, for the past year, I feel like I've been fumbling through life, just doing whatever, waiting for my life to start. I am actually waiting for JP to finish law school so that I can go back to school. I feel like once that happens, I will be finally working towards a goal of mine - to get a degree in interior design. My second bachelor's degree.

Yep. While many of my friends have decided to go on and obtain an advanced degree when going back to school, I've decided to completely disregard the 5 years I spent at Pitt and just redo that. In my optimistic moments, I think "who cares? I want to be an interior designer and there's really no other way!", but in my weaker moments, all I can think is, "gee, you think you could've figured out what you wanted to be when you grew up before you were 24 years old?" And that triggers the thoughts of what I always thought I would be doing at 26.

College? Check!
Married/madly in love? Check!
Kids? Grad/law school? Bought house? Paid off undergrad credit card debt (or at least not increased it)? Moved out of Pittsburgh? Had some successful career/job of some sort? Kept my apartment clean? Learned to sew? Inspected my car on time? Stopped staying up late just because I felt like it? Changed the world in some significant way?

Why does what we thought at age 12, 15, 18, haunt us into adulthood? Do I feel like I had any grasp of reality at those ages? Not so much, no. I assumed that life ceased to be fun around 25 and that the rest of your life was spent slaving away to have fun later, when you're too old to enjoy it. My perspective has changed a bit since then, to say the least. I know that I can still have fun, at least until 35 (I'll come back and write this same entry and see what I think then.). I know I can pay my own rent and take care of the apartment (for the most part), and still go out on a random Tuesday if I want (and believe me, I want!). All these things signal success and accepting responsibility in some way or another, no?

Yet, nearly everyone I know has said at one point or another, "I'm just not doing what I thought I would be doing at [insert age here]." I've had many goals in my life that I have had to let go of (being an Olympic gymnast or going to boarding school), but I am still plagued by the others, even if they aren't necessarily what I want now.

Do I like my day-to-day life? Surely. How would that change if I was going to grad school? If I had a house? If I lived in a different city? If I had a better sleep schedule? If I had a kid? It would be radically different, I'm sure.

So, fuck it, dude. Seriously. "There’s no sense crying over every mistake. You just keep on trying till you run out of cake." If this is all there is, we better not waste it on overanalyzing our naive ideas of what should've happened according to the gospel of an idealistic teenager. (That's right, I just encouraged y'all to be jaded and cynical. Quarter-life crisis, indeed.)
Thanks for the inspiration, GLaDOS.