Learning the finer points of automotive repair.

Post coming soon. Most likely tonight after work or tomorrow morning.

Green Portuguese Beer

I'm not Irish and I'm not at Bala right now getting schwasted with the rest of my school's student body (the ones over 21 of course). The only green I have is a shirt that I got from a charity in India that read: Keep Calm and Carry On. Today I am sitting at other work writing this because there is nothing to do in the office other than eat copious amounts of Irish food and the leprechaun cake. Now I wish I had the balls to skip Sophomore Sem and go to Bala with KatWoman but I we have our papers due today and I have a deep fear of the teacher. Love her, but terribly afraid to skip out on her.

Okay so on top of all of the Irish foodies that I've been indulging in this morning, a girl from one of the classrooms came into the office and told us that there was Portuguese food in 313. Half the office immediately went out to investigate and since I have never really had any authentic Portuguese food so I got some too. Interesting mix of meats and seafoods all of it very good but it was all a little hard to finish. So much food in the office today.

I have to work today. My days at work at numbered dun dun dunnnnn. Tonight Other Jon and I are going out and hopefully some other people are going to come too. I told him we have to see if we can get the bar to give us green beer. A little food coloring to some PBR would be fantastic. I just need to finish the day stronger than it started.

              Yummy!

Kind of an Eeyore day.

Today was kind of a lame day. Maybe it was the weather, coming from total sunshine to total grey can be hard on a person, but I just haven't been able to get excited to about anything or the urge to actually get anything done. In fact I'm only writing out of boredom and desperation. The morning started out okay, I got up at a decent hour and drove to school. I got lucky with parking on Old Lanc and went for a run around Lower Merion before class. I like running in that area; I can look at the old houses and it's very quiet at that time of day.

American Lit. was boring as usual. You could literally hear students drift off. The class wouldn't be so terrible except that the teacher speaks in the most monotonous voice and goes off on tangents that are not related to what is going on in the class. And then of course there's That Guy. That Guy likes to talk, a lot. And he has one of those pretentious voices that everyone hates to listen too. After class when I was walking back to my car alone, a car full of guy yelled "SLUT" at me while they drove past. That's where the day went downhill for me. There was no one around me so they were obviously talking about me, but I had no idea who they were or what they were even talking about. It's not like I was dressed provocatively: sweatshirt, running pants, and sneakers. I was sweaty and my glasses were sliding off my face. I was so taken back that my mouth hit the ground and I couldn't move for a minute while I tried to comprehend what happened. Who yells stuff like that at people? What are you, eleven? Anyways I wanted to tell a friend about it since he usually has smart opinions and is a guy, but I've been getting a weird feeling about him (probably just the day and I'm probably reading too much into his writing tone. I need to stop listening to the Ballerina when she talks about him) so I texted Marg instead who insisted they were just being plain RUDE. Still I'm feeling really mad about it and all I want to do is go to sleep and wake up  ready to go running for BOMF.

I also have a giant know feeling in my stomach area and it's making me feel worse about the day. I just feel so crummy and I want to cry, but everything seems too silly to cry about and I feel like I shouldn't waste tears on such silly things. It's just the day after all. Tomorrow will be something new and all the silly feelings I have about school and work and my friends will be gone. I'm just really smad about how the day is going.

There were two spots of silver in my dark cloud: Jon is excited about going to see Matt & Kim (now we just need to raise some funds to get tickets and get more people to go with us) and I got a second interview. 

Two of two.

MATT AND KIM ARE COMING BACK TO PHILADELPHIA AND I AM GOING TO GO SEE THEM!!! Matt and Kim are playing at The Troc at the end of May and my friend Jon and I are going even if I have to drag him there. He's the only other person that I know that loves them almost as much as me so he's coming. You can't go to their shows alone, it's just not fun.

So this one was supposed to go up a while ago and then again last night as a complimentary piece to the first one but then I never got around to it.

I'm watching Julie & Julia right now (for the third time) and I have to admit that I kind of forgot how amazing this movie is. I absolutely hate Julie Powell for being a giant cheating whore in real life, but I really love what she did with her cooking blog. I also adore Julia Child ever since I used to watch her cooking show on PBS with my Dad. When I was little that's all we did, watch Julia Child and The Frugal Gourmet while Samantha napped.

Anyways I love this movie because of the dual stories that it portrays. In one you're watching a woman come from nothing and become a world-wide phenomenon. She has the most amazing marriage and life and her journey through the food world is simple inspirational. She also shares an extreme love of Valentine's day with me. I love the dinner that she hold where everyone wears large red hearts on their chests and when her husband Paul stands up to say beautiful words about her, she flutters her red heart for him. So romantic. She also sends out cute Valentine's postcards of Paul and her to all their friends. 

"You know what I love about cooking? I love that after a day when nothing is sure and when I say nothing, I mean nothing. You can come home and absolutely know that if you add egg yolks to chocolate and sugar and milk, it will get thick. That's such a comfort."

The other story follows a woman who literally has to her rock bottom in her life before she can pick herself up and be satisfied with her life, all while cooking a year's worth of Julia Child recipes. She is not the best character, but she is a human one with flaws that we all have and she is relatable to most people. I did love her apartment ad if she could make it work in her tiny tiny kitchen I can do it in mine. 

"You can never have too much butter."

The thing I love most about this movie is the relationships that the characters have with each other. For me the most relatable is Julie and her mother. The conversation about Julie's blog in the beginning and the talk about regimins and AA and Julie's mother takes something and goes in a totally opposite direction and misses the point; I can't tell you how many times I have conversations like that with my own mother. It's a wonder I still bother to tell her about the goings-on in my life. I deeply, deeply adore Julia and Paul's marriage. It is so filled with love and care. They perfectly compliment each other. It is really rare to see that sort of love and happiness and outside of this movie the only other marriage that comes close is Lance and Mary Ann. I really love/hate the Powell's marriage as well. The fact that Eric stuck through the Julie/Julia Project and Julie's infidelity is really cool. I love that when they fight, he fights back and stands up for themselves. Too many people are willing to be walked all over because they are too afraid to mess things up. People also put others up on pedestals and people can't handle it. We all do it and when we finally crack we don't always stand up for ourselves. Props to Eric for reminding Julie that he wasn't a saint. I love Chris Messina's portrayal of Eric. He is the man I want. Dark hair and nicely shaped and an excellent sense of humor. Lobster killer qu-est que c'est! He also has a cool job as an editor at an archaeological magazine. I need to meet someone like that and go get some beer and crab legs with them. It's the relationships that make this movie.

If you haven't seen it yet, rent it soon.

"These damn things are as hot as a stiff cock!"

I was reminded of something funny this weekend. My friend Ianni celebrated a milestone birthday and got very very inebriated. Reminded me of a time in high school after we had gotten back from Greece. I was sitting on a bench outside of Sloane's and everything was spinning. Ianni sat down next to me and started talking about Greece and graduation when all of the sudden I ralphed all over the side of the bench. Ianni was stunned and so were Katherine and Josh who were fighting in the car in front of us. Funny how things worked out with us. Two of them in Vermont, one in the army and engaged to be married and me in Philadelphia already planning the move to Portland.

First of two.

I was going to write about Julia but I just can't bring myself to finish it without watching the movie again which I'll do a little later tonight. Instead I'm eating artichoke hearts out of the can and watching old episodes of Murder, She Wrote. I still have five more seasons to go so at this rate I'll be done by May.

I'm not going to lie, I've become a little disheartened by blogging. I just don't see the point of writing about every insipid thing that passes through my mind. Maybe it's just the Ides of March approaching soon or the other blogs that I've been reading are seeming a little pointless, but I just don't want to write anymore. I think if I'm going to keep going I'm going to have to start some sort of routine or have a sort of theme to this. Maybe a certain devoted to a specific topic or I should start regularly chronicling about the things I have going on in my life. I've spent the last couple of months glued to the wedding plans of Beantownprepster and while I have no such plans of my own, her regular updates were fun to follow. I also may blog a little less until I can come up with a new direction. So eventually look for something a little different. Spring is only a week away which means a new theme update too.

I received a lead on some good news today hopefully it will turn into something. 

Day Nine: Home.

Days eight and nine were mostly travel days. I spent early Friday packing and wandering around the islands for a little while. We had lunch at the marina and then lounged around for a while. We were on the road by 4pm and I must say that driving through Florida is the most boring of all drives. I fell asleep at some point and when I woke up around 9pm we were only in Vero Beach (another of Lance's many brief stops before my mother) however, we did get to stop at Steak 'n Shake for dinner so I was extremely pleased. I fell asleep again soon after and didn't wake up until Washington D.C. and my then I didn't care because I knew exactly where I was on the map. I find it easier to travel long distances with my family when I can track exactly where were are and how long it will be until the car officially stops.

Day Seven: Lost at sea.

So this morning we decided to go over to Sombrero Beach off the bottom end of Vaca and almost against Boot Key. It's a great beach with palm trees lining the edge instead of sand dunes and a long expanse of white sand. It used to be coral beach but has been replaced with some very nice sand. The beach also has small pavilions for luncheons and areas for volley ball and a place for small children to play. It's also one of the very few excellent and free beaches in the Keys. About two hours into some fabulous beach time, tropical storm force winds came in and blew everyone off of the beach. Now this wouldn't be a problem for me, but Lance and Samantha were out at sea kayaking when this happened. My mother of course was on the phone at the time and left me to pack everything up and it wasn't until the beach umbrella was half blown apart that she got off the phone and went right into panic mode. I had to be the voice of reason and snap her out of it. Seriously if there was anyone in the world that you would want to be lost at sea with in a kayak, it's Lance. Mind you if I were Lance I definitely wouldn't want to be stuck with Samantha. Anyways I managed to pack everything up and get a hysterical quinquagenarian to the car to wait for the kayakers to return.

To end the exhausting day and to celebrate our last night in the house, I was rewarded with some fine spiny lobster. I'm going to huff it back over to Sombrero in the morning o get some sun in before I have to return to the great wet Mid-Atlantic.

A pleasant start to a beach day.

The backside of Sombrero.

Smoothing and expanding the beach. 

Sailboat! There was also a dolphin out there somewhere too. 

Storm's a brewin'. Get off the phone MA I'm already feeling rain.

From inside the car. This started long before I made it to the Silver Bullet. 

I broke away from studying to find a pleasant surprise in the pot.