I mentioned in the last entry that we spent approximately one-seventh of the cousin reunion doing things that were not eating or drinking. Some of those things, such as running road races and playing ladder golf, have been covered in other entries. So I have just a brief list left of things to recap:
--We sat on the porches of the cottages and talked.
--We sat on the porches of the cottages and talked about how cold it was.
--We sat on the porches of the cottages and wondered if we should go inside cause it was so cold (this part took amazingly longer than you might think)
--We sat inside and talked.
--We had a photo shoot, in which a photographer took pictures of us.
--We took informal photos as well.
--We relived things that had happened just hours earlier by looking at the informal photos that had been taken.
--We took naps
--Some people went for walks.
And one highlight, at least for the female cousins, was an activity that involved perusing the latest celebrity gossip magazines. Mary arrived with an arsenal of guilty pleasures that included the People, the US Weekly and the OK! from the week of October 27. And we kind of read parts of them aloud, laughing at how crazy celebrities are. Some people, particularly those that have toddlers or who have been out of the country, needed to be schooled in the ways of Hannah Montana, High School Musical and Gossip Girl, because you really need to understand those three things to understand celebrity magazines these days.
But I thought I would present some choice highlights from the magazines, with apologies to Worth who was off with much higher-brow reading material and to Grant who is on record as preferring jigsaw puzzles to trashy magazines.
First off, I wanted to start with the Celebrity Gossip Magazines Trifectas, which means that all three magazines covered the same item, sometimes with the same photo. These items included:
--Reese Witherspoon and Jake Gyllenhaal's trip to a London lingerie store. All the magazines agreed that they seemed quite happy.
--Salma Hayek and her cute baby on the set of 30 Rock
--J-Lo renewing her vows with Marc Anthony
Near-trifectas, or coverage in 2 of 3 magazines, included a picture of the Olsen twins pushing their own luggage, the only unattractive picture of George Clooney ever taken (he was sunbathing, has a weird mustache and was making a face), and pictures of Hugh Jackman celebrating his 40th birthday with his kids. Also, 2 out of 3 magazines agreed that "The Secret Life of Bees" is a good movie. US Weekly was unsatisfied.
Here are highlights from each individual magazine!
People
--John Mayer and Jennifer Aniston: Totally hanging out!
--DJ AM is glad he survived a plane accident
--Toni Braxton had a heart problem. Now she's on Dancing with the Stars. Or she WAS.
--Maureen McCormick wrote a book about all her problems. Just get a blog, Maureen!
--Suri Cruise got custom shoes
--There's a new thing called vibrating mascara! I don't wear mascara but I'm intrigued!
OK
--Kelly Ripa wore six inch heels one day
--Tori Spelling's boobs look weird in a picture where she's playing golf. (big topic of conversation on the porch!)
--Sarah Palin and Tina Fey look a lot alike (My father would probably like me to point out at this moment, as he does whenever Tina Fey comes up, that she went to the University of Virginia)
--There's a thing called cut-out booties. It's where boots have cut-outs. According to someone who holds a position of editor (it doesn't specify what she's an editor of), "These are the hot item this fall, but if you don't pair them with the right thing, it can look like a mess. They work best with dresses and skirts, with or without tights. They're also great with jeans and pants that are tailored with slim-cut legs, where you can see the detail of the bootie."
--The weekends might be ruining your diet
--You know the guy who plays Bree's son on Desperate Housewives? It doesn't matter if you do or not. But just listen to this thing he said: "Right now, I'm making an ostrich filet with butternut squash puree and a raspberry reduction." I DON'T KNOW WHAT THAT IS.
US Weekly
--This magazine spurred serious discussion about autism because Jenny McCarthy was on the cover
--US Weekly concurs with OK! that John and Jen are back on.
--Shanna Moakler sad about that plane crash. I didn't even know who Shanna Moakler was before that plane crash.
--Some people on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition had their homes foreclosed. Then my cousin Elizabeth told a sad story about some people who were on a home improvement show and did not get what they wanted out of it!
--Also US had a tidbit about my arch nemesis Jennifer Love Hewitt. She is planning a wedding and it's going to be very intimate, so intimate that somebody's Great Aunt Sylvia can't come. Not very LOVE-ing of you, Jennifer LOVE. If that is indeed your name!
Anyways, I'm glad I got to keep the celebrity magazines after everyone was done looking at them because it made this entry much easier to write. And now you have a better idea of things we did that were not drinking or eating. The only things that we really planned to do but never got around to were a basketmaking class and a game of Tripoley.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Cousin Reunion #8: Zing. Thirds. Cooler than Dang Crap
The title of this post shouldn’t make sense to anyone who wasn't at the cousin reunion. Sorry about that, other readers. But if it's any consolation, it makes little sense to me either at this point. All I know is that those were the things we said over and over while intoxicated.
We're at the seventh of the eleven entries allotted for the cousin reunion weekend, and it's kind of bizarre that I've waited this long to talk about drinking. Sure, I mentioned in the last entry that we ate Wendy's one late night after having had a few, but the subject surely deserves its own post. I would guesstimate that we spent 3/7ths of our weekend eating, 3/7ths of our time drinking and 1/7ths of the time doing random stuff.
Whoa, I don't mean to get off topic here, but when I typed "guesstimate," I really expected this word processing program to mark it as a misspelled word. I didn't think it was real. But it totally is, apparently! According to the online version of Merriam Webster, it's been a word since 1923! I mean, this word processing program doesn't even recognize "amygdala" as a word, and Merriam Webster says that has been a word since 1845 in addition to being an important part of the brain. But it recognizes guesstimate? Life is weird.
Anyways. Time to talk about drinking. It's been kind of a hard post to figure out how to write. Sometimes reading about other people drinking can be boring, especially when I tell you how hilarious it was. Everyone thinks they're hilarious when they drink. But trust me when I tell you that we were SEVEN TIMES MORE HILARIOUS THAN OTHER DRINKING PEOPLE.
An interesting thing about this side of the family, though, is that we really don't need alcohol to have a good time. These cousins act slightly intoxicated most of the time anyways. These are the kind of people who are very loud and wet their pants even without any drinks in them. So what you have to understand is we are already starting at a pretty high level of fun-ness. And so that's why we have so much more fun than normal people when we do drink.
The ability to drink a massive amount is hereditary, I believe, or at least one would think so by watching the previous generations of this family drink. Man, I wish I could remember a time when I did not have an uncle or an aunt or a parent trying to get me drunk. I just can't remember that. My mom sent my brothers and me off to Kanuga with a tub full of jello shots. And she made them when she was hungover. And they were themed jello shots, by which I mean she picked the colors of leaves since we were there for "See the Leaves." I mean, that's the kind of commitment to drinking that this family has made. Also, we had a keg and who knows how many bottles of wine and sweet tea vodka and regular vodka and we reinstalled one of the sinks in the cabin so that it poured out tequila.
I won't go into all the details of what happened while we were drinking, mostly because one of us could possibly run for President one day and might not like all those personal details on the Internet. Suffice it to say, a lot of weird things were said. There is an awful valuable steno pad with drunken quotes out there somewhere. I heard siblings say strange things to one another and cousins share the types of things they have never shared before (and possibly shouldn't share). And I saw, as one cousin put it, an awful lot of ass. People just wanted to shake their asses when they were drunk. Unfortunately, that side of the family has rather flat asses, except for my brother William, which made his ass a subject of much fascination for all of the other cousins.
DO YOU SEE WHY THIS IS KIND OF A HARD ENTRY TO WRITE? I AM HAVING TO TYPE THINGS ABOUT MY BROTHER'S ASS!!!
Some drinking MVPs in my book include my cousin Sarah, who showed up to the event hungover like a champ. Also a shoutout to my brother George, the only person who threw up the entire weekend as far as I am aware. I don't think anyone realize that George was quite that drunk, even though he was saying weird things on Friday night and calling out for our future cousin-in-law Brad. He missed Brad. He loved Brad. He wanted to know where Brad was. Maybe he just wanted Brad to help him when he threw up. As it was, his own brother didn't get out of bed to help.
Hmm, I don't know why I'm trying to pick just a few drinking MVPs. Everyone did a great job drinking that weekend. But I have to give a special shout-out to my cousin CATHARINE. While drunk, Catharine revealed she wanted her name in the blog, which probably would have happened anyway. But I told her that her name would not be in the blog if she did not do a certain thing. That, along with some other cousin threats, convinced Catharine, at the age of 40, to do her first keg stand.
Now, let me stop here and say, that if any of Catharine's darling children are reading this, a keg stand is a miserable scary thing that you should never attempt to do with your peers. Wait for a family event and have the cousins show you how to do it.
So anyways, cheers to CATHARINE for her first keg stand and for this quote, the only one that I will, in fact, share: "Do you think if I start drinking vodka and playing beer pong right now my life will change?"
We're at the seventh of the eleven entries allotted for the cousin reunion weekend, and it's kind of bizarre that I've waited this long to talk about drinking. Sure, I mentioned in the last entry that we ate Wendy's one late night after having had a few, but the subject surely deserves its own post. I would guesstimate that we spent 3/7ths of our weekend eating, 3/7ths of our time drinking and 1/7ths of the time doing random stuff.
Whoa, I don't mean to get off topic here, but when I typed "guesstimate," I really expected this word processing program to mark it as a misspelled word. I didn't think it was real. But it totally is, apparently! According to the online version of Merriam Webster, it's been a word since 1923! I mean, this word processing program doesn't even recognize "amygdala" as a word, and Merriam Webster says that has been a word since 1845 in addition to being an important part of the brain. But it recognizes guesstimate? Life is weird.
Anyways. Time to talk about drinking. It's been kind of a hard post to figure out how to write. Sometimes reading about other people drinking can be boring, especially when I tell you how hilarious it was. Everyone thinks they're hilarious when they drink. But trust me when I tell you that we were SEVEN TIMES MORE HILARIOUS THAN OTHER DRINKING PEOPLE.
An interesting thing about this side of the family, though, is that we really don't need alcohol to have a good time. These cousins act slightly intoxicated most of the time anyways. These are the kind of people who are very loud and wet their pants even without any drinks in them. So what you have to understand is we are already starting at a pretty high level of fun-ness. And so that's why we have so much more fun than normal people when we do drink.
The ability to drink a massive amount is hereditary, I believe, or at least one would think so by watching the previous generations of this family drink. Man, I wish I could remember a time when I did not have an uncle or an aunt or a parent trying to get me drunk. I just can't remember that. My mom sent my brothers and me off to Kanuga with a tub full of jello shots. And she made them when she was hungover. And they were themed jello shots, by which I mean she picked the colors of leaves since we were there for "See the Leaves." I mean, that's the kind of commitment to drinking that this family has made. Also, we had a keg and who knows how many bottles of wine and sweet tea vodka and regular vodka and we reinstalled one of the sinks in the cabin so that it poured out tequila.
I won't go into all the details of what happened while we were drinking, mostly because one of us could possibly run for President one day and might not like all those personal details on the Internet. Suffice it to say, a lot of weird things were said. There is an awful valuable steno pad with drunken quotes out there somewhere. I heard siblings say strange things to one another and cousins share the types of things they have never shared before (and possibly shouldn't share). And I saw, as one cousin put it, an awful lot of ass. People just wanted to shake their asses when they were drunk. Unfortunately, that side of the family has rather flat asses, except for my brother William, which made his ass a subject of much fascination for all of the other cousins.
DO YOU SEE WHY THIS IS KIND OF A HARD ENTRY TO WRITE? I AM HAVING TO TYPE THINGS ABOUT MY BROTHER'S ASS!!!
Some drinking MVPs in my book include my cousin Sarah, who showed up to the event hungover like a champ. Also a shoutout to my brother George, the only person who threw up the entire weekend as far as I am aware. I don't think anyone realize that George was quite that drunk, even though he was saying weird things on Friday night and calling out for our future cousin-in-law Brad. He missed Brad. He loved Brad. He wanted to know where Brad was. Maybe he just wanted Brad to help him when he threw up. As it was, his own brother didn't get out of bed to help.
Hmm, I don't know why I'm trying to pick just a few drinking MVPs. Everyone did a great job drinking that weekend. But I have to give a special shout-out to my cousin CATHARINE. While drunk, Catharine revealed she wanted her name in the blog, which probably would have happened anyway. But I told her that her name would not be in the blog if she did not do a certain thing. That, along with some other cousin threats, convinced Catharine, at the age of 40, to do her first keg stand.
Now, let me stop here and say, that if any of Catharine's darling children are reading this, a keg stand is a miserable scary thing that you should never attempt to do with your peers. Wait for a family event and have the cousins show you how to do it.
So anyways, cheers to CATHARINE for her first keg stand and for this quote, the only one that I will, in fact, share: "Do you think if I start drinking vodka and playing beer pong right now my life will change?"
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Cousin Reunion #7: A mystery is solved.
One of the great eternal mysteries of life just might be what food you should eat while intoxicated. When I was in college, I was convinced that this food was pizza delivered by the place that accepted meal plan points. But then once students were allowed to have cars on campus, I discovered that the nearest Waffle House was the best choice a drunk person could make at 3 a.m. (assuming, of course, that a designated driver could be procured). In case anyone is wondering, the best thing to order at a Waffle House at 3 a.m. is a sausage melt with hashbrowns scattered, smothered and diced. Maybe peppered if you're feeling crazy. If you wind up drunk in Seattle, a city that lacks Waffles Houses, you go to a place called Dick's where you can get burgers for cheap.
But this weekend I discovered the absolute, hands-down, no questions asked best food to consume while drunk. See, the first night, we had been drinking for several hours, and it had been hours since we had a meal. As you might gather from the posts about meals and snacks at Kanuga, if you went several hours without a meal, you had gone too long. So we started brainstorming with our powerful brains exactly what kind of food we should try to procure. My brother was thinking outside the bun and suggested Taco Bell, but he was shot down in favor of the place that rules the night, Wendy's. Off went a somewhat sober cousin and some drunken support to procure some Wendy's.
I will admit that I certainly didn't plan on solving such a grand mystery of life that night. I didn't have high hopes for Wendy's as a drunken food provider. That's not to say that I don't love Wendy's; if I'm driving down the highway looking for food conveniently close to an interstate, I'm looking for a Wendy's sign and the promise of spicy chicken sandwich with no lettuce. I haven't eaten anything but that from Wendy's in years. So I didn't really know what else they had.
But then my cousins came back with several sacks full of Wendy's dollar menu items. There was a bag of fries as well as a bag of mystery meat items -- chicken nuggets, chicken sandwiches and junior bacon cheeseburgers. And when I took that first bite of bacon cheeseburger, I knew I had found the perfect drunken food item. While I did not conduct a scientific poll, I would wager a guess that many of my cousins shared in the ecstasy that was late night Wendy's. Kudos, Dave Thomas. I underestimated you and your junior bacon cheeseburgers.
What a wealth of food we had for 11 people on just 25 dollars! I even had another half of a bacon cheeseburger, though I'm willing to admit that may have been a mistake as I woke up in the middle of the night with a tummy ache. But was that the Wendy's, or was that the alcohol? Or just the general excitement of solving one of the great mysteries of life? Who can say?
Now, while I have proclaimed that Wendy's is the current champion of late night drunken food, I am willing to entertain the option of creating a new king at future cousin reunions, particularly if any contenders would be willing to drive the food out to us for free.
But this weekend I discovered the absolute, hands-down, no questions asked best food to consume while drunk. See, the first night, we had been drinking for several hours, and it had been hours since we had a meal. As you might gather from the posts about meals and snacks at Kanuga, if you went several hours without a meal, you had gone too long. So we started brainstorming with our powerful brains exactly what kind of food we should try to procure. My brother was thinking outside the bun and suggested Taco Bell, but he was shot down in favor of the place that rules the night, Wendy's. Off went a somewhat sober cousin and some drunken support to procure some Wendy's.
I will admit that I certainly didn't plan on solving such a grand mystery of life that night. I didn't have high hopes for Wendy's as a drunken food provider. That's not to say that I don't love Wendy's; if I'm driving down the highway looking for food conveniently close to an interstate, I'm looking for a Wendy's sign and the promise of spicy chicken sandwich with no lettuce. I haven't eaten anything but that from Wendy's in years. So I didn't really know what else they had.
But then my cousins came back with several sacks full of Wendy's dollar menu items. There was a bag of fries as well as a bag of mystery meat items -- chicken nuggets, chicken sandwiches and junior bacon cheeseburgers. And when I took that first bite of bacon cheeseburger, I knew I had found the perfect drunken food item. While I did not conduct a scientific poll, I would wager a guess that many of my cousins shared in the ecstasy that was late night Wendy's. Kudos, Dave Thomas. I underestimated you and your junior bacon cheeseburgers.
What a wealth of food we had for 11 people on just 25 dollars! I even had another half of a bacon cheeseburger, though I'm willing to admit that may have been a mistake as I woke up in the middle of the night with a tummy ache. But was that the Wendy's, or was that the alcohol? Or just the general excitement of solving one of the great mysteries of life? Who can say?
Now, while I have proclaimed that Wendy's is the current champion of late night drunken food, I am willing to entertain the option of creating a new king at future cousin reunions, particularly if any contenders would be willing to drive the food out to us for free.
Cousin Reunion #6: A miraculous invention
During the reunion weekend, one of my cousins introduced me to a miraculous invention that I must own. It is a device that makes popcorn. Now perhaps you are thinking that I am talking about the microwave, but oh no, I am not talking about the microwave. Though the microwave is a miraculous invention in its own right as it allows me to stand firm in my decision to not cook.
What I am talking about, though, is a hot air popcorn popper, which my cousin Mary showed me. I had never seen one of these things before, though when I got home from the cousin reunion my parents swore they had one. They couldn't find it though. Suspicious.
Anyways, the thing I liked about the hot air popcorn popper, besides eating the popcorn, was watching all the popcorn explode from the lid to the bowl. It's kind of like a waterfall of popcorn, which, I'm not going to lie, is something that I've dreamed about. Is there a children's book where popcorn rains from the sky? If not, I should start working on that.
And you know, it's not unheard of that popcorn would fall from the sky, because do you know what the magic ingredient in popcorn is? WATER. When the water heats up inside the popcorn, it causes the shell to explode into bubbles of air that coalesce quickly to form that delicious treat that we all enjoy at movie theaters. In the olden days, the water was heated up with oil, but then in 1978, the hot air popper was developed for health reasons. If you heat up the water inside a popcorn kernel with air instead of oil, popcorn has significantly less calories.
BUT WHAT'S THE FUN IN THAT? None. There is no fun in that. Which is why that powdered buttery goop was invented, and also why Mary's hot air popper had this little dish on top where you could melt butter. So butter was melted and salt was added and spells were cast and we had a delicious popcorn treat. The result was so delicious in fact that I helped eat about four bowls of popcorn. Three bowls before dinner and one bowl after. And as I have revealed, meals at Kanuga was nothing to sneeze at.
Other snacks that we ate while at Kanuga included:
--Chips and onion dip
--Pop rocks (it made Grant's eyelids itch)
--Poppycock nutty clusters or something to that effect (the marketing copy made Grant uncomfortable)
--ugly chocolates (that's actually what they were called.)
--M&M's
Also I had a bite or two from a stick of butter that was sitting around after we made popcorn. I'm not proud of it, but it was delicious. I think that the butter just reminded me too much of the popcorn, and there wasn't any popcorn right at that very minute. Maybe some other things as well but mainly I remember that popcorn. In remembrance, here are some interesting facts about popcorn that I got from the internet:
--The earliest popcorn popper ever found was discovered in Peru. 300 A.D. It pre-dates even the Incans. But it was kind of primitive.
--Charles Cretors developed the first true popcorn machine in 1885.
--Orville Redenbacher's middle name was Clarence. He died in a Jacuzzi.
--Popcorn can cause lung disease.
--Popcorn is delicious.
--I got tired of looking up facts about popcorn.
What I am talking about, though, is a hot air popcorn popper, which my cousin Mary showed me. I had never seen one of these things before, though when I got home from the cousin reunion my parents swore they had one. They couldn't find it though. Suspicious.
Anyways, the thing I liked about the hot air popcorn popper, besides eating the popcorn, was watching all the popcorn explode from the lid to the bowl. It's kind of like a waterfall of popcorn, which, I'm not going to lie, is something that I've dreamed about. Is there a children's book where popcorn rains from the sky? If not, I should start working on that.
And you know, it's not unheard of that popcorn would fall from the sky, because do you know what the magic ingredient in popcorn is? WATER. When the water heats up inside the popcorn, it causes the shell to explode into bubbles of air that coalesce quickly to form that delicious treat that we all enjoy at movie theaters. In the olden days, the water was heated up with oil, but then in 1978, the hot air popper was developed for health reasons. If you heat up the water inside a popcorn kernel with air instead of oil, popcorn has significantly less calories.
BUT WHAT'S THE FUN IN THAT? None. There is no fun in that. Which is why that powdered buttery goop was invented, and also why Mary's hot air popper had this little dish on top where you could melt butter. So butter was melted and salt was added and spells were cast and we had a delicious popcorn treat. The result was so delicious in fact that I helped eat about four bowls of popcorn. Three bowls before dinner and one bowl after. And as I have revealed, meals at Kanuga was nothing to sneeze at.
Other snacks that we ate while at Kanuga included:
--Chips and onion dip
--Pop rocks (it made Grant's eyelids itch)
--Poppycock nutty clusters or something to that effect (the marketing copy made Grant uncomfortable)
--ugly chocolates (that's actually what they were called.)
--M&M's
Also I had a bite or two from a stick of butter that was sitting around after we made popcorn. I'm not proud of it, but it was delicious. I think that the butter just reminded me too much of the popcorn, and there wasn't any popcorn right at that very minute. Maybe some other things as well but mainly I remember that popcorn. In remembrance, here are some interesting facts about popcorn that I got from the internet:
--The earliest popcorn popper ever found was discovered in Peru. 300 A.D. It pre-dates even the Incans. But it was kind of primitive.
--Charles Cretors developed the first true popcorn machine in 1885.
--Orville Redenbacher's middle name was Clarence. He died in a Jacuzzi.
--Popcorn can cause lung disease.
--Popcorn is delicious.
--I got tired of looking up facts about popcorn.
Cousin Reunion #5: I review all the meals
All of the last entries about the cousin reunion may give you the idea that all we did was play games and enjoy athletic activity. Honestly, nothing could be further from the truth. Mostly we just ate. We were there for a conference called "See the Leaves," cause it was leaf-changing time in North Carolina, but I’m pretty sure the only leaves I saw were the ones that were along the path that led to the dining hall and back.
Since so much time was dedicated to eating, I thought I'd dedicate a few entries to food. One of the best things about staying at Kanuga is no one has to cook. You just show up at designated meal times and there is a delicious all-you-can-eat meal waiting for you. To show you how good this deal is, I will review all the meals I ate in the dining hall. I might not remember all the side dishes, because after all now it's been a week since I ate them. But have no fear, I remember the important things.
Friday--Dinner
On the menu: A piece of meat that I think was eventually identified as pork, cheesy scalloped potatoes, green beans and I think something else. For dessert there was chocolate cake.
The verdict: This meal was really good when I ate it, particularly those potatoes. I did remark that the sodium content seemed kinda high, and I think that if I'm commenting on the sodium content, then it's probably really too high. When I ate this meal, I rated it very high to my dining companions, but I think it's just because I didn't realize what good meals were yet to come. Still, overall, I will give it a grade of B-.
Saturday--Breakfast
On the menu: It was a buffet of every single breakfast food you can think of! Including blueberry pancakes, bacon, sausage, eggs, grits, oatmeal, and KANUGA TOAST and probably some other things too! Oh and fruit! There was also fruit.
The verdict: Maybe you are getting concerned that I can't remember all the other things on the breakfast buffet. But I will tell you this--I got one of everything to try for comparison's sake, because that's just the kind of sacrifice I make for my blog. And the reason I can't remember all the side items is because one thing stood head and shoulders above the rest of the breakfast food items, and that thing was the BLUEBERRY PANCAKES. I give those pancakes an A. My least favorite thing I tried was the oatmeal, probably because I didn't take the time to dress it up with accoutrements such as brown sugar, raisins or whatever else you put on oatmeal. I was too impatient to get to those blueberry pancakes. Everything else was like a B-.
Saturday--Lunch
On the menu: Tacos! You could pick from hard or soft taco. After that, all basic taco fixings were available, including ground beef, beans, rice, cheese, salsa, guacamole, even a few jalapenos. For dessert, there were peanut butter cookies or M&M cookies.
The verdict: I had 2 soft tacos with every single topping that was available. I really appreciated Kanuga providing guacamole and jalapenos because I love those two things, but sometimes I feel that they are the first to go when people are planning meals of tacos. For dessert I had the M&M cookie. Overall I give this meal a B+.
Saturday--Dinner
On the menu: It was a fancy buffet night! There was a roast beef carving station, these gigantic shrimp for shrimp cocktail, a pasta that had pepperoni and chicken, a blue cheese salad, an orzo pasta salad, succotash, a vegetable medley and probably some other stuff. For dessert you could pick from several types of cheesecake.
The verdict: This was the best meal of the weekend. I give it an A+++. When I went through the buffet the first time I got one of everything, because, as I said, I had to try everything for the blog's sake. But on my second trip, I realized that there were only three things I needed to focus on: roast beef, the gigantic shrimp and the pasta with pepperoni. Those things really put this meal over the top. The cheesecake was only okay though.
Sunday--Breakfast #1
On the menu: Various pastries and sausage biscuits.
The verdict: The whole reason I went to this breakfast was for the sausage biscuits. Luckily, they didn't disappoint. The sausage biscuits also get an A+++. This is an early breakfast they have before the church service. But if you don't want to go to church, you can just go back to your cabin, pack, and wait around a few hours for:
Sunday--Breakfast #2
On the menu: Another breakfast buffet. There was French toast, breakfast meat that I guess was ham, maybe some other meats, grits, fruit, etc.
The verdict: This breakfast wasn't as good. The French toast was cold and there was nothing that matched the sausage biscuits I had a few hours earlier. Plus I was sad that cousin reunion was coming to an end and we would all have to say goodbye soon. So I only give this meal at C-.
Since so much time was dedicated to eating, I thought I'd dedicate a few entries to food. One of the best things about staying at Kanuga is no one has to cook. You just show up at designated meal times and there is a delicious all-you-can-eat meal waiting for you. To show you how good this deal is, I will review all the meals I ate in the dining hall. I might not remember all the side dishes, because after all now it's been a week since I ate them. But have no fear, I remember the important things.
Friday--Dinner
On the menu: A piece of meat that I think was eventually identified as pork, cheesy scalloped potatoes, green beans and I think something else. For dessert there was chocolate cake.
The verdict: This meal was really good when I ate it, particularly those potatoes. I did remark that the sodium content seemed kinda high, and I think that if I'm commenting on the sodium content, then it's probably really too high. When I ate this meal, I rated it very high to my dining companions, but I think it's just because I didn't realize what good meals were yet to come. Still, overall, I will give it a grade of B-.
Saturday--Breakfast
On the menu: It was a buffet of every single breakfast food you can think of! Including blueberry pancakes, bacon, sausage, eggs, grits, oatmeal, and KANUGA TOAST and probably some other things too! Oh and fruit! There was also fruit.
The verdict: Maybe you are getting concerned that I can't remember all the other things on the breakfast buffet. But I will tell you this--I got one of everything to try for comparison's sake, because that's just the kind of sacrifice I make for my blog. And the reason I can't remember all the side items is because one thing stood head and shoulders above the rest of the breakfast food items, and that thing was the BLUEBERRY PANCAKES. I give those pancakes an A. My least favorite thing I tried was the oatmeal, probably because I didn't take the time to dress it up with accoutrements such as brown sugar, raisins or whatever else you put on oatmeal. I was too impatient to get to those blueberry pancakes. Everything else was like a B-.
Saturday--Lunch
On the menu: Tacos! You could pick from hard or soft taco. After that, all basic taco fixings were available, including ground beef, beans, rice, cheese, salsa, guacamole, even a few jalapenos. For dessert, there were peanut butter cookies or M&M cookies.
The verdict: I had 2 soft tacos with every single topping that was available. I really appreciated Kanuga providing guacamole and jalapenos because I love those two things, but sometimes I feel that they are the first to go when people are planning meals of tacos. For dessert I had the M&M cookie. Overall I give this meal a B+.
Saturday--Dinner
On the menu: It was a fancy buffet night! There was a roast beef carving station, these gigantic shrimp for shrimp cocktail, a pasta that had pepperoni and chicken, a blue cheese salad, an orzo pasta salad, succotash, a vegetable medley and probably some other stuff. For dessert you could pick from several types of cheesecake.
The verdict: This was the best meal of the weekend. I give it an A+++. When I went through the buffet the first time I got one of everything, because, as I said, I had to try everything for the blog's sake. But on my second trip, I realized that there were only three things I needed to focus on: roast beef, the gigantic shrimp and the pasta with pepperoni. Those things really put this meal over the top. The cheesecake was only okay though.
Sunday--Breakfast #1
On the menu: Various pastries and sausage biscuits.
The verdict: The whole reason I went to this breakfast was for the sausage biscuits. Luckily, they didn't disappoint. The sausage biscuits also get an A+++. This is an early breakfast they have before the church service. But if you don't want to go to church, you can just go back to your cabin, pack, and wait around a few hours for:
Sunday--Breakfast #2
On the menu: Another breakfast buffet. There was French toast, breakfast meat that I guess was ham, maybe some other meats, grits, fruit, etc.
The verdict: This breakfast wasn't as good. The French toast was cold and there was nothing that matched the sausage biscuits I had a few hours earlier. Plus I was sad that cousin reunion was coming to an end and we would all have to say goodbye soon. So I only give this meal at C-.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Cousin Reunion #4: Reindeer Games
I was not the only cousin proving my physical prowess this weekend. There were several ongoing physical activities, mental puzzles and games that I thought I would highlight in this post.
#1: Beer Pong
My brother William built a beer pong table for the cousin reunion. Let me just repeat that. He BUILT A BEER PONG TABLE. I don't even have the words to describe how cool I think that is. It's collapsible, so it can be carried with ease to any function or event, and it was custom lettered for us cousins with "Kink's 11."
In a recent Time Magazine article, Billy Gaines, the host of the World Series of Beer Pong, was quoted as saying: "Beer pong is severely misunderstood. It's a sport. It just happens to involve alcohol. People are not playing the game to get drunk but because they love the challenge of throwing a table-tennis ball into a cup with some type of liquid in it" [source: Time].
If Mr. Gaines is correct, then my cousins just love challenges, and they just hate getting drunk, because we played a lot of beer pong. Cousin was pitted against cousin. Brother against sister. Older people versus younger people. Probably my favorite part was when Catharine and Elizabeth shared the cups of beer while also sipping on their vodka tonics.
#2: Ladder Golf
Once you got your arm good and warmed up, it was time to head outside for a few games of ladder golf. Not to be outdone by William, my brother George constructed this game. It involves throwing golf balls, which have been drilled and placed on either end of a rope, onto a ladder made out of PVC pipe. You get points based on which rung of the ladder you land on and whether the other team knocks your plays off the ladder. To be honest I didn't understand the scoring. I would just throw when it was my turn. To date, Time Magazine does not have any articles on how Ladder Golf is misunderstood but they did think I'd be interested in articles on Super Bowl perks, Morocco and salmon. According to Wikipedia this game also goes by the name hillbilly horseshoes and redneck golf.
#3: Apples to Apples
We all played Apples to Apples. Not a physical game per se, but occasionally you did have to kind of stand up and lean in to get your cards into the center.
#4: Dancing
Some people, especially once they had a beverage or ten, enjoyed dancing. And they just danced and danced and danced. Some particularly good dancers included Catharine and Mary Henry. Catharine gets the award because she danced non-stop once she started. For hours and hours she danced. Mary Henry was more of a wild card, because she'd be lying there talking about how she was going to sleep, and then one particular song came on and she started jumping and taking her clothes off and dancing. Other good dancers that I remember include Sarah, William and Grant. I can't comment on the other cousins. Either I didn't see you dancing because I was hiding in the hood of my sweatshirt, or I found your quality to be shoddy. It's probably the former.
#1: Beer Pong
My brother William built a beer pong table for the cousin reunion. Let me just repeat that. He BUILT A BEER PONG TABLE. I don't even have the words to describe how cool I think that is. It's collapsible, so it can be carried with ease to any function or event, and it was custom lettered for us cousins with "Kink's 11."
In a recent Time Magazine article, Billy Gaines, the host of the World Series of Beer Pong, was quoted as saying: "Beer pong is severely misunderstood. It's a sport. It just happens to involve alcohol. People are not playing the game to get drunk but because they love the challenge of throwing a table-tennis ball into a cup with some type of liquid in it" [source: Time].
If Mr. Gaines is correct, then my cousins just love challenges, and they just hate getting drunk, because we played a lot of beer pong. Cousin was pitted against cousin. Brother against sister. Older people versus younger people. Probably my favorite part was when Catharine and Elizabeth shared the cups of beer while also sipping on their vodka tonics.
#2: Ladder Golf
Once you got your arm good and warmed up, it was time to head outside for a few games of ladder golf. Not to be outdone by William, my brother George constructed this game. It involves throwing golf balls, which have been drilled and placed on either end of a rope, onto a ladder made out of PVC pipe. You get points based on which rung of the ladder you land on and whether the other team knocks your plays off the ladder. To be honest I didn't understand the scoring. I would just throw when it was my turn. To date, Time Magazine does not have any articles on how Ladder Golf is misunderstood but they did think I'd be interested in articles on Super Bowl perks, Morocco and salmon. According to Wikipedia this game also goes by the name hillbilly horseshoes and redneck golf.
#3: Apples to Apples
We all played Apples to Apples. Not a physical game per se, but occasionally you did have to kind of stand up and lean in to get your cards into the center.
#4: Dancing
Some people, especially once they had a beverage or ten, enjoyed dancing. And they just danced and danced and danced. Some particularly good dancers included Catharine and Mary Henry. Catharine gets the award because she danced non-stop once she started. For hours and hours she danced. Mary Henry was more of a wild card, because she'd be lying there talking about how she was going to sleep, and then one particular song came on and she started jumping and taking her clothes off and dancing. Other good dancers that I remember include Sarah, William and Grant. I can't comment on the other cousins. Either I didn't see you dancing because I was hiding in the hood of my sweatshirt, or I found your quality to be shoddy. It's probably the former.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Cousin Reunion #3: I overcome tragedy
Since the last cousin reunion-related blog post included a heartbreaking tale of tragedy, I thought I would next recount a heartwarming tale of triumph from the weekend. This is the story of how I became an award-winning road racer.
Saturday morning, the second day of the reunion, dawned crisp and bright. The fall foliage was blooming. One of the activities at Kanuga that day was a road race and a fun run for kids. Mary Henry, who works at Kanuga, was in charge of timing the races, so some cousins meandered up to watch the event. After some persuading by my cousins, I decided to enter the road race. I figured I needed to prove my family's honor as well as raise awareness for glass-related hand injuries. Also, no one else entered so I had a pretty good shot at winning.
Now, I'm no runner, but I figured 2 miles wouldn't kill me. I ran back to my cabin to change clothes, which I have to admit, winded me just a bit. I put on my special running outfit, which includes sneakers and crepe paper, and then I started off on my two mile odyssey. Grant and William followed behind on a golf cart to make sure I didn't get lost and to cheer me on.
I ran for quite a few minutes in a row without stopping. Then I walked for a little bit. Then we stopped and took pictures in front of the lake at Kanuga. Then I ran some more, then I walked some more. Like I said, I'm no runner, but it was a nice day and it was a pretty course.
The last leg of the race was going down the main road out to the Kanuga sign, then turning around and coming back to finish. I don't know how long that is as I'm bad with spatial distances. But I was walking down to the stop sign, the golf cart ahead of me. When the guys were down at the sign, they got off the golf cart and went over toward another road. I had no idea what they were doing. My first guess was vandalism though they told me later they were just taking pictures.
Well. At this point I didn't want to run anymore. And they had left the golf cart unattended. So I ran over there while they were busy with their vandalism/photography and I stole that golf cart. Grant said that all he could hear at that moment was William saying, "Don’t do it, don't do it!", me laughing and the roar of the golf cart.
Here is an artist's rendition of what happened:
So off I drove, giggling the whole way back up the road. I was seized with a little bit of guilt at having left my brother and cousin so far back on the road but I got over that. Then I had a little bit of guilt of not finishing this race in some rule-abiding form, and I pondered whether I should hide the golf cart somewhere and finish the race on foot. But I got over that too, because I really did run most of it and also I wasn't 100% sure how the golf cart worked. I pulled up to the finish in my golden chariot, ran through the finish line tape and became a road race champion. Some guy told me that my time was pretty good for running a half marathon but whatever. I didn't see him running the road race or stealing any golf carts.
My prize for winning was a water bottle and a boob job. Actually it was just these tiny inflatable balls that said "Fun Run 2008" but I turned them into boobs but that's just the kind of idea that champions have.
Saturday morning, the second day of the reunion, dawned crisp and bright. The fall foliage was blooming. One of the activities at Kanuga that day was a road race and a fun run for kids. Mary Henry, who works at Kanuga, was in charge of timing the races, so some cousins meandered up to watch the event. After some persuading by my cousins, I decided to enter the road race. I figured I needed to prove my family's honor as well as raise awareness for glass-related hand injuries. Also, no one else entered so I had a pretty good shot at winning.
Now, I'm no runner, but I figured 2 miles wouldn't kill me. I ran back to my cabin to change clothes, which I have to admit, winded me just a bit. I put on my special running outfit, which includes sneakers and crepe paper, and then I started off on my two mile odyssey. Grant and William followed behind on a golf cart to make sure I didn't get lost and to cheer me on.
I ran for quite a few minutes in a row without stopping. Then I walked for a little bit. Then we stopped and took pictures in front of the lake at Kanuga. Then I ran some more, then I walked some more. Like I said, I'm no runner, but it was a nice day and it was a pretty course.
The last leg of the race was going down the main road out to the Kanuga sign, then turning around and coming back to finish. I don't know how long that is as I'm bad with spatial distances. But I was walking down to the stop sign, the golf cart ahead of me. When the guys were down at the sign, they got off the golf cart and went over toward another road. I had no idea what they were doing. My first guess was vandalism though they told me later they were just taking pictures.
Well. At this point I didn't want to run anymore. And they had left the golf cart unattended. So I ran over there while they were busy with their vandalism/photography and I stole that golf cart. Grant said that all he could hear at that moment was William saying, "Don’t do it, don't do it!", me laughing and the roar of the golf cart.
Here is an artist's rendition of what happened:
So off I drove, giggling the whole way back up the road. I was seized with a little bit of guilt at having left my brother and cousin so far back on the road but I got over that. Then I had a little bit of guilt of not finishing this race in some rule-abiding form, and I pondered whether I should hide the golf cart somewhere and finish the race on foot. But I got over that too, because I really did run most of it and also I wasn't 100% sure how the golf cart worked. I pulled up to the finish in my golden chariot, ran through the finish line tape and became a road race champion. Some guy told me that my time was pretty good for running a half marathon but whatever. I didn't see him running the road race or stealing any golf carts.
My prize for winning was a water bottle and a boob job. Actually it was just these tiny inflatable balls that said "Fun Run 2008" but I turned them into boobs but that's just the kind of idea that champions have.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Cousin Reunion #2: Tragedy strikes
Now, before I get too far into the tale of the cousin reunion, I feel I should backtrack just a minute and tell you the saddest story ever, of a misfortune that befell me on the eve of this illustrious event.
The night before the cousins were to meet at Kanuga, those of us that were already in town gathered at my Uncle Ken's house for dinner. We had a very nice night with lots of hors d'oeuvres and drinks because that is just how my Uncle Ken rolls. For dinner we had cheeseburgers and for dessert we had a delicious trifle. We were having just the best time.
I had been sitting in the same chair since dinner began, so you would think I was safe from any horrible fate, right? Especially when you consider that I specifically chose that seat so that I would be safe if the chandelier fell or if a snake crawled in from the deck. I was close to the bathroom in case of emergency and I picked a place that I thought would generally be safe from assassins, which is more than I can say for those who chose to sit directly in front of a window. I took every conceivable precaution against any possible horrible fate.
Then, tragedy struck.
I don't remember exactly why I did this--I bet it was to get more comfortable amidst all the sparkling conversation that was occurring--but I ran my hand across the seat of my chair. A sharp stabbing pain! I looked down and saw blood. I'd been struck! Even in the midst of my blinding agony, I knew that there was glass in my hand. I could kind of see it below the bubble of blood that threatened to drench the chair and leave me bleeding to death.
I immediately called out for my mother. Whether she was just intoxicated or truly doesn't love me is anyone's guess, but when I told her there was glass in my hand she dismissed me immediately. The gushing of blood did not move her sympathies in the slightest. "It was probably just a nail sticking up out of the chair," she said. "Just go wash it off."
I raced off. In the back of my mind I wondered why she wasn't immediately on the phone with medical authorities to arrange for a tetanus shot, but I tried to stay brave in the midst of the carnage. I stuck my hand under the faucet, and when the blood was finally cleared away I could see the shard of glass in the palm of my hand. I turned to Uncle Ken and stuck the wound in his face. "Glass!" I shrieked. "Get it out!" Ken was quick as a surgeon and removed the glass. Then he put some apinol on it and then he gave me two shots of vodka.
After that I was pretty much fine for the rest of the night, though I did continue to wonder about my mother's reaction. As my brother George would remind me, though, it was nothing like what happened to him when he was 4 years old. He drove his big wheel through the brush pile and got all the skin on his arm all burned off. When he tried to show my dad, Dad told him just to go in for dinner. But the difference is that when George was 4, he couldn't talk that well, so they didn't know what he was saying. Whereas I am fairly sure that I clearly enunciated. Just to be sure that I was indeed enunciating, I repeated the story of the glass over and over to my cousins the entire weekend. I know they really enjoyed that.
As you can see, I survived my injury and even now, I can type with no shooting pains in my right hand. But it did kind of throb for a minute or two when I woke up on Friday! And I couldn't give high-fives with my right hand the whole weekend! And if the glass had been dirty my hand could have gotten infected and fallen off! The point of the story is that I persevered and overcame tragedy to make it to the cousins reunion.
The night before the cousins were to meet at Kanuga, those of us that were already in town gathered at my Uncle Ken's house for dinner. We had a very nice night with lots of hors d'oeuvres and drinks because that is just how my Uncle Ken rolls. For dinner we had cheeseburgers and for dessert we had a delicious trifle. We were having just the best time.
I had been sitting in the same chair since dinner began, so you would think I was safe from any horrible fate, right? Especially when you consider that I specifically chose that seat so that I would be safe if the chandelier fell or if a snake crawled in from the deck. I was close to the bathroom in case of emergency and I picked a place that I thought would generally be safe from assassins, which is more than I can say for those who chose to sit directly in front of a window. I took every conceivable precaution against any possible horrible fate.
Then, tragedy struck.
I don't remember exactly why I did this--I bet it was to get more comfortable amidst all the sparkling conversation that was occurring--but I ran my hand across the seat of my chair. A sharp stabbing pain! I looked down and saw blood. I'd been struck! Even in the midst of my blinding agony, I knew that there was glass in my hand. I could kind of see it below the bubble of blood that threatened to drench the chair and leave me bleeding to death.
I immediately called out for my mother. Whether she was just intoxicated or truly doesn't love me is anyone's guess, but when I told her there was glass in my hand she dismissed me immediately. The gushing of blood did not move her sympathies in the slightest. "It was probably just a nail sticking up out of the chair," she said. "Just go wash it off."
I raced off. In the back of my mind I wondered why she wasn't immediately on the phone with medical authorities to arrange for a tetanus shot, but I tried to stay brave in the midst of the carnage. I stuck my hand under the faucet, and when the blood was finally cleared away I could see the shard of glass in the palm of my hand. I turned to Uncle Ken and stuck the wound in his face. "Glass!" I shrieked. "Get it out!" Ken was quick as a surgeon and removed the glass. Then he put some apinol on it and then he gave me two shots of vodka.
After that I was pretty much fine for the rest of the night, though I did continue to wonder about my mother's reaction. As my brother George would remind me, though, it was nothing like what happened to him when he was 4 years old. He drove his big wheel through the brush pile and got all the skin on his arm all burned off. When he tried to show my dad, Dad told him just to go in for dinner. But the difference is that when George was 4, he couldn't talk that well, so they didn't know what he was saying. Whereas I am fairly sure that I clearly enunciated. Just to be sure that I was indeed enunciating, I repeated the story of the glass over and over to my cousins the entire weekend. I know they really enjoyed that.
As you can see, I survived my injury and even now, I can type with no shooting pains in my right hand. But it did kind of throb for a minute or two when I woke up on Friday! And I couldn't give high-fives with my right hand the whole weekend! And if the glass had been dirty my hand could have gotten infected and fallen off! The point of the story is that I persevered and overcame tragedy to make it to the cousins reunion.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Cousin Reunion #1: The Saga Begins
This post marks the beginning of an epic blog journey. It is a blog journey of family ties and lost weekends. Of changing seasons and the rapid passage of time. Of mountains and molehills. Of mice and men.
Okay, it is really just a blog journey of one weekend, a weekend that I spent with my cousins and brothers. On my mother's side of the family, there are eleven cousins, and so there will be eleven posts on the subject of this cousin reunion. While this amount of detail may eventually prove too exhaustive for those of you who aren't related to me, market research conducted this weekend reveals that a large part of my readership is made up of my cousins. I'm just trying to play to my base.
Before we go too much further, let me present a crude family tree that will introduce you to the eleven people that inspire these 11 posts. I have written before about my grandmother Kink, who in turn had four children. Kink begat Anna Cay, Ken, Matt and Betsy. In turn, those people begat other children and those are the children we are concerned with:
Anna Cay begat Catharine, Worth and Mary Henry
Ken begat Elizabeth, Mary Ellison and Grant
Matt begat Allison and Sarah
Betsy begat Molly, George and William
Some of those people have gone forth and begat a whole other generation, and that generation is as cute and fun as the one that went before. But as I said, we only care about the 11 cousins. Those were the only people invited to the cousin reunion. No spouses, no kids, no parents.
But how did this cousin reunion come about? With 11 cousins scattered to the wind, living in random locations all over the world, we only come together somewhat sporadically. Weddings, mostly. Dinners when people are in the same town. Years ago, there were joint beach trips, but as my mom was the youngest sibling and didn't start her begatting til pretty late in the whole process, George, William and I have only hazy memories of those and then they stopped as well.
With so many of us and so few occasions to bring us together, you would think that perhaps we wouldn't know each other very well or even get along. The age of these people, after all, ranges from 21 to 40. And being one of the youngest cousins, I can tell you that the age difference seemed pretty big to me when I was a little kid. But as the years have passed, I think we have realized that we all genuinely like each other as people, and not just because we are related. That's just a lucky accident.
So to celebrate that lucky accident, the idea came about a few months ago to meet up and spend time with each other without a wedding or a funeral or some other family event hanging over our heads. Just the 11 of us for the whole weekend, for the first time ever. Even with 11 busy schedules and lives, we settled on a weekend and a place. Over the weekend of Oct 17-19, we gathered at Kanuga, an Episcopal conference center in the mountains of western North Carolina. We had two cabins right next to each other and all meals provided. The leaves were changing and the keg was flowing. We had a wonderful time.
But what specifically happened? Stay tuned for 10 additional entries to find out!
Okay, it is really just a blog journey of one weekend, a weekend that I spent with my cousins and brothers. On my mother's side of the family, there are eleven cousins, and so there will be eleven posts on the subject of this cousin reunion. While this amount of detail may eventually prove too exhaustive for those of you who aren't related to me, market research conducted this weekend reveals that a large part of my readership is made up of my cousins. I'm just trying to play to my base.
Before we go too much further, let me present a crude family tree that will introduce you to the eleven people that inspire these 11 posts. I have written before about my grandmother Kink, who in turn had four children. Kink begat Anna Cay, Ken, Matt and Betsy. In turn, those people begat other children and those are the children we are concerned with:
Anna Cay begat Catharine, Worth and Mary Henry
Ken begat Elizabeth, Mary Ellison and Grant
Matt begat Allison and Sarah
Betsy begat Molly, George and William
Some of those people have gone forth and begat a whole other generation, and that generation is as cute and fun as the one that went before. But as I said, we only care about the 11 cousins. Those were the only people invited to the cousin reunion. No spouses, no kids, no parents.
But how did this cousin reunion come about? With 11 cousins scattered to the wind, living in random locations all over the world, we only come together somewhat sporadically. Weddings, mostly. Dinners when people are in the same town. Years ago, there were joint beach trips, but as my mom was the youngest sibling and didn't start her begatting til pretty late in the whole process, George, William and I have only hazy memories of those and then they stopped as well.
With so many of us and so few occasions to bring us together, you would think that perhaps we wouldn't know each other very well or even get along. The age of these people, after all, ranges from 21 to 40. And being one of the youngest cousins, I can tell you that the age difference seemed pretty big to me when I was a little kid. But as the years have passed, I think we have realized that we all genuinely like each other as people, and not just because we are related. That's just a lucky accident.
So to celebrate that lucky accident, the idea came about a few months ago to meet up and spend time with each other without a wedding or a funeral or some other family event hanging over our heads. Just the 11 of us for the whole weekend, for the first time ever. Even with 11 busy schedules and lives, we settled on a weekend and a place. Over the weekend of Oct 17-19, we gathered at Kanuga, an Episcopal conference center in the mountains of western North Carolina. We had two cabins right next to each other and all meals provided. The leaves were changing and the keg was flowing. We had a wonderful time.
But what specifically happened? Stay tuned for 10 additional entries to find out!
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Book #9: Driving Mr. Albert
The book: Driving Mr. Albert: A Trip Across America with Einstein's Brain by Michael Paterniti
What is this book about: It's an account of the cross-country journey that journalist Michael Paterniti made with Thomas Harvey, the man who took Albert Einstein's brain as part of performing the autopsy. Also along for the journey: Albert Einstein's brain, encased in Tupperware. Along the way we learn some things about Einstein, relics, time, beat poets, failure and America.
Why did I read this book: For work.
What did I think of this book: This book had a lot of elements that I seek out in other books, namely, a long trip across a country, biography, religion (in this case, Einstein's brain is repeatedly likened to an icon of worship), and the realization that coming-of-age never really ends. Also, I liked that it was a quick read.
What was my favorite part of this book: The parts where people touch brains.
What did I learn from this book: That there's this place in Kansas where a man created an entire garden of Eden out of cement. I need to go there. Also, I learned some interesting facts about Einstein and his brain that will hopefully help with the work-related reasons that I read this book.
What grade do I give this book: B+
What is this book about: It's an account of the cross-country journey that journalist Michael Paterniti made with Thomas Harvey, the man who took Albert Einstein's brain as part of performing the autopsy. Also along for the journey: Albert Einstein's brain, encased in Tupperware. Along the way we learn some things about Einstein, relics, time, beat poets, failure and America.
Why did I read this book: For work.
What did I think of this book: This book had a lot of elements that I seek out in other books, namely, a long trip across a country, biography, religion (in this case, Einstein's brain is repeatedly likened to an icon of worship), and the realization that coming-of-age never really ends. Also, I liked that it was a quick read.
What was my favorite part of this book: The parts where people touch brains.
What did I learn from this book: That there's this place in Kansas where a man created an entire garden of Eden out of cement. I need to go there. Also, I learned some interesting facts about Einstein and his brain that will hopefully help with the work-related reasons that I read this book.
What grade do I give this book: B+
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
of dogs and ice cream
I don't think it's fair to say I have a sweet tooth. I do think it's fair to say that all my teeth are sweet tooths. God help me, I love sugar. If a diet of candy, cake and ice cream were enough to keep a person alive and breathing, I'd be interested in that. Maybe I would take occasional breaks, for a turkey sandwich or nachos, but ultimately, I would be happy to survive on sugar.
But if any young kids or my parents are out there reading this, then you should know that I absolutely DO NOT survive on just sugar. For one thing, I would like to keep my original teeth, and for another, diabetes is not appealing to me. But honestly, if I ever get some other awful painful disease and I'm given months to live, I'm just going to eat sugar. Maybe that way the sugar will kill me before the disease does. Please, again note, I am not advocating just eating sugar.
Even though I know sugar is bad, bad, bad, I still sometimes, occasionally make sugar-rific impulse buys when I've had a crappy day. I think that's how I came to buy a little ice cream called Birthday Bash, which won me over with this winning description: "cake flavored ice cream with confetti and blue icing." HOW COULD YOU PASS SOMETHING LIKE THAT BY? I certainly couldn't, especially because the confetti made it look pretty similar to my beloved Funfetti cakes. It's Kroger brand ice cream, and I don't know it's meant to be a generic rip-off of something else, and I'm not going to investigate that too much, because than I'd want to try the original as well.
So anyways, I bought this ice cream, but it's been sitting in my freezer for awhile, almost like a fine wine. I figured I'd break it out when things got really bad, or conversely, when I had a real reason to celebrate. And that point came this weekend.
As I mentioned in the last entry, I worked from home this past week. Working from home allows you to realize that sometimes it's a good thing that you're not around in the daytime, because there's lots of leaf-blowers going, and garbage trucks coming by, and dogs just barking their heads off. The dogs were the worst part for me. There was this one dog that would not shut up. It just barked and barked and barked. I'd never noticed it before, which I thought was due to being shut up in an air-conditioned pod for the past few months (I just turned the AC off and went back to natural air last week), but Katie reminded me that it was probably just that the owners were at work and the dog was lonely.
But then the weekend came, and that dog still wouldn't shut up. It barked so much that it stopped sounding like a dog and started sounding like a donkey. It was just braying away. I felt I was going insane. While I don't condone animal cruelty, I would like to take that dog and drop-kick it to kingdom come. At one low point, I was holding two pillows over my head and also my comforter, and I could still hear that fucking dog. Though maybe it was just the sound of the dog ringing in my ears.
That's when I had an epiphany. No, the epiphany was not talking to the apartment staff or talking to the dog's owner directly, or anything mature like that. The epiphany was that I would break out the box of Birthday Bash ice cream, and that I would probably feel much better because of it. So after a few bowls of Birthday Bash, I thought I'd share my review.
First of all, it does kind of taste like cake. Not a Funfetti cake, sadly, but nothing could touch the perfection of that. But it doesn't cross the line into ice-cream cake territory, which is good for me because I don't really love ice cream cake. Is that surprising? It kind of is to me too! You'd think ice cream cake would be right up my alley! But I just don't like it! It's weird! I prefer ice cream on the side of the cake, not in it!
Unfortunately, Birthday Bash can't quite replace cake on its own. For one, the icing is not evenly distributed throughout the ice cream box, which makes it a little too hit-and-miss for me. Each time I take a bite of Birthday Bash, I can't help noticing how good it would be WITH cake, ON THE SIDE of it. That would be a double cake bonanza, but again I'm stressing that I don't want an ice cream cake. I want two things that both taste like cake, but of different textures and kept separately.
While these very specific cake requests make perfect sense to me, I'm well aware that they may not make sense to anyone else. For that, I blame that barking dog, which, drove me to the crazy house. The dog has been quieter today, so maybe it's okay. But if that dog were still barking, this ice cream would be pointless. I would need real cake. Administered via IV.
On another dog-related note, when walking to the library this weekend I saw a sign that advertised that a dog was missing. The sign listed the dog's name but said the dog answered to "here girl!" Now, call me crazy, but don't about half of the dogs out there probably answer to "here girl!"??? I just don't think these people will find their dog.
On another Birthday Bash-related note, my eyes have been able to carefully avoid seeing the caloric and fat content of what I'm consuming. But I did briefly glimpse the fact that this box is supposed to contain 14 servings. Uh-oh. I think I'll be lucky if I break double digits. Particularly with the presidential debate about to start.
But if any young kids or my parents are out there reading this, then you should know that I absolutely DO NOT survive on just sugar. For one thing, I would like to keep my original teeth, and for another, diabetes is not appealing to me. But honestly, if I ever get some other awful painful disease and I'm given months to live, I'm just going to eat sugar. Maybe that way the sugar will kill me before the disease does. Please, again note, I am not advocating just eating sugar.
Even though I know sugar is bad, bad, bad, I still sometimes, occasionally make sugar-rific impulse buys when I've had a crappy day. I think that's how I came to buy a little ice cream called Birthday Bash, which won me over with this winning description: "cake flavored ice cream with confetti and blue icing." HOW COULD YOU PASS SOMETHING LIKE THAT BY? I certainly couldn't, especially because the confetti made it look pretty similar to my beloved Funfetti cakes. It's Kroger brand ice cream, and I don't know it's meant to be a generic rip-off of something else, and I'm not going to investigate that too much, because than I'd want to try the original as well.
So anyways, I bought this ice cream, but it's been sitting in my freezer for awhile, almost like a fine wine. I figured I'd break it out when things got really bad, or conversely, when I had a real reason to celebrate. And that point came this weekend.
As I mentioned in the last entry, I worked from home this past week. Working from home allows you to realize that sometimes it's a good thing that you're not around in the daytime, because there's lots of leaf-blowers going, and garbage trucks coming by, and dogs just barking their heads off. The dogs were the worst part for me. There was this one dog that would not shut up. It just barked and barked and barked. I'd never noticed it before, which I thought was due to being shut up in an air-conditioned pod for the past few months (I just turned the AC off and went back to natural air last week), but Katie reminded me that it was probably just that the owners were at work and the dog was lonely.
But then the weekend came, and that dog still wouldn't shut up. It barked so much that it stopped sounding like a dog and started sounding like a donkey. It was just braying away. I felt I was going insane. While I don't condone animal cruelty, I would like to take that dog and drop-kick it to kingdom come. At one low point, I was holding two pillows over my head and also my comforter, and I could still hear that fucking dog. Though maybe it was just the sound of the dog ringing in my ears.
That's when I had an epiphany. No, the epiphany was not talking to the apartment staff or talking to the dog's owner directly, or anything mature like that. The epiphany was that I would break out the box of Birthday Bash ice cream, and that I would probably feel much better because of it. So after a few bowls of Birthday Bash, I thought I'd share my review.
First of all, it does kind of taste like cake. Not a Funfetti cake, sadly, but nothing could touch the perfection of that. But it doesn't cross the line into ice-cream cake territory, which is good for me because I don't really love ice cream cake. Is that surprising? It kind of is to me too! You'd think ice cream cake would be right up my alley! But I just don't like it! It's weird! I prefer ice cream on the side of the cake, not in it!
Unfortunately, Birthday Bash can't quite replace cake on its own. For one, the icing is not evenly distributed throughout the ice cream box, which makes it a little too hit-and-miss for me. Each time I take a bite of Birthday Bash, I can't help noticing how good it would be WITH cake, ON THE SIDE of it. That would be a double cake bonanza, but again I'm stressing that I don't want an ice cream cake. I want two things that both taste like cake, but of different textures and kept separately.
While these very specific cake requests make perfect sense to me, I'm well aware that they may not make sense to anyone else. For that, I blame that barking dog, which, drove me to the crazy house. The dog has been quieter today, so maybe it's okay. But if that dog were still barking, this ice cream would be pointless. I would need real cake. Administered via IV.
On another dog-related note, when walking to the library this weekend I saw a sign that advertised that a dog was missing. The sign listed the dog's name but said the dog answered to "here girl!" Now, call me crazy, but don't about half of the dogs out there probably answer to "here girl!"??? I just don't think these people will find their dog.
On another Birthday Bash-related note, my eyes have been able to carefully avoid seeing the caloric and fat content of what I'm consuming. But I did briefly glimpse the fact that this box is supposed to contain 14 servings. Uh-oh. I think I'll be lucky if I break double digits. Particularly with the presidential debate about to start.
a room with a view
In the vice-presidential debate, Joe Biden told a sad story about a man who didn't know how much it cost to fill up his gas tank because he never had enough money to do it. But do you know what's even sadder? Not being able to fill up your gas taken because there's not enough gas. And that's been the situation in the southeast for awhile now. We have no gas, no gas at all.
But my company has turned a negative into a positive by allowing me to work from home for three days a week for two weeks. Last week was the first week and I can tell you that working from home is awesome. If you stay out too late at the Jenny Lewis concert, like I did, you can sleep in, because you don't have to drive to work! You can sit near a window instead of inside a sunlight-free cubicle! You can wear whatever! And I happen to get loads more work done because I can pace around and think, or stretch out on the floor while I research and write. I love working from home.
If I had to work from home all the time, I think I'd get sad because I'd be lonely. But last week I met a few coworkers for lunch and I had the extra special benefit of having my editor Katie come over to my apartment to use my internet. Now Katie has been in two blog entries in a row! And she is inspiring content, because after living in my world for three days, here are the things she thought I should blog about:
1. Halloween costumes.
Katie has a real problem with my past Halloween costumes. Like one year, I wore a black dress and sunglasses and pinned a piece of paper reading "June 14" to the dress. I was a blind date. Get it? So hilarious…to me. No one else that night really liked it and neither did Katie. Katie also didn't like the idea of my costume in which I wore a pink sweatsuit and tied a shoe to my clothes. That costume was gum under a shoe. I never actually did this next one, but I want to sometime: I would wear a black sweatsuit and attach cars to it. I would put a yellow piece down the center of myself and be the highway. Katie thinks that idea sucks also. She looked at me with pity in her eyes, so I tried to redeem myself by saying, "Well, what about a sexy highway?" Cause if you're a girl, just make your Halloween costume sexy and you're totally fine. I think that was my mistake with gum under the shoe. Not sexy enough.
2. Grocery lists
Katie happened to look inside my refrigerator, as well as see a few grocery lists on my fridge---
Grocery list #1 read: pretzels, butter, 3 boxes of waffles.
Grocery list #2 read: pretzels, bread, soda, frozen food, waffles (lots)
Katie wants to submit these lists to that artist who creates characters based on shopping lists that she finds. She wants to find out what the artist would make of someone who eats so many waffles. I just love toaster waffles, okay? I wish my fridge was bigger just so I could fit more boxes of waffles in there! I eat waffles almost every meal!
Now my secret is out. I eat too many waffles. And the only other thing in my fridge is beer.
3. More mundane blogs; treat my blog like more of a friend.
Those were Katie's tips on how I should be writing this blog. For example, we went to lunch and I had this chocolate cupcake with raspberry icing. I was just raving about this cupcake and here's how Katie said the blog should go:
"Dear Diary. Today I had a cupcake with raspberry icing. It was delicious. Talk to you tomorrow, Diary."
Here was another entry she thought I should write:
"Dear Diary. Today I wore a hooded sweatshirt. It was comfy. Well, see you around, Diary."
I don't know if this helps, but you have to imagine the entries read in a really high-pitched voice. A high-pitched voice reading extremely mundane details, in combination with both a greeting and a farewell to the diary. Katie believes this would be more enjoyable as well as increase the number of posts that I make. And she is a professional editor. But sometimes I don't take all her edits. Ha ha! Editors love it when you make jokes like that!
But my company has turned a negative into a positive by allowing me to work from home for three days a week for two weeks. Last week was the first week and I can tell you that working from home is awesome. If you stay out too late at the Jenny Lewis concert, like I did, you can sleep in, because you don't have to drive to work! You can sit near a window instead of inside a sunlight-free cubicle! You can wear whatever! And I happen to get loads more work done because I can pace around and think, or stretch out on the floor while I research and write. I love working from home.
If I had to work from home all the time, I think I'd get sad because I'd be lonely. But last week I met a few coworkers for lunch and I had the extra special benefit of having my editor Katie come over to my apartment to use my internet. Now Katie has been in two blog entries in a row! And she is inspiring content, because after living in my world for three days, here are the things she thought I should blog about:
1. Halloween costumes.
Katie has a real problem with my past Halloween costumes. Like one year, I wore a black dress and sunglasses and pinned a piece of paper reading "June 14" to the dress. I was a blind date. Get it? So hilarious…to me. No one else that night really liked it and neither did Katie. Katie also didn't like the idea of my costume in which I wore a pink sweatsuit and tied a shoe to my clothes. That costume was gum under a shoe. I never actually did this next one, but I want to sometime: I would wear a black sweatsuit and attach cars to it. I would put a yellow piece down the center of myself and be the highway. Katie thinks that idea sucks also. She looked at me with pity in her eyes, so I tried to redeem myself by saying, "Well, what about a sexy highway?" Cause if you're a girl, just make your Halloween costume sexy and you're totally fine. I think that was my mistake with gum under the shoe. Not sexy enough.
2. Grocery lists
Katie happened to look inside my refrigerator, as well as see a few grocery lists on my fridge---
Grocery list #1 read: pretzels, butter, 3 boxes of waffles.
Grocery list #2 read: pretzels, bread, soda, frozen food, waffles (lots)
Katie wants to submit these lists to that artist who creates characters based on shopping lists that she finds. She wants to find out what the artist would make of someone who eats so many waffles. I just love toaster waffles, okay? I wish my fridge was bigger just so I could fit more boxes of waffles in there! I eat waffles almost every meal!
Now my secret is out. I eat too many waffles. And the only other thing in my fridge is beer.
3. More mundane blogs; treat my blog like more of a friend.
Those were Katie's tips on how I should be writing this blog. For example, we went to lunch and I had this chocolate cupcake with raspberry icing. I was just raving about this cupcake and here's how Katie said the blog should go:
"Dear Diary. Today I had a cupcake with raspberry icing. It was delicious. Talk to you tomorrow, Diary."
Here was another entry she thought I should write:
"Dear Diary. Today I wore a hooded sweatshirt. It was comfy. Well, see you around, Diary."
I don't know if this helps, but you have to imagine the entries read in a really high-pitched voice. A high-pitched voice reading extremely mundane details, in combination with both a greeting and a farewell to the diary. Katie believes this would be more enjoyable as well as increase the number of posts that I make. And she is a professional editor. But sometimes I don't take all her edits. Ha ha! Editors love it when you make jokes like that!
Sunday, October 5, 2008
a perfect day in D.C.
Not this week that just ended, but the week before, I was up at the University of Maryland for a conference, learning about things to help me do my job better. It was very exciting for me to go to a work-related conference that involved flying, because at my previous job, work-related trips were limited to driving a cargo van to various Seattle neighborhoods and suburbs. I can tell you, getting to fly somewhere and stay in a Marriott is much, much better.
My editor and friend Katie also went to this conference, and we made our travel arrangements so that we could have an extra day in D.C. before heading back to ATL. After the conference ended, we headed by cab into the city, and we were delivered a devastating blow: the Smithsonian Museum of American History was closed for renovation. It had, in fact, been closed for two years. How could this be? The airlines should give you a little pop-up window when you buy tickets to D.C. that says something like, "Just so you know, the Museum of American History is closed." And then when planes actually land in D.C., there should be another announcement that goes, "Just in case you got your hopes up during our flight, we wanted to remind you that the Museum of American History is closed." Do people come to D.C. for things besides that museum?
Since I had really been looking forward to going to that museum and seeing some first lady gowns, I was initially crushed. What oh what could we possibly find that would replace such wonder? I started to feel a little better though when I got to the hotel and saw that above my bed was a gorgeous photograph of Abraham Lincoln, the stone version that sits in the Lincoln Memorial. Then I took a nap and felt a lot better. I think Abe affected my dreams, and I also think that I was just really tired.
When Katie and I awoke from our naps, we showered and headed to a restaurant that had been recommended by a guy who went to the conference with us. It was called Brasserie Beck and it was an amazing meal. If only I had studied the subject of writing in college, and if only I wrote things down for a living, then maybe I could tell you how good that meal was. But words are inadequate.
For an appetizer, I had an onion and shallot soup that ruined me for all other onion soups, while Katie had some oysters. I tried one and those were also delicious. Then, we had a cheese course. Then, I had duck almondine, and that was a quacking good time, while Katie had a lamb shank. At first, Katie was upset they didn't bring her a knife for the lamb shank, but then she realized that little lamb was so tender that it just fell off the fork. "Melts in your mouth like candy," as my parents used to describe meat when they were trying to make us eat it as kids. But this meat really did. Adding to the enjoyment of the meal for me was a beer that is only available in America at that very restaurant. And it was an amazing beer. I feel sorry for the rest of you that you will never have this beer, unless you go to Brasserie Beck. It was everything a beer should be. Rarely do I eat a meal so fancy and wonderful.
It was during the first course that Katie and I realized that we had the potential to have the greatest 24 hours in a row known to man. That's how good the meal was, and we were determined to not let this meal down. So after dinner we headed off to Georgetown to meet up with a person we met at the conference. We went to Martin's Tavern, which had a wonderful little handout letting me know that every president since Harry Truman had enjoyed a meal or a beverage at this establishment. And if I counted the tables correctly, we sat in the Nixon Booth, where Richard Nixon used to eat meatloaf. And that put us just one booth over from the booth in which JFK proposed to Jackie. This is when I finally got over the pain of the American History museum's closure. Why just look at something that a president has touched when you can sit somewhere that a president's ass has touched? I was in heaven.
By then it was the wee hours of the morning so we skipped off to bed and I again had sweet dreams because I had Abraham Lincoln standing guard above my bed.
The next day proved to be nice as well as the rain predicted by forecasters did not fall. We headed out to see sights that weren't closed. I did make one wrong turn in navigating Katie around the city which resulted in a bum yelling random obscenities at us that I shall not repeat here. But that was a temporary blight because we came across the most wonderful sandwich shop. How did we have such good luck finding food? I think it was the spirit of Abraham Lincoln guiding us. We walked by the White House and I used my powerful mind meld to will the next inhabitant to be Barack Obama.
Then we went to the Corcoran, a lovely little art museum. The big draw was an exhibit of the work of Richard Avedon. It was called "Portraits of Power," and I think every school picture photographer should attend this exhibit. I think it would provide some very interesting ideas about how to make yearbooks infinitely more entertaining.
Here were the portraits of power I liked the best:
-Dwight D. Eisenhower
-Charlie Chaplin
-Adlai Stevenson
-Rudolf Nureyov (he was naked!)
-Bob Dylan
-W.H. Auden
-Malcolm X
-George Wallace
-Billy Graham
-a leper
-Joseph Brodsky
-Salman Rushdie
-Ronald Reagan
-Barry Goldwater
-Barack Obama
I don't know what that grouping says about me, but those were the ones I wrote down at the time. And here were the paintings I liked so much at the Corcoran that I wrote down something about them in my little notebook:
-a bunch of dead buffalo
-Niagara Falls
-a clown
-horses fighting over a trough of water
-a series of Dutch landscapes
-a fisherman
-a homestead by the sea
-a monastery
-some weary wayfarers, one of whom might have been a ghost
I did NOT like any painting that involved people washing something. You try to stick the women of the village down by the river washing clothes in there, and I am guaranteed not to like your painting. I don't know why.
After a few hours of art, Katie and I headed down to see some monuments. We stopped by the new WWII memorial, which was very nice although a bit confusing because there was some weird photoshoot going on that involved a girl in a gigantic orange dress. Katie thinks it was her quinceanera.
But then we went to the best monument of all, the Lincoln Memorial. I was glad to find that Abe was there, because I bet sometimes he likes to wonder around D.C. and look at stuff and observe people. But as if he knew I was having the perfect day, he stuck around and sat stoically. I think he winked at me, but I have a tendency to think most presidents are winking at me. That should not, however, be seen as any sort of endorsement of the winkings of Sarah Palin.
Then, as if God or Abraham Lincoln or the entire city of D.C. knew that Katie and I were there, a rainbow appeared over the Washington Monument. A rainbow over the Washington Monument!!!!! Are you kidding me?
Then we went to the airport, and thus ended the perfect day in D.C.
My editor and friend Katie also went to this conference, and we made our travel arrangements so that we could have an extra day in D.C. before heading back to ATL. After the conference ended, we headed by cab into the city, and we were delivered a devastating blow: the Smithsonian Museum of American History was closed for renovation. It had, in fact, been closed for two years. How could this be? The airlines should give you a little pop-up window when you buy tickets to D.C. that says something like, "Just so you know, the Museum of American History is closed." And then when planes actually land in D.C., there should be another announcement that goes, "Just in case you got your hopes up during our flight, we wanted to remind you that the Museum of American History is closed." Do people come to D.C. for things besides that museum?
Since I had really been looking forward to going to that museum and seeing some first lady gowns, I was initially crushed. What oh what could we possibly find that would replace such wonder? I started to feel a little better though when I got to the hotel and saw that above my bed was a gorgeous photograph of Abraham Lincoln, the stone version that sits in the Lincoln Memorial. Then I took a nap and felt a lot better. I think Abe affected my dreams, and I also think that I was just really tired.
When Katie and I awoke from our naps, we showered and headed to a restaurant that had been recommended by a guy who went to the conference with us. It was called Brasserie Beck and it was an amazing meal. If only I had studied the subject of writing in college, and if only I wrote things down for a living, then maybe I could tell you how good that meal was. But words are inadequate.
For an appetizer, I had an onion and shallot soup that ruined me for all other onion soups, while Katie had some oysters. I tried one and those were also delicious. Then, we had a cheese course. Then, I had duck almondine, and that was a quacking good time, while Katie had a lamb shank. At first, Katie was upset they didn't bring her a knife for the lamb shank, but then she realized that little lamb was so tender that it just fell off the fork. "Melts in your mouth like candy," as my parents used to describe meat when they were trying to make us eat it as kids. But this meat really did. Adding to the enjoyment of the meal for me was a beer that is only available in America at that very restaurant. And it was an amazing beer. I feel sorry for the rest of you that you will never have this beer, unless you go to Brasserie Beck. It was everything a beer should be. Rarely do I eat a meal so fancy and wonderful.
It was during the first course that Katie and I realized that we had the potential to have the greatest 24 hours in a row known to man. That's how good the meal was, and we were determined to not let this meal down. So after dinner we headed off to Georgetown to meet up with a person we met at the conference. We went to Martin's Tavern, which had a wonderful little handout letting me know that every president since Harry Truman had enjoyed a meal or a beverage at this establishment. And if I counted the tables correctly, we sat in the Nixon Booth, where Richard Nixon used to eat meatloaf. And that put us just one booth over from the booth in which JFK proposed to Jackie. This is when I finally got over the pain of the American History museum's closure. Why just look at something that a president has touched when you can sit somewhere that a president's ass has touched? I was in heaven.
By then it was the wee hours of the morning so we skipped off to bed and I again had sweet dreams because I had Abraham Lincoln standing guard above my bed.
The next day proved to be nice as well as the rain predicted by forecasters did not fall. We headed out to see sights that weren't closed. I did make one wrong turn in navigating Katie around the city which resulted in a bum yelling random obscenities at us that I shall not repeat here. But that was a temporary blight because we came across the most wonderful sandwich shop. How did we have such good luck finding food? I think it was the spirit of Abraham Lincoln guiding us. We walked by the White House and I used my powerful mind meld to will the next inhabitant to be Barack Obama.
Then we went to the Corcoran, a lovely little art museum. The big draw was an exhibit of the work of Richard Avedon. It was called "Portraits of Power," and I think every school picture photographer should attend this exhibit. I think it would provide some very interesting ideas about how to make yearbooks infinitely more entertaining.
Here were the portraits of power I liked the best:
-Dwight D. Eisenhower
-Charlie Chaplin
-Adlai Stevenson
-Rudolf Nureyov (he was naked!)
-Bob Dylan
-W.H. Auden
-Malcolm X
-George Wallace
-Billy Graham
-a leper
-Joseph Brodsky
-Salman Rushdie
-Ronald Reagan
-Barry Goldwater
-Barack Obama
I don't know what that grouping says about me, but those were the ones I wrote down at the time. And here were the paintings I liked so much at the Corcoran that I wrote down something about them in my little notebook:
-a bunch of dead buffalo
-Niagara Falls
-a clown
-horses fighting over a trough of water
-a series of Dutch landscapes
-a fisherman
-a homestead by the sea
-a monastery
-some weary wayfarers, one of whom might have been a ghost
I did NOT like any painting that involved people washing something. You try to stick the women of the village down by the river washing clothes in there, and I am guaranteed not to like your painting. I don't know why.
After a few hours of art, Katie and I headed down to see some monuments. We stopped by the new WWII memorial, which was very nice although a bit confusing because there was some weird photoshoot going on that involved a girl in a gigantic orange dress. Katie thinks it was her quinceanera.
But then we went to the best monument of all, the Lincoln Memorial. I was glad to find that Abe was there, because I bet sometimes he likes to wonder around D.C. and look at stuff and observe people. But as if he knew I was having the perfect day, he stuck around and sat stoically. I think he winked at me, but I have a tendency to think most presidents are winking at me. That should not, however, be seen as any sort of endorsement of the winkings of Sarah Palin.
Then, as if God or Abraham Lincoln or the entire city of D.C. knew that Katie and I were there, a rainbow appeared over the Washington Monument. A rainbow over the Washington Monument!!!!! Are you kidding me?
Then we went to the airport, and thus ended the perfect day in D.C.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Book #8: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
The book: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, by Jean-Dominique Bauby
What is this book about: Bauby was the editor-in-chief of Elle magazine, then he suffered a stroke. When he awoke from his coma, his mind was there but his body was completely paralyzed except for his left eye. He learned how to communicate by blinking as the alphabet was read to him in an order which reflected the frequency each letter was used in French. He blinked out this entire memoir in two months.
Why did I read this book: A few months ago, I saw the movie of the same name. The book is exactly the same as the movie, but I wanted to see just how much blinking he had to do. I wanted to hold that much blinking in my hands.
What did I think of this book: When I think about this book, I think mainly about what I would do if I were in the same situation. As much as I like my little blog and expressing what rattles around my brain, I just don't know if I could do that much blinking, or have that much patience, or even get through a whole sentence before my mind starts to wander and I forget even what I was going to say. I mean, look at the complexity of this part, when he describes how the letters of his special alphabet dance around the room at night:
"The jumbled appearance of my chorus line stems not from chance but from cunning calculation. More than an alphabet, it is a hit parade in which each letter is placed according to its use in the French language. That is why E dances proudly out in front, while W labors to hold on to last place. B resents being pushed back next to V, and haughty J--which begins so many sentences in French--is amazed to find itself so near the rear of the pack. Roly-poly G is annoyed to have to trade places with H, while T and U, the tender components of tu, rejoice that they have not been separated."
It's so descriptive. It must have taken so much blinking. I would have gotten distracted and ended up with a memoir completely free of adjectives and metaphors.
On an unrelated note, normally I'm a purist in terms of not seeing movies before I've read the book, but this was an exception. I'm glad I saw the movie first, because seeing a dramatization of how this book came to be written made the book that much more impressive.
What was my favorite part of this book: The movie. And also this pretty interesting article about the movie: http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2008/02/23/diving_bell/index.html. Not that I'm saying the book was bad or didn't have interesting parts. I just probably wouldn't have read it if I hadn't seen the movie.
What did I learn from this book: That I probably don't have the patience to memorize passages and then blink them out, letter-by-letter to a scribe. Even if it was just an email, let alone a memoir. I hope I don't get locked-in syndrome.
What grade do I give this book: B+
What is this book about: Bauby was the editor-in-chief of Elle magazine, then he suffered a stroke. When he awoke from his coma, his mind was there but his body was completely paralyzed except for his left eye. He learned how to communicate by blinking as the alphabet was read to him in an order which reflected the frequency each letter was used in French. He blinked out this entire memoir in two months.
Why did I read this book: A few months ago, I saw the movie of the same name. The book is exactly the same as the movie, but I wanted to see just how much blinking he had to do. I wanted to hold that much blinking in my hands.
What did I think of this book: When I think about this book, I think mainly about what I would do if I were in the same situation. As much as I like my little blog and expressing what rattles around my brain, I just don't know if I could do that much blinking, or have that much patience, or even get through a whole sentence before my mind starts to wander and I forget even what I was going to say. I mean, look at the complexity of this part, when he describes how the letters of his special alphabet dance around the room at night:
"The jumbled appearance of my chorus line stems not from chance but from cunning calculation. More than an alphabet, it is a hit parade in which each letter is placed according to its use in the French language. That is why E dances proudly out in front, while W labors to hold on to last place. B resents being pushed back next to V, and haughty J--which begins so many sentences in French--is amazed to find itself so near the rear of the pack. Roly-poly G is annoyed to have to trade places with H, while T and U, the tender components of tu, rejoice that they have not been separated."
It's so descriptive. It must have taken so much blinking. I would have gotten distracted and ended up with a memoir completely free of adjectives and metaphors.
On an unrelated note, normally I'm a purist in terms of not seeing movies before I've read the book, but this was an exception. I'm glad I saw the movie first, because seeing a dramatization of how this book came to be written made the book that much more impressive.
What was my favorite part of this book: The movie. And also this pretty interesting article about the movie: http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2008/02/23/diving_bell/index.html. Not that I'm saying the book was bad or didn't have interesting parts. I just probably wouldn't have read it if I hadn't seen the movie.
What did I learn from this book: That I probably don't have the patience to memorize passages and then blink them out, letter-by-letter to a scribe. Even if it was just an email, let alone a memoir. I hope I don't get locked-in syndrome.
What grade do I give this book: B+
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