books and pictures

Today on CNN, it was reported that Barack Obama took 5 books totaling 2300 pages with him on vacation. Well, I don’t know how many pages my books totaled, but I ended up taking 12 books and 10 magazines with me on my vacation. And of course I didn’t read them all. I just wanted to have the luxury of lots of choice. And I suppose it’s kind of a poor showing that I only read 2 books out of the 12. But what can I say. The activities schedule was pretty packed.

What was weird about the books I read on vacation was that they both ended up dealing with childhood sexual abuse even though I had no idea that that’s what either book would contain when I started them. So that may also be why I only read two books. Perhaps I was scared of starting another book that somehow also involved childhood sexual abuse, because then I would have had to question why I was buying all these books that somehow featured childhood sexual abuse without my knowing. What’s up with my subconscious?

Anyhoo, the two books I read were:
--Book #15: Leaving the Saints: How I Lost the Mormons and Found My Faith by Martha Beck
--Book #16: Case Histories by Kate Atkinson

I chose “Leaving the Saints” cause I wanted to read about some crazy Mormons, and this memoir did not disappoint on that count. It’s about how Martha Beck, the lady who I hear appears on Oprah sometimes, relocated from Cambridge, MA to her childhood home of Utah. Her father is a bigwig in the Church of JC of LDS, so she re-explores her family’s religion while trying to come to grips with her own spiritual beliefs. It’s interesting enough as a memoir of faith. But then you have to throw the aforementioned childhood abuse in there; Beck alleges that her father molested her when she was young, something she repressed until adulthood. If you look at the reviews on Amazon, they’re pretty divided on whether this book is truthful or not, which seems like kind of a weird thing for strangers to debate but oh well. I can’t say I want to hang out with the lady, but the book was interesting enough to me.

Well, after reading the Mormon Memoir, I decided to switch over to fiction. I chose “Case Histories” because I’d heard it was a real page-turner. Eh, it was okay. It didn’t wow me. Basically there are three sets of characters and all of them have a decades-old mysterious death in their past and a private investigator tries to solve everything so that the families have closure. There was sexual abuse in this one too, as well as multiple families in which one child was loved way more than another one, which is not exactly a fun thing to read about at a family reunion. It really wasn’t a mystery as described in all the blurbs, though the characters that were wandering around the book were interesting enough. Even though when perspective changed, the author’s style didn’t, meaning that all these characters expressed their thoughts in parentheses (which made it hard to distinguish the differences between people). Just alright.

Hey, are you kind of depressed after reading about these sad books I read on vacation? Me too. Let’s look at vacation pictures to cheer ourselves up.

Abe Lincoln's boyhood home:

Lincoln birthplace memorial:

Lincoln statue in Hodgenville:

ZOOOM in:

Rough River Lake:

More of the lake:

Holding Mickey Mantle's bat:

Stealing some chicken from the colonel:

getting lucky in kentucky

Two weeks ago I was in the state of Kentucky, enjoying a big ol’ family reunion and vacation. Having spent the last week in that daze you experience once you get back from a vacation and have to re-enter the real world, I’m finally ready to write about this amazingly relaxing and refreshing week.

The ultimate destination was Rough River Dam State Resort Park, in western Kentucky, where we were meeting up with the Iowa branch of my dad’s family – my uncle, aunt and my two cousins, along with the spouse, two children and significant other that those two brought along (I guess for accuracy’s sake, my cousins don’t live in Iowa anymore. But they shall always be my Iowa cousins. Anyways). But the Candler branch of the family decided to take their time getting up to the state park so we could hit some Kentucky attractions.

First up: Maker’s Mark Distillery, which is in the middle of nowhere and has very limited visiting hours, which made getting there practically a race. Not helping matters, in my opinion, was my father’s new GPS system, which was named Greta. Anyone in my immediate family can probably speak for an hour about how much I hate Greta. Here I was, sitting in the back, with printed directions that were as good as Greta’s, and yet whenever Greta did something correct, like tell us to turn right, everyone was just amazed. I CAN DO THE SAME THING! I WANT COMPLIMENTS TOO!! And if I was wrong, man, I bet they’d really let me have it. Whereas when Greta was wrong or off, it was just chalked up as an endearing fault. Ugh, I hate this technology and I really don’t think we should become too dependent on it. But I digress. That is a lengthy topic for another time.

Anyways, Maker’s Mark was fun and located in a pretty spot. After a family argument about lunch that I shall not discuss here, we ate at a little café on the distillery grounds before our tour. We heard about the Maker’s Mark recipe, saw bourbon aging in the barrels, and then we had a little taste of the white dog that comes out of the barrels, before it’s diluted with water. My sister-in-law Courtney claimed it smelled like alcohol poisoning, and it didn’t taste much different than that, either. I think that burned off my tastebuds, leaving me unable to appreciate the Maker’s Mark. Or, it’s possible that bourbon just isn’t my drink. But it was cool to watch my brothers dip a bottle of Maker’s Mark in that distinctive red wax.

After Maker’s Mark, we headed off for another distillery called Heaven Hill. The tour at this one was a bit more informative as far as Kentucky Bourbon goes, and the place as a whole was a bit more swanky. But the bourbon still tasted gross to me. Oh well. All the other things I tasted that were made with bourbon, like candies and barbeque sauces and beer….those were all delicious!

After Heaven Hill we headed into Bardstown for the night. The only thing open in Bardstown past 5 p.m., it seems, is the Old Talbott Tavern, which is probably one of the coolest places I’ve eaten. The place was built in 1779, and all manners of famous people have been there, including native son Abraham Lincoln. There, we tasted Kentucky delicacies like Burgoo (a stew of sorts) and Kentucky Hot Browns, which is a sandwich dipped in like gravy sauce and topped with bacon. You know, healthy stuff!

The next day was all about Abraham Lincoln. From Bardstown we drove to his boyhood home at Knob Creek Farm. Well, it’s not actually his boyhood home, it’s a replica/reconstructed cabin, but the Park Service seems to think it’s in the right place and you can walk down to the creek where Abe almost drowned. A little further down the road is the more impressive birthplace site, which had a tearjerking introductory video, a massive monument built to enclose the cabin, and yet another little cabin, which again, is not the real, actual cabin but as close to the real thing as possible. This state has a lot of fake cabins, but you do get a real sense of what it might have been like to grow up in a tiny cabin with nothing around you, if only because the land is still so undeveloped.

Then it was off to the Abraham Lincoln Museum in Hodgenville, which has got to be the best three bucks I ever spent. The life story of Abraham Lincoln is depicted in dioramas featuring wax figures! I won’t put the pictures up here because I fear it could get me sued, but suffice it to say that it’s both awesome and creepy. We had to drag Dad out of the gift shop.

After loading up on some supplies at Wal-Mart, it was off to Rough River, where we spent a few days. I won’t go into detail on all the days, but most involved some combination of the following: yummy meals, sitting by/swimming in the pool, walks through the park, mini golf, real golf, card games, board games, swimming in the lake and riding on boats. One day, we headed to Mammoth Cave National Park, which, like the Lincoln Museum, was awesome and creepy, but in a different way of course. The two-hour tour we took was a real workout, cause we had to practically crawl through these tight spaces and then climb all these steps to get back out. I can’t imagine being the first person who decided it was a good idea to go into a cold, dark, underground cave.

Overall, the reunion was just great, a relaxing fun time, and it was nice to spend so much quality time with that side of the family, as I don’t get to see them that often. Plus, Kentucky is a beautiful state. I was very impressed with it.

On the way back to Candler, we attempted to squeeze in a few more Kentucky attractions. We drove to Louisville to hit up (pun intended) the Louisville Slugger Museum. We went on a tour to see how they make the bats, and it was pretty cool. They show you all the choices that a player can make, and then they put a piece of wood into a machine and boom….there’s a bat.

On our way out of town, my family very patiently indulged me as we stopped at my beloved Half Price Books, which has like 10 locations in the greater Seattle area yet NONE in the south. Please, Half Price Books honchos, if you read this, please please please come to Atlanta. That Louisville one is the closest one to me and I really think that’s unacceptable. I think I can guarantee that if you come to Atlanta, my purchases alone will keep you in business.

Once I had bought enough to keep me in books for the rest of the year, we made the long drive back to Candler, stopping one last time in Corbin, KY, the site of the first Kentucky Fried Chicken. I’m not a huge fan of KFC, but I can tell you that if you eat at the one in Corbin, it will taste better than all other KFC you’ve ever had in your life combined. The ghost of the Colonel must hover overhead, ensuring that the chicken, biscuits and sides are just extra delicious. And that concludes the account of my Kentucky vacation.

important life lessons

Well, I’m sure I’m not alone when I say that it was tough to go back to work today, after a nice, long, holiday weekend. I spent my 4th of July in Candler with the family. Though our activities mostly involved eating, I was still able to learn lots of things on my trip home. I decided to blog about all the things I learned, each day. Here we go.

Thursday: In which I drive from Atlanta to Candler, eat at Mellow Mushroom with my brothers and go to a Jenny Lewis concert with my brother George.

I learned that…..
….Atlanta traffic is not that bad if you get to leave work at 1 p.m.
…..Ronde the cat is still impossibly cute
…..Tiki the cat is still rather grumpy when I am around
…..my brother William is starting to look and act eerily like my father.
…..waitresses who show up for their Mellow Mushroom shift directly after “gardening” are often too spacey to be very effective in serving.
…..the Mellow Mushroom in Asheville was out of nearly every local beer.
…..my brother William has some frightening sort of mojo or reverse psychology that can make me agree to eating Hawaiian pizza when I really want to eat White Pizza.
…….it’s better to just compromise and order two pizzas, particularly if one of the pizzas is a White pizza.
….short people who are pissy about having to stand behind taller people at a concert should get to the concert earlier
....the Heartless Bastards are a good opening band, and the lead singer of that band looks like a Muppet.
….a new stylish look, as worn by Jenny Lewis, is a cut-up white t-shirt with a black bra underneath.
….Tecate is a tasty beer suitable for performers, as evidenced by Jenny Lewis’s enthusiasm for it.
…..Jenny Lewis posters are nigh-impossible to get, as they sold out just before I was able to buy one for my brother, and none of the staff members were willing to get the one out of the locked marquee for us.

Friday: I ate coffee cake, cold cuts and chicken, went shopping with my parents and sat on the porch.
I learned that……
….Sara Lee coffee cake is delicious
…..I might be allergic to Ronde the kitten
….shopping for dishwashers is difficult
….dishwasher salesmen might be creepier than car salesmen
….trying on hats at antique stores is fun
….if Hardee’s is out of lids for their medium-sized cups, they will upgrade you to a large.
…..a large soda at Hardee’s is way more soda than any person has a right to drink
…..sitting out on the porch, in weather that was at least ten degrees cooler than Atlanta, is delightful.
….Ronde can climb trees
……my mom used to win roller-skating competitions and win a giant Hershey’s bar for her efforts
….if you let the boys cook, they will come up with something delicious, thus meaning that they should always cook while the ladies sip drinks on the proch
…3 adults can easily polish off 3 bottles of wine.

Saturday: A day to celebrate America by eating and watching things.
I learned that….
…..Tecate is more delicious than I remembered. Thanks for the tip, Jenny Lewis.
…..pierogies with spicy seasoning cooked on the grill are delicious
….how to make ribs from my brother’s father-in-law. Sorta.
…the renovated movie theater on Hendersonville road is awesome, because it has all these big comfy couches and footrests.
…The Hangover is an immensely funny movie
…..when you hear a rustling in trees near the house, it’s best to assume that it’s a bear.
…fireworks that emit a loud boom without also emitting any beautiful sparkles are awful fireworks and should not even be sold.
…..there was much I did not know about our nation’s first sixteen presidents, thanks to the History Channel’s marathon of “The Presidents.”
….the History Channel thinks that Jimmy Carter succeeded Abraham Lincoln in the presidency, if the way they ordered the episodes of “The Presidents” is any indication.
….I get too tired to stay up til 4 a.m. to watch the entirety of any television marathon, even if it is about the presidents.

Sunday: I ate some things, read some stuff, and drove back to Atlanta.
I learned that….
…..my mom can make a mean breakfast sandwich
….the show “Rome Reports” is a must if you like popes, and if you get that channel about Catholics, which my parents do.
….reading “Infinite Jest” while your parents watch the Wimbledon finals is kind of weird.
…ribs are delicious
…..it’s best to shower after you eat ribs
….though you may be expecting heavy traffic on the last day of a holiday weekend, it won’t come in the spots that you expect.

top ten list, part two

Okay, as promised, here’s the second half of the “Top 10 Things I Did on the Cruise Ship List.” This entry will represent the last of the cruise vacation entries. I managed to stretch a four-day cruise into eight entries, which seems pretty respectable. Hopefully I will have something to blog about tomorrow!

6. Shows
Each night of the cruise, there was a big show, and the nightly show was by far one of my favorite thing about the vacation. On the first night, the show was sort of an intro to cruise entertainment, emceed by our cruise director Noonan. Noonan was very funny and had a dry wit. There was a game played with people on the cruise ship, and his comments to each of the contestants were very funny. That first show also featured a few brief numbers by the dancers and singers as well as a brief stand-up bit by a comedian. On another night, there was stand-up by two other comedians.

But the best shows in my opinion were the ones with the singing and dancing. One show was sort of a French nightclub sort of thing in which all the dancers were practically naked. The other show was singing and dancing to nightclub standards from around the world. Just watching those shows once exhausted me, but I can’t imagine performing them twice. That is an awful lot of costume changes. To do all that AND help with Bingo games during the day?!?! The dancers have a pretty big workload, it seems to me. We also watched one adorable dancer teach the cha-cha to some cruisers. I could not be a dancer on a cruise ship, because it is just too much work and too much nudity.

7. Karaoke
One cruise ship job that I wouldn’t mind is running the karaoke bar, which is a place where my family spent quite a bit of time. The first night we just watched and got a feel for it. By the end of the evening, Dad had the karaoke bug and told me he would sing if I did. The next day, he was a man possessed, thinking about his song and racing off for the lounge as soon as dinner was over. Before the place got too crowded, I karaoked my way through “Werewolves of London.” When Dad took the stage, though, the place had many more people, including a raucous bachelorette party. However, he absolutely nailed his song, a George Jones number known as “White Lightning.” It’s a fast song with a lot of words, and the whole time I was watching I couldn’t believe that that was my dad up there. He was really really good. After he finished and sat down, this lady came out of nowhere and gave him a big kiss on the cheek and told him how awesome he was. We plotted our karaoke encores the next day, having learned about what was successful in the karaoke bar. But the greatest heartbreak of the trip may have been that the karaoke bar was closed the next night, which was also the last night, for a public event. Stardom foiled!

8. On Deck for the Cure
Carnival has this thing where you can make a small donation and do a mini-walk for the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. The walk was held on our day at sea and Mom and I decided to do it, since we really needed to get some exercise after all that eating and it was a pretty cool opportunity all around. Carnival has raised tons of money for breast cancer this way. We did a mile on the ship’s jogging track as part of the walk, and then we did another mile just on our own. Maybe if we had discovered that jogging track earlier on in the trip my jeans would fit better now, but frankly that’s unlikely. I just would have eaten more. But anyways, walking on the 10th level of a ship is pretty cool….very pretty, great view of the water.

9. Read
This one sounds a little boring and obvious, I guess, but it was so nice to have some time to read. I read Catch-22 (review on the way). The last day, the day at sea, I read mostly on the deck, but my comfy little bunk and some couches overlooking the water were also nice places to read. The only bad thing about reading on the deck was the pressure of chair wars. A lot of people would put their things on a deck chair and then just disappear for 5 hours, which hindered the other people who just wanted to sit in the sun. It was very uncomfortable. Apparently there were fights. The last day they put a notice in the cruise newspaper that people shouldn’t save a deck chair if they were going to be gone for more than 30 minutes. The last day we sat next to some claimed chairs for like three hours and we never saw the people who had claimed them. Meanwhile people are passing behind the chairs, all sad that there’s nowhere to sit. As I said, very uncomfortable.

10. Towel Animals!
Each night, while you’re off gallivanting about the ship, the steward comes in and turns down the bed and leaves an animal made out of a towel! It’s the most wonderful thing ever! Here is an elephant we received, as well as a creature that I think is a pig. It's hard to tell cause I think you make pigs and dogs the same way.
On the last day, Mom and I went to a class to learn how to make towel animals from the stewards. I just looked back over the pictures of the ones I made, and I don’t want to post them next to the professional examples. I learned how to make an elephant and a dog. If stewards didn’t also have to make beds and tidy rooms, I would want to be a room steward so I could bring joy to all the people with my towel animals.

a top ten list, in two parts

So far on this epic cruise recap, I have mostly detailed what my parents and I did on our trips off the boat. However, we did spend the majority of this trip on a boat. In fact, the entire last day was just a day at sea. But time at sea is never boring. Oh my, no. There is so much to do on board, including the trivia challenges that I mentioned yesterday. There’s so much that you can’t even do it all – for example, we didn’t really hit up the casino, the dance clubs or the mini golf course. But I did compile a top 10 list of things that we did do aboard our cruise ship. However, I am going to break the list into two parts, because now that I’m blogging every day I don’t want to run out of material too fast. So here’s the first five:

1. Eat
This one is pretty obvious. Cruise ships are famous for the amount of food that they carry on board, and I certainly was not disappointed in this respect. As soon as we got on the boat we were sent up to the ninth floor of the ship, which had various eating stations as well as a full buffet. You know a trip will be good if you get fresh-carved roast beef within an hour. And then have a fancy dinner just a few hours later. I can’t even remember all the things I ate on this boat, but they included lobster tail, a ooey gooey warm chocolate cake, a Mexican midnight buffet, steak, eggs benedict, fried chicken and several types of breakfast meat. I probably should have taken more copious notes on all I consumed, but it would likely make me feel bad now. I have gained weight, y’all. I have been wearing fat pants since I got back. I am trying to exercise, but unfortunately, I still get hungry every 2.5 hours, which was roughly the feeding schedule I was on during the cruise.

2. Drink
I guess one follows the other. Now, my parents and I didn’t go as crazy as some of the people did on this traveling bar, but I think we did a respectable bit. Every day, Mom and I got the specialty cocktail, which came in this cute cruise cup of which I now have a set of 4 (Mom has the other half). These are the kinds of cocktails that have numerous types of fruit on the edge of the glass, as well as an umbrella. They were usually pink. We also had delicious mojitos and ice cold beer. Dad drank wine. And at the cocktail reception that was thrown by the captain, I had champagne and a lime daiquiri. That captain, he throws a good party. His name was Giuseppe. We learned that because on the first day the televisions in the room have a video that shows on repeat in which Giuseppe tells you how important it is to take part in the life jacket safety drill. We did do that, but it’s not going to merit its own entry on the list.

3. Watch the Academy Awards
Speaking of having televisions in the room, I was able to see an hour or so of the crown jewel in my annual television watching schedule, the Oscars. No doubt many of my readers were disappointed that I was not around to type drunken thoughts on the event this year, but frankly, I am glad I was on a boat and not in front of the computer. For the obvious reasons that being on a boat is far superior to being in front of a computer, but also because from the little that I saw, the Oscars sucked. Everything was too predictable, and I definitely did not like the feature where past winners came out to announce the nominees. It was too uneven; some presenters loved their nominees, while others didn’t even know who they were. It made me uncomfortable.

4. Fend Off Paparazzi
Much like the celebrities at the Academy Awards, I spent day after day having my picture taken even when I didn’t really want it. Cruise lines employ all these photographers, some of whom are stationed to photograph you at the most inopportune moment, such as when you’re stepping off a boat and getting wind all in your hair. Or when you’re trying to juggle all your travel documents before you get on a boat. Or when you’re eating dinner and they want to bring a pirate around to everyone’s table. It was an awful lot of photography, it seemed to me. But it was still fun to walk through the photo gallery and look for yourself amidst all the photos, even if it was only to cringe at how bad the photos turned out.

5. Waterslide!
One moment that I prayerfully hope wasn’t captured on film was the time I spent walking around in my bathing suit after four days of cruise eating. But I had to do it so I could spend some time in the hot tub and go on the waterslide! My dad went on the waterslide as well. We made three trips on that waterslide, along with several little kids. If a waterslide can entertain everyone from children to grownups, then I think that’s a pretty good waterslide.

the trophy story

For better or worse, I have a long memory. I am -- how you say -- good at keeping grudges. Unfortunately for my family, that means I am able to remember obscure things they did to traumatize me during my childhood. And there is no anecdote that I pull out of my little twisted mind more often than “the trophy story.”

When I was a girl, I played softball for a few seasons. I was not very good; I am not very good at many sports at all. I distinctly remember one unfortunate incident when I swung at a ball that was BOUNCING. ON THE GROUND. That was not my finest moment.

Anyways, one season my dad was the coach of my team, Pink Panthers. Coach sat the team down at the beginning of the season and said that the only thing that mattered was whether we had fun. It wasn’t about winning or losing, but about doing our best and having fun and being a team. I would say that mission was accomplished. We certainly didn’t win every game, but we won a few. We had fun. It was a good season.

Until the end of the season, when my dad revealed that we wouldn’t be getting trophies. BECAUSE WE DIDN'T WIN ENOUGH.

Now, I certainly don’t believe that mediocrity should be rewarded. But I will tell you that it was somewhat implicit in that league that if you played softball as a kid, you got a trophy at the end of the season, usually presented at a pizza party. It was a memento of a summer in your life and I still have all the ones I got from playing on other teams. Teams, that I might add, may have lost more than the Pink Panthers did that season.

My other problem with this scenario is that in that heartwarming talk that Dad gave us at the beginning of the season, winning was in no way defined as a metric for our success. The only metric provided was that we have fun. We had fun; therefore, didn’t we deserve a symbol of our accomplishment? If he had said, “If you girls win a lot, we will get trophies,” then a merely decent record would not have sufficed. But he never brought up the parameters of receiving a trophy, because at that age, they were implicit: If you played, then you got a trophy.

I mean, the parents paid for them. I think they were reasonably priced.

Now, this is an anecdote that I bring up a lot. When people come over for dinner, I ask them in front of my father about the fairness of this situation. Dad has tried to make it up to me over the years, giving me little fake trophies or trophies with masking tape labels recognizing my accomplishments. BUT IT IS NOT THE SAME.

Now, maybe you are wondering what this has to do with my cruise vacation, which I was in the middle of recounting. Well, on the cruise ship, one of their little activities is playing trivia, and the prize is a little trophy of the cruise ship. I told Dad that if I won a trophy, then I would put this anecdote to rest.

I do just want to state, however, that I made that deal when I thought we’d be playing as a team. In actuality, we had to play as single individuals. So I don’t know if this deal still holds up.

The trivia game was 15 questions. Four people playing in the room got 9 out of 15, including both Dad and me. Which means we had to go to a sudden death tiebreaker, which some other guy won. It was especially heartbreaking, because Dad and I had both changed an answer at the last minute, and if we had only kept our original answer, either of us might have won without having to deal with the tiebreaker.

But there was another chance to win a trophy, and that was for a game called “Famous Faces.” They would flash people up on the screen for just a second, and you had to identify as many of the 60 shown as possible.

I got 54 correct. The guy who had won the first trivia game got 56, so he got another trophy. But the guy who was running trivia said that my score was so impressive that he gave me a trophy too! Hooray! A trophy for me!
What is especially significant about this trophy, to me, is that I didn’t have to win first place to receive it. I just had to do my best, which is what Dad said I had to do all those years ago when I was playing softball. Sure, that trivia guy may have just given me a trophy because the other guy had already won one, but doesn’t a ragtag team of softball playing girls deserve trophies too, maybe especially because all the other teams already got one?

Please feel free to tell me how correct I am on this matter in the comment section. You can also forward me emails that mention how I deserved a trophy when I was 10, and I will make sure my father sees them. But I will, on my honor, try to put this trophy anecdote to rest now.

like a whole other country

After Key West, our cruise ship headed off for Cozumel, in Mexico. Unlike Key West, in which we had a lot of ideas about what we might want to do, we didn't have much of an idea of what to do in Cozumel. There were a lot of excursions offered through the cruise line but they were expensive, and furthermore, I didn't find anything that was too appealing. Apparently I have no desire to swim with dolphins or go to Mayan ruins. Oh well.

So I did some research, and basically we decided that we'd walk through the town of San Miguel and then go to a beach. We came in at a port that was a few miles down the road from San Miguel, so we hopped in a cab and the guy let us out downtown. Which looked like this:


We walked around for awhile, going into shops. Mom and Dad started to find this stressful, because each shop had someone outside yelling at you to come in and take a look. Then the salesperson follows you around. It's not a very enjoyable way to shop. Also, most of the shops have the same souvenirs, so after just a few shops you feel like you've seen it all.

After awhile, Dad was ready to go back to the ship, and the plan was for Mom and I to continue to a beach club for a few hours, before we too would head back in time for dinner. We passed a place advertising $1 Coronas, however, so we decided to stop and have a drink. Plus the place had shade, and this was a very hot day.

It turns out all the beers were $1, so Dad asked the waiter if there were any local ones on the list. He and I enjoyed Montejo, a Yucatan beer.
Look at all the fun we're having in the picture above! And for only $2! I also split a strawberry daiquiri with Mom, which was $4. I guess there's a reason kids go to Mexico for spring break. It's so cheap to drink! Too bad I didn't figure this out earlier, before Mexico got all dangerous!

Another plus for Mexico is you can wander the streets with a beer in your hand. That's what I'm doing below, with the Mexican flag carefully placed in the background, so as to prove that I did in fact leave the country:

After all the drinking, it was getting late so we decided to head back to the cruise ship together and forego the beach trip. We did take some time to walk along the coast. We walked out on this pier and saw these little fish that looked like sharks! Also I saw these fish out of water:

There are all sorts of these statues along the main road along the coast.

We walked down to Senor Frog's before we caught a taxi back to the boat, because when I see giant frogs, I must have pictures with them. Luckily, my parents support me in this quest. If you have a real eye for detail, you might notice that I've moved on to a beer in a can. Dos Equis in a souvenir shop for $1 a can!
A few more swigs of Dos Equis led to this:


Then I was drinking and driving!

After my froggy photo shoot, we got in a real car, though. And it turns out Mexico doesn't have any of those pesky open container laws so I enjoyed that beer all the way back to the cruise ship.

At the dock there was like a little miniature downtown Cozumel, only the drinks were more expensive and the shops catered to American tourists that don't want Mexican shopkeepers shouting at them. I found a nativity scene made in Mexico at one of those stores that was far cheaper than anything I saw in the real downtown, so that was my Cozumel souvenir. (I'm sure it will get a picture post when it becomes my seasonal centerpiece!)

Apparently, all those shops were brand new and built after damage done during 2005 hurricanes. While that part was nice to walk around, I'm glad we got to go into the real town. We met some ladies who only went to that part, and that seemed sad. Granted, they didn't seem like ladies that drank, so I guess they wouldn't have been impressed with all the cheap alcohol prices.

the best of the rest of key west

Well, this is the third and last posting about our stop in Key West on our cruise. I’m kind of amazed I got three posts out of the stop – the whole stay was only a few hours. Key West is definitely some place that I would like to go back to, so I could really get in laidback mode and wander the streets and whatnot. February seemed like a really nice time to go…not too hot.

If it had been hot, I don’t know if we would have made it down to the southernmost point in the United States. We got there by walking about a mile, I guess, down Duval Street. At that point we were only 90 miles from Cuba, which a helpful marker alerted me to. There was a line of chumps waiting to take a picture with the marker, but we just snapped pictures in front of the monument right after the person posing walked away. In my opinion, the people waiting in line were chumps.

The rest of our time in Key West was devoted to walking around, peeking in shops and partaking in the local delicacy of key lime pie. It was a piece of pie put on a stick and then dipped in chocolate, and let me tell you, it was heavenly. The lady in the shop said they had been on Rachael Ray, so take that for what it’s worth.

Right before heading back to the cruise ship, we visited Mallory Square. It’s a famous spot for famous sunsets, but we were setting sail at 2 so you’ll have to use your imagination as to what a sunset might have looked like here. Or, you know, just find a picture of what it would have looked like on the internet.

All around Mallory Square you can hear chicken and roosters squawking. Apparently the chicken and roosters can run free on Key West, something that about half the people like and half the people hate. I think that visually it was neat, but it was hard on my ears.

And that was our few hours in Key West. I leave you with a picture of the sailor I hope to return for one day. Our time together was brief, but our love remains fiery.

the ghosts of Key West

After you see where Harry S. Truman vacationed, there are two other men who are indelibly linked with the town of Key West that you have to pay tribute to. Those men, of course, are Jimmy Buffett and Ernest Hemingway.

If you were raised a faithful Parrothead, as I was, then Key West is a sort of mecca. If Jimmy Buffett hadn’t gone to Key West, then he might just have been a failed country singer. But instead, he went to Miami for a show, only to find it cancelled. Jerry Jeff Walker drove him down A1A to Key West and the rest is history. All the good old Jimmy Buffett albums were made there. This was back in the day before Jimmy Buffett became a brand and started selling $400 margarita makers. This was back when Jimmy had a guitar and a boat (just one) and did a lot of drugs. When cruise ships didn’t stop in Key West but instead there might have been real pirates. It sounds kind of awesome.

Since I listened to nothing but Jimmy Buffett until I was like 12, I knew there were many locales we should be looking for as self-respecting Parrotheads. We found one early enough: Caroline Street. According to Jimmy, at one point, there was a “woman going crazy on Caroline Street.” In the song, the woman drinks beers and hits on men from shrimping boats. Jimmy sings it, “she slowly guzzles twenty five cent beers.” I only recently realized that there might be a hyphen between twenty and five. I thought she drank twenty beers that cost a nickel. I guess 25 cent beers might be more realistic in any economy. But when I thought that lady could put away 20 beers, I really thought she was a badass. So anyway, there is a picture of me going crazy on Caroline Street, but it’s not on my camera so I can’t show you.

Now, Jimmy sings one song about how “Duval Street was rocking,” which caused his eyes to start a popping. That street was very easy to see because it’s the main drag in Key West, and we walked the length of it. Off Duval, though, is Capt. Tony’s, which is mentioned in the song “Last Mango in Paris.” But I knew all about it from my family’s repeated listenings to the 1990 live album, “Feeding Frenzy,” in which that song gets an extended intro that goes:

“I’d like to do a song that was written about a good friend of mine down in Key West, where I spend a little bit of time. This particular friend ran a bar in Key West for a long time before we got fed up with all the other alternatives to politicians and elected our favorite bartender mayor. Our mayor’s name is Captain Tony Tarracino (Molly’s note: when I was little, I thought Jimmy said, “our mayor’s name is Captain Tony Terry you know him?” and I would always think, no, Jimmy, how am I supposed to know this guy?) He has a little place called Captain Tony’s saloon.” (Molly’s second note: Even years later, I can remember that intro by heart. I am SICK)

And here I am at Captain Tony’s!


There are bras on the ceiling! (not pictured)

Now, Captain Tony’s brings us to Ernest Hemingway, for Captain Tony’s Saloon was the original spot for Sloppy Joe’s, a bar that is now famed as Ernest Hemingway’s hangout. First off, I am not a very big Hemingway fan; I haven’t read much of his work and I will not be able to rattle off random passages or lines as I just did for Jimmy Buffett.

But being a writer myself, I did want to have a drink where Papa did, to see if I could catch any of that Hemingway magic. Maybe come back with an idea for a book about bulls or war or safari. I had a margarita, voted the best in Florida. Well, that was one strong margarita, about as strong as my mom’s daiquiri, and as my dad put it, we’re lucky Hemingway wrote anything at all that made any sense. And I certainly hope he didn’t drive himself home afterward.

Unfortunately, I don’t think Ernie would like Sloppy Joe’s much now, as it’s mostly a tourist attraction. I guess if he liked seeing himself on t-shirts he might like it. But given how he ended his life I am not sure he would.

Here is Sloppy Joe’s.


We didn’t have time to tour the Hemingway house, but I think I caught a little of his spirit, and I did have many a photo opp with him:



I'd like to think that in this last picture I qualify as his "Catch of the Day." (He is holding a fishing rod. It might be kind of hard to see at the smaller size.)

Dewey defeats Truman

One of the first things my parents and I did on this cruise ended up being one of our favorite things of the whole trip. After sailing from Miami in the late afternoon, we docked in Key West in the early morning the next day. As you may know about my family, we're all equipped with historical sensors that allow us to tell when we're near some place of presidential importance. As it happens, the only presidential museum in all of Florida (I guess until Jeb rules us) is in Key West , at the Harry S. Truman Little White House.

Harry Truman wasn't exactly planning on becoming president. He's a senator, and he heads the Truman committee, which looked into military wastefulness, and then boom, FDR dies and he's the president. This is all thoroughly depicted in the HBO original movie "Truman" starring Gary Sinise. This movie, according to Wikipedia, was made in 1995 and I very distinctly remember watching it. I'm will readily admit that sometimes when I think of Harry Truman I think of Gary Sinise first. I'm not ashamed by that. But I digress.

Anyways, Truman had only been vice-president for less than a hundred days and then he's president. All sorts of crazy crap is going on, like the war and the Manhattan Project and who knows what else. He has to deal with that and then the guy is really tired. His doctor orders him to get some R&R. So he heads to Key West . Now I think we are beginning to see why he is one of our most esteemed presidents.

Truman just had the best time in Key West , hitting on girls on their spring break and drinking really strong margaritas with the ghost of Ernest Hemingway. No, I joke. Hemingway was still alive at this point, and Truman actually didn't leave the military compound, it sounds like. But he returned to the same house 11 times over the course of his presidency, taking working vacations there that totaled 175 days. Now it is known as the Truman Little White House. So off my family went to see it.

Here is what it looks like:


When you take the tour, first you watch a video about Truman and his relationship with Key West . He liked to wear crazy tropical shirts and have a parrot sit on his shoulder (only one of those things is true). Each morning he would go for a brisk walk, have a good breakfast, and then settle in to do work with a military stenographer. He worked on the Marshall Plan and civil rights executive orders there. He had supreme court justices and other bigwigs down to play poker with him. At night he might watch some newsreels or listen to some records. Maybe he'd go fishing. It sounds like kind of idyllic life, as far as being the president goes.

And it was kind of idyllic house to do it in. On the tour, you see Bess Truman's bedroom (she might need her own in case the president was called away in the middle of the night to do something presidential) as well as her awesome deck for reading and card-playing. That deck was so awesome in fact that it was kind of hard to remember that the house wasn't air-conditioned back in the day and might not always have been a pleasant place to sit.

Then you see the president's room; Truman insisted on a daybed so that he could take a nap without disturbing his ready-made bed. Good thinker, that Truman. Also good thinking: the way he set up his bar. He had a bar that was kind of set back into another room. The wood that made up the bar also made up his custom poker table, which had a lid so that you could cover the poker table and have tea. In case you were a delicate, easily shocked lady or something, as apparently Bess Truman was. Additionally, there was a very nice dining room and a living room that had the man's desk, complete with a sign that told you exactly where the buck stopped.

Truman's the focal point of the tour (our very excellent tour guide called Truman his hero) but Truman's not the only president to go to the Little White House. The first president to go was actually Taft, and after Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Carter and Clinton all visited. Kennedy even discussed the Bay of Pigs there with the British Prime Minister. Colin Powell held peace talks at the house and there's an open invitation to any president or dignitary who might like to stay there. But no matter who visits, it seems that house will always belong to Truman. Perhaps because he loved it so, and because he wore so many tropical shirts. Perhaps because they already invested in restoring all that furniture from the Truman era.

Anyways, as I mentioned at the beginning, this stop ended up being one of everyone's favorite stops during the entire cruise. In part, it's because our tour guide was such a good, entertaining storyteller, and in part, it's because a president could vomit on a street corner in 1874 and that would become something my family would like to see. (How I wish Truman had vomited on a street corner in Key West) If you find yourself in the middle of that spectrum, then I think you would like this place. Even if you're not obsessive about your presidential landmarks, it's impressive to see that desk where he worked, complete with his sign that let you know about the buck and its stopping.

Here I am, giving Harry hell:

i'm a cruiser, baby

Well, I am back from my vacation and ready to blog. So ready to blog, in fact, that blogging every day is one of my Lenten resolutions, along with giving up chocolate, soda and not doing stomach crunches. Luckily, I have a wealth of material on my vacation to get this daily blogging off to a good start.

When I leased the apartment in which I currently live, more than a year ago now, I won a free cruise for two. Since my mom helped me with the apartment hunting, it seemed only right to take her, and since my dad is married to my mom, it seemed logical to throw him into the mix as well. Plus, I like traveling with my parents.

To be honest, though, I didn't think this cruise would ever come around. Like I said, this was all over a year ago, and when something has been booked forever, you tend to forget about it. Also, it was sort of a hard thing to anticipate, since I had never been on a cruise before. My parents had been on one cruise before, twenty years ago. So they figured some things had probably changed.

But then finally it was cruise time! We were gone for 4 days to Key West and Cozumel before we returned to the Port of Miami. And while I don't want all of my future vacations to be cruises, I can definitely support the cruising lifestyle. And let me tell you why. Cruising is exactly like summer camp. Fancy summer camp, floating summer camp, but summer camp all the same.

Exhibit A: There were bunk beds in our room.

Other exhibits:
--There are dining rooms that you go to at very specific times to eat
--Sometimes there are field trips to various ports of call
--There are staff members that basically serve a counselor role in terms of planning activities and making sure you are okay. Sometimes they sing to you.
--There are arts and crafts.
--There are games
--There are athletic events
--There are talent shows
--You can go swimming
--Sometimes you have to wear a life jacket:

And there's an actual camp that kids go to so their parents can drink. So the whole premise kind of holds up.

Of course, there are many things that cruise ships have that summer camps do not have, unless summer camp has changed dramatically since my day. Those include: alcohol, casinos, drunk old people, piano bars, regular bars, places that really aren't bars but that serve alcohol anyways, art auctions, drunken bachelorettes, duty-free shops and lobster tail for dinner.

And of course, there are some things that are universal, be you at summer camp, on a cruise ship, or just going through your life, and those include skanks in the hot tub and old people who shouldn't be wearing bikinis attempting to do so anyway.

Now, I will get into all the details of our ports of call and ship activities in later posts, but let me just say that cruising definitely suits my vacation style because it's the best of both worlds: You get to plan all sorts of fun activities for yourself, but if you don't want to do anything, that's okay too. You can sip fruity drinks with your mom (picture 1) while looking at pretty scenery (picture 2).

Picture 1:

Picture 2: (leaving Miami on Day 1)

The only real drawback to cruising is that now I weigh 497 pounds. Oh well!

get me to the church on time (because it will be very crowded)

If it’s true that we eat our feelings, then I guess I ate lots and lots of joy last weekend. That is when my cousin Mary Henry married my new cousin-in-law Brad at Kanuga. I am pretty happy about this arrangement, to the point that if anyone had objected during the ceremony, even as a joke (something I often daydream of doing), I would have fought that person right then and there. Especially if that person was my arch-nemesis.

Yes, I managed to acquire a new arch-nemesis at the wedding, even though the whole festivities only lasted a weekend. Hey. What can I say. You get on my bad side and you are dead to me. But let’s not dwell on the negative. Let’s dwell on the positive. The most positive thing was that Mary Henry and Brad got married.

The second most postive thing was that there was a TON of food. For the rehearsal dinner on Friday night, there were specialities from Buffalo, NY, which is where Brad’s family is from, including hot dogs, roast beef and wings. As well as two kinds of cake! Then, on Saturday morning, my side of the family had sausage biscuits from Bojangle’s because we couldn’t wait til 10 am for brunch. Then we had the just mentioned brunch; I had french toast with strawberry topping, sausage and egg bites and bacon, among other things.

Then a few hours later was the reception, where I feasted on spinach and artichoke dip, meatballs, ham biscuits, cheese straws, cheese and cake. I had more than one piece of cake at the reception, for which my first cousin once-removed Sophie chastised me, but I pointed out that she didn’t have much of a case because she was eating sugar straight from the packet at the time. I guess that was just a snack to tide her over before dinner, which included roast beef, chicken, potatoes, green beans, and salad..and that’s just what I remember. And poundcake with fruit for dessert.

Then the next day we had a breakfast that included eggs, biscuits with sausage gravy and also sausage on the side. There was a lot of sausage. And that’s not even including all the food there was in the hospitality suite, which is where my family hung out between mealtimes. In the hospitaly suite there were goodies including cookies, pretzels, M&Ms, cheese straws and spinach dip. As I said before, I ate lots and lots of joy this weekend.

But the wedding weekend wasn’t all about food, of course. It was also about drinking. My brother William showed up with his custom beer pong table, and many a good game was had, including one monumental game that had three overtimes. At one point my cousins and I ran upstairs to Brad’s family’s hospitality suite and took them on in a game of flip cup, which we won, thanks to a little bit of cheating. I would like to take this opportunity to say that I was not aware that I was cheating at the time. I was just unsure what the game was.

This was a multi-keg wedding, but that doesn’t mean that there weren’t wine and spirits as well. And the younger folks had lemonade and soda available, but what they really loved was water. That’s because they played water pong for most of the weekend. Stylistically, water pong is very similar to beer pong, but the scoring is much different, particularly if you play against a child. Children tend to give themselves half-points for a lot of things, such as being close and for cool throws. At one point I was down 7 ½ to nothing despite the fact that I had gotten several balls into cups and my opponent had gotten no balls into no cups. But such is life.

Other than eating and drinking, I guess there was the wedding itself. That was an extremely nice event that is too difficult to explain in blog format. But everyone looked wonderful and everyone in the whole chapel cried, but in a good way, and everyone was very happy to be there.
I’m trying to think if anything happened that didn’t involve eating or drinking or a wedding ceremony but I’m coming up with very few examples. I took a nap. My cousin Worth played music. I looked at the pictures my first cousin once removed Maggie drew. We all played with Baby Sarah. I conspired against my arch-nemesis. Mainly, though, I think I will remember the eating. And so will my waistline.

for hungover and stressed people

Here's a tip for all you kids out there. When you're hungover, it's best to stay as still as possible. Do not attempt any big movements, or you risk incurring the wrath of your body. Television is obviously the easiest way to cultivate stillness, but don't watch anything that would tax your brain too much. Mental stillness is just as important as physical stillness. I think I heard that in yoga class once. But even if you're not hungover, you might be stressed from the holidays and the recession and the question of what to have for dinner tonight. This post will help you as well.

In honor of stillness and the strive for inner peace, today's Picture of the Day is meant to be very calming. It's a picture I took when I was on vacation in Oregon, at a place called The Grotto. It's a Catholic shrine and botanical garden, and if you go, you can see statues of all your favorite characters from the Bible, assuming that your favorite characters from the Bible are Mary, Joseph and Jesus. You can also see a cross that was blessed by a Pope and a replica of Michelangelo's Pieta. But if religious imagery isn't your thing, you can also just enjoy the beautiful Oregon outdoors. I think it is best to go when it is raining. A good way to follow up your trip to the Grotto is by going to a nickel arcade. At least, that's how I did it.

Zen: achieved

it's funny because it's about furniture

Today's Picture of the Day shows off my favorite part of the drive between Atlanta and Candler. My three-and-a-half hour drive is only interstate for little bits and pieces; most of the drive winds its way through small towns and picturesque scenery. It's a pretty drive for sure, especially when leaves are changing, but my favorite part of the drive is a little less bucolic:



I like this sign because, of course, it is hilarious. But what is even a little more amusing is that I don't think of the small town in which it's located as a particularly scandalous place. I would say most of the areas I drive through are home to good conservative God-fearing folks. Not that those folks don't enjoy a good ribald joke about stripping, but I wouldn't be so brave as to stake my whole advertising campaign on it. And yet it's been in business since 1987. They must be doing something right in that barn.

Anyways, that's my favorite part of the drive. Here are the others:
--Clayton, GA: Clayton, GA really represents your best chance for cheap gas and getting something decent to eat between Atlanta and Candler. They have a Chick-fil-a which is good for early morning drives back to Atlanta, and they have a Wendy's which is good for dinnertime drives back to Atlanta. They have many gas stations with competitive prices, but my favorite one is probably this huge one that has the most gigantic beverage area you've ever seen. In addition to the standard bottled sodas, juices, beer, water, etc. that is available in most every gas station, they also have every single fountain drink. Also they have Icee-like beverages. And my favorite is the wide array of flavored coffee drinks, the kind of drinks you get by pushing a button until your cup is 2/3 of the way full. Starbucks has nothing on this place, if you lower your standards a little bit. I like to get the Peppermint Patty Mocha. It's hard to tell how much of it is coffee and how much of it is just a sugary peppermint concoction but what do I care? It only costs a dollar.

--Other signs: While no other sign matches the hilarity of the sign that is today's Picture of the Day, there are some other signs that mildly tickle me. There's a sign that says "Runaway Truck Ramp," and as my dad always says, it's so sad when trucks run away. There used to be a sign that said "Keep right except to pass" and it was followed not five yards later by a sign that indicated that the right lane was ending and you had to merge left. There used to be a sign indicating that a small town was the birthplace of one of the Miss Teen Georgia's but I guess her reign was so long ago now that they took it down.

--The parts of the trip where the speed limit is 70 mph: Yes, these sections of road don't really feature the pretty scenery that makes this trip so enjoyable, but at least you get to go fast through them. What's better is that the majority of these higher speed limit areas come right after you get off the interstate getting out of Atlanta. Since I'm usually crawling on that part, getting to go 70 right after feels especially fast.

--Gem mining areas: You pass a lot of those places where you pay some money for a bucket of dirt and then you look for gold and rubies and other gems. We went once as a field trip. Even though I don't think there could be much left to find at this point, going through this little area makes me feel that the possibility to be extremely rich has not passed me by.

--Gigantic private school on the side of the road in Georgia: There's this huge boarding school up on a hill that I pass. That place fascinates me. I wonder what goes on up there. What are the kids like? Sometimes I used to daydream that I went there. I guess my fascination with this place is not unique as there are many books about boarding schools.

--Scenery: I guess I already covered this in the intro. It's a pretty drive. The towns are darling, and even though you have to slow down to very low speed limits, you still get home faster than if you'd gone interstate the whole way. You pass a place that does chainsaw art!

--Milkshakes: There are a fair number of places where you could stop and get a milkshake, if that was your kind of thing.

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.

Great Food Court Project on the Road

I’ve had a problem lately where I dream that things happen, and then I forget that they didn’t happen in real life. For example, this weekend I dreamt that I bought the new Dar Williams CD at Target for $9.99. The next day I was looking all around the apartment for the CD, but it turns out I didn’t buy it. They don’t even sell it at Target, or at least not the one closest to me.

That is the case with this blog entry. I was convinced I already wrote it. But I didn’t. And now I can only sorta understand the notes I wrote down, which means I can only partially vouch for the accuracy of this entry. That’s a shame, because this entry relates to something near and dear to my heart, which is the Great Food Court Project.

As you may remember, the Great Food Court Project, an attempt to eat at all restaurants in the Lenox Mall Food Court, was partially spurred by the great sense of relief I felt at being back on the East Coast, where the food courts are as God intended. By which I mean, they have a Chick-fil-a. I couldn’t find one good food court in the greater Seattle area, so when I went back to the Northwest on vacation a few weeks ago, food courts were not high on my list of things to do.

But what I realized is that I may have been prematurely hasty in writing off all Northwest food courts, because apparently Portland has a good one. I ate at this food court, located in the Pioneer Place Mall, completely by accident. The goal of that day was to look around at a bunch of outdoor food carts and eat at one of them, which is rather like eating at a food court, except it’s outside. Doing things outside is REAL big in the Pacific Northwest.

But it was Sunday, and the food carts were closed, as was most every food-serving place downtown, I guess because Sunday is a city-wide day of fasting that I was unaware of. Do you know what was not closed? A food court! An inside food court in a mall! So now I present an edition of the Great Food Court Project On the Road.

First off, as I mentioned just two paragraphs earlier, I liked this food court. These were the restaurants:
--Kelly’s Cajun Grill
--Gyros n’ Grill
--Wrapture
--McDonald’s
--Subway
--California Crisp
--Yucatan Grill
--Paradise Bakery and Grill
--Lotus Express
--Suki Hana
--Thai Go
--Sbarro

I thought this was a good food court because of the diversity of options, with not too many major chains, and it was affordable. Although I did not eat there, I was intrigued by Wrapture because I thought it was a clever name for a place that serves wraps. I went to Yucatan Grill and got a delicious and attractive plate of nachos for just six dollars. I gave my meal a 10 out of a possible 10.

I was eating with my friend Gallagher, who gave his meal a 7 out of 10 if my notes are to be believed. He had a dish of spicy chicken with red beans & rice and boiled cabbage. While he ate this meal, I seized the opportunity to pick another person’s brain about food courts.

While I enjoy food courts for the amount of diversity they offer, Gallagher does not feel the same way. Given his druthers, Gallagher would rather eat at a place that does just one thing really well, as opposed to having to choose from a bunch of places that do several things in a mediocre way. When I asked him why he selected the meal that he did, Gallagher explained that he panicked, which may be further evidence that there was just too much choice. I don’t want to speculate too much on what this might reveal about his personality.

Gallagher claims to be against food courts in general yet had no bad food court experiences that he wanted to share. Later in the conversation he revealed that Chick-fil-a was his favorite food court restaurant of all time, so maybe he’s against food courts because he lives in a place where the food courts don’t have Chick-fil-a. Generally, he finds food courts to be lacking in options related to vegetables and fruit, as well as North African cuisine.

For awhile, Gallagher and I discussed how the restaurant California Crisp had no customers. I thought that was weird because it looked pretty healthy, and the Northwest is all about eating healthy. But Gallagher pointed out that the food court was full of foreigners. That was true. Also if someone really wanted to eat some California cuisine, they only had to venture a little bit south to actually be in California, another possible deterrent.

Speaking of foreigners in food courts, Gallagher told me about food courts in Japan, where he lived for two years. Apparently they serve udon, ramen and fried octopus dough balls in Japanese food courts.

When asked what kind of food court restaurant he would like to operate, Gallagher said he would serve rolls, of the kaiser and rye variety. I think at that point I tried to convince him to serve all kinds of rolls, like sushi rolls, pizza rolls, sandwich rolls, likely with a cutesy name like “Rock and Roll” or “Roll it Up” or “Rolling Stones.” I am guessing this conversation got sidetracked, because here’s what I have written down in my notes: “Molly continues talking about brilliant idea; Gallagher starts talking about cartoons/comics.” I don’t remember which cartoons or comics, or how that related to my brilliant idea.

Here’s another thing I have written down in my notes: “I tried to pick a fight about Cinnabun.” I don’t really remember doing that, though I generally do think that Cinnabuns are a waste of space. So I may have brought that up, but then written the exchange down in my notebook in a way that created dramatic tension. My notes abruptly end at that point because we went to see a movie.

an interview with myself, by myself

Molly 1: Molly, the last time you blogged, there was a giant bug in your apartment! Then you disappeared! For like two weeks! Did the giant bug eat you?
Molly 2: No, I just went on vacation for like 10 days in Seattle and Portland. Then I had a houseguest.

M1: I was so worried and bored when you did not blog!
M2: Your concern was muted.

M1: So much has happened since you’ve been gone!
M2: I know! They have announced not one but two vice-presidential nominees! The Olympics ended! There have been like ten hurricanes!

M1: Well, let’s talk about your vacation. You spoke in your very first blog entry of how much you hate the Atlanta airport, so you must have been dreading that. How was your experience heading out there?
M2: It was like the nicest experience ever! The security people were so nice and funny. The lady at the place I ate was so sweet. There were like, no people there. The departure was one time!

M1: Great! Were you scared to travel, given that there are many news stories about guns in the Atlanta airport and people getting decapitated on buses?
M2: I would be lying if I said I was not mildly concerned.

M1: Okay, let’s jump right into the important questions. Can you name all the meals you ate while you were on vacation?
M2: I sure can! Here is what I had, in the order I had it:
-burger that was made of beef, blue cheese and bacon all mixed together
-sushi
-an omelet and pancakes
-a salad and a wasabi grilled cheese sandwich
-a doughnut
-a slice of pizza and a pesto salad
-clams and a flatbread pizza thing with figs and proscuitto
-a chicken gyro
-a burger made of magical beef
-a ham and cheese sandwich
-an oyster sandwich
-doughnuts
-a breakfast sandwich with proscuitto and cheese and magic
-a Cajun chicken sandwich
-a sandwich made of sage eggs, sausage and avocado, on an English muffin
-a ramen and vegetably thing
-doughnuts
-sausage on an English muffin.
-miso soup and stirfry
-nachos
-pizza (for dinner)
-pizza (for breakfast)
-burrito

M1: Oh my, I can’t believe you remember all that! Your memory is beyond compare! Can you remember all the beverages you consumed?
M2: Oh, of course not, there were too many.

M1: Did you meet any interesting bartenders, though?
M2: Oh yes! In Seattle Matthew and I met a bartender that we both wanted to be best friends with. She gave us Cheez-its and got us really good and drunk!

M1: Did you go back to your old places of employment?
M2: Yep, Matthew and I walked around Old Navy and took pictures in the store. We found the store to be a mess, and we were surprised that some of the security codes still worked, even though it’s years since we worked there. We went into some places we were supposed to go. Then I went to my old office. It was weird that someone else sat in my seat. But I was glad I wasn’t doing that work anymore.

M1: What things happened in Seattle that made you glad that you don’t live there anymore?
M2: First, I would say almost getting run over by a car. Second, I would say the more or less constant deluge of rain. Third, I would repeat what I said above, that seeing my old office made me glad I had a new job.

M1: What did you do to deal with the rain?
M2: Mostly I ate things. For example, I ate cupcakes with Matthew while it rained.

M1: What things made you wish you still lived in the Northwest?
M2: First and foremost, I’d say the people. Second, the bookstores. Third, the reliable public transportation. And also Specialty’s bakery in Seattle.

M1: What did the city of Portland do to welcome you?
M2: They got the symphony to play a free concert in the park with cannons. Then they shot off fireworks.

M1: What things did you win in Portland?
M2: Trivia, foozball.

M1: How many episodes of Weeds did you watch in Portland?
M2: I think like 30.

M1: How many movies did you see on this trip?
M2: Four! I saw The Dark Knight on an IMAX screen, Elegy, Hamlet 2, and Hot Fuzz.

M1: How was the return trip?
M2: I just want to let my readers know that Labor Day is possibly the most miserable day that you can travel. There are too many people, and they all smell funny.

M1: What book did you take out there, and how many pages of it did you read?
M2: I started Middlemarch, but I only read 76 pages of it. It’s kind of a hard book and I have to read most pages twice to make sure I understood. But one guy on the light rail in Portland told me it might steal a little bit of my soul!

M1: What was your greatest accomplishment of the trip?
M2: I bought 15 books and managed to get them all back home.

M1: 15 books! That is insane! I thought you told your mother you weren’t going to buy any more books!
M2: I really don’t remember saying that.

M1: How gracious were all of your hosts?
M2: They were all very gracious!

M1: You said you had a houseguest? What about that?
M2: It seems like a topic for a separate blog entry.

M1: Alrighty then! Looking forward to that!