Another Weekend, Another Trip

I hate to put up yet another post about how I've failed again to catch up on my blog and that I'm going out of town again, but it's true. Andrew has a cousin getting married this weekend in Illinois, so we are off to the Midwest!

We are pretty excited about the trip. Andrew hasn't been home in a while, we haven't seen his family since getting engaged and I'm always excited to get a little break from work! Monday is a "holiday," you know. I always feel a little strange telling people, especially Japanese friends like Emy, that I'm off for Victory Day--the day Japan surrendered in WWII. Only two states still celebrate it as an official holiday, Rhode Island and Hawaii; go figure.

On a happier note, things I'm excited about: I get to... make a pit stop in Chicago (on State Street, that great street...). Ride the El. See Emy. Eat deep dish pizza. Raid Andrew's storage unit for lost items. Go out for Indian food. Get dressed up for a wedding. Dance. Laugh. Relax. Sleep. See the new fam. Watch cable (hopefully the Planet Green channel or some other home renovation type). Eat yummy homemade food. Listen to grandparent stories. Talk about wedding planning. And most of all, I get to be on vacation.

I'm also hoping to catch a few rays of sunshine at the pool this weekend. I would love nothing more than a few hours on a lounge chair, a little water on my toes, a frozen drink, and a good book (probably on my iPod 'cause I'm lazy like that). We'll see if the weather and the plans cooperate:) Mostly, I'm just excited for a break from work and a little social interaction with family.

Well, with that being said, my lunch break is winding to an end and I'll be signing off for a few days. I'm overwhelmed by the stories and randomness I want to share with you, but haven't found the time to!! Someday. Until then, I'll leave you in eager anticipation of the sunflower post that I'm looking forward to writing.

Lovin' Pandora,

Dibs

Another reason why I love winter: "Dibs."

I had all but forgotten about this ritual since I now live in a city that does not permit on-street parking overnight, but thankfully my friends in Chicago and Boston carry the torch well. I have never heard of anything so crazy, with the exception of a similar tradition before the 4th of July in Evanston.

Apparently, for one season each year, people put aside their selfish tendencies and respect others' "dibs." Honestly, I think it's more out of fear of retaliation than respect, but let's give 'em a little grace. So for those of you who don't know, some cities have a tradition of staking claims to parking spaces. I'm not sure how it started, but people have developed a mindset that if they are going to do all of the work to dig their car out of the snow, they should be entitled to that spot until the snow melts or for the duration of the season, in some cases. Emy shared her entertaining story pertaining to her naivety about calling dibs on her spot and I challenge Emy to top one of these, take a picture, and post it on her blog. Until she does so, I encourage you to enjoy some of the finer things in a life, a little light-hearted humor:

Dibs Season in Chicago

Parking-Spot Savers in Boston


Need a little enticing?

A Christmas to Remember

I thought I would fill you in on my upcoming endeavors and warn you that I may be M.I.A. for a week or so!

Family Vaca 2008!!!!!

I'm heading home for Christmas on the morning of the 24th. I get to do the family thing for a few days and then we're headed out on vacation to Orlando. My mom, brother, brother's girlfriend, Andrew and I are headed on an adventure to Gaylord Palms. We're going to visit Rollins, Winter Park, hang at the hotel, see ICE, build gingerbread houses, and go to Universal Studios! I'm really excited for the opportunity to all hang out together and relax a bit.

We'll head back home for a few days where Andrew and I will get to hang out with my family and see a few of my high school friends before heading out on the roadtrip of the century!

Day 1: Head out from Tampa towards Becka's in Port Charlotte stopping at the Roaring 20s Pizza and Pipes restaurant on our way. We will spend the evening with Becka, Jon and baby Reagan! I'm so excited to finally meet her and catch up with Becks.

Day 2: Depart from Becka's house seeing Jenn (Fort Meyers) and the Giant Head of Beethoven and Keri (Cape Coral) somehow on our way to the Everglades! Make a pit stop at the Smallest Post Office in the US and send a few postcards and head towards Miami via Alligator Ally. We'll hit up a few more random stops on our way to Jacksonville. We'll spend the night at Chateau Emy and take her hostage.

Day 3: Leave Jax, with Emy, for Hotlanta swinging by one of the Tiniest Churches in the US in South Newport, GA. Eat lunch in Savannah. Visit the Big Cow and the World Globe Gas Storage Tank. Then arrive in ATL!! Lots of options await us there: the Baseball Equipment Coke Bottle, the Varsity, Centennial Park and most importantly New Year's Conference where we will meet up with Erin and Claire!! We'll watch the peach drop in ATL and then leave Emy with Claire and head on our merry way.

Day 4: Destination: Tennessee. Check out the World's Largest Chair, Replica of the Statue of Liberty and arrive at Grandpas! Hang for a few days on the farm with the family!

Day 6: Head through Memphis visiting the Muffler Man, the New Urbanist Island and some historic sites on our way to Chi-Town. Keep ourselves busy by visiting Lambert's Cafe (Home of the Throwed Rolls), Superman, Big John, the Giant White Cross, and a few other random destinations.

Finally, make my way to O'Hare and back to Providence for work the next morning!

Wheew...I better have some good stories after all that!


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1st Winter Storm in RI

The first winter storm of the season is on its way and I'm so excited!! Luckily, I walk to work so I will be able to get home in 15 minutes regardless of the snow fall since I'm not dealing with the roads. I just have to be careful that someone doesn't slide of the road and onto the sidewalk:)

Well, as I eagerly anticipate the joy of being cooped up in my apartment, with a blazing fire, some hot cocoa, writing Christmas cards (a little late, I know), watching a holiday movie, and staring at the falling snow, Andrew's mom sent me the reality of what the future holds. A little heavier than I dreamed of!

That blob in the middle of the picture is their golden retriever in the driveway!! Notice you can't see where the driveway ends, yards begin, or the road runs through it! Good luck shoveling that, Andrew!

Doesn't snow just look so pure and perfect before there are any footprints to mess it up?!


Normally I wouldn't mind, but this is killing Jaso and I's plan to go to New York City for the day tomorrow. There is no way he is going to get out of Boston, let alone pick me up and get us 3 hours through the Northeast to NYC.

I'll be sure to post some more pics once it arrives in Rhody:)

The 12 Days of Kimberly

Yea, that's right. While some of you were kicking back and sipping eggnog, a very important holiday was among us;)

I arrived home from Thanksgiving vacation to a letter from my sweet boyfriend explaining to me the 12 days of Christmas, the 8 days of Hanukkah and this year's specialty: the 12 days of Kimberly. My birthday is 12/12, so it was fitting to use the first 12 days of the month:)

Here is the fun that you missed out on over the past two weeks (I thought I'd do one big one at the end and spare you the excitement/drama/nausea each day):

Day 1: Letter announcing the celebration

Day 2: Pictures of Davenport Hall. The place on U of I's campus where Andrew and I first met. Not just pictures, but black and white, 8x10 pictures he took during each season of the year to capture the building in its entirety and the longevity of it's endurance!

















Day 3: Three U of I t-shirts so I could show off my grad school pride and reminisce about our memories in Cham-bana.















Day 4: An incredible poem! A perfect and sweet ode to our relationship.












Day 5: A beautiful bouquet of Gerber daisies!




















Day 6: One Fine Birthday Memory.

Andrew's favorite column in the Chicago Tribune is the One Fine Day feature on Saturdays. They select a Chicago neighborhood and give you an itinerary of how to spend one fine day in that area. Well, after I moved out here he would sporadically send me a One Fine Memory letter which would retell a funny or memorable event in our relationship. For example, in one he chose to highlight the evening he had a friend in town and we were at a school get together when I started having a terrible allergic reaction to the cat, swelled up, couldn't stop sneezing and coughing, and we had to rush to Walgreen's to get something for me and his friend was forced to spend the rest of the night catering to my allergic reaction and watching movies.

Day 7: Winter Crocs! Mammoth Crocs, to be exact! (The brown ones!)













Day 8: A Free Date coupon--homemade with a bar code and everything! (This is obviously not the one)










Day 9: A PBS JFK documentary! I adore JFK, which is ironic since the documentary turned out to be about the assassination, a conspiracy theory, and the Cuban Missal Crisis. "The Man, The President, and The Tragedy" turned out to be a very inaccurate title.















Day 10: A fancy kitchen knife. To our surprise, this is apparently a cultural no-no. I had a co-worker who flipped out and made me Google it. Not a good discovery if you're superstitious.















Day 11: A mini salad spinner!! I'm pretty pumped about this. You know you're getting old when salad spinners and chopping knives are exciting!















Day 12: A dinner date at the Melting Pot. I absolutely love fondue and it was incredible! All except a little trouble we had at the end of the date, when we thought we'd see how the lettuce/cabbage bed from our meat plate reacted to the boiling hot oil. You can only imagine, but it sizzles like bacon on Sunday morning--so much so that one may get burned by the splatter and drop the whole leaf in the oil, which then leads to sparks like a firework on the 4th of July. And what does my sweet man who dropped the lettuce in the oil do? He takes his napkin from his lap, motions towards throwing it over the pot to cover it, but at the last minute covers his face instead and leaves me to quickly fish the foliage out before getting burned to death or busted by the waitress! Classic;)

Anyway, the two week period was remarkably fun! I don't know if you can imagine what it's like to get one present every day for 12 days, but it's incredible. And I never knew what was coming so I didn't know where it would be sent. Packages were sent to work and envelopes to my apartment, but it was a constant guessing game. The hardest days were when two would arrive the same day and I was tormented by the early gift for hours!

I would like to congratulate Andrew for being 10 for 10 by being either on time or early with every gift!! (He brought 11 and 12 with him on the plane.) I don't know how he did it, but it was remarkable. I told him he would win a "prize" if he was 10 for 10, so now I have to think of a worthy prize. Any ideas? I feel like the word "prize" renders a child-like gift, but his parcel-mastering skills were anything but amateur! My co-workers even got into the spirit, checking to see what I was receiving each day. A highlight was when my co-worker, also named Andrew, brought in two parcels on Day 6, slammed them down and said, "This is sick. Who are you? Julia Roberts in some romantic comedy?!"

How to Use a Drill 101

The things no one teaches you at school...well at least not if you've never had a shop class.

Emy and I were lounging around her apartment on Columbus Day trying to decide how to fill the time. Well Emy decides that we should consider hanging a shelf above her bed. We spend about 15 minutes deciding if it should be hung and where it should go in proximity to the two candelabra things hanging on the wall. We decide to just go for it, ignoring the advice of her roommate. We spend another 15 minutes trying to measure distances between candelabra, shelf width, ceiling to shelf, distance between nail slots on the back of the shelf, etc. Basically, we treat it as though we we're about to undertake a process more complicated than a root canal or open heart surgery. We figure out all these measurements and draw some dots and prepare for the "procedure." So I begin trying to decide which nail has a large enough head to fit into the slot on the back of the shelf and discover that none will work. "No problem," Emy assures me, "the shelf came with screws and anchors."

"No problem" those words will come to haunt us later. So we've got two anchors and two screws in our hands. "Hmmm...guess we need a drill," we decide. So Emy comes back with her roommate's drill and bits. We just kind of look at it not sure what to do next. There are gold ones and silver ones, Phillips heads and flats, swirly ones...basically it looks nothing like a girl's arts and crafts basket, so we're lost. Well, I have a little (we're talking microscopic) idea about what to do.

"Ok, lets find the drill bit that looks close in size to this anchor, but isn't larger. We'll drill a hole in the wall and then hammer the anchor in." We decide that it sounds like a legitimate plan (we have no idea what you're supposed to do with anchors). Now we've got the drill and a bit and realize we don't know how to put the two together. We try turning the head in different directions because I've seen Andrew do that before to load it. Nothing. So we decide to call Andrew, who is working on a take-home exam due in a few hours, to help us out. Obviously, this is more important. If you've read his blog comments, you know that most things I do make him nervous. This project was no exception. He explains how to turn the tip of the drill, load the drill bit, and lock it in. We succeed. Now we have the task of trying to figure out if in our massive button-pushing game with the drill we've changed it from drill mode to reverse mode. We manage to spin the drill slow enough to confirm it is going clockwise and should work as is expected.

Next, make a hole in the wall. This is where it all got interesting. It's Emy's wall, so she's putting the hole in it. She drills and then can't drill any further. Great. We're not sure how hard to push the drill in and we think we've hit a stud. We call Andrew to confirm. We check for "saw dust," which is apparently different then "ash" as I described it. Affirmative. We've hit a stud. We get off the phone without learning what this means.

What do we do now? Emy and I, knowing nothing about drilling decide that hitting a stud is the worst news in the world. People have stud finders just so they can avoid hitting studs (we're not the most handy if you haven't figured that out yet). We call Andrew again and he informs us that studs are good things and you can drill into them. So we do. Then we try to hammer the anchor into the stud and realize it won't go. We call him again (his take-home is going great I'm sure) and he informs us that you don't use both together. You have anchors for when you don't have studs. Hmmmm....something that could have been brought to our attention yesterday. So now we've got an anchor lodged in dry wall and a stud, but it's not in far enough to be usable. Emy starts to panic; I think it's kinda of humorous.

Ok, well, we'll just start over, but now we've got a hole the size of a dime in her dark gray wall exposing the white drywall. It's not exactly what you'd call discrete and it's not really useful for the screw. So we check for caulking. Sure enough we've got not one, but two options. We've got bath and kitchen caulking or window and door caulking. I say go for one of those and paint over it. We call handyman Andrew, Handy Andy, if you will, and he strongly urges against either option. We decide to just shift everything on the wall over about an inch and a half and just cover the hole with the shelf and deal with it when Emy moves out. Based on our previous hour of work and experience with the drill Emy decides to manually screw the two inch nails into the wall with a screwdriver, using no stud and no anchors. Patience wore thin. And that's where the story ends. The screws worked out. The shelf is up. Basically, we're just hoping for the best. No falling shelf. No tumbling picture frames. No broken noses.

Fall Festivities

Fall has arrived! It's generally my favorite season of the year, but this year it has failed to capture my heart and steal my affection. My guess is that previously I was a student so I didn't mind it getting dark outside at 4:30 pm because I had been romping around outside all day between classes, but now that I'm working it means that the day is over by the time I get out of work! Boo:( [Ha. Nice pun, in light of the Halloween/Fall season] . Speaking of light, I should just get a summer home in Alaska, then it will be light out all day. I've always wanted to see the Northern lights. But wait, I guess to see the Northern lights it has to be dark out, so summer is probably not gonna work. Oh well. Plus to have a summer home that means you don't work, and let's be honest, urban planning is not exactly a field that's going to send me into early retirement.

Well, I love the changing of seasons so I won't let it get me down. I will continue to lounge on my couch  inhaling the sweet aroma of my Pumpkin Spice Yankee candle and bundle up like a blizzard just arrived. Also, I must apologize to my faithful readers for being MIA the past weeks, I was on an excursion of monumental proportions, but didn't forget about you. Where exactly have I been and what exactly have I been doing you wonder? Oh wait no longer!

I went to a wedding in Rockford, Illinois last weekend.

We watched the baseball playoffs. Bad news: Cubs lost. Good news: the Rays are holding strong and playing better than anyone could have imagined they ever would! I enjoyed a week of evenings filled with cable TV and nightly baseball games! But let's be honest, I couldn't stay awake to watch the ending to any of them. And to be more honest, I couldn't even keep myself awake for the debate, which started at 8pm in the central time zone! I make Mr. Bean in Rat Race look less narcoleptic I'm so pathetic.

I went to my first (and possibly last) corn maze!! For those of you who aren't familiar with this crazy autumn activity let me explain. Some entrepreneurial farmer out there decides to make a little dough by creating a maze out of their cornfield. Well, in this case it was a 10 acre corn field with a maze cut through it. The path is about 3 feet wide, the corn is about 8 feet tall and your goal is ...well there are many goals 1) Have fun roaming around in a maze of corn 2) Find the 8 checkpoints in the corn maze 3) Make it out of the corn maze alive and with all limbs. Option 3 was definitely my goal.

So Andrew and I had never been to a corn maze before, so we had this picture in our minds. We thought there would be kids, parents, strollers, clowns, balloons, baseball lights like in the Field of Dreams. Basically, we thought we were going to the county fair. Well to our surprise we pull up at 7 pm and no one is there. "Maybe it's closed. They said they were opened til 8 tonight, maybe they changed their mind," we discussed. Lo and behold, a guy walks out of his house towards his shop and flips on all the lights while we sit in the car wondering what we're thinking. Here's your visual: A house in the middle of the country, surrounded by cornfields, with a barn for his animals (reindeer of course), a Christmas tree farm, a banquet hall that is nothing short of Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede, and pitch blackness. Oh, and two people: me and Andrew.
"You open?" we asked.
"Oh yea, I've got a group of 45 coming out in about 20 minutes," he replies.
As we are paying he says, "Oh good, you brought your own flashlight" as he points to a lone flashlight on the counter.
"No we didn't, but can we borrow this?" Andrew asks, with the determination to accept nothing short of 'yes' from the man.
"Alright, here's an index card, there are 8 checkpoints hidden out there with different hole punches for each one so I'll know if you cheat. Good luck."
And that was it.
Andrew and I wandered out into the pitch blackness armed with a flashlight, map, and two index cards! Definitely not the kind of people that would survive Man vs. Wild. I'm not sure if you can imagine what it feels like to wander out into cornfields in pitch blackness on a windy night, but I'll sum it up with four words: Children of the Corn. There was no way we were making it out of there alive. Every wind that blew and crack of a cornstalk freaked us out. There are probably foxes or coyotes or wild raging deer! Are there snakes in cornfields? Probably. Who knows. All I knew was that I wasn't making it out alive.

Well about an hour into our carefully calculated excursion (as planners we used the map like a treasure map to ensure that we covered every square foot to get all 8 hidden posts) we heard voices. "Oh good, there are more people out here than just us now, this will feel safer" we thought...wrong! Imagine what it would be like to be in this already frightening situation with 45 college students now in the corn, probably intoxicated, and traveling in packs like sorority girls on their way to the bathroom. Well if the children of the corn weren't going to get us, a heart attack was. Around every corner was a college student, who in the pitch darkness didn't know that we weren't with their group. So, we now had to actually watch our backs and respond to cracking of corn because there were in fact real people hiding in the corn like a haunted house to grab us or frighten us. I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs "We don't know you so don't mess with us--we're that pair of two random people in blue jump suuuuits!!!!" (Yea, that's right, we thought it was going to lack fun and we needed to help out a little bit by wearing all dark clothing and acting Mission Impossible in the maze). Wrong. In the words of my favorite Verizon commercial: We got hosed! Well, as you can predict, since I'm writing this post, we made it out alive. But not after the nice farmer family gave us a tour of the entire operation including the banquet hall and bringing out one of the reindeer to pet. In case you didn't know, there is apparently an actual species called Alaskan reindeer. They are very feisty and their antlers are so sharp they make the running of the bulls look like a safe operation. I was pretty sure little Elizabeth was going to gourd me. Luckily, she was on a leash. Well we left the ranch, went out for some ice cream and called it a night. We try to collect the mini baseball helmets (We've got 4. One from Yankee Stadium (fancy!) and the other 3 from ice cream dates).

Then I worked the rest of the week. Working "remotely" is not remotely fun. Your heart says your on vacation but your brain says you have to work and there is constant inner warfare until you cash in your vacation time.

Lots of baseball, lots of eating, lots of sleeping, lots of shopping. I had the most incredible beef tenderloin fondue and got a killer ski hat with tails!

I went to my first apple orchard and picked apples. I saw my first pumpkin patch and bought an overpriced pumpkin from the vine. We went on a Lake Geneva boat tour and saw the fall colors surrounding beautiful, historic homes. Kids in the tropic of Florida really miss out on this Fall business, this season of harvest, if you will. We do, however, not miss out on the art of pumpkin carving. We bought a pumpkin carving kit and made some pretty awesome pumpkins. Mine is the pirate ship on the far left, Andrew's the window (typical architect) on the far right, and Team Grandma with his sisters made the rockin' bat.

I concluded my trip with a stay at the Grand Emy Hotel in the heart of the University of Chicago campus. We enjoyed a dazzling double date with our men at the Med, a brief stroll through a park only blocks from Obama's house, and a night of random stories and laughs (to come in subsequent blogs). Well, this has turned into a really long blog...that's why I shouldn't allow too much time to pass between postings!

Busy Bee

4 states in 4 weekends. Wow, what a fast paced and busy life lately, but I'm not complaining! It keeps me busy, on my toes, seeing the world (ok, U.S.) and prevents boredom!

New York City, NY (Sheep Meadow in Central Park)


















Providence, RI (Superior Court, Benefit Street)


















Seminole, FL (Indian Rocks Beach)


















Chicago, IL (View of Sears Tower from Millennium Park)
























Cities at night:
NY, NY (Radio City Music Hall)























Providence (WaterFire)























Chicago Theater on State Street

Car Troubles

What a day! I'll preface this by saying I love my car. I love that it was a gift to me; I love that is gets me from point A to B, Florida to Illinois, Illinois to Providence; I love that it's capable of carry all of my stuff, all of my friends, all of my family, pretty much anything. Having said that, I should also confess that I don't tend to dedicate time to making her pretty, clean, or the talk of the town.

Exhibit A.


This is my battery after the nice mechanic man wiped off some of the corrosion. To my shame, when he opened up the hood of my car, it looked like I was smuggling a blue fuzzy tennis ball. Unfortunately it was just an enormous pile of battery acid build up.