Worst. Weekend. Ever.

I was excited and prepared Friday to come home and write a nice happy post. Unfortunately, that has been postponed for a bit while I address more pressing issues, like traumatic life experiences.

After work on Friday Andrew and I had an appointment to check out an apartment. We viewed an incredibly awesome loft apartment (if I can persuade you, maybe you can persuade Andrew) and then walked back to my apartment to make dinner before heading out for our marriage study.

We were pretty hungry so Andrew walked straight into the kitchen while I put my jacket on the coat rack. We were not in my apartment for more than 15 seconds when Andrew shouts and leaps back.

"Oh boy," I thought, "not another one of those creepy-hairy-crawly things again." He had just killed one of those a week ago, but didn't react like that.

As if he's just seen a ghost he turns to me and says, "A mouse just ran across your counter." I think I stopped breathing at this point and was near fainting. De ja vu of last year's mouse fiasco.

I had heard voices in my neighbor's apartment as we walked up the stairs a few minutes earlier so I promptly recruited help. My downstairs neighbor was in the upstairs apartment so they both came to our rescue. They both non-nonchalantly said, "Yea, that mouse ran across both our counters this week too."

Um, What?! That is NOT okay!

1. Mice should not be running around rampant inside our apartments.

2. If mice do happen to romp around inside they should NOT be on the counter! They live in little holes in base boards and wander around the FLOOR! How do they get onto counters?

One neighbor said, "I have traps downstairs. Let's just take care of this." The other neighbor said, "There are humane traps you know. I'm outta here." And just like that, he left.

Andrew and the neighbor spent the next five minutes trying to figure out how to set the traps. Then they put peanut butter on them. "Peanut butter? I thought you were supposed to put cheese out for them," I said (obviously educated by cartoons). While they talked about their strategy for placing the traps that little rodent ran across the counter again. Again!! Ugh. Without getting to eat dinner Andrew and I dashed out to our study hoping for the best.

I could barely concentrate at the study. Between dreaming about future apartment possibilities and panicking about the thoughts of a mouse in my apartment, I was useless. And to top it off we shared mouse stories at the end, including ones about mice chewing off their legs to get out of the trap. Needless to say, we arrived back to my apartment with a plethora of situations to return to. Dead mouse. Mouse feet in the trap. A mouse hobbling around with a trap on it's leg. You name it, I was anticipating it. What I didn't anticipate was what actually happened. We returned 3 hours later and I waited in the car while Andrew went in to remove the dead mouse. Andrew walked upstairs and reappeared a few minutes later. But instead of going to the trash can he walked towards my car and says, "No mouse."

Great. I walked into my apartment, uncomfortable in my own haven. I stood on a chair while Andrew removed items on the counter one by one to look for the mouse. Why does this seem necessary? As foolish as it felt, standing on the chair just made me feel safer.

Saturday Andrew checked the trap. "Um..." he said, while staring in the corner with a flashlight.

"Um, what?!" I shrieked back.

"Um, worst possible scenario. The trap is gone."

"Um, what?! Where is the trap?!"

"Don't know."

I start having visions of a mouse that got snapped in the trap and is hobbling around trying to get through a crack with a big piece of wood following behind. Andrew moves a dresser and sees the trap underneath. He slowly moves the dresser to reveal the trap in its entirety. Entirely empty! The mouse ate all the peanut butter and got away!

"We just fed a mouse!" I yelled. "We just fed him and let him get away!"

Round two. Andrew decides that we'll put less peanut butter on the trap and we'll put it back out. We proceed to spend the rest of the day Saturday around the apartment making phone calls, emailing people, working on wedding details, etc. Mind you, in my studio we were never more than 8 feet from the trap. About 7:30PM Andrew decides to check the trap again. He'd been peaking throughout the day for a mouse near the trap and nothing. In fact, there are two traps. One on the counter behind the microwave where he was hiding last night. He checked both throughout the day.

Trap behind the microwave: Untouched. Trap on the floor 8 feet from Andrew: licked clean. Twice now, we've fed the mouse and let him get away!! Third time is a charm, right? Wrong! Sunday check-up. Clean. Not an trace of peanut butter and he got away. Obviously those traps were useless.

I happened to run into my neighbor in the parking lot and asked if they caught the mouse or if their traps were being licked clean as well. "No, our traps are out and untouched, he assured me. Before I could even walk back up stairs he emerged and said, "Scratch that. We've been robbed." At this point it was not as much of a surprise and almost funny. We'd all been duped by a mouse!

I went out Sunday afternoon and bought new package of traps. A different type of trap. One that assured victory. We set them out and to my disappointed they weren't touched at all Sunday night. It turns out the neighbors downstairs finally caught him on their kitchen counter Sunday evening.

A sad ending compensated only by that fact that the mouse had to have eaten twice his weight in peanut butter those last two days. RIP little guy.

PS The traps are still out in case he had any siblings or offspring. I'm sure you'll hear about it if he did.

A Dangerous Good Time

Yesterday's church bulletin announced that people would be heading to the beach in the evening to grill out and all were encouraged to join. Since we've had a pretty cold summer, I have yet to make my first appearance at the beach. What? A Florida girl who hasn't been to the beach by August?! I decided that I really wanted to go, but there were a few errands/chores to do in the mean time. One of these was working out.

I've been a total slacker in the "get fit for the big day" department and I had no excuse to not work out yesterday. We planned to head to the gym, but I threw an audible at the last minute with an ingenious plan: "Why don't I go rollerblading? In fact, you could sit in the park and read and I'll rollerblade around on the trail and sidewalk!" This was a brilliant plan, obviously. Andrew would be able to rest and do no physical activity while I get exercise. FYI: He's working too hard landscaping and is getting ubber toned and lean. So an opportunity for me to work out and him not to is the perfect medicine (just like my plan called Andrew Eat's A Snack/Mini Dinner Before I Get Home From Work So He Can Consume Enough Calories).

Seemed like the perfect idea. In fact the park is probably less than a mile from my apartment so I said, "Let's not drive." Well Genius (me), decides that I don't want to get my socks dirty so I put my roller blades on inside [upstairs]. Andrew had to help me down the interior and exterior stairs only for me to realize that the slope of my street is basically a black diamond to roller blades. Let's not be dramatic, I don't live in San Francisco, but yesterday, it might as well have been! After a good chuckle, some white knuckles, and a death gripe on Andrew's shoulders I said, "You might want to run upstairs and grab my shoes and car keys. We should probably drive."



At this point, Andrew is slightly concerned, but still confident. I'd expect nothing less, you know? I had told him numerous times about how I roller bladed in undergrad through Winter Park on the Cady Way Trail. And that I even roller bladed in grad school in Meadowbrook Park in Urbana numerous times. Well a few things escaped me. 1) We're not in Kansas anymore 2) I'm not as young as I used to be.

We made it safely to the park (via automobile), I got all laced up and then I was "off." Sort of. What looks "flat" on foot is not actually flat when rolling on 8 wheels! Warming up looked more like learning to skate for the first time. It was pa-thetic! I looked like a kid on Christmas trying their skates out for the first time, still trying to get that whole balance thing down. Andrew found a nice bench to sit on with his book and said, "Skate around. I'll be watching you."

"Awesome," I thought, and skated away. About 20 seconds into my "workout" I was skating on the trail, up a little incline and realized I was about to go down at a dangerously high speed. I had no idea how steep it would be or how much difficulty I would have stopping. I diverted into the grass and thought it would absorb nicely like a sand pit (it didn't) and I'd make a crash landing (I did). I looked up and saw Andrew sprinting towards me. He couldn't tell that I was laughing and proceeded to sprint the length of the park to check on me. So much for him not exercising. The park continued to be "hilly" and an utter disaster of a trip. I'll spare you the details, but let's just say it involved many panicked detours into the grass, shoulder grabbing saves, and hand-holding down ramps while clutching on the the hand rails. Needless to say, I won't be planning rollerblading as a primary form of exercise in this state. In fact, I was pretty certain that the day would end ugly; with a scraped up Kim sporting scabs or bruises for the engagement shoot in Chicago! Classy.

All in all, it ended well. Except for Andrew. His relaxing day in the park turned into a multi-mile trek with the additional weight of roly-poly-fiance leaning and pulling on him for safety.



Post-edit: I am okay. I actually didn't fall "accidentally" once! Intentionally, yes, but unintended, no:D

Andrew, My Hero

So it's been pretty hectic the past few weeks. As you can imagine, adding "Plan your dream wedding" to an already full To Do list is quite a task. Between juggling work projects, saving a little leisure time, hanging out with friends, baking goodies for 4th of July parties, and squeezing in a wedding movie or two (Father of the Bride and Bride Wars), life has been a bit busier lately. So the icing on my little frazzled cake occurred yesterday.

I was walking to my car after work, ready to get home, relax, look at more reception locations, and indulge in Taco night! To expedite the process I thought I would pull out my keys and parking card, so that I would be fully prepared to exit the parking lot. I get to my car, throw everything on the passenger seat, and head toward the gate. Where is my parking card? I check the cup holder (the usual culprit), nope. I check the pocket in my purse that it lives in (the second culprit), nothing. So I reverse back from the gate to check under my seat--obviously it had fallen between the seat and the console. Not there folks. So now I'm completely confused, frustrated, and hopeless. [Super dramatic, I know]. I push the seat forward, I push it back. I check under the floor mats. I check under the passenger's seat. I retrace my steps. NOTHING. Finally, I do what any wise woman would do, I call my man for help.

"Hi Andrew," I explain in panic. "I just had my parking card in my hand, I got in my car, and now I can't find it anywhere! I don't know where it went!"

Hearing the irrational stress and unnecessary panic in my voice he says, "Okay, calm down, I'll come help you." My fiance sprints to the parking lot arriving winded, but ready to help. Together we continue the process of moving seats and mats and retracing steps and checking pockets...we do it all. Then, sweet little ole me checks the purse, again, this time lifting it to my lap and unveiling the itty, bitty parking card that was hidden under my giant carpet bag purse.

"Oops," I said in a cute little voice, as I batted my eyes with added exaggeration hoping he couldn't resist.

"Not a problem. The sprint was good for me," he assured me as we rode off into the sunset for taco night!

What a guy!

Lessons learned:

1. Stop and smell the roses a little more.
   
2. Take a few deep breaths more often.
   
3. Leave carpet bag purse at home for use as carry-on luggage only.
   
4. Thank Andrew for being so patient and gracious.
5. Walk the 1/2 mile to work. It's not going to kill you, who cares if you have to leave 10 minutes earlier, it might make you feel a little better in that snazzy wedding dress, and you might even catch a ray or two of sunshine!

New York, New York

Late last week Andrew suggested we make a spontaneous trip to New York City. "Hmmm...okay," I thought, a little intrigued by the proposition. Andrew and I are the two least spontaneous people I know. We plan everything to the T. Even the grocery store. In fact, I often re-write the grocery list to lump items into categories corresponding to their location within the store--you know, meat, dairy, produce... So a spontaneous trip to the city made the little wheels in my head start to churn.

I was busy with work so I wasn't really able to contribute to the weekend's plans so he had free reign to determine our schedule. He arranged for us to meet up with some friends from our church in Providence who had just moved to the city last month. We headed out early Saturday morning to catch the Metro North Railroad in New Haven, Connecticut. We made it to the train station smoothly, with plenty of time to spare. We jumped on the New Haven line train, bound for Grand Central Station. We marveled at all the families and travelers headed for a weekend in New York City as well. We played a little Gin Rummy, I dominated, of course. And before we knew it the streets of New York City were beckoning us to come play.















We walked a few blocks from Grand Central Station to our friends' apartment and dropped off our bags. Then the four of us jumped on the subway for a lunch date in Madison Square Park. Any of you that know New York City may guess that we were headed to the Shake Shack. And we were. Shake Shack always has a long line so our friends Ed and Rosalynn offered to hold the place in line while we walked around for a bit. This made me a little suspect. "Don't they want to hang out and talk to us for a bit while we all wait in line?" I thought. But they insisted we see the city and not waste any time so we started to walk through the park a little when I spotted the dog park, "Let's go!" I pleaded. "Are we allowed to go in without a dog?" we wondered. "Will we look like creeps?" we worried. Well, we went in anyway and had a blast.















Dog watching is about 100 times more fun than people watching. Dogs have a lot less inhibition. It was like we were watching carefree kids who didn't know they were supposed to behave properly in public. We watched as a group of dogs all ganged up on one little dog and then watched as the sad owner promptly left the park with her little outcast. We contemplated if the owner felt bad about their dog being picked on like a parent would when their kid comes home crying from school. Then we watched the young New Yorkers come in all dressed up in posh clothes with their little yippy dogs--clearly at the park to mingle and meet other young 30-somethings since their dogs were too busy hiding under the bench to play with others. Or there was the little boxer dog that sprinted off his lease upon release, running around the park looking for dogs to play with. We animated his voice as he went from dog to dog looking for someone to notice him and play with him--Milo and Otis style, of course. Lastly, there was the bull dog that we couldn't get enough of. He could not have cared less about the other dogs in the park. He just waddled his fat self around the park pushing a ball with his nose oblivious of the function of a dog park. Then we laughed about how the owner looked just like his dog.















We sat in the dog park for a good 30 minutes enjoying ourselves and learning about the dog culture of urbanites. We even enjoyed people asking us to pick up our dogs poo and then gleefully told them it wasn't our dog. Before long Ed and Ros called us and told us they were getting close to the front of the line. We headed back and enjoyed a lunch of cheeseburgers and french fries in the park.

Next, we split paths and Andrew and I headed out into the city as Ed and Ros headed to a coffee shop to read. We jumped on the subway and headed towards the infamous Wall Street. Took a few pictures and then headed down towards Ellis Island. We got to the tip of Manhattan and realized that we would have to wait in 3 hour-long lines just to get onto Ellis Island. We decided it wasn't the best use of our time and headed toward the Staten Island ferry. We briskly walked toward the ferry that we saw quickly approaching land and made it on within seconds of it pulling away from the dock. The ride was amazingly relaxing. There was a beautiful breeze, we passed Lady Liberty and Ellis Island, and rocked slowly to the hum of the engine. We took the return boat immediately back to Manhattan and ventured off to our next stop: Brooklyn.

Somewhere in my lack-of-geographic knowledge I thought that Brooklyn and the Bronx were interchangeable. I expressed my lack of desire to go to Brooklyn because it's dangerous, but Andrew convinced me that he found a list of famous people who live there and we had to walk through and admire the architecture and Brownstones. We strolled through the beautiful Brooklyn Heights neighborhood and then ended up on the Promenade overlooking the skyline of Manhattan and the Brooklyn Bridge. We found the perfect bench and relaxed for a while. My wish for the weekend was to spend all day laying in a park and relaxing, so sitting and watching the sunset over NYC was perfect.















As we sat admiring the scenery and the glamor of New York City, Andrew told me he made something for me. He proceeded to hand me a flat object wrapped in tissue paper with a card on top. The card was a collage of pictures of us, pictures of NYC, a poem, and at the bottom was a hint to a location somewhere. I wasn't allowed to unwrap the tissue paper yet and he proceeded to hand me five more of these. The promenade was pretty empty...right up until this point, of course. Then a flood of people began passing by steadily and I began to realize what was going on. After handing me 6 cards with something wrapped in tissue paper under them, he said he had one more. He handed me a blue pouch and began to tell me nice things about me and our future. I knew what was coming next. Unfortunately, I had noticed when we first approached the bench that we were sitting on one of probably two benches (out of a string of 15) that were surrounded by dirt and mud. At this point he began to get down on his knee and I panicked. A combination of gawkers and the thought of him wearing a pair of khakis for two days with a huge dirt-stained knee caused me to beg him to not get down in the dirt. He protested, but like a wise man he eventually obliged. At this point he pulled out the ring and asked me to marry him. I said, "Yes," of course.

The ring I received was my great-grandmother's ring passed down to me from my mom. As part of the gift, my mom gave me a picture of my great grandparents with it. By this time I was pretty emotional, so to lighten the mood a little he said, "Your mom wanted you to have this picture with it." He paused. "...She didn't mention that your great grandfather was Dwight D. Eisenhower!" We had a good laugh and then I was able to open the presents.





There were 6 DVDs of locations we had talked about wanting to travel to someday, but now they are presented as potential honeymoon destinations. [With Andrew's permission I'm putting up a sample of the sweet cards he made me].








Next we began processing and talking about all this entails. We were ready to take some pictures, but of course, it was about to downpour so all passersby whom had been ever-present before were suddenly nowhere to be seen. Typical. We snapped a few shots of us, the ring, our bench, the view and then headed up the hill to a pizza joint in Brooklyn.


































We were told we had to try this pizza place right under the Brooklyn bridge. We made our way to the restaurant, had a celebratory drink, and waited out the rain. When the rain let up we walked outside to hear people shouting about the incredibly bright rainbow we had to see.















Next stop: Central Park.





































We snapped a few more pictures before sunset and then headed to the Upper West Side for dinner with a friend of Andrew's from grad school. We enjoyed some wonderful Italian food and then exhausted, headed back to Ed and Ros's place. Our sweet friends eagerly awaited our arrival. They ran down to the door to greet us with hugs, champagne, and my first wedding magazine. We all spent the next two hours talking about the day and then passed out from exhaustion.

We had an incredible, fun, and memorable weekend in New York, New York. The weather was beautiful for the first time in a month. Ed and Ros were incredible hosts and accomplices to Andrew's plans. The timing for his proposal worked out perfectly (minus his disappointment for not getting to get down on one knee). And the rest is history!















We aren't certain about any plans or dates yet, but you'll be in the know! Check back often and enjoy the wedding-planning ride with us!

Sorry About the Goo

Awkward moment of the day:

So I had just sat back down at my desk to continue to sift through Comprehensive Planning assessment tools and decided that my lips were in need of a little Vanilla-flavored pick-me-up.

Of course, I recently ran out of my usual chap stick and in a pro-sustainable effort committed to use all chap sticks I found around my apartment before purchasing a new one. Naturally, the next one I stumbled upon was not a stick option, but a dip-your-finger-in-the-goo lip balm. Not a problem. Well, not a big problem. I'm a bit of a germ-o-phob and it grosses me out sometimes if I haven't recently washed my hands or if I'm out in public. But well, I'll get over it. I'm sure I won't get the Swine or anything. Apparently that's not the only problem...

So not half a second after I dipped my right hand into the Petroleum oil goo I hear foot steps towards my door. I look over my shoulder and see my boss entering with a new intern. He wants to introduce me. Great. And it's not an intern who would shy back and wave, but a confident intern who walks over to me to shake my right hand with his firm grip. Great.

I panic and think, "What do I do?!" I can't quickly and awkwardly apply lip balm while they look at me, but I also can't let my first sentence to him be, "Sorry, I would shake your hand but I just put chapstick on" (that would take too much explaining). So I just smear the goo on my hand and give him my best shake, hoping our hands don't slip apart on account of the Tetradibutyl Pentaerithrityl Hydroxyhydrocinnamate (an actual ingredient in my lip balm. Remind me to get a less toxic and chemically invasive balm next time). Bless his grossed-out little heart.

If he felt one ounce of that slimy residue on his hand he's surely creeped out by me. Think about it. If I were him I'd run through the myriad of options in my head about the foreign substance some lady just wiped on me: snot, sweaty palm juice, grime from not washing her hands in two days, hair grease from twirling her dirty hair on her finger too much...the possibilities are really endless, but a clean hand with a smidgen of Vanilla Pucker Up Lip Balm is not on that list! Great, I've got to look this guy in the eye for the next few months and pretend that he doesn't think I have poor hygiene.

Funny Weekend Moments

All this and he's witty folks:)
...a few highlights from this weekend:


Saturday:
[noise in the kitchen where Andrew is]

me: [behind a closed bathroom door] "What did you say, honey?"

andrew: [loud laughing from the kitchen]

me: [irritated that he's laughing...at me?...on the phone?] "I'm sorry, I didn't hear you..."

andrew: [louder laughter] "That's because I didn't say anything, you heard my loud fart and thought it was me talking to you!"

Classic boy. He will probably be so embarrassed and not forgive me for this post.


Lunch on Easter:
We went to a small local place for brunch. They had a book exchange. Take one. Leave one. The book shelf behind my head had the following book:














Andrew with poor eyes: "Um, what does the binding of that book say? Oh my! Touch and feel me all the time?"

me: "No Andrew, that's a childrens educational book."

andrew: "Oh. Oops. I thought that was an odd title for a book."


Tuesday:
Andrew is running out of cell phone minutes for the month so I told him he could use my phone to check his voicemail. For some reason Verizon's free Verizon-to-Verizon calling doesn't include calling your own Verizon cell phone to check your voicemail. So Andrew checked his voicemail using my phone while we were at the DMV.

After I was back at work I noticed that I had missed two calls. Andrew called me and left two messages:
1) [concerned tone] "I saw I missed a call from you, just checking to see if everything is alright."
2) [in a serious, but perhaps embarassed tone] "Disregard that previous message. It was me. I called myself from your phone. Oops."

Prospect Terrace Park

I have lived here for almost a year and never knew about an incredible park less than a mile from my apartment. When I saw a picture of it on a friends' fridge I had to see it so Andrew and I went to check out the sunset over the city.












We had hoped for something like this:














Unfortunately it wasn't our night. Nevertheless, it was still beautiful.

We saw the huge statue of Providence's beloved founder, Roger Williams, watching over the city.















We hung out with our coffee mugs checking out Downcity from all angles. The park boasts a great view of Downcity, the Capitol and the West End. This is why people love to live on the East Side...huge hill=great view + great workout.













At this point we're hanging out in a spot hoping to catch the sunset behind the capitol. There is a couple behind us having a dinner-picnic on a bench. We lolly-gag for a bit and then decide to go to a bench further away. When there are only 10 people in the park there's no sense in being in people's space. Well, as we're hanging out and talking I notice over Andrew's shoulder that this couple has gotten all smoochy-smoochy on us. Awkward. I'm a little weirded out and distracted by it until I realize that he's taking pictures of her and a ring. Yep, that's right, as if this guy didn't have enough stress in trying to execute the perfect engagement, two goof balls show up, hang about, talk, take pictures, and stand close enough that he can't give his mushy speech and prolong his torture. (Me: hanging out. Couple on left: trying to enjoy a picnic. Man: mustering up the nerve to ask his woman to marry him with strangers in his way)














You can't really see it, but between the trees is the engaged couple still basking in their excitement and me still being a nosy observer and peeping Kim.

That Creep at the Mall

Today I had a conference for work downtown, about a block from the mall. Naturally, I had to go check out the big sales Emy has been telling me about and stimulate the economy a little bit:D

Well, I had been there for a few hours and had the routine down: check out the sales; look at clothes til your arm gets tired, you can't hold anymore, or they offer to start you a fitting room; head to the fitting room; greet the attendant; politely say thanks for showing you to a room; try the crap on; give back 90%; etc. Well I had been at H&M for a while trying to find some dresses to go with my boots and was ready to head back to the fitting rooms for round two. As a result, I knew they didn't count your items there, so I proceeded as usual.

I walked into the entry and there was a lady standing there where they fold and hang clothes. We made eye contact and I smiled and she just turned down the aisle toward the last free fitting room. Obviously she was tired at the end of the day so I didn't hold her lack of enthusiasm against her. She turned and looked at me as if to say, "Is this room okay?", but of course didn't actually say that. I just smiled again signifying that I was accepting her offering of this fitting room. She looked at me again, I smiled, and then she entered the fitting room to proceed with the usual routine of checking for clothes left by other people before relinquishing the room over to my care.

"SLAM!!"

She went into the fitting room and shut the door!!

"What just happened?" I thought. "Oh...my...gosh. She doesn't work here! She just happened to be standing in the wrong place at the wrong time." I quickly realized that her lack of enthusiasm was actually a mix of confusion and hesitation toward the woman awkwardly smiling at her and following her to her dressing room!! I was that creep!! I immediately turned and proceeded in the opposite direction, to the adjacent row of fitting rooms on the other side of the attendant area. I tried to put this little incident behind me and enjoy the fabulousness of the dresses.

But of course, when I finished in the fitting room guess who walked out right in front of me?! HER! And she looked me in the eye, again, (haven't we done this enough tonight lady?) and I could almost taste her look of disgust. She whispered something to her boyfriend, but he never turned back. I'm sure it was something like, "Don't look now, but the lady who kept looking at me and grinning is right behind us. Probably following me again." They of course walked straight to the register, my destination, so I diverted my path and pretended not to be done so as to never look her in the eye again. Ever.

What a creep! That's the last time I assume the trendy looking woman standing on the little X marked "fitting room attendant" is actually an employee!!

So my plea: If you ever encounter a nice, docile, friendly woman following you around in the fitting room smiling, cut her some slack and just take it as a compliment, you look trendy.

Ice Skating Rink

Is that an ice skating rink in your back yard? Oh no, I'm sorry that's just my driveway trying to kill me.



So yesterday I walked to work in a heavy snow shower and walked home in pouring rain. What is this, Seattle?

Well, the newly fallen snow was washed away by the rain and unfortunately the temperature dropped below freezing last night so all the little droplets of H2O turned into ice. So like a scene out of a movie, I walk outside this morning to clear the ice and snow off my car to find the entire parking lot covered in a thick coat of ice. About an inch in most places! Not fun and not safe.

So I slip-slided to my car thankful that the only accumulation of snow and ice was on my windshield. As I scrapped my windshield my neighbor came down, we joked about not hitting the wall as you fishtail around the corner, made a little small talk, he put his windshield wipers down, and then hopped into his BMW and drove off. [If you aren't aware, wise people leave their wipers up when it snows so that they don't get frozen to the windshield or caked on with ice. I am not wise.] Well, as soon as he leaves I break my windshield wiper off. I don't know if it's broken, I don't know if it's fixable, I don't know how to put it back on, and I can't figure anything out with all the ice accumulation on it. (As a little background story: Andrew and I bought new wipers sometime before we drove the car out East. We purchased them at an Autozone or something and headed out to the car to replace them in the store's parking lot. They came with instructions and seemed simple enough to fix. Well, apparently it was so obvious that we were clueless and incompetent that the man who sold us the blades came out to help us. No big deal, they do that all the time at those places, right? Well, I should mention that he only had one hand. He had one hand and a hook on the other hand, but so easily did what Andrew and I's four hands couldn't do. Pathetic.)

So I took my gloves off so I could try to fix the windshield wiper. I dropped them and they slide across the ice rink. I then hobble over to them hoping not to pull a hamstring and angrily throw them into my purse. Needless to say, I chucked the wiper blade onto the passengers seat and hopped in the car. I was already late enough for work.


I then proceeded to back out of my parking spot...easier said than done. I got out into the middle of the lot and couldn't move. My wheels had no traction and wouldn't spin. My engine just revved. I was worried that I would wake my neighbors and then be embarrassed about being stuck in the middle of the parking lot so I avoided giving the car too much gas. I straightened the wheel and was able to inch forward. I started to turn to make the corner to exit the lot and fish tailed towards the building. I wasn't going anywhere. Not by automobile at least. I couldn't leave the car in the middle of the lot for the day so I managed to back it into the spot (as displayed in the photo above) and walked bitterly to work, frustrated and defeated. Not a happy morning:(

Kimcare

A high point of my week, occurred this afternoon. It was like a scene out of The Truman Show. I'm guessing you've seen the movie, but if not it's basically about a 24-hour show that follows a man's life. Since it never goes to commercial, advertisements or product placement occurs throughout the movie.

At one point the wife, holds up a package and says, "Why don't I make you some of this new 'Mococoa' drink? All natural. Cocoa beans from the upper slopes of Mount Nicaragua. No artificial sweeteners..."

Well, I had my own little moment this afternoon. Our admin/secretary emailed all the ladies at the office and said, "Does anyone have any nail polish remover at the office? I'm trying to get a marker stain off of Pat's desk." I'm not sure when or how I learned this, but I looked at my desk, my hand sanitizer looked back at me (I think it winked), and with that, I jumped up and headed for the reception area. I didn't have nail polish remover, but I thought I could help!

"Did you find any nail polish remover yet?" I asked.

"No," she said, "but I'm a little worried it may ruin his desk anyway."

"Well, maybe we should try this:" I said as I walked up Vanna White style displaying my Kimcare hand sanitizer. Yea, that's right. I received it as a gag gift one year and never knew what to do with it. Well, I keep it on my work desk now. Somewhere along the road of life I learned that alcohol takes marker or paint off certain surfaces.

"Well, you're coming with me as my backup, in case this ruins his desk," she informs me.

"Heck no! I changed my mind, let's not try it," I pleaded. Pat is no ordinary man, this isn't a co-worker or my supervisor, no-no, this is the guy, numero uno, the executive director, head honcho, you get it...the top. But it was too late.

I hesitantly walked into his office. He asked what it was and I explained that hand sanitizer is comprised of 62% alcohol and alcohol is a major component of many cleaners. He seemed confused, but went along with it.

I entered that office as a scared young lady, but I left there a woman. Yep, that's right. Kimcare took that stain off like it was it's job. I left with the confidence to take on any stain fighting challenge. KABOOM and Oxiclean have competition, well, at least until the first insurmountable stain that Kimcare can't handle. In the mean time if you need me, I'll be traipsing around my office, with my bottle of Kimcare and pretending to be Vanna White. Let's hope the big guy was as impressed.

Only in Movies?

Sometimes I think that little ridiculous things only happen in movies, until they happen to me.

For example, I was waiting on a package from an online purchase and USPS attempted to deliver it on Monday. The slip they left me gave me the option to sign it and indicate where to leave it, to wait, or to go pick it up at the post office which closes at 5pm (big help). Reluctantly I signed the slip and wrote "back door" and hoped for the best. I came home yesterday from work and the slip was gone, but there was no package. Hmmm. Why would he take the slip and not leave the package? I asked my neighbors if they had seen it, but they said "no."

I said, "Maybe he didn't leave it because it was raining." But Mike assured me that he's received packages before in a bag when it's raining, so that didn't exactly boost my confidence. So I went back into my apartment and played the what if/where is it game with Andrew on the phone. (Poor guy, it was his suggestion to sign the slip rather than go pick it up, so I made sure to let him know that I may or may not be blaming him on the inside for this situation.) Well, at this point there was nothing I could do since the post office was closed, I didn't have a slip, I didn't have a tracking number, and trying to guess was creating more tension.

Well today I came home early from work (yay for half days before holidays!) and came through the front door--we have a mail slot in our front door--but there was no mail. Hoping that the mail hadn't come yet, but lacking confidence that this was true, I went to check the back door just in case. And feeling the emotions of a toddler on Christmas morning seeing their presents for the first time, I saw a cute little box on the back step. "That's sure a funny sized box for what I ordered," I thought, but picked it up nonetheless. "Tim Douethesy...Who is that? What? Wrong address. Wrong sender." UPS had left the package for my neighbor at my door!! What are the odds, this has NEVER happened before and they gets lots of packages at the apartment next door. I wish I could have watched the whole situation unfold. My expressions went from surprised, to hopeful, to crushed all in an instance. (A bit dramatic, huh? It's just a package.)

I walked next door, placed the package on their door step and went back inside. Confident that the mailman hadn't come yet, I opened my blinds so that I could see when he walked up the street and continued on with my afternoon. Again, like a child, when I saw him walk up the street I jumped up so I could talk to him and find out what happened with my package. Not wanting to seem as pathetic as I was, I waited for him to leave the package. I had left a note for him on the front door telling him I was home to accept it, but he went straight for the back door. Thinking that I had given him enough time to get to the front door, I went down to open it, right at the second he was knocking and almost gave him a heart attack--poor old guy. What a lame-o--I looked like I was waiting in the foyer for him all afternoon! Well he did have my package, he explained the route a parcel has to take between the carrier and post office for re-attempting delivery, and went on his merry way. But not before my rude neighbor (recent conclusion, I hadn't met her before today) walked up to us and asked "Can I help you with something?" after she saw us talking and pointing to the back doors as I was explaining where UPS and FedEx leave packages. Was that rude to mention the competition to him? It's no secret that they deliver too. Anyway, this girl wasn't very nice. And that was that.

So, the moral of the story: Always trust USPS.

Winter Vests= Great Invention

There are many many great things about winter and there is no doubt that I will address lots of them over the next few months on here. Today, we'll start with just one: Layering.

Layering is a tool that is supposed to be used to ensure warmth outside while providing comfort indoors through removable layers that can be shed to prevent sweating to death. Unfortunately, I abuse the art of layering to fuel my tendency to be lazy and unkempt. For example, today, I tried on a collared button-up dress shirt under a v-neck sweater. Deciding that the outfit didn't match and the Mr. Rogers' impersonation was less than attractive, I decided not to wear it. Well, rather than starting over, I just put a vest on top of it, zipped it up and pretended the mismatching button-up wasn't under there. So, yes, I'm wearing a horribly ugly outfit right now, but I'm masking it with a vest so my co-workers are completely oblivious to the disaster lurking beneath.

Note to you southerners who hate-on turtlenecks and vests, we need them up here:)
So when I say "vest" stop picturing the teacher vest and start picturing the winter vest:

What Keeps You Up At Night?

It used to be simple things that kept me up at night, like being too cold, a stiff neck, the sounds of my heating pipes....well not any longer. It's now the fear of death that keeps me awake. Tonight I found a disgusting creepy bug less than a foot away from my bed on the wall!! I feel so uncomfortable in my own apartment. I frantically look at the walls and floors all the time now. Apparently its a harmless House Centipede, but I don't care. It is so gross and creepy. I thought winter was supposed to kill bugs, apparently it just lures them all inside so they don't freeze to death.
(This picture doesn't do justice on the scale. The body was over an inch long and the hairlike legs made it look HUGE--3 inches long at least!)

Naturally, I saw the bug and flipped out. I was supposed to be leaving in 20 minutes for a womens' dessert night with church, but I knew there was no way I was leaving the apartment without that sucker being removed. If left it until later to be dealt with, it would undoubtedly be gone when I got home and I would spend the next 3 weeks panicked about which shoe it was in or where in my bed it was hiding. So, what did I do but immediately walk out the door to my neighbor, Mike's. Mike is the heat guy--he's used to me stopping by on an every other day basis. Well, tonight Mike was not home. I don't know why he feels the liberty to go to class and have a life outside of being my heat monitor, but he does. Well, I don't know my downstairs neighbor (Andy) very well, but desperate times call for desperate measures. I marched right down and said, "Can you kill a bug in my apartment?" He said sure and began looking for something to kill it will. He struggled to find something so I quickly volunteered the junk mail in our hallway for all of the previous tenants from what seems like the past 2o years.

Now you may think that beggars can't be choosers, oh, but I was picky. I made sure to let him know that a missed attempt would not be okay and that he needed to be confident that he could get him on the first try. (Who was I kidding? I wasn't going to do any better of a job than he could. In fact, I didn't even have the guts to try. I was terrified. He was all I had). I wasn't sure if that creepy bug was fast or if it could fly. He assured me that it was a Silverfish and he had seen one in his apartment downstairs earlier this week. Great. We have an infestation. Well he creamed that little guy with two swift blows and I thanked him. I didn't even require that he clean the guts off the wall. I was certain that I could handle that, but later found out that even with rubber gloves on I was so freaked out by this foreign bug that I had to psyche myself up just to clean the guts off. Anyway, about 10 minutes later I heard Mike come home and wanted to let him know that I would appreciate a little heat and to let him know that our apartment building is being taken over by alien bugs.

To my surprise Andy was sitting in there with Mike and said, "I already told him about the Silverfish." And Mike said, "I just turned the heat on."

Playing it cool I said, "Oh ok, I was just checking on the heat. Also, I looked it up and it's not a Silverfish, but a House Centipede." They didn't believe me so they wanted to see proof on my google image search (I took a picture but it turned out blurry. I was really nervous the flash was going to scare the bug, but apparently they aren't camera shy. He didn't even flinch). We agreed that it was a House Centipede and Mike turned and saw the remains. "You killed it?!" he exclaimed.

"Yea, we did. I thought you might have opted for the humane method." Mike then proceeded to explain how easy it is to catch a bug with a glass. "You put the glass over the bug on the wall and then slide a piece of paper behind it and let it outside." Sounds logical, but it's not gonna happen. Andy then chimed in and said, "I'd like to see you try that method when you get bats in your apartment." What? Are you kidding me? What next? Luckily, Andy had bats in his previous, not current apartment, but nevertheless, I've got something new to worry about at night: bats flying down my damperless chimney. They'll enjoy the company of the rocks and leaves that currently come down my chimney.

Anyway, the moral of the story is if you want to get rid of bugs, you ask Andy; if you want to warm your apartment, you ask Mike; and if you want a useless waste of space, you just come by my apartment, I'll be here standing on the couch next to the fireplace hiding from the mice, worrying about the centipedes, waiting to swat a bat, and eating Sun chips.

If tempted...DON'T DO IT!!

Why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why? I asked myself a thousand times over and every time came up with the same resounding and emphatic, "I DON'T KNOW!!" Anytime you think twice to yourself and say, "I really shouldn't be doing this," listen and don't do it!

So, it all started harmlessly this weekend. I was pulling into the way-too-small-rear-parking-lot and my neighbor was standing out back smoking a cigarette. We small talked a little about the heat and other random apartment-related topics. I then complained about the smell of my rental car (Old Milly is sick in the shop and my Mom was coming in town for the weekend) and insisted that he check it out to confirm that I'm not being unreasonable by having them give me a different car. He suggested that I roll the windows down and let it air out.

After giving him a look of disdain and shock, I said, "No way. I don't want to get bugs in my car!"

He said, "I leave my windows down for weeks at a time and there are no bugs in my car."

"Ha! There are definitely bugs in your car. I get spider webs in my car and I leave the windows up! You're totally driving around with bugs!"

"Well, if you're worried about bugs I probably shouldn't........ha.......uh........Andy and I have both seen mice in our apartments," he revealed with hesitancy.

"What?!" Apparently the apartment below me and next to me have mice...one general conclusion can be made...I have mice! "No you do not!" I challenged him.

"Oh, but I do. I saw one run across my kitchen floor one night at about 2:30 am."

Naturally, I gave him a typical Mom Kim speech about how that wouldn't have happened if he had been sleeping like all the other good little boys and girls at that hour. And we left it at that.

I spent all weekend insisting that my mom was careful walking around eating because I didn't want her to drop any crumbs and feed the mice. Well tonight I was laying in my recliner reading for my Wednesday night book study at church and thought, "hmmmm, I wonder if I had mice where they would be...Don't do it Kim. Stop. Don't get up." Oh, I've done it now. I got up and walked into the "kitchen", with by the way, is connected to every other "room" in my studio apartment. I peeked behind the oven. I couldn't really see so I started turning on all the lights in that area--my bathroom lights, kitchen sink light, stove light--it was bright enough to start landing planes in here.

Lo and behold I see not one, but two little mice. A nice little pair--one brown one and one white one. What the heck am I supposed to do?! I can't see them very well, but can they see me? My initial reaction was to tap on the stove, which I did, and fortunately they didn't respond at all. "Ok. So they think they are sneaky and hiding.... Wait, what if they had run, where would they have gone? Bad idea, Kim." All tapping quickly ceased. At this point I realized my reading for the week was not going to get done because not only had I succeeded at ruining my dinner, robbing myself of peace in my own apartment, and assuring that I never get a sound night of sleep again, I could no longer concentrate on reading about the Wisdom of God. On top of all that, I could not longer convince myself that the noises I heard at night were the heating pipes or plumbing. No. Now I am confident that the noises I hear are little mice families feeding their little mice babies, taking them to mice school, and doing whatever else little mice villages do inside peoples' walls.

At this point it's time to leave for church. I go to the study, mildly distracted by my mice colony, and then arrive back at home. The first thing I did upon walking up the stairs was knock on my neighbor Mike's door. "Do you have a flashlight?" I asked. "Somewhere, what for?" he responded. "Oh, you know, I was just checking for mice and I think I saw some behind my stove." After a futile search for the flashlight he comes back with a class project that involved creating a circuit board and attaching Christmas lights and programming different rhythms/patterns of flashing. Great, so we can't see the mice, but we'll at least try to kill 'em by inducing a seizure with the psychedelic mini strobe lights. Perfect.

Well Mike squats down and stares for a good 10 seconds with no response. Panic is running through my blood. At what point do I jump on the couch or coffee table? Is this really happening to me? He looks at me and says, "You don't have a cat do you?"
"No, why?"
"Ha. I think these are cat toys."
"What? No! It's real. Maybe it's dead. Do I have dead mice back there?"
"It's got googly eyes. It's not real. I'll get it out and show you."

Sure enough there are two mice "cat toys" behind my oven. I insisted on leaving them there in case they are actually scarecrows of sort, kind of like hanging an owl, frightening mice to stay out of my apartment. So, to date, I have not witnessed first hand any mice in my apartment and I will hopefully stay mice-free with the help of my mice-deterrent mice couple. If you were planning on visiting me, please don't cancel your plans, yet.

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.

The Day I Almost Lost My Job

I shall preface this story by telling you that my boss is a big classic Volvos guy. He has, I believe, 6 old Volvos that he maintains, polishes, and cherishes. He loves them. He and his Volvos were even featured in a newspaper article in the Providence Journal a few months ago.

Unlike the above picture there was nothing fun about my afternoon in the 1967 Volvo Amazon Kombi. My boss and I were on our way to Woonsocket for a meeting. I had been feeling sick all afternoon--kind of feverish and weak--so naturally I had difficulty opening the heavy car door (they made them out of real metal back then, none of that plastic crap we get today). I could barely get it unstuck to open it and, to my regret, struggled to shut it.

My boss and I start driving down the street and I get this feeling that my door isn't shut all the way. I look in the mirror and see that the door looks shut, but I'm pretty certain that it's not. Well we hit a bump and the door becomes ajar! I can see in the side mirror that the door was no longer flush with the side of the car.

"What do I do?! Stay calm. Play it cool," I tell myself. I have already learned the hard way that it's illegal to open a door in motion. [I was pouring an old coffee out of a friends car in high school, trying to help her clean up the car, and gather the mound of trash. Even though the car was rolling to a stop at a light, Mr. Officer didn't care]. So I realize that I can't open the door and re-shut it and we're about to merge onto the highway!! I decide that I have to tell my boss. I'm not sure how we're going to fix it, but the last thing I want to do is to cause his door to get ripped off on the highway.

He just laughs.

I try to tell him that I'm serious and this could be a grave matter, but he doesn't seem phased. The combination of more bumps and 70 mph has caused the door to be visibly opening!! He suggests opening the door and shutting, but that will be certain death for the door. I decide that the best option is to tighten my seat belt and hold the door handle. If worse comes to worse, I'm letting go. I'm not getting sucked out of the car! It looks flush once again so I decide to lock it and hope for the best. We hit a bump and it again is creeping open. The lock is obviously useless. The door is obviously not shut. Well the increasing speed forces me to switch my tactic from my right hand to the all out, across the body, left hand, using my body weight, grab.

He's still laughing at this point, mind you. I am not.

There is nothing funny about ripping the door off your boss' pride and joy. There is nothing funny about getting catapulted out of the car. As I'm holding this door for dear life I look at the door handle and realize they didn't make handles in the 60s like they do today. No, No, No. The car was made better, but the door handles were not. This thing is probably screwed on to the vinyl door liner and that's about it. It's probably been replaced 10 times by now. It's probably no stronger than Velcro. Great. Not only am I going to get his door ripped off on Route 146 and run over by a semi, but I'll have to turn to him afterwards and hand him his door handle as a consolation gift and tell him that I at least managed to salvage something. How's that for staff morale?

At this point I don't know what's going to fall off first, my arm or the door handle, so I change my strategy. I'm going to roll the window down and hold the door in by force. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Luckily it was an unusually warm day for fall. Desperate strategy works. Not only do I prevent pulling the handle off, but I manage to pull the door shut and hear a click. I again, locked the door, which worked so uselessly before, but was worth a second try. I sweated and hoped that it remained shut for the duration of the ride. Fortunately, it did. I didn't intend to be an awkward passenger, but let's just say my boss was not getting a shot at eye contact from me for the rest of the ride; I had a mission and it required complete focus on that side mirror.

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!