29 October 2007

Saturday = BEST DAY EVER

So my break was wonderful, as was Chicago, and all of the lovely people I hung out with. Saturday, however, was kind of amazing. So, of course, it is list time. We're doing this chronologically.

1. I woke up (at 6:15 AM so we could bring Liz to the airport) but I was waking up intermittently for the half hour or so beforehand and for a while, one of Liz's cats was curled at my feet.

2. Liz's dad drove me to Hyde Park and told me cool things about the U of Chicago campus and Nabokov and The Brothers Karamazov, which I apparently really need to read.

3. On the way to Hyde Park, we saw a flock of birds flying in these circles. It was extremely bizarre.

4. Liz's dad dropped me off at Starbucks, and I chilled there for a while with a venti hot chocolate and a delicious delicious pumpkin scone.

5. I did most of a NY Times Monday crossword by myself. Just the top left corner was unfinished.

6. At Starbucks, they were playing Bruce Springsteen's new album. I was reminded of how catchy "Livin' in the Future" is.

7. I overheard some great conversations some of the locals were having. They were in really good moods, and after being in high school so recently, I sometimes forget that average Americans are so interesting and like to talk about smart things. It's a good thing to be reminded of.

8. I talked to my dad for 40 minutes, and in the process remembered that it was Saturday, so I wasn't interrupting him at work AND I was awake before he was.

9. I spent a while working on memorizing the Pushkin poem, and achieved knowledge of 2 or 3 stanzas, and familiarity with the rest of the six stanzas.

10. At 10:10, after it opened, I walked over to Borders. I sat that the cafe for a handful of minutes, and then Anna called. To not disturb the people reading, I walked over by the knitting books. While she and Dan figured out their morning, I spent an hour and 40 minutes reading/exhausting the knitting section. There were more good musical times as the sounds of Prince's Planet Earth wafted through the store.

11. I kifed a pattern for fishnet stockings from a book of lingerie patterns. It's like my journal is carrying contraband. Except that it's not really stealing. I would have just found the book at a library and copied down the pattern later. I'm saving time.

12. I copied (out of another book at Borders) a list of novels knitters might enjoy. Now if anyone makes me read a Sue Grafton book, I should choose D is for Deadbeat, because it apparently has crafty undertones.

13. Dan (Anna's U of Chicago friend) let me keep my stuff in his room in the afternoon/evening.

14. I found out that I didn't need to go to the Museum of Science & Industry to see the Star Wars exhibit, because it'll be in Minnesota this summer!

15. We went downtown. I walked for at least an hour through some semi-sketchy neighborhoods to get to Nina, at 1655 W. Division St. But it involved public transportation by myself. I felt all sophisticated and grown-up and city-dwellery.

16. At Nina, I had a nice conversation with one fo teh women there and got to sit down and look at a couple of magazines. Particularly enjoyable after walking so much.

17. I bought two skeins of bright red Manos del Uruguay. It cost about $35, but I would have paid that much to stay at a youth hostel, which I didn't end up needing to do.

18. In Nina, I found Karan and Cara, two women on their way to a wedding downtown. I asked them for a ride back downtown, and it worked out!

19. Cara's brother picked us up in a mini-Cooper.

20. The ride back downtown included a nice view of downtown, including a Michigan Ave, which was quite busy and good for people-watching.

21. Between the Nowaks (the above wedding), the one Linden was at, and Tom Hoberg and co. in Oberlin, today was a good day for future anniversaries. 3 weddings!

22. I managaed to find Anna in downtown Chicago without being confused.

23. We saw some art in the Cultural Center, which is this really pretty building by Millennium Park. Mosaic-y ceilings and whatnot.

24. We had dinner at Qdoba, which is exactly like Chipotle except not related to McDonalds. There was a reprise of the good music phenomenon, this time featuring some R.E.M.

25. The guy who made our burritos at Qdoba was awesome. It was by far the most enjoyable burrito-building experience I have had. We were talking about meat, and the benefits of vegetarian burritos (namely, guacamole doesn't cost extra). I've started asking for both the corn and hot red salsas. "...How do you guys feel about dairy?" PRETTY AWESOME.

26. Anna and I had a really good conversation. I showed her my lists of words, and was a T Rex for a couple of seconds. Then we examined the social implications of guacamole. Unfortunately, due to the inside nature of inside jokes, it's hard to explain the significance of this exchange. It was powerful, though.

27. After dinner we went to Millennium Park and hear storytelling! What good stories! We pretended that we were preschoolers. It was too bad David Reese was still in Ohio.

28. After the stories, we went to the bean and flew on the ground and took many silly pictures.

29. We employed our mad bus waiting skillz in anticipation of our return to Hyde Park. Everyone else at the bus stop seemed pretty bored, but as you can guess, we were pretty good at entertaining ourselves. The more tired we are, the more amusing it is.

30. Back in Hyde Park, we talked in (and about) various accents (British, Irish, Australian, Russian) for many minutes on our way to the coop.

31. En route to the coop with Anna, Dan and Marcelo, I did a double take when I saw someone I recognized...
"Do I know you?"
"Do you go to Oberlin?"
"Yeah. ...What's your name?"
"Bethany. And yours?"
"I'm Meagan."
"You're on OSCA Board!"
"Yeah! That's where I know you from!"
... "Well, see you on Thursday!"

32. Upon arriving at Haymarket House (the coop), Anna and I laid down and barely moved for 20 minutes. It was almost meditation, and most relaxing after a long day.

33. We also hung out with one of the Haymarket cats for a while.

34. In retrospect, in response to everyone who asked me where I'm from, I said I'm originally from Minnesota but go to school in Ohio. Where in Ohio? Oberlin! And unlike the uninformed residents of the Twin Cities Metropolitan Area, they knew what I (and Anna) was (were) talking about! They either
- knew someone who recently graduated
- said "Oh yeah. Oberlin! I tell a story about Oberlin. (To Anna) You know what, you have my email address. Send me an email and remind me that you're the Oberlin student. I'll send you a CD with that story for free."

-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-

Happy day happy day happy day.

Nosebleed, but no Nougat

First nosebleed of the season: Monday, October 29, 2:24 A.M.

I really wish that when I get nosebleeds I could just eat half of a piece of candy and they would go away. Fred and George Weasley were onto something there.

24 October 2007

Off to Chicago!

I can say this: Biking down Main Street in Oberlin, half-asleep, at 6:30 in the morning, is a pleasure that I have now had.

The Oberlin Public Library has their movies back, though, and that's what's important.

37 minutes until departure. I should go wash some dishes and clean up a bit...

18 October 2007

Friday Pie Blogging: Initiative Thursday Edition

In response to Fafblog's depressin lacka updates, I've decided to take it up myself. What prompted this, you ask? Why, maybe it's cause I ate that big slice o' pie this afternoon! Initiative pie!

Most folks don't know about initiative pie, on accounta the fact that you can't find it in the store. See, initiative pie is only initiative pie when you make it yourself from scratch. Serve it up at family gatherins all you want, but it's not gonna make your relatives more helpful. O' course, you could disguise the recipe as lemon meringue, an have the kids fix it. That could work.

Anyway! So initiative pie makes the you thinka things, talk them over with yourself for a coupla minutes, an commmit to 'em indefinitely. Like takin over the responsibility o' roughly weekly pie-based internet posts!

Initiative pie is also good for the college student crowd, speically those who're headin into fall break this week! Since you clearly put off studyin for your midterms until the last minute an spent the last week stressin about papers an stuff. So during break - bake some initiative pie! An eat it! Then you can do research an prepare for classes next week and have some relaxin times when you get back! It'll be great!

Warning: If you're not careful about cookin it long enough, initiative pie doesn't turn out quite right. It kinda becomes meets-the-minimum-requirements pie. But you can still eat it, seein as its pie an all. Tastes pretty good.

...Turns out another parta initiative pie is that you have to go find your own picture of it. Specially since my computer's not wantin to load images properly.

09 October 2007

Long Overdue Story

Here's an interesting and true story that happened to me, that I should have blogged about a long time ago. If you're not a former or current Oberlin students, reading the bits in the parentheses would probably be a good idea.

Three or four weeks ago, back when Old B (the student run cooperative I eat in) was still in interim (the process of figuring out who will do what jobs for the semester), I was KPing (kitchen prep, before a meal) for lunch. The other KP wasn't there yet, so I started chopping eggplants (the head cook leaves instructions for the KPs).

Now, I was not very familiar with eggplants, as I don't think I'd ever eaten one, and frankly, we don't chop large amounts of vegetables at my house. At least, we stick to things like tomatoes and bell peppers, which are a bit more tedious. Also, at my house, we have really good, sharp knives. So I'm don't have to worry about distinguishing the sharp ones from the dull ones. YES FOLKS, you are correct. That is foreshadowing.

As I was merrily chopping along, several eggplants in, I got down to the last couple of slices on this particular eggplant, and OUCH. I slice one of the fingertips on my left hand. It seemed relatively small at the time, though perhaps a bit deep, and it bled quite a bit. Of course, I stopped slicing eggplants, switched knives and threw those couple of slices out, which = no contamination, and washed it at bandaged it with the first aid kit in the hallway. I stood around for a few minutes, not sure what to do, waiting for the other KP to show up. She came, and I told her what had happened, and she seemed to think I was quite the trooper. She said I should go to Student Health (known for being not extraordinarily helpful) Really, there was no need for a butterfly closure; I think she was overreacting.

I went to class, and went about my day. I was late to lunch, and actually missed the dish that involved the eggplants, but I've had the chance to eat them since then. Fried eggplant is mightily tasty on pizza. ANYWAY, during my afternoon classes, the cut seemed to be bleeding again, underneath the bandage. Why it chose to do this I have no idea. A friend in my Russian Visual Culture class said I should go to Student Health.

Being without Neosporin, I decided going to Student Health was probably the smart thing to do.

In short, I did, and they were helpful. They gave me some packets of Neosporin-like substance to put on it, and some more bandages. It stopped bleeding, and it's completely healed to the point where I can't remember/tell if it was my middle or index finger that was cut.

But by far the best part was in the waiting room. I was flipping through People Magazine, and saw a book review. The book? Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant.

You can't make this stuff up.