oh the places you'll go

Thirteen Things Places I've Been 1. Lexington, KY. obviously i've been here, it's my fabulous hometown. i know its home because all my stuff and my kitty live here. 2. Las Vegas. my home away from home. except that i don't gamble. really. everytime i'm in vegas, it feels more and more right and then i come home and lexington feels strange for a while. hum. 3. Washington DC. this was a fairly standard family summer vacation. we drove there and visited all of the learning sorts of places. sadly, the thing i remember most is playing cards in the back seat of the car. 4. Hell, MI. there is even a buzzard festival. hee. anyway, i visited there fairly breifly on a somewhat successful road trip a couple of years ago. also, there is a post office in the convenience store and they will remail letters for you with the official 'hell' cancellation on the stamp. this service is apparently very popular around mid-april when folks have their tax return forwarded from hell. hee. 5. Ottawa. 2nd coldest capital in the world. the coldest is Ulanbator, Mongolia and i would not like to go there. i had the honor of working in Ottawa a couple of years ago, just right around the corner from the Prime Minster. 6. New York, NY. this was a fairly standard school field trip. we drove there in a huge bus and got into mischief. also i think we did some sight seeing, visited broadway, climbed up to the top of lady liberty. 7. Madrid. a few years ago, when i was somewhat shorter, i spent the summer in Madrid looking at nearly all of the cathedrals, monasteries, castles, and aqueducts they had to offer. i wasn't there specifically to learn about architecture...it just sort of worked out that way. i think it was also the first time i ever ate squid. 8. Nashville. it always seems to rain when i go to this zoo. maybe i have some sort of bad zoo karma. 9. Toronto. i've been there several times and always had good clean canadian fun. i went up the CN tower, cruised by St Lawrence Market, watched the air show at the EX, walked the path, drove through the Danforth, etc. but the best part of each visit was always the artful dodger, the best pub in the world 10. Colorado Springs/Garden of the Gods. half the town is decked out in camouflage and the other half is kitchy touristy stuff. weird mix. 11. Niagara Falls. i've been on both the canadian and the american side. i have to say, the american side is really ghetto. 12. London. i got sick on the ride out to stone hinge. very sad. 13. New Orleans. kind of macabre, i know, but my favorite thing was the above ground cemetery tour.

Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped--Elbert Hubbard

tacky:

1. Lacking style or good taste; tawdry;
2. Distasteful or offensive; tasteless;
3. My ex husband (refered to as WNE but i shant explain why).

this is the conversation i had last night, which both summed up the story and seemed to give me permission to blog about the topic...

christen says: WNE called sunday...

christen says: he wanted to know about the old ring

mary ann says: like, your engagement ring?

christen says: yes. finally i just said, look, i pawned it many years ago, you can't have it back.

christen says: and so he played it off like he just wanted to know how much i got for it.

christen says: said he was interested in the market for used rings...

mary ann says: why...he wasn't gonna give it to his baby mama was he??

christen says: yes! i think he wanted it back from me to give it to her

christen say: he was going to REGIFT it

mary ann says: ewwww!

christen say: have you ever heard of anything more tacky?

mary ann say: ewwww!! ewewew! that's so awful.

christen says: it truly is. i feel the need to tell everyone i've ever met ever

christen says: but that is probably just as tacky

mary ann says: he asked his ex wife for the ring back, a ring that was not an heirloom, a ring that was especially designed for you, so he could propose with it to the woman who is carrying his baby. that's...talking about that is not tacky, that is doing the world a service.
mary ann says: it's unbelievable.

manic monday

i'm currently toying with the idea of calling in to work today. i'm not sick, its just that i think i would like my job a whole lot better if i had four 10 hour days rather than five 8 hour days. i think it would be a great way to spend a monday, make it just like a saturday. i could stay home and watch tv. i could have pizzas delivered. asside from the occational desire for hotdogs (usually while i'm grilling other, better meats), i think only thing i really ever crave is pizza. i like good pizza and bad pizza, sometimes even those really really really cheap frozen pizzas. these cravings started during gradschool, donno why. i like everything on pizzas except anchovies and bacon (or some of those non traditional pizza toppings like brocoli). i work with a woman who is alergic to wheat and has not had a slice of pizza in a decade. breaks my heart. if tomorrow they suddenly discover i'm alergic to wheat or cheese or tomatos, i think of all the foods that contain any of those items, giving up pizza for the rest of my life would be the most difficult.

sigh. i need to get up off the couch now and go to work. i knew this deep down from the start. but which would you prefer: shorter work days but more of them, longer work days and less of them?

drum roll please

it started out as a dull bathroom, as standard apartment bathrooms tend to be, and now:
its a superhero bathroom!

(ok, so some of this stuff was here before today, but it wasn't a finished project until now and i think its just lots of fun and i don't care if that makes me a comicbookgeek).



spiderman keeps my toothbrush safe.



iron man and silver surfer are in charge of make up. superman protects hair twisties. and naturally, dr doom watches over the first aid kit.

there are fun pictures and action figures posing all over the walls, and all the towels are primary colors except radio active bright.

our shower curtain and all the new little shower curtain rings.

i felt like such a mad scientist/evil villain while i was hot glueing the little superhero action figures onto the shower curtain rings (and also some of the ones on the shelves had to have glue on their toes so they would stand up properly). it was sort of like at the seafood place when people get to choose which lobster they want to eat. i could never do that. i understand that all the meat that i eat used to have a face, but i don't really want to look into its eyes minutes before i eat it. so i'm glad that the little superheros couldn't cry as i glued their little toes. but anyway, isn't the bathroom just too cute?? its just all decoupage and hot glue. no longer are you limited to the bathroom sets at target; pick a theme and you can have any decor you want...

because its my first time doing thursday thirteen and because my first anniversary is this weekend (grin), i'm going to be terribly cheesy and all in love and such... Thirteen ways to live happily ever after, in no particular order 1. Never meet or leave without an affectionate hug or kiss; 2. look for regular opportunities to express your love (thoughtful gifts, notes, text messages, random hugs in the kitchen, etc); 3 pray regularly with each other and for each other; 4. desire to do right, more than you want to be right; 5. Never both be angry at the same time (draw straws if you must); 6. you have to work at it. it doesn't matter what you say or intend about your relationship. your actions speak loudest; 7. patience, patience, and some more patience; 8. marrieage is not mind reading, so just ask your spouse what he/she wants and then believe what he/she says; 9. hold hands, a lot...all the time really, or at least as often as you can; 10. build in a little me-time; 11. contrary to cliche, love does in fact mean saying you're sorry. sometimes it means saying you're sorry even if you don't know what you did or you didn't mean to do it; 12. remember that love isn't always a feeling, its a decision; 13. ALWAYS have separate closets.

the picturesque view from my hotel room last week

a nearly wordless wednesday:

and since i was thinking about trash bins, i wondered what happened to old trash bins...

i'm not a big seafood fan

i'm not sure why. i ate boats full of fish-n-chips growning up, but i guess not a lot of other seafare. there was one time, as an adult, company was coming and i tried a new casserole recipe that called for crab. honestly, i don't know what i was thinking. i certainly had no idea what i was doing. i think i did everything wrong that could be done wrong and even suspected early on in the evening that the recipe was going to be disasterous. as the casserole baked in the oven, the house began to smell worse and worse until finally the timer dinged. i bravely tested out a few bites. when i felt certain that i would not actually die, i hurridly opened up all the windows and threw out the whole dish on my way to the car and to drive my friends to a restaraunt. thankfully, "it is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them," ralph waldo emerson.

i have not attempted to cook with seafood since, which is why i'm telling you about crabless crabcakes.

1/2 cup mayo
2 Tbs. sour cream
2 Tbs. Dijon-style mustard
2 Tbs. lemon juice
1/2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
2 Tbs. chopped fresh parsley, or several sprinkles from the dried container
2 cups shredded zucchini
1/2 cup dried breadcrumbs

mix everything all up together. its easier if you start by mixing everything except the zucchini and cheese and then add them in too. shape into little cakes similar to hamburger patties. the original recipe tells you to melt some butter in a skillet. sometimes i do that and sometimes i hose the skillet down with a ton of nonstick butter flavored spray. i imagine these sprays will give me cancer someday, but my hips will stay the size they are (at least for a little while longer). sizzle the cakes on medium heat on each side for about 6-7 minutes until they are golden brown all over. i like these because they are tasty and don't make my house smelly; i'm a simple girl. enjoy with whatever condiment you would normally use on your crabfilled crabcakes.

caution

she says: hello there (as she walks in the front door)

mr kitty says: meow

she says: and how was your day?

mr kitty says: meow

she says: well, my day was filled with stupid people.

there are a couple of people in my company, thankfully not in my office, that just set me on edge. i generally don't like to be mean, but today was one of those days where i just felt like i was surrounded by people who just got off the short bus. i will never claim to you to be a rocket scientist but:

this week's goal

i am going to finish decorating the bathroom. really...this week even. andrew and i started this project..um...easter weekend (2005). clearly we sort of got sidetracked. i honestly don't know with what. and then while he was home on leave we bought the rest of the items needed to finish the bathroom. that was over a month ago. so. it is now way past pathetic that this project isn't finished. my mom is coming to visit this next weekend so i feel like i should finish before then, not that she hasn't visited and seen the half done bathroom but it would be a nice touch to show her the finished version. i'll post pictures of the finished project on friday, even if i have to stay up all night thursday.

random thoughtfulness

i'm finally home and my weary soul has a four day weekend to recooperate and do massive amounts of laundry. in the two weeks i've been gone, apparently every spider in lexington moved to my front porch. i spent half of yesterday sweeping them all away. my front yard is very shady and the sun comes up on the other side of the apartment, so the porch is very cool in the mornings making it a perfect place to sit, relax and sip coffee. i'm currently working on a john grisham so i thought a little about it. i enjoy his books. the story itself is always so multifacited, and every character, no matter how small a role, is rich with detail. not only do you spend half the book wondering who done it but also wondering done what. generally i guess about half of it, which is good. i don't care for books or movies when you know exactly what is going to happen next, and i really dislike the ones where you couldn't possibly ever have guessed.

i also sat on the porch and thought about some of the people that have recently entered my life. for those who've know me for a while, you know that this year without andrew has been hard. i try not to complain much, he certainly has the harder end of this deal, but the sadness just creeps in until it is unbearable. i've always been the sort of person who firmly believes that God provides. the thing is though, sometimes God provides a new car and sometimes God provides bus fare, but either way you are still able to get to where you are going. so right now i can't have my husband back at home and i'm sad. but someone i know sent me a card. just because. it was a tuesday and she was thinking about me. and a couple of weeks ago, i had just parked at the grocery and was walking towards the store. someone had seen my 'half my heart is in iraq' car magnet and came up to me to say thank you, gave me a hug and everything (which was kind of weird because she was a stranger so i wasn't entirely sure if she's wasn't really trying to mug me). sometimes i'm just so impressed with people. its easy to watch the news and live your life and really feel like the world is filled to the brim with evil. deep down though, i think its just the other way around. the world is good and people are good, there's just a couple of bad apples out there making it seem like the whole thing is rotten.

where am i going with all of this? i donno.

someone is always forwarding me or posting one of those 'plight of the poor,' 'why women are better so go hug the strong woman role model in your life,' or 'repost this 10 times so this child can get a heart/blood/foot transplant' things. so i don't want to end this with 'read this a be a good person/go kiss your neighbor.' what i want to do is appreciate all the people in my life who are already doing that. the list cannot possibly be exhaustive, but thank you katie, mom and dad, andrew, rebecca, korendia, kate, ricky, russell, the guy in the airplane, and the stranger in the parking lot.

current location: reno

i have not shot a man or watched anyone die, but i still have a few more hours before the plane leaves...and if you are a johnny cash fan then that sentence makes sense to you.

reno has been nice. work went well. i have been very interested in the other hotel guests. not only is the american escrow association holding a conference here, but also there is a westen states locksmithing convention and a nevada sheepherders meeting. people to steal my money. people to steal my stuff. and...people to steal my sheep?

hum

i think i have now tried all the thai places in town. this isn't really a big town, so that wasn't really hard to accomplish. i think the best curry and the best eggrolls come from bangkok house on campus. and i believe that the best veggie tempura is from patchen thai on patchen drive. veggie tempura is really just deep fried veggies. the batter is a little bit different in thai than in japanese. there are very few things in life that are not better after being deep fried. its a wonder i'm not the size of a buffalo. i love to cook. i love to eat out. i love to snack, as evidenced by the number of snacks hidden away in the car and my desk at work and in every purse or bag i own. i think my parents must have done some sort of black magic because i was born tall and thin. but i think its my husband who is currently keeping me that way. see, one day at work last week, we were talking about how thin men, i mean really thin men, always end up with wives that are wildebeests. well my husband is normal boy sized. he's tall and solid and has strong shoulders. but i guess if he ever starts to waste away then i best switch to rice cakes.

the evil kitty and i are going to the vet today for a second round of shots. we were there about three weeks ago and no one died. i'm hoping to repeat the same level of success in today's visit.

and then tomorrow i'm off on a work trip. i am going to spend five days at one site and then five at another. planning the trip has been a nightmare, and even though i've checked and double checked and rechecked some more, i'm fairly sure that something isn't booked right, i just don't know what yet. i'm sure my next post will tell you all about the completely terrible, and therefore hysterical, thing that happened to me while i'm gone. i can't wait.