The machine in the break room has Peanut M&Ms listed as a "heathier snack." On what planet is that true? Healthier than what, bacteria-dipped radioactive sticks?
Also, putting in money and pushing the button for the wrong snack is bad enough, but pushing the button for an empty row? Entirely stinky.
My Aunt Diane's father-in-law passed away last night. I'll be flying home to California as soon as I know when services will be held.
We'll miss you, Grandpa Jim.
Friday night Jess came up to New Brunswick and we saw Dodgeball, probably the funniest movie of the year. When I bought my tickets, the sweet little old ticket seller couldn't resist telling me that he had seen it twice and "still laughs every time," whatever that means. He went on about it for a good five minutes. So, highly recommended, if you're into the ridiculously overblown characters and lots of non sequiturs humor.
Saturday was also a Jess night. She cooked a fabulous scallops, sauteed spinach, and sweet potato dinner, which we had with a nice Argentinean White from our wine of the month club. After dinner and some amazing dark chocolate gelato at the new ice cream place in Palmer Square (try the blood orange sorbet), we saw Romeo and Juliet in the park as part of the Princeton Rep Shakespeare Festival. It got much colder than normal, but fortunately we had an additional sleeping bag which Bill got from the car at intermission. We zipped them together and were much more comfortable, except that Bill kept sliding down the hill, which was getting us uncomfortably close to the goose poo. The play was a bit disappointing, probably the least inspiring of the six we have seen in the park. We hope that Much Ado About Nothing next month will be better.
Ok, I'm not naming any names, but some of you seem to be missing the point of the comments section. If you want to comment on something on this page, it makes no sense to email me about it, because then it loses the context of the original post and especially complicates compiling information. So learn to love the comments, people. They're really not that scary.
Birnn Chocolates claim to be "the finest chocolates on the face of the earth," and, dude, they aren't kidding. I think they may be better than See's and Ethel M combined. And they're five blocks from my house. HOW DID I NOT KNOW THIS!?!?
I found out about them today because my boss Dana and I carpooled to another site for a meeting, and when she was dropping me off, she said, "Oh, Birnn is over here, I should pick some up for my husband." He is such a chocoholic that when she had found them from a web search for some custom chocolates a few years ago and proudly brought home her find, he tasted it and was like, "Wow, this takes like Birnn's. I used to get Easter Bunnies from there when I was a kid." He can tell brands of chocolate by tasting, people. That is impressive.
Anyway, I got some and am trying not to scarf it all down before Bill gets home. I was going to wait for him to get here before I had any, but I caved and carefully peeled back the sticker and ate two. I think I covered for myself pretty well, but I guess if he reads this I'm busted.
Also in the sweets department (why are all my entries about food?), I had the elusive peanut butter creme donut from Yum Yum (no link, what kind of self respecting business does not have a website?) today, when we drove down there to celebrate and provide donuts for some team members. I can honestly say peanut butter creme donuts are the only thing I miss about Pennsylvania.
At dad's prompting, Bill and I (okay, I) have decided that we really can't put off having out picture taken any longer, so we're going to set that up sometime in the next few months. If you would like a copy, please let me know how many and what size, and if you want just me or Bill and I or both.
The trip to see Tom was cool. We got in pretty late Friday night, since we had stayed in New Brunswick to have dinner at Stuff Yer Face and play Boggle with Jess. (I dominated, as usual.) We were tired from the drive, or at least I was, as evidenced by the following exchange:
Bill: The book's all bent. You sat on it!
Me: I didn't sat on it!
Tom: Hah! Take that grammar.
Even though we were tired, it was nice to see Tom, and we stayed up talking until 2 or so.
In the morning, we headed down to the mall and checked out the White House, the new WWII Memorial, and the Lincoln Memorial. Then while Tom went to ultimate frisbee practice, Bill and I went to the FDR Memorial and the Jefferson Memorial. It was a very memorial day, and those memorials are far apart, which was unfun due to my sore legs from squats in karate. This was particularly embarrassing because just the night before Lucy, who is at least 20 years older than me, was saying how great class was because it was a good workout but never left you sore. Yeah, right.
We had dinner at Meskerem, and decided the Assa Wat (fish in traditional spicy sauce) was not nearly as good as at Makeda, but it was Ethiopian, so it was still nummy. Then we accidentally wandered into the coolest bar in the world, not trendy-cool, and not ridiculously chic or crowded, just eclectic and comfy and great. It served coffee and alcohol, had a nice menu and tons of couches and places to work. Every city should have someplace like it.
I've been flooded with invitations to give out (I think I have about 11), so if you want one, let me know.
You can read more about it here.
Marianne, me, Tammi, Grace, and Steph at the PF Changs in the Aladdin hotel in Vegas this Memorial Day.
I just set up an audioblogger account so that I can make audio entries here, and have decided to open it up so that any of you can too. The way it works is that you leave a message, and an icon will appear on this page, so that if anyone clicks on it, they will hear the message. So remember that whatever you say will be public.
Here are the instructions:
1. Call 1 - 6 6 1- 7 1 6 - B L O G (1-661-716-2564)
(Listen very carefully to the Voice Prompts)
2. Enter my cell phone number (I'm not going to put that here, but most of you have it. Let me know if you don't.)
3. Enter the PIN (which is 8520), press #
4. Record your message, Press #
5. Press 1 to post it on my page, 2 to review, 3 to re-record.
The National Osteoporosis Foundation's Annual Ball was a bunch of fun. It was as the swanky Pierre hotel on 5th Ave. The speakers (current surgeon general and Ann Richards, former gov of TX) were great and the food was amazing, but even more amazing was that Bill wore a tux, the only time he has worn one ever, except for prom. So naturally we forgot to take pictures. Thanks mom and Grace for helping me find a dress in Vegas. It was just perfect and Bill loved it.
Last night Bill, Jess, and I went to Pettoranello Gardens to see A Hard Day's Night, as part of the outdoor summer film series. We took the sleeping bag and sat on the hill, which was pretty steep so we kept slipping down it. The fireflies were out in mass and were beautiful at sunset. It's the same venue that hosts the Princeton Rep Shakespeare Festival every summer. We'll be going next week to see Romeo and Juliet.
This weekend, we're going down to DC to see Bill's brother Tom, who is there for a summer job.
I was trying to wrest a diet coke from the vending machine just now, but it kept spitting my quarter back at me, which prompted me to be all, "What's wrong with you, stupid vending machine?"
It was Canadian. My quarter, not the vending machine.
This stuff is insane. It certainly was as long lasting as advertised - I got all the way through a three course meal with no noticible decrease in color and only had to reapply the gloss to recover the shine. It is so tenacious that I had to literally scrub my lips raw to get it to come off. It's like the color chemically bonds to your lips. Scary, but kind of cool.
As we were watching people play chess in Harvard Square, Bill said that he was really looking forward to moving to Cambridge because Princeton, and especially the undergrads are so anti-intellectual. That cracked me up, but not because it isn't true.
We agreed to rent an apartment we saw this weekend. It's about twice what we pay now and about half the size, which means we'll have to get rid of most of our furniture and the stuff in the basement. The parking is an amazing $100/month, so the car will probably go too, after we've been there a few months and are sure we can get by without it. I'm actually looking forward to the purge of all our crap. It will be so nice to start over with just the essentials.
We spent the weekend apartment hunting and checking out the area. Bill couldn't have chosen a better weekend for convincing me that living in Cambridge would be great; the weather was unbelievable. Too bad he forgot sunscreen. He's a little tomatoey right now.
The eats were delicious. We had a pear danish, a bear claw croissant, and an egg sandwich at Carberry's, along with wonderfully strong coffee. There was a yummy, almost California-esque burrito at a place that I have been unable to find on Google. No clue what the name of the place is. Before we left town, we had a decent brunch at the (self) reputedly legendary S&S Restaurant. But by far the best place we tried this weekend, possibly this year, was Taberna de Haro, an authentic tapas place in Brookline. The food was heaven. The service was slooow, but that didn't really matter, as tapas are meant to be savored over a lengthy conversation, and we had a lot to talk about, what with trying to find an apartment and exploring the city a bit.
I signed up a bit ago, and in some ways it's better than Friendster, because there are communities you can join based on your interests, and each has a message board. However, most are not very active, and there are a lot of improvements they could make the the user interface. Interesting, but not really worth much time. If you want to check it out, leave a comment and I'll send you an Orkut invite.
What I'd really love to get is a gmail invite, but I can't bring myself to pay for a free service, and gmail is a pretty hot commodity right now. I love the phrase "hot commodity." It's so grandma.
Library School
Cool stuff to do in Cambridge: yoga, martial arts, dance lessons, good food
Procrastinating on updating my resume
