Moosey Fate

To Dos

So it has been a rather exciting and lovely last few days and it seems Spring might actually be here, making me a very happy Moosey. My blah spring break has been remedied with a really fun trip. The boy and I left last Thursday and went to Madison. We stayed at the most beautiful environmental inn ever: The Arbor House and had amazing gourmet breakfasts (the best being a buckwheat pancake filled with goat cheese, tomatoes, and rosemary. On Friday we went to Chicago and went to the Flattop Grill (though I think we should have gone to Giordanos instead) and shopped a lot at H&M. Today, I have a lovely day planned -- I am following Underblog's example and am going for a ride; granted mine will not be motorized, but I get to wear my Biker Chick jersey with the cute little chick on it and try out my new Camelbak, so I am very very happy. Then I think I am going to make some homeade sushi and miso soup and then do some reading. Wow, in the words of Calvin and Hobbes, the days are just packed.

Girl Scout cookies

How can anything be this wonderful? I was so excited to get my cookies today (okay, they are both mine and the boy's) and I can hardly wait to open the tagalongs, yummy peanut butter and chocolate. Even better are the samoas -- caramel, chocolate, and coconut combined with a substance I am assuming is crack, because indeed, they are that addicting. They bring back memories of when I was a Girl Scout.

I was a G.S. for 5 years, starting with being a Daisy (for those not in the know, this is the youngest category, with girls who are in kindergarten). I was in one of the first test classes of Daisys, and had the blue smock and was very excited. Later, I progressed through being a Brownie and onwards.

The ghost of Spring Breaks past

I don't really have much to say, and I know it has been awhile since I updated. However, I have been pretty boring and not in the best mood and have had to just run around doing tons of boring shit that no one wants to hear about. I am kind of bummed -- every year that I get up here I have had two breaks from this long monotoneous winter -- I always go to the beach for a week with my family in December/January, and I have gone on two really fun spring break trips. This year, no one went to the beach and the spring break trip to New Orleans plan didn't work out and even our last-ditch, lets go to Madison this weekend idea did not work out due to forecasted snowfall. So, this week hasn't really been a break -- I have just been doing all the stuff I normally do, have had a lot of blake stuff to deal with and have gotten to clean and run to fed-ex and go to the gym, and blah. And, I suppose it would be difficult to top the trips the past few years (although I am fairly sure that the boy and I, in New Orleans, could have found a way). Last year (though the entries from them can be found at My old blog. Last year's trip was pretty phenomenal. I flew to Chattanooga on Sunday, purchased a car on Monday (my dearly departed/squashed like a bug Saturn), and left Chattanooga and drove the 9 hours to Gulfport, Mississippi. The drive was awesome, all by myself, singing and thinking and having a long drive in the car which I really miss sometimes. I used to do a lot of road trips (driving by myself around 6 hours every other weekend) and I miss it (well not what I was going to do or anything, but I miss time driving and thinking). That is one of the things I know a lot of people love about living in a big city -- that the amount of driving is cut down. And, if I have to drive more then about 20 minutes in 35W traffic, then I tend to also go crazy. But winding, sunny southern highways and driving 80 down those heading for someplace warmer, there are times when I definately miss that. Back to the trip however, I picked Katie up in Mississippi and we together drove the two hours to New Orleans. It was a perfect evening -- balmy, warm, with the air thick and humid. We parked and checked into our hotel and then got dressed and walked down to the French Quarter. We stopped at the first place we saw that was chock full of margarita style machines and got fruity, frozen rum drinks, and kept walking. We stopped at a Creole seafood place and (after they kindly put our drinks in the bar freezer), we got a table on the 2nd floor balcony and ordered hurricanes, and I had oysters on the half shell (one of my most favorite foods) and a shrimp dish that had the perfect type and heat of spice. While we were eating, the women who worked at the strip club across the street came out onto their second floor balcony wearing very little, throwing beads to the crowd, and trying to entice them to come in. I tried to convince Katie to go to the club after our meal. She said no. However, it was one of those perfect moments – being slightly drunk, the air like a hot bath surrounding you, the screams and yells mixed with our own conversation and other sounds of the city, and my stomach just perfectly satiated with seafood and heat. It was simply, a perfect moment. The rest of the trip was wonderful; we spent the next day eating breakfast at Cafe du Monde, where I proceeded to get powdered sugar over all of my clothes and Katie managed to get it all in her hair. We walked around, got our tarot cards read at Marie Laveau's House of Voodoo. We walked through the front of an 18th century cathedral, ate shrimp po boys at the Court of Two Sisters, walked for miles. We returned to the hotel, napped, and left again for dinner at a place whose name I can never remember and am saddened by. Our meal took hours, I tried caviar for the first time, spooned over two perfectly cooked and chilled potatoes, with a dill cream sauce separating the potatoes and caviar, ate shrimp for dinner, and had the best bread pudding imaginable. The restaurant was gorgeous – high ceilings, small dinning room, wonderfully decorated. The host also spent the entire night flirting, and all in all, it was a wonderful evening. We drove the next day to Louisville and crashed with friends at the debate national tournaments, partied, and saw a lot of people I hadn't seen since moving, or even before then. The next day, we drove back to Minneapolis, and I got in Sunday night at 1:30 am, both exhausted and exhilarated, remembering how we somehow got lost and ended up driving for two hundred miles on a rural two lane highway through Indiana and how Katie and I made up the dinosaur dance, and talked, and ate the worst food possible (I had only stopped being a vegan a month or so beforehand and every Dairy Queen or Wendy's seemed like an invitation for something frozen, sweet, and dairy).

Needless to say, I was looking forward to heading down to New Orleans desperately, but have accepted it isn't going to happen.

The year before, Spring Break was also pretty phenomenal – I went on a road trip to Tybee Island down off the coast of Georgia, a few miles outside of Savannah. Again, I ate delicious seafood, was warm and got to wear tank tops and feel the sun on my skin, penetrating all of those recesses that the Minnesota winter makes you believe will never again be warm. We explored the architecture, went for an evening “ghost watch” walk and ate wonderfully. The only downside of this trip was sharing a tent with two people who decided that having sex while I was in the tent was okay. It was not, but I have to say I do understand how warmth and good seafood can effect someone.

Instead, my break is spent doing work for a job whose contract is now ended I believe, though I am still having to have meetings, talk to parents, schedule conferences, being sad, being upset with the boy, and trying to start losing this weight that I put on during studying for prelims. It is not yet nice enough to go biking and my car is parked at my house, while I am at the boy's and have no real desire to go catch a bus or venture into the greyness outside. Yes, I am truly pathetic and guess I will go back to watching DVRed movies and shows. Somehow though I am wondering if “Silence of the Lambs” was the best choice for this morning.

Lucky...

So the prelim is done and I am done with it (unless I fail and then it becomes the nadir of my life, and I obsess over it until I get Alzheimer's and die, lonely and bitter).

I had this great moment last night of feeling incredibly lucky, we were at the Seward Pizza Luce, and had a group of about 10 of us, including Underblog, Sherm, other departmental folks, debate friends, a couple of the boy's friend (including one who is at the impossibly small intersection of being a theater major and in the National Guard and another friend who injured himself putting a desk together). It was so much fun to just look around and see all of these people I know and like interacting with each other, teasing each other, finding connections, and having fun. It was very much one of those "wow, I have really cool friends" moments and being that it is rare that I am social and have gotten increasingly introverted as I get older, it was incredible.

The key lime martinis are also really nice.

In unrelated news, I have a job interview tommorrow for something I have never before contemplated doing. However, it seems interesting and I am enjoying this "exploring options" phase.

PRELIM

16 hours until I start writing.

Level of nerves: HIGH
Desire to Drink: HIGH
Desire to bah head against wall: HIGHER

Test Scores...

You scored as Adult. The Adult ego state is the part of the personality that is most in tune with reality as it gathers information and makes decisions based on the reality of facts. People who score high in this category spend a lot of time thinking, computing and analyzing. Adult 77% Nurturing Parent 70% Natural Child 67% Controlling Parent 60% Adapted Child 50% Interaction with Others Survey created with QuizFarm.com

Guest entry from the boy...

Since I am not supposed to be typing and am supposed to be studying, the boy has filled in. Here is his entry.

So I got a new car. It was quite the exciting deal, and I'm happy with the Toyota Avalon I got for cheap. Even thought the average age of an avalon owner is 55, I'm happy with a car that even weighs more than my old buick.

The Boy's notes on buying cars:
1) Don't let the salesperson let you drive a car that's way more powerful than any other car you've ever driven. Fun but it's frustrating when you realize that you'd have to eat ramen for the next 5 years in order to afford the car.
1.a.) Make sure that when you warn people you are going to hit the gas, that they hear you.
1.a.I) The sounds of heads snapping back and hitting the headrests is cool.
2)Make sure that you know how to get back to the dealership when you are out on a test drive by yourself.
2a) WTF is with the streets southwest of highway 100 and 394? In comparison St. Paul has rationally laid out streets.
3)Remember to talk about things other than cars when you are looking for a new vehicle.
4)Don't wait until the blue book value of your car is less than the cost of your bike tires before looking for a new car.
5)Make sure that you have financing secured before telling the person that drove you to the dealership that they can go now.
6)Expect horrible financing offers on used cars if you've not bought a car before. 16% APR? WTF indeed.
6a) Having a co-owner with amazing credit means you can get 4.99% APR. (Thanks, pop)
7)Do expect to qualify for financing on a new car that is 1/2 your annual gross income.
7a)Don't buy such an expensive car than you screw up your credit when it comes to home-buying times.
8)You can check your credit online for free now in the Midwest.
8a)Know your credit score before you try and get financing.
9)Make sure that when you go on a test drive, your car has legal plates on it. (yes, one dealership did not have a legal plate on the car!)
10)Expect to find little annoying things after getting a used car. (Just make sure than the mechanic you had inspect the car is good)
11) New tires on an old car make all the difference. It's like a good pair of socks.
12) Don't thing than the entire used car buying process will take less than 4 hours. oops!
12a)Secure financing before going to get the car.

And my girlfriend is really cute. Just had to say that.