Christmas List - thanks to bush.

the economy is becoming a problem. i like to tell abe that we're now bologna poor and we can't afford anything ever. rent has stayed the same, and everything else in our lives has gotten more expensive, and our 401ks have taken a hard hit. i like to call this being Bologna Poor.

so instead of the SLR camera that i really want for christmas and the perfectly gorgeous bezel set diamond necklace, let's think more economically about what i might be putting on my christmas list this year...

i'd really love a new pair of soft mittens, a rugby shirt, winter boots, and a long cardigan sweater with belt. this is much less fun.

Rebecca turns 26

we went to clery's this weekend for becca's big 26th birthday! (look how tall i look!!)  it was one of the really rainy and gross nights, but apparently this did not stop people from hitting the bars in town.  by the time we got there, we waited a little more than a half an hour in line and then finally got in and ordered a beer immediately.  the last time i went out to a bar was in...yeah i'm not even sure, i can't pin point a day, so it was prior to june i'm sure.  i had my first beer in maybe 15 minutes or less, and this is where i went all wrong.  i only had two more after that when my brother and girlfriend arrived unexpectedly:

i forget what we were talking about, but i said something about my blog, and he goes: you have a blog?  sometimes i think he lives on another planet.  so anyways he trekked from fanueil hall all the way to the south end to come say hi and wish becca a happy birthday too, that was a nice surprise.  kerri and i left after we realized that it was wayyyyy late (1:15!!), so we had to get home.  i thought my fiance was at home playing guitar hero waiting for me since he got home from his party around midnight and i got home and he was no where to be found.  turns out he went back out for more drinking (this was a very bad decision).  it was a long and painful early morning.  i spent the marjority of the night/morning with cold sweats and my face in the toilet, and abe was not fairing much better.  we are So Bad at going out drinking.  for some reason i'm totally fine having a few beers at home, i'm fine if i have a couple beers at dinner, but the second i'm like standing in a bar i can't control myself!!  i think it's about time that we hole up for the winter, coming out only for holidays, so we can let our cells regenerate - is that even right?  i have no idea, but i do know that i don't like these kind of college hangovers and i'd love to really get past them someday.

Obama

i'm sitting at home on a friday night watching the first mccain and obama debate.  i could say because it's raining and i melt when i leave the house in the rain, but it's also because i'm actually voting this year.  you know your life is changing when you go from not being a registered voter to someone who is trying to make a good decision on voting day.  it seems to be a lot different now at the age of 26 when my own money is swirling around the economy and i do my own taxes and pay for my own gas and i have a retirement fund and my parents are in the baby boomer generation.  when i travel to other countries, i don't want to be perceived as a stupid american.  i feel like now more than any other point in my life, this election is important to my life and my lifestyle.  this election, i'm voting for Obama. 

i don't know who won the debate, i don't know who has the right kind of experience, but i know who has the right vision for me to fix our problems and lead us down a brighter path.  i'm really looking forward to the biden and palin debate.  if anyone saw the katie couric interview that palin did, i'm sure they're thinking the same thing.  you can find it on you tube if you're curious.  i think we'd all agree that we're looking for a team to come in and rescue us from the past 8 years.   

 

Coke Zero vs. Diet Coke

i'm sitting in my cube enjoying a coke zero that was leftover from a meeting. i've always wondered what the difference was between coke zero and diet coke because they sound the same, but they taste totally different. so i looked it up, and amazingly enough a lot of other people asked google this very question. diet coke is a different formula and uses only aspertame. coke zero uses the original coca cola formula and aspertame plus asulfume potassium for sweetening, and was created with the name "Zero" to grab a greater male audience. and just the other night abe said something about a soap commercial on tv. it said something about strengthening your skin. and he was like: why would they say that soap makes your skin strong? and i said: because males would respond to the word Strong while women would respond to the word Firm, this was a men's body wash commercial.

so after all this thought i sat here in my cube and realized...
i usually drink diet pepsi a couple times a week and not coke anything. once again, my memory has failed me and i'm glad i wondered about this silently.

Do i know you?

my brother called me today
brother: is today mom's birthday?
me: no it was yesterday you idiot.
brother: Why didn't you remind me!!
me: why can't you just remember?
brother: i'm too busy!
me: i'm not reminding you of these things anymore, everyone is busy. (thinking that there's no excuse).

i can only remember so many things. i feel like i've pushed out a great deal of my own things in order to remember other things for people. this is not fair, so i'm taking a stand and i've decided that i'm going to stop remembering certain things for other people. my brother is old enough to remember birthdays on his own. abe is old enough to remember his friend's birthdays since he chooses to have so many. they are on their own in that department. when someone asks me where something is, instead of looking it up for them and getting the precise diretions, i will say: google map it, because they need to learn to remember on their own (you know who you are!!).

my long term memory is suffering because i am jam packing too much stuff into my short term memory, so this is where the train stops. i think i even have enough memory loss to qualify to participate in some kind of study, that's how bad it is. i can't remember any birthday party until the age of 12 but i'm aware that i had one each year. that doesn't seem right. i can only remember 1 gymnastics recital, and i was in atleast 5 of them. i can't remember my first day of college, and that wasn't too long ago. i literally just don't remember any part of that day at all. this is slightly concerning. i wonder if things will start coming back to me if i have less stress in my brain....

Not Good

i would like to preface this post, just by saying i believe in the super natural, but i've never truly experienced anything of the sort... except for that time my cordless phone rang and it wasn't plugged in, that was odd, but apparently that does sometimes happen.

last night, i saw a ghost in my bedroom at 4:35am. i was having some whacky dreams and i suddenly woke up and looked at the bedroom door. a few feet in front of it there was a shadow figure. it was just a dark figure that reminded me of a person, but it was a really opaque and blobbish figure that looked more like a person wearing a hat than anything else. our room doesn't get super dark, so this figure was very dark in comparison to the rest of the room. like i couldn't see through it to see the light coming in from the crack in the door since i always leave it a few inches open for air circulation. i just stared at it for about 30 seconds trying to see if maybe my eyes weren't really awake yet, and then i fully lifted my head and stared at it more for maybe a minute, and then i debated waking up abe, but instead i just kind of snuggled down and tried to hide in abe's armpit... the figure just kept standing there. and then a few minutes later it kind of faded a little and just kept fading and then it was just gone. i was more curious than anything else, i didn't feel threatened, but i didn't really enjoy being watched either. i totally watch all those shows like Paranormal State and Hauntings and Medium even, but i never really wanted to have something wake me up in the night, and now i'm probably going to be paranoid every single night.

Etsy: search by color

If you're a chick, you totally know what Etsy is. and if you don't, then you're probably really unhip and that's fine. i'm here to explain. etsy is a place where you can buy or sell handmade goods, from jewelry (great jewelry!) to kids onsies, to vases and planters, to furniture and screen prints. so anyways, i visit this site all the time when i'm online window shopping for my perfect feather headpiece. and there's this function on the left side of the homepage where you search by color. and it brings you to this screen with like a hundred tiny dots, and when you hover they grow into large dots so it's very nice looking. then when you click and choose your color products come up like small polaroids. if you double click on them you see more info on the product, or you literally throw it off the screen and it's so cute, and then you can grab them and move them on your page to keep them in mind or totally delete them, and then you can keep selecting more colors because maybe you didn't find the perfect shade the first time around. i Am So Impressed. i've been sitting here for over an hour selecting and deselecting colors and moving products around the page. i haven't even gone into the website yet. which is probably a good thing.

Retail me Not Challenge

i'm embarking on a challenge. no shopping for clothing, shoes, or accessories until thanksgiving. literally nothing can be bought unless there's a gift card involved (since i plan to use one soon). exceptions are: halloween costume (if necessary), wedding needs, coffee pot (i broke mine yesterday morning just the pot not the maker), paperbackl books, birthday gifts. i'll just have to get creative with my outfits so i don't feel as blah with my clothing, and maybe i'll post my best effort of the week (it really might not be that good though). i wonder if this will make a difference in my finances....well it's an experiment, i'll reveal the results later.

ps. Top Shop is sooooo cute right now. i love the boudoir collection and kate moss' line. i saw it like 2 hours after i wrote this post. life is hard some days.

More on Twilight

Twilighters
Bella and Edward

i got my friend at work reading Twilight and i think she might want to kill me. she hasn't been able to put it down, and when i came in this morning she was reading it in her cube at 8:45 in the morning. and then she watched the trailer and complained that edward wasn't handsome enough. she's in way deep now, there's no surfacing for air until all the books are read. so these websites are dedicated to the Twilight obsessed!! i thought i was obsessed, but no, there's people counting down to the movie release date, t-shirts, character interviews, and you can watch the trailer and much more. november 21st. i'll be going opening night : )

Menari shoes

By the Adidas by Stella mccartney sneaker line. I love them. They're even cuter in person and comfortable. I can't shop for a long time.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Newest Cho

this is the newest edition to the cho clan: peyton.

he's so tiny!

Wedding Hanbok

oh you might be wondering why we were in cambridge and not in virginia during our dinner at Lexx and the altercation with the delivery man from wings over somerville.  the flight home was actually at a time we didn't realize, so we had to do a flight change.  if we wanted to come home on sunday at a normal time, we'd have to pay an additional $350, so instead we chose to come home today for an additional $150.  both penalties kind of suck, but it was the better of two evils.  we flew jetblue, and i love that airline, it's totally not their fault.  i watched the rachel zoe project and sex and the city on tbs the whole way home.  but actually it was a nice little time in our 24 hours in virginia.  the kids were totally totally insane!!  but that's expected.  they really have fun together so that's much better than us needing to entertain them the whole time.  abe's mom over fed us to death, and i got enough kim chi to keep my cabbage craving at bay for awhile.  i got to hold the new baby, which was a lot less intimidating than it normally is for me.  and his two nephews who usually forget who i am because they're so young, interacted with me a little bit.  and the most important part was that we got to discuss the wedding with his family a bit.  we'll be doing a traditional korean ceremony the night of the rehersal dinner.  abe gave me a cloudy overview of the ceremony, but his sisters really clarified it and made it seem like it was fun and worth the effort.  i get to wear a wedding hanbok that my future mother in law will provide:

the red skirt is long and empire cut because it's made to catch things in.  i'm supposed to bow to abe's elders - dad, uncles, etc.  and they drop walnuts and figs into my skirt (and money), to predict how many girls vs. boys we'll have as part of the ceremony.  i think this is a really nice tradition, and since we're having a less than traditional wedding, we will have atleast one family tradition to keep going.  

Wings Over Somerville

i have never eaten here.  but i can say this.  watch out for their drivers.  they might try to gun you down - i'm not even kidding, or like pop a cap in your ass.  this is actually a serious matter.  so if you're going to eat here, it's probably better to go in and pick it up.  my fiance almost got hit by one of their drivers while on a cross walk while all the other cars were stopped during a Red Light mind you, and then he threatened to shoot him all while yelling out racial slurs.  it was pretty ugly.  i was watching and listening from across the street and i panicked because i didn't have my phone on me to call the police.  the verbal exchange continued for a few minutes while the car just stopped and the driver kept yelling out of the car at abe about death and race.  i really thought that he was going to get out of his car and pull out some kind of handgun with the serial number scratched off.  we don't live in the ghetto, but we can't stop people from the wrong side of town driving down our street.  so we called the police and apparently all we can do is file a harassment charge.  we called wings over somerville, but the night manager was new and didn't know the cars of his 8 night drivers.  un-freakin-believeable.  i've gone years without having someone offend my heritage.  it's really really inappropriate and using that word is just uncalled for.  and then to bring weapons into the conversation is just beyond anything i've ever encountered.  i hope this man is ready to live on food stamps.

Lexx

Lexx in lexington center.  

we went there on a whim for dinner tonight and it was amazing. the menu has a great variety of american, italian, and fusion dishes.  there is even a thai stir fry dish on the menu along with jambalaya.  it's very interesting.  i got the linguini carciofi, abe got pork chops and yuri tried the jambalaya.  there wasn't one piece of food left on our plates, we just devoured it.  to me the carciofi was very authentic italian and abe's was very authentic american.  we started with the calamari special, which was basic calamari but very flavorful and a nice start.  we also started with a hummus plate that was really garlicy, but not too much, accompanied by roasted peppers, olives, and artichoke hearts on toast.  and on a saturday night at 7:30, there was no wait which is always a great plus.  the inside is modern and clean with a small bar in the front. the prices were upper moderate.  i think my meal was $16, and most things on the menu were $16-$22 for entrees which isn't bad because the portions were laura sized perfect meaning they were bigger than necessary.  the service was nice, the crowd was nice (middle aged upper class), and there's parking at meters all over lexington center.  it's worth the drive, it only took us 15 minutes to get there and we left with our hunger completely satisfied.

food  A-

i would give it an A, but for some reason there was something keeping me from that caliber grade.  i think it was the ambiance.  it was just a little too conservative for my tastes, like my mom and dad could walk in at any moment as opposed to seeing my best friends walk in at any moment.  i can't really hold that against the restaurant considering its in the burbs, but this is my blog so i'm going to.

Off to Virginia

We're heading to virginia to visit with abe's family for the weekend. one of his sister's just had another baby. here's the tally:
3 sisters
3 husband
6 kids
2 parents
that's a lot of people. my family is 4 people including me, so i'm sure you can feel the rush of anxiety i get with that many people in one room. it's just one weekend though, so i'll make it.

apparently there is a korean wedding tradition where the bride dresses in some kind of asian outfit with a big skirt and sits on the ground and everyone throws walnuts at her to catch on the skirt!!! and all abe's sisters did it! well after he clarified it made a little more sense, but still. do you know what that equals? 1 more outfit, and people throwing hard things at me. my entire family and all our friends would have no idea what was going on, and all the koreans would be tossing nuts. i'm kind of not sure this tradition exists though, i couldn't find it anywhere online to elaborate. we'll need to talk to his mom this weekend about it. honestly, i can't afford another outfit and i'm not really sure i want to do a change, we'll see though.... this might be a myth or a trick.

Matching Graffiti

in case you can't read that artistry on the butt of the bride it says: Wifey.
just in case anyone was wondering if this shiz was for real, i am pretty sure it is. i have more pictures in an email forward. this would be about the time that my dad cried in agony.

Hakurei Turnips

Hakurei Turnips!!

so we got these turnips in our CSA pickup last week and we were both just staring at them like: what the F are we supposed to do with them? so i altered a recipe for Turnip Mashed Potatoes. they're lighter than mashed potatoes and healthier and they taste really great!




1 bunch of hakurei turnips
3-4 medium potatoes
salt and pepper
diced dried onions
butter

Peel turnips like you'd peel a potato. cut into halves and boil along with potatoes for about 30 minutes. drain. use a hand mixer on low and mix them all together back in the pot. add 2 tablespoons of butter and mix again. add 2 tablespoons of diced dried onions, and then salt and pepper to taste, while mixing.

total time 40 minutes.
i think this probably serves 3-4. the two of us had way too much leftover.

Belle du jour

i have a strange urge today to pack an overnight bag, blindfold abe, jump in the car, and go on a little road trip.  unfortunately, that's just not going to happen because i have to get up for work tomorrow.  but if i could do it, i would pack some light clothes and pretty dresses and drive right to Charleston.  why there?  i have no idea, but i was thinking that it was drive-able with places to stop along the way and i've just always wanted to go there for a weekend.  i would stay at the French Quarter Inn  and i'd go walk around town in my sunday best waving and smiling at everyone.  i'd fill myself up with southern comforts and maybe even try that mint julep everyone there is so fond of.  that is what i'm going to be daydreaming about until i start thinking about my christmas list.  

this is no 12k wedding

we're having our engagement pictures taken in october. practically a year after we got engaged! so we were thinking to do the typical "we're from boston, so lets take pictures in the garden" concept. but guess what people. boston expects me to pay $100 for a permit to have our photos taken in the park for an hour. they are not messing around either.

so not only is everyone out to eat our money, but the city is too. i think we should look into alternative locations. i heard the north end is pretty good (although the north end has no special meaning to us). background is just background i guess, and spending $100 for it seems retarded - or am i being retarded? abe likes to say that i love to pinch pennies and spend dollars.

however, i will say that by doing all the paper products myself (save the dates, invitations, name cards, table numbers, programs) that will save us around $1,500+ since we had originally budgeted to have save the dates and invitations custom printed. so maybe those are pennies in a wedding budget, but i'm quite proud of that. my dress went over budget, catering went over budget, photographer went over budget, the only places left to save anything is the small stuff but maybe it will be easier to save pennies on each small thing to add up to a decent number. that's what i'm going to hope for anyways.

Save our Date

A sneak peek at our Save-the-Date.
it's on the way to be printed... once i find a printer and the perfect letterpress paper. the paper is actually a lot harder than one might think... or i'm being insane.

Queen of the roast

for the record: my pot roast was awesome.

i did honestly overstuff my crock pot with a 3.5 pound roast, potatos, onions, carrots and beef broth, but i didn't give a shit because i knew deep down that everything would be fine. abe almost had a panic attack when i read my blog yesterday, but he was surprised and thrilled to know that everything was perfect when we got home from work and he's even eating the leftovers for lunch today. the kitchen is fine, nothing overflowed, everything was nicely cooked.

i feel redemption.

Again with the roast

i'm currently making a lot of poor choices.

today, i might have made another bad one. i was warned by abe not to do it, and what could happen if something went bad. but i did it anyways. i stuffed a 3.5 pound roast with veggies into my small crockpot, set it on low, and expect it to cook for about 10 hours to perfection/absolute disaster. i've just always loved the idea of coming home to an already cooked dinner.

hopefully it hasn't boiled over and destroyed the kitchen. hopefully it cooks all the way through. those are the only things i can ask for right now.

one massive cloud

the cloud of gloom has spread all around me and it just doesn't want to leave me yet. i'm having a lot of anxiety and it's sucking the life right out of me. i thought it was just the whole Papyrus mess which actually was finally resolved today (42 hours too long if you ask me), but that doesn't seem to be it. i got the news we'd be refunded 100% and i was just kind of like: yeah that's nice. i'm still angry that it came down to me making threats... actually i was feeling timid, so i enlisted my mom to call them, they did not like that but they brought it on themselves (Jerks). since last week i just haven't been feeling up to speed, i'm drained, i'm not really liking people right now, and my lack of exercise is probably not helping, and i'm really pissed that my hair is 3 inches too long with split ends and it's like nobody has the time for me including my hair stylist. what am i, chopped freakin liver? i feel like i could burst into tears at any moment, but i'm not going to give Life the satisfaction of that.


you know what always cheers me up just a little bit? online window shopping of course.



Silver posted pearl earrings with diamonds, aren't they adorable? David Yurman.


Kooba, small Halle bag. Saks $495

Papyrus

Don't order any paper product from Papyrus: save the dates, invitations, etc.

They have the worst customer service on the planet. Unprofessional, rude, and downright bad.

Sonsie booo

it used to be my favorite Newbury street restaurant, but now it's not. i get the same thing every single time i go there, and this time it was bad. it wasn't like food poisoning bad, but it was close, i ate a tiny bit and was severely disappointed the entire time. i might never go back. the sangria was fantastic, but that didn't make up for the fact that i was starving. the calamari was blah, the spicy thai noodles were not even spicey and they tasted like someone just poured some kind of mild sauce all over and after the first bite i just knew that i'd have to go home and eat something else for dinner.

sonsie: it's not me, it's you.

Paper should not be scary

i am like a walking anxiety time bomb right now.

i've decided to make our wedding invitations myself.
a. we chose a design already, so i can just copy it exactly on a mac.
b. i'm a graphic designer.
c. what is the problem?...i'm just a worrier.

i've ordered a bunch of paper samples online.

this should be interesting.

Rebecca Minkoff Tote

how cute is this tote? i love it. it's by Rebecca Minkoff and i just saw it on Hautelook this morning, but it's still $338. too much i think, but it's really roomy and a nice colored leather. it was already in someone's checkout cart though so that's good that i couldn't even be tempted.

My first antique

Abe went to a little antique store in Cambridge today and picked me up an antique elephant. Its made out of seashells and its super cute! If anyone really knows me they are aware that I don't have anything old. The idea of antiques has never been at all intersting to me for so many reasons but it looks like my mind has been changed.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Berry Line!!

i finally made it to berry line in harvard square.  it's this tiny little 'frozen yogurt' joint on arrow street that you'd probably walk right by unless you knew it was there.  they claim to be the Pinkberry of cambridge, and that assumption is pretty good.  they offer 3 flavors of yogurt at only 25 calories per serving and all the same toppings that pinkberry has: fruits, cereals, nuts, candy, things you would never even want.... and they even have the rice balls under the counter if you ask for them: Just Like Pinkberry.  i ate it in about 3 minutes and i swear it was the best frozen treat i've had since i was at pinkberry in the spring.  it was awesome, i wish i had gotten a bigger size, the small was just too small!

Stella Bag

The Stella bag by Antoinette Lee. i love it. it's big and it will fit all your needs while still looking cute.

Daily laugh

i am sorry for what i'm about to do.

http://www.dooce.com/archives/daily/09_10_2004.html

this made me laugh out loud and shake the walls of my 5 foot cubicle. if you have aversions to either bathroom jokes or pregnancy, you should just skip this one.

For the Ears

lately i've been really into fashionable great earrings. i love these from anthropologie. my only problem is that i don't like buying cheap ass shitty jewelry that will fade and leave marks on my ears or rust or something. so luckily, these are 14k gold fill $128.




These works of art are also from anthropologie (my new favorite store despite their prices). i feel like earrings like this make a woman go: oooooohhh ahhhhhh and a man go: what the fuck is that hanging from her ear? whatever though, to each their own. these are metal, enamel and plastic. probably not as awesome as 14k gold fill. $78.

Gourmet Catering

last night we had a tasting at Gourmet Catering for the upcoming wedding. i had really mediocre hopes about this because i've honestly never had Good wedding food. i've had decent wedding food, and i've had buffet style with stations (i seriously hate this kind the most), and i've had really crappy wedding food. i went thinking that they would please me, but not wow me. this place Wowed me. we got to try the passed hors d'eouves, salads, and then our chicken entree and beef and lobster tail entree, and then desserts (we didn't even ask for desserts), and the best part is that they gave us all the miniature desserts (like 12 of them) to take home with us that we didn't finish at the table. this place had food that was restaurant quality, really nice presentation, the portions were big, and they even let us look into the kitchen. what kind of catering company does that? a really good one. i think we're going to book them because they stressed that they would do anything to make me happy. they will even have bride and groom chocolate dipped strawberries! they will even provide me with the exact linen tablecloths that i want.

did i mention this tasting was Free of Charge?? other places are not free, keep that in mind, and tell them i sent you.

Do i know you?

i live in the same building as someone i used to work with, we'll call him Chester. the very first time that i set foot into our garage unloading my first car load of belongings, Chester walked out of the elevator to throw away his trash. i looked at him in the distance and was like: that looks just like Chester. so then later, we got assigned a parking spot and i find out that it's right next to his assigned parking spot. great. i saw him again after work one day getting out of his car, abe and i were in the elevator so we waited for him and when he got in i said "hey how's it going?". clearly that is something i only say to people i know because by now i had confirmed that it was indeed Chester. he looked down at me quickly and said hi or something and that was that. another night, i came home a little later from happy hour and i had to go in the front door to pick up our mail and he was out on his mini balcony on his phone/looking at his phone. i looked up waved and said hi. he looked down said hi and then ran away. he literally ran away, he pretended to pick up his phone and he ran away, i know there was nobody on the other line. at this point i'm kind of like: what the freakin hell, this is so stupid. so i had someone mention to him that we live in the same building. he claims "i knew i recognized her from somewhere but i couldn't place her, and i felt stupid because i wasn't even sure if i knew her." i would like to remind the readers that we worked together in the same office, seeing each other multiple times a day for over a year. over a year! i would also like to say that i'm pretty recognizable. so now, we're playing a game called "avoidance or uncomfortable presence till i move out".

evidence that he should know who i am:
my last name is on my mailbox and nobody else has it
we worked together for over a year
i had someone mention to him i lived there
i've said hi more than once
all asians do not look alike

this is very frustrating and annoying. i could easily take the bull by its horns but i really have nothing to say to Chester anyways, it just really peeves me.

Oddest comment ever

i was outside my place last night when i girl walked by on her cell phone, she said "so tuna fish on blueberry pancakes." she said it like a statement, not like a question, like it was the tail end of a story she was telling someone on the other line.

what in the hell kind of story could it have been?

Twilight

i read this book in less than 24 hours. it's a series by Stephanie Meyer so luckily for me there is much more to come. Also Twilight the movie is coming out in November, and obviously i'll be there on opening day even though it will probably be a kids movie with lots of babysitters and parents. whatever. i'm going to assume that people think they wouldn't be interested in reading a book about vampires... it sounds sort of weird. but then remember how fast harry potter took off and that was a book about wizards, so maybe it's not quite that strange. this book is about vampires, and love, and maybe even a little coming of age. this book is good for people who can step outside of the box, and bad for people who can't.

Bar Harbor, 08

Day 1 in Bar Harbor
Thank god for Yuri's new car!! our ride was much more comfortable this year thanks to yuri turning his death trap of a jeep for a shiny new bmw x5. having a head rest in the backseat changed that 5 hours a great deal. once we got to the harborside hotel we went straight to Getty's for lunch, it's probably our favorite part of the trip. abe got a beer and they put it in a funny little bag for him, the picture isn't so great though. we strolled around most of the day and through an art fair filled with lots of handmade stuff that nobody really needed. we took a suggestion from one of abe's sisters and went to Havana for dinner. it was really cute, and i liked the atmosphere, but abe and yuri got really really drunk somehow and we turned into "those people". we were really loud throughout dinner, but they should have known better than to put us in the really quiet room. for an appetizer i got the wild mushroom spring rolls, they were totally to die for. amazing!! for my entree, i got the special which was scallops cooked in a goat cheese and tomato sauce with a little shredded squash salad. it was ok...but more on that later. abe got baked stuffed lobster, and he would have enjoyed it if his taste buds were working. he was all stuffed up and couldn't really taste much. we left and stopped into an ice cream parlor for dessert, and i was so excited to find they had Rainbow Sherbert!! this is my favorite frozen dessert ever and they even had rainbow sprinkles. abe thought he was being really inventive with his dessert. he was like: this sounds crazy, but can i get 2 of these chocolate chip cookies and a scoop of that ice cream between them? they were like: so like our ice cream sandwich? and there was a huge poster right on the wall. whatever, we ate every bite. we got home and jumped in our balcony hot tub before hitting the hay. then i had a terrible reaction to goat cheese. never ever let me near goat cheese again, i've never felt so awful.







Bar Harbor, Day 2
We woke up and went to This Way Cafe for breakfast under recommendation to someone at my work. it was AWESOME!!! i can't even tell you how great everything was. i got blueberry pancakes, homefries, and turkey bacon, and a bloody mary. i could have died and gone to heaven right there. i loved it. those were the best blueberry pancakes i've ever had in my life. our waitress said they call them crackberry pancakes because they're so addicting. in fact. i loved it so much we went back on Day 3 before leaving bar harbor. after our power breakfast, i think we were all put into food comas. i had to take a long nap before our bike ride through Acadia. at breakfast a guy said that the winds were going to get up to 30 knots today. so we decided not to kayak and that was probably a really good piece of overheard information. people probably don't remember our 6 hour bike riding disaster of last year when we got lost and then were forced to take the most obscene way back possible on a cliff highway in the scorching sun, so this year comparatively was much more tame. probably 10ish miles of hills but mostly not the kind of hills that make you swear out loud. for dinner we wanted to try something new so we went to McKays for some lobsters. i really liked the food here. i got their special garden salad, and then a boiled lobster which was served over jasmine rice and carrots. it was a good lobster, but he was only 1.5 pounds and seriously i was still hungry after. we were seated among the most annoying people on the planet. i wish i couldn't hear them, and even more so i wish i couldn't see them. they were hideous. the main voice was either a muppet or a transvestite, and everyone else could have won ugly contests. so we couldn't stay there for dessert, it was just not happening, but our lovely waitress recommended that we try Rupanunis down the street. we went there and got blueberry pie and drinks, it was really cute!

on Day 3 we went back to This Way Cafe for a moderately heavy breakfast, bought mugs, and then got into the car for the ride home. we stopped in portland to have lunch at Flatbread Pizza and then continued on. it was a long day of just driving really. next year i might want to take an additional day off to recover!