I'm Still Here

Sorry for the lack of postage. My to-do list has been getting so long and I've been getting so frustrated that I had to take a few days off and get some stuff together. And hten I worked, went and spoke to a college class, and just got home. So I'm real tired.

But I wanted to say hi! And hope you are sticking around! And I promise more posting about the following:

The Farmers' Market
Changing my last name
Reader requests
Watching my mother-in-law and four of her sisters finish the 60-Mile Susan G Komen Breast Cancer Walk on Sunday.

xoxo

Side of Slaw

Tonight, I made a purple cabbage slaw and it was mighty tasty.

Here's what I put in it:
2 small sweet red peppers (those smaller, skinnier ones)
half a head of purple cabbage
3 heads of baby bok choy
2 stalks celery
3 Haralson apples (Mmmm, nothing beats a Minnesota-grown Haralson)
3 full carrots, shredded

For the dressing, I used about a half a cup of apple cider vinegar, half a cup of Simply Orange juice, 3 or so tablespoons of honey (mmm, late summer harvest honey from Minnesota farms), salt and pepper.

I thought it'd be improved even with some bacon crumbles and blue cheese, but I thought of this too late.

It was super tasty, and I served it with white rice and some beef skewers I found at Target (an Asian BBQ sauce and sesame seeds on the outside).

Our new knives make me feel like a professional chef, even if William thinks I chop scarily. I would provide pictures but our point and shoot broke in Hawaii...what a pain.

Sorry, I've been in another rut of blogging. I have some ideas set up but none of them are ready to go yet.

William's grandparents kept track of at least one thing they did each day on their yearly calendars. I love that idea. So sometimes I might just post a something from our day. Written in their style, it might say something like this:
"beautiful weather today, in mid-80s. ate beef skewers and new slaw for dinner. spent time showing each other fun ideas on the internet."

OK, now I must go. I am finishing What is the What tonight and I'm not sure why this didn't win the Pulitzer Prize.

Weekend Roundup

Well, that was a rather rambunctious post, wasn't it? I wouldn't be surprised if there were more...after all, today John McCain is saying there's nothing wrong with the economy....I think we should all be able to agree after today's Wall Street ending that there's something wrong with the economy. We might disagree about how to fix it, but that's another story.
I don't intend for any readers to feel berated for coming here, but I feel very strongly about this election.

Moving on...

So, this weekend certainly had its fun moments, but I spent most of it feeling a little under the weather. Friday I was super stoked because William and I had planned a date night. While we really enjoy spending time together, we have been taking it easy with the dates, because we have spent so much money this year on the wedding and my not having a job. Even though I'm definitely still feeling the pinch, we decided to go out anyway.

I got home and we got ready right away to go to our favorite Thai restaurant. I was honestly a little giddy that we were going out. I maybe don't always express to William or to the world how much I love when we go out or how cute I think he is, or how I still giggle and turn red when he flirts with me. We ate a TON of food—we were both starving—and then it set in. The stomachache. I have a lot of stomach problems. Heartburn, cramps, sickness...it's a regular occurrence. I don't really need to get into details on the internet, but I'm sure you can draw your own conclusions.

But I was DETERMINED! We were going to eat good food and then go see the new Coen brothers movie, which I (unfortunately still am) psyched to see. I felt like I might explode, but I wanted to power through and see the movie with my honey. We went to the movie theater and discovered the time we wanted to see the movie was sold out, and the next one was like two hours away. Um, no. In a regular case I wouldn't want to wait that long, and especially since I was not feeling good I wasn't going to wait. So we reluctantly left, and rented a couple movies at McDonald's: Definitely Maybe and The Air I Breathe.
The Air I Breathe was terrible. We watched the whole thing but the plot really made no sense. It was quite B-movie despite all the good actors in it.
Definitely Maybe though? Was GREAT! I was so pleasantly surprised. It's a great little movie, cute rom-com. I go back and forth on how I feel about Ryan Reynolds, but I actually thought he was super hot in this, and he was really, really good in it, too. And to me, Abigail Breslin is always cute, and never crosses that saccharine line. Still, I felt bad that our date night fizzled a bit.

We each had our own things to do during the day, and then I had a fun bachelorette party at night. Lovely, lovely food—great job, ladies—and lots of laughs, including some jokes with Found Out About Me.

Sunday I had breakfast with another lovely non-blogging friend who moved out of town a couple years ago. I really miss her. We have a lot in common and we always have tons to talk about from books and movies and tv to jobs and relationships and big life decisions. Sometimes there are just people you click with and it's so easy to be friends with them, even if distance separates you.

Then there's the headache that developed on Sunday afternoon. it began as a little niggling ache, and I should know better and take something right away. But I didn't, and I neglected to really take time to care about myself on Sunday by running from place to place. Well, around 6 pm my brain had had enough. I was down for the count. I couldn't look at light, the TV, the Sunday newspaper...sounds made it worse, and even the pillow felt like it hurt. I could feel it radiating down my jaw, through my teeth. I was miserable.

William and I were hungry, but we hadn't grocery shopped, so there wasn't much to make a meal from. Luckily we had hit up the farmers' market, so we had some snacks to munch on...William chopped up some veggies and fruit and we snacked on the couch while I basically hid my eyes from any light stimulation. After the food kicked in and the Advil worked its magic, I was at least able to come out of my hidey-hole and watch Wedding Crashers and Old School (Vince Vaughn!) with William. I still wasn't feeling super great, so William rubbed my shoulders and arms and head while I laid on the couch. It felt amazing and was one of those acts of kindness that I truly appreciated. I had pretty much been a downer all weekend around William with my various aches and pains, but he was so understanding and loving about them. Thanks, love. I promise a more fun weekend next time.

So that was the weekend. And now we're back to our regularly scheduled blog programming.

Did you do anything fun?

Seven Years Later

.....

We're still doing the same damn things, and not getting any closer to solving the real problems we have created in the world.

We're all still suffering the effects—albeit some of us more abstractly than the pain of unfairly losing a loved one—of what happened seven years ago today. Life has gotten worse. I don't need to trot out all the reasons why. We have all lost, all of us. In ways that haunt, hurt, and plain make life uncomfortable these days.

And idiot McCain and his crazy cohort are LEADING the polls, although by a slim margin. How is that even possible? How are people even CONSIDERING that possibility?

What the hell is WRONG with this world and WHY THE HELL aren't more people angry, sad, want things to change? This goes beyond apathy into total insanity.

Don't bury your head in the sand. Vote. Properly. You don't even have to march, or preach, or donate to a cause. Just vote against the people who colluded in making this happen. If you don't care, please don't waste your vote. Exercise your right—we've been losing those left and right in the last seven years—and at least vote for the party who is smart enough to at least act like they care about you, your life, your family.

I think it's pretty clear what's gotta happen here. End this war. Develop an independent source of energy. Quit pissing on every other country that's playing in the sandbox. STOP KILLING PEOPLE. Stop funding war. Refuse to line the pockets of ginormous corporations that then donate to the cause. Take care of the problems we've created at home.

Honor the people who died here at home, and on foreign soil. Not just Americans. Don't make their deaths be in vain.

We are repeating mistakes, repeating history, and we are doomed if we don't figure this out soon. Get angry, but don't get even. As Gandhi said, "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."

Believe in peace.

See also: Last year's post.

See also: Kilipino.

What Would You Do If I Sang Outta Tune?

I felt the need to follow up with this Wonder Years post, due to the comments that were left to me, and I just don't have the juice to write something to follow up the first piece I've written in a while that I feel is rich with detail and possibility.

I've been feeling pretty nostalgic lately.

It's a few things: the changing of the seasons, for one. A cold front swept through Minnesota, and while usually we get some warm, even hot, days here in the fall, it feels like things have just Changed, with barely a warning.

On my way home from work the other day, I drove through the campus where I attended college, and drove past the dorm I lived in freshman year. There was a "Welcome Home" sign in the yard, and although I have no desire to repeat my freshman year of college--full as it was of angst, hatred for my roommate, and undiagnosed thyroid disease symptoms (although there were fun moments, too, don't get me wrong)--I felt sad. That isn't my home. Hasn't been for quite some time now. I wouldn't fit in, even if I wanted to. I still miss college.

I had a pretty sweet childhood. I ran around outside, not just with my neighbors, but with other friends, who lived two blocks away (we're still the closest of pals). I could ride my bike wherever I wanted, climb up into the trees at the park and read my books, lace on my skates and cruise around on the ice in the winter. I never felt scared or confined in the town I grew up in.

My parents were cool parents. They rarely imposed much ruling on me—mostly because I think I was so straight-laced as it was—but they also allowed me to develop my own interests. Never was a book banned, a piece of music tossed out, or a hobby laughed at (at least to my face). My parents and family let me be me. And I am so grateful to this day for it.

I know everyone looks back at their childhood—at least people who had good ones—with the lens that polishes everything to a golden sheen. But I do feel that my peers grew up the last of a certain generation. After old-school Nintendo faded out and Sega invaded, life became different. The world wide web snared everyone and their homes. Everything is virtual, more accessible, and it seems, more obscene. (Doesn't every generation think so?) A lot of kids aren't kids anymore. Ever. I rarely see kids out running wild. One, because it's too scary most places, and two, because they prefer the high score to the high of riding your bike down the steepest hill in your city. Kids are lured by posers online, whereas we were trained to just look out for the stranger with a lollipop.

My last post made me a little sad, too. I think of myself, almost frozen in time. A little sad that's all done and gone. There are definitely days or weeks where I'd love to travel back and just be 5, 8, 10, 12.

But then I think...if I were able to time travel, I'd tell Katie D., age 10:
Don't worry, but don't hurry. It gets harder, but it also gets really good.

The Wonder Years

A couple of days ago, I was talking about old-school Nintendo with a friend. And I was telling her how I used to play Mega Man with my next-door neighbor until we were bleeding from the eyeballs. And it opened a dam of memories for me, even though I've had those brief "I wonder what they're up to" thoughts from time to time.

We were an unlikely combo--he, two years behind me in school, and a boy to top it off, I functioned as he and his sister's babysitter. Yet, we had so much fun together. Plus, I could beat Snake Man, and so I was useful to the cause.

When I babysat, it was like playtime to the fortieth degree. I would let he and his sister (four years younger than me, as I recall) stay up til midnight--if they made it that long--and we would have a literal midnight snack. Then when the headlights appeared in the driveway, I'd yell "run! goodnight!" and they'd hop upstairs and feign sleep. One time they went to bed a normal hour and I heard a scary noise by the backdoor. I woke him up to check it out. Some babysitter.

I remember calling the local Top-40 radio station and requesting "7" by Prince—while I was making pancakes, no less—and the DJ playing the song. The kids thought I was a celebrity--my squeaky voice made it on the radio--and we ran around the house screaming and laughing after Tone E Fly played me.

Other times, we created whole new worlds with our imaginations—the swingset was sinking ship, we were scientists saving the world with our potions, or, more often, we pretended we were the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and I was always April, the reporter (some things never change, I guess).

My bedroom and his bedroom faced each other, although he was upstairs and I was downstairs. But all it took was a well-timed whisper or a blink of a flashlight, and we could chat away the evening long after we were supposed to be in bed asleep.

We raced down the street on our bikes, played ditch in the connecting backyards, set up a school, opened up a business selling lemonade. We pooled my babysitting money and our quarters and chewed grape Bubblelicious and ate Slow Pokes til we were sick.

The weekends where he and his sister went to his dad's house were pretty quiet for me. There weren't many kids in the neighborhood—and the ones that lived there, I didn't like. No imagination in those kids.

He and his sister were my buddies. His sister was a darling little girl, all giggles and dimples, who I loved to dress up and put makeup on (again, some things never change). She was a little sister to me, something I craved as the baby of the family.

Hide and seek. The Game of Life. Fresca. Taking pictures with my purple plastic camera that used disk film. Trips to the Science Museum. Jumping in piles of leaves, cartwheeling through the sprinkler, walking to the city pool, biking to the park. Ice skating. Renting video games and eating bomb pops til our mouths were blue.

We wouldn't go home for dinner 'til we were called by our moms at least twice. For some reason, my memories of those dinner bells were always in the fall, our hands like ice, our faces reddened from the wind.

I'm Not Gonna Do What You Told Me

This is what my home looks like right now.

This was right outside our windows on Sunday.


Riot police!


Riot police with riot horses! (I'm more scared of the horses).


Anarchy today (well, Saturday). They also smashed in the windows at Macy's.


A woman after my own heart.


When I was driving home tonight, I happened to be listening to the radio (unusual for me). And I caught that Rage Against the Machine was going to make an appearance at a free concert at the Capitol which is just blocks from my house. I anxiously awaited William coming home, since he loves Rage and I knew he'd want to go. He got home, all sweaty from riding his bike, and we quickchanged and ran to the Capitol, Molly in tow.

As it turned out, the police wouldn't let them play although they allowed the other (unknown) bands to play. It sucked. People were chanting for the band by singing the lyrics. If you ask me, they would have had a docile enough crowd, more so than the angry fans who wanted to see Rage (they also play tomorrow night in a more typical venue, but also for $60). We were surrounded by some seriously patchouli smelling hippies that were practicing synchronized meditation, so I figure we would have been pretty safe. :) Anyway, we waited and waited, with an antsy crowd. Eventually a bunch of cheers went up and they asked everyone to be really quiet and sit down. So we did.

And then we saw this:


That's right. De la Rocha and Morello with a megaphone. Despite teh fact that people had even done the soundcheck for them (and I spotted five guitars in the little rack, so I imagine they would have played a few songs), they werent' allowed to take the stage. So so so lame. In any case, they treated us to Bulls on Parade and Killing In The Name. De la Rocha did the raps and Morello sang the beats. The crowd helped with both.


And then:


I feel it necessary to note that I beat Tom Morello in Guitar Hero. Just sayin'. I do a wicked wah-wah-chicka-chicka-wah-wah, what can I say? (Please tell me you know what sound I'm making over the net.)

Molly doing her part as a concerned citidog. (in my excitement I forgot to put on her Dogs for Choice t-shirt).


Then as we were leaving, we inadvertently joined a peace march.


It was just described on the news as a "bunch of anarchists". It was totally peaceful and within its rights.


There were tons of these, and they're quite intimidating in person.


When they came out, the Fox cameraman I was standing next to said, "You might wanna get outta here, honey." Are you kidding? This will never happen again here! I mean, I'm not into getting tear gassed or pepper sprayed or anything.... I kept a safe distance but I wanted to drink it all in.

We rounded out our walk by checking out Chris Matthews, broadcasting from downtown, outside. Pretty fun. I hear that he Daily Show people got locked inside due to the escalating protesting. We missed the fire hoses, firecrackers, and gas.

I have to say that I love protesters. I'm not in favor of destroying property, especially when it has nothing to do with the issue at hand, but I love people who exercise their right to protest and who express their opinion. It brings an energy that I just love. I love seeing the people who care to a point to get out and do something, rather than just complain (which is something I'm guilty of).
I'm torn about the RNC. It's good for the Cities, financially and put us on the map as more than some kind of igloo country, but I'd rather it was the other ticket in town. We're typically a very progressive state and I feel like hosting the RNC doesn't represent the majority opinion here.

But I gotta say. I love the political process, messed up as it may be. And I'm loving this. Even if it means having riot police right outside my door.