MTB

It’s been very balmy in Minneapolis as of late.  A whopping 34 degrees today and yesterday!  New Yorkers would be walking around in UGGS, a scarf wrapped around their necks 50 times, and a huge furry hat with ear flaps.

And to make it worse, it’s often very sunny here.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining.  But it’s quite the teaser when you’re stuck in the office at your cubicle and you watch that beautiful sun and sunshine come and go and walk out into darkness when you’re done with your day.  Depressing.

I just watched the lighting of the tree in Rockefeller Center on NBC and I don’t know why.  An hour of my life I won’t be getting back.  Don’t worry, I was multi-tasking, at least.

But, I have a question — how have the Rockettes survived the recession?  Doesn’t it seem like all other shows, symphonies, and Broadway are really hurting?

Maybe the Rockettes are different because they’re giving the audience a crotch shot every other second.  Pretty girls and crotch shots.  I suppose that is well worth your $$.  Something people want to go see, for sure.

It does seem like they’ve streamlined a bit — not as many women in the group.  I am happy to see they’ve thrown in the token Black and Asian women.  FINALLY.

I am quite impressed that they are all the same exact size, kick to the same exact height, and have the same exact timing.  Nicely done.

All I can say is that when I was on the pom-pon squad, we could never get it that perfect.  But then of course we had fat girls, skinny girls, short and tall.  I can see why the Rockettes are so stringent on their requirements.  Effective!

Monday is my yoga days with Beth, who I have grown fond of.

I came home from work and, as usual, I tried to think of reasons not to go to yoga because of that silly, tired feeling you get after a long day of sitting on your ass in front of a computer.  Or reasons why I should drive the 3/4 mile to the gym rather than walking in the 18 degree weather.

My senses got the better of me so I bundled up and walked my ass to yoga in that 18 degree weather.

Well, I got there because, really, there’s nothing better than starting a manic Monday with a little bit of yoga and Beth wanted her class to continue feeling the love coming out of the long weekend and the holiday and continuing into the the December holidays.

After having been broken up for a bit over a week now, ironically, I certainly felt the love, and have been feeling the love from my siblings and parents as they have been incredibly supportive, along with my friends, as well.

And when I came out of the gym that’s smack in the middle of downtown, there was a wonderfully serene feeling as the winds had died down and the 18 degree weather felt refreshingly crisp and clean.

Wait, was the city serene or desolate?

Well, that’s neither here nor there since I live in downtown Minneapolis.  I’m going with serene (desolate).

The human body is amazing.  When I returned from Atlanta I didn’t think I could face this cold.  The thought of single digit and sub zero weather just chills me to the bones, makes me cringe, and seems unbearable.  But really, when it comes down to it, we humans adapt.  I mean, I’m a great example of this.  At 5:10pm I wanted the to drive to the gym that’s only 3/4 of a mile away and then I’m walking out of the gym in the same weather at 7pm and strolling down the streets back to my condo.  We are truly adaptive.

I’m feeling handy now that I’ve completed some home improvement projects in my condo.  My husfrenn, Peter, gave me an extra drill he had so I had to go out and buy some drill bits to take down a cheesy, unfinished, rudimentary wine rack the previous owner built into the wall.  There were five shelves.  Five shelves??  Who needs five shelves for wine in a one bedroom condo??  Not this girl.  I mean, don’t get me wrong, I like to get my wine on, but that’s a bit much.

  (I just tried to turn that photo upside down but it did not work.  Notice my feet at the top of the photo!)

I’m going to open this bad boy up and take down that wine rack like a mother.  And I’ve been trying to give away the perfectly pristine wood since the rack was not stained.  My friend, Mike, at work refused the wood.  How could he??  He’ a woodworker on the side and he refused my wood.  So while I was shopping at Home Depot, I went to say hello to Maria, the paint counter girl, that I became friendly with.  One day, at that Home Depot, I ran into one of my ex-bf’s college friends and an extremely awkward conversation ensued.  This was happening right in front of the paint counter and Maria happened to witness the meeting and feel the awkwardness.  After we said our farewells, I started talking paint with Maria, and she confessed that she wasn’t sure if she should interject in this awkward convo because she said it seemed I needed saving.  Awww, how thoughtful!

So, anywho, I recalled that the other paint counter dude told me that Maria did woodworking, so I quickly synthesized the two and two and had an epiphany!  I asked Maria if she still did woodworking and offered her my old winerack wood!  She said yes!  Success!  Now I won’t have to throw out that wood.

Man, that love is just going round and round.

And now I’m really feeling the love.  Yeah, Gentleman Jack’s loooooooove.  Mhmmm.

On Thanksgiving day, I took a trip down to Atlanta where my whole family, including my 7 month old nephew, spent our Thanksgiving with my brother-in-law’s family, who are all based in Atlanta.

Actually, my sister’s parents-in-law now live most of the time in Las Vegas, but will take a private jet down to Atlanta from time to time.  Yes, I said private jet.

This is the second year we got to spend time in Atlanta with my brother-in-law’s family, which we really enjoy doing.

I love this sign I saw in the security line:

That’s a little agist isn’t it?  I mean, first of all, we all know it really doesn’t matter if people go through security with their shoes and jackets on.  Come on.  second of all, an older person, older than 75 can easily walk onto a plane with a bomb strapped to him/her.  I mean, do terrorists know about this?  If I were a terrorist, I’d be enlisting radical 75 year old to do my work on the airplanes.  Ok, that sounds a little inappropriate and insensitive, but I think you get my point.  Just an interesting sign.  If you’re going to have rules or precautions based on certain reasons, you might as well apply them to everyone.  Even if they’re stupid, meaningless precautions.  As my friend, Jason Horner, says, the airlines only make you take off jackets and shoes to make the people feel safer.   I can see that.

Going there, I got upgraded to business class, as I was sitting with the rest of the coach class suckers the flight attendant said, “Are you ____ _____”?  I said, “Why yes I am?”  Then she escorted me to my new seat.  I had already had breakfast and a quick slice of pizza at the airport and thought that I wouldn’t eat too much before the big, yummy Thanksgiving meal my brother-in-law’s mother makes (I love her homemade stuffing).  But since I got upgraded, my plans to eat light were foiled because they serve lunch in business class!  And you all know I can’t resist food when it’s put in front of me.  So, I had another lunch.  Lunch x 2.  Man, I’m a pig!

Here’s my view from my first row seat.  And I don’t know what it is about being able to see into the cockpit — I just get so curious about what it’s like in there, probably because they keep that door locked!

My return flight was even better!  I was upgraded again.  As I was boarding, I scanned my boarding pass and they printed me a new ticket with a new seat.  It was like winning the lottery!  Ok, not really.  But exciting for about 3 seconds.  This business class was really big.  It had an actual pillow with an actual pillow case along with a comforter!  Just for a flight to Minneapolis.  And the seat reclined further back than usual and you could kick up your legs.  For a girl that can not sleep on planes, you would think I’d be in heaven.  But it was a no-go.  I slept for a few minutes as the plane was taking off (there something about that rocking/vibrating movement that puts me to sleep — in cars and trains, too!).  Then, I was back to my restless self.

They served breakfast on the flight.  Being the prepared girl I am, I bought a turkey sandwich for the almost three hour flight.  Don’t worry, this time I didn’t have two lunches.  Instead, that $9 turkey sandwich is sitting in my fridge, all the way from Atlanta.  And it will sit in my fridge for a few more days until I muster the heart to throw it out because I know I won’t eat it.

Oh, and I almost forgot about this:

Lucky ATL!  How’d they get so lucky?

Time with my family was great.  I’ve found that living so far away from them is getting more and more difficult and coming home to Minneapolis by myself is a very lonely feeling.  Then, add to it that Atlanta was in the 60’s during Thanksgiving and I come back to this:

The Minnesotan winter has arrived.  *Whimper*

I’m just in here dusting off the cobwebs.  Don’t mind me.

I logged in for the first time in over a year and I had over 1,300 SPAM comments.

I’ve been a little busy with some “things” over the past year and I’m ready to be blogging again about nothing in particular.

I’m drinking some Gentleman Jack on the rocks that my friend Stephanie got me as a housewarming gift.  Yes, I am a home owner now.  Condo, not house.  I ain’t doing all that yard work and shoveling.  Psh.  I’d rather pay someone to do that!  I did enough of that on Luther Road and Overhill Drive.  Unwillingly, of course.  Unless we got paid.  Hee-hee.

Tomorrow I’m off to Atlanta.

Yes, Atlanta for T-day.  I will explain later.

Here, in Gopher country, you don’t see a lot of Blue or Wolverines walking around.  In fact, when I see someone with something UM (MICHIGAN) related on, I try to say “Go Blue!!” to them but oftentimes they don’t hear me.  🙁

I get a lot of crap from guys at work about being from Michigan and the “other” U of M.  Mostly, I think they’re just jealous that we are better than them.  It’s nothing I can’t handle.  In fact, I don’t really fight back because I just know we are better.

So, I brought in a block M flag to work.  A nice sized one — a 2′ x 3′ — and hung it on my cubicle wall.

I got some immediate visceral reactions — and in fact, the guy who works on the other side of the building and went to MSU happened to walk by the day I put it up —  it was just what I was hoping for.

Yesterday, I had an all day training and came back to this:

And the filthy vandals even went so far to do this:

AHHHHH!

I’m playing it cool because that’s what we classy Wolverines do.

Yes, I did it.  I went back for a second round at the Minnesota State Fair.  This time I went with Madoka, my work friend, and Ike.

We parked in Ike’s work parking lot, which is something like a 7 minute walk to the state fairgrounds.  There are train tracks that border his building, which we needed to cross to get to the fair.  And just as our luck had it, a train was passing by and it kept going and going with no end in sight.  Then, it stopped.

Darn!  So, I thought we’d have to wait.  Then I saw people climbing through the train and I thought and said aloud, “OMG, are they crazy??”  And a few minutes went by and the train wasn’t moving.  So, guess what we did?  Yeah, we started climbing over it, too!  It was quite thrilling!!

That’s Madoka and Ike.

We hit the birthing center first because I really wanted to try to witness some kind of farm animal being born.

Baby lambs!

There was a huge cow in labor and we could see some mucus coming out orifices at both ends of her body.  She seemed like she was ready to roll any minute, but the vet said it would be at least a couple hours or into the night until she gave birth.  Though, it seemed like she was having contractions.  Weeeeeird!  For some reason I forgot to take a photo.  And I decided to relinquish the idea that seeing a live animal birth would have made my Minnesota State Fair experience complete and move on to eating.

I ate a lot. A ton.  Too much, but I didn’t care as long as my stomach could handle it, and it did.  Atta boy, Stomach!

We started off the night with some lovely fried cheese curds, except this time we had them at a different spot.

Then, we all enjoyed a corn on the cob, each, dipped in melted butter with some salt sprinkled on it.

Then, I indulged in some key lime pie on a stick covered with dark chocolate:

Mmmmmmmmmmmm.

The other two didn’t find it as appetizing as I did, but there’s something about the tanginess and creaminess that I can’t get enough of.

We continued to walk around and I realized it was time for a bratwurst with sauerkraut and mustard.  DELICIOUS.

We circled back around to the flowering onion stand because it was the end of the night and the line had dwindled.  $8 for a deep fried flowered onion.  Whoa.

Phew.  At that point, the only thing I could squeeze in was a small beer.

Oh yeah, we went to see the art and arts&crafts building too.  The art was awesome, but arts&crafts — BO-RING.

We made our way to the Midway (rides and games) so we could kill time before the fireworks.  Throughout the night, Madoka kept pointing to a little ladybug pillow pet and saying how much she wanted it.  So, I decided that I needed to take matters into my own hands since Ike was not willing.  So, I picked out a super easy game to play (the one where you squirt water into a hole and it makes something rise up).

I played once and lost.  Madoka played once and lost.  Madoka played a second time and lost.  And the second time I played — BOO-YAH!  I won!  I won, I won, I won!!!

And MAN, was I a sore winner!  I cheered and jumped up and down and then Ike said to me — “Yeah, aren’t you so happy you beat out that 8-year-old boy over there?!?!”

Yes, why yes I was!  Because I won Madoka the thing she wanted all night!

The second trip to the State Fair was totally worth the $80 I spent throughout the course of the night.

Last night, I had the opportunity to experience the awesomeness the locals here call the MINNESOTA STATE FAIR!!!

I have to admit that I was very skeptical and hesitant because I abhor crowds, especially during the summer when it’s hot and sticky and you’re touching the bare, sweaty skin of way too many people you do not know.

Also, deep fried candy bars just don’t sound that appealing to me.

But, last night the temps were in the 70’s and my friend and I went at night and the crowd had dwindled down a bit, as if it were like they were clearing out just for me and they knew how much I panic and get anxious walking through crowds!

My friend got a foot long hot dog but I knew that would be too big for me and I wanted to pace myself.  So I started with a big, fat slab of bacon on a stick:

You can see the stand in the background!  Salty, fatty goodness.  My friend was very proud of me for diving right into it.

We then ventured to look for something a little healthier and since I love corn on the cob (oh yes, I am a Michigan girl), we found a corn on the cob.  There were a dozen youngsters around a huge grill grilling the corn.  They took the cob off the grill, dipped the whole thing in a vat of melted butter and handed it to me.  I sprinkled on some salt and I chomped away at it.  Yummmm.

Then we went on a ski lift ride (what are those really called, anyway?) and rode across the grounds in the sky.  ‘Twas quite a nice evening: cool weather, not humid, and good company.

From up above, on the ski lift, we saw this attraction called Giant Sing Along.  What is it about people and wanting to sing in public and sing along with other people singing in public?  (I.e., KARAOKE??)  I mean, don’t get me wrong.  I love karaoke, but that’s because I love to sing.  Some people love to sing and they can’t sing.  I find that to be interesting because I really hate doing things I’m not good at.  Such as a lot of video games.  I hate ’em.

So, anywho — here’s the Giant Sing Along:

On the other side of that giant box, there was a big screen with words and the music came out from a bunch of loud speakers.  In front of that box, you can see there is a crowd of people standing in front of a bunch of posts with mics in them.  Interesting, eh?  And when we were on the ski lift, they all started singing “Don’t Stop Believing.”  I know — that is a fun song to sing along to!

My friend and I went on to eat some cheese curds.  They were good.  Salty, but good, but we couldn’t finish them so we threw half of them away.  I know, sort of sounds a little wrong, doesn’t it?

And now on to the highlight of my evening.  We were walking along and we spotted a giant glowing robot!  A real live robot!  My friend had heard about it being at the fair so he was really excited to see it.  It was tall and ominous.  (And yes, we knew there was someone inside there.  There had to be because it was talking and reacting to people and moving just like a person.)  Very smooth.

I jumped in front of it to take a photo with my iPhone and he stopped right in front of me.  Then suddenly we heard the wedding march song.  Dum-dum-de-dum.  Dum-dum-de-dum!

He started walking towards me and I stopped in my tracks and was looking up at him in awe.  I was completely dumbfounded, floored, and flattered.

The wedding march song continued to play and he said a bunch of stuff along the lines of “Who do we have here?  Blah blah blah,” and hitting on me!

He started coming after me and saying something about who I was with or who was going to defend me.  Everyone in the crowd was watching us and people were even filming our encounter!  He kept walking towards me, taking slow, deliberate steps and babbling and babbling, but I was so taken off guard that I just stood there and stared!  I didn’t hear a thing he said.

Instead of letting it drag on, my friend played along and stepped in front of me to protect me from him.  And the robot retreated.

It was time for it to go nite-nite.

Isn’t that awesome?!?!?

It’s like I was in Iron Man the movie or something.  Man, it was a fun night and what made it better was that I didn’t have a heart attack from all that grease.

I want to go back for more before it’s over on Labor Day!

Last week, the doctor asked that I take it easy on myself and not run for 5 weeks.

That is a serious bummer.  So, today I decided to take a stroll through Nicollet Mall to return some pants I bought at Off 5th and to do a little “eye shopping”.  (That is what my mother calls window shopping — which makes a little more sense than window shopping, if you ask me).

I haven’t been splurging with the shopping and going crazy because I feel like I have too many clothes than what I know what to do with.  Not being on the dating scene and staying in on many weekends means a lot of cute tops, jeans, and dresses do not get worn.  So, I have put myself on a mild shopping ban.

If I am out and about and see something that I like, I think to myself, “Do I already have something like this?”  And it is most likely I do.

However, today, I bought three pairs of shoes.  Yes, three pairs.  And they are all justifiable because I needed them, and plus, the were $88 total!  Yeah, for all three pairs!!

JUSTIFICATION:

a) Brown pumps are for work.  My light brown pumps are very badly worn out and I’ve already spent $20 getting them repaired a that expensive-ass Macy’s shoe repair that I wrote about before.  The heels are a little high, but that’s ok considering I sit at a desk all day.

b) Black t-strap sandals:  surprisingly, I do not have a pair like these and they were super comfy.

c) Brown t-strap sandals:  also surprisingly, I do not have a pair like these.  Yes, they are similar to the black, but they are brown. And plus, they have a mild heel, which I like.  My tall ass does not need super high heels all the time.

Then, I headed to the bookstore.  I just browsed around and found some interesting books that I’d like to pick up.  Then, I exercised the same kind of questioning when I encountered a book I thought would be compelling.  I asked myself, “Do I have a book that is similar to this one?”  It is most likely that I have a book like it.  Plus, I have a gazillion books that I have not read.

See?

Notice how some books are piled up behind the nicely  lined up books in the “front row”.  I haven’t read like 90% of those books.  And some of them are from business school.

JUST KIDDING.  Maybe it’s more like 75%.  Ok, maybe more like 60%.  And now I am just kidding myself.

That’s my living room, btw!

My peeps are making some waves in the literary world.  Check out these findings:

That book “Please Look After My Mom” is supposedly the biggest selling novel in Korea or something like that.  My mom actually recently gave me a copy and I started to read it.  This little trip to B&N reminded me that I should try to read it.

And actually, this trip to the bookstore reminded me that maybe I want to read some of my favorites again like “The Catcher in the Rye,” and “The Fountainhead.”

I’d never heard about the one about the Korean deli.  I’m curious about it, but I wasn’t curious enough to purchase it.  Haha.

But, I did pick up one little nerdy book because it was on a super sale.  Now, why on Earth would this little gem be on a super sale?  To me, super sales mean that the item did not sell out and was not that popular.  It was $4.98, baby!  This is just the little nerd in me coming out.

If you ask me, it’s a pretty awesome book:

“The Scientific 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Scientists, Past and Present”!!  Isn’t this a perfect coffee table book?  I’m excited to thumb through it.  I wish I had it when I was teaching science.  Darn.  Better late than never.

I also picked up a copy of the Mpls St Paul magazine to try to venture out and try new restaurants in the area.

Phew, and that is all!  Lots of photos in this post, folks.

Can you believe it’ll be August tomorrow?

I had a strange dream that it was daylight savings time again and we adjusted all our clocks.  I woke up, and I could have sworn that my alarm clock and my phone clock did not match.  Then, I went back to bed thinking how crazy it was that we were doing daylight savings in July.

I need to cut back on the poison that is called booze.

Hangover successfully diverted, today.  By the way.  YES.

Today I went to have an unofficial golf lesson with my friend, Matt, at the University of Minnesota’s golf course driving range.

It was a ton of fun but it was like golfing in a sauna today!  I mean, I might as well have been swinging in a sauna.  I was dripping sweat — so much that it was getting in my eyes and Matt had to go to his car to get me a towel.  He really wanted me to take a photo of the sweat towel and put it on my blog.  Unfortunately, I didn’t get the chance to take a photo.  I may or may not have intentionally forgotten to take a photo.

Matt managed to take a video of my swinging.  Don’t worry, no need to comment on my swing — I know what my problems are –IT’S JUST THAT IT’S NOT THAT EASY TO FIX THEM, OK?!?!

Matt learned how hard I am on myself when I got pissed at myself for not doing what he told me to do.  It’s that darned Korean-ness in me.

Enjoy the video:

Ok, the video format can’t be loaded.  I tried to figure out how to change it but it won’t let me.

Enjoy the photo.

I went to the car dealer that I recently purchased my car from.

And in the showroom was sitting a little, shiny beauty:

I went up to it and I touched it gently.  There was a sales man who was talking about it with a customer, standing behind it.

He goes to me, “You’re wondering what it is, aren’t you?”

I say, “Oh, I know what it is. . . ”

It’s an Audi R8.  It was a used model.  This showroom is full of used cars — I bought my car used.  I think it’s the best way to go.  Plus my A3 was in pretty good condition and only year old.  I think I got a pretty good deal on it.

So back to little beauty.

I looked inside it — black and beautiful with a six-speed manual transmission.  Only $119,000.  Only $119,000.  And that’s the used price.  Talk about retaining it’s value.  But it’s not a V10.

I say to the sales guy, in awe, “Can we sit in it?”

Sales guy says, “No, no, no, the doors are all locked.”

Poop!

Then he says, “Maybe you can ask your sales guy and maybe he’ll go get the key and let you sit in it.”

My eyes got big.  Really??

I had been waiting a week to get my car back — just so they could turn off that service notice, fix a speaker, and get a front license plate bracket on, that I forgot to even ask my sales guy about sitting in it.

I MISSED MY OPPORTUNITY!!

Boohoohoohoo.  🙁