I love cheese plates

Growing up, every so often my parents would not cook dinner and would instead get cheese and bread and grapes and chocolate and we'd eat a picnic on the living room floor.  I have very fond memories of this, possibly because it was a break from tradition, possibly because part of dinner was chocolate.

Recently I've had a couple picnics, the TallMan and I had one recently while doing laundry and watching some crappy vampire movie. Saturday the TallMan, mom and I had a picnic at the kitchen table at my parents house. The plan was pizza, but it wasn't going to be enough, so we grabbed goat cheese, ham, blueberries, and melon and put it all on a little platter and had some wine. It was just lovely. (Especially after moving all sorts of stuff all day, it was nice to relax).

On Friday the TallMan and I went to a bar near where we live(d) that we love (a little hipsterish, makes GREAT cocktails (I like to order drinks by listing several ingredients and asking them to make something with those in it, I judge a bar based on how well they do, I am annoying but I like this system of judging bars), always has an awesome beer list, and the food can be funky but they're usually spins on classically delicious stuff).  It was packed, and we could only get one seat at the bar, and we prefer to sit at the bar for dinner, its cozier, and more fun, so the TallMan scoped out another place to open up. (He is good at this because he is tall, he is better at this when he is hungry because there is incentive). He was hungry on Friday, and started hovering around a place as a couple paid the check. He checked with the hostess that it was part of the bar and that we didn't need a reservation. As the couple are getting up to leave and he is beckoning me over with our drinks, a new couple come in to the bar. They put their name in with the hostess and start moving towards the same table. The TallMan says "oh we've been waiting on this" and the guy of the new couple, still have their coats on, no drinks yet, are 5 feet from the door says "are you on the list? what makes you think you deserve this table more than us?" The TallMan was very taken aback, but is quick on his feet and said "yes, we've been waiting longer".

Point is, we got the table.

And I got this cheese plate:

Please notice the bite I made in the left of the plate. It is goat cheese and a kumquat jam. It was DELICIOUS! It was also delicious with the extra super sharp cheddar up at the top of the picture.

I took this picture at the bar. The TallMan judged me, and I told him Knowledge would appreciate it even if no one else would. So here you go Knowledge. :)

I had a moving weekend..

Moving, as in I moved, not as in I wept with emotion.

Lets do this this way:

Thursday: One trip to Suburbia with stuff when I let my mom into the house.

Friday: Two trips with stuff, picked up mom on the first trip, she helped me wrap up glassware, and pack the car. Friday night TallMan and I went out to a bar near where we live/d and had a really nice dinner.

Saturday: Two trips with stuff, one demi trip to the TallMan's house to bring his things, some food, my booze, and a couple overnightish things for me. Second trip included the cats. Saturday also included the TallMan's first trip to my parents house where he helped move things around, we ate a delicious dinner and TallMan made a cake. We didn't get home until after 11, and since I'd been up since 6am, and had driven and moved all day I was exhausted. The high point of the day was WaitWaitDon'tTellMe. Love that program. Also high point was mom getting kinda drunk and bonding with TallMan. Another high point was dad being so bored on his business trip he talked to TallMan for 10 minutes on the phone. I guess it was a pretty good day, despite being exhausting.

Sunday Morning: Packed odds and ends in bedroom, bathroom and kitchen. Disassembled bed, dresser, kitchen table, couches. Ate breakfast, got rental truck, waited for a friend to help pack the rental truck.
Sunday Afternoon: Friend came and helped load the van, he is 6'6", TallMan is 6'5". Between the two of them the van was packed in half an hour. Drove to Suburbia, half an hour. (Three people in a van. Friend drove, I sat in the middle of the two seats on my laundry basket with TallMan's arm across me. It might not have been safe or legal.) Friend and TallMan unpacked the van in half an hour and then we scooted off to the city to return the van.
Sunday Evening: TallMan and I got a late lunch (3pm is evening and lunch time, in this story at least), which was ridiculously relaxing, because despite not really lifting anything after noon on Saturday my back was aching. Then he put some more stuff in the car and I drove it back to Suburbia. Where I had wine for dinner and panicked about not having a bed, before settling in in front of the Oscars.


Funny stories from this weekend include:
*TallMan and I are at uHaul and he is asking about the size of the van I rented, pointing at pictures, is it this one, this one this one? I say, no its pedophile sized. And the cashier says, no its not a pedophile van, its got windows. So TallMan, sharp as a whip, asks well, does it come with candy at least? No candy either says the cashier.  Clearly, TallMan and I are odd because we described size in such a creepy way, but is the cashier any better for joining in?

*Ganache Fiasco. Thats all I'll say on the subject for now, expect a blog post devoted entirely to that.

*TallMan almost got into a bar fight. More on that in another post.

*It snowed Sunday morning, and I got the van stuck in a snow, but mostly ice, drift and the guy my apartment building pays to shovel the walk had to power slide the van out of the drift, then clear us a space to park the van next to the building. He was a really nice guy, I was a bit of a snow on tiny street spaz, and TallMan was very helpful in helping direct me on where to do so I didn't hit a car, person or building.

*My roommate came home from a trip Saturday evening and went out drinking, I guess. Because Sunday morning I came down stairs and there was a trail of lettuce from the front door to the living room where the TV was on WBZ morning weather, and there was a half eaten falafel on the floor next to my sleeping roommate. It was fairly amusing. It became even more amusing when later I was packing and found his keys at the bottom of an empty cereal box.


Pictures from this weekend:

This is where I slept last night, one of the couches from my apartment, just stuck in the front hall of my parents house because TallMan and friend were short for time in moving stuff into the house. So stuff got in, but not much further. I had an excellent night sleep, except at 6:30am Parsley threw up and I had to clean it.

From this picture you can see how messy my room currently is. Or maybe you can't. But it is. I promise it is a disaster! But never you fear, Sage found a cozy spot to rest and take a nap. I have some more pictures from today of her being adorable, but hold your horses.

So that was moving weekend. Now it is the week, Dad comes home today, I need to figure out if I have an informational interview tomorrow, and go to class, and hopefully find the pegs/screws for my bed.

This has been a very long blog post, but it could've been longer. MUCH longer. It was an excruciatingly long weekend, I'm very grateful to the TallMan for all his help. And to my friend who helped on Sunday, he gets a cake for his efforts. Also, to my mom who was reasonably pleasant and cleaned the house so I wasn't embarrassed in front of the TallMan. I'd like to thank God that we got it all done, but no thanks to the big guy upstairs because it rained or snowed most days, and I can't find my bed screws. God, you are on notice: when I find the pieces to my bed you will get thanked.

Off to shower, and frost a cake!

Sleepy Kitty of the Week

So its nice to have weekly features right? Right.

I've decided that in addition to the barnyard animal weekly feature (Fridays at 11pm). You, my dear blog readers, will also be treated to a cat picture a week. (This has a double purpose, you only see one picture of my adorable cats per week, and I get to share my adorable cat pictures with people, importantly people who I can't see the look of judgment when I ask "want to see a cute picture of my cats?" because invariably the answer is no, and I show them anyway and look like am a crazy cat lady).

So Monday mornings at 6am you will be treated to a cat. Its a good way to start the week.

 

This is Sage. She climbed into folded blankets, turned around and snuggled in. I managed to snap a picture before she ran away to investigate a sound downstairs.

6 couches, and no bed!

So I'm mostly moved into my parents house. It was a long weekend, and my back HURTS. Despite the fact that I barely carried anything. (THANK YOU TALLMAN!)

Unfortunately, I seem to have misplaced something in the shuffle.
The screws/pegs that put my bed together.
Ooops.
I know they are in a plastic bag. And I'm 90% certain I didn't throw it away. I'm 80% certain I put it in a dresser drawer. But I didn't bring all the dresser drawers from the City. Like I said, oops.

So tonight I'll be sleeping on a couch. This is not a problem since there are currently 4 couches, 1 love seat and a futon here. Mom offered her bed, but I told her that would be too weird. Clearly I have plenty of options, just none of them are my bed.

Here is hoping I sleep tonight, and find my screws.

Barnyard Pic of the Week

Because this is our first, I thought we'd start off with an a-typical goat.

This is from the National Zoo in Washington DC, every Christmas-time they have a free light show. I went. I saw this light up goat. Now I share it with you.

Happy Weekend! Enjoy!

It's raining it's pouring....

The title has nothing to do with anything, other than the fact that it is raining.

Update: still don't know whether I'll be moving out this weekend. But to be on the safe side I decided to move things to my parent's house.

Yes, I am 24 and moving back in with my parents. I'm a New York Times cliche.

If things were different I might feel bad about having to move back in with my parents but I don't. I'm finishing law school and will be taking the bar this summer. With the economy and over saturation of the employment market I haven't been able to find a job. I've been looking, applying, and networking and I'm hoping something will happen before the fall. In the mean time I'll be living with my parents to save money.

To do this I am breaking my lease, as mentioned earlier. I don't have a lot of experience with this, despite working in landlord tenant law for a while. But I want to save money and I'm tired of the problems of this apartment (which I will share just as soon as someone has rented it, I don't want to list the problems on the internet before I'm definitely outta here. Am I paranoid? Maybe. Probably.)

Anyway, I want out, and I told them ASAP. But I'm not sure if that means 3/1 or 4/1 and someone is coming to view the apartment tomorrow looking to rent for 3/1. I'm considering erring on the side of caution and leaving before 3/1. But I like the convenience.
PROCONLISTTIME!

Pros of not moving this weekend:
 *chances are good that no one will rent this place until 4/1 and I'll be paying for an empty apartment
*Suburbia is far away from the City and the city has things like friends and TallMan and school and the gym (noooo those aren't in order of importance I SWEAR!)
*I'd have to clean my room at my parents house
 *The TallMan has work on Sunday and I hate to impose on him with my annoying requests to move furniture
*Dad is out of town.

Cons of not moving this weekend:
*finding out on monday that I need to be out by that day and being super rushed (I hate feeling rushed)
*having to live here another month


OK so the Pro list is longer than the Con list, but I feel that the Cons are more weighty.

Please weigh in on what you think I should do. (Seriously.)

In the mean time, I will be going out with the TallMan for dinner and a few delicious cocktails.

Tea for Two

Tea, for two, and two for tea,
Me for you and you for me...

I love sharing a pot of tea with a friend. I also love dressing like its 1935-1950.

All we'd need is:

I spent a semester in London while I was in college, but that has little or nothing to do with my love of tea time. That comes from my Dad, an avid tea drinker, and the adorable china cups my mom had from her great grandmother when I was growing up. They were a little like the one pictured above. 

Can't you just see us, me and a girl friend, wearing gloves, pouring tea, eating scones with clotted cream and jam (ok so the gloves + jam might be a bad idea).

Maybe I just want to be a very fancy 6 year old.


LINKS:
http://www.etsy.com/listing/68682299/vintage-rosina-bone-china-tea-cup-saucer?ref=sr_gallery_8&ga_includes[0]=tags&ga_search_query=tea+cups+bone+china&ga_search_type=all&ga_page=1&ga_ref=related&ga_facet=
http://www.englishteastore.com/teapot-porcelain-blue-rose.html
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004M6HRT0/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_3?pf_rd_p=486539851&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=B001OXVEKM&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1AQ2K4PW8Y32ZRMZ0Z6N
http://www.pedlars.co.uk/page_1390.html
http://www.bhldn.com/the-shop_accessories/unabashedly-gloves

Stuff, Stuff, and More Stuff

So I'm moving, (maybe tomorrow, maybe in a month) and I need to get rid of some things because I don't want them hanging around/cluttering up the house, either this one or the next one and I REALLY don't want to throw them away. (I see the vacuum sitting in a landfill 2000 years from now, or burning in a fire and only melting a little...)

BUT I don't want to sell them. I'd love the money, but I'm pretty sure these things are so crappy that no one would come out to pay money for them. But if they were free people might like them. Maybe.

I'd heard from younghouselove, a blog that I adore, that Freecycle is a good way to go. Well, turns out I'm more of a craigslist girl. I decided this after getting very confused (you have to apply to the freecycle community where I live, and I linked my google account to a yahoo account and I got all kinds of befuddled). Now I don't know if my google account and is attached to a yahoo account. I have decided to continue with my life plan of never going to yahoo, it has worked well up until today, and today was clearly a blip.

So, I decided to see what craigslist has for "selling" free stuff.
Turns out they have something called "CURB ALTERS" awesome, perfect, splendid. I have a couple electric items so it won't work with the flooding/rainstorm we're going to have tomorrow, but maybe I can grab a tarp or something... Or maybe I'll wait until Saturday.

I'm excited to see how this goes. Maybe I'll make sure that TallMan is home so that I don't get raped by crazy craigslist curb trollers.

I'll keep you posted on the efficacy of this endeavor.

Super daughter to save the day!

So my dad has a new job that requires a lot of travel. That's nice, but my mom is pretty dependent on him so it can be rough for her. This morning I got a --- no wait I'm telling this story wrong.

I have two cats, Parsley and Sage. They are very cute.

This is them as tiny kittens, they look the same now, just bigger, Sage is on the left, Parsley the right.

So Parsley wakes me up every morning between 5am-7am. She is hungry. I've tried all sorts of things, and I try not to get up to feed her before 6:30am so as not to encourage her. But she is a pest and she will wake me up, either through biting or jumping or meowing or banging at the door (she has also figured out how to open my door). Whatever, this morning she woke me up at 6:30am and I got up and fed the cats, and went back to bed.
Now things have been crazy for my boyfriend lately at work and I haven't seen much of him when he is awake/fully awake. So I got up at 7am this morning and made him some coffee so I'd get some awake time. Turns out he didn't come home until midnight and between that and the cat he got maybe 5 1/2 hours of sleep. So the coffee wasn't cutting it. Oh well, I tried.

While he continued to sleep I thought I'd take care of some business and try back in an hour or so. Yesterday I had an interview, and I like to send thank you notes after, and I wanted this one to get to the people before they made their decision. That means that I needed to go to the post office to mail it. So I told the boyfriend (hereafter known as TallMan... he is tall) that I'd be back and he made a sleepy noise so I went out.

Now, I don't know about you but I have had a cellphone since I was 15 and I like to talk on it when I'm walking places. So I called my Dad (who cares if its 8:20am, he is probably up) who is in Ohio on business. Dad is at breakfast and we chat for a bit about apartment moving and interviews. He leaves to meet a colleague. Two minutes later I get a call, I figure its a realtor calling about showing my apartment. It isn't. Its my mom.

First, my mom and I don't get along super well, I think its a carry over from me being a teenager, Dad thinks its because we're too similar. Also, she is crazy. Second, my mom doesn't have a cellphone, she tries to every so often, but she can't hear people on them, and she never has hers on or plugs it in so its a waste of money. Third, mom can be a bit of a spaz.

My mom is calling from our next door neighbors house. Huh? (My family is of the "good fences make good neighbors" club, except we don't have fences we have lots of trees, which are actually way better than fences). She has locked herself out of her house, and how fast can I be there to let her in.
Let the internet know: my parents house is impenetrable.
I can be there in an hour. So I hop in the car my dad left with me in the city (where I currently live) and drive out to the suburbs to where my parents live and I grew up. This is a trip that can take anywhere from 2 hours in bad traffic to 1/2 an hour. And I think that 50 minutes was pretty darn good for this morning at 8:30am.

While I was making my way out to Suburbia, mom called me twice. Anxious I'm sure to get out of the kitchen of our neighbors, and to get to work. Poor mom. I hate it when my day gets derailed like that. Its a good thing I had my dad's car while he is away on business. If it was parked at the airport my mom might've had to call the police to break into her house and it would've made the newspaper (its a small town) and that would've made her feel even sillier than before.

But I helped mom out. Got her out of a jam. And in pretty good time too, sure I was going against the rush hour traffic, out of the city. But its still pretty good, because I had to get out of the city first. So I let mom into the house, where she retrieved her keys from the kitchen table. Learned that there is no key in the drain spout but there was a dead mouse and that she tried to break the back door window but couldn't. (IMPENETRABLE!)

So that was my morning. Crazy. Got a call a little while later from the TallMan letting me know he'd gotten up, fed the cats and made the bed. Also, that Parsley had been eating some tissues. Great. More on Parsley's digestive track later.

Anyone else out in the blogosphere have a crazy morning they'd like to share?

Upheaval

I'm currently in the process of upheaval.

I'm moving.

Possibly in two days, possibly in a month. I won't know until I basically have to be out of the building already.

As I said to a friend of mine yesterday:
I'm moving out. YAY!
It might be this weekend. Sigh.
So much to do! Guh.

What can I say, it sums it up nicely and I like haikus.

So let me explain, I've been living with a high school friend of mine for two and a half years. We moved into this apartment a year and a half ago. This apartment is close to public transportation and bars, that is why it is good. It is bad because it is terrible to heat (expensive and the first floor doesn't heat up), it is dirty (it took two days to clean when we moved in, plus a day for painting from the ugly dirty off white), things break. In the past three weeks I've had to call the rental company three times to fix the water boiler, the heat (they told me it wasn't broken, then later told me that guy lied about how it worked overall, yeah I don't know what that means either), and the running water.

I had been getting pretty fed up by the apartment's dirty-ness and the conversation I had with the plumber was icing on the cake:
plumber: ohhhhhhh looks like you have no water

me: yeah, i'm not a plumber and i figured that out

plumber: its probably a frozen pipe

me: yes, i figured that. what are you going to do to fix it

plumber: ohhhhh this happens sometimes

me: yes, but i can't flush my toilets, this is a public health hazard, what are you going to do?

plumber: i'm going to check in the back to see if someone shut off the water, but it smells like a frozen pipe

SMELLS?!?! What was he, a holistic plumber that did his job via his nose!? Ugh, shortly after this I emailed my roommate and asked how he felt about breaking the lease and moving out. We are lucky in that we both have parents living near by so we CAN move out. The roommate was thrilled because he needs to save money before going to grad school. I'm thrilled because it means I don't need to be hemorrhaging money (currently I'm living on student loans). 

But part of breaking the lease is we have to pay until they can find a new tenant. I said we'd like to be out by either 3/1 or 4/1, and I know some people have come to look at the apartment but I don't know if they've agreed to move in or not yet. 

I just hope I know before Monday.

Chapter 1... I was born.

You might recognize the title of this post from the Dickens novel, if a book of that heft can be called a novel, David Copperfield. (did I have to check? Yes.)

In a sense it is appropriate, because this blog is being born.

Why am I starting a blog you might wonder to yourself? (you might, I don't know who you are and what you're doing) A friend told me to. Honest. She said "you are funny, you should start a blog", or something like that. I think she is bonkers and that only she will read this nonsense. But here we go.

For now I am anonymous because the internet is forever, and nothing on it is ever deleted. Thus, I will be careful about names I use, places I go and what I say.

I will do my best to give credit where credit is due, for ideas, items and other posts. I'm an avid blog reader, so most of my posts will likely just come from other blogs and will be the equivalent of me saying "ohhhhh pretty, I like this".

However, I promise you, my blog reading public, this: I will share a picture of a barn yard animal every week.
This is because I like them. No other reason.

Here we go....