Author Archives: Me, Myself & I

Travel Part 3: Holy Cow Part 2

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Chicago: Saw that blog post you did.

Me: Good times.

Chicago: ‘…’

Me: I wish I’d had my camera in Pike Place Market. That food was amazing.

Chicago: You know what else you wished you had in Seattle?

Me: What?

Chicago: Readily available cabs to get you places easily. And a really great but inexpensive hotel literally walking distance from local awesomeness. You know… LIKE YOU HAD IN CHICAGO.

Me: Uhh… yeah. Chicago was great, but the post was getting long so I thought…

Chicago: Oh no, that’s okay. I mean, obviously nothing amazing happened in Chicago. Like looking down on FIREWORKS from the top of a SKYSCRAPER. Or The Bean. Or an entire exhibit of miniature rooms, which you’ve loved since seeing some at the BMA years ago. Oh no, nothing like that!

Me: … that I would break it up into two sections. Hence the title you see up there.

Chicago: Oh goody. I’m in Cow Part 2. How awesome for me. I suppose it’s okay that I’m ranked behind a place where you got seasick on a whale watching cruise. And the Bee Capital of the World.

Me: THERE’S NO RANKING. I just couldn’t fit all the cool things in one post!

Chicago: Cool things? Like falling in love with Monet because seeing his works in person just doesn’t compare to a book?

Me: Alright, let’s talk about that hot dog.

Chicago: That hot dog was not my fault.

Me: Or the pizza.

Chicago: Also not my fault.

Seattle: Hey, I didn’t make anyone seasick!

Niagara: And I’m not the Bee Capital of the World! Besides, honey bees are important for the environment!

Chicago: No one asked either of you!

Me: Chicago was amazing. I want to go back, if nothing else than to see this again:

The Bean

The Bean

Chicago: Whatever.

Seattle: ROUGH SEAS ARE NOT MY FAULT!

Travel Part 2: Holy Cow Part 1

Posted in Out & About by

There are experiences in travel that move you, from something that reminds you how awesome the world can be to a horror movie amount of flies moving you and your picnic back to the car. Every place I’ve been has had at least one.

Hurricane Deck, Niagara Falls: I realize Niagara is the punch line to a lot of travel jokes, with a reputation for tourist hordes and honeymooners. But if you mentally prepare yourself for the stop and go traffic and detours necessitated by group photos, you can see why so many people have the same idea. There’s the usual suspects like Maid of the Mist (which you might as well get used to having in 95% of your pictures) and surprises like Three Sisters Island. But to experience the intense power of the falls, the Hurricane Deck is it. I loved every single minute. And there were a lot of those, since I stood up there until my skin was a nice prune consistency and bystanders started wondering if I was trying to get a month’s worth of showers in one go.

Shark & Ray Touch Tank, New England Aquarium, Boston: Seattle’s aquarium was my first touch tank experience, and was awesome. It’s based on their local tide pools, so you can exasperate sea urchins and the like. But as the name implies, Boston’s is filled with small rays and sharks. I danced around like a little kid from the time we got there until we could go in. There’s something surreal about sticking your hand into water with creatures you would normally do your best to avoid. The rays loved it, forming a circular conga line to get a pet. The sharks? Not so impressed, but I did manage to touch one (sandpaper, and I don’t know how but it felt dry even though it was under water).

Seattle was before I took pictures with wild abandon.

Not Pike Place Market: Seattle was before I took pictures with wild abandon. At least this was taken in Seattle. 

Pike Place Market food tour, Seattle: I’d seen this place on TV so much I felt like I knew it. It was on my ‘someday list’, and noshing our way through all good stuff without waiting in lines was the best way to check that box. We also went Super Tourist at Market Spice, and I came home with an ounce of every salt they sold. Apparently TSA dogs don’t like salt as much as gourmet brownies because my treasure trove made it back, but I’m sure if one of those airport reality shows had been around then my suitcase and it’s tiny baggies would have been on it.

Now that would have been a blog post.

Travel

Posted in Out & About, Prompts by

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I discovered my love of travel while in New Mexico. Even though I was only in the Southwest for a few days, it was the first time in my life I felt I was ‘somewhere else’. When I got in it was dark, but the next morning I walked outside and saw a huge brown mountain rising behind the Target across from my rat trap motel the place I had stayed the night before. I stared at it so long anyone going by must have thought Target was putting out some kind of homing signal.

Travel can teach you a lot. For instance, during the New Mexico trip I learned:

  • If you’re planning to zip tie your suitcase closed, remember not to put your scissors in the suitcase.
  • When trying to rent the smallest possible car at the airport, if the agent stares at you and starts talking about ‘mountains’, bite the bullet and get a bigger car.
  • Japanese toilet seats are heated.
  • TSA dogs like gourmet brownies. At least that’s what the note next to the empty container in my suitcase said.

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What started out as a solo trip has morphed into a yearly tradition where my mom and I hit the road to check things off our ‘someday list’. We have our must-dos: market, aquarium, art museum, Duck tour. We do touristy things and eat ourselves to ruin. I usually come back with hundreds of photos and at least one fridge magnet.

And before we’ve even unpacked, we’re discussing where we want to go next year.

What I Love About Staycations

Posted in Randomness by

Returning to places you love:

Point Lookout (22)

Finding places you want to return to:

Staycation 2013 (40)

Seeing things that impressed you so much as a kid, and finding out they still do:

Staycation 2013 (25)

Dinner for lunch, every day:

Staycation 2013 (21)

Remembering the great things about where you live:

Staycation 2013 (49)

Staying up late… because you can sleep in the next day:

Staycation 2013 (57)

Radio up and windows down:

Staycation 2013

Extra Extra

Posted in Out & About, Prompts by

Woman Drives Around Aimlessly, Declares Day A Success

Everywhere but home– An unidentified local woman spent about six hours driving around Maryland and Virginia Saturday with no apparent purpose. Sources say she didn’t even have an idea of where she would end up, but simply headed out towards a convenience store for supplies.

‘I asked where she was going, and she just shrugged and said she’d know when she got there’ said a source familiar with the situation who asked not to be identified. ‘I think she ended up somewhere in Virginia!’ A swimmer at a beach in Maryland saw a small silver four door sedan pull up around 5:00 and a woman get out to take a picture.

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Alleged picture

After checking her phone, she drove off towards Fredericksburg Virginia, where witnesses say she dined at a local restaurant and made promises to come back to shop at the used book store. They remembered her hair sticking up in strange directions, leading some to theorize that her windows had been down for the entire day.

Camera footage shows her stopping to fill up her gas tank after returning to Maryland. A station attendant recalled hearing her say the day was an awesome start to her staycation. Witnesses have noted the sedan heading off in all different directions during the week, leading to speculation that other ‘scenic drives’ may be in progress.

Please visit our website for updates to this breaking story.

The Prompt: Write about something that happened over the weekend as though it’s the top story on your local paper.

A series perhaps?

Posted in Prompts by

Someone (else… not me of course*): Creative part of brain, it is time to do a blog post.

CPoB: …..

Someone: Look, it’s been a while, and we need to post!

CPoB: *yawn*

Someone: I need you to focus here!

CPoB: Neener neener!

Someone: *sigh*

Enter the magical world of the internet. As well as being an endless treasure chest of procrastination, there are various resources to kick start a writer’s brain. Strictly in the interest of science, over the next several posts (perhaps more) I will be checking some of these out**.

I’ve been down this road before; in fact one of my NaNoWriMo books consisted of me picking a prompt every few days and adding it to my story. It started with a random character cooking a squirrel in his neighbor’s fireplace and ended with that same neighbor finding a jewelry box in a snowbank. I have a hard time deciding what was more fun: writing by the seat of my pants or the looks on others’ faces when they asked what my novel was about and I tried to explain. The story did end up making the bare minimal of sense, and turned out to be one of my more fun novel writing months.

And now I’m off to research these sites and plan future posts watch funny videos on Youtube. For science.

*I doth protest too much.

**No, I’m not being paid by these sites. I wish.

Dear Yarn I am Using for My Current Project,

Posted in Crafty by

This letter regards recent behavior exhibited during the knitting of an awesome lace hat. Several things have been done during the course of this project to facilitate success. Among these are the following:

  • the purchase of fancy stitch markers to carefully delineate sections of knitting
  • protecting you from the cat
  • forgiving your incredibly small gauge and propensity for falling off the needle with the slightest tug
  • counting each section as I finished it to make sure I had the number of stitches I needed

All of the above were done with no swearing, eye rolling, or temper tantrums. Therefore, I request you answer the following question:

WHERE DID MY STITCH GO!?

I was knitting happily along and found myself one stitch short. This is simply not possible after the precautions detailed above, therefore I must assume that either you or the cat slipped the stitch off the needle while I was sleeping. While I don’t doubt that His Imperial Highness would do such a thing, he wouldn’t have put the knitting back in the basket.

You have until tomorrow at 9:00 AM to get that stitch back, or further action may be necessary. This may include being made in to cat toy or wash rag.

Thank you.

On a sunny Sunday afternoon…

Posted in Randomness by

Me: Let’s go to the Claude Moore Colonial Farm!

Siri: Whee! Fun! Let’s go!

Me: How do we get there?

Siri: This way!

*everyone drives along happily for a while*

Siri: Take this exit!

Me: No problemo. Boy am I glad I have a GPS to tell me where to go!

Siri: I know right? Now go along this road and you’ll be at your destination.

Me: …..

Siri: What’s wrong? Why aren’t you going along that road like I told you?

Me: You may not have noticed this, faithful Siri, but there is a rather large building in front of us.

Siri: Nope, sure didn’t. My maps tell me there is no such building. But there is a road!

Me: Yes, the road goes beside the building and off into the woods.

Siri: Forward!

Me: Perhaps I should mention that this building is surrounded by a chain link fence.

Siri: So? Go down that… why are you trying to change my directions? Where we want to go is down that road!

Me: Perhaps I should also mention that the chain link fence has barbed wire across the top. Several layers of barbed wire in fact. And you may have noticed a whirling noise.

Siri: I can’t hear anything but your radio. WHICH IS TOO LOUD BY THE WAY.

Me: …. that noise is the lovely whirl of cameras as they swivel in the direction of the small four door sedan, silver, tag number blah blah blah that is currently idling in front of their gate. In a few moments you may be able to hear the clicking noise of a keyboard as the CIA LOOKS UP WHO FOLLOWED THEIR DUMB GPS OFF THIS EXIT.

Siri: Well there’s no need to get huffy. You asked how to get there and I told you. It’s not my fault this CIA building is in the way. And I don’t care how many times you try to get me to tell you a different way that is the way to go WHY ARE YOU TURNING AROUND!!

Me: Stupid GPS.

Siri: I HEARD THAT!

This post is a bit of a cheat…

Posted in Randomness by

Creative funks happen, and when they do there’s only one course of action I rely on. Regroup, settle in, and force myself to focus and get some work done goof around on the internet. The past few days have represented such a funk, and so I give you the fruits of my procrastination.

There are many talented people on the internet, and some of them have congregated on Amazon.com. Their purpose is to spice up the site with some awesomeness in the form of reviews. Below are my favorites*. Many thanks, though he will surely never see this, to George Takei (most know him as Mr. Sulu from Star Trek) whose Facebook brought this trend to my attention. Seek his entries, they are worth it.

*Yes I know I’m late to this party. Just pretend you haven’t seen these before.

Mt. Foodmore: Gummies!

Posted in Food by

Remember when I said I was going to try snack foods from other places? Well, last night I decided it was finally time to start tackling Mt. Foodmore, which is currently taking over an alarming amount of my dining room table. I thought I’d start with something simple… gummies!

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On the left we have lychee… tasty, but I question the package’s claim that the candy matches the flavor and texture of the fruit. I’ve seen people eat lychees on TV, I’ve never seen them bounce one. One the right is yuzu, a type of citrus that makes a DELICIOUS gummy. Like, pile of wrappers good. Tastes like a tangerine to me.

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Left is ramune, based on a popular Japanese lemon-lime soda. They put something in it to make it taste ‘carbonated,’ but it ends up being just artificial. Not a fan. Right side, strawberry. Nothing surprising there.

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Tiny, but oh so mean.

And then we have these little guys. This candy is apparently also ramune flavored. When I got my package these were the first thing out of the box. My coworker asked what it was called, and I pointed to the Japanese and said ‘this’. Literally, I knew nothing about this candy except it was probably some kind of gummy. So I popped one in my mouth and OH MY GOSH WAS IT SOUR. Not Sour Patch sour. Not Warheads sour. Make your eyes tear up please give me some water sour.

After watching me wave my arms around and then drink a cup of water, my coworker still took one. His reaction was a more restrained version of mine (in fairness to me, he was warned). So you may be asking yourself, why after being drawn in by a cute starfish package only to have your brain officially cut ties with your mouth, would only six be left? Well, barring the two prank ones I gave out, my coworker and I ate them. After you got past the sour part, they are actually pretty good. To be fair, by that point your tastes buds have passed out from shock so they might just be relieved the sour part is over. Still, good enough to try another one. (Except those two you see stuck together. There must be some sort of prize for eating them.)

Bottom line: yuzu great, others meh, starfish holy cow. And a tiny, tiny dent in Mt. Foodmore.