Wings/Rangers outdoors at Yankee Stadium?! Sweet!

You know what would be AWESOME? This: Could a Wings-Rangers outdoor hockey game be the final event ever at Yankee Stadium?

I would try my damnedest to be there, anyway.

White People Love Cheese

Although with nine million hits this guy certainly doesn't need my endorsement and my eight readers (who, I want you to know, I am referring to with affection and not with disdain), I feel like I would be doing my readers a disservice not to direct them to Stuff White People Like, one of the funniest blogs I have read in a long time.

Stuff White People Like explores the phenomenon of things that white people really dig that other ethnicities, well, don't. These things include Oscar parties (Kelli and I certainly did like those), studying abroad, and bottled water.

You don't really think about these being 'white' traits until you read the blog and then realize to your amazement it's true. So check it out already - it's funny, I promise. And, my white readers, prepare to recognize a little bit of yourselves.

(And the 'white people love cheese' title is not a reference to anything in the blog- that I know of - but rather to a comment made by my coworker Ryan, who informed us on New Year's Eve that that particular stereotype is "totally true." The rest of us were not even aware that this was a stereotype.)

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/

One more thing I like...

Cats in sinks. Here is Sunny Bunny in the sink at the old house.

These are a few of my favorite things...

Since my last blog was about something I vehemently dislike (board games) I thought perhaps I would devote an entire blog entry to things I actually do like. Counting down from five, here you go:

5) Matt & Nat bags: Forget Coach. I have never really had an afinity for name-brand purses...but the day I discovered Matt & Nat, my stubborn ideal that a purse should never cost more than $30 went flying out the window.

I discovered Matt & Nat while house-sitting for Judy Bruzza in Kalamazoo. I went out with my fabulous Aunt Susan (who rates an enthusiastic number ONE on my list of favorite relatives)for lunch at Food Dance Cafe (I could write a very lengthy blog extolling the virtues of Food Dance, but considering that I have no audience in Kalamazoo I will spare you another restaurant review)and then to do a little shopping downtown at Susan's friend's store, Earthly Delights (on the off chance that I DO have readers in Kalamazoo, please visit Earthly Delights - it is simply amazing).

I immediately fell in love with the Jorja bag, which Aunt Susan bought me as a moving-to-Connecticut present. But there was another bag that haunted me, my second choice...so imagine my delight when it showed up on my doorstep, cushioned in bubble wrap and packed in a Magnavox box. Thanks, Aunt Suze!

(PS - One more quick shout out to K-zoo - as long as I am talking about stuff I like, I have to say that Water Street Coffee Joint still makes the best coffee/late/iced coffee I have ever had.)

4) Kickboxing: There is nothing better than whaling on a bag after a long day at work. NEMAA (New England Martial Arts Academy) Karate and Kickboxing is the best thing I have discovered in Connecticut. I had never taken bag classes before - just the Tai Bo-type stuff. But now every Tuesday, Thursday, and the occasional Saturday I get to put on my Everlast boxing gloves (pink ones!) and beat the crap out of a bag for 45 minutes. And as an added bonus, every class finishes with a kick-ass ab workout. If I hadn't signed up for that half-marathon, I might forgo running altogether in favor of kickboxing.

(And I recently tried out Hip Hop Hustle - as if I needed to be reminded of how white I truly am - and will be blogging about it in the very near future!)

3) This picture from Becky and Steve's wedding:



2) Hearts in Atlantis by Stephen King: Quite possibly my favorite book of all time. I read it for the first time about six years ago, a few months after seeing the subpar movie of the same name. (Mind you, I thought the movie was OK until I read the book and realized there were four more stories that were not even touched upon in the movie. But Anthony Hopkins was a very good Ted and Hope Davis was perfect as the mom. But I am off topic, as usual.)

Hearts in Atlantis is a collection of four intertwined stories all concering the 1960's and the Vietnam war and their lasting effects on America...with a heavy dose of supernatural weirdness thrown in for good measure.

Now, Stephen King is not usually my author of choice. But Hearts in Atlantis proves to me that Stephen King IS a talented writer, even if he doesn't write the things I would normally choose to read. Ironically enough, instead of inspiring me to read other Stephen King books, my love of Hearts in Atlantis has had the opposite effect. I never want to read another Stephen King book because I don't see how I can not be disapointed after loving this one so much.

I will not bore you with a review; just let it be known that the second story (the title story) is my favorite. In fact, every time I read it I think I want to learn how to play Hearts (and my feelings about cards are similar to my feelings about board games.) Just give it a try, OK?

1) My House. Even if I never learn to love anything else about this state, I am truly, madly, passionately in love with my house. I don't even care that being a homeowner leaves me with about zero disposable income and I haven't bought new clothes since 2005. (At least I have Noe to pay for dinner and movies - not to mention the more substantial of the two mortgages...) Although I miss the yard at Noe's old house, there is no love lost for the whale-and-dolphin wallpaper in the old bathroom. The two houses don't even compare. And once I finish painting and furnishing my office, I will love my house even more. (I'm sure that project will be good for a blog or four.)


So there you go. A one hundred percent positive blog. Don't get used to this - it ain't hapenning often - but enjoy it for the time being.

Patience is a Virtue...

Hey guys, thanks for being patient with me. There will be a new post tonight. I've been a little swamped lately and haven't really been in the mood to get online at night, but I promise I'll get back on track. Tune in later tonight or tomorrow morning - I'll try to make it extra-good.

'Board' to Tears

It never ceases to amaze me that of all the things I dislike - and there are many - the one that throws people in to great degrees of distress is board games.

What is the big deal about not particularly liking board games? Come on - does anyone really love Monopoly? It takes like six hours to play, focuses heavily on real estate, and I'm sorry, but I have a hard time believing that anyone really pays cash for a railroad.

Keep in mind also that Monopoly was invented during the depression by a guy wishing he had money to go out and do FUN stuff.

Contrary to popular belief amongst my game-playing friends, my hatred was not fueled by growing up in a family of board game nazis. We just didn't play a lot of games.

First of all, Mickey, our garbage disposal of a dog, always managed to eat the pieces. This was especially detrimental considering half our games were inherited from my grandmother's basement and had lost a good amount of pieces between 1959 and 1977 anyway. Second of all, games were boring. I vastly preferred books. Still do.

The only fond memories of game playing I have are playing Trivial Pursuit with the Peruskis. Rose and I played as a team against her dad, Uncle Mark, and brother Gregory. We always lost because Mr. Peruski was one of those people who retained a freakish amount of trivial knowledge. I love playing Trivial Pursuit with Rose's family. It loses its appeal to me when played with other people. (I also play Cranium with the Persuksis and Craig the pharmacist, but only when copious amounts of tequila are involved.)

But I digress.

What spawned this post is that things came to a head in our house yesterday when Noe apparently decided that there was a void in his life due to my lack of game play. When I came home from the gym this evening (five miles, go me!) he met me at the door with a newly-purchased edition of Scrabble.

Why Scrabble? Because I was an English major, I read all the time, and I like crossword puzzles. Noe reasoned that if I were going to learn to love any game, by default it would be Scrabble.


I was in a fairly accomodating mood, coming off a good day at work and a not-too-miserable five-mile run. I agreed to give Scrabble a shot.

(That's right - I had never played. I can see your jaws hitting the floor. I swear, I really don't think it's THAT weird.)

So after a cursory glance at the instructions, we were off. And of course I drew vowel after crappy vowel, never managed to have words long enough to hit the triple scores, and earned an average of about four points per word. Noe beat me 330 to 178.

But...it wasn't half bad. I have agreed to play again. I might have even enjoyed it a little bit.

Don't jump the gun here and start inviting me to game nights or anything, though. This is a word game. It involves elements I like. I am willing to keep playing Scrabble, but don't expect me to convert to a full-fledged game lover.

(Although I will play Christmas Story Monopoly when the holidays roll around, but that's mostly because I want to be the leg lamp.)

Modern Marvels

It's been longer than I usually go without posting, but my cousin Katie was here this weekend so I was busy being a good hostess. Thank you for your patience (all eight of you who regularly read this blog, that is).

The good news about Katie visiting - other than the fact that she is my cousin and she is awesome - is that she's an art student, so it gave us a good excuse to head in to New York City and hit a major museum. One of the (few) perks about Noe being relocated out here is that we can actually take advantage of that corporate membership to places like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the American Museum of Natural History, and - in this case - the Museum of Modern Art.


We took a 10:55 train into Grand Central and hit the MoMA around 1:30-2:00 (stopping along the way at Rockefeller Center and St. Patrick's Cathedral). We split up and agreed to meet in a couple hours so that we could see what we each were interested in and so Katie could hang out at certain pieces and sketch.

Noe and I headed up to the fourth and fifth floors, which house paintings and sculpture. We took our time to make our way through the airy and open galleries. The MoMA is a great space with plenty of room to spread out. Even for a Saturday afternoon, it didn't seem crowded - at least not until we hit the fifth floor gallery where the Van Goghs are kept. It was a little congested around Starry Night.


You can walk right up to most of the art at the MoMA and really examine it at close range, which is great because so many of the modern works play with texture and different mediums. It's pretty cool to stand (almost) nose-to-canvas with a Jackson Pollock and find the objects embedded in the paint.

There was an awesome exhibit on the sixtrh floor, Design and the Elastic Mind. Noe referred to this exhibit as "science art" which is not innaccurate. If you are in the NYC area, try and check it out.

Here are some highlights of the trip - sorry if the photos are of somewhat poor quality; no flash photography in the MoMA. A camera isn't really going to do them justice anyway.









These were, of course, just some of many. We stuck to floors four, five, and six, but definitely plan to head back soon to check out the prints and photographs - and the sculpture garden when it gets warm. I may struggle with my feelings for Connecticut, but I do love being so close to New York.