Tourists in Our Own City

I just did something I have been wanting to do for a long time. And really, how can you go on a tour of the world if you haven't even seen the sights in your own city? So I decided that before I leave my beloved Minneapolis, I owed it to myself to pay tribute, however small. Of course the day couldn't be any crappier, slipperyer, or colder. But anyway. We started out with a visit to the Mill City Museum, "the most explosive museum in the world". In the 1800s this place blew up because they had no means of collecting the flour dust and they were ignorant of how explosive it was. Somebody lit a match or something and pretty soon there were chunks of this building landing all over the city. The shock was felt as far away as Wisconsin, where people mistook the shaking for an earthquake. My sister Kasey and my nieces Miyo and Hanna joined my friend Laurissa and me for the tour. It's $10 per adult, $5 per teenager, and free for kids. I highly recommend it, in part because of a video called "Minneapolis in 19 Minutes Flat" which left me in tears. This is a pretty cool town, folks.

Miyo "reading" about wheat, and enjoying the mill stone brought into the museum.

Vacuum dust collectors, brought in to prevent another explosion. They work by basically vacuuming the dust out of the air.

A demonstration of how the place blew up. This guy added a teaspoon of flour a little air and then caused a spark and it BLEW UP! He said there were a million pounds of flour produced every day. Imagine the explosion if a teaspoon of flour was enough to SHOCK! you.

From there, Kasey had to get going to pick up her other kids off the bus, and so Laurissa and Hanna and I continued our tour of the city and visited Minnehaha Falls, frozen and mysteriously blue in color. There was a man behind the falls in hiking gear and we all decided that would be fun, but our shoes probably wouldn't allow the climb down the restricted stairway.

And then it was on to my favorite bakery, "A Baker's Wife", where they serve the most fantastic tea cakes you've ever had. Please go there immediately and buy one. To DIE FOR.



Then, Laurissa had to go to work and so Hanna and I went to a movie at the Riverview. They are a $3 theater in South Minneapolis, but only charge $2 for a matinee. We saw The Fantastic Mr. Fox at 5pm for $4 and loved it. Technically it was $8 because we forgot they only take cash and I only had $2 on me, so I had to take cash out of the ATM which probably has a $2 fee, and then my bank will probably charge me another $2. Then, after we left the theater, Hanna found a bunch of cash in her pocket. Dang!
These reels were in the hallway outside the theater. They all said New Moon on them. I'm really not sure, but could it take this many canisters to house one movie? Cool.

The movie let out at 6:30. We found out that the MIA (Minneapolis Institute of Arts) is open until 9pm on Thursday nights and is always free. So we went and I was really impressed with the selection of art and sculpture collected from the world over. India, China, Japan, the South Pacific, the Americas, Africa...great collection. Hanna was most enamoured with the India rooms, where there were incredibly intricate carvings of Hindu figures, surrounded by tiny little people carved in the stones. Daughters of the Sun played a free concert, and so we perused art to a nice soundtrack. I admit it was very loud in the museum, and a little echo-y, so I employed my earplugs. I always carry them in my purse, because, well...I'm in a band. *cough* And I made sure to tell the lady that asked me where I got my earplugs the same thing. *cough*

Minneapolis, Kady style. And, my photos are all pretty dark, because I had forgotten that I changed my F Stop to -2 in Mexico because it was way too bright. Sorry about that, folks.

One Last Trip out to Hutchinson

I visited my family in Hutchinson a couple weekends ago...Krista brought a leg of lamb and cooked it up and this was our meal. YUM. Sorry, Keri, I posted the photo of you with your eyes closed, but it's only because you call yourself Prettiest Sister, and since you just TURNED 40, I wanted to cast some doubt on the title.



These are some of my very favoritest people in the whole world: (Miss you already)


Afterward, we played Apples to Apples:

What to Make for Dinner When You're Moving

First, empty out your veggie drawer. Chop and saute anything in there. I had mushrooms, yellow squash, and spinach. Frozen artichoke hearts from the freezer had to be steamed, then sauteed. Throw in some olive oil, fresh garlic, butter and a splash of wine...or the Noilly Prat Vermouth that you've had in the cupboard forever. Then take your jar of Spaghetti Sauce (in this case, Trader Joe's Organic Vodka Sauce) and get that in there just to heat it up. Serve over pasta. Eat in paper bowl with plastic fork.

Mexican Reflexicans

So I have to say that when I think about kicking off a trip around the world to explore and create adventure, staying at an all-inclusive resort in Mexico was not my first thought. However, a good deal can't be ignored and when I got the Travelzoo email offering 7 days in Mazatlan including flight, hotel, and all food and drinks for $700, I jumped at it. Especially since that is the exact amount of money that my niece Hanna had saved from babysitting last summer. The downside is that you pay upfront for all of your food and drink for the week, and so you feel a financial obligation to eat every single meal at the resort. The hazard there is that it is very possible to get sick of the food, which isn't usually that great, and not leaving the resort isn't very 'cool' or 'adventurous' or whatever. But, after the two crazy whirlwind vacations I had this fall to Scandinavia and to South America with something going on every single day, and after the year I had at work with crazy long hours and after having quit that job and the stress of trying to sell every single thing that I own and find a renter for my house in an economy that calls for rent of about half of what I need to cover my mortgage, that All-Inclusive vacation was just what the doctor ordered. And let me tell you the resort got the short end of that stick. I layed around for 7 straight days, looking up from the pool or the ocean only briefly to order another pina colada or margarita. The only schedule to follow was the hotel activities board:

10am Stretching

10:30 Spanish Lesson

11am Ping Pong

11:30 Relaxing music

12pm Water Aerobics

12:30 Crazy Game

1pm Bingo

...this part I can't remember because we never really participated in any of it...

4pm Beach Volleyball

We usually slept through Stretching, and only woke up early enough one day to take a Spanish Lesson. We played Ping Pong pretty much every day, and did Water Aerobics twice. (We watched it 5 times from our pool chairs.) We played beach volleyball most days. All of the other time in Mexico was spent laying around. All day long. It was glorious and SO nice to relax. I hardly had time to think about craigslist and rent.com and what I should store and what I should throw away and how much money I have saved and how much it's going to cost for plane tickets and will I get murdered and will my plane crash...and...all the zillions of thoughts that are causing me to be very forgetful and flightly these past couple of months.

Every night we would discuss what to do the next day i.e. horseback riding, snorkeling, zip line jungle touring, and, every morning, we would decide instead to go back to the pool. p.s. we didn't even get so much as a hint of the slightest suggestion of a tan, thanks to our 70SPF sunblock, which we bathed in every morning before leaving the hotel room.

(I spent an additional $40 on tips, a magnet, and Dairy Queen...so, total cost for the trip: $740.)

We are home now... MEXICO photo special

Click here to see our photos from Mexico


We had a great time, it was very relaxing. And now, I have 12 days to clean this house and get it rented out!

I have sold pretty much every single piece of furniture with the exception of two or three things and my other items have been reduced to a couple boxes' worth. WOW. This is really happening. How incredibly exciting and sad, all at the same time. A person can really get attached to silly things like rugs and couches and chairs and wine racks. I really do love my house and all my stuff. And that's what makes this adventure so exciting. Leaving it all behind in search of the experience of a lifetime. Teri and I leave for Australia on February 2nd, with a week's stop in Apia, Samoa. She is checking out scuba trips and we have places to stay in Melbourne, Sydney and New Zealand. YAY! Stay tuned...

Another Interesting Dude

So obviously I forgot my USB port, so no photos yet, sorry. I will post some when I get home.

We have been spending some pool time with a guy who recently found out that he has terminal cancer. He decided to spend his last months traveling. He is here in Mazatlan for three weeks...then will go on to the Dominican Republic and then back home to Minneapolis for his Doctors visit. From there he hopes to go to Australia. He is traveling in between chemo treatments, because he can take the first strain intraveinously, and then the next few weeks' treatments orally. Anyway, it got me thinking about what I would do if I found out that I was dying and I think I would do the exact same thing. He is flying family members down to meet him at different times and has a brother who is spending the whole trip with him. Im trying to convince him to write a book, because he has had quite an interesting life. He graduated high school and from there, without attending college, built a business where he owned four restaurants and a golf course. When he got his diagnosis, he sold it all and decided to travel. As a youth, he spent three years in Africa living in Ethiopia (now Eritrea) and another place I cant remember. He told Hanna and I how he and his brother would catch squid using just a broomstick with a nail in the end. They would poke the squid in the head, and then its tentacles would wrap up the broomstick and then they would put it in a bag. Good eats, apparently.

More Mexico

Today I met a dad from Canada who told me a horrible story with a moral. The moral is trust no one when travelling.

So anyways, he was in San Francisco by himself and was about 10 blocks from his hotel. He had gotten turned around and so he took out his map and was walking with it. A kid on a bike came out of the alley and asked him where he was trying to go. So Canadad explained where his hotel was, but he couldnt quite figure out how to get there from here, and where exactly was here? The kid said, "Oh, no problem, just take this alley, and then go right at the next street and then left...etc." So Canadad did, and he was jumped half way through the alley. A man put a knife to his throat, so hard that it drew blood. "WHERES YOUR MONEY?" "I dont have any!" "I DONT BELIEVE YOU!"

Then the bad guy checked Canadads back pocket and started checking all his pockets. Finally Canadad grabbed the $200 he had in his front left pocket and threw it to the ground about four feet away. The kid lunged for it and when he did, Canadad KICKED him hard in the ribs. Another guy jumped out from behind a dumpster and Canadad KICKED him in the nuts. He RAN for the street, and dialed 911 the whole way. A man helped him tell the police where he was and the cops brought him back to his hotel. They said that he probably shouldnt be alive and that throwing his money away from him like that probably saved his life.

One week later, the cops called and said that they think they found the culprit, because he went to the hospital for a badly bruised testicle. ha! Anyway, Canadad decided not to press charges, because he didnt want to drive back down to San Francisco and also because he didnt feel sure he could identify him, it all went so fast. But I thought probably that guy wouldnt maybe jump anybody for a while.

Scary...

But yay Canadad! Thats right girls, go for the nuts. Oh, and throw your money or wallet away from you if youre being mugged.

Mexico!

So we are here, and the weather is just fantastic. We arent getting tan of course, but we didnt get burned yet either so thats a plus. We are pretty much taking a bath in 70 SPF every morning. Our days so far have consisted of sitting by the hotel pool and swimming in the ocean. The first day we were here we took a Spanish lesson, played in a ping pong tournament, played beach volleyball...saw three HUGE iguanas by the pool. They seriously just sort of live in the pool area. ICK. The big momma was coming right for us! But slowly, so we made our escape. Just kidding, she never got within 30 feet, but I didnt like that one bit. The next day I was holding a different, smaller iguana on my arm. Go figure. I was kind of forced into it by its owner, and then he wanted money.

Hanna lost her favorite sunglasses in the ocean, and we were scared away by jellyfish.

Internet time is scarce...sorry for the slow posting. But really theres not a whole lot going on besides relaxation and bad movies.

Today I saw the grossest feet in the history of the world. Looked like cauliflower for toes. ICK. And they were in the same pool water as me. Shoulda got a photo.

Estate Sale Stories

Lots of very interesting people came by the sale.

Some people had the presence of mind to take off their shoes, others lightly dusted them and tracked snow all over my house. Some people knocked and others came in. I finally had Hanna put a sign on the front door that said, "Don't knock. Just come right in." And another that said, "Remove boots and shoes."

Some people agonized over spending 50 cents on a necklace, others didn't balk at all on a $40 item. Some tried to haggle, others not at all.

There was the dealer who scanned my books' bar codes looking for priceless items that I had listed for $1. He was mad that he wasn't the first one here. He thought that the sale started at 9am, because that's what I posted on craigslist...but I put 8am on the signs that I put up on the street. He still arrived at 8:30.

There was another reseller who offered Summer $60 for her $150 Cello. Of course she declined. The interesting thing about him was that he was really good at remembering people's names. Another reseller walked into the sale a little later. "Hello Kevin.", And I asked if they knew each other. Apparently they are rival resellers who run into each other at every garage sale in the area.

Yet another reseller stopped by on Saturday. His strategy was to offer 1/2 the sales price, thinking that I would be desperate to sell at that point. He was right, and got a few items cheap. Summer recognized him from her garage sale that she had in September.

About ten people who saw my bundle of chopsticks made the exact same racist remark. "AAAAH SOOOO". Not funny, people, jeez!!

And then there was the impossibly old man who bought a few $.50 items. He was pretty chatty. He told Hanna something was on her nose, and when she moved her hand there to wipe it, he said, "Your hand!" When we laughed, he felt encouraged and proceeded to tell the following joke: "Have you heard about Obama's new healthcare plan?" (This is where I cringed, eyeing the very-possibly staunch liberal neighbors mulling about.) "Yah, it's like when you go to the hospital and put on that gown. You think you're covered by you're not." (I sighed in relief. Not so bad.) Later, as he was walking out the door, he yelled to me, "Have you heard about Obama's new healthcare plan?" I assumed this was one of those 'black-and-white-and-red-all-over' jokes that have many various punchlines, and that he would tell me a different ending. Nope. "Yah, it's like when you go to the hospital and put on that gown. You think you're covered by you're not." I laughed, and he was satisfied, but as he shut my front door I looked at Hanna and we laughed a little harder, because about three minutes transpired between the telling of the same joke.

Estate Sale Stories

Since I am leaving the country in February, and have had no bites for the "furnished rental" I posted, I decided I was going to post all of my furniture right away in January, to give everything time to sell. I had plans to go out to Hutchinson for the first weekend in January and spend some time with my family, but thought it would be best to at least post everything so that I could field phone calls all weekend from Hutch. (I'm a check-SOMETHING-off-the-list type of person, and getting some items on craigslist felt like a HUGE thing to check off the list.)

So last Friday night Summer and I posted about 8 items. Little did I know that I would get phone calls immediately and that people would want to come over right away. Somebody came and bought my couch THAT NIGHT. Also somebody wanted my dressers (an item I didn't think would go so fast...). So as the dude was checking out my dressers, he decided to look at my bed. "Is this for sale?"..."Yes." I said, and in that instant, I turned around. He and his son, fully clothed and in winter coats, were LAYING ON MY BED. Side by side, arms at sides, feet dangling from the bottom...

I had pulled my covers and sheets aside to photograph the mattress itself. No matter...There were my pajamas and a bunch of laundry laying on the bed...No Matter. They just flopped themselves right down. Later on, the son picked up my guitar and just started playing it. (It wasn't for sale.)

They left with my dressers that night and promised to come back the following week for my bed and nightstand. Thankfully they didn't come until the a whole week later, so I had a bed to sleep in for 7 more nights!

So they came yesterday and had to be upstairs to take apart the bed frame, but I had the sale going on downstairs, so I could only check on them periodically. Every time I came upstairs, the dad was working on taking apart the bed, and the son was playing my guitar. Without asking.

I Guess I'm the Tampon Lady

A friend just emailed me and told me that he passed the tampon aisle at Walmart the other day and thought of me.

Which reminded me of yet another tampon story:

I was just in that aisle the other day (no reason) and a man was standing there staring at all the products, sticky note in hand, looking completely lost. So first I laughed at him, and then as a joke, I told him to let me know if he needed any help. Clearly his wife had given him specific instructions and he couldn't find the right ones. He leaned over and read from the sticky note in a whisper, "I'm looking for Tucks Pads". "OH!" I exclaimed, "those aren't in this aisle..." I hesistated, but then went on, "you know that's for hemerhhoids, right?" And he whispered back, "I know."

And Without a Job I'm Still Insanely Busy

So folks...YES...last Thursday, December 31st was my final day at my job.


I had a retirment party for myself where I did this:


And this:


And ever since then I have been frantically trying to get ready for my HUGE estate sale this Friday and Saturday. I have sold a ton of furniture already on Craigslist and I even sold my quilt stash. Everything goes! It's pretty sad to watch your life's collections walk out the door, but I'm excited that I'm about to walk out the door myself!

Anyways, the blog has been sort of slow this week, but expect exciting things to happen soon! Hanna and I leave for Mazatlan on Monday, and I fly to Samoa on February 2nd...

Yet another embarrassing tampon story

Here's another tampon story for you:

It originates from the basement of the huge Blue Cross Blue Shield office in Eagan MN where I had my first full-time-grown-up job after I moved to the city. I was a Customer Service Representative and that meant working in a sea of cubes every single day. Mine was pretty far from the bathrooms, and in order to get there, I had to walk the equivalent of a city block past a million people in a million cubes.

One day I walked that city block all the way to the bathroom. As the door shut behind me, I saw that I had a tampon in my hand.

(I forgot to shove it up my sleeve.) I've never been one of those girls who brings their purse to the bathroom. Also I didn't want to put it in my pants pocket, where it's shape could be easily identified. Wouldn't want anybody to think I had my period!

International Falls

The Daily Journal, our newspaper in International Falls, has a column called "Looking Back". They post news items from older Daily Journals from 10 years ago, 25 years ago, etc.

One day I was browsing through it, and found the following "News" item about my dad:

"Walter Hexum has been hired by the International Falls School Board to be junior high locker room attendant."


You heard it here first!

My teenage car accident story

When I was 15, my friends Krista and Maija and I went to the beach. On the way home, Krista got a little over-zealous on one of the gravel road curves. She lost control and we ended up in a swamp. Fortunately, we didn't roll; I have no idea how we did not. Water slowly seeped into the car. We were screaming like teenage girls as it covered our feet, then our ankles, our knees and so on. Scary! Maija had trouble getting her seat belt off. If we had been upside down in a roll situation, she may have died. But -- all's well that ends well, am I right? (Too soon?)

I don't know if I've ever told anybody this (who am I kidding?), but since I was already wet, and waist deep in the swamp while we were escaping the wreckage of the sinking car... I peed.

Krista had a box of tampons in the back pocket of one of the front seats. Somehow, in the confusion, the tampons escaped and we found them floating near the car on the surface of the murky water. We had to get help. But, we couldn't just leave the tampons. So, naturally, we found the best plan was to shove them -- one by one -- under the car. Perfect solution, huh?

But, when the tow truck came and pulled the car out... you guessed it, one thousand tampons floating EVERYWHERE.

Good Ol' Brian Hartman

I saw Brian Hartman tonight at my work going away party. He is my friend Tammy's husband, and I used to work with him about 12 years ago. One time we were playing "Best Ball" golf at a work function, which means that everybody plays, but you just advance to the furthest ball hit and go from there. Of course my ball was never the 'best', and so we always had to pick up my ball on the way to the best one. Since we were in a golf cart, Brian convinced me that, in the interest of saving time he would just drive next to the ball and I could lean out of the cart and just grab it. So I complied. I grabbed onto the rollbar with my left hand, crouched down low, and prepped myself to grab the ball with my right hand. Brian must have counted on all of this, because just as I had my hand all the way to the ground, ready to impress him with my on-the-go golf ball grabbing skills, he YANKED the steering wheel to the left and I went a-tumblin'.

'Ha Ha Kady, the joke's on you', he must have thought, but as he looked over his shoulder to see his horrible trick come to fruition, he noticed that I looked as if I was going to pull out of it. I somehow landed on my feet, and tried to run as fast as humanly possible to stay upright. When he tells the story, he explained at that moment that he was actually rooting for me, and for a while it looked like I would just run right out of the situation. But of course, the inertia of having been so rudely tossed out of a golf cart caught up to me and I took a tumbler. A 'header' as he describes. And he laughed and laughed.

I agreed that it would have been funny, if it hadn't been me.

Tonight I reminded him of this story and we laughed again. And then, as he left, he said, "Well, see ya, have fun on your trip, blog me or something."

That same day, (on the golf course) I had to go to the bathroom really really really bad. There were no port-a-potties anywhere near, so I made an executive decision to go in the woods. I had it in my head that if I could just find a fallen tree, I could sit on it, like a toilet and go to the bathroom that way. So, I found a fallen tree. I didn't realize until I sat on it that it was actually more like a twig than a tree, and of course it snapped right out from under my naked butt. Unfortunately this fallen "tree" was chosen also because of it's choice location on a downward slope. My logic was that the pee would run downhill, backwards away from me. Anyway, when I fell, I fell backwards. And continued falling backwards, in a sommersaulting motion, all the way down the hill. Peeing all the way.

Allowance

My family managed an apartment building when I was growing up, in exchange for free rent in a 3 bedroom/1 bathroom townhome. There were 8 of us. But I digress. We also got paid for things like painting between tenants and such. Our duties included cleaning the common areas in the buildings, mowing and shoveling, collecting rent, etc. And my dad ran a tight ship. I rememeber being very tiny and picking up litter like cigarette butts to keep the grounds nice and clean. This place was huge too, it took days to mow the lawn. Once it was finished, it was time to start up again. And the shoveling. It pains me to think of the miles and miles of sidewalks that needed clearing, at ungodly early hours in the morning.

One day when I was like 7 or 8, an old man found me shoveling sidewalks. He was surprised at how little I was, and exclaimed, "I hope you're getting paid for this!"

"Yes, TWO dollars." I answered. He must have decided that really wasn't worth it.

Misreading his reaction, I added, "Yep! And I get it EVERY MONTH!"

This was after our family meeting where mom and dad sat us all down at the dinner table and explained that we were about to start receiving allowance. Imagine our excitement! No longer performing slave labor, but actually being compensated for our hard work! Kim was to receive $30 per month, Keri $25, and on down the line, ending with me and Kasey receiving $2 each. "But," dad continued, "Kim, you'll pay the electricity bill. Keri, you'll pay the water bill," etc. I swear you could actually hear the sound of our hearts being crushed.



Now THAT'S good parenting.

Today

So, I had this amazing precursor to unemployment today. I woke up at 9ish. (No different than any other day to be honest). But what came next gave me this amazing taste of what it might be like to *not* have a job. I had a 'To Do' list on the fridge, that contained the following:

• Fold laundry
• Make brownies
• Make bars
• Brine Chicken
• Clean house
• Lay around
• Watch movies

By noon, I could already cross off 'Fold laundry' and 'clean house'. I made bars and brownies around 3pm~ish. I definitely layed around and watched movies...but the amazing part was that I got to watch TV. Namely Judge Alex. A graphic designer from Florida somewhere designed cards, envelopes, etc for a motivational speaker who agreed to a $700 price tag. He didn't end up paying her of course, which was the reason for the lawsuit. But the interesting thing was that she put him on something like "rippedoff.com" and posted that he hadn't paid his bill. Once he googled himself and saw that he was on that website, he sent a lot of nasty f-word-laden emails to her, which of course were then posted on the website also. He claimed that he had lost $100,000 in income, because he was cancelled by 35 speaking engagements at $3500 a piece. He was countersuing for $5000. (Probably the max in small claims court.) I guess I sort of want my motivational speakers to pay their bills. He lost. Anyway! Then I watched Giada, and she made this amazing goat cheese/ricotta cheese with lemon zest and basil dip and crostini bread. Yum. After that there was a TLC special on people who won the lottery, you know the smart ones who don't blow the money? This woman on there bought herself a used Cadillac Escalade when she won $18.2 million. It made me cry.

After that I had this natural high of getting lots of stuff done and so I opened the front door, and I had to push it hard to get it open, due to the FOOT of snow that we got last night. I yelled, "MARRRRRYY CHRISSSSSSSSSSSSSsmas!!!" to no one, which is funny and ironic in MY mind, because I don't celebrate Christmas. But then when I realized that my neighbor across the street was shoveling her steps, and was now looking at me, I got embarrassed, and then yelled, a little more softly this time, just to her: "isn't this crazy?" and gestured to the snow. She not only did not reply, but just turned right back to the shoveling of her steps. Crabby.

Oh, and one of the movies I watched was Up. I haven't cried that hard at a movie in a long time. Spoiler: He saves the bird.

A very special Thanks to Darin Heller, co-owner of the company I work for until next Thursday, for suggesting that we should probably close the office today due to the impending snowstorm. Usually I think it's him that insists that we always stay open, so yay for him.

I Think I'm Ready for that Baby Now, Ryan Gosling

I had to send my nephew Murphy to school one day, and here is the email I sent his teacher:

Anne, Murphy doesn't have his backpack because I was unable to get into his house this morning.  I sent him with my backpack. (I threw in some underwear and fresh socks/flip flops just in case.)  That dress he is wearing is not a dress.  In fact it's my sweatshirt.  It is acting as a coat, as I forgot to grab his.  He doesn't have to wear that huge thing all day if he wants to take it off.

The blank piece of paper in the backpack was supposed to be a note to you, but I had no pen.

Signed,

Super responsible Kady Hexum




What's with the face Ryan Gosling?  I'm serious.

A Dream I Had

I had this dream about a friend of mine, and emailed her (still going through old emails):



So, you and all your sisters had on nude nylons, the ones that are actually like brown and you had open-toed shoes on. So I pulled you aside and I said, "K:, I'm sorry but you know, that's not really in fashion to be wearing nude nylons with open-toed shoes." and you said, "Yes but we do it because we don't make rules." And I said, "I understand all of that. But you know if you're going to insist on wearing nude nylons you should at least just wear closed-toed shoes." And then suddenly a monster awakened in you and you got really angry and you started marching towards me with your two thumbs in the shape of somebody going to pinch a zit. And then you said, "If you're going to insist on being so rude as to tell me how to dress, I'm going to pinch that god awful zit you've had on your forehead for the last three days and we'll be rid of it finally!!!"

Another Miles funny

AcornA
french head
with a beret
small brain inside
squirrel scoots along
Uh-oh
by-bye world
Snap! Snap! Snap!
Munch! Munch! Munch!
MMMM!


Miles Hanson12-21-09

Miles Murphy and Miyo

This picture is classic, and illustrates perfectly the relationship between Murphy and Miyo:

Remember the story of Miles, yelling to Kasey from his bedroom that he shares with Murphy? And finally she went in there and was like, "WHAT?!" Then Miles said,

"Murphy's acting like 8 monkeys with 7 bananas!"

Going through Old Emails 2

Again, from J.:


I nearly had a heart attack a few minutes ago...

On my way to the college, I passed a pond as I walked trough Loring Park. I had my sights set on Starbucks and was oblivious to my surroundings. Suddenly there was a fluttering around my head and I felt this scratch and peck on my head! I flailed my arms wildly, and crouched down to get away from my attacker. When I looked up, I saw this little Red Winged Black Bird sitting on a reed.

I thought of Hitchcock's "The Birds" and got the heck out of there!

Going through Old Emails

This came from my friend J.:


This morning on my way to work, I decided I needed to know what time it was. As I approached the stop sign at the end of my street I quickly glanced in my rear view mirror and saw no one behind me. So I decided to dig through my bag for my watch while I sat at the stop sign.

I then realized it had been days since I had applied lip balm, so I rummaged in my bag for Burt's, found it, and started to put some on without looking up around me. Out of my peripheral vision I see a car to my left. Evidently the driver had pulled up behind me, and then decided to go around. I looked up and made eye contact with this guy while holding a tube of lip balm. He glared at me as if to say, "what the H-E-double-hockey-sticks are you doing?!"

Ode to me

From an old pal:

She's not much to look at, this friend of mine,
kind of ugly and fat, much like a swine.
Her legs are like Jell-O, her hair is like hay,
she looks like someone you'd see at an Old Country Buffet.
Her teeth are as yellow as the bright morning sun,
her skin is a pale as a snow flake bun.
She is as wide as she is tall,
she's not very big but she sure ain't small.
Your eyes will tremble with pity and fear,
As you see this grotesque sight coming near.
But let me assure you she's a harmless lady,
She's my friend, and I love her, Her name is Kady.

Expired, Schmexpired

When cleaning out my house in preparation for my trip, in other words trying to compact the contents of a 4 bedroom home into one neat little back pack, I realized that I have a hard time "letting go". This can clearly be seen in the medications I hang onto for no apparent reason. I do not have allergies. However, every time I travel, I bring along the same Wal-Dryl capsules that I have had for one hundred years "just in case". Expiration date? 3/04. Meaning they were probably manufactured sometime in the 20th century. Since I don't have allergies, it's even more unclear why I have a single Zyrtec tablet, packaged in a 2 1/2" x 2 1/2" aluminum foil cartridge. Expiration date? Sep 06. My drawers are filled with Acyclovir cream that went bad in June of 2001, HomeBest's generic version of Antifungal Cream which "Cures Most Athlete's Foot!", expiration date: 10/05. The weird thing? I've never had Athlete's Foot. Also, I wonder if I'll ever need this unopened Monistat Vulvar Cream that went bad in April of 2007, or the Claritin Hives Relief, expired in August of 2005? The worst part is that I have moved these medications from several apartments and now finally they reside, unused, in the drawers and cabinets of my home.

The only medication around here that seems to still be good is the Chewable Lactaid, which expires August 2010, but is of no use to me, since I am quite lactose TOLERANT.

I don't think I ever actually purchased any of these items, and yet I feel the need to keep them on hand in case my non-existant allergies act up, or if I ever get a tummy ache from milk, which will never happen. "Just throw them away!", you might say...I can't. Something is wrong with me. Am I a hoarder?

Yo Yo Afrikka

Tonight the most amazing thing happened. Beata made pizza dough at my house. The only ingredients that I had were some old flour that I had in the freezer from last time I moved 7 years ago, salt, oregano, olive oil and water. No rolling pin? No problem. Use a glass from the cupboard. I guess that's how they do in Africa. I was SO impressed. Then we basically cleaned out the fridge and made the most amazing pizza you've ever tasted, with cracker crisp crust. YUM. We had artichoke hearts, olives, mushrooms, cheese, spinach, vodka and tonic. Well, she had already taken out the glass...

Then, a funny thing happened when Beata and Summer realized they were wearing the exact. same. socks.

The other thing that happened today is that Summer and I cleaned out my basement of enough trash to fill my Minneapolis-sized garbage container and then some. It looks pretty good down there, and made me feel so much better about the fact that I'm leaving in two months.

Did I mention I quit my job and am going to travel for a year? Well now that the cat's out of the bag...my last day of work is December 31st. I can't believe I actually quit. I have worked at my company for 9.5 years...and with most of my coworkers for 12. But the truth is my heart has always sort of ached for travel, and now I'm going to do it full time. So, very soon this blog will be less about my exciting Minneapolis life of making pizzas with friends who wear the same socks and more about exploring the world and visiting friends in other countries, who make sure that they don't show up to the same pizza making event in the same socks. Hopefully, anyway. How embarrassing.

Working out with the Intern

I don't really like to work out alone. I don't want to walk ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE PARKING LOT to my Lifetime Fitness and so when my regular work-out buddy Felicia couldn't make it to the gym today I was a little depressed because I knew that meant I wouldn't go either. But I'm fat right now and I'm going to Mexico in about a month, so I casually asked the hot, young, 23 year old college-graduate intern that I have been sexually harrassing for the past 6 months if he had a membership to Lifetime, knowing full well that he did. "I'm going at 3pm," he said, and so of course I told him I was going with him. I also told him I'm a social exerciser and need somebody to at least walk over to Lifetime with me. I agreed to work out on the treadmills.

We walked over and when I got out of the changing room, he was already running, with a quarter-of-a-mile on the display at a pace of 8 mph. I walked for about 5 minutes and then casually sped up my machine until we were stomping, right. left. right. left. at the same pace. Depressingly I realized that my machine was only at 5.6 mph to his 8. These darn short legs! We ran "together" for about a half mile on my machine and then he left to go 'lift'. Lift. Doesn't that sound amazing and gorgeous? I saw that he had run 1.38 miles on his machine. In his absence, I ended up run/walking because it's been a while since I have run, and so I was glad when he came back by for a drink of water, I was on my short little run section of the run/walk.

"You really picked up the pace!", (6mph) he mentioned and then walked toward the water fountain. Thank you for noticing...and thank goodness he hadn't come by 10 seconds earlier, as I was on the 2.8mph walk that lasted about 8 minutes. When I finally reached 2 miles (30 minutes), he asked if I wanted to do an Ab Set.

"YES PLEASE", I answered, not really knowing what that was, but it sounded romantic. And it was. Until we did side planks, me facing the wall and him facing my clenched, shaking butt. Wonder if he'll want to work out tomorrow?

Tom Liden, Fox9 News

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eiG5FCYJ8k

Cleaning up the front closet

So for some reason when the man who brings the phone books by, I don't immediately recycle them like a reasonable person. Instead I throw them in a pile up on the shelf in my front closet. Tonight, at Summer's behest, I took them all down and brought them out for recycling. Here are SEVEN years' worth of Minneapolis/St. Paul phone books. I brought one of them down, ONCE, to look up a phone number. It was my dad's cousin, Selvyn Meland of Lakeville. We found his home number. Other than that these books have been completely useless to me in the past.

And then I found a NorthFace coat that I insisted Summer use while reading meters outside. Right now she's using her dad's unwarm sweatshirt to walk 9 miles per day in 20 below weather. She tried it on. With the neon green vest. We decided it makes her look like a morbidly obese sumo wrestler and then the bright idea to sit on the pile of discarded useless phone books naturally came up.

"Does this coat make me look fat?"

Keep your phones close

I got the following text from sweet little Teri:

"Sometimes I like to dress up in trucker gear, call myself Duke Nukem, spit chew at imports, and ask where the restroom is at cuz I gotta rip a growler."


Turns out her brother-in-law steals her phone and sends mass texts, supposedly from her. Not her.

Ramona Day

I probably haven't mentioned this on my blog yet, but Beata and Nancy and I started a band about 2 months ago. It all started at a party that Ben was having at his place and Nancy slipped down to the basement to practice the drums. Beata and I went looking for her and then sort of just played all the boys' instruments and right then and there, that first night, we wrote two songs. They were awesome, and so are we. So we've been practicing every weekend and now we have five songs. Originals. Make that four and a half songs. The 5th song is sort of in process right now, but it's coming along. anyway I think it's pretty awesome that we have already made T-shirts. Actually, Nancy made the T-shirts in her Print Media class. So because we got together and wrote two songs the first night, somebody was making a joke like, "what, no more songs?" and I was like, "Rome wasn't built in a day." And then we named the band Rome in a Day, but spelled Roman A Day, because we are AWESOME. And then Shawn and summer convinced Nancy and I that Ramona Day is cuter, and we went with it, but couldn't get a hold of Beata for her opinion, and then suddenly the T-shirts were already made. And that is the history of my band. Nancy plays drums and guitar and sings, Beata plays guitar and drums and I play bass and sing.

Suck it.

That's pretty rock star, right? How I said, "Suck it"?

Text Received from S.

I received the following in a text from my very good friend "S.":


When I got up this morning I saw my loofah has mysteriously unraveled.

"Dad, What happened to my loofah?"

"It unraveled."

"Have you been using it?"

"Yeah, I always use it."

"DAD!!! THAT'S NOT SOMETHING THAT YOU SHARE!!"

My new favorite website

Ashley hipped me to an overheard in Minneapolis website.
click here for more HILARITY

Preteen girl #1 coming out of Harry Potter: That was waaaay better than Twilight.
Preteen girl #2: Yeah, Twilight was like eating poop and Harry Potter was like eating gummy bears!

Snowy day

So some people were snowed out this morning...(thus the comment about the closet and the sweats).

Here's what it looked like at my place:















Sorry Summer...if you're going to borrow my camera, you risk showing up on the blog. In your hat and thrift store boots.

...Overheard at the Office today

"Were you snowed out of your closet?"



~coworker to my boss, who wore sweatpants, a sweatshirt and UGG boots to work.

Overheard From Summer N. Grimes

"What if you hated Mexico and Mexicans? You would be racist."

This makes me Miss my Mom

This is my mom's fantastic easy breakfast. Do yourself a huge favor and make this immediately:




Start a fry pan going with some olive oil and saute:

Carrots
Celery
Garlic
Mushrooms
Whatever other veggies you want, just start the carrots first, they take the longest. You can get them started while you chop all the rest up.

In that order, and when it's all sort of nice and sauteed, cover completely with lots of fresh spinach. Then crack four to six eggs on top of the spinach layer and spread fresh chopped parsley on top of that. Cover and fry on low for around 10 minutes~ish (or until the eggs are cooked.)

That's the vegetarian version...she makes it with deer sausage on the very bottom, which is fantastic but I don't have any deer sausage because my mom and dad forgot to SHARE some with me. Hint Hint.

Overheard at Girls' Night...

One time, a friend's friend's mom went to Europe. She didn't want to pack lots of underwear. You know, to save space. So her brilliant idea was to pack two pairs of underwear and a bunch of pads. Then just wear the pads and throw them away and keep recycling the underwear. I know.

Anyways, because she was past menopause, she hadn't worn a pad for years, and didn't realize that you need to remove the sticker to expose the adhesive backing and then stick it to your underwear. She just placed it there. And so, while on a museum walking tour, her pad of course worked its way down her leg, and out the bottom. She kicked it, hoping no one would notice. But the tour guide did, and he said, "is that your pad?". "No", she said, and then he said, "yes it is, I saw you kick it out of your pant leg."

Burt's Bees

My good friend J. and I went out last night and I found myself, oddly, without Chapstick. I never go anywhere without it because I am addicted and so my lips were all dry. I knew I had a tube in the car, but that was a block and a half away and it was freezing out. "Ask J.", you might say. Well, J. doesn't share Chapstick. I know this. I don't agree with her stance, and I think she's crazy, but yet I accept it because I love her. But I need Chapstick. Bad. So instead I say, "J., I know you don't share Chapstick. Perhaps we could find an alternative solution, because I'm dying, so like would you allow a dab on my finger? Can we roll it all the way up and I'll take some off the sides?"

Well J. wasn't sure those options would work for her and so in her infinite kindness, she said, "I'll tell you what, you can just have this tube because I don't really like it anyway, and then you can shut up about your dry lips already." (She didn't really say that). But she did give me the Chapstick. It's the Honey Burt's Bees. I have to agree that it's not very good. There's this weird after taste to it. Despite that, I felt really bad about taking it. But that didn't stop me from applying it 6,000 times slowly last night in front of J. and rubbing it in that now it was mine and due to her phobia she was going to be the one with chapped lips. Then we got the conversation going about how Honey really isn't very good. And it's not. At all.

Here's another one that sucks. It makes your lips all white. Lifeguard's Choice:

J. said that she will apply her regular Beeswax Burt's Bees all day long and it just feels so smooth and luxurious on her lips and so the act of applying it becomes pretty cathartic. I agreed.

I think that the Pomegranate is the absolute best, but I feel like it's only for a special treat and I purposely don't buy it all the time to keep it special. One time I had a party and the door gift was Pomegranite Burt's Bees. I thought I was going to have about 20 guests and so I bought 20 tubes of it, for $60. When I left Target I had a panic attack because I had just spent $60 on CHAPSTICK. But it's good stuff and everybody was happy to get not one but two tubes because I didn't have the turn out that I expected. And then I forgot to keep one for myself and that's all I wanted was just one for myself. But listen, this stuff tastes SO good and it's the best best best Chapstick in the whole world.

In the end, while I was applying the Honey Burt's Bees for the hundredth time to make J. jealous, and by this time her lips were super dry, so I got her to take some off the sides of the roled up tube. And you should have seen her face. Like she was doing something really bad, but she liked it.

This is only a Test

Last night, some friends and I stayed out WAY too late and as a result Summer and I crashed at my place somewhere around 4am. (I know, I know, I'm not 19 anymore. Summer's just been in Vermont for what seems like forever and nobody wanted the night to end.) I forgot my keys and so I had to go and get the spare out of the garage. During this time I noticed another car on my street. "Hmmm...That's funny". Then the car got closer to my place and as I was opening the door with the spare and Summer went in ahead of me, two men RAN through my yard within 20 feet of us to the neighbor's house and I panicked. I screamed, and then hurried into the house and shut and locked the door. With the key still in the lock on the outside. "Hey rapers! Come on in! Here's the key!"

Summer and I got really shaken up and we were looking out all of the windows and I even went out to the front steps and yelled "HEY!" into the yard to see if they would reappear. The point of the story is that now that I have slept on it, I think they were innocently distributing those annoying flyers that I get on my door every day. This was only a test. Should it have been a real emergency I would be dead.

Old Roommates

I was just reminded of a story about an old roommate...the one who said "gotiate" instead of negotiate, "taminated" instead of contaminated, and "seya" phone instead of cellular phone. One morning she said she felt as if I "belitter" her, instead of belittle. "Lungs" instead of Lunds, and she spelled Ryan's name Ronnie...what a laugh a minute that girl was.

So anyways, one day I was down in the laundry room, and moving my white bed sheets from the washing machine into the dryer. As I reached into the machine for the last items, I found an unidentified black item. "No big deal," I thought...the sheets didn't appear to show signs of color from a black item...but before I threw said unidentified black object into the dryer I kind of looked closer to find out exactly what it was. As I looked closer, I recognized it less and less and then finally realized it was a pair of my roommates' underwear. I screamed and cried and freaked out imagining the crotch part of her underwear rubbing up against the part of the sheets that my face touch, and then I calmed myself down, no doubt rationalizing that at least now that they've been washed it's not that bad that I've got them in my hand. Then I rechecked the washing machine for any last items to put in the dryer. And there. Stuck. To the side. Of the inside. Of the machine. Was a pad.

I called Kasey and FREAKED out. "What should I DOOOO????!!!?!", I screamed into the phone.

"THROW THE SHEETS AWAY!!", she replied.