Surprise!!

We kept our change of plans to move to Michigan a secret from everybody, mostly so that I could surprise my sister Kelly in Toledo, Ohio when we drove right by her house to get to Michigan.

Background yet useful information:  when Kelly chose to move to Toledo, Ohio and said to me, "but Kady, now you'll have somewhere to visit!"  I very seriously but also very mean mean meanly told her that I would "never, ever come to Toledo" to visit her.  I think that hurt her feelings.  I was just trying to get her to realize the error of her ways.  Come on.  Toledo?

And I meant to hold up my end of that bargain, which I've done without any effort for the last four years.  My current job situation left me no choice, however, and boy was she surprised when I was at her door!

Kelly

Sylvie and Edie.  Having nothing to do with each other.

Niece Karley, who I could have sworn was just five years old yesterday.

The ole butt pinch pelvic thrust sister hug

AWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

Road Trip

So, we got Summer's car all fixed with a brand new alternator.  We loaded up the car for our trip to South Carolina.  And by loaded up I mean cram-packed everything Summer owns in this world into her 1996 Volvo along with my two suitcases and a few miscellaneous bags of stuff.

We were about an hour into the trip when I realized we had no idea where we were going.  I mean, we knew what town, but hadn't secured lodging or anything.  Also, we had no idea where we needed to be on Monday morning for work.  So I texted my boss who called Summer back and informed her that the South Carolina project wasn't ready yet and that we were needed at a project in Michigan.

We needed to change course for Michigan, which fortunately only meant a 30 mile backtrack, but also meant an additional 500 miles in the car.  OK...we got this!  We are adventurers!  We only packed one extra pair of undies in our easily accessible overnight bags!  crap



It was kind of funny when this happened...but it was totally my fault as I let her car roll onto one of those concrete car-stopper things in a parking lot.

Guess what?  There was no room in the car for it!  So it became my riding partner.

We got to see some fall colors in Kentucky and Ohio, two states I had previously never been, bringing my new "State Count" to 45!  Only five to go!  (I'm talking to you, Alaska, Hawaii, Arizona, New Mexico and West Virginia.)

I think Edie's pretty used to this by now.

Michigan!!

It's a little sad.  We miss New Orleans.  Here I am with my New Orleans beads and my last New Orleans beer...in my nice but far less amazing apartment in the far less fabulous Troy, Michigan.

Where to next, you ask?  Who knows?  We'll probably find out in the car on the way there.

Things to Do Before Leaving NOLA # 10: Have Four Days' Worth of Horrible Car Troubles

This story is probably as long as the horrible day that the system beat us in Thailand.  In an effort to consolidate, I'm going to bullet point the story:

Friday, September 30:

• last day of work
• return one rental car to the airport
• park other rental car on Tuesday-street-sweeping street.  (No matter, we'll return it Monday.)

Saturday, October 1 - Monday, October 3:

• do lots of moving errands
• do lots of fun stuff, as outlined in the previous 9 posts in this series
• run out of time to return rental car

Tuesday, October 4:

• sleep until noon
• lollygag about the apartment for a few hours
• get a tan in my living room

• inform Summer that I don't feel like leaving the apartment so she leaves to go to her appointment alone
• get phone call from Summer
• "where is the car?"
• realize rental car has been towed
• make 357 phone calls trying to see if tow lot will release car to us, since we are not owners. nope.
• make 432 more phone calls trying to see if rental company will call on our behalf
• resolve, finally
• walk to tow lot two miles away through bad, bad neighborhood
• talk loud and fast to Summer through bad, bad neighborhood so nobody gets any ideas about robbing us
• finally pick up rental car, $193 later 
• drive it to the office to pick up Summer's car which has been stored at the office and not driven in 7 weeks
• follow each other to drop rental car off at the airport
• ride together back to apartment
• break down two miles from apartment on off ramp
• Summer steers and I push car 
• a few good Samaritans help as she pops the clutch and starts the car and it runs for two blocks
• repeat for two miles
• finally give up and call triple A
• wait for triple A driver
• drive car no problem with help of triple A driver's power pack attached to battery
• it's the alternator, he says
• leave car overnight with voicemail to mechanic, who advertised Foreign car repair
• stay out until 4am dancing with Lionel Batiste

Wednesday, October 5th:

• wake up late and find out Foreign car repair place does not work on cars over 10 years old
• discover Enterprise rental car company would have come and got all of our rentals, we wouldn't have needed to drive to airport
• pick up another rental car
• push/pop clutch on Summer's car for three blocks
• jump car with new rental car

• drive car two blocks again
• give up
• leave Summer with her car, drive rental car to ATM to withdraw $70 cash, in order to leave deposit for alternator shop's power pack so we can drive Summer's car there for repair
• return to Summer and her car, drive 3mph the two miles to alternator shop, who has graciously stayed open just for us
• leave car with adorable cajun couple
• REALIZE THAT ALTERNATOR SHOP IS 45 YARDS FROM ORIGINAL OFF-RAMP BREAK DOWN LOCATION:

Photo taken from alternator shop.  We broke down at that traffic light the night before.

Thursday, October 6 - Friday, October 7:

• cross fingers, hoping car will be ready for our cross country journey on Saturday  (it was)

Saturday, October 8:

• drive to South Carolina, only to be informed part-way through the journey that the destination had been changed to Birmingham, MI.  

The Adventure Continues...

It's Always Sunny in my Running Clothes Drawer.

Here's Charlie, my favorite character on the TV Show It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.  In a recent episode, he can be seen wearing a T-Shirt from the Fifth Annual Urban Wildland Half Marathon in Richfield, MN:

I wonder if he actually ran it?  Probably not.  He's not even real.

BUT I DID!

"OMG!  Charlie!?  We have the SAME SHIRT!"

Things to Do Before Leaving NOLA # 9: Go to City Park Sculpture Garden

Unfortunately the sculpture garden was closed, but the park was still open, and it was a fabulous day, so we walked around and laid a blanket out and read and stuff. 

Spanish moss grows on all these amazing old trees.

I already lost these sunglasses :(

I was innocently enjoying the beautiful scenery when suddenly, somebody started urgently knocking at my back door.  Thank GAWD for the stone bench and it's poop-stopping characteristics.  If not for that bench I might have had to go and sit on one of those tree roots:

Fortunately they had a few disgusting port-a-potty's, by the name of "Pot-O-Gold".  Indeed.  Crisis averted.  

The End.

Feminist Ryan Gosling

New favorite website I wish I had invented.

(Thanks, McShash for the recommend.)




http://feministryangosling.tumblr.com/

Here's a sample:

Things to Do Before Leaving NOLA # 8: Have a Shish Kebab Party

We decided to throw a party so we could showcase our fabulous apartment, and shish kebab was the theme.

Summer and I provided all the fixins and have a "build your own/grill your own" situation.  It helps if your roommate is the queen of sauces and marinades.  She marinated the beef in a mixture of soy sauce, chopped garlic, honey, sesame oil and agave nectar (but you could use brown sugar or molasses).  Stir, heat a little if you have to get the mixture to melt into itself.

The chicken was marinated in fresh chopped garlic, fresh rosemary, white wine and olive oil. 

The shrimp was marinated in triple sec, tequila, canola oil, lots of lime juice and cilantro.

Then we just chopped up and provided all the other ingredients for kebabs.  Peppers, poblanos, pineapple, onion, cherry tomatoes and mushrooms.  Build and grill your own kebabs!

Oh how I miss this balcony.

For an appetizer, one of our guests brought and fried his own fresh-caught shrimp.  He breaded them with a little egg, flour and spices.  He made regular and buffalo (by adding pepper flakes and Crystal hot sauce) and they were FANTASTIC.

Happy 45th, Mom and Dad!

It seems like only yesterday I was wishing them a Happy 44th, but I'm sure to them it seems like only yesterday that I was born.  34 years, four months and five days ago.

I think it's kind of gross that I was born when they were only 28 and 30, because my whole life they just seemed. so. OLD.

But really, they weren't.  They were young.  If I were my mom, by this time I would have had 9 pregnancies and given birth seven times.  My oldest daughter would be getting ready to graduate high school and my youngest would be secretly going to kindergarten on the bus with her older sister without my knowledge.  My husband would have left me alone for weeks at a time -- with my six surviving ingrates children in the three-bedroom/one-bathroom townhome where we all lived together -- to trap wolves, coyotes and fox for the government for a cool $7,000 per year.  I would have taken that $7,000 and turned it into 1,095 meals per year and provided clothes, boots, coats, hats, mittens and scarves for my six jags delightful growing angels.  There would be time to teach everybody how to read and write before they entered kindergarden.  We would sew our own clothes and for special events everybody would wear something fresh and new.  We would meet uptown once a week to learn how to square dance with old people and all of us girls would have a cute ruffly slip and bloomers to wear under our adorable square dancing outfits.  Everybody would be bathed and teeth brushed and in pajamas at bedtime OR ELSE.  I wouldn't have a cell phone or a TV or a minute to myself and if I decided to take up oil painting, one of my brats daughters would decide she didn't like the size of the moon in one of my landscapes and take it upon herself to make it just a little bigger with her fingertip.  My son would mortify me by bringing my non disposable douche to the dinner table when company was over, refusing to wait for me to "tell him later" what it was, and completely redeem himself afterward by taking the blame when I farted loudly.

Being that I can't even get out of bed in time for work most mornings, I cannot imagine being responsible for the life of even one other person.

And Dad, I love ya.  You worked hard every day and taught us kids to work hard too.  My heart broke a little today when I picked up my new iPhone and in order to connect it the Verizon people had to delete all the voicemails I had been saving from you.  Like the one about the lady's slippers.  ...and the one last summer when I left for a week and you said: "Just come home now.  This isn't working out."  ...and another when I left for Central America: "My heart is broken."  ...and the adorable loving one from last week: "I think if I had it to do over, I would skip having kids and just get myself four-five answering machines so I could just call up and leave a message every couple days..."

Relish this time, you guys!  You're childless!  Responsibility-free!  And yah, sometimes old age might creep up and you'll have to survive horrible things like prostate cancer and receiving promotional literature from Lark about their mobility scooters.  You might even be targeted by those pesky texting companies who like to charge $9.99 per month to poor unsuspecting elderly people who don't know that the text service they're agreeing to is NOT a photo of one of their grandkids.  But don't worry!  You've got each other.  You've got fishing.

And I'll be back before you can say "ungrateful jag brat".

Congratulations and Thank You for sticking it out for the last 45 years! 

(I don't even want to think about how much nuttier I would be if I were a child of divorce.)

Summer-isms, Vol. 17 (Road Trip Edition)

"I think I would like it better if Altoids were half the size that they are."

"I'm not laughing at you, I'm laughing with us."

"I kinda like skunk smell sometimes."

"It's 70 miles an hour, jerks!  I have my house in my car and I'm driving faster than you."

"You don't weigh yourself during a road trip, Dummy!"

Hal-isms, Vol. 17

To the DNR officer:
"We're counting what we see, and subtracting what we shoot."
_________

Mom to Kady:  "Ok, just let me know."
Hal to Mom: "Oh God, Dianne.  If she poops she's gonna let you know."

Things to Do Before Leaving NOLA # 7, Knock That Beret Off That Guy's Head

As you recall, I absolutely hate this guy's beret.

Seriously?

So, I decided to take action.  I marched right on down to his little "chess lesson stand", (where I have never seen an actual lesson taking place), and did what I had to do.

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.