Tuesday, April 30, 2013

NYC: The Apartment

I bet Francisco took this picture. Since we share a camera, it's sometimes hard to tell, but when there's a really excellent picture, it's probably his.

Francisco and I visited friends of his in New York City last weekend. I have just loads and loads of pictures, which will keep the blog busy for sometime.


One of the most charming things about visiting there is his friends and their wonderful apartment, which is just off Central Park. I love the views.


I don't think that I've ever flown into NYC before. That was incredible:




The whole entry was amazing, especially at night, with fog. But what took my breath away was when we got near all the tall buildings, with fog:


I felt like I was in some superhero movie, flying over the city. Like Spiderman or Batman or something. This one's blurry, but you get the feeling:


Monday, April 29, 2013

Twitter

Turns out, one of my shoulders is higher than the other. Things you learn at wedding dress fittings.

Sunday, April 28, 2013

Friday Phone Dump


Washington Square Park, NYC


Taking the train up and down the East Coast with my brand spanking new Google Chromebook (boy does that machine take some getting used to).





















The STL used book sale, which holds up very well against Arlington's, thankfully. (I haven't found good used bookstores in STL, so it was a year's worth of book-buying):


 

Walking to class last week, I came across a bunch of llamas. You never know what you'll run into on that campus. 


I would like to hear Puccini Gershwin (from the school paper):


 The New Moon Room on the roof of a hotel on the Loop (STL):



Jeanne Crain in Green


In Gentlemen Marry Brunettes, Margie (Jeanne Crain) is back acting again with Roy (Alan Young)!


Instagram


From Sayers: "As seen at an Earth Day festival in Jim Thorpe, PA."

Delightful! (Also, according to Sayers, that town bought the rights to his name and brought his body along, too, to be buried there.)

Thursday, April 25, 2013

A Random Assortment

Guys. I'm so tired. So indescribably tired. I was moving around the East Coast for almost a week and now am back in STL for a bit, before embarking on a nomadic summer without A Room of One's Own. I sort of hate traveling a lot when the seasons are changing, because you just get little snippets of different points of spring without getting the smooth transition from bare twigs to green leaves that should happen. But, before Mama Leopard starts fussing at me for being negative, I give you the randomest of the random assortments:

~ Brooches! Love it. Can't wait till I'm old enough to wear four at once.

~ This is the first cat picture on the internet that I've thought was cute.

~ "I Heard There Used to Be a City Here." (One of my favorite STL architectural photographers on St. Louis' urban decline.)

~ Jane Austen and game theory. (The first time I've been even remotely interested in game theory.)

~ "How everyone wants their movie to end." Ain't that the truth.

~ Giant Styrofoam Head Found

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Rant.2

Why don't all hotels have white bathrobes in the closets??

(Super cranky about every. little. thing., in case you can't tell. But I shouldn't be, since I just got to have wine and cheese with Warren, an all-too-rare treat.)

Rant

Word/phrase I hate of the day: "Nom nom nom." Ew. An onomatopoeia so awkward and gross that we all wish it had never been invented.

Thursday, April 18, 2013

Friday Phone Dump


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Those grand midwestern skies. (This was when we were just on the cusp of spring last weekend.)

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Flip flop weather!

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When I leave STL (whenever that may be), boy, I'm gonna miss Gooey Butter Cake.

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Thankfully, DC isn't the only place with cherry blossoms.

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Usually I shun pictures of food, but this was just so delightful. I was on the hunt for a donut and coffee for Sunday brunch when I found this instead--roasted red pepper hummus and pita, and cucumbers, tomatoes, purple onions, olives and feta. I think I will eat this every day in the summer.

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Angry

This article implies that the pro-life movement is negligent in the Gosnell case: it blames anti-abortion advocates and Rick Santorum for not stopping Gosnell's clinic's continued operation. This is infuriating:

Nor did the group pull public (such as court) records of complaints against Gosnell, which might have allowed anti-abortion advocates to see the pattern state regulatory authorities were ignoring, despite repeated complaints from doctors and Gosnell's victims. "Groups like Operation Rescue have the manpower to investigate clinics. Most pro-life groups don't have that kind of manpower. We're there to offer women an alternative," she said. The problems with the clinic were "apparently known in the neighborhood, but I wouldn't necessarily know that."
...
There was one man who was perfectly placed to change all of that over the past two years, during which the Gosnell case lawyers were under a gag order: staunch anti-abortion advocate and former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum.
 This is so infuriating that I can't really even write anything. Now I'm just going to sit here stewing. 

Oh, and the tweet promoting the piece is just pure delight:

An anti-abortion group prayed outside Kermit Gosnell's clinic for 20 years. How did they miss the horrors inside?

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

An Embarrassing Admission

I was making Magic Meat Pie* for dinner, and I only managed to finish cooking the meat portion before eating it all.

This is what happens when your fiance convinces you to do some silly starving-yourself wedding diet.* Which doesn't work well for me since being hungry is my greatest fear. But I'm trying to convert the wedding diet into a Christian discipline, although I'm not sure it's working on that count, either.


*Have I seriously never written about Magic Meat Pie here?! Only the best food ever. I asked for Magic Meat Pie every year on my birthday when I was growing up. It's sort of like chicken pot pie, only with beef. Tonight's version was made with sausage and asparagus and, sadly, no biscuit on top.

*Convinces me to join him on some silly starving-yourself wedding diet. Every time I explain the situation I inadvertently make Francisco look like a horrible human being, but he's not.

Quote

"He can't even do the simple things, like fail locally." --Terms of Endearment (the mother-in-law on her new son-in-law getting an assistant professorship in Des Moines, Iowa)

Monday, April 15, 2013

A Random Assortment

The Missouri Botanical Garden

~ The Elder Statesman is coming to DC! I'll do my darnedest to be there. Want to come with?

~ Oh my goodness--these are the most awkward pregnancy photos ever!

~ Fascinating review by Mark Noll of a new book on Evangelicalism's method of prayer and connection to Pentecostalism and the Jesus Movement.

~ This is the trailer for a documentary about portrayals of disability in film that promises to be very interesting. 

~ Hitler's architect.

Saturday, April 13, 2013

Friday Phone Dump


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Roper's Ribs. It's been on my STL bucket list for half a year, and Francisco and I finally made it out there. We ordered tips and snoots. Tips are what makes St. Louis-style barbeque, St. Louis style. The sauce is sweet, and there's a lot of it (just the way I like it).

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Snoots are pig snouts! Francisco and I each ate one! (Well, he ate two.) I don't mind eating things like this to be daring, but I never quite got over the fact that I was eating a pig's snout. The cashier described it aptly as fried and sort of like a potato chip.

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This was under the basement stairway where I huddled and waited out my first STL tornadoes (I just made it upstairs after the first one when the tornado sirens went off again). The ground was rather damp.

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Wedding shoes, I hope!

Friday, April 12, 2013

Twitter

I just bought a modern day corset and a bag of chocolate. #todaysirony #ilovemodernlife

Twitter

This morning I whitened my teeth and then drank my coffee. Oh, the irony.

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Twitter

Guys. Tornados are super stressful. Also: how does weather.com have an "aches and pains forecast"?

Twitter

Guys! Tornadoes! And I'm alone. Flashbacks to Waco. I'm scared of thunderstorms; imagine how petrified I am of tornadoes.

Twitter

Another reason to love 88.1: They're currently playing Maggie Thatcher songs. (Of course, they're all negative--some rather intensely so [for instance, "Margaret on the Guillotine"]).

Shaws Coffee


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After the botanical gardens, we went to a cute coffee place in an old bank on the Hill, complete with a vintage bank safe.

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And pieces of spaghetti as coffee stirrers.

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Down the block was a great little band singing to the passing cars. The man in black on the outskirts was dancing away by himself.

Embarrassing Admission

I sleep with my laptop.

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Missouri Botanical Gardens.3


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Spring has sprung in Missouri, which means Francisco and I spent Saturday morning wandering around the Missouri botanical gardens.

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After, of course, stopping at the nearby World's Fair Donuts. The couple who run the place are like clockwork--the woman is always ringing up the purchases for people in a never-finished line and the man is busily making more donuts, stacking them on his finger as he cuts them out of the dough.

Afterward, when we were sitting on a bench eating our purchases, a man walked by with his rescued greyhound. He said that his greyhound gets between two and four blueberry glazed everyday. He said that she cries when she enters the store if there isn't a pile of blueberries. (That specific day, Deborah had thrown in a fifth, so the dog was especially pleased.)

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The flowers above remind me of spiders.

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I hate being outside in the winter, but, boy, the spring comes and I want to stay outside all the time.

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(Botanical gardens 1 and 2)

Monday, April 8, 2013

A Random Assortment


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~ Philly's very own ruin porn.

~ This is the life (on people who live on a Greek island and have long life expectancies):

Of course, coffee is only one factor. “It has to do with their way of living,” Dr. Siasos said. “People sleep over eight hours a night, there is increased socializing, and they have much less stress than people in Athens.”
The islanders also eat a Mediterranean diet that includes many fruits, vegetables, olive oil and fish. Most also nap every day and walk and garden regularly, Dr. Siasos said.
Very interesting NPR broadcast about disability and work (via Francisco and Edge).

~ For Hopkins and Francisco: this footage of San Francisco is like watching an IMAX on your computer. Must go back there asap.

~ Machiavelli for Moms (via Miss Self-Important).

Sunday, April 7, 2013

LA Art Deco.2


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These elevator doors show off some oranges:

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My favorite buildings (of course!) were the green ones.

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This is a pretty good example of the state of much of the architecture downtown:

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Our guide pointed out the decoration of the sidewalks in front of the buildings:

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What a stunning entryway!

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