Sunday, November 30, 2008

Thanksgiving and The Meeting of Maternal Minds

This Thanksgiving was more of a whirlwind tour than a break; whenever friends asked about my plans I summarized: "I'll see 4 states in 4 days." Kyle and I wanted to spend time with each other and with our families but this required a lot of driving. Since Kyle had school until Wednesday at noon I stayed in Charlottesville until Wednesday morning, which meant I got to meet Sabrina's mother and their dog TeAmo. To be honest I was initially apprehensive about having a half Husky half Golden Retriever running wild in our small house. On one level I adore huskies: not only did I want to own a husky when I was younger, but two of my major childhood dreams were to compete in the Iditarod and play basketball for the UConn Huskies. But I've since met several completely crazy huskies, and golden retrievers are usually only a little less hyper. TeAmo was incredible though, possibly the calmest, friendliest dog I've ever met. Even though she was emerging from an 8 hour car ride into a strange place filled with strange people she didn't bark once, just happily let us pet her and then flopped on the floor to nap. Part of her reserve was probably due to age, but Sabrina's mother said she wasn't much crazier as a puppy. Perhaps if we choose very carefully Kyle and I can adopt a husky after all (don't tell him that I'm giving in yet though).

After bidding goodbye to Sabrina, Anna, and their families I headed north to Frederick and spent the day with Kyle. Then Thursday morning we headed to Lancaster to celebrate Thanksgiving with my family. It was the usual delightful drill: catching up with relatives, watching football, playing video games and ping pong, and consuming excessive quantities of delicious food. Also my aunt brought her teaching assistant who is applying to the Spanish Literature graduate program at UVA, so we had a nice time talking about literature and the university and I was able to help her with her personal statement. Kyle and I also tried to teach her to throw a frisbee, which was going quite well until Kyle tapped it to me and managed to break it in half. Looks like my cousin will be getting a replacement disc for Christmas...

Friday morning (there would be no sleeping this break) my parents drove Kyle and I up to Binghamton. My parents planned to spend some time with Kyle's family and then leave us in Binghamton for a day or two while they continued on to their favorite vacation destination: Cooperstown, NY, home of the Baseball Hall of Fame. While it may seem ridiculous since Kyle and I have been together for almost 6 years, this was only the second time that our parents have met each other, so it was good that they had time to get to know each other more. The other reason that we brought the families together was so that the mother of the bride and the mother of the groom (known affectionately as MOB and MOG) could get some planning done face to face. My mother was thrilled to have someone helpful and receptive to talk to about the wedding. I've been rather burned out on the topic lately and Kyle often turns into the stereotypical groom with no opinions. With the mothers leading discussion we decided on tuxes for the men (mostly for convenience, since I'm a bigger fan of suits), finalized the reception menu (which will be yummy, I promise), planned out the rehearsal dinner (small, lowkey, and picnic style), found a potential ring bearer and flower girl (it turns out Kyle does know people under the age of 12), and further refined the guest list (though finalizing it is still way in the future). It was a nice and productive discussion, because that's the way mothers are.

While I still think it's weird that my family vacations yearly to upstate NY, there are definitely things I love about the area. There's the food: this trip we had square NY pizza topped with spiedie style chicken and also wonderful pasta at an Italian restaurant that Kyle's father built. And there's the wilderness: Kyle's house is built into a hill that slopes down into acres and acres of forest. Not only was nearby nature a dream for adventurous little Kyle, but nature often comes to them. They've been visited by bears and foxes in their driveway, and Saturday morning we found three deer leaping gracefully through their side yard. Best of all the time at Kyle's house gave us time to legitimately relax. I read in the bear chair (I don't know how to describe it any other way or I would) while Kyle worked on the website and then we joined his parents to watch Iron Man (which I quite enjoyed, but then again I'm partial to Robert Downey Jr and his quirky cadence). We also ignored the fact that we had just indulged in Thanksgiving dinner the day before and sampled delicious baked goods pretty much whenever we entered the kitchen. It was wonderful. I really wish we lived closer to Kyle's family so that I could see them more often. (Although that would mean being closer to upstate NY weather; I was very confused when snow started falling on us, since nothing is supposed to freeze until at least December.)

I had a rough time of it on the drive back to Lancaster and then to Frederick, 5 hours total, but we finally made it back and crashed into bed almost immediately. Now it's Sunday and Kyle and I are spending the day in one of downtown's many coffee shops. For the first time in a long time I don't have homework breathing down my neck (only half of a play to read for Tuesday and a final in over a week) so I can sip my latte, catch up on website blogging, and ignore the 3 hour drive that waits for me tomorrow morning.

| posted at: 12:30 | permanent link and comments

Monday, November 10, 2008

Showered with Frisbee Love

Everyone signed the back of this disc decorated by Waldo (who also made the invites and used the final pages of her photo album gift to scrapbook about the party as it was winding down, which was pretty impressive.)

No wonder brides get more excited about weddings than grooms do: we get an extra ring AND an extra party. Forget waiting until the wedding weekend for partying and gifts, we also get a bridal shower beforehand. And thanks to my generous and geographically widespread friends and family, it looks like I'm going to have two or three. I feel very lucky and excited.

My friends from Hydra - aka the University of Virginia Women's Ultimate Frisbee Team, the #1 team in Virginia and Tennessee and one of the best decisions that I made last year - were ridiculously on the ball (on the disc?) and threw me a bridal shower the first weekend of November. We started by consuming large amounts of delicious food - and I learned that the best dip recipe comes from the back of a cracker box. Then the girls took slips of paper and compiled marital advice and pillow talk for me. By pillow talk I really mean frisbee euphemisms; there is a lot you can do with the common frisbee terms "score," "deep," and "handle." (Attempts to use "dump" led to some interesting results.) Next Skinny Pete the skeleton stood in for Kyle as we played "Pin the Chore on the Husband." Krispy upped the ante by laying down her crutches to take a spin, and then Ducky and StaceMichelle showed off their two-person pinning skills. It was a good time for us, and probably for Skinny Pete as well: I imagine that decorative skeletons don't get much attention after Halloween.

So yeah, it was a really great party. As an added bonus I tagged along to practice afterward. I've been taking the fall off from ultimate - now that I'm out of UPA college elligibility it seemed like a good time to rest my ankle for a few months - and wow do I miss it, especially with Hydra. It was great to be out on the field with them again, and a perfect end to this celebration.

Thank you so much Hydra!

| posted at: 08:06 | permanent link and comments

Saturday, November 01, 2008

Adventures With Expresso

Don't get me wrong, buying that $100+ coffee and expresso maker for only $17 was definitely worth it. But we'll need to practice a lot before it actually becomes useful. I'm currently in possession of the persnickety machine due to our custody sharing arrangement - Kyle and I decided that I would take it back with me to assist with papers due before Thanksgiving, and then over the break I would give it back to him for grading and recommendation letter writing season. Since Kyle did most of the initial experimenting, he was kind enough to dictate detailed directions that I could take with me. Too bad I suck at following directions. The first (and so far only) time that I attempted to use the coffee and expresso maker I managed to mess up most of them. I'm willing to blame some of my problems on poor scheduling, however; why on earth did I think that trying to figure out the coffee and expresso maker utterly exhausted at three in the morning would be safer and less time consuming than driving to 7-11? Poor planning Jillian, poor planning.

Here is a step by step summary of the disaster:

1. Step one is to pour water into the top compartment, making sure that the steam vent is closed. I forgot about the second part, which meant I essentially poured water through the machine and onto the counter.

2. After closing the steam vent I poured more water into the top. Apparently in my frustration I overpoured and some of the water splashed up and onto a different part of the counter.

3. I then loaded the expresso grounds. Of course I made a slight mess with them but honestly it was better than I thought it would be given the way things were going. And the trash can will smell better with a dusting of expresso around the rim. I'm counting this step as a success.

4. I checked and double checked the confusingly labeled dials until I was reasonably sure they were right. It was only at this point that I realized that the maker wasn't even turned on. I fruitlessly searched for a second power button or a safety switch or something else that I might have overlooked. I also cursed myself for starting this process at an hour when I couldn't call Kyle for assistance. Finally I decided to try a different outlet: problem solved. I had no idea that an outlet in our kitchen didn't work; apparently I never use the upright toaster.

5. As the machine churned out expresso I got the milk ready. Kyle had warned me to shut off the machine once it reached a certain level, because if I let it keep going the expresso would be very watered down. I kept what I thought was a close eye on the machine, but apparently in the time it took to vacillate over which mug to use the amount of expresso had jumped from 1.5 to 3.5 (the goal being 2). This did not bode well.

6. Soldiering on, I put the steamer attachment into my cup of milk. I was careful to fully submerge the end so that none of the milk would splash - at least I learned one lesson from Kyle's mishaps. Suddenly I heard a bloodcurdling scream, as if a cat or a high-pitched robot were being tortured. OH WAIT, that was the steamer. I tried to submerge it more or less or to the side but nothing made the horrible sound go away. I would have put up with it (note to self: buy earplugs) but I imagine Anna and my neighbors didn't want to hear it (and they definitely could have). I held on until the milk was slightly warm but it was definitely not fully steamed when I shut off the scream.

7. I then combined the watery expresso and lukewarm milk. Mmmmmmm, doesn't that sound good. Partly because I was apprehensive about tasting it and partly because Kyle's instructions emphasized quick cleaning to avoid stickiness, I decided to wipe down the machine first. I therefore had the pleasure of burning myself on the expresso holder right before I remembered the neat cover that could have protected me.

8. Not content with one injury, I proceeded to burn myself on the steamer attachment as well. I didn't even manage to get all of the residue off of it. Fingers crossed that the residue wasn't in fact my skin.

9. Then it was time to taste the creation that had caused me so much pain and frustration. I covered up the pale mud with a layer of whipped cream and took a sip. Yup, about as bad as I expected. But I needed caffeine, and I certainly wasn't going to try to make a new cup, so I forced myself to chug a good deal of it, helped along with liberal reapplications of whipped cream. No amount of determination could make me finish the whole cup though, and there will be no photo of me cheerily toasting to anything.

| posted at: 12:50 | permanent link and comments

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