stave it off, 1-2-3

It's been a sort of gross three days or so (we're neck-deep in hurricane season here so it's been rainy and windy since Sunday) and although I wouldn't say I have Seasonal Affective Disorder or anything, four straight days without sunshine can get a girl down. While I did my fair share of wallowing yesterday (with Matt over a couple of beers) and it does have its merits, I'm trying to refrain from excessive self-pitying as much as possible. So in order to stave off the cloudy-weather blues, I'm focusing on exciting things that are coming up. I think you know what that means.

IT'S BULLETED LIST TIME

• My co-worker Alice (not her real name, but she'd approve) and I just got the go-ahead to plan and run a Harry Potter Palooza Party in November and we are SO EXCITED. And we JUST CAN'T HIDE IT. Children of the library, prepare yourselves for butterbeer (non-alcoholic, of course), pretzel stick wands, Quidditch relay races, and a library-wide dragon egg hunt! (Like I said, SO EXCITED.)
• I'm in the process of re-arranging, re-organizing, and re-decorating my bedroom in my parent's house. I'm talking new bedspread and linens, new headboard, new desk, extra storage, the whole shebang. Because unless someone steps up as an anonymous benefactor and decides to deposit several thousand dollars in my bank account on a monthly basis, I'm gonna be living in that room until I finish graduate school. And while the World of Van Gogh theme that I chose 9 years ago worked for me when I was 15, I'm kind of over it now. Dammit. I hate it when my parents are right.
• AWESOME NEWS ALERT: Matt gets a whole week of paid vacation time starting in March, and to celebrate the first vacation he's had in two years, he and I are stealing away on a 7-night cruise to the Bahamas. Yeah. It's like. I don't even. I've never been to the Bahamas and I've never been on a cruise and I'm beyond myself with excitement. It's not until May, but that won't stop me from obsessively researching every aspect of cruising, or imagining myself lying out on some white sand beach, or fantasizing about eating steak and cheesecake at midnight before going bowling and nightswimming and then ordering BLTs via room service. 

Ahhhh. That's much better. Now if this stupid weather doesn't let up, I think I'll be able to handle it.

But seriously, Weather Fairies. Make it stop or I'll smush you.

Sundry Summer 2010

Pictures from my first summer out in the Real World:

John Mayer concert at the Camden Waterfront with my sister, BFF, and Matt (not pictured).

Lots of D&D with Scotty and Jewel and their kitty:

Kitty liked my Homestar Runner messenger bag:

First Phillies game since 5th grade: 

Fun and games in Hilton Head, SC:

And one last hurrah in Ocean City, NJ:

Ah, summer. I shall miss you. 

Catch Me If You Can - Part One: The Wedding.

In an effort to catch you all up with my life, I'm picking up where my last couple posts left off in a little series I'm calling Catch Me If You Can. We'll see how long I can keep this up until I just decide to go back to posting the boring details of my everyday life in the form of bulleted lists.

***

Things really started to fall apart for this blog around July 4th weekend, when my cousin's over-the-top New York City wedding weekend happened. There was just too much going on, and my computer was dying a slow death, and my relatives came to live with us for a week afterward, and there's just not enough time in the day for shit like that.

But. The wedding. At some points it was really, really fun, and at some points it was just kind of annoying, and there were things that I thought were going to be lame that turned out unbelievably cool and things that I thought were going to be cool that turned out awkward and weird, and there were things I finally saw done right and things I would have done differently were I planning a wedding (like not having it in New York City on July 4th weekend, for starters).

But mostly, it was just great to see all of my favorite family members in one place for three consecutive days.

Maid of honor extraordinaire.

My grandmother, who came all the way from the Philippines.

There was a portrait booth set up between the bar and the dance floor -- things got weird.

There were so many people at this wedding -- but you wouldn't know it from this picture. Those empty pews are sad.

I grew up with this motley crew. Don't let our fancy outfits fool you -- we're a bunch of freaks.

Ahem. Case in point.

Professional pictures are here, and I really hope you check them out if you are even remotely interested in wedding photography, because they're awesome.

insane in the membrane: the story of my weekend

This weekend Matt and I descended upon Lambertville, NJ, a small, historic town near our alma mater that is known for its art community, antique shops, and all-around quaintness. It's the kind of place that I guess people go to retire. Honestly, after spending the weekend, now I kind of want to live there when I retire. It was awesome, is what I'm saying.

Some of the highlights of the trip:

• The FOOD, OMG. We just picked restaurants at random but we happened to end up at the best places in town. And the breakfast our B&B served was insane in the membrane. Warm scones with blueberry preserves, fresh fruit from the farmer's market, and blueberry-cornmeal pancakes from scratch. I nearly died.
• Touring River Horse Brewery and facepalming (in amusement) when Matt insisted on asking the geekiest questions like "What sanitizer do you use on  the bottles?" and "What kind of machine you use to flash-chill the beer?"
• Stumbling upon a secret room in an otherwise typical curio/antique shop that was literally jam-packed with pop culture memorabilia, records, action figures, old magazines (from Tiger Beat to Rolling Stone), pulp fiction books, and kitschy toys. Matt, who is a collector of classic rock LPs, found original presses of Are You Experienced by The Jimi Hendrix Experience AND Aqualung by Jethro Tull and he bought them both for FOURTEEN DOLLARS. 
• The fact that the B&B had A Mighty Wind in their DVD collection. It was slightly less exciting when the DVD crapped out just before all the good stuff happens, but still. It's the concept. 
• Discovering that I fucking love B&Bs and I don't care who knows it. All I can say is that instead of being worried that it would be lame and annoying and I'd have to make chit-chat with pretentious Princeton retirees [note: I actually did have to do that, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be], I should have been more concerned with the monster that a B&B would unleash in me. As soon as we got to the house and dropped off our bags I dragged Matt downstairs into the common area for way longer than necessary in the hopes that we would run into the owner again or come across another couple. So, yeah -- the B&B experiment went, like, outlandishly well.  

And now. Pictures.

Here's the pop culture room I mentioned before. I seriously had to catch my breath when I first walked into this room. It's like Geek Heaven.

This is Peddler's Village, where Matt and I had dinner and window shopped. I took this picture while he was buying us some ice cream. 

Our room. It was way bigger than it looks and so cozy. That bed was the most comfortable bed I've ever slept in. I have to admit, though, when I saw the flowered wallpaper I had a bit of a moment from the episode of Gilmore Girls I talked about last time. You GG fans know what I'm talking about. And no, there wasn't actually any foil in the paper.

I just needed you to know that our toilet paper looked like this when we got to our room. This is the level of service we received, people.

I can't believe I'm even posting this, but I just wanted to show you how Matt has this uncanny ability to ruin pictures of us. 

See?

And of course, the obligatory food picture. This is Matt's order of Chocolate-Banana Coconut French Toast. I bet you can guess what happened approximately 1 minute later.

Gone.

don't you want to ring the bell?

Matt and I are taking a trip this weekend for our third anniversary. There's going to be brewery-touring and sculpture garden-traversing and delicious food-eating and bubble bath-taking and THIS:

That is the Martin Coryell House, a B&B in Lambertville, NJ where we'll be spending the night in what appears to be absurd amounts of comfort and luxury. I admit that I'm somewhat worried that this will be like that episode of Gilmore Girls where they get lost on their US road trip and end up at this B&B that Lorelai's friend used to own but got taken over by a crazy cat lady named Ladawn. 

Also, my friends K and K from college went to a B&B in the Catskills for their anniversary, and they told me it was extremely harrowing and scary because it was like a creepy little cabin in Deliverance-type woods that was seriously COVERED in pictures of little Rip van Winkle men. 

So! Based on those impressions, I'm just a little wary. But mostly I'm just excited that Matt and I get to stay in such a nice place for our anniversary. 

Anyone with similar (or, perhaps, more positive) B&B experiences is definitely welcome to share them. People, I need to know whether we're doing the right thing or if we should go ahead and skip it, maybe book a night at the Marriott instead.

In any case, I'll be back soon with plenty of pictures and hopefully nice things to say. Have a great weekend, everyone, and DFTBA.