The Royal We

Primping before going out.

This year for Halloween, David and I went as a royal couple: we were Prince and Princess Leia.

I had wanted to be Prince since last November or so, when we watched Purple Rain for the first time and I was seized with inspiration.

Getting into character. (See my eye pencil side burns?)

My hair was even more Prince-ly then, and he wears pretty amazing eyeliner, so I thought it would be perfect. David came up with the Princess Leia counterpart.

I was able to find almost all the ingredients for my costume at our local St. Vinny's: studded pleather pants, a giant purple men's blazer, and gauzy ruffled curtains.

Raw materials: pleather pants, curtains, and a purple suit coat.

I bought silver pyramid studs at StudsandSpikes.com (no joke!) and "shooties" (this is a thing?) at Target.

I ended up putting in a pretty ridiculous amount of work on the costume. The pants were the easiest part: two quick seams up the legs to make them skinny. The shirt was more involved; I attached the ruffle to the collar of a short-sleeved white button down, built up a tall neck, made sleeves with more ruffles at the wrists, and even sewed on pearly buttons.

The giant blazer in its original state.

The jacket, though, was definitely the hardest. I thought I could get away with quick seams up the sides and down the sleeves, but that looked funny, so I ended up taking off the sleeves, shortening the shoulders, and reattaching them.

Mid-destruction

I even tacked part of the lining (which I'd had to take out first thing to access the structural seams) back in. It was good sewing practice but not something I'd readily take on again anytime soon.

I started out by actually studding these, then ended up borrowing my neighbor's hot glue gun and attaching them that way.

The results, though? Totally worth it.

David and his cinnamon buns.

David suggested that maybe instead of Princess Leia, he should just go as a ghost.

Oh! I also sewed David's costume, from this amazingly helpful tutorial. I did the hood and everything. Also crazy. The buns he found online.

Exhausted but still fierce after the party.

Past the Future

Here's a picture I found as I was going through old folders earlier today: David and me in the Abraham shirts Brother Rockstar sent us.

Oh! I'm back in Minneapolis, after a relatively uneventful, though long, bus ride home.

Now I must sleep.

Leaving Las Vegas

I am in the Las Vegas airport, where I managed, thanks to a miraculous absence of lines at the taxi queue, the ticketing counter, and security--as well, less happily, as a 40-minute flight delay--to arrive approximately two hours in advance of my departure. I would like more than anything to be in my own bed in Mpls (though I'm informed they're experiencing their first real Winter Storm of the year), but instead I have a red-eye to Atlanta. Yay!

The good news is that I'm ready to fall asleep right here at my computer (though the time in front of it would be more productively spent on my submission for writing workshop, due tomorrow...) and will hopefully get at least a few hours of snoozing in on the flight. I'm thoroughly exhausted from yesterday's race, the subsequent hoofing up and down the Strip, and last night's late show.

Everything is so big here, and so consistently-bafflingly far apart! The hotel/casinos themselves are emphatically labyrinthine, and although the distance between the Luxor (where we stayed) and the Venetian (to which we walked to claim our Blue Man Group tickets) is ostensibly only two miles, the peripatetics required to actually navigate the space (including dodging myriad meandering tourists and card-flipping solicitors, and unavoidable bazaar-esque roundabouts) makes it feel at least twice that. The blistered feet, tight calves, and sore quads did little to help!

The race itself was a pretty good time. It had been a long time since I'd run an entire race with a friend, and running with my sister (and much of the time with my brother-in-law) was definitely a highlight. We finished in 2:01:48, a bit faster than my Monster Dash time and quite a bit faster than my Lacamas Lake. It was very cold at the pre-dawn start, and had actually only warmed up to around 40° by the time we finished, but the sun did come out and the course was nice and flat, with good bands and entertaining scenery.

We forwent the after-race concert (has anyone even heard of Donavon Frankenreiter--?), but did get tickets to the 10pm Blue Man Group. Thankfully, it was more than entertaining enough to stave off our race-induced sleepy stupor--a really amazing show! I could throw some words at you to try to explain it, but I highly suggest seeing them whenever you can. Maybe I'll try to write more later. I definitely have more pictures to post.

At the moment, I'm thinking I'll remove my contacts for my upcoming flight, in hopes of getting as much rest as absolutely possible after quite the full and fantastic, but rather exhausting, weekend.

"There's not a lot of things that she'll take back..."

As those of you on Facebook already know, tonight I saw They Might Be Giants at First Ave! My ears still feel a little fuzzy, and I'm hoarse from singing along, which, in short, means I had a fantastic time.

I hadn't heard anything about the show, and would have missed it completely had David not spotted it and let me know this morning. I love TMBG's album Flood and the songs "Cowtown" and "Ana Ng" (the latter both, I believe, thanks to Ellen), but know next to nothing about what they've been up to for the past 19 years,* despite the fact that I only started listening to them about 10 years ago. However, as luck would have it, tonight was one of a few Flood shows on their tour, so we called the box office for tickets. At 10 a.m. they had only sold about 1000 of 1500 tickets, and said we'd be fine getting tickets right before the show. We were, and it's such a great venue that even though we were near the back (having left after picking up our tickets to grab some Thai food), the views and sound were great.

So. Have I mentioned that I love living in the city, and having David keep me apprised of the cultural happenings? Awesome.

And now, briefly, on to the rest of Halloween!

I recently inherited my mom's 1976 Kitchenaid stand mixer,** which is pretty much the coolest heirloom of all time. Not only do I now have a Real Grownup piece of working kitchen equipment that has the added benefit of keeping the cookie dough in the bowl and off the walls, it brings back all sorts of delightful memories from my childhood (which the friend who repaired it for my mom, after it broke and she bought herself a new one, tells me is actually the smell of ozone).

Anyway, my awesome new mixer (thanks again, Mom!) means that I can now attempt recipes like my mom's amazing cinnamon rolls, which, I immodestly warn the fortunate friends who get to try them, will forever ruin them for other, lesser, imitations. I had never made the cinnamon rolls before, but armed with my mom's recipe, the Kitchenaid, and an irrational and undeserved faith in my baking skills, I went ahead and invited people over for cinnamon rolls after the race.

I only had to call my mom three or four times to have her help me with the recipe. Thankfully, she claimed not to mind, and even more thankfully, she walked me through turning my sad, shrunken, pallid little spirals of dough into delicious cinnamon rolls in a matter of minutes. In fact, four of us ate at least 12 of them at breakfast, and only two of us had run a half marathon. I didn't get any pictures of the baking process, or of the full pan, but this is what they looked like after we had wreaked our breakfast havoc.

After the friends left, I spent most of the afternoon working on my costume for the evening's party, which involved cutting the sleeves and collar off of, taking in, and sewing trim onto, a size 2X thriftstore dress; painting on a plastic clip-on earring to make it a cameo brooch; and straightening my hair. Sadly, this was all at the expense of a nap, which meant that I couldn't even last until midnight at the party, and ultimately spent as long on the costume as in it. Still, I'm really pleased with how it turned out! (Click for larger images)

I did wear the jeans under my dress, although I tucked them into my tall boots. David wore his boots, too.

Oh, and yes, we definitely practiced our pose before we headed out.

Here's a friend's picture of us at the party, which may also offer a closer look at my hair and the brooch (and David's excellent glasses, which were sunglasses until he poked the lenses out).

Oh, and here's one more David snapped with his phone; we actually only got into character for proper photos!


*They actually played "Theme from Flood," and the line "It's a brand new record, for 1990" got a big laugh.

**I Googled it just now to try to find a link, and was unsuccessful, but am further convinced that the 70s model is way cooler-looking than the current ones with that weird, thick base. And where are the arms to hold the bowl??

Pictures

I took these pictures of my office (and out the window that consistently fascinates me) yesterday with my camera phone. They appear to be a little smeary, but do sort of capture the permeating feel of the light. As always, click for larger images.

My desk:

Window, with Pillsbury Hall:

More Pillsbury:

Bookshelf and radiator:

Sink(!):

Closet:

My open office door, from the hallway:

And here are a few more random shots from the phone...

Unnecessary quotation marks in a Lincoln City Doughnut Shop:

Unnecessary quotation marks in the downtown post office:

My favorite nuns on the TCM course:

Band on the TCM course (picture for Teri):

Rockstars:

Pictures

So here are a few of those fabled pictures from Seattle, courtesy of David.

25 gifts for Joel's 25th birthday:


Another gift from me was a website for Abraham, where the adoring public will finally be able to legally purchase their music. Coming soon!

Mom made an amazing French silk pie with homemade whipped cream and fresh raspberries:

April had her SCUBA check-out dive Saturday afternoon, so we all went to Illahee park with her:



Sunday, Joel and David and I took the ferry from Port Orchard to West Seattle. We dropped off the Rockstar and picked up the Englishman:


Oh, and a Blackberry photo--waiting to pick Joel up in Bremerton:


The weekend before that was the Lacamas Lake Half Marathon, which I ran and which kicked my butt. I did quite a lot of walking and finished in 2:20:55, a 10:45 mile pace. I guess that's what I get for not really training (though, to my credit, it did hit 93° that day, and there were some serious hills--including one in the last mile that was so steep I panted just walking up it).

Here's one official race photo and a few of David's pictures:

Seattle, Walla Walla

At the moment, I don't have any pictures of the weekend, and although I'm sure David will share them with me eventually, many of my favorite moments weren't even photographed:

• My delicious Hermiston taco wagon veggie burrito and the preteen at the counter who seems endlessly fascinated (in the most charming way) with our personal lives
• The beautifully banked curves of Snoqualmie pass and the muted layers of hills
• Sleeping on my sister's floor in Port Orchard, where the crisp, evergreen-scented air from the open windows made it feel like camping
• Giggling with my mom and sister upstairs while we sorted through and tried on clothes she was getting rid of
• My amazing Bay Street mocha with homemade vanilla whipped cream, accidentally iced but all the better for it, enjoyed amongst Bremerton's new fountains and educational plaques
  
• Analyzing the gigantic crowd waiting to board the ferry to Seattle and determining, from the preponderance of skirts with cowboy boots, dudes in cowboy hats, and at least one "Chesney" jersey (bright orange), that there was a Kenny Chesney concert across the water (in addition to SeaFair)
• Making the best Thai peanut vegetable curry of my life, to which I attribute my mom's inimitable skills as sous chef and my sister's cayenne and spicy curry powders
• Playing Aerobie with David and the Rockstar at Illahee State Park
• My mom's nachos with David's spectacular guacamole
• Sharing childhood memories over Swedish pancakes Sunday morning

We did take photos of some of the other fun stuff, which I'll also try to post.

I do have a few pictures of Monday, taken on a camera kindly loaned to me by M&C after the lunch invitation they extended turned into an all-day outing of the not-to-be-unphotographed kind, playing tourist with the Englishman David and I picked up in Seattle and brought back across the mountains with us. Sadly, the vast majority of the photographs I took were shot from the moving car, and although they are a tribute to my fascination with the wine country scenery and the fortitude of the camera, they do little to capture the essence of the afternoon, which I suppose was a sort of social experiment gone excellently.










































































































































We ended up at the Thai restaurant in College Place, which serves some of the best food in the area, but at which I've only eaten once, given their rather unpredictable hours. Most of Walla Walla was closed for Monday, but Bangkok 103 was open and we enjoyed excellent spring rolls (a once-in-16-years rarity, our waiter told us) and a fantastic squash curry, among other things.

I don't know if you can tell in this picture, which M snapped, that I am attempting to recover from an incapacitating laugh that left me all flushed and weeping (as I believe it did all of us, though no photo could ever do that baffling scene justice). As I recall, it was M's story of the bearsharks, and in particular his use of the word "enraged" that set me off, but really, it was just that kind of an evening. The best kind.