Saturday, September 30, 2006

doncha know

well kiddies i am officially very excited. i will be moving out to the twin cities right after thanksgiving to live with al, one of her friends, and possibly salsa in al's aunt's house. we'll be there for a few months housesitting and then we'll get an apartment together.

i don't have a job, but am going to apply to just about every place that's hiring... cafes, state jobs, entry level jobs, you name it, i want it. it would be nice to get out there and work a steady job and save up to allow me time and money to look at grad schools. i'm also selling my car as soon as i can- that will give me a nice little nest egg to start out with. i figured i'd be ok with no car seeing how al and salsa both have cars and i have no problem with buses. if worse comes to worse i can always get a cheaper car with that money (though i love my lumina so...).

i'm house/dogsitting this weekend because my mom and celeste got tickets to see a lecture by cesar millan, so they went with my dad and chris down to staten island. the plan is to use this time and silence wisely to research jobs and such.

i should also seriously be looking into heavy duty parkas and snow shoes. word is it's COLD out there.



let the good times roll.

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

good vibrations

back from vacation. amber left for the airport this morning. it was a great time and the house was AMAZING.





i think after a bed count we determined that 20 people could easily sleep in the house with room to spare. you could fit more if you wanted to have more than 2 people in the king-sized beds. seriously. even hetty had her own bed.



so what did we do with our time? a whole lot of nothing. after having a great time at the irish fest on saturday (which involved inviting some pipe band members to the house with the king-sized beds as the incentive), we got up early sunday morning and got to the cape at around 3. after some confusion as to which house was actually OURS (which involved trying to open every door on house 15... turns out we were 45), we were inside and unloading. the house was on the bayside of wellfleet, just down the road from the harbor, where we always used to drive by and say how amazing it would be to rent one of those houses. we had our own beach and a view to kill... wait, what?









we went to dinner at the bookstore, which started a string of good luck with restaurants. celeste called that night and decided she was going to leave that night and get there at 1 am instead of leaving the following morning, so we waited up for her.

on monday we went to head of the meadow national seashore in truro and had goulash for dinner. kimchi and i really enjoyed the ocean breeze.



tuesday we spent all day at our beach and went to nauset beach club (possibly one of the nicest restaurants i've ever been to) for dinner. i was able to finally get my snorting mojito fix.



wednesday was spent in provincetown, where we did some shopping. side story: my parents told us that they would get us each something. thinking we had a $20-30 limit, i found an awesome turquoise necklace in a jewelry store where everything was half off. i thought the original price was fifty something dollars, turned out i read it wrong and it was ninety something, so my dad ended up spending $47. "oops."

we had a tasty lunch at governor bradford's.



we also got some tasty fudge.



then, i made roasted red pepper lasagna for dinner. amber really liked it!



on thursday we went to the vineyards for a wine tasting and came home with a few bottles of a merlot blend, a cranberry blend, and some sickeningly sweet white wine.



we had dinner at duck creeke, where i definitely had the best meal of the week- "shrimp margarita"- tequila cooked shrimp with rice and beans and really good veggies.



we also got some key lime pie, but celeste and i decided we'd enjoy it more by wearing it.



on friday we did some shopping in wellfleet and hung around at our beach again. celeste and i went clamming and ended up with a ton of topneck clams.





my family got fresh lobster to have a seafood feast. i wanted no part in the lobster. as celeste can show you, lobsters aren't the only ones that get hurt during the meal.



my dad, however, couldn't have been happier.



saturday was our only day of lousy weather... very windy and cloudy. celeste decided to go home a day early, and the rest of us went to see little miss sunshine (finally... it was really good). after, we went to dinner at winslow's tavern, which completed our week of amazing food. i also enjoyed a few gin martinis.



of course, we cheated a little in choosing the restaurants because my parents and i had been to these places before, so we kind of chose on a "best of" basis.

all in all, good family, good food, good times.

we were sad to leave.



no, really. it was very sad.

Thursday, September 14, 2006

good times good eats

being home isn't all bad. it's nice to have a neverending monetary supply when it comes to buying food. i've been keeping myself pretty busy with dreaming up and cooking dinners every day. with every meal i make, that cookbook al and i are working on seems a bit more real.

last night i got a little cross-cultural. i made tabouli-stuffed eggplant and a mexican lasagna. the night before i made a really good pesto pizza. and the day before that i made my best spinach and artichoke dip yet. last week i made an AMAZING roasted red pepper lasagna, but we won't talk about that because i followed a recipe. it was good, nonetheless.

it's a lot easier to indulge in foods now that i have my own treadmill again and an watch tv while i run. those miles really go by quickly and i'm beginning to feel my muscles again.

at the moment i should be cleaning the house, but i decided to sit back and enjoy my coffee first. tonight my mom and i are going to make baked macaroni and cheese. it's one of the best dishes in the family and i've decided it's about time i learned how to make it. but we're really making it because AMBER'S COMING HOME TONIGHT! oh how exciting. i haven't seen her since may of last year. i'm not sure what tomorrow holds... perhaps shopping. saturday we'll be going to the irish fest at the altamont fairgrounds because my dad is playing with the pipe band. and of course the next day we'll be leaving for THE CAPE!

we've already decided one night will have to be sister's night out, another night all of us will go to a karaoke bar (where i can release all of my pent up noraebang energy), and in addition to visiting the vineyard and days at the beach we'll have to spend a day in provincetown.

let's hope the weather gods will bestow us with plentiful sunshine.

Monday, September 11, 2006

five years later

everyone has their own story of where they were five years ago. i was a freshman at college in washington, dc. the day before i had made a running date for 11 am with a guy i haven't hung out with since. i woke up and tori was at her computer. whoever she was talking to on instant messenger with must have told her what happened, because she said "oh my god, turn on the tv." we turned it onto the news and there was a tower up in flames.

there was a lot of time spent out in the halls talking with everyone about what was happening. jill spent a good part of her day waiting to hear from her father, who worked in another world trade center building. he was all right.

i forget what time my first class was at... around ten, i think. i got myself over to the music building for harmony, but everyone, including my teacher, was sitting in the music school's lounge, with a tv dominic had pulled out. we sat there for a while, watching it, not sure what the school was going to do for the rest of the day. mr. stark finally said we wouldn't be having class, and i think around that time it was announced that classes would be canceled for the rest of the day. i headed back to the dorms.

because we were in dc, phone lines were really tied up and it was next to impossible to call out or receive calls. finally i got a hold of my mom and we cried over what was going on.

at around noon, the national shrine was having a mass for it, and i remember a lot of people were weary about going there because they thought the blue dome top was more like a big blue target. i went anyway and the basilica was more crowded than i'd ever seen it.

i honestly don't remember much of what happened during the rest of the day. we weren't allowed to go anywhere off campus. a lot of sitting around and talking with new friends over what was happening. most people thought this was only the start of it and that other cities would soon be hit. whenever i heard a military jet fly overhead i falt a pang of panic. i cried off and on. my ra thought i was related to someone in the wtc because she knew i was from ny and i was a mess when i got back from my class. she asked my roommate if i was ok. i got a lot of emails and messages from people back home making sure i was nowhere near the pentagon.

i don't remember when the candlelight service was held downtown, but i also went to that. it's amazing how new i still was to the city and school, because i remember not knowing if i had enough for the metro. we got down to the capital and walked around, i think maybe to the monument. jill and dave wore their "i love ny" t-shirts and their picture was in a newspaper the next day.

five years later and it's a day none of us will ever forget. when i think back about it, it was a horrible day, but i'm really greatful that we were all together in a new, caring community. i was with a group of people my age with tons of supportive staff all around us- no one knew what was happening, but we were all there for each other.

Thursday, September 07, 2006

does anyone read this anymore?

i've been home for over a month now, and i can tell you this: the newness has worn off. i was so busy seeing people again/traveling around/eating missed foods in this past month that i didn't really think about korea or other things. but that next step of culture shock has hit. i don't miss korea, per se, but i miss a lot of things about it. the independence, the friends, the sense of adventure, MY OWN APARTMENT, etc. it's not just korea, either. i miss a lot about college, too. korea for me felt like an extended year at school and this is really my first time home without that feeling of taking the "next big step."

schaghticoke seemed great at first- a nice, laid back contrast to the hustle and bustle of my past five years. my friends, though i love them, aren't completely on the same page as me... we all have different priorities. jeni's doing her wedding plans (how's THAT for being on different pages?), amy and jude are working and i'm bumming around. but it is great that i'm not the only person who came home to live with their parents while figuring their lives out... amy and jude are doing the same thing. i guess it comes down to how great it was to spend the past year with people who have the same job/schedule/amount of money as me.

it seems like doing anything here takes a considerable amount of effort. going out at night means finding a designated driver. all of the good restaurants are at least a half hour drive away. i can't just walk to the movies by myself if no one wants to see the same movie as me, and although i love going to the movies by myself, it seems strange to do it here.

i'm seriously considering moving to minneapolis in the next few months and doing grad school there. al says i can stay there rent-free for six months while she house sits for her aunt. i just don't know that i can stay around here... my family wasn't surprised at all to hear me say it, they figured i'd come to that conclusion sooner or later because i'm "just not a small town girl."

in other news, jeni's wedding is in two days, her rehearsal dinner is tomorrow at the ripe tomato. last week we took her out for a bachelorette party in lake george, which was a lot of fun. a bit too much fun for jeni, who had a rough night upon returning to my place and a painful day after. we ended up at king neptune's pub, where there was a really good cover band (girl gone bad) playing. this is the first cover band i've REALLY liked, and the only live band i've ever thought would be cool to have at a wedding reception. they played every song i've ever requested at bars, without my requests! i think some esp had a part in last night's activities. i thought it was funny enough that they played paradise by the dashboard light, but when they started shoop, i was in heaven.

a week from today amber is coming and we're all going to the cape. i've been waiting since winter for this, so i'm beside myself at this point. i can't wait to get to truro vineyards, eat at great restaurants, and of course get a good dose of laid-back nautical new england.