Indianapolis...my first night in a new city...

Oh, Indianapolis. It is a beautiful and clean city as I have found the cities I have visited in the midwest to be! Although, the GIANT downfall here is that recycling is not prominent. You have to really SEARCH out the recycling bins and it is not offered through most trash services. :(

Other than that this city is spectacular. Last night I had dinner with Heath while Karli was at work. He took me to Yatz, which is a cajun/creole restaurant. It was very very tasty. We then made our way to the Rathskeller which is not ghetto like the one in Binghamton but is really nice, complete with a Biergarten. There we drank giant 40 oz. beers (I chose the Blonde and Heath had Wheat). There I told Heath that he was an a-hole, though an honest one. So we cleared that up and then went on with our night. We met up with Karli at The Slippery Noodle (which Mr. Plummer, you will be excited to know is on the list of historic places in the city). It's a blues bar with a Miller Lite special on Tuesday nights... PERFECT!!We went to a couple of other joints after that and came home to watch Sex and the City.


Today we went to the Indianapolis Zoo where I got to see beautiful elephants, a polar bear, SHARKS (audrey, you could touch them!!), and giraffes. They were feeding the giraffes so they were REALLY REALLY close. I got some really amazing photos which I will try to upload tomorrow. I am on a shared computer so I'm not sure how well it will work.

Tonite we're making tacos at Karli's apartment and then going to see G-Love and the Special Sauce with the John Butler Trio at the Murat. I can't wait!!

LOVE TO EVERYONE BACK IN NEW YORK (and of course, around the country).

Indianapolis...part one

So I've currently been in Indianapolis for 3-ish hours. I visited a Max and Erma's which Venita and I used to go to when we lived in Columbus! It was nearly as tasty as I remember. The woman who waited on us was from ROCHESTER of all places. It was nice to sit and chat with Karlton. :)

It was lovely to see her when I got off the plane. I thought I was going to squeeze her to death!! The flights were pretty good. The first one was about an hour long... I sat next to a nice couple from Cinci and their 2 year old daughter. There was an 11 month old sitting behind us with quite a set of lungs, but she only cried for the first half hour. I guess that's the chance you take when you take public transportation, right??

The second flight was quick, however, turbulent. The nice part about that was that I didn't have to sit next to anyone. I enjoy alone time. However, it was so quick that I didn't really have time to enjoy the fact that all of the arm rests went up and I could stretch out. It was nice, though. Nice with a few heart palpitations.

I'm going to hang out with Heath for a bit tonite. I'll have to give him my succinct words of kate-dom and then on with our lives. This is what we do.

More to come... hopefully with pictures to follow...

must get my ipod and sit by the pool.

Wish you were here! ;)

Indianapolis Skyline:

Freedom...and the Robinson wedding recap...

I am free.
free.
free.
free...
I am free of serving people coffee.
Free at last, free at last thank God (hp) Almighty I'm free at last.

SUCKAS.

It was a nice party that my SBUX partners threw for me. Bree made me a nice cake, Michelle had made me one earlier and Ms. Aubrey made me some praline bars that were freaking delicious.

Cake from Bree


I don't have much else to say about SBUX. I'm kind of ignoring it now. I want to take the "Coffeehouse Chapters" (2000-2008), close it, put it in a box and throw it in the attic for now. I worked with great people in the end and it was nice but as JBB says "Time to move on my sister, time to move on..."

Moving on to: BEN AND TARA'S WEDDING!!
It was a fun weekend. Mike and Emily arrived in the afternoon on Saturday. We stopped at the Lost Dog cafe on our way up to Ithaca, had some lunch (chicken mufaletta<3) and headed up. We checked into our hotel room, chilled for a minute and then went to the rehearsal/rehearsal dinner which was at the BoatYard Grill. Here is the view we had: We were in a nice little tent when suddenly, the thunder, lightning and terrential downpour began. They moved us inside while the storm raged, then passed and we all went back in to finish our yummy dinners and eat tasty chocolate chip cookies. We met up later at Mickombers or something like that. It was a nice little bar for all of us to gather in. (Nick and Mike "gather")

The next morning looked a little ominous:

We got ready and checked out of the hotel at 11am. We found a delicious restaurant to eat brunch at called Stellas . They call themselves "the house of swank." Dressed up in our clothes for the wedding we were pretty swank so I suppose we fit in. The architecture/decor was really really too cool for school. I loved my tasty breakfast burrito. <3

We had about 2 hours to get to the Sheldrake Point Winery where we were to watch the blessed union of souls (who knows that band?). S0, we meandered up Rte. 89. A view from our truck:

Finally, we arrived at the site. We saw Ben while we waited and enjoyed the slight sprinkle in the air keeping us cool. The ceremony began and it was beautiful. I spoke and did quite a damn good job. ;) Ben and Tara liked it, and that's all taht mattered. They were pronounced husband and wife, there was a receiving line, photos, a tour of the vineyard, copious amounts of wine and microbrews, dancing, eating and merriment galore. Then we said good bye and headed home to sleep.

Today I pack. Tomorrow, it's off to Indianapolis to visit Karlton. I'll try to blog from there. In the meantime enjoy these shots from the ROBINSON wedding. :)

Ben, prewedding

The ceremony site

The lovely couple

Mike and Emily (they are also a lovely couple)

M-C Lites

Jalapenos, Retirement, and MORE WEDDINGS!

That's right, folks. Wedding #4, a Sunday wedding at a vineyard north of Ithaca is this weekend. It's for Ben and Tara. It is also the last wedding of the season! YAY.

I have SO MUCH to report. First, two days ago I tried a new recipe, Acapulco Chicken. I decided to serve it over tortilla chips and field greens with a cheese topping. Sounds great, right? I was chopping my delicious veggies and thought, these look pretty, I'm going to take a photo and chronicle this process ala the pioneer woman or scarlet begonias.

green bell peppers, chunked tomatoes and fresh minced jalapenos...



still going well...here is the diced chicken coated with chili powpow...


*STOP*... I'm not an idiot...can we all agree on that? I can be full of silliness sometimes but I know not to touch my eyes after chopping jalapenos... and where on that dang chicken recipe page does it say... "hey, chop jalapenos with gloves on because your hands will be ON FIRE!"



I soaked them for an hour in icy icy cold water...

I even had to get my tongue because I licked my finger...

ORANGE JUICE, the citrus in that FINALLY worked. at 11pm... when I had to do my final open at the BUX the next day.

This blog has become entirely too long. I'll write about my SBUX retirement party and the wedding when we get back.

I am speaking at it so wish me luck!! **eeek!**

Wedding #3...

I'm feeling as though I should rename this blog WEDDINGS I GO TO. heehee.

I met Jodie in 1992 when we were in junior high. After a short bout of rivalry we became lovely friends. Then I threw a lock at her...but we remained friends. I love her to death. When I hear that line in the Baz Luhrmann Everybody's Free (to wear Sunscreen) song that says :

Understand that friends come and go, but for the precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle because the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young.

makes me think of her. It always has and it always will. And I'm totally crying right now cuz I went and listened to the damn song.

It was a beautiful wedding. She looked like she stepped off the pages of Modern Bride. It was a Catholic Wedding without communion during which the priest kind of freaked us all out but he was strict about what he wanted and seemed to be satisfied with us as his congregation for the hour.

The ceremony was gorgeous and I drank my wine and danced like it was going out of style because who knows if or when I will ever have a dance party with my girl from jr. high again.

Congratulations Jodie and Josh!! :)

Cool and Beautiful

Today is wedding #3...Jodie and Josh! yay! well, mostly I'm a little on edge because there are going to be some people there who I haven't seen in about a decade or more. But whatever, the day isn't about me and I love Jodie and can't wait to be a witness to her marriage and also to check out the Summit Tea Room in New Milford, PA. That will be a pretty drive!!

I went to Tom's Coffee, Cards and Gifts twice yesterday. Once to browse the second to buy. The first trip was overwhelming and I thought I knew what I was getting both Jodie and Josh and (for next weekend's wedding) Ben and Tara. I had to go home and check their registries and make sure I was keeping with color schemes and whatnot. I went back and got exactly what I thought I would. I love that shop. They have the coolest stuff for a person who doesn't normally shop registries. They also GIFT WRAP which makes me love them a hundred times more. I told the woman who was wrapping my things that yesterday. The boxes are SO PRETTY! It's so easy there. Pick out something cool and beautiful for your cool and beautiful friends and have a cool and beautiful person wrap it with a cool and beautiful bow.

Ta-Da!

transitions...

When I think of transitions I think of the sexy glasses from the late 80s. I called them "shades of grey" and they seemed to always get to that point where they were a weird shade of brown. I am excited to say that my husband had a pair. He was one of the sexiest men of 5th grade, I am sure of it. If you were to put photos of the two of us in 5th grade side by side you might actually have the world's freakiest couple. I am scared for our offspring...

...but the transitions I am talking about are not the sexy shades/notshades from the 80s but the life transitions I am embarking on.

I have been working in the coffee house world for EIGHT YEARS. Panera, Java Vista, Patterson Perk and now the Bux. Tonight I have my last closing shift. The last time I have to count the tills, set the alarm and make sure that everyone gets to their cars and that they START. The last time I work with Rapko. It's all quite sad, really. It makes my heart hurt a lot more than I thought it would. This is Karli and I during our hey-day at the Bux.

I am transitioning into teacher mode slowly but more quickly back into Master's Candidate mode. I found my articles on New Historicism (the theory I am considering writing my thesis on) and put them in their own folder. I looked up all the books I am going to need for this semester. I think I am going to buy at least one for my trip to Indianapolis/Chase Lake. The class I am taking is "Romantic Literature" (the pastoral/gothic era not like chick lit!). I took "Shelley and His Circle" (that's percy bysshe shelley, my fave poet!) for my senior seminar at PSU. It looks like we're going to be more into the Wordsworth/Keats portion of the Romantics, however. I guess that's okay. I love the intensity of the latter years. It was all the opium. No joke. Apparently the circle used to sit around and smoke copious amounts and write their crazy words. Thomas Love Peacock, the forgotten satirist whom my college professor was trying to dredge back from the depths was insanely witty. Politics was his forte. Oh, I'm getting all worked up. And don't EVER forget Mary Wollstonecraft who wrote "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman." Oh I could go on and on...

instead I will leave you with a links to my most favorite poem of all time!

Percy Bysshe Shelley, Hymn to Intellectual Beauty

addendum: picture above was taken by Mickey "The Legend"... he would want me to tell you that ;)