To-Do List

11 Things Every Minnesotan Should Try in 2011.

Now everyone come visit me so we can check some of these puppies off this list.

JOY

As I recover from my annual knock-me-on-my-ass cold and finish thank-you notes from the holidays, I've been reflecting on the holiday season that was actually packed with lovely things...

On Christmas Eve I got to have brunch with Mami, liquor shop with my Dad, and see my original nugget, home from teaching and selling cheese in NOLA.  On Christmas my parents and I went to a really good movie, did some decorating, and opened some presents.  That evening we hung out with our second immediate family and their extended family for lots of food and gab.  Later I went to a bar two blocks away for a major high school flashback (plus more drinking legally minus making out in bathrooms).  Even later that night  I came as close to fulfilling a freshman fantasy as you can without ruining it.

The next day we had our 3rd annual party and it was a doozy.  I felt a little extra pressure to make sure it was one people talked about until next year because Megan is overseas and I wanted to make her proud, plus some lovely sisters even came down from Minny just for the occasion.  I think I succeeded; the number of people that tell me they look forward to the party more than the actual holiday supports this, as well as the number of people that slept on various surfaces around my parents house that night after playing games until 5am that are always a bad idea except for when you're drunk enough.  (We were.)

I stuck around town a few extra days to hang out with some snowed in East-Coasters, and it meant more quality time all around, especially with my parents and miniature people.  (See below.)

To top it all off, I got to go to New York for one of my besties 30th birthday party a couple of weeks later, thanks to the generosity and airline miles of a dear friend.  It was, as Tommy put it, one of the "Top 5 epic weekends".  Truly.  Complete with margaritas and whiskey all over Brooklyn, speeding cabs in the snow, making friends with Australian strangers, karaoke in more than one private room, discovering that bar time isn't until almost dawn (with the drawback that you can't get pizza in Brooklyn at almost dawn), one cousin, one favorite musician, one really Bad Kitty, some of the best friends that the universe has ever beheld, and last but certainly not least a big Packer win celebrated with a bunch of fellow cheeseheads plus my new future ex-husband who doesn't know it yet.

Some select moments that make me happy all over:

Which one is my mother?  Sometimes we can't tell:

Another Big and Mini that I love:

 

Epic Morning After brunch:

 

2nd Day of Recovery Lunch:

 

In this picture there are two of the best friends anyone could ask for (who also happen to be sisters), three glasses of wine (out of the shot), one baby whom I love, and one puffer fish bath toy:

"I will buy you beer one day...":

Rachel's favorite French beer to start NYE:

New Year's Day Roses and Champagne:

Somebody's afraid of heights...

Bad Kitty...

"And maybe be your baby tonight...":

"Maybe be my baby tonight..." from Caitlin Scanlon on Vimeo.



I sort of want to live in Tommy's video of his trip to WI:

Horray Wisconsin! from thomas schwenn on Vimeo.

Favorite Things

Since I have been really preoccupied lately, I haven't been writing much and what I have posted seemed (at least to one) "a bit morose".
In the spirit of spring, and to assuage any concerns about my state of mind, here is a list of things that make me really happy, particularly so in the last week:
*Note:  This is by no means a complete list, but rather a highlight of current goodies.

- Della Fattoria, aka the best bakery in the world, and all the folks associated with it.  I get to be next to Mr. Edmund, aka Poppa, one day of the week at a farmers market, and it is a true joy.

- Sitting by the fireplace long enough to feel the cold leave my perpetually chilly fingers, feet, and rear end.

- Bourbon.  Maker's Mark and I have been really tight lately, but my cousin Phil and adopted cousin Ritchie are going to introduce me to Bulleit next week.  (I think that was the one anyway.)

- The fact that I have a disproportionately smart and creative family (see above and below), and that we number so many that I keep being pleasantly surprised by "discovering" wonderful things they do.  This week?  Baby cousin Katy's visit to the farm, conspiring and shopping, watching her sew with Colleen, and talking about her blog.  (Baby girl's got chops, y'all.)

- Red Wine.  My uncle always tells the story when somebody asks "Red or White?" of Sophia Loren responding to that question by saying (with the delivery I imagine only Sophia Loren can do), "Darling... Wine Is Red." 

- My sister.  One day we'll live close enough to walk to the bar on the corner and get drunk on a Tuesday for no good reason. 

- I live in one of the best areas of the world for really good food.  Be it something straight from the market, or at one of the multitudes of amazing restaurants within a couple hours of me, I love to eat.  One of the worlds few pure pleasures.  Love it.

- Playing with puppies.  Our puppies, cousin puppies, or friend puppies; spending hours running around trails or after dinner rolling on the living room floor in a pile of puppy pulchritude; all of these are good for the soul.

- Being able to stop what I'm doing, turn my face up, and feel the warmth of the sun.

This week has reminded more than usual that it's not really the paths we take that matter as much as who accompanies us on the journey.  I sent some messages to people last weekend on the occasion of Brendan's birthday to tell them how much they mattered to me, and the responses I received were beautiful and touching and a little overwhelming.  What right have I to feel lonely with such incredible people in my life?
I am so grateful.

Scatterbrained

My mind is all over the place this week...

Americans who tried to take Haitian children across the border to a Dominican orphanage have been charged with abduction.  The whole story is creepy to me, especially that they keep saying they were just trying to do God's work, and that they're looking to God for a positive outcome.

I had weekends off last month and I've been using the time to get caught up with friends, take care of loose ends that have been dangling for months, and just cavorting and sin in general.  There's been a lot of eating, drinking, laughing.  It has felt really good, but as I start to get a little more focused and sober some of the questions I was dealing with before are coming back in even higher relief and with more urgency...
How can I trust my emotions?
How can I trust anybody else?
Where do I want to be?
What do I want to do?
How many rules will my moral compass allow me to break?
How much discreetness before it becomes secrecy, and how much secrecy before it becomes lying?

Oscar nominations were announced, and ever since I was a kid I've been a sucker for the Academy Awards.  I get excited for the nominations, and then I feel all this pressure to see movies before the awards.  I never see all the ones I want, yet I never let myself off the hook.  It's not even fun, yet I do it year after year.  Maybe it's residual Irish/German/Catholic guilt leftover from my parents generation.  The same guilt that gets me when I'm late in Thank-You notes, when I don't call my parents back, when I think about my messy room...

We got ducks last week.  A neighbor winery was diverging of it's assets, and Colleen said we'd take the ducks.  She and I hopped in the Element with some boxes and came back six ducks and a bunch of duck poop heavier.  They are massive - I was worried about them in with the chickens but they're about as big as the rooster so not so worried anymore.  Today's the first day they're waddling around outside the pen.  At first I felt a little emotional about them, they've got such cute quacks, but now I'm totally ok with the foie gras and confit that is to come.

I have learned some intimate things in the past month about myself, and about some others in my life, all whom I consider to be at the very least close friends.  It has been entertaining, and educational, and a little emotional.  (Hey look at that!  Three E's.)   I wish I could share more but I can't until I get it all a little bit more sorted out in my own head.  Lesson - keep yourself open to learning from those that you think you know already.  The universe has surprises for all of us, and some of them are bound to be good.

What Does Bottom Look Like?

Does it look like being drunk in more than one bar with less than 3 other people in each of them in one night?  (I'm not counting the dog.)

Does it look like texting your ex (from memory since you'd deleted his number more times than you can count) and then proceeding to text him meaner and meaner things until you find yourself having to text an apology the next day?  (Even though you had erased all evidence, other than a snapshot of some of the really nice things he was texting back to you.)

Does it look like texting your current very complicated crush at 3am his time that you 'need to talk'?

Does it look like seriously considering making out with a man whose girlfriend you had met not but one hour earlier, because he told his friend he thought your were hot?

Does it look like scolding the friend, who also is your friends boyfriend, for trying to hook you up with him, when in fact it was you who told him to do it?

Does it look like accepting a trip back to the bar to drive by to see if the attractive man that was sitting there when I left to chase taken tail was still sitting there?

Does it look like discovering about forty fuzzy photos on your phone of you trying to get a cute picture holding the puppy, and having no recollection of it?

Or maybe, does it look like all these things combined?


Just wondering.

Pizza, Brooklyn, and Jameson Oh My! (or Goodbye NY: My East Coast excursion comes to a close, NY Winter Adventure pt. 6)

Wednesday was my last day in the hood, and rather than push it just to make sure we fit in a museum while I was there, we relaxed and walked a lot and talked a lot and made it one helluva last day.

We had pizza, which Megan was insistent on (after our food tour and not doing pizza OR hot dogs she still felt she hadn't fulfilled her New York hosting duties).  It was good.  I shamefully could not finish my piece.  I knew we were going to a pot luck within a few hours and I didn't want to shame myself again in front of more than Megan by not eating there.

We went to visit an adorable new deli and specialty shop that we sell some oil and vinegar to, to check it out, meet the chefs, and buy some goodies for the aforementioned pot luck.  Torrisi Italian Specialties is warm, inviting, adorable, and has salami in the window.  If you find yourself with access to Mulberry and Prince in Nolita you must go, and eat something.  Anything.  It's delicious.

After a hit of shopping in Soho we hit the subway and landed in Brooklyn.  We had a couple beers with Kryn, who grew up across the park from us in Madison and I hadn't seen in too many years, and then headed to Tommy, Hannah, and Jen's for what would be one unexpectedly boozy pot luck welcoming Fuzzy back for a visit.

(A little background - Tommy's been one of my best friends since we met in the dorms the first week our freshman year in college.  He's a master of friend mashing - as in, so many people have met because/through him we could start a cult.  How many people I have specifically because of him is a blog for another time, but I will say that good people tend to attract good people, this rule applies to Tommy, and Tommy's one of the best.)

It was a fantastic night.  There was a scrumptious spread of a ton of cheese, some Torrisi goodies, taco dip, polenta somethings, wine, and lots oh lots of Jameson which we started enjoying with Hannah's hot toddy concoction, and then went on the rocks after we ran out.  Needless to say the night got progressively more fuzzy, but some of the topics we covered:
Jersey Shore
Felatio
Blogs before blogging was the thing
Frat boys
Freshman slutties
Jersey Shore
Man stank v. stank
Man stank in contrast to weed smell
Smoking
Titanic (the movie not the boat)
Jersey Shore
Madison High School Girls Swimming 1992-2007
Advertising
Reese Witherspoon's high level of bitchiness

Scary baby dancing:

Still life of whiskey and Tommy's face:

Middle School Dancing!

Megan and I got home late and got very little sleep before we got up to get me to the airport in the morning.  I was exhausted for days, but it was beyond worth it.  The trip was fabulous.  I would not have changed a thing, other than to have more time.  I can't wait to go back.

Favorite Marriage Proposal So Far...

Nathan:    wanna marry me?

 me:    sure do

 Nathan:    beautiful

 well get out to chicago

  i know a real nice courthouse

 me:    reeeeeeeeeeeal nice

 Nathan:    can we get married to zeppelin IV?

  me:    hell why not

  we're gonna have the tallest most awesome babies ever

 Nathan:    when you walk down the isle we'll play "been a long time been a long time been a long lonely lonely lonely time"

  me:    perfect

  do courthouses have aisles?

  Nathan:    our babies'll probly be midgets

  me:    ha!

  but they will wanna rock

  Nathan:    yes

  just like mom and dad

me:    exacto

 Nathan:    courthouses are perfect

  we can prance around and noone will car

  e

 me:    for our wedding? definitely

  then we can have a party at the farm

 Nathan:    !

 me:    yup

 Nathan:    country courthouse and a bluegrass shakedown

me:    yes

  i'm gonna put a bow on your dog

 Nathan:    my dog is with the ex

 me:    oh NO

 Nathan:    bummed

 me:    honey

  sweetie

  love

  i'm sorry

i'll still marry you

 Nathan:    we'll get our own dog

 me:    i'll just put a bow on you

 Nathan:    a bull mastiff

 me:    ha

  that'll eat our midget children

 Nathan:    yes... we'll name her thor

 me:    of course they could put a saddle on it and they could ride it around

  oh thor

  sweet puppy

Nathan:    thor! stop looking at the children like that and eat yer alpo

 me:    poor thing gets hungry, midget children are like tasty nuggets

tasty nuggets who wanna rock NOT get eaten by thor

  i loved the songs you sent me

Nathan:    thanks

 me:    welcome

 Nathan:    come over and we'll listen to my scratchy copy of stairway

 me:    sweet

  and drink whiskey

 Nathan:    it's really good

  yes

 me:    i'll bet it is

 Nathan:    whisky

  but only if we feel irish

 me:    we do

 Nathan:    i always do

 me:    me too

  bye husband

 i have to go play with oil

 Nathan:    i have to go re start stairway

 me:    yeah you do

 Nathan:    have a good afternoon

 me:    you too

 Nathan:    <3

 me:    oh honey

  xoxoxoxoxox

you should write me a song then i can tattoo your lyrics on the inside of my left arm

  i've got the perfect place picked out

  <3 Nathan:    sure

Upturn

I have been so down lately.  But that's not so interesting so I won't write on that until I can figure out what was interesting about it.

I feel happy tonight for the first time in weeks.  What a relief.

My dear cousin (one of many, but one of a kind) Danny is on the farm here in California; he's staying for a couple weeks to do some portraits of people.  He's an artist and has no idea how adorable, or talented, he is.  (Some background:  Danny is the middle child between Mike, who was born two weeks after me and whom I was in the same class with from 4th through 12th grade, and Annie, whom I've written about before.  The three of them and the three of us [Megan, Brendan, and I] were both raised on the East side of Madison and are closer to being siblings than cousins in many ways.)

Tonight Aunt, Uncle, Danny, and I sat around after dinner after having a lively discussion on abortion and health care and somehow got into liquor. I mean for some reason I ended up sitting on the floor rooting through the liquor cabinet and we tasted the difference between a fifty year old whiskey and a much younger scotch, then opened up the encyclopedia to discover the differences between gin and vodka.

As I surrounded myself with dusty and interesting liquor bottles and realized how much fun I was having, even though I have to get up way too early to start the farmers market rotation again, Danny asked me if they were witnessing my downward spiral, and the dog in the meantime had fit three tennis balls in his mouth.  I haven't laughed like this in a hot minute and it feels good to dust it off.

Cheers

Every once in a while, it feels really good to get really drunk and loud and maybe make some bad decisions and wake up with some bruises.
Not all the time, because then you're just a mess. Just enough to work the kinks out and remember what a hangover feels like, and maybe prove to your rapidly aging self that you can still function relatively well on small amounts of alcohol induced sleep.
Now where the f*$& is the aspirin.

All The Way Home and Back Again

A lot of things have been happening and I feel like I am having a hard time catching up...

Ted Kennedy died last week. One of my first memories of my father crying had something to do with Robert Kennedy. There are countless Kennedy books on my parents bookshelves, and I've stood at JFK's Eternal Flame with my father more than a couple times to pay our respects and shed our tears for could have been. I didn't read the articles the day Edward Kennedy died nor have I watched the President's eulogy, nor did I spring for the $10 Newsweek Special Commemorative Edition... it's all happened to fast and I want to give it due time and reflect properly but it's been a week and it's getting ahead of me.

I was in Wisconsin for almost 80 hours last weekend, Madison for most of it. I walked through my high school for the first time in almost a decade and was impressed with how clean it was yet how it had only seemed to change in insignificant surface ways. I walked through with my father to see an art show of my brothers work that he did as himself and as Solve, curated in by my mother and cousin in the gallery in the high school that he almost didn't graduate from.

It was unseasonably cold but sunny and beautiful all weekend. Friday night there was an unexpected thunderstorm that I got to feel start standing on my parents front porch with a glass of whiskey in my hand and the arms of a man around me.

I found out one of my oldest and best friends is having a baby, I cried when she told me and when I saw a photo of the sonogram.

I went to the farmers market with my sister and we bought coffee, cheese curds, tomatoes, and pastries full of carbohydrates because she said that was the only thing she really wanted.

I saw my cousin get married on Saturday with almost my whole family and it was a fabulous party, complete with a wardrobe malfunction (mine), a drunk best man that quoted Macbeth and called me a bitch in the same breath (which he was quite proud of), a speech from the father-of-the-groom that brought everyone to tears, first in laughter then not, and a bad ass first dance.
Most of us drank a little too much but as always we had not nearly enough time together, and it made me want to do it all over again next weekend, and not just for the generous open bar. My family is just... well, they are amazing. Everyone thinks so. And now they've started placing bets on who will be the next cousin to get hitched.

Sunday I went to a movie. It was totally unplanned and not a movie I would have seen by myself but I was invited and I went and it actually felt like a proper and wonderful date. It was a perfect Sunday afternoon and then we met my family to eat food from the festival that happens every year in the park across the street from my parents house.

My sister slept off the fever she'd had for a day and a half by Monday morning, and we bought coffee and t-shirts from the closest coffee shop to my parents house, then walked the mile and a half downtown to see the show in honor of my brother downtown. My Dad bought us some of my favorite sandwiches on the way to my airport.

Before I knew it I was back in California. I had a scratchy throat and I cried to my sister on my two hour drive from the airport to home about not knowing what I wanted to do with my life. Then I got home and my aunt and uncle were happy to see me and I felt like I was home, and the dogs wagged their tails.

Yesterday I worked for around ten hours and today my throat's still scratchy. I have not yet blocked off time to read about Ted Kennedy, although I did manage to unpack my over packed carry-on suitcase.