Patterns and the Art of Roughing It: Part II

It's pretty incredible that I've been keeping up this blog for over a year now. It's late September and you know what that means: time for a review of the church camp-out.

I blogged about the first Tri-Ward Camp-out I attended in Boston last year and the theme was Patterns. I'm beginning to feel, and of course I cannot confirm after only two experiences, that my camping adventures are starting to follow some patterns of their own. One such pattern is that camping involves a certain level of grouchiness. I'll grant that this isn't a pattern that I'm trying to create, but there was rage abounding. One roommate and I took it upon ourselves to hate all of the men at some point or another, some of whom actually deserved it. I think I may have gained some type of reputation as the Angry Beast-monster of the Boston LDS Singles' scene (which, in my opinion, is better than most other reputations I could have gained).

Another pattern I'm beginning is that of participating in the camp-out talent show. This year, Colleen directed what she called the Irish/Rock version of Romeo and Juliet, but since nobody died, I feel it was actually more like "Cry Baby" (a Greaser-meets-nice-girl tale filmed in 1990, and in my opinion, some of Johnny Depp's best work). I shared top billing with some good pals (including roommate Doree), got to sing "Danny Boy" in a different context, and (after the fact) realized the wonders of the effects (and mysteries and scandals) created by choreography and lighting. At any rate, the show got rave reviews, and I learned that receiving compliments isn't my forte (though my friends enjoy watching me squirm when cornered by adoring eight-year-old fans).

I'll sum up the rest of the camp-out Dallin H. Oaks style (i.e. with bullet points):

• Lindsay, Doree, and I rode down together with two men who enjoyed/tolerated our blasting of the "Mamma Mia!" soundtrack more than we thought they would. We took the "scenic route" (aka. the "Lindsay's GPS route") and were convinced that we were going to end up murdered by some New Hampshire maniac.
• There was a dance party on Friday night. Eighty percent of the music didn't suck, which is pretty impressive. I even pulled out a few of my Kevin Bacon moves (yeah, I have Kevin Bacon moves).
• I rode in a rowboat all by myself. I'd never done this before and I looked ridiculous doing it the majority of the time. By the end I actually learned how to control which direction I was going. Three different people told me I should have laid back and let some man row while I held a parasol or something (I added the parasol part), but I felt very independent rowing my own boat. (And I was also in the midst of hating all of the men at that point.)
• I got bit by a spider. I don't know how this happened because the bite is where my socks are always. I just thought it was a mosquito bite, but Laura said that because the area around the bite is hard, it was probably from a spider. I'm quite paranoid now that it laid eggs and my foot is going to give birth to spider babies and they'll have to cut off my foot. That's probably not going to happen, but it still itches.
• One of my male friends was wearing the most ruggedly metrosexual outfit ever. This is the best kind of juxtaposition; I may have swooned a little.
• The food was top notch. My home teacher and I were pancake partners for Saturday Breakfast, and by the end, we were a finely-tuned machine. Saturday dinner consisted of Cafe Rio-style salad, and boy howdy, was it the best pulled pork I've ever eaten. And there was pie. Enough said. We were definitely overfed, but overfeeding is a proven method of lulling my grumpiness.
• Sometimes people are exactly what they seem, but more on that later.

Restaurant Review: Grasshopper Cafe

An avid "Gilmore Girls" fan, one of my quests upon moving to New England was to find the real-life equivalent of a Luke's Diner. I have yet to find such a thing, but maybe a diner run by a hunky man in flannel who can cook and build me a chuppah is just too much to ask.

I was delighted, however, when Charlestown (or "The Town," as it's called by us Townies) opened the Grasshopper Cafe. A small-ish breakfast and lunch place, the Cafe balances the rustic charm of the small town with the classiness deemed appropriate for a place a stone's throw from Downtown Boston. It's definitely too well-decorated to be a Luke's diner (the walls are orange, but a nice orange), but there's nothing too bizarrely-posh listed in chalk on the menu boards.

I've been to the Grasshopper Cafe three times since it's opened (which is probably not enough, considering I could walk to its 229 Bunker Hill Street location in one breath if I tried), and I've been quite happy with it all times.

On my first visit with one of my roommates, I ordered a veggie omelet which was served with the best-tasting toast I've ever had (I don't know how toast can be that good, but it was delightful!).

My second trip was a lunch outing, where I had a Reuben sandwich (I have a rule that I always have to try the Reuben wherever I go). The meat on the Reuben was a little fatty for my taste, but the fries were very yummy. I also enjoyed that they offer a variety of different side options for the sandwiches; most other places don't boast that many.

My third trip was with two roommates for a late breakfast ("brunch" is something done by people in relationships... and we don't like those). I got the breakfast special which was Strawberry-Peach Crepes. They used fresh fruit and really great whipped cream. The crepes were topped with granola, which I thought was a little unusual, but I didn't hate (I might have asked for it on the side). The only thing I didn't love was that it seemed like the crepes were overlapping with someone else's savory breakfast order on the grill, so there was a little extra flavor that didn't quite belong. My roommates (who, to clarify, were ravenously hungry) quite enjoyed their omelettes, hash browns, and toast dipped in maple syrup.

Prices are pretty decent. Most things are in the 6-9 dollar range, so including tip it's hard to pay more than $15/person there. The service is what you'd expect for a small diner in the Town: friendly Townies with lots of local pride.

I very much recommend the Grasshopper Cafe if you'd like to be a Townie for a day and enjoy some yummy food.

Die Maus, or "Die, Mouse!"

How cute is this?

Faith is believing in something when you haven't seen it. Trust is believing in something when someone else has seen it*. I have faith and I trust that there is a mouse in our kitchen. Having dealt with rodents (and often being the cause of their demise) in my scientific career, I don't mind so much, but roommate Doree has taken every measure in the book to make sure this mouse never sees the light of another day. Doree hates the mouse.

We've set traps. The humane traps were baited with my generic peanut butter that is apparently below the refined palate of the average house mouse. The mouse has outsmarted the sticky traps. The traps move, the traps have little mouse footprints in them, but they have no mice attached. Doree read something somewhere that said that mice hate the scent of peppermint, and now our kitchen smells like the seven levels of the candy cane forest**, but we can still hear the little bugger skittering behind the pantry.

The current score is Mouse-3, Doree-0. The poor dear is too afraid to leave her room in the middle of the night for fear that she'll step on it on the way to the bathroom and contract and die of some horrible mouse disease. Of course, the mouse is just going to be sitting there, even aiming for itself to be right underfoot. The same somewhere that provided the peppermint information (i.e. the Internet) informed her that mice have poor eyesight and horrible reflexes.

Roommate Lindsay has a theory that this mouse is magic, even Santa Claus. We cannot kill this mouse, she says, or millions of Christian children will be heartbroken.

I frankly don't mind the mouse. I've always wanted a pet, and I feel like it contributes to the charm of our old house... as long as it doesn't start eating my food or chewing on any electrical wires or climbing into my laundry bin... on second thought, we need to get this thing out of there.

*And super trust is when you know something exists because roommate Doree starts screaming bloody murder at 11:00 at night because it's climbing on her crackers.

**Also, I don't recommend soaking cotton balls in 37% alcohol and throwing them behind the stove.

Musings at the Office

A few observations/vignettes from the reception desk:

1. I think people are ashamed to take candy from the dish at the reception desk when I'm sitting there because whenever I come back from my break, it's significantly less full.


2. In the candy dish we keep wintergreen Life Savers mints, mini chocolate bars, and assorted hard candies (including those ones that look like strawberries and have some sort of weird goo in the middle). I'm starting to memorize which staff members like which candies, as well as which ones will dump out the entire bowl/bag-under-the-desk to find the ones they like.


3. We currently have Mars chocolates in the candy dish (Snickers, Milky Way, 3 Musketeers, Twix), but the new bag of chocolates are from Nestle (Crunch, Baby Ruth, Butterfinger). I'm afraid people are going to freak out when there's suddenly a whole new brand of chocolate, so I'm mixing the new stuff in gradually, kind of the way you do when you're switching dog foods.

I kind of like that a significant amount of time at my job is spent managing a dish full of candy.

"See You In September" (or, My Rise to Power)

I am so excited that School is about to start because for the first time, I'm not going into it as a student. I'm going to be on the other side. The side with the power, baby.

As I mentioned in a past post, I'm going to start teaching (adjunctly) at the Boston University Academy this fall. We had our "New Faculty Orientation" exercises yesterday, and it was awesome, and not just because they had pizza. For some reason, as I'd been planning my lessons, I always thought of myself as a "messenger of education," just following the setup of the course as it had been in the past. It was only this morning that I realized that I actually am in charge of this class! I get to make the rules, and even better, the consequences for the rules!

Let's face it, I'm not the type of lady who's going to bang on desks with a meter stick or assign detentions Richard-Vernon-Style, but I've already made one pretty awesome decision: I'm going to dock participation points for students that text during lab tours (because seriously, it's just rude to be texting when you're supposed to be paying attention to this professor who has taken time out of their crazy schedule to show you their lab). I don't think it's too harsh, do you?

At any rate, this year teaching is going to be a great experience. I think I'm going to do all of the stereotypical high-school teacher things like chaperone the school dances and cheer on my kids in their fencing (yes, I said fencing... this is a pretty swanky school!) matches and school plays. (I do kind of wish I were married though, just so I could have a steady date for all of the aforementioned fencing matches and school plays, and so I could be anything other than "Miss Wink".) And I'm probably also going to do that thing where I'm a new teacher so I have to be pretty strict and intense the first year to gain the respect of my students and the other, more seasoned teachers. Hmm... maybe I'm going to need someone to rein me in so I don't get too power-hungry and start to look like this:

Though I definitely know how I'm going to come dressed to school on Halloween now.

Rock You Like a... Tropical Storm?

Ladies and Gentlemen, I have survived the first stage of the East Coast Apocalypse. Well, not really. The Earth and its surrounding air have been doing crazy things for millions of years. It would be pretty self-centered to assume that one tiny earthquake and one pretty lackluster* "hurricane" meant the end of the world. That said, it has been a pretty crazy couple of weeks, and I have to say, that without my incredible roommates, I probably would have died (of boredom).

As the hurricane-turned-tropical-storm hit us late Saturday night into Sunday, the Stake Presidency (think Regional Managers for Mormons) cancelled church, leaving us all at risk for a terrible case of cabin fever. So the four of us ventured into the rain on Saturday night and bought provisions for the storm: bottled water, fixings for "Hurricane Tacos", and coloring books (an essential part of any emergency preparedness kit). On Sunday, three of us decided to take up Storm Chasing and walked around The Town to check out storm drains and falling-down trees. Obviously, we all got struck by lightning and now have hurricane-related superpowers**.

The rest of the day was spent watching Disney's "Beauty and the Beast" (and realizing how creepy it seems when you're not a small child), dabbling in different forms of baked goods (Apple Fritters*** and two different varieties of focaccia), taking another walk, and of course, lots of coloring. Then Lindsay and I went to a game night with some people in the ward at which Cranky Alex made an appearance during Catchphrase. The game night deteriorated into Hippie Guitar Circle and then we got the heck out of Dodge.

So that's the story of Crazy Weather Week. I guess it's not the best story in the world, but it wasn't the best crazy weather in the world either.

*Okay, I'll admit that the hurricane wasn't lackluster for everyone. Some people did die, and lots of people were flooded and without power, but considering every news report and weather channel was treating the onslaught of Irene like it was going to be the next Katrina or something, it was kind of a letdown when Boston just had a lot of wind.

**Like the ability to show up non-dramatically, do nothing for a day, and inconvenience a lot of people for no good reason.

***Whenever I've read the Exodus story in the Bible, I've always wondered what manna was like. I think manna was apple fritters. It's delicious... until the next day and then it's soggy and gross.

"You're so vain; you probably think this [blog] is about you."

You know, some people have a lot of nerve. There. Now that I've said that to all of the Warren Beattys of the world, I give you, as promised, a post about marshmallows.

I don't know what it is about the marshmallow. Usually I try to be sensible, even with my junk food, picking things with nuts for protein, or chocolate for calcium (whatever helps me sleep at night, right?), but I can't resist marshmallows! They have no nutritional value; they're essentially all sugar; and yet...

Who can resist those open arms?  Or that sailor suit?

The Egyptians used the marshmallow plant for its medicinal properties, and even though there is nothing resembling a plant in the modern-day marshmallow, I still think they're pretty darn wonderful. Nothing makes a warm summer night better than does the sweet gooey goodness of a toasted marshmallow as you sit outside by the soft glow of a fire, and the romance lasts until the winter, as I snuggle up on the couch and watch my marshmallows melt in a steamy cup of cocoa. Of course, springtime comes and I'm betrayed by the Marshmallow Peep, an abomination if there ever was one.

Burn in Hades, you sugar-coated nightmare

I don't presume to think I'm unique in my affection for the confection, and there are a lot of places in my culinary world where one might put marshmallows that I've left marshmallow-free (Sweet Potato Casserole, the "Fluffernutter," to name a few) up until this point, so maybe I should take some more chances. Show those marshmallows I mean business. Like "Pumpkin Spiced Whoopie Pies with Ginger Cream"? I could totally step out of my marshmallow-comfort zone for that one.

One thing's certain: these summer days are drifting away, and I have yet to enjoy any S'mores. I've got to get on that.