Sochi

Bob is back, y'all. Let's recall that in Vancouver, Bob struggled with outfit coordination and in London his makeup was approximately one inch thick. He seems to have worked those issues out in Sochi. Or we just haven't noticed because Bob Costas's pink eye is American biggest Olympic star this year. Yes, Sochi, that seeming disaster of a city, gave our beloved Bob an eye infection so severe he could no longer read the teleprompter. Last night the anchor desk featured Matt Lauer, ending Bob's 26 year streak as Olympic anchor. It is a tragedy of Olympic proportions.

you're ringing the only wedding bell

Most of you already know this, but just in case you haven't heard - I'm engaged! To the aforementioned The Beard, of course. It is simultaneously wonderful and overwhelming. I have never been the focus of so much emotion. Screaming, crying, jumping up and down... these are all reactions people had when I told them. And the hugging. So. much. hugging.

So here is the roundabout proposal story: Longtime readers know that I am kinda obsessed with my maternal grandparents. One of things I admired most about them was the love and devotion they had for each other. They were just adorable. After my grandfather retired, he would get up and make breakfast (toast, coffee cake, juice, & tea) and bring it to my grandmother on a tray every morning. They would relax on the bed, read the paper, and eat a leisurely breakfast for 2 hours. When we visited as children, we would crowd onto the bed with them and steal all the danishes. Eating breakfast in bed with them is probably my most cherished memory of them.

The Beard had heard all these stories and brought me breakfast in bed one time on vacation. So on Friday night when he casually mentioned he wanted to have breakfast together on Saturday, I thought little of it. He showed up early with muffins and fruit and announced we were eating breakfast in bed. Once again, I just thought he was being his usual sweet self. He sat down next to me and said something about how he hoped we could be as happy & in love for as long as my grandparents were. Then he got down on one knee and pulled out the ring. I was totally shocked and romantically said, "Are you proposing to me right now?!!" After the sappy romantic parts were over I said, "You proposed to me while I was wearing my pajamas!"

Even with the pajamas, it was perfect. 

On BBQ Sauce

I have discovered a new barbecue sauce. As an (almost) life-long resident of The South I thought I was an expert on all things BBQ. My love for a South Carolina mustard-based sauce runs hard and deep. I once drove 10 people through the ghettos of Columbus, GA for 30 minutes to get mustard BBQ from Smokey Pig Barbecue. It is one of those BBQ places where the line is out the door 15 minutes before it opens (partly because the interior is smaller than my living room). I still think about that BBQ sometimes.

I enjoy a good Coke/ketchup based sauce, but in North Carolina you can get Cheerwine/ketchup based sauce which is even better. Tennessee's sauce has whiskey in it (of course) & I'm partial to it purely out of state loyalty. I can appreciate a vinegar-based sauce, but won't waste my time if there is something better. Kanas City style sauce is not fit for human consumption (so dull/sweet), but sadly is found all over the country. BUT, this past weekend I discovered the Birmingham white sauce. Even I was surprised to discover a white BBQ sauce. It is only found around the Birmingham area and is basically a mild, smokey mix of mayonnaise and vinegar. It is pretty much exclusively used for chicken and it was pretty good! I don't even really like mayonnaise and I still liked it. What I'm trying to say is, I probably need to go on a BBQ tour of the South. What if there are more delicious sauces I don't know about?!


PSA: If you invite people over for a "barbecue" and you serve them hamburgers made on a grill, you are a liar and made your friends very, very sad. I'm looking at you, Utah. (I fell for that line for 2 years before I learned to expect disappointment)

Screen Time

A few days ago RationalThought and I were discussing our poor sleep habits. For example, I start looking at Pinterest at 11:30pm and suddenly it is 1:30am and I'm not even sleepy. She had decided to implement a "no screens in the bedroom" rule for herself. It sounded like a good idea. I do feel like I have a technology addiction (as does almost every American). I had an early meeting the next day so that night I followed her advice and went to bed. The next morning I woke up and looked at the time on my phone. Then, while still lying in my bed, I checked my email on my phone because doesn't everyone do that? There was an email canceling my meeting! So I went back to sleep for 2 more hours, never having to leave my warm bed. Moral of the story: screens in the bedroom are a very good thing.

on gift giving

My philosophy on gift giving is this: A good gift is something the person would want but would never purchase for themselves. Some people are super easy to find gifts for. (I have at least 10 ideas for Babe's birthday). Other are crazy hard. For example, Boy is so impossible that his birthday was 2 weeks ago and I still have not gotten him anything. Even his wife said, "He is so hard to shop for!" I think partly it is just easier for me to shop for other women. 

I also really enjoy wrapping gifts and making them look nice. I recently realized I only have super girly gift bags and wrapping paper. The Beard's birthday was last week and all my gift bags were pink or polka dotted. So I just used an old shopping bag and some left over tissue paper that happened to be on top my tissue paper pile. It ended up looking like this:

Yes, I gave him a gift wrapped in a Sephora bag with Victoria Secret tissue paper. I clearly do not know how to give gifts to men. 

St.Louis: Religious Architecture

The day after visiting the art museum we headed up to Nauvoo for the wedding. Nauvoo is a little historic town right on the Mississippi River . The focal point of the town is the LDS temple set on a hill above the river. It is an exact replica of a temple built in the 1840s and destroyed in 1865. They tried to match the interior to the style of the 1800s with old rugs and period furniture (once again feeding my love of 19th century furniture). The most famous interior fixture however is the spiral staircase going from the 5th floor to the underground basement. All of the interior is beautiful, but it was hard to find decent pictures online and you aren't allowed to take any inside.

The day after the wedding we visited the Cahokia mounds, which are ancient American Indian mounds built in around 1100 AD. The largest mound was the about same height as one of the Aztec temples in Mexico & are the largest mounds north of Mexio. They were used as religious sites and housing sites for the wealthier classes - it was significantly cooler on top of the mounds. At its peak, Cahokia had a population of up to 40,000 (comparable in population size to London at the same time). And then they all disappeared, as seems to happen in the Americas. 

It was taller than it looks (approximately 10 stories tall).

We went from Cahokia to The Arch. While not technically a religious building it is a monument to American expansion, which we saw as our divine right so it is close enough. The museum in the basement had a excellent exhibit on the Lewis & Clark expedition, but I would not recommend the movie on the Arch's construction (made in the 1960s. I fell asleep).

We finished our tourism at the Basilica of St. Louis. My Catholic/Mormon neighbor dragged us there and I had to admit, it was worth it. It was beautiful - as beautiful as any cathedral I've seen in Europe. We did not have enough time to stay long, but I'm glad we got to see it. 

He is so excited!

All 4 of these sites really are architectural marvels and I'm glad I got to see them all in one trip!

St.Louis: Not just corn and soybean fields

Last week I flew to St. Louis for my former roommate's wedding. I had not been to St. Louis since I was about 15 and I have a tendency to be somewhat... dismissive... toward any state considered Midwestern. I mean, flat fields of corn and soybeans? Yawn. So, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that St. Louis is a really fun city (and has hills!)

I assume this is the dude St. Louis was named after (King Louis IX)

They have an expansive park that houses the zoo and several museums (all for free). I decided to visit the Art Museum because it was hot outside and my grandparents conditioned me to visit art museums as often as possible. The museum itself and its surrounding area were beautiful and the permanent collection was impressive (Pollock, Matisse, etc.) 

They had an extensive "Decorative Arts and Design" collection (basically furniture and dishes), which I enjoyed due to my obsession with early American furniture. I mean, just look at that amazing couch. My favorite room was the Charleston room, which was a recreation of a room from a South Carolina plantation (even St.Louis knows Southern homes are where it's at). The best parts about the room were the tiny piano-like instrument and the fact that I set off the security alarm. No one came to investigate - in fact I didn't see a single guard in the entire collection, leading me to conclude that the St.Louis art museum would be an excellent place to steal art (or 18th century furniture). 

In addition to the permanent collection, there were a few visiting collections. The Atlanta art museum has a rather poor permanent collection and wonderful visiting exhibits. I'd say the St. Louis museum was pretty much the opposite. Also, it was rather confusing and difficult to find the visiting exhibits because of the addition of a wing that was only accessible through one door at the end of a long gallery. I finally found the visiting exhibition that was the most heavily advertised called "Yoko Ono: Wish Tree". A similar exhibition was done at MOMA a while ago I think. It is basically 3 Japanese maples and a bunch of blank tags for people to write their wishes on. Most of the wishes were about happiness for oneself or someone else. A surprising amount seemed to be from mothers wishing their child would get married or have a child (thus an implicit assumption these events will lead to happiness.)  I took a few pictures of my favorite ones:

The one about the monkey is my favorite. In my mind, Colten is the author's little brother

So there we have it. The Midwest contains beautiful buildings AND art. Who knew? 

Next time on my tales of St.Louis: Nauvoo, the Arch, and Catholicism

mission accomplished

About 5 years ago I decided I wanted to try to visit all 6 inhabited continents (ie, not Antartica) before I turned 30. At the time I already had North American, Europe, Asia, and Africa so it seemed feasible. I saved up money and went to Australia a few years later with Boy & Rational Thought. But then the PhD program started and I became much busier (and much poorer). I had basically given up on my goal until The Manorexic wised up and decided to marry the amazing woman he'd been dating for years. She just so happens to be Colombian & suddenly I had a good reason to drop my Christmas cash on a plane ticket. Last week I hopped on a plane in Atlanta and 4 hours later I was in the beautiful city of Bogota. (Did you know Bogota is over 8,600 feet above sea level? Take that Provo.)

Bogota as seen from Monserrate, the highest mountain in Bogota (over 10,000 feet) 

It was an awesome trip full of site-seeing, family time (with the Manorexic's family - who may as well be my own), trying to communicate (why have I never taken Spanish?), and being overfed. The big event (El Matrimonio) was gorgeous and fun. I was extremely lazy about taking pictures b/c The Manorexic's little sister is into photography and I knew hers would be better anyway. So when I get them I will put some better pictures up (let's be honest, it will mostly be pictures of unfamiliar food I ate)

This building just screams Latin American to me - this little village was so picturesque!

a renaming

You may have deduced that my boyfriend is Jewish. Jewish more in an "I love latkes & mezuzahs"   way & less in an "I attend temple weekly & wear a yarmulke" way. He has slowly been learning about Mormons and tries his best to understand (or at least know) our religious and cultural traditions. For example, one day he proudly presented me with this: 

Printing random things off the internet is his #1 hobby 

As we have dated I have seen just how much my religion affects simple daily life. And how much I define myself and everyone else by religion. When I finally started accepting that I was in fact dating this man and had to admit it to people, the first thing I told everyone was that he was Jewish. It is, after all, the most distinguishing factor between him and everyone else I have dated in the past 10 years. He was not so enamored with the idea of being succinctly summed up as "The Jew" and often complained about how there was so much more to him that his religious traditions. I responded that telling my friends "He has green eyes" was much less informative and I could not possibly lead with that fact. So I let him meet my friends and now they call him by his name rather than "Brooke's Jewish boyfriend." Problem solved.

That is until I let him read my blog. I started getting text messages with all kinds of suggestions of other names I could use for him in place of The Jew. He did not seem to understand that I like to pick names for people that reflect what I love about them and kept suggesting adolescent nicknames his friends gave him. It was ridiculous. I mean, spanning multiple months ridiculous. But since he has asked me for precisely two things in our entire relationship (this & to meet the 'Rents), I have acquiesced. So, henceforth The Jew will be known on here as The Beard (b/c I made him grow a sexy beard/I like the lesbian undertones). Because if he's going to complain that much about his name on my blog (where really he should be honored he was mentioned at all), I get to make it into a lesbian joke.

we need pills to sleep at night

A few nights ago I decided to take a melatonin to help me sleep. (Well, the bottle said melatonin, but it felt more like what I imagine a roofie would be like.) As a result, I had some crazy dreams including one where my little sister could see dead people a la "The Sixth Sense". Who was the ghost hanging out around us? Susan B. Anthony, naturally.  

travel log, part 2

Chapter 3: Maryland
I followed up my trip to Utah with a trip to Maryland. I saw every member of my family in 3 weeks time - in 3 different states! I went for the oldest niece's birthday, which happened to be on Easter. (Thus allowing me to get out of class by saying I was "with my family for Good Friday", which was technically true). 

We had a pretty low key visit. Lots of spending time at home, walking to the park, and the such. Since it was Easter, we dyed eggs. Children do not understand anything about dying eggs, but they turned out pretty well in the end: 

the next morning Caitlin tried to eat her egg with the shell still on it

The girls were super fun to visit, but here's a secret: Children are exhausting. So. Much. Energy. This picture is from when I suggested they wrestle on a bed. They remind me of fighting lions: 

"Little girls are made of sugar & spice, and everything nice" - A Liar

  
On Easter I showed the girls the Easter video the Church made. I was worried it might be too violent for 4 year olds, but Brooke Jr. said, "Did Jesus get killed?! I want to watch Jesus get killed again!" Their mother claims they were "just trying to understand it." 

Brooke Jr. & me. Taken by a 7 year old. obviously. 

Chapter 4: Georgia
The day after I got home from Maryland, The Jew came over. He brought me a cupcake and tulips. Super sweet, right? He, however, lacks a basic understanding of how to care for plants - like that they need water to live. He had purchased the tulips 24 hours earlier and just left them in the backseat of his car. I accidentally deleted the picture I took of them, but they basically looked like this: 

 it's the thought that counts

The ends were so dry I had to cut off a full 3 inches of stem. Hilarious. (The cupcake was delicious).

travel log, part 1

march was a busy travel month. here are some highlights:

Chapter 1: Tennessee
i kicked off spring break by taking The Jew up to k-town for the weekend. we had a mostly relaxing weekend with the 'rents & made it to Pal's twice (so an overall success). 

Mom and The Jew were really into pictures that weekend

Chapter 2: Utah
the day after returning from TN i headed out to Utah for a wedding. i flew on a companion pass with RationalThought. do y'all know about companion passes? you get half off tickets and if you fly with someone fancy like RT you also get to fly SkyPriority (free bags, fancier seats, but most of all the Delta people are way nicer to you). the most exciting part of our flight to SLC was when i fainted in the aisle as i walked to the back of the plane. i don't really know why it happened (exhaustion/dehydration?), but i assume it looked like this:

i am always this classy

while in SLC i went to several art exhibits. my favorite one was to a gallery showing collages by my favorite artist, Popular Blogging Friend. i even scored a guided tour to each piece by the artist herself. i needed to kill some time at BYU so i wandered around the BYU MOA for a while as well. they were having an exhibit deconstructing mythical heros and monsters in popular culture. my favorite piece commented on how violence is glorified and hyper-sexualized (why do all women crime fighters wear stilettos?) by juxtaposing those things to the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon. i don't even like comic books, etc. and i loved this exhibit. 

you can't fight crime without knee high boots either

PBF also drove me around SLC so i could take pictures of Utah. we went to the capital building to get a good view and happened upon a gay rights protest. one of my friends who moved to Utah a year ago (for a boy. typical.) was there. serendipity! 

i think it was a Aretha Franklin rally too

my days in SLC wrapped up with the long awaited introduction of my roommate to her new best friend, Llizi the hedgehog. they are in love forever.

how could you not love that ball of adorableness?! 

then, a bunch of friends from Georgia and i went down to St.George for our friends' wedding. it was lovely. the groom's father keeps bees so he gave everyone honey from his hive as wedding favors. i loved how personal and simple their wedding was. speaking of weddings, if i ever decide to get married i will be having a lunch reception. they are just so perfect. 

 i kinda want to have a beehive someday

the trip to utah culminated with more regional fast food. that's right, spring break began with Pal's and ended with In-N-Out. so it was pretty much the best spring break imaginable. 

oh, hello, mission memories!

on the next episode of "travel log": Maryland, Easter, & good intentions 

free food

A list of all the free food I acquired last week and from whom I acquired it:

Saturday

Pesto pasta with turkey meatballs (The Jew)

Japanese candy (The Jew)

Sunday

Cassoulet, Salad, Mint Chocolate Cupcakes (The Bishop & Wife)

Monday

Tacos (The Roommate)

Tuesday

Leftover pesto pasta (Ibid.)

BBQ, Cornbread, Collard Greens (Friend from BYU)

Rosemary Olive Oil Ice Cream (Said friend's cousin's boyfriend)

Thursday

Chicken Salad, Pita Bread, Apple Pie (The Environmental Health Department)

Spinach Dip, Tiny Sandwiches, Grilled Vegetables, Fancy Drinks (The Biostatistics Department)

Heart-shaped Cake Pops (Relief Society)

Friday

Greek Salad, Vegetable Soup, Chicken sandwich, Brownie  (The Biostatistics Department)

Spinach & Feta Pizza (The Jew's father)

The World of Coca-Cola is a magical place of carbonation  

Saturday

A myriad of beverages at the World of Coke (The Biostatistics Department)

Chicken Pasta, Krispy Kreme Bread Pudding (The Biostatistics Department) 

Pizza, Hot Fudge Sunday (Svessica)

Red pears, Bok Choy, Greek honey cookies (The Jew)

It was an awesome week. 

and so the feeling grows

this past saturday i helped host a bridal shower for my dear friend, SSG. it was a lot of work, but also really fun. i am pretty proud of the decorations we made:

these were my favorite decorations

she likes writing so we used lots of books to decorate

The bride & bridal shower hostesses

beachy

in august i went to the beach with the entire family. we all had a wonderful time. and my nieces were as adorable as always.

this one is already in 1st grade.

 the not-so-fat one can already swim better than her older sister

Boy texted me the following pictures of the fat one. The captions are his.

 i love pizza! 

 but it is so hard to eat...

problem solved.

Things I've Learned 8

last weekend i went camping and it was really fun. when we left, i had a mild cold. when i got back, i sounded like i'd been chain smoking for 45+ years. turns out sleeping on the cold ground is not always the best health choice. lesson learned. (not really, i'd totally do it again)

light in winter

a little over a year ago, i was in Melbourne, Australia. it is an amazing city - one of my all time favorite places. the city is pretty artsy & they recently had a public art project to help their citizens cope with the dark days of winter. called "light in winter", the artists created a river of lighted books flowing through the downtown square and streets:

i love it. AND, on the last day of the installation, people could help themselves to whatever books they liked. i so wish i had been there.

hipster ABCs

i would have been much more into learning my letters as a 4 year old if my parents had used these cards instead of those boring traditional ones

it can't get better than this

tilt-shift photography AND the Olympics?!

ambivalence

Things that are making me sad this week:

1) the Olympics are over

2) i have to leave my family beach vacation early for a lame "how to be a good teacher" short course next week

3) M2 & i broke up. so depressing. 

Things that are making me happy this week:

1) it's my birthday!

2) i'm going to the beach! 

3) M2 & i broke up. such a relief.