I blamed you

I’m in baltimore! or…the baltimore area, visiting paul’s family and eating baltimore foods.

yesterday we got crab cakes for lunch from a local place and they were very tasty. also, very attractive. I’ll upload the pictures once I get to my parents’ house later this week.

I almost forgot to take pictures, but paul reminded me, he’s so useful. then of course he had to explain to his parents why I was taking pictures of the crab cakes. he said something like “no, she doesn’t HAVE to, she just wants to” and I said “my family will ask.”

it’s true. I feared public outroar if I ate huge lump crab cakes and told you how tasty they were and failed to provide pictoral evidence. we also had snowballs yesterday afternoon and I took pictures of that too. I had the egg custard flavor and paul had skylite which was basically blue. the snowball is like a snowcone, but a better, more flavorful, with a marshmellow topping that’s like runny marshmellow creme. the egg custard is apparently one of the most popular flavors, and it was quite tasty.

ready for vacay

I have two weeks of work left, after Paul and I return from our trip (for which we leave tomorrow, yipes).  even so, things are finishing up at work.  bro bob and I did my end of year evaluation yesterday (excellent, all the way) and I gave him my future contact info, which I think made him a bit depressed.  I’ve started cleaning out my desk, getting rid of anything left over from last year that I never used and all the junk I’ve accumulated.  I half filled our massive paper recycling bin.  we’re also finishing up all the end of year paperwork, due to cincinnati public schools next week.  this actually was quite fortunate, as our internet was out for a day and a half so I would have had pretty much nothing to do if I didn’t have files to sort, shred, and organize.  except for yesterday when bro bob made me tutor this kid and I yelled at him cause he was being stupid.  not bro bob.  the kid.  hmmm where DID I see Christ today?

responsible shopping is so hard

continuing the saga of “buying a new wardrobe to go to south america,” I went to American Apparel today.

I went to Goodwill the day before and got a short sleeved dress shirt and a polo shirt and a blue tshirt with nothing on it, successful, but I couldn’t find hardly any tshirts (only one) without words on it, and I’m avoiding tshirts with words.  for a variety of reasons.  also this year, after working so closely with the poor and watching such films as “Life and Debt” which was very good but totally freaked me out because of the whole “made in USA” stuff not actually being made in the USA, I’m becoming more and more concerned about how the products I use are made and more and more frustrated that I can’t control any of it.  sometimes I need things!  also, my grey zippered sweatshirt that I got in middle school is quite literally falling apart at the seams and I’ve needed a new one but couldn’t find one that was just plain grey and not all embelished with patterned lining or made with stretchy fabrics and I suspected that at American Apparel I’d be able to find a normal one.  I was.

I got a new grey sweatshirt that’s made for girls but isn’t all short and is 100% cotton!  I also got some tshirts with no words in a variety of colors and sizes.  nothing that I tried on or wanted to try on had spandexy crap.  I mean, they obviously had stretchy clothes but that was all the ridiculous styles that are all trendy.  true, I did pick up an oversize tshirt which is pretty trendy but it’s quite comfortable and would go well with some of my pants and I could wear in ecuador cause it’s modest.

field trip!

yesterday, my church group decided to take in a local tridentine mass, for educational purposes and general interest.  I’d personally never been to one before; St Johns had a latin mass but it was just mass…in latin.  I am now well aware of the differences.  Paul hadn’t seen it before either, and is now (if he wasn’t already) a fervent proponent of Vatican II and the big change (understanding why people became baptist was mentioned).

it was a low mass, which apparently was unfortunate as there was no singing or anything (like sound).  it didn’t really bug me, mostly because they provided a handy booklet with pictures so that even though we couldn’t hear anything the priest was saying I could follow along and I could tell where we were in the mass (wait until he bows over the altar, ok it’s time for the next prayer).  I think it would be easier with practice, as most things are.  mostly I wanted to make sure I was following along so that I didn’t miss any big thing, like when to kneel or stand or go up for communion.  once I knew what was coming I could relax and just pray and let it happen, I think.  I’m also pretty darn glad that I never had to be a server for a tridentine mass, as I could hardly remember what to do in the modern mass and all that kneeling and bowing and moving the book from one side of the altar to another would have been disastrous (I’m sure I have a new respect for my dad).  it was very quiet, apart from the people frantically turning pages in the little books trying to find where exactly we were in the mass and the bells, which really ARE necessary for the consecration of gifts because you seriously could miss the whole thing if they weren’t rung.

after mass we were hanging out outside chatting about the whole thing and people kept coming up to us and introducing themselves and asking who we were and inviting us back, which I do like in a church.  very hospitable.  I think our group was particularly noticable due to our size, as the congregation in that church is rather small and we, being 10, fully filled a couple of pews.  there were a few families with small children and some nuns.  a seminarian for the diocese also came over and talked to us, he was totally pumped about the tridentine mass, talking about how that’s the mass that most of the saints would have participated in and how beautiful the high mass is and such.  I do think what they’re doing in that parish is cool, building up a community around the latin mass.  I think they were a bit bummed that we weren’t automatically signing up to be regular members.

anyway, the verdict is that I enjoyed the experience, I’d go back every once in a while if it was convenient but I wouldn’t want to attend regularly because it’s easier for me to concentrate if I have to participate and I get more out of the readings when I can hear/understand them.  but it is good to know our history, where we come from, why we do things, etc.

goetta life

last night paul and I went to the goetta festival in kentucky.  goetta is this odd little breakfast meat with pork or beef or both and steel cut oats and spices all ground up and mixed together.  it’s a regional food.  the goetta festival, as you can imagine, provides you with goetta in all shapes sizes and forms.

we ate a goetta corn dog, which I forgot to take a picture of mostly because it was actually paul’s and I just tasted it.  texture-wise it was a little bit weird cause you had the crispy corndog outside and then the goetta in the middle was kind of mushy.

then we had the goetta chedda cheese, which is a grilled cheese with goetta.  this was my preferred goetta food of the evening.

next came goetta pizza from papa johns, which paul and I both agreed was not that great.  it was basically papa johns cheese sticks with goetta on top.  you couldn’t really taste the goetta, so it seemed like a waste of time.

for dessert we had cherry strudel, as there was no goetta dessert options and we were getting sort of full.  if I had been still hungry and if it had been cheap I would have eaten the goetta gumbalaya or the goetta and rice from the chinese place.  but I’m sure we got our moneys worth with what we did eat.