This is Martine (left) and Marianne walking in downtown Provo this afternoon. I think the composition is suitable for a magazine layout. Please note: Martine’s t-shirt says “I apple VAMPIRES” (a Twilight reference). These girls are goofy and gorgeous and awesome.
Also, Marianne has demonstrated an increased aptitude in sarcasm and deadpanning… I’m so proud of my little Norwegian sister!
Marianne and I picked up her three Norwegian friends yesterday and had a fun afternoon in Salt Lake. Anette is an exchange student here in Utah this year, and Martine and Berit flew out with Marianne for the week during their school break. It was nice of them to include me occasionally in their excited, giggle-filled Norwegian chatter as we flitted about the city.
The original plan was for me to drop them off at Temple Square and pick them up later, but Anette forgot her phone so I stayed with them for the most part. We took a driving tour of downtown (THAT was a big building!) and went up to Capitol Hill, which was a first for me as well. The girls (or should I say fine young ladies) were giddy and it was neat to have the near-deserted grounds to ourselves.
Aren’t they cute? There was a guy playing fetch with his little Yorkshire terrier who offered to take a photo of all of us together, but my camera was already tucked away. But about a million photos were snapped among all of our cameras, so I’ll get a copy at some point.
We enjoyed some beverages at Starbucks (though we had to go to two since the first one had closed shortly before we arrived) where I shared some Marianne-and-me tales from my year in Norway (Marianne was only 4 but she remembers a few things). I also introduced the fine young ladies to the largest JoAnn Fabric and Craft Store in Utah (to my knowledge). They all liked it, but Martine L-O-V-E-D it. And Marianne seriously considered how she could take a heavy welcome mat home with her. It had ladybugs. And was 30% off. We managed to escape the store without spending too much money—always an accomplishment.
We rounded out the evening with dinner at Buca di Beppo… where Marianne enjoyed the apple/cranberry/gorgonzola/walnut salad despite earlier protests and we all sang 2 birthday songs (one in Norwegian, the other in English) to Anette when they brought out a giant cupcake in celebration of her recent birthday.
This morning I saw Marianne onto a bus to meet up with her friends before I headed to class. I experienced a strange moment of reflection as she boarded the bus… related perhaps to waxing nostalgic yesterday at Starbucks about the first time I walked Marianne home from preschool—when I spoke very little Norwegian and she was shy and silently captivated by her new big sister from a distant land—and perhaps because I was her current age when I lived in Norway and starting navigating foreign public transportation systems on my own. Either way, we all grow up so fast.
I generally don’t go to the mall unless I have to. This evening, I had to. Serendipity put me in the path of a women’s 2-piece denim suit at Macy’s. For $280.
Um?
Denim, perhaps a little softer than normal—more like jeans from an “everything $10!!!” store. With large stitching as decorative trim. Maybe you’re thinking what I’m thinking regarding those dress slacks: Aren’t they just technically jeans?
Perfect for when you want to dress up on Casual Friday.
My friend Liz introduced me to the term “Canadian Tuxedo,” which is basically the pairing of jeans with a jean jacket. That was cool in the 80s, right? (I’m pretty fashion-impaired…. what are you supposed to wear a jean jacket with, if not jeans? Ohhhhhh, maybe you’re not supposed to wear jean jackets at all.)
Then Liz linked to a horrid example of a Canadian Tuxedo as an actual tuxedo (or at least suit) on Justin Timberlake. With Britney Spears in a denim evening gown.
And then I started searching for more examples of denim suits. Like, for real. And people out there are buying them. I just don’t understand. Fashion is so confusing. I try to stick to jeans (as denim was intended) and a geeky t-shirt with maybe a sweater if I’m cold.
Because if I depended on retailers’ selections to guide me, I would only end up hurting myself. See below.
Available from overstock.com for only $52.99! That’s a way better deal than the Macy’s 2-piece denim suit! I nicknamed it the “Sergeant Pepper Sleeps With Levi Strauss.”
How’s the weather where you live? The past week or so here in Utah has looked like this.
Nice inversion that’s trapping all the pollution inside the valley, huh? It’s pollution that makes me long for the fresh mountain air of summer, when the lake and mountains on the west side of the valley are visible.
Complain though I might, it’s nice to live a very short distance from views like these.
Hey there! So, um. This is my twelfth straight day of blogging. It’s like reverse quitting smoking. (In a way, if you look at it with your eyes crossed.)
Except for this little detail: I am straining right now when it comes to a topic that will be A) interesting to you and B) something I feel like writing about today. I started a different blog post earlier, but I don’t feel like finishing it right now, and I’ve been tired all day and my eyes are dry again, blah blah blah.
Oh! Speaking of dry eyes. And breathing, but sort of not really. When I went out to my car this morning, that’s how I felt. I briefly wondered if maybe I was starting to get sick? There wasn’t any pain in my lungs. It’s just that the air was sort of… chunky? Heavy? A big lightbulb went off in my head when I turned the car on and the local NPR radio personality’s first word to me was “Provo, Utah, blah blah, worst air quality in the nation at a level of 140 followed by Salt Lake City at 122, with L.A. being at 51.”
I don’t know if those numbers are exactly right, but that was not surprising. I’m guessing that those numbers are just for a certain time period, like a day or week or something, because I can’t imagine Provo being more polluted than L.A. all the time. We have this thing the locals call an inversion, which means that because our valley is completely surrounded by mountains, when we have overcast skies and low-hanging clouds it’s basically like a domed arena and all the pollution is trapped inside. And there is a finite amount of beer.
Yeah, icky.
Well, I better publish this before my time is up. Hopefully there will be more quality in tomorrow’s post.
I’ve see some fun personalities reveal themselves in people’s cars recently. This is when it comes in handy to have my little camera in my purse! (My cell phone doesn’t take very good photos and I don’t mind carrying around the extra weight of a small camera.) The first is nice and geeky, the second just made me laugh.
The bumper sticker says “Gonk if you <3 Star Wars.” (I had to look up Gonk.)
The little placard says “Please Use Other Door.” The genius still makes me chuckle!
I was nodding off in front of my laptop last night while writing this, and then today (Thursday) has been a bit of a whirlwind without internet access. So just imagine that you were reading this Wednesday night.
My final masterpieces have been turned in for my Drawing I class and I took the final exam this morning. I’ll share those soon. I went home to pack, then Ben drove me to the airport (with only 1.7 trillion Utah Driver incidents along the way) where the security line was long and I didn’t have a seat assignment. When I checked at the gate, the agent printed out a little receipt with seat number 20C that turned out to be in the very last, and very windowless, row of the small plane.
However.
I sat next to a very friendly Brit named Phil, who turned out to be the manager of singer/songwriter Bobby Long. Bobby had been sitting on the other side of the aisle, but he moved up when two girls asked him to switch so they could sit together. Phil said he’s pretty shy, so if I’d been sitting next to him we might not have spoken at all.
Given the tight quarters and the fact that there was no freaking window for the poor passengers forced to sit in the very back row, insert pity party here, Phil and I fell into small talk pretty easily. When he revealed that he was three weeks in to a one-slash-two-year world tour with Bobby Long, I smiled and said, “oh!” but clearly had no idea who Bobby Long was.
Turns out he co-wrote the main song for the Twilight movie (which I have not seen, and have no real desire to see) and that thrust him head-on into famous… though according to Phil he’s “the real thing” when it comes to folk singing and songwriting. Which of course he’s going to say as his manager, but he struck me as being more sincere than the stereotypical manager/agent. Or maybe it was his sexy British accent.
Regardless, we chatted for nearly the whole ride, which is something I rarely do. Granted it was under two hours. We agreed that the back row of the plane has a special “gang” dynamic since we’re all stuck in the back. Shaunette, the Memphis-based flight attendant who enthralled Phil with her accent and beautiful dark skin, was part of our gang when she sat in a pull-out seat in the aisle next to me during take-off and landing of the really bumpy flight. Good thing I’m not claustrophobic or overly sensitive to turbulence, because hoo boy.
Overall, my conversation with Phil was pretty normal. We talked about our families, the challenges of air travel, Ernest Hemingway, Neil Gaiman, Moxy Fruvous*, and, you know, the rigors of traveling the world playing sold-out gigs and becoming more and more of a recognizable public figure. I’m not one to get fangirlish over someone just because they’re famous, and Phil expressed appreciation for that. He referenced people whom he calls Shakers—those who instead of using actual words when they meet him and/or Bobby, they just shake or nod their heads a lot and make grunting half-words. Star-dazed, I’d say. I think I’ve seen enough celebrities, and had the opportunity to talk to a few**, to understand that they’re all humans and most likely overwhelmed by overbearing fans and I do not want to be THAT GUY.
Bobby had a gig in Denver that night, and since I’d told Phil that I was flying to Denver for my sister’s PhD defense, he invited me (with a plus-one) to come by the sold-out 350-person venue. As in, he would put my name on the list. Now that, in general, was enough to make me all giggly inside. I’ve never had my name on the list for a concert or anything like that.*** Schweeeeeet.
I wish it would have worked out, but ultimately it didn’t. Monique was pretty stressed while preparing for her defense on Thursday, so I decided that being with her was more important than attending a concert. Even if Bobby Long is some superstar 22-year-old folk sensation. Phil said that he’s planning a concert in (Colleen, are you listening?) Boise in November, so maybe Ben and I can drive in for that. Shaunette and I both had very good things to say about Boise, between screams from the two girls sitting across the aisle as we surfed the rough tide of the atmosphere in our pea-sized plane.
But Phil revealed his real motivation for the Boise show: he wants to visit Ketchum, Idaho. Boise will get to see Bobby Long because Phil is a HUGE fan of Ernest Hemingway. I found this very amusing, especially since I’m a huge Neil Gaiman fan, who is a (sort of ex-pat) British author. We each had a book out from our favorite authors. Except he hadn’t heard of Neil Gaiman. My jaw dropped and I cried a little, but then I figured “one less fan I have to beat down in line to meet him.”
In any case, staying with the fam turned out to be the right decision for the evening. Monique practiced her thesis presentation in front of the three of us on Wednesday afternoon, and it was pretty polished and pretty damn impressive. I wasn’t nearly as concerned as she was about her committee not passing her. Then we went out for dinner and afterward, while Monique pounded a few more molecules of information into her brain, I fell asleep while writing this blog entry.
*Moxy Fruvous is my favorite Canadian modern folk rock bands, but they’re no longer together. 
I swooned big time for hottie band member Jian Ghomeshi. At one point during today’s conversation, Paul mentioned meeting Billy Bob Thornton while swimming at a hotel pool in L.A., and I had to tell him about the time Billy Bob was a dick to my guy Jian on a radio talk interview this year.
**Writing that kind of slaps a pompous sticker on my face, but it’s not like I hang out with Brad Pitt when he’s in town or anything. (ZOMG pinch me now if that were true.) It’s just that I’ve been to a few geek conventions and I volunteer for Sundance, so I’m acclimating to being in the presence of celebrity-types. Uh, nevermind that maybe I wanted to lick Alia Shawkat’s face in June.
**I only imagine that if my name ever gets on a list or I get backstage passes, I will behave exactly as Wayne Campbell and Garth Algar did when they met Alice Cooper. Especially if local history is divulged.
The fledgling barn swallows have learned to fly. Only two were in the nest this morning after my class, and one more came fluttering in while I was standing there.
They are still smaller than their mother and their feathers are muted suggestions of more brilliant colors to come. Their beaks were tiny little pinpoints; so different than the baby bills they had just last week. Well, that was my impression until mama bird swooped in with some extra nutrition—they can still open their mouths to a proportionally frightening size. If they’re still that flexible in the chompers next week, I’m guessing they’ll just eat the mama bird to satisfy their hunger… for… BRAINZ!
Hrm. Sorry about that. I just read the first issue of North 40 (comic book published by Wildstorm) so there are some zombie and Cthulhu-like ideas floating around in my head right now. I can be very impressionable when I’m paying attention.
***
The weather was perfect this evening. After a short date at the crowded library (not quite the geek-romantic scene you might be picturing), Ben and I drove into the foothills near our house and discovered a little lookout at the end of a road. I’d cleverly placed that camera in my purse for moments like these, so you can share our view:
Not too shabby for a Tuesday night. The sunset, the twinking lights, the lake, the mountains… the opportunity to procrastinate instead of doing homework.
I’ve been watching this barn swallow all summer on the campus of Utah Valley University. She swoops around, chirping happily with a couple other swallows. Her nest sits atop a junction box in the rafters of a covered breezeway on campus.
Last Thursday, I heard teeny squawks coming from the rafters and looked up to see teeny bird heads poking out! I pulled out my Canon Powershot camera from my purse (which I’ve been carrying around expressly for times like these) and held an impromptu photo shoot. I’m sure it looked weird to people walking by since the nest is somewhat hidden in a back corner about 10 feet up. What can I say… I’m fascinated by nature’s little things. Like those tiny adorable all-beak little birdies!
The mama swallow knew I was there, but that didn’t stop her from darting by every minute or two to cough up some food for her babies. I got a couple decent shots of her hummingbird-speed movements and was surprised by the prominent white spots on her tail. I haven’t had the opportunity to really study barn swallows before… shows how much of a poser birder I am. These birds are “the most abundant and widely distributed swallow species in the world” according to the (helpful and recommended) Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
Today (Monday) was the next chance I had to see them, and they’ve already grown to look like actual birds rather than slimy gerbil babies with beaks. I didn’t have my camera this morning (it was sitting on my desk so I would remember to upload the photos) but I confirmed that there are four fledgling birds who don’t all seem to fit in the nest together anymore. One was sitting on the pipe just above but it doesn’t look like they’ve flown yet. I’ll try to get some photos of them tomorrow.
(Maybe I’m a little less of a poser birder since I created a separate birds set on Flickr?)
Ben and I are visiting Seattle for a few days, and I don’t know what people are talking about regarding the cloudy/rainy weather. It was beautiful today! Check out all the photos I took by clicking that link over there on the right.
We arrived Wednesday evening and made our way to the Taphouse Grill downtown for dinner. The food was delicious (I had the coconut curry with rice noodles and tofu; Ben had a salmon burger that didn’t taste “fishy” at all). Unfortunately, we only got to try a few of the 160 beers on tap… Ben liked the Scottish Kilt Lifter beer and I liked the Baron Maibock from my sampler.
We didn’t stay out too late because we had to get up for a 10am Savor Seattle food tour of Pike Place Market.
The food tour was great—we learned a lot about the history of the market as we went through, and were fed lots of yummy samples. Freshly fried mini doughnuts, Market Spice tea
As I said before, the day was gorgeous, so we spent a lot of time walking around the market after the tour. The craft stalls had really cool stuff, and we found a small hand-blown blue glass pumpkin that had to come home with us. 
We mostly made notes of where to go back so that we didn’t spend all of our money at once… though we very easily could have. I fell in love with some sizable forged steel and blown glass lamps by Paul Petersen. They’re a couple hundred dollars each, so I’m not sure we would actually get one at this point. But they are absolutely on my WANT list. I just loved them. The one in the photo here was at least 24 inches tall.
There were (permit-holding) street buskers all over the market and at designated places along the sidewalk who added to the atmosphere of cool. Also, we spotted two women sharing a tender moment on a side street in front of a park. You don’t see that every day in Utah…
After our food tour, there were still several stalls that offered free samples. I really loved the Fireweed Honey at Moon Valley Honey, which Ben thinks would turn into some incredibly yummy handmade meade. The potato leek soup at La Buona Tavola was good—but even better after an eyedropper of “instant happiness” (aka white truffle oil) was infused into it. We were lured into the store to taste some 12-year-old aged cherry balsamic vinegar, and would have purchased some if it weren’t for the fact that is was $50 a bottle. I was almost ready to become a world-traveling professional balsamic vinegar taster after that. The Savor Seattle tour guide had also told us about one of her favorite wines made from muscot grapes (which, if you’ve never tried them, taste nothing like how you imagine grapes tasting and everything like you imagine ambrosia tasting) that was sold at this shop. The really friendly guy at La Buona Tavola gave us a sample of the award-winning 2008 Tre Donne “Moscato d’Asti” wine imported from Italy, and we couldn’t walk away without taking the bottle with us. Now the question is, will it last long enough to make the trip home with us? We would have to put it in our suitcase, so I’m not sure….. 
We also got a free sample of Pappardelle’s Dark Chocolate Linguine and had trouble resisting its chocolatey temptation. Truth is, chocolate is not as dear to me as it is for most women, but this was damn fine tasting pasta—and it wasn’t even cooked yet. The dry samples were definitely good enough to eat in copious quantities. And recipes were included with each package that included ingredients like vanilla ice cream and fresh fruit (on top of PASTA!) so you better believe that a package of this stuff went straight into our suitcase.
The girl who initially offered us the sample—and then schmoozed us with her great sense of humor—let me take this photo of her. I missed her name, but she was fun and I told her about my blog so maybe she’ll stop by and tell us who she is so she can be Internet Famous. Or maybe I’ll walk by the booth again in the next couple days and ask her myself!
Btw, the “lime cilantro linguini” next to the chocolate stuff in the photo? Gross. Cilantro makes me sick. (I have to be very careful when eating Mexican, Thai, etc.)
We rounded out the day with a lovely dinner and lively conversation at my cousins’ house near the University district, where we were served a fresh salmon steak and then savored some mini cheesecakes we picked up at The Confectional at Pike Place. We took a bus to get to their house from downtown, and en route had an engaging conversation with an older guy sitting near us who has lived in Seattle for 40 years. “Everything is an exception here,” he said with fondness.
The guide book that I browsed through before coming to Seattle had said that people in Seattle are “cool,” in that they’re more aloof. I have not had that impression at all here. We really like Seattle. The people seem very laid back and “cool,” if by “cool” you mean fun and friendly.
