Saturday, November 29, 2003
It was a close call, but we made it to Chicago! Sean is here for an annual conference during the next week; I'm tagging along for a few days of R&R here before heading to arctic Minneapolis to visit friends and be the very first to visit their new home. Expect photos upon my return home.
I've been to Chicago twice before: once during a lovely summer, and exactly this time two years ago. I don't remember freezing during the last trip. Today it is bitter cold, the kind of penetrating chill that stays with you for hours after coming inside and simply begs for fuzzy blankets and hot cider to warm from the inside out. During a half hour foray for lunch on Michigan Avenue, in addition to battling Chicago's famous wind, I was panhandled twice, had to weave my way through HEREIU picketers outside the Congress Plaza Hotel, and was nearly run over by what appeared to be a Lincoln Park Trixie and her passenger-side Chad driving - what else! - a silver Jetta. I'm taking all of the above as a sign that I should forego frenetic charging around the city and make the most of the aforementioned R&R, preferably poolside, with a good book in one hand and a box of Frango mint chocolates in the other.
# posted by Amanda at 3:39 PM |
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Monday, November 24, 2003
 I can cross off another entry on my list of Things I Want To Do In This Lifetime: as of this past weekend, I have successfully baked, decorated, transported and assembled a wedding cake!
Thanks to all of Sean's coworkers who helped test out various cake and frosting combos! The finished product (enough to serve 100 reception guests with average sweet tooths, or approximately five 18-year-old cousins with hollow legs) was dense butter cake with raspberry filling and white chocolate buttercream frosting. The fresh flowers decorating the cake were lavender roses, navy blue delphinium, miniature white carnations and various greens. All in all, I was pleased with the way it all turned out, and especially that the bride (who had surrendered creative control, other than the request for "blue-purple flowers") and guests were happy with it. (Please note: the cake was not actually precariously lopsided, that is just the unfortunate angle of the picture.)
Although I probably won't be too anxious to bake another wedding cake anytime soon, planning has already begun for Sophie's first birthday cake. I'm envisioning a huge fudge cake with mounds of truffle frosting, all decorated to look like a snowy penguin playground. (Who says January babies can't have fun party themes?!)
# posted by Amanda at 9:13 PM |
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Monday, November 17, 2003
Travel into Virginia's forested and mountainous twisted interior, bypass the countless roadside stands selling everything from apple cider to Confederate flags, proceed 164 feet below the surface of the earth, and you too can be awed by Luray Caverns.
You can also get a grilled cheese sandwich that comes with an extra syllable (it's gree-ulled), a $3 beer (just in case walking wet-slick cavern paths SOBER isn't enough of a challenge for you) and an hour-long tour led by a guide who was still in diapers when the first Bush was elected President. Sadly, though, garden gnomes were nowhere to be found. By the end of the tour I really wanted one. There's just something mystical about those underground formations...
Two pictures from yesterday's Luray Caverns excursion:
Stalactites reflected in a wide pool of water.
The "wishing well" pool.
# posted by Amanda at 10:43 PM |
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Thursday, November 13, 2003
Boy-o, there's nothing that makes you feel like an irresponsible teenager again quite like having to tell your parents that you just smashed their car. Eep!
# posted by Amanda at 1:38 PM |
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