We Fall For Fall

 

October has treated us well so far. Our ward fall festival was a blast (loved our friends who channeled the Chaplins). Defending our chili title for the second year running, our luscious brisket chili managed a win in the mild division. Warren has been told on several occasions (including his student evaluations) that he looks like Mitchell from Modern Family. As a nod to our favorite show and one of the funniest episodes, Warren decided to capitalize on his ginger-ness. So the most important question of this Halloween season is Who Wore It Better? Mitchell, or Warren? You be the judge! The muscle-y Spidey suits were sold out, much to Warren's dismay.... Oh, and I was Medusa. Gotta love dollar store neon snakes.

Thank you for all your road trip tunes! Such great company for our trip back to Saugatuck. Seriously, this town's adorable downtown can rival Traverse City for the second most charming small town in America. Watch you back, TC, Saugatuck is coming for you. We tried to find a ghost town but our efforts were thwarted. Luckily, the leaves looked gorgeous and we got a Michigan oven mitt (despite my utter hatred of the Michigan hand thing) so it turned out okay. We also stopped by Holland, which is known for its Dutch town and tulip festival. We will definitely be going back in the spring!

We also got to hang out with some Dearborn friends who flew the coop to Muskegon. Every year they host the MSU/Michigan game. Every year it is a house divided--half their friends rooting for Michigan (maybe more than half :) and some stalwarts holding out for MSU. Since I've been watching Friday Night Lights pretty religiously for the past two weeks, watching this game was actually kind of fun. Turns out if you watch 2.5 seasons of a show that has about 5 minutes of football per episode, you'll pick up one or two of the ground rules! Thanks, FNL, for everything. We hope to squeeze in another road trip before the snow sets in but this little trip was just what we needed. What have been your October highlights thus far? 

Your Favorite Road Trip Songs?

 

I grew up in a suburb of Los Angeles. As with most teenage populations, there was a general consensus in our 'burb that you were pretty much nothing without a car. Like Lloyd Dobler's Malibu in Say Anything, a car was your castle. This is why turning 16 was awesome. Forget Super Sweet Sixteen parties, I finally got my hands on my family's 1989 Buick Royale. So what if I had to turn it on with a screwdriver that I stored under my seat? A car was a car was a car.

Once my friends and I got our licenses, it was a straight shot south on the 101 to Sunset Boulevard where we spent pretty much every weekend rifling through records at Amoeba before going to a show. Though the shows were always awesome--this is where I saw Joe Strummer (of The Clash) and basically every angsty emo band in existence*--I loved the drive into the city. My friends and I sang very loudly and very off key to sparkly 80s Madonna and a lot of Tom Petty. Music, after all, is what makes driving amazing. It's where you can listen to terrible music without being judged. In the car, guilty pleasures reign supreme. No one judged that dude from Office Space when he listened to hardcore rap on his commute even though he was a nerdy white guy. Because we've all been there.

This is all to say that I need your help. Big time. Warren and I are going on a road trip on Saturday and are in dire need of some new tunes. This is where you come in: please, give me some of your driving songs, guilty pleasure or not. Here's one of my favorites:

Also, I did an interview with Land of Gazillion Adoptees. Check it out here!

*Dashboard Confessional, anyone? Saves the Day? What about the Get Up Kids? Aw, such adorable angst!

Top 5 Things to Do Around Lake St. Clair

About every two weeks or so I make plans for a big move. I generally set my eye on realistic locales such as Sao Paulo or, more recently, Barcelona. Somewhere warm, with a beach, and great seafood. To sate my current bout of wanderlust, I took Warren on a day trip around Lake St. Clair for his birthday. Lake St. Clair is adorable for many reasons but I really love its underdog rally to become the Next Great Lake. For a lake the approximate size of a postage stamp (compared with Lake Superior), this plan takes gumption. I admire that. And it has a point: the lake allows tons of ships to pass from Lake Huron to Lake Eerie and is consequently one of the busiest waterways in the entire world. It's also super pretty. And super close. Here's a peek at our itinerary, should you also need to escape your everyday life--if only for a few hours.

1. Russell Street Deli in Eastern Market. There was no line, shockingly, and we tucked into massive omelets and fresh squeezed orange juice with lightning speed

2. The Edsel Ford House. Lucky for us, the Seven Dwarves and a slew of other Grimm characters were out and about taking in the lovely autumn day. Michigan sure knows how to do fall, I'll give it that. 

Warren loved feeling like a giant in Josephine's playhouse/home of the Seven Dwarves. And yes, this "playhouse" was bigger than our actual house. 

The Edsel Ford House is modeled after the great estates of Cotswald, England, which was fun to see after reading about a million bad romance novels that take place in that region. It happened to be freezing the day we visited, but we braved a tour of the grounds and learned that the gardener fell into the pool while cleaning it the day before. Bless his heart. 

3. Ferry to Harsen's Island, i.e.: my coup de grace! While the entire day's plans were a surprise to Warren, this was by far the best and coolest one. Sure, the ferry takes about two minutes but it is awesome.

4. Schoolhouse Grille. The whole island is filled with charming marshy landscapes and summer homes. While there's not much for visitors to do, the island does have a delicious restaurant in a former schoolhouse. Get "The Farmhand" and you will not be disappointed! Then drive to the island's southernmost tip to watch a bunch of crazy people don wetsuits and brave the frigid water. 

5. Morley Candy Factory. Home of Michigan's famed Sanders hot fudge sauce! This place does not mess around. On weekdays you can watch the factory in action. 

It's the kind of place that would make Lucy and Ethel proud.

And that's how it's done--happy birthday, Warren! Sorry I didn't make you a ten pound cake again...but you made up for it by making 6 pans of cinnamon rolls. 

 

6 Reasons to Love or Loathe Mondays: A graph

Much to my dismay, I never wake up on Monday mornings feeling like P Diddy (Ke$ha LIES, people); in fact, every Monday in recent memory I have woken up feeling like my life will never be happy again. Because I have to go to work. Once I get to work, I usually query Trish with encouraging gchats such as:

me: why does monday always have to be so hard?

To which she is obliged to give me the cold, hard truth:

Patricia: because life is hard.  and cruel.  and then we die.

Today has been a particularly hard Monday because I stayed up all night reading Heaven is Here (thanks a lot, Julie :) and I can't breathe through my nose due to a head cold. So not only have I become a creepy mouth-breather, but I am also at work. On a Monday. It's been rough, needless to say. Upon Trish's request, I created a graph that charted out my emotional highs and lows of the morning:

Why I love Monday: 1) I ate leftover garlic pumpkin knots (happy as a hedgehog) 2) I drowned my sorrows in Hulu and 3) I pilfered chocolate from my desk stash. However, each high was punctuated by the terrible low of the stone cold fact that it is, irrevocably, Monday. These lows were supposed to be depicted by Arrested Development animated gifs that did not animate in my graph (yet another Monday Low on my Roller Coaster of Emotions). Why I loathe Monday: 1) It is Monday 2) I am sick and 3) It is Monday, I am sick, and one day everyone is going to die.

To have the full saturation of my Monday Blues, check them out here:

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I have been awfully productive today, as you can see. How do you get through Mondays? Because there has got to be a better way!