Going Places...

My little sister had a soccer tournament about six hours away from hour house this weekend.  It was in a place called Rockford, IL, which, while appearing to be a decent place to live, isn't exactly a hopping tourist destination.  Nevertheless, I decided to accompany my family on their journey.  I don't particularly care for soccer, and Rockford has never even come close to making it onto my Top 50 list of cities I want to visit, but I went anyway.  I just like going places.  I want to see the world; not just the Londons and Parises and New Yorks, but also the corn fields and the small towns and the little local restaurants.  There is almost nowhere in the world that I would turn down a trip to.  So I went.  And I had a good time.

I have officially deemed the weekend a success because I read over 500 pages between the car rides, sitting at the soccer fields not paying much attention to the games, and hanging out at the hotel.  I was well-prepared, as I brought three different books with me.  I started out by finishing the last 100 or so pages of Shada on the ride west.  I recently printed and "laminated" some Doctor Who bookmarks, so I fittingly marked my spot with one of these.

I always travel in style.

Eventually it got dark and I had to read by flashlight for the last 300 miles of our trip to Rockford.  I ended up killing the battery completely on the way back and had to finish my last chapter using the flashlight app on my phone.  I started The Polish Officer by Alan Furst as soon as I finished Shada, and read that for the rest of the drive out and most of Saturday at the soccer games.  It's not as good as The Spies of Warsaw, but I'm enjoying it.  I've read the first 240 pages of it so far.  Saturday night, I started in on Die Trying by Lee Child because I needed a break from WWII era Europe.  I'm now over 200 pages into that one too.  Like I said: it was a good weekend.

Saturday night, my sister's team had a dinner at a local Italian restaurant called Nunzio's.  When we pulled up, we were slightly concerned to discover what looked like tombstones out in front of it.  I didn't take it as a particularly good sign.  It turned out that the marble slabs were actually a war memorial for men from Loves Park who had died in wars.  That was decidedly less worrisome.  They also had an eternal flame in a little fenced off area, but the flame had gone out.  It was kind of awkward.

I briefly considered trying to light it with the matchbook I inexplicably found in the pocket of the sweatshirt I hadn't worn since the winter.

 Anyway, the food turned out to be delightful and even though it took us about ten years to get served, I think it was a pretty good stop.

The only downside to Saturday was that I had to DVR the new episode of Doctor Who.  "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship" aired in the United States over 27 hours ago and I still haven't seen it.  This is a truly terrible fact.

On our way out of town today, we stopped at this awesome little restaurant called The Machine Shed.  It was basically a family-run Cracker Barrel.  I loved it.  We got pumpkin bread and cottage cheese with our meals.  And their mashed potatoes were heavenly.  I'd definitely go back if I ever find myself in Rockford again.  After we ate, we browsed through their little gift shop briefly and I found this dinosaur footprint-shaped baking pan that makes little cupcakes shaped like dinosaurs.  I wanted to buy it more than anything I've seen in months.  Unfortunately, it was $32 (!), and my common sense kicked in and I just took this picture.

Dinosaur-shaped cupcakes.  Think of the possibilities!

 After leaving Rockford, we headed toward Chicago.  My little sister was very insistent on finding the Bean (a large, reflective piece of public art that's shaped more or less like a bean) and taking pictures of it.  She informed us that it was located at Navy Pier.  Even though we live only five hours away from Chicago, none of us had been to the city in ten years.  Nobody thought to question her about its location.  We navigated to Navy Pier and my dad waited with the car while my mom, sister, and I headed onto the pier.  There were many highly entertaining things there, but there was no giant, shiny artwork.  I googled the Bean.  It was not located at Navy Pier.

At least the view was nice.

 We then found our way to Millennium Park, where the Bean is actually located.  We made sure to give my sister a lecture about checking directions before she goes places and researching destinations.  When we got to the park, she and I got out and wandered in until we found it.

Expelliarmus!  The camera flash makes it look like I'm casting Harry Potter spells.

Then, because taking normal pictures just doesn't cut it for me, I decided that it would be a good idea to lay down on the sidewalk in Chicago.

This is a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

After our hour in Chicago, we hit the road again to head home.  On the way there, we stopped for a quick bite at Steak'n'Shake.  I got this giant s'mores milkshake of awesomeness.  It was delectable.  Everyone should have at least one.  Or three.  You decide.

This milkshake will change your life.  And also probably your waistline.

Bill Nye Extravaganza...

Any kid who grew up during the '90s probably has fond memories of Bill Nye the Science Guy.  Remember how awesome it felt when you walked into science class and your teacher informed you that you were going to be watching a Billy Nye video?  Of course you do.  It was always cause for a celebration.  Even this year as a substitute teacher, I got excited when I filled in for a science teacher and his lesson plan was to show one of these.

Last night, I came across a tumblr post with links to 100 different Bill Nye episodes.  How great is that?!  If you've got some time on your hands, you can relive all of the great moments and every cheesy '90s science song.  Have you been jonesing for a rap about centripetal force?  Check out the Spinning Objects episode.  Want a look at some slightly old school computers?  There's an episode for that too.  You could spend days being entertained.

Read a Book Day...

It's no secret that I'm a fan of books.  In fact, I think I'm only a couple of years of acquisitions away from being featured on an episode of Hoarders due to my book collection.  I can't help myself; books are just awesome.  It's like holding a little portal to another world right in your hand.  And it's portable!  What could be better?  I very rarely leave home without a book.

At any given time, I usually have at least two books going.  This is a semi-recently developed habit that I blame largely on my short attention span.  Today is no exception.  I'm currently about halfway through Doctor Who: Shada by Gareth Roberts and I just started The Polish Officer by Alan Furst.

I don't think my interest in the Doctor Who book requires explanation, but my interest in The Polish Officer is also tangentially Who-related.  I was first introduced to Furst's work because of David Tennant's upcoming role in the mini-series based on The Spies of Warsaw.  It just so happened that that book had been on my list of books to read for a while now, so I ran straight to the library (actually I think I walked) and picked up a copy.  I blew through it in a couple of days and loved every word of it.  Spy novels are one of my great pleasures in life, and the historical settings of Furst's work appeals to my obsession with the WWII time period.  Grabbing another one of his books was a no-brainer.  I'm also partway through the prologue to the third book in the Game of Thrones series, Storm of Swords, but I've got a couple of other books I want to read before I really get into that one.  I've got some time yet before season three of the show starts up, so I'm not in a rush.  Those books tend to take me quite some time to get through.

I celebrated Read a Book Day by--you guessed it!--reading a book.  In true nerd fashion, I went out for a solo lunch at McDonald's and packed Shada along with me.  I took my sweet time munching on chicken nuggets while I was swept up in the Doctor's adventure.  Reading is the best.  There are honestly very few people in the world I would choose instead of a book as a lunchtime companion.  Perhaps that's why I'll be forever alone.  At least I have my books, eh?  On my way home from lunch, I swung by the library.  I didn't check anything out since I've already got a bunch of stuff checked out, but I was riding by it and I can never pass up a chance to go wander through shelves of books.  Plus, there's this killer free books section where you can pick up used books and magazines for nothing.  It's one of my favorite things ever.

I'm going on a mini-roadtrip this weekend, so I expect to get plenty of reading time.  Between six hours in the car each way and a day of sitting at a soccer field not watching the game, I plan on turning a lot of pages.  Accordingly, I'm packing no less than three books.  One can never be too stocked with reading material.  I can't think of a fate worse than being hours away from home with nothing to read.

Now, if you'll please excuse me, I've got about 45 minutes left in the day to get some more reading in.

Less of a Wallflower...

I recently picked up a copy of The Perks of Being a Wallflower.  It had been on my list of "Oh, I should really read that sometime" books for a while, and with the movie coming out soon, I figured that now as as good a time as any to read it.  I'm a firm believer in reading the book before watching the movie or tv adaptation, so this was the only viable course of action.

I had based my expectations almost entirely on the title (I know, cliches about books and covers and whatnot), and I figured that I'd relate really well to the story.  I've always been shy and awkward (at least until I discovered the internet) and a book about being a wallflower seemed like it would be right up my alley.  I mean who would understand the feeling of standing off in the shadows hoping/fearing that someone would notice you better than someone who had been doing that all of her life?

I ended up being pretty disappointed by the book, probably largely due to the fact that it was very different from what I imagined.  I understood Charlie's feeling of being different and never quite fitting in.  I definitely got the aspect of seeing and observing things that pass by other people; I'm a "noticer" too.  I even understood the feeling of being infinite.  Everything else about the book was so different from my high school experience, though, that I just never felt the connection that I was expecting to.

In all honesty, a lot of it was the drugs and alcohol.  My friends and I never took part in any of that, and it was so omnipresent in the book that I just didn't get it.  The closest we ever came was taking goofy pictures of each other pretending to chug bottles of wine. Kiddie wine.  We were the straightest arrows you'll ever find walking the halls of a high school.  We had fun.  We loved it.  We also remember all of it because we were sober.

I'm not saying that the story wasn't powerful. Charlie's journey was moving.  The writing format was unique.  I'm glad I read the book.  I just thought I'd feel more connected with Charlie.  I guess that's the danger of going into things with expectations.  I usually force myself to avoid thinking things are going to be great before experiencing them precisely for that reason.  Sometimes they turn out differently than you thought they would and you end up disappointed for no reason.

I will say that I absolutely loved the music Charlie talked about in the books.  I've already added a bunch of those songs to my iPod.  I'm more of a classic rock girl, but I fell in love with The Smiths' song "Asleep" the first time I played it.  It just goes to show that you can always get something great out of anything if you just take a moment to look for it.

TARDIS Cake...

...It's more fattening on the inside.

For my recent birthday, I requested that my cake be decorated like a TARDIS.  This was awkward because I then had to explain what a TARDIS is and print a picture of it so my mom knew what it was supposed to look like.  Even more fun ensued on my birthday when I tried to explain it to my dad.  He chooses to not understand such things on principle.

Anyway, after making my TARDIS request, I started thinking about the cake that was to come.  I decided that in order to live up to TARDIS standards, there would have to be a bit more to the cake than just a box mix with some dyed frosting.  It would somehow have to be bigger on the inside.  Since our kitchen is not equipped with any Gallifreyan technology, I would have to come up with a creative way to make this happen.

One of my great dessert obsessions is cookie dough.  I'm assuming that this applies to a lot of people.  Thanks to Pinterest, I came across a recipe for egg-less cookie dough a while back.  This seemed like the perfect opportunity to put it to good use.  My sister and I immediately set out to create the perfect bigger/more fattening on the inside cake.  (Yes, I helped make my own birthday cake.  I really like baking things.  I did at least claim birthday privileges and make her clean everything up.)

Do you have any idea how hard it was to not just eat these straight up?

We made the cookie dough and then rolled it into small balls and put them in the freezer on a cookie sheet for an hour.  Then we made a chocolate cake mix and poured it into the baking pan.  Right before putting it in the oven, we dropped the cookie dough balls on top of the batter.  We had enough cookie dough to almost completely cover the top of the cake.  We baked the cake according to the directions on the box, but had to add a few extra minutes (probably because of the fact that the cookie dough was frozen).  The cookie dough bits sank to the bottom of the pan and remained in their delicious, uncooked glory.  We flipped the cake upside down out of the baking pan, which perfectly positioned the cookie dough at the top right underneath the frosting, thus bringing together my two favorite parts of the cake together in harmony.

The hardest part of the cake process was trying to find food coloring that would dye the cream cheese frosting a proper TARDIS blue.  The regular liquid food coloring just doesn't do the trick.  It never did get quite right, but there's only so much you can do.  Color aside, the cake was delightful.

Look at that delectable layer of cookie dough.  My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

Here's the edible cookie dough recipe:

1 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
4 tbsp milk
1 tbsp vanilla
2 1/2 cups flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup mini chocolate chips

1.  Blend the butter and sugars together.  Then add the milk and vanilla.
2.  Mix in the flour and salt until smooth.  Add extra milk if the consistency of the dough is too dry.
3.  Stir in the chocolate chips.
4.  Shape the dough into small balls and place on a wax-lined cookie sheet.
5.  Freeze for at least one hour (or just eat them if you're not planning on using them in a cake).

Series Seven Excitement...

I'll be honest: I'm a late-comer to the Doctor Who universe.  I heard of it for the first time last fall when a friend of mine repeatedly tweeted about how hot some guy named Matt Smith was and I had absolutely no idea who she was talking about.  I'm far from up-to-date on pop culture, so this wasn't at all surprising. She informed me that Smith was a British actor from a tv show I'd also never heard of, and I left it at that.

However, I kept seeing references to this show online and I finally decided that if I was going to be a fully literate nerd, I would have to watch at least a few episodes so I could understand what people were talking about.  I didn't expect to like it (a show about an alien who time travels inside of a phone box?) since outside of my Star Wars obsession, I'd never really been much of a sci-fi fan.  I watched the first episode of the new series this January and plowed through all six series in about six weeks, despite making a major move in the meantime.  I was officially hooked.  I made myself a Who quotes screensaver.  I picked up a brown pin-striped blazer at a thrift store (Tennant is "my Doctor"). I set my text alert to the TARDIS engine noise.

I tried to talk to other people about it, but once I started explaining what it was about, their eyes kind of glazed over and they looked at me like I was crazy.  I have a tendency to inspire that reaction in people anyway, but I suspect that the subject matter played a role too.  Nobody really got it.  And since nobody understood the show, nobody understood the agonizing wait for the new series to premiere.  There's nothing quite like watching a show from start to finish in a matter of weeks and then facing the reality that there is no more to watch.  You've seen everything there is to see.  It's especially bad when that tv show has become an instant obsession.

To say that I was eagerly anticipating the premiere of series seven would be an understatement.  This was my first chance to experience the show in "real time," to wait week by week for a new installment.  In honor of the new episode yesterday, I started reading Doctor Who: Shada by Gareth Roberts and finally got around to Scotch Garding my new white Converse sneakers so that I could wear them in public.  Moffat and crew more than delivered.  The episode was fantastic from start to finish.  I'd even go so far as to say that it was my favorite Matt Smith one.  I'm beyond excited for next week's dinosaurs episode.  I can't wait to see what happens when the Ponds leave.  I finally feel what it's like to be at the mercy of Steven Moffat.  It's great.  And agonizing.  And I just want next Saturday to be here already.

Frightening Lightsaber Toothbrushes...

I have a long and storied history of scaring people in public places.  Sometimes it's intentional; sometimes it's not.  The first known incident of this dates back to a student trip I took to Australia in middle school during which my peers and I devoted ourselves to "weirding out" the Aussie guide who traveled with us throughout our two-week stay.  I won't go into details, but I do believe we were successful.  This type of behavior has only increased with age and is a great way to avoid being a mature adult.  It's possible that this is due to a gene I inherited from my father.

The genetic theory gained further credence this week when I took a trip to Target with my little sister.  We were walking innocently down the toothpaste aisle when, in unison, our eyes locked onto a toothbrush in the kids' section.  It was a flashing light-up lightsaber toothbrush.  We stopped momentarily, possibly due to a natural instinct to not move while our eyes were bulging out of our skulls, and then both yelled, "Oh my GOD!" in unison.  Upon further investigation, we discovered that the toothbrush came in a variety of colors.  It was like Christmas, but in August.  We had to buy them; there was absolutely no other reasonable course of action.

It was only after we decided who would get each color (I got blue, she got green) that we noticed a woman staring at us from a few feet away.  She had a completely baffled expression on her face, and you could almost hear her mind trying to process the fact that there were two girls standing there having a mini freak-out about some toothbrushes that were clearly designed and packaged for little boys.  I thought about explaining to her that they light up when you press the button, but I didn't think she'd understand.  We just left her standing there trying to figure out what had just happened.

You'll be happy to know that the toothbrushes are indeed fantastic.  I don't know that my dentist would be thrilled about me using a child's toothbrush, but I think he'd understand if he could see it in action.