That's What It's All ... Aboot!

Thanks, Robin Sparkles, for the glorious piece of music that inspired this blog's title.

Thanks also, to Canada, for creating Onion Ring and Ketchup flavored Doritos. While I never actually tried them, the very thought of such a culinary feat kept me occupied (and a little queasy) for much of our trip.

Observations about Montreal:

--The food is sort of questionable. I was really excited about poutine (French fries covered in gravy and cheese curds), but we never really found the good stuff. Granted, we first tried poutine at the A&W right across the border. And, honestly, it wasn't even that much worse than the poutine we had at a restaurant that night. Both used frozen fries and powdered gravy. Ah, well.

Supposed to look like this

--People are really fashionable. I noticed a lot of trendy, fashion-forward (or just plain kooky) outfits, which surprised me, because my ignorant mind pictured a lot of flannel and hats with earflaps. We did, however, see a true Canadian tuxedo (denim on denim!) within 10 minutes of walking around the city.

--Really pretty ladies. This was an odd observation, but I felt like every waitress we had or woman we encountered was weirdly pretty and fashionable and fit. It was kind of intimidating -- plus the fact that they all spoke beautiful French. I'm remembering Montreal ladies looking like this:

and this:

I may be romanticizing them just a bit, though.

--Lots of happy couples and lots of PDA. People seemed to be extra affectionate. 

--The architecture downtown is really cool/old.

--The nightlife was surprisingly Euro-Techno-Club-ish, with a tinge of Jersey Shore, dare I say? Not our scene, really, and didn't seem very "Canada." But, then again, most of my assumptions weren't quite right about Canada anyway.

We did, however, discover a piece of heaven on Earth in Burlington, Vermont, where we stopped for The World's Best Flatbread Pizza on the way home. Definitely going to plan a weekend there -- seriously, it was Eden.

In other news, even though the rapture didn't happen (SHOCK!), the disconcerting string of natural disasters seems to be continuing in western Mass. I wrote most of this post several hours ago, and in that time, a lot of shit went down. Severe tornado warning now, plus severe thunderstorm warning all night. A tornado touched down in Springfield (maybe 40 minutes from us?) and really did some damage -- roofs taken off, buildings destroyed, etc.

Thar she blows. :(

Springfield, MA

Needless to say I'm pretty anxious, but hopefully it'll all be over soon, with no one hurt too badly. Cross your fingers. :(

The Thrill is Gone (Well, the Coffee Is)

That's right, folks. I have to cut down on (read: basically give up) my coffee intake. I was running on 4-5 cups a day, probably, and now I have to abandon one of my life's great loves. (Other great life loves include dolphins, wine, glitter, and Scrabble.) In a nutshell, my doctor said I need to try eliminating caffeine for a while and see how that goes. So far, it's really not that bad, physically. The caffeine headaches have been surprisingly mild, and I'm not as groggy as I'd thought I'd be. I'm getting by on green tea, but I just miss the ritual of it -- my favorite mug, delicious black coffee, pairing perfectly with a ridiculously fatty breakfast pastry (Seriously, did you a know a scone from Starbucks has 500 calories!?), just the whole experience.

To help me mourn the loss of my great companion, here are some picture of really, really cool coffee art:

 

In happier news, the sun is finally shining in Massachusetts. Blue skies! Sunshine! I felt like Dorothy entering Oz the first time and seeing everything in color -- THAT'S how melodramatic two weeks of rain and gray skies will make you.

Other good news: Apparently, I'm great at cooking chicken. We've done baked chicken breasts a couple times in the past couple of weeks, and I'm overcoming my fear of poultry. Last night I made my first pesto (DOMESTIC!) and marinated the chicken in it. Delish. The thing I'm not good at: timing. I cooked that frickin' chicken for an absurdly long time, and after an hour I started taking the temperature every 20 minutes or so to see if it was done. We eventually just ate it -- and not sick yet! That's the mature, adult way, isn't it? To expose yourself to serious health risks just because you're hungry? C'est la vie. (I have to brush up on my Français to prepare for the Montreal trip!)

For my parents, aliases Chad and Kathy, who've been asking to see pictures of the house, I'll get those up soon because the decorating is (basically) done! I even have a selection of fresh herbs ready to pot. Yes, yes, so fancy, I know, but what else do you do in the country besides garden? And ward off insects? And watch Seinfeld? So far, not much, but will keep you posted. À bientôt!

Rainy Days and Mondays

Such a trite title, I know, but it's all too true. It's rained for a week straight. (I'm barely exaggerating. I feel like I moved to Seattle.) It's rained every single day and has been gray and misty and dreary and blustery. At first, I liked it -- who doesn't love a dose every now and then of hot tea/blanket/movie weather? But now I'm ready for some sunshine. Happy Monday!

It will probably be rainy/gray/dreary/etc. for our trip to Hill Farmstead Brewery in Vermont and Montreal this weekend. I've heard of weather-induced depression, and if this weather doesn't change, I might just have to fall into one.

I guess the weather doesn't matter so much when you've planned your entire trip around breweries and beer. But there will be the between-breweries times when we'll want to sight-see, and dammit, I want to see Canada in the sunshine.

Given the week of rain and gloom, maybe it wouldn't be the best idea to watch my latest Netflix arrival, Blue Valentine. Not exactly an upper, I hear.

To add insult to injury, my entire family is in Destin, FL, right now in what I imagine is pristine, sunny, warm weather with white-sand beaches, and so on. Alright, enough with the whining and moping. Positive attitude! The Northeast is cool! We're going to have a great fall! Sweaters! Moderate summers! Old stuff!

Feigning positivity is really, really tiresome. Oh, but wait ... a silver lining: Christian's making Croque Monsieurs (fancy French name for a grilled ham and cheese, covered in cheese) for dinner. All is better.

Smiles Per Hour

Sometimes, I can't believe that I actually get paid to work for Disney. It sounds so ridiculous, but I can't help but feel like I'm living in an alternate reality where my 10-year-old self is calling the shots. There's a giant poster of Tiana in my cubicle; my phone screen background is a shot of the Disney princesses; my cubicle name tag is Sally from Nightmare (I mentioned that before, but it hasn't stopped being exciting); and I have Mike Wasowski's giant eyeball staring at my from my Monsters, Inc. coffee cup.

Here are a few commonplace occurrences in a work day:

--Hearing the phrase "smiles per hour" in reference to what we're trying to achieve. This only happened once, but I loved it.
--Playing games. I've played board games, tested iPad games for kids, put together pipe cleaner monsters, and more. Plus, we're going to "visit Hasbro" on Monday to check out all the new toys. Surreal.
--Eating. I've been briefed on taste-testing, and so far I've "had to" taste-test brownies, spiced edamame, cashew granola bars, and watermelon-feta-mint salad, and the tasks keep coming.
--Brats 'n' Beer Fest. Again, this was a one-time thing, but it's still cool that we took two hours out of an afternoon to eat sausages and drink beer. Not too bad.

Front of my office building, which was once a U.S. Post Office

Not everything is magic and fairies and eating and games -- there is actual work to be done: writing, editing, fact-checking, database searching, answering queries, opening packages, etc. etc. But the fact that there are fairies involved makes the more menial work more than tolerable.

This city is so unexpectedly cool, too. The first words that come to mind are hip, trendy, New England-y, and organic. All of those could have negative connotations, but I mean them in the best possible sense. It's a small enough city that much of it is within walking distance, and -- small-ish though it may be -- it's packed with some pretty good restaurants, fun cafés, bars, shops, and so on.

One block over from the office: a small, indie movie theatre

On a completely unrelated note, here is a letter that Zooey Deschanel (whom I unashamedly try to mimic at every turn ... I admit it) wrote to Vogue magazine when she was 17 and a wee little feminist:

 

On that note, I should go get ready for Friday Night Dinner. Christian doesn't know this, but I'm implementing a weekly night-on-the-town. We do a lot of cooking at home -- which is awesome -- but sometimes he needs a break from the dishes. ;) No, really, he's a dish-washing fiend. Tonight is Moroccan, and I mean the food, not the spawn of Mariah Carey.

Cheers!

I've Never Been to Boston in the Fall. (Yes, I have.)

This past weekend was the first in a series of fun weekend trips we have planned in the coming weeks. This trip was to Boston to meet up with our friend Ahren and take some nice jaunts through history. And I mean that sort of literally. We walked the entirety of the Freedom Trail, which includes a ridiculous amount of historical sites, from spooky/awesome cemeteries filled with famous people to battle sites to the U.S.S. Constitution (which we didn't actually walk onto because there was TSA-level security. No thank you. It's a boat, not the freaking bedroom of the Queen of England).

The weather was less than ideal, but it felt somehow appropriate. It was drizzly and overcast and somehow that made it feel a little more 1700s-ish. Nonsensical, I know.

What was really cool about the Freedom Trail, aside from the overwhelming historical significance, was that the entire thing was marked by a literal trail of bricks, just meandering throughout Boston.

 

 

This is the beginning of the Freedom Trail!

Given my stellar sense of direction, I did actually get turned around a couple of times, even though it's as simple as following the yellow-brick road. Thankfully I had map-masters Ahren and Christian to keep me on the path.

We saw some amazing sites and monuments:

 

 

Doesn't Ahren look hard-core in this picture?

Cool mosaic that marked the first public school in the country. Notable alumni below.

If Ben Frank went to public school, I think it's the place to be. ;)

Bunker Hill

 

So on that note I'll end the photo onslaught. Hopefully the next trip (Montreal over Memorial Day weekend) will produce pictures with better weather. And more beer. :)

On the domestic front, it's strange when a truly happy and fun evening consists of cooking dinner (care of endless tips from my mom! Thanks!), dancing about to records (lately, Fats Domino), playing Scrabble (I usually kick Christian's ass, though he'll hate me for calling him out for it.) and watching Curb Your Enthusiasm.

The other most exciting aspect of our lives is deciding when to adopt a kitten (or kittens, depending on how mushy I'm feeling that day). We're planning on adopting a rescue cat from a local "Homeless Cat Rescue Project," and I'll have cat carrier and inhaler in hand. We even have a space picked out for the litter box, and another, more glamorous nook for a scratching post and an array of plush mice. I honestly feel that (besides moving cross-country and starting the most exciting job I can imagine) adopting a cat is one of the most monumental events of my recent life. Am I really equipped to be responsible for the life of another creature? We'll see. Things didn't fare so well for Agador Spartacus, my ill-fated beta fish, to whom I was unhealthily attached.

Stay tuned for pictures of the new house in the country -- it's almost finished! -- and the new cat, and of Canada. And if y'all are reading this in the brick house: I miss you Chad, Kathy, Alex, Cole and Avery! (My parents opted to go by aliases in this blog. I think it's fun.)

Breaking the Seal

So, I've started a blog (clearly). I know "bloggers" can seem vain and self-indulgent, thinking that people care what they have to say. Well, everyone is at least a little bit vain, according to Carly Simon (sort of), so I don't feel so bad. And I figured that with the seemingly insurmountable distance between myself and most of my loved ones (more on that later), that this would be a relatively easy way to keep those who do care, few though they may be, up-to-date on everything.

My friends and family might be interested in the goings-on -- I've certainly had several requests for photos of the new place -- and this is less intrusive than inundating their Facebook news feeds with all of Massachusetts' quirks. So, if you'd like to know the differences between the Big Easy and the Pioneer Valley (which is apparently where I live now ... and it has nothing to do with Oregon Trail), then please read on!

And (hint, hint) I'd love to know what's going on in my friends' lives as well, so maybe start a blog! Or for my friends who do have blogs, then we can ... um ... "follow" each other? Not sure how that works in the blogosphere. I'll find out soon, I suppose.

So, to summarize: I'm a Louisianian and late-in-life New Orleanian who has, in the last couple of years, fallen deeply, madly, incandescently (P&P adjective-drop!) in love with the Crescent City. I worked at Renaissance Publishing, helping edit and write for local and regional magazines, which was pretty ideal. I lived with two of my best friends in a beautiful house. I ate way too much fried food, and loved every bite (except for that time I went to Rivershack Tavern twice in one day). I made great friends, and experienced some great NOLA memories: Mardi Gras and the Rex parade next to my house, Jazz Fest (five years in a row!), shows at the Mahalia, Frenchmen Street -- too much to name.

But then I found a job listing for (and proceeded to spend three months trying to get) a position at a Disney  magazine in western Massachusetts, where my boyfriend happened to live. I'm a lifelong Disney freak and I worked at Disney World for six months after college -- some of the best times ever, by the way. The magazine is FamilyFun, and it's a national magazine with more than 2 million subscribers. Plus it's in downtown Northampton, which is a really idyllic town. When I got the job, it was one of the most bittersweet transitions of my life. I had to leave my friends and family, not to mention my favorite city, and move a couple thousand miles away. Really scary, but so far, really exciting.

I've lived here three weeks and am still completely shell-shocked. So many things are different -- some I was expecting; others, not so much. A few examples:

--The foliage. It's really breathtaking. Even in spring, the trees are all different colors -- some flowering and most unfamiliar. There are MOUNTAINS everywhere. Sounds simple enough, but I'm from Louisiana. Monkey Hill at the Audubon Zoo is a big deal. I'm still not used to being surrounded by mountains, waterfalls and flowers (Tulips and daffodils grow EVERYWHERE!) and I don't really want to get used to it. I hope everything continues making me act like a little kid in a candy shop ... a flower shop, in this case. Christian (aforementioned boyfriend) makes fun of me because I still squeal and point when we pass a particularly massive tree or field of flowers.

These pictures don't even really do it justice; they're just the only ones I had on my camera. I'll find better ones ... 

--The bugs. I didn't expect to walk into my new house and be infested with nasty, crawly (albeit harmless) little monsters, and not the good Lady Gaga kind. There were seriously 15-20 dead bugs just laying about, and plenty of live ones to freak me out. In the first couple of days, I twice found one crawling on my bedspread, and one bug actually fell on my head while I was in bed. Thanks be to Raid.

--The lesbians. Northampton has more lesbians per capita than any other city in the U.S. This was a good surprise. I love the gays. I mean, I worked at Disney World, which is gay man Mecca. My love for Meryl Streep, Barbra Streisand and Liza Minnelli makes me believe I am a gay man at heart. My bestie Alex and I are like Penny in Happy Endings: We love having a gay husband. Anyway, I love the open-mindedness of everyone here -- families of all combinations are completely normal, accepted, not thought twice of, as it should be. It's refreshing. Though I wonder if single guys face the same conundrum that single girls do in Disney World with the "is he? isn't he?" test of a cute guy.

--The food. Everything is organic, everything is locally grown, there are farms everywhere. Which is pretty awesome, because you have local, fresh veggies all the time and everything seems "green" and "sustainable" and all those good things. It's not so good when you're at the charming local foods store and there are no pretzels. Or club soda. Or the other necessities I needed that day. I mean, there are Wal-Marts and Targets, but they're not as fun. The Sophie's Choice of groceries.

--The people. I had this notion that only Southerners are friendly. That's stupid, I know, but I mean really friendly ... like, crazy friendly. Anyway, everyone is crazy friendly here, except for that insane woman that was screaming at dudes, calling them "LESBIANS!!!" at the Pride Parade. That was odd. But anyway, that was a pleasant surprise -- people are so open and welcoming. Making the transition easier.

--My job. It's fantastic. I have Buzz and Woody as the background on my phone screen. Sally from Nightmare is on my cubicle name tag-thingy. I play with toys and write about it. There are 10 different kinds of coffee and tea. Everyone wears jeans. I could go on and on, but I'll digress. This post seems way, way too long. I'll work on that.

--Last observation: New York State is a selfish, selfish state. Fourteen dollars in tolls JUST FOR MY CIVIC. Just to drive through the state. AND the roads were crappy.

I'll work on taking some pictures of the new place and of the scenery, and I'll post them here. In my next post, I'll have to talk about how in a few months I'll be working on Princess Magazine and Fairies Magazine. Oh yeah.