Sunday, September 30, 2007

Cop-Out

OK - I'm copping out on writing a real post tonight. Since I worked Friday, Saturday & Sunday, I'm nearly out of steam. Hence, selections from I Can Haz Cheeseburger!




The last one makes a lot more sense if you go here. And here. Enjoy the silliness. ;)

Friday, September 28, 2007

And We Did It!!!

To quote the Globe headline after our 2004 World Series win, "YES!!!" The Orioles scored the final run in the bottom of the 10th to beat the Yankees 10-9. And the Sox are the AL East champs!!!

I'm so happy. :) I jumped up & down and whisper-yelled. ;) I then called my parents, who were half-asleep, but excited, and both of my best friends. Left a msg. for one of them & chatted for a bit with the one who lives in New York.

I've been watching the coverage on NESN of the celebration. I love how excited the players are. After the chaos of champagne-spraying in the clubhouse (they all wore swim goggles!), they're mostly all out on the field now celebrating with the fans. They're running around in shorts & division champ T-shirts, spraying champagne on the fans, smoking cigars, & giving high fives out like candy. :)

I love this team & I love Red Sox Nation. On to the playoffs, you guys!

Holy Crap

Holy crap, you guys! It's the bottom of the 10th & Baltimore has the bases loaded!!! If they score a run in this inning, the Sox are going to clinch their first AL East division title since 1995. And Fenway is going to go batshit crazy. As am I. But quietly, since my roommate is asleep. ;)

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

La Dolce Vita

Short post tonight, as I'm expending most of my energy these days on getting reading done & planning ahead for papers due in October. (Incidentally, how have those of you who are in grad school balance blog posting against keeping up with the intellectual rigor of your programs? I'm worried that I might not be doing very well so far.)

Months ago, I saw a public television special on Julia Child - her early life & her conversion to a full-on French cooking ambassador. Ever since, I've been slowly simmering a post about her on the back burner (get the cooking metaphor? Get it???). In the meantime, I also discovered Francis Mayes' Under the Tuscan Sun & re-discovered the Julie/Julia Project.

Despite drastic differences in actual French & Italian cooking methods, all of these things have got me thinking about "the good life." In my mind, this life involves coffee on the patio with the morning paper, spending time in the kitchen to prepare some really lovely food for yourself & your loved ones, leisurely walks down winding lanes, and a myriad of other things.

Eventually, I'll pull my thoughts together enough for a post to make more sense. In the meantime, I'll enjoy my small, poor version of the good life: coffee at my desk in the mornings with sunlight pouring in the window, simple but yummy food (tonight's dinner was garden tomatoes with olive oil & sea salt, followed by organic tortellini with pesto sauce), and afternoons spent reading (mostly) interesting books & articles on the Thompson Hall lawn or a bench somewhere on campus. :)

Monday, September 24, 2007

Weekend Update

Had a good & fairly relaxing weekend, once it officially started. I worked until 3pm on Friday, then stopped by campus to pick up my student loan check & buy a few books I wasn't able to get at the beginning of the semester.

From there, I drove up to the lake. I had dinner with my mum & dad & grandfather at his house. My gramps has lived alone since my grandmother died in May & I know he's lonely. It's always nice to spend some time with him when I can.

Home to watch the Sox win & anxiously check both MLB.com and NESN until I saw the final score of the Jays/Yankees game. 14 innings - crazy!

On Saturday, my parents & I drove up to Lincoln for the annual New Hampshire Highland Games. My mother & I have been attending for about seven years now, but this was my father's second time & his first at Loon (the games were at Hopkinton Fairgrounds for a couple of years).

While I still enjoy the Games, I find myself increasingly turned off by the representation of Scotland that I find there. Having spent some time in Scotland, it's now strange to me to see the tartan tchotskes & overly-romanticized elements of Scottish culture for sale & on display. However, I also recognize that things like Highland Games & St. Patrick's Day celebrations in America have more to do with a nostalgic cultural heritage than an accurate depiction of either Scotland or Ireland in 2007.

I still enjoy the Games & I certainly can't pretend that I didn't enjoy sitting in the grass in the hillside beer garden, enjoying a Piper's Ale & watching the caber toss. :) Picture above is my view from said beer garden. The grassy area in the middle ground is where the athletic games took place.

After a fairly relaxing Sunday, I headed home by way of BJ's to buy myself a new printer. Home around 7:30pm to do a ton of reading for class & prepare for the week ahead. Hope you all had good weekends & are looking forward to the super-warm weather forecast for this week!

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Because an open letter to the Red Sox hasn't been done to death ;)

Dear Red Sox,

You know I love you, right? I'm not a pink hat & I'm not a post-2004 fan. If you blow your lead this season & end up limping into the playoffs as the Wild Card pick, I will still be waiting anxiously by the TV in April 2008 for your season opener.

However, I think we need to talk. You boys are better than this. Well, Gagne isn't, but the rest of you are. Our lead has been whittled down to a slim 1.5 games, but it's still a lead & we've got just nine more regular-season games to play.

I trust that you'll take tomorrow's day off to rest up for a Tampa Bay butt-kicking this weekend. You can do this, boys. I still have faith. ;)

Respectfully,
Stacey

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

I giggled, a lot :)

The annual "let's make our rookies dress up & look really, really silly" event, sponsored by your Boston Red Sox. ;)

Thanks to Eileen for reminding me that this happened on Sunday night & providing the initial link to the video.

Picture of Dice-K as a Teletubby & Okajima as a pirate courtesy of a poster on "The Noise Boston."

Monday, September 17, 2007

Much-Belated Update

OK, I'm back. Sorry for going away. :)

This past week has been busy and fun and a little stressful. Since Wednesday, I've only spent two nights in my own bed in Portsmouth! I've also:
  • worked two busy days at my new job (the one I got through my current position)
  • had a beer with a couple of girls from my graduate program/part-time job
  • freaked out & cried when my car decided not to start - twice!
  • canceled my very first plans in Portsmouth to visit my two best friends in Boston (one of them came home from NYC unexpectedly for Rosh Hashanah)
  • imbibed more than a few drinks with the girls & their boyfriends
  • watched a lot of Red Sox - some good, some bad, some ugly (Friday night broke my heart!)
  • babysat for my nephew
  • found out that my sister's second child will be a boy! I'm going to have two nephews, you guys. (insert big auntie grin here)
  • tutored two students in MA on the way home from my sister's
  • done a ton of reading for class
  • made plans for a regular Monday lunch with two of my classmates/new friends
Whew! I hope you all have a good week & I promise to update more regularly this week. ;)
Sorry I've been AWOL for a week, guys! Things have been super busy. I have some reading to do for class, but will update tonight. :)

Hope you had a good weekend!

Monday, September 10, 2007

Sox Game on 9/5

OK, as promised, pictures from the game last Wednesday. They were all taken on my phone & therefore are not great. However, they're not sucky, either. ;)

My friend L. & I posing

I really don't know what we were doing here . . .

Our seats were right field roof deck standing room, which was not bad, but not great either. I loved being so close to the bar, but we spent the first seven innings peering over & around people to see who was at bat. However, around the 7th, one of the waiters for the roof deck tables came up to us & offered to let us sit at a recently vacated table for the rest of the game! The seats were great & I took the following pics:


All in all, a good time, even though the Sox lost. :(

Saturday, September 08, 2007

2 Questions and a PSA (oh, and an apology)

Item #1 - two questions for Jacoby Ellsbury:
  1. How are you so freaking good?
  2. When would you like me to have your babies?
Seriously, you guys. I still love me some salt n' pepper Mike Lowell, but this kid is just electric! I know other (and better) Sox bloggers have written more lucidly about Ellsbury, so I'll leave it to them to outline his particular skills. But I just wanted to say that he reminds me of Benny "the Jet" Rodriguez from "The Sandlot". :)

Item #2 - my 26th birthday is exactly one month from today.

Item #3 - I suck because I still haven't posted the pictures from the game on Wednesday. I promise I'll get to it soon! Promise.

That is all.

Oh wait - the photos of Ellsbury & Lowell are from Sitting Still, an website with many, many awesome Sox photos and a Flickr nod goes to CindyLu for the photo of Benny "the Jet."

Now that is all. ;)

Friday, September 07, 2007

Summer in the City

My goodness - it was hot today! The heat broke a twenty-four year old record in Portsmouth. The high was 93, four degrees above the 89 recorded in 1983. Isn't it supposed to be nearly fall?!?

I avoided the weather & stayed indoors for most of the day, unpacking. I did some good work: got most of my bathroom stuff, most of my clothes & all of my books put away. I have somewhere around 250 or 300 books, so this is quite a feat.

I also tacked up my nautical map of Murray Harbour, PEI (my summer 'hood) over the fireplace. It's a pretty big map - around 2.5" x 3" - so this was not an easy feat, either. However, it looks pretty good, if I do say so myself. Check it out above!

Around 6:45pm, I realized that I hadn't been outside at all yet. So I went for a quick walk before the Sox game. I wandered down to the end of my street & across the railroad tracks to the mill pond. I sat on a rock for awhile & enjoyed the evening. The sky had that just-after-sunset pinkish glow & the water in the pond smelled like the ocean. It was lovely & made me glad that I had decided to get out for a little bit.

Then, home for the Sox's win over the Orioles (increasing our lead over the Yanks to 7 games if they lose to the Royals & 6.5 games if they win) & a chat on the phone with my mum. Hope you all had an exciting Friday night! Mine was pretty tame, but necessary. ;)

Thursday, September 06, 2007

Thursday Randomness

So because my bedroom looks like this:
you're getting bullet points & promises instead of a proper post. ;)
  • My room is a mess. However, since I have neither class nor work tomorrow (haha - I love not working full-time anymore! Also, I just said I have no class! Get it?), I will be spending most of the hot, sticky day inside unpacking & organizing. I think that with our forces combined, me 'n the four Red Hook ESBs in the fridge can get it done!
  • I went to the Sox game last night with one of my best friends, my bro-in-law, and a friend of his. Sucks that we lost, but I took a few silly pictures & had a few funny occurrences. Will post them soon.
  • I got a new job! Well, kind of. It's through the same place I've worked since May, but it's additional hours in a different department. It also involves food service (in which I have a decade of experience), so you know that that means, right? Free food!
  • And for the other days of the week, when I'm a poor starving grad student, I made a nice discovery during my virgin visit to the local Hannaford's. They have . . . dry goods in bulk! That's right - when money runs low, I can walk on over to the store & buy $1 worth of couscous or granola to keep me alive. ;)
  • You guys, I have a problem. My age meter is on the fritz. Walking around campus, I'm having a hard time telling the little baby freshmen (no way!) from the grad students & young professors (acceptable for dating). I once made the mistake of dating a guy significantly younger than me (4 years) & never heard the end of it from both friends & family. Even my mom called me Mrs. Robinson! I don't want to make the same mistake again. What do I do??? ;)
  • Last, but not least: I finally bought "The Places in Between." I first read about Rory Stewart this past spring while in my dentist's waiting room. He's a well-educated Scotsman in his early thirties who has served as a British diplomat for a number of years. Most interestingly, though, in 2002, he walked across Afghanistan by himself. The book is an account of his experiences in that country. I'll let you know how it is when I finish it, ok?
In the meantime, since it's nearly midnight, I think I'll toddle off to bed with my Scotsman. Enjoy your evening, kiddos!

Tuesday, September 04, 2007

I've Touched Down

Finally & sort of. ;)

After my final day of work on Friday (during which I got to pick out my own going-away cake at Russo's!), a few co-workers & I went out for dinner at Watch City. Then, a Mediterranean chicken salad & Titan Ale heavier, I headed up 95 with two plants, a mattress, a betta fish, and miscellaneous other household goods.

Arrived around 9:45, had some help unloading, had a glass of wine with my housemate & some of his friends, and crashed around midnight. Worked all day Saturday, then headed up to the lake house.

After all the hubbub of the last few weeks, I was really looking forward to relaxing with my family on Saturday night. Instead, within thirty minutes of my arrival, I had both locked my keys (& purse & phone & Red Sox tickets) in the car & gotten two splinters deeply embedded into my foot. Sigh.

Once these issues were sorted out, though, it was a lovely weekend. Coffee on the deck in the mornings & swimming at the beach in the afternoons. Nice way to set me up for my first week of classes. I'll update more later, as I get more things unpacked & meet with more classes!