A chance for a new life, bypassed

I had the chance to become the mistress of a trucker today, but I let it pass me by.

We were driving from DC to Ithaca (it ended up taking us a smooth 6.5 hours). After a few hours, we picked up some food at a Pizza Hut embedded in a Pilot truck stop somewhere near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Classy, I know, but it was our one pit stop so we were stuck with what was available. When we were about to get in the car to leave, I noticed that the sandwich we bought had a time stamp on it, directing us to "request a new product if received after 10:36 AM," which I was pretty sure it was.

All of this is the long way of telling you that I walked back into the truck stop by myself and had to ask someone standing in line in front of me what time it was. The person who I happened to ask, happened to be a trucker. And he took my casual query about the time to be an invitation to a conversation.

He was from Chattanooga, Tennessee, and the time zone is different there, and he was headed to Boston, blah blah blah. I put on my polite smile until I could break away to pick up my sandwich, because our conversation had at least established that it was, in fact, past 10:36 AM, the time difference in Chattanooga notwithstanding. As I was waiting for the sandwich at a separate counter, the trucker walked past me out the door but then turned around and asked me if I wanted to go to Boston with him.

Honestly, I thought he was joking, so I just kind of laughed and avoided making any further eye contact. Then he repeated the offer in a more persuasive tone and said, "are you sure?" At that point I looked right at him and said "uuhhhh, no." He replied, "well, you have a nice smile," and then left.

When I got back out to the car and was reunited with my husband and two kids, I told Jeremy how I almost left him for a trucker at a pit stop in Gettysburg, PA. It took a lot of deliberating, but I think I'll stay with Jeremy for at least another eight years. As long as he tells me I have a nice smile a little more often.

Movie Review: New Moon

If I had to write a movie review of New Moon in one word, it would be:

ANGST.

I haven't seen so much angst packed into two hours since high school. As in, real life, when I was in high school. In fact, I'm kind of sad I couldn't watch New Moon as a 16-year-old girl because I think I would have LOVED it. It was just so angsty. Everyone was sad and mopey and dramatic and beautiful and breaking up and having misunderstandings and almost kissing. ANGST.

Besides the angst, here are my other impressions of the movie:

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Flashback Friday: Thanksgiving memories

My friend did a post a few weeks ago about her Thanksgiving experiences in China and it reminded me of our weird Thanksgivings in foreign countries. We've actually only celebrated two Thanksgivings abroad and neither of them were particularly zany, but I thought I'd dredge up some memories for you anyway for Flashback Friday.

In Russia, we got together with a few other American expats at someone's apartment. It was one of those things where we all did our best to re-create a family favorite with the ingredients available, and some of us had more success than others. Jeremy and I brought that dessert that has so many different names, the dumbest of which is The Next Best Thing to Robert Redford. I think we only had to make a few substitutions in the ingredients. The main problem was that we didn't have an electric mixer to whip up the cream, and Cool Whip in Russia was obviously not an option. I don't think we had powdered sugar either. We did score some Jell-O pudding mix at the commissary, so that was nice.

The final product might not have been as fluffy or light as usual, but it was sweet and chocolatey and creamy and I think it tasted pretty good. Thanksgiving success.

My memories from Syria are a little fuzzier because Jeremy and I were just barely recovering from some pretty terrible spinach-inflicted food poisoning. I do remember that the senior couple volunteers made some major ingredient coups and had prepared a pretty good spread of American food for the members of the branch and our friends. My favorite was that they had actually made stuffing, albeit with a different kind of bread and a vegetable that was not celery but was the closest thing the street vendors could rustle up for them. I'm still not sure what it was, but it all tasted so good.

Strangely, I don't remember either gathering having turkey.

I'm glad we made an effort to celebrate even though it was awkward and difficult at times. Because it was also delicious, and that made it all worth it.

The Thanksgiving post

Let's face it, I'd rather be doing other things than write this post, and you'd rather be doing other things than read it. So I'll be brief.

The big thing I'm excited about at Thanksgiving this year is that I'm in charge of the stuffing, so I get to make it the way I want it. Stuffing is probably my favorite food, so I'm particular about it. I think everyone is particular about it, actually, so you can see how it can turn into a clash of family traditions. The way I was raised, if you put cranberries, sausage, a corn-based product, raisins, or any other abomination in your stuffing, or if it came out of a box, you're doing it wrong. YES, I realize I probably just offended 75% of you.

The only things that belong in stuffing are bread, celery, onions, poultry seasoning, and butter. Also, don't ruin it by actually stuffing it in the turkey.

Who's with me?

Happy Thanksgiving!

Boston to DC

We left Boston yesterday, headed for DC. For some reason, we had it in our minds that the trip would take 6 hours. It took about 12. Here's how.

First of all, I don't know where the 6-hour figure came from, but it wasn't correct to begin with. It's more like an 8-hour drive, so there was that.

Then there was the fact that we forgot that kids make everything take seven times as long than it would for two adults by themselves. Seriously, SEVEN TIMES AS LONG. Packing. Walking down to the car. Getting in the car. Programming Nigel the GPS (because you have to narrate everything you do to the 4-year-old in the backseat). Eating. Putting on mittens. You name it - it takes longer.

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This hotel is too good for me

It has come to my attention that I am not classy enough to stay in nice hotels. Courtesy of Cornell, for the sake of Jeremy's conference, we are staying in the Marriott in downtown Boston. You can imagine how much it costs.   It's not just the per-night charges, either. Everything costs extra money at nice hotels.

It's strange, because you'd think paying an arm and a leg each night would entitle you to, you know, a donut and some milk for breakfast, on the house. Or wireless internet. Or a parking spot, for heaven's sake. But no. Those things cost extra. I found myself cracking open the room service menu our first day here just to see how much it would cost for the convenience of having breakfast at the hotel. It quickly became apparent that just by checking the prices, I had already proved I couldn't afford it. Someone who can spend $25 on toast, jam, and juice doesn't need to check the price list. They just do it.

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Impressions of Boston and a missed opportunity

We've been in Boston for three days now, so I think I'm fully qualified to make sweeping generalizations about the city and its inhabitants.

1. Its roads are very curvy and nonsensical. Even Nigel the GPS gets confused sometimes. The worst part is that it's one of those cities where if you make even ONE wrong turn, your ETA jumps back about 12 minutes.

2. We have the ghettoest stroller in existence, apparently. Everyone else walking around town with their offspring has cute European-ish baby buggies. Almost they persuadeth me to buy an $800 stroller (but not quite).

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