Pride Fest 2009

It's that time of year again! Pride Fest! Although we don't generally stick around too long for the actual 'fest', we like going to the parade to show our support and grab some beads and other parade-freebies. Normally, we don't get moving fast enough to get a good spot but this year, with the nice weather, we packed up the water bottles and camp chairs and arrived early. And, we got a sweet spot -- street-side near the northwest corner of Grand and Arsenal. Or, so we thought until we realized that somebody brought a crazy lady to the parade and stood her right behind us. She complained the audibly the ENTIRE time -- about something, about nothing, and about everything else in between! Mostly though, here complaints involved not being able to see. Now, I might have been more compassionate had she been nice about all of this but she was not. So I ignored her as did everyone else in our vicinity. Eventually, she must have even started embarrassing the people who brought her because they started hushing her. I was tempted to turn around and take a look at her, maybe even remind her about parade and public etiquette but before I decided the wind intervened -- divine? karma? I'm not sure. But what I can tell you is that the tent canopy behind us suddenly took flight and clocked her in the back of the head. Her complaining finally stopped but, unfortunately, it was only because she began yelling at the people with the tent. That eventually stopped too but, by that time, she had walked far enough away from us that we could no longer hear her.

Book Review: Death in Yellowstone, Accidents and Foolhardiness in the First National Park by Lee H. Whittlesey

Yes, more on Yellowstone. I'll move on soon. I promise.

Review:
No mystery what the book is about; the title says it all. However, word of caution: If you're hoping for a Faces of Death account of death in Yellowstone, this isn't your book. But, if you'd like a tastefully written, historical recounting of the various ways in which people have died in Yellowstone in the last 100 years, then Whittlesey's book IS for you. Lots of interesting information, lots of common sense reminders about life in the the wilderness. Whittlesey says it best:

"While appreciating its (nature) wholeness, we must never abandon a healthy respect for wilderness. Wilderness is impersonal. It does not care whether you live or die. It does not care how much you love it. So while we are loving the Yellowstone wilderness, while we play in it, indeed revel in it, taking it on its own terms and helping to protect it, we foolish mortals must always remember to respect it. For not only can it bite us, but, indeed, it can devour us."

Yellowstone and Teton Vacation 2009

This was an awesome vacation. And I mean that in all sincerity. Going to Yellowstone is all about extreme ranges. Look at this data from our trip. We experienced all of them in 9 days within the boundaries of both Yellowstone and Grand Teton.

Weather: Snow, Sleet, Rain, Fog, Overcast, Crystal-Clear Sunshine
Temperature: Cold, Cool, Warm
Flora: Lodgepole Pine, Englemann Spruce, Yellow Monkey Flower, Spring Beauty
Fauna: Bison, Bears, Elk, Marmot, Ground Squirrels, Chipmunks, Dung Beetles
Lodging: Historic & Commercial Inns & Hotels, Rustic Cabins, Campgrounds
Congested: Mammoth Main Entry, Old Faithful Area, Other Visitor Centers, Little Used Trails

Extreme ranges. Most definitely. Most definitely awesome. My final word: Go to Yellowstone! I would encourage you to go in June too. The guide book say that in Yellowstone there's July, August, and Winter. I say phooey! Go in June! Avoid the crowds (I hear it's bumper to bumper within the park by July) and the heat and more predictable weather. You can find more of our vacation photos by clicking here.

Book Review: The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery

In The Elegance of the Hedgehog, Muriel Barbery examines issues of life and death, beauty and art, philosophy and the human condition, and social class through the observations of the two outwardly misanthrope main characters, Madame Michel and Paloma Josse. Superifically, it appears that Madame Michel (the middle-aged, informally educated, gruff, peasant-stock concierge) and Paloma (an acutely intelligent 12-year old daughter of educated upper class parents) share little in common except geography (they live in the same small, but elegant Parisian apartment building) and routine (they perform their obligations and rituals with self-imposed anonymity and contempt). Yet, through their observations and journals, their inner lives are revealed to be strikingly similar: rich, astute, and painfully and accurately observant of the human condition. As the mystery of each character is slowly revealed and related to one another a little ray of hope blossoms in the novel. The blossom is, of course, bittersweet (darn those French!). My opinion? Definitely, read it. It's a solid 4 star novel -- 5 stars for content and style and 3 stars for the rambling philosophy 101.

Book Review: Female Chauvinistic Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture by Ariel Levy

While this is not a greatly written or very exciting book, it is a great little contribution to the new wave of feminism writing (are we still in the third wave? Or, is it the fourth now?). Basically, Ariel Levy explores in her book, Female Chauvinistic Pigs, two central questions -- #1, What does modern feminism look like and how/why does it differ from that of our parents and grandparents age? #2, Does female raunchy culture compliment or derogate modern feminism? Very, very interesting stuff, especially if you spend anytime around female tweens, teens, and 20's, which, as a teacher, I do. But, probably most interesting to me, because I feel this way too, is that Levy, who plants her feet firmly on the ground that condemns sexual objectification and emulating sex star behavior/attitude/dress/etc as empowering--among other things-- comes to this conclusion: that it's while it's easy to be firmly, ethically, socially, and politically opposed to this new kind of raunch culture as feminism it is culturally difficult to argue against raunch when those who support it make you feel like a square peg. Square peg. Love the song, hate the feeling.

Yellowstone and Teton

We're heading to Yellowstone and the Tetons tomorrow morning.Woo hoo! We'll be gone for two weeks but I hope to post photos and funnies along the way as internet access allows.

Summer 2009

Summer vacation has finally arrived! And while I won't have as much time this summer as I would like to there is still plenty of time for having new adventures and repeating old, favorite ones. Yesterday, we repeated an old fave -- the St Louis Zoo with a few of Willa's friends from school. Good times were had by all. Today, not much planned except a few chores and errands. Woo Hoo!

Crawfish Boil

Some SMOS parent friends (parents of Willa's friend Ava) that live in Benton Park invited us to a crawfish boil in their backyard. Boiling crawfish in the Midwest? That's what I said. Seems a little geographically and culinarily odd to me - but what do I know about boiling and/or eating crawfish? A big nothing except that I hate all things related to touching/cooking/smelling/eating shellfish. That said, who can pass up a crawfish boil? Not me. While I didn't touch the stuff, it was a great time -- great weather, great conversation, great drinks, great fun, and, of course, great hosts.

Another Funny Photo Comparison

My own little Farrah. Well, not quite. But, pretty funny anyway.

Stingrays at Caribbean Cove

There's a new attraction at the St Louis Zoo called Stingrays at Caribbean Cove where, for a $1.50 (for Zoo members) and up, you can have about 10 minutes in the pool area and pet the new stingrays. Last night was the STL Zoo members free preview night so we decided to go. We waited in line for about 20-30 minutes but it was worth the wait. Definitely fun stuff. But, the best part will be catching the rays at feeding time (which seems arbitrarily decided upon by the keepers based on the perceived hunger of the rays) when, for a small fee, you can buy ray food and feed them. Clearly this photo has nothing to do with stingrays but I took it last night and couldn't resist making the obvious art history comparison (The Creation of Adam by Michelangelo). Naturally, Bill is playing the role of God and Willa is starring as Adam. Yes, I'm a geek. Sorry.

Book Review: My Horizontal Life, A Collection of One-Night Stands by Chelsea Handler

After forcing myself to power through that mediocre Sloane Crosley book (see previous entry) I needed to be seriously entertained by my next choice. And, hallelujah, I was. Thank you Chelsea Handler. My very limited knowledge of Handler came via my little dirty habit. I watched a few short clips of her show and I was intrigued. Handler was funny, intelligent, witty, and bold. But, I probably would have forgotten about her had I not realized later that she had written a couple of books. So, I decided to start with My Horizontal Life, A Collection of One-Night Stands. One word: hilarious. At the beginning of the first essay, my eyes widened and my jaw hit the ground. The only time that expression left my face, which was actually quite often, was when I was laughed so hard that I nearly became incontinent. Seriously, I would laugh, have to put the book down because I was laughing so hard, pick the book up to start reading again, laugh some more, have to put the book down again (you get the idea). Honestly, this book is that funny. Go read it.

Book Review: I Was Told There'd Be Cake by Sloane Crosley

When I'm in the mood to read, but I don't feel like reading any of the 18 million unread books that I already own, I head to a bookstore (if I also need an outing) or log on to Amazon.com. On Amazon, I especially love the feature "Customers who bought this item have also bought this." This is how I stumbled across Sloane Crosley's I Was Told There'd Be Cake. I was sold on Sloane when I read the review and the book cover which stated a claim something like - if you like Sedaris and Vowell you'll love Crosley. "OMG!" I thought. "I love Sedaris! I love Vowell!" Um, well, I didn't love Crosley. In fact, I didn't even like Crosley. I tolerated her. Here's what I think in a nutshell: The writing was okay and, a couple of times, even funny. Yet, overall, I found Crosley's style and content predictable, unimaginative, and average. Maybe she's more entertaining in real life?

Everyday is Earth Day

Here's my status post from Facebook:

"i do the reduce, i do the recycle. but i need new ideas for reuse. especially for my regular items: aluminum cans, 2-liter plastic bottles, 1-gallon plastic milk jugs, glass beer bottles. suggestions? any good websites?"

If anyone reading this has any suggestions, I'd love for you to post it in a comment. I'm getting really frustrated with the amount of recyclables that I have that I've run out of 'reuse' purposes. Alternatively, if you know of an art project or nature craft that includes any of these items please post that as well.

Sick Day

When I woke up this morning, I felt sick. Well, I didn't feel really sick. It was more like discomfort. It wasn't even serious enough that I should have considered staying home today. But, I did. And, once the seed was planted....well you know where this is going. I wish that I could say that I've spent my day doing those things that people talk about doing "when they get the time" but I didn't. Instead, I've sat here, at the dining room table, most of the day glued to the internet reading the news, the Onion, window shopping on Etsy, browsing for a new netbook, and other activities of equally lame status. Damn internet.

Scanning Vacations Past and Stellina Pasta Cafe

Yesterday, I was so inspired by the completion of the scanning/uploading task with my Isle Royale photos that I decided to make a day of it. At the end of the day, while I didn't win any world record scanning titles, I did get a lot of the work done. Of the photos that I decided to upload, I finished them all but our trip out West. I have a LOT of photos from that trip but hopefully I'll get that done later today. No pressure but if you're interested in taking a look at the photos, click the "My Flickr Photos" link to the right.

On an unrelated note, Bill and I are going to eat at Stellina Pasta Cafe today. My friend Laura and I ate there during Christmas break (I think) and really enjoyed the food. Today, I'm returning for three reasons: to take Bill who has been wanting to try the food, it's spring break and we have the leisure time to do these kind of things, and it's my birthday. Happy Birthday to me!

Spring Break 2009 and Isle Royale 1998

After having read a few Sarah Vowell books recently, I was inspired to organize a spring break trip to Colonial Williamsburg. I had this fantasy that a road trip to a major historical destination might inspire my teaching and/or facilitate the writing of my own Vowell-esque, hysterically observant essay. So, having an innate talent for list-making, I began the planning process. Dates, hotels, iternary - all selected. The problem was getting Bill on board. As much as I tried to convince him of the educational importance and star-making potential of this trip, Bill remained unconvinced. In fact, he even suggested that we start with Silver Dollar City and "build from there." The horror! In the meantime, I kept talking about calling to make the reservations for the Williamsburg trip when a colleague of mine said, "You know spring break is next week." Again, the horror! How did I managed to lose track of the calendar? I really have no clue. So, here I am, spring break week, blogging about vacations -- or the lack there of -- instead of enjoying one. And, as tribute to all those vacations not taken, I am revisiting some of my old vacation memories by finally scanning those old 35 mm film stills that I took before going digital. Here are a few photos from our hiking trip to Isle Royale (IR) in the summer of 1998.

This was an awesome week-long trip! We drove to Grand Portage, MN and took the 3 hour ferry ride to the island. Beautiful forest, beautiful lake, beautiful views. IR is a protected International Biosphere Reserve, as well as a National Park, so backpacking and camping etiquette is strictly enforced. It also meant that backpacking and camping were only permitted along designated trails and sites. What made this often grueling was that you had to hike the distance that the NPS told you to in order to get to the designated campsite for the night. Because of the ferry schedule, I think that we got an midday start the first day, forcing us to quickly high-step it to the approximately 7 miles that we had to do to get to the first campsite. We made good time on this nearly flat, mostly shaded trail so I was undaunted by the subsequent days hikes that called for hiking a few 9 and 11 mile stretches. At times, it was really tough hiking too--sandy beaches, rocky terrain, steep inclines. I think I cried at least 5 times the second or third day when we essentially had to hike uphill all day on loose, rocky paths, and little protection from the sun because we were out of the forested area. Miserable but so worth it in the end.

Vin de Set

Bill and I decided to try Vin de Set because of the positive reviews it had received from both friends and critics. The reviews held true. Good food, great wine, great atmosphere.

Here's the scoop:
We arrived a little early so we headed to the bar for drinks. I ordered a Malbec (if it hasn't already acheived "it" status among local hipster wine drinkers I predict it's on its way) but the bar guy, I think, winced. When I asked about it, he offered me a wine tasting. Fast-forward and I'm drinking a big ol' glass of Cabernet Franc from Cali. Very smooth. Very alcoholic. Very delicious. After a few drinks we made our way to the dining area, where we had the opportunity to sit outside in the covered, heated rooftop dining area. Wasn't expecting that option in mid-March but we went along with it since part of the point of coming to Vin is the rooftop dining experience. And, the roof did have a nice view, one that I suspect is better under more natural, more appropriate alfresco weather conditions.

On to the food:
We started with a delicious baked brie with roasted garlic and apricot and walnut chutney. Bill ordered steak and frittes, which he called "delicious" and gave a big two thumbs up. I ordered the sirloin burger w/roquefort bechamel & angel hair onions. It was very tasty too even if the cheese, and I hate to criticize cheese because it is really the most perfect food, was a little too rich for the burger (maybe that's a French culinary preference). We finished by sharing a vanilla creme brulee, which was good, but not memorable.

The assessment:
In fact, the last sentence of the last paragraph sums up my assessment of Vin--that the food was good, but not especially memorable. But, here's what's also very important to remember: food and ambiance work in tandem. Great food can be made bad by a bad presentation or environment (example: The Tin Can near Tower Grove Park--good food that registers bad because of its bad environment). Conversely, as in the case of Vin, good food can be made great by the presentation or environment. I'll fondly remember the Cabernet Franc and the view of the rooftop dining area and the great fun that I had with Bill. And, because of those positive memories and associations, Vin's good food gets thrown into the mix and becomes great too.

Weekend Preview

There's a lot going on for us this weekend. Tomorrow night is our St Louis Symphony Orchestra night. The orchestra is performing Beethoven "Pastoral" Symphony. The SLSO description begins, "Beethoven's treasured sounds of the woods...." Music and woods. Sounds promising. Throw in a little moss and some woodland fairies and it might be perfect. Tickets are still available for both the Friday and the Saturday show if you're interested.

On Saturday, we're heading to COCA for Willa's ballet class and then to Bill's Mom's house for her annual St. Patrick's Day dinner (for lunch). She's the only Polish person that I know who prepares corned beef better than the Irish. Later, we'll have dinner at Vin de Set in honor of our 9th wedding anniversary which we officially celebrated on March 11th. We've not been to Vin before but have heard good things about the food and rooftop dining area (obviously not be experienced tomorrow night). The menu looks promising and while I haven't fully decided on what to order, I'm leaning toward the trout. I love trout.

Sunday is wide open at this point. I suppose the weather might determine what we'll do for the day. Might be a good day to work on the garden. Or mulch. Or just play Tetris.

Rockwoods Reservation

When the weather was as nice as it was this past weekend, you just have to get out of the house and do something outside. Saturday was a bust for some reason but we headed out to Rockwoods Reservation on Sunday, even though some potentially bad storms were in the forecast. Glad we took the chance. Aside from a few raindrops and some wind, it was a gorgeous day.

I hadn't been to Rockwoods before Sunday but one of the first things that I noticed about the terrain was how much it reminded me of the Mark Twain Forest in the Ozarks. Way back when, a few times a year, Bill and I would go canoeing on the Eleven Point River, which runs through the Mark Twain, and/or hiking along the Big Piney Trail, which is also located in the Mark Twain. The Eleven Point is a beautiful, spring-fed, cold little river that everybody has to canoe at least once in their lifetime. In fact, a portion of the Eleven Point is designated a National Wild and Scenic Riverways System. But, I digress. Here are some photos from Rockwoods this weekend.

Just a Little Promo: Noises Off

Dando, my super friend, great actor, fab drama teacher, and awesome director, has been putting in some extremely long hours (her norm--she's such a fabulous person/teacher!) with the kids in producing the play, Noises Off! It debuts tomorrow might, March 5 at 7pm at the newly renovated MRH auditorium. I would encourage catch a show if you can.......watching her direction and the acting of the kids is always a wonderful experience. If you can't make it tomorrow night, you can also catch it on Friday, March 7th, or Saturday, March 8th. Both are at 7pm. The address is: MRH H.S., 7539 Manchester Road, Maplewood, MO 63143. Hope to see you there!