Catching up

I haven't posted in a REHEHEHEHEALLY long time, and for that, I blame...no one but myself. Now that the Terrace is open and the weather is nice again, it's hard to stay inside and plunk away on the computer all day. I do enough of that at work!!

I want to give a belated birthday shout-out to my stepdad who turned a very young 63 on June 21. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAVE!!
















Here's what I sent him to commemorate his birthday:
For those non-Texans, Blue Bell is the best ice cream in the country. And for a small fee, they will ship 4 half-gallons of your favorite flavors to wherever you choose! So, I chose 2 Homemade Vanillas (truly, the best vanilla out there, and I've sampled many!), 1 Rocky Road, and 1 Butter Pecan. They shipped it on dry ice, and it gets to the luckiest person in the world (ahem, I mean, recipient) in 1 day. Let's just call it what it is: the best gift ever!!!

In a week, the whole Barr clan will be gathering for another round of our annual family reunion in Breckenridge, Colorado. We'll play whiffle-ball and bocce ball, drink beer, eat yummy food, and enjoy each other's company. We always have such a great time, and it's amazing what many many hugs from family will do for one's soul. I always come back so rejuvenated and happy. It'll be a great time.

Yesterday, the s.o. and I were in Chicago on Michigan Ave, aka The Magnificent Mile. And it IS magnificent! There's a 3-story Banana Republic, lots and lots of designer stores (Bottega Veneta, Gucci, Cartier, Louis Vuitton, etc), and all the best department stores (Bloomingdale's, Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus, Saks, Lord & Taylor). And there's also Craig Biggio. THAT'S RIGHT, FOLKS! I got to meet my FAVORITE ATHLETE EVER!!!

Here's the skinny:
The s.o. and I were at Niketown (a sports store) looking for an eyeshield for him when he starts playing football in a few weeks. Correction: he's looking for an eyeshield. I'm looking for the closest bench to plop my tired self on.

And then, I turn around and there he is, shopping with his son. Craig Biggio. Within 15 feet of me, his most loyal, loving fan ever. I whipped around and grabbed the s.o.'s sleeve and whispered, "There's CRAIG BIGGIO!!!! Over there!!" He says, "Are you sure it's him?" Pah! Like there could be any doubt! But I took a second glance to be sure. "Yes, it's him! I wanna go say hi!"

So I did. I didn't ask for an autograph or picture because he was with his son and was probably just being a normal person. Except you can't be normal if you're Craig Biggio. He's just too amazing to be normal.

That's my life, in a quick nutshell. Happy Birthday to David! Can't wait for the reunion! And I heart Craig Biggio!

Have a wonderful day!

...scout's lady

Happy Mother's Day!

A few words on mothers and motherhood:

• "A mother is not a person to lean on, but a person to make leaning unnecessary." -- Dorothy Canfield Fisher

• "By and large, mothers and housewives are the only workers who do not have regular time off. They are the great vacationless class." -- Anne Morrow Lindbergh

• "A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie." -- Tenneva Jordan

And the best...

• "Sometimes when I look at all my children, I say to myself, 'Lillian, you should have stayed a virgin.'" -- Lillian Carter, at the 1980 Democratic Convention, where her son was nominated for a second term as US President

My mom is represented in each of these quotes. With late-night calls from a crying daughter, she always says the right thing to pick me back up and get me back on track. She's proud of each of my accomplishments and has allowed me to be myself from day 1. Warts and all, she loves me through and through. It's a hard job! :)

I love you, Mom!














This is 1 of my favorites - Mom, the winker (notice the chocolate owl winking...Mom didn't just bust out the wink in the middle of Harrod's completely randomly!).

A great weekend in wine country

Me and Jake, on the balcony at one of our wine tastings. Jake is getting married in July, and he's such a good friend to me. I count him as one of my work blessings. :)

















Doug, Kristen, and Jeff on the same balcony. Doug is a total goof...I'm sure you never would've guessed, huh? These guys are awesome, and we had such a good time sitting here, sharing a bottle of wine and having great conversation.

















Kristen, Doug, and I were the residents of the backseat in our touring-mobile. We let Jeff and Doug do the navigating and we just enjoyed the scenery. And laughed at Doug.

















This winery hosts a Sunday brunch each weekend - $19.95 all you can eat. They had 10 different kinds of eggs benedict, 15 different kinds of crepes, 20 kinds of condiments to put in an omelette, fried oysters, mimosas, wine, champagne, desserts, etc. SOOO yummy. And it was so understated. The food was amazing, but here we sat, in the middle of this warehouse filled with aging wine barrels. So great!





















And here's Jake, our resident social coordinator, showing off our Saturday evening activity: card games and lots and lots of beer. Mind you, there were only 5 of us...and there was no more beer on Sunday morning. It was a good time.

Happy Birthday, Seth!

Happy birthday to a great big brother, father, husband, son, grandson, and friend! I hope you have a fabulous day!

(He's pictured here with his daughter, Brady).

A wonderful weekend!

Dad visited from Townsend, TN (right outside of Knoxville, nestled in the foothills of the Smokies) last weekend, and we had such a great visit. He'd not met the s.o. before, and they totally hit it off. I think Dad liked the s.o. better than he likes me!! :) Just teasing, Dad!

Dad brought all these cool pictures of our ancestors, so now the apartment is all decked out in Van Winkles. Did you know that the Dutch word "winkle" means "store" in English? And "van" means "of the."
I'm TOTALLY of the store! And my wallet knows it.
But, I digress.

This pic is of me and Dad at the Madison Farmers' Market; last Saturday was the first of the year, so there were lots of people, not so many veggies. It was great, nonetheless.


I'm off to Salem, OR tomorrow (yes, Saturday) to hang out with some colleagues who are staying the weekend there. Should be a good time. We'll work at the hospital Monday through Wednesday and fly back on Thursday.

I KNOW my s.o. loves me because he agreed to three straight weekends of my family. On May 14, he and I will drive to Chicago to meet my stepbrother and his family there (yay!); the next weekend, my brother visits from Dallas (super yay!); and the following weekend, he and I go to Raleigh, NC to visit my mom and stepdad for Memorial Day weekend (monster yay!). May will be a busy, fun, globe-trotting (well, just country-trotting) month.

Have a great weekend!

...scout's lady

Oh, sweet Moses!

I pretend that I know Gwyneth personally and that she calls me at home...but it's not true. I don't really know her. :( Alas, that doesn't prevent me from enjoying her happiness from afar.

Is this picture not the cutest thing?! He looks like he's pooping or something, but still...so cute!. Welcome to the world, little Moses.





















This is my favorite celebrity picture of last year. Apple's dad, Chris Martin (hello!), bought these little ear protector thingys for her so she could still enjoy his concerts. Ahh, Gwyneth, you and your perfect little family are wonderful.















P.S. I'm totally gonna get teased by the s.o. for this post. He thinks my pretend friendship with Gwyneth is oh-so humorous.

Cleaning Frenzy: A Child's Prerogative?

My dad arrives in Madison tomorrow, and I've spent the past 3 hours cleaning house and (as a true testament to how dirty the apartment was) I'm not done! The s.o. will take over cleaning duties tomorrow morning. Nothing like the last minute!

During my 3-hour cleaning frenzy (amidst bopping around to tunes on the iPod), it dawned on me that I did the same thing when my mom visited. Why do I feel the compulsion to clean my heart out before my parents visit? One reason is that I don't see them all that frequently. Dad lives in the mountains of Tennessee, while Mom lives in Raleigh, NC. A visit to Madison is a once-a-year occasion. But perhaps the more relevant reason is that I don't want them to think I'm irresponsible. At what age do we stop feeling so much like our parents' child and more like an adult that our parents happen to know? What is it about parents that always make us revert back to child status? Let's face it: their opinions matter, their approval matters, and we want them to think that the life we've carved out for ourselves is a healthy, CLEAN, and productive one.

Does everyone else go through the same thing? Perhaps if I lived closer to them and visits were just ordinary, I wouldn't completely care if there was a tiny layer of dust on the bookshelves. But not tonight. Spick-and-span is the tall order!

And all the while, Scout sleeps. So helpful, that darned cat.

Would you fancy a scone, old chap?

Our trip to London was wonderful, as is evidenced by this small sample of pictures. I will pass along the link when they are fully uploaded at kodakgallery.com. Enjoy!





















Of course, this is such a cliche pic, but I had to do it! Geez, I'm short...and absurdly American (or else he's absurdly British!).
















I love this picture because it illustrates the Cotswold signage. So simple and lovely. I also love that you can see how the whole English countryside is from the background - perfection!
















This is the flat where my dad, mom, and brother lived in 1973. 63 Sevington Road in Hendon. Mom was dismayed that they'd painted the whole building white (including the door, she kept saying), and the room that used to be a bedroom (top left window) is now the kitchen. Definitely not as cute as when they lived there, but fun nonetheless!









I tried to take lots of pictures of English doors, just because I find them so fascinating. This particular door is one of my favorites - it has such character and intrigue. It was at the back of a church in Burford, and I just wonder what's behind it.

An Important Message

Stolen from my cousin's blog (without her permission, but I'm sure she's fine with it :)):

Okay. We're going to give you the full-tilt, unashamed, totally impassioned plea here.

Please make women's history a quiet cause of your own. Share it with your daughters, your nieces, and the girls living down the street. Share it with your sons and nephews. It will make the boys better men. And it will make the girls whole.

Women are still too often seen as self-obsessed, shallow, and dependent. Girls see hundreds of images of models daily. Where are the female entrepreneurs, CEO's, physicists, software developers, doctors, lawyers, ministers, and Nobel Prize winners? So you're ten and female you have been patiently waiting for the world to give you some sign. The only sign you get says, "Be pretty, happy, helpful, kind, and thin." That's in this country. And that's today.

Barbara Jordan, the great Constitutional lawyer and Congresswoman, never imagined becoming a lawyer until she saw a black woman lawyer at a high school career day. You can change a life, too. All by yourself.

--National Women's History Project

Happy Pants

Today I have my happy pants on.

I definitely believe that we choose which pair of pants we're going to put on each morning. Grumpy pants? Lazy pants? Hyper pants? Happy pants? My stepdad told me this (well, not *exactly* this) when I was little. When the grumpy pants just slip on so easily, it's hard to remember that it's a choice to be grumpy.

But today is a great day to be alive.

I know people use their blogs to say how great their lives are and how lovely everything is, and no one really writes when they're feeling down and yucky. I'm guilty of that as well. I didn't write for the past few days because I've had a hard time. But today, the outlook is good. The sky is gray, the temperature is cold, but the happy pants are on!

I'm going to London in a few days (hurrah!), so I promise to have truly juicy stories and fun pictures when I return. I even got a new digital camera (thank you, my wonderful s.o.!!!) to tote along with me across the pond.

Random thought: if you're going through a break-up and want a great, cry-along song, listen to James Blunt's "Goodbye, My Lover." Just him, his piano, and lots of heartache. So sad and true. If you're not going through a break-up, congratulations. Seems there's something in the water, at least in Wisconsin. Cray cray.

Until another time...
...scout's lady

Things that I'm Enjoying

Here's a short list of things that have recently come into my life that I am truly enjoying:

• Joan Didion's memoir - The Year of Magical Thinking, winner of the 2005 National Book Award.
  
• After her husband's death in 2003, she writes: "I remember thinking that I needed to discuss this with John. There was nothing I did not discuss with John. Because we were both writers and both worked at home our days were filled with the sound of each other's voices. I did not always think he was right nor did he always think I was right but we were each the person the other trusted. There was no separation between our investments or interests in any given situation" (16).
  
• I find this to be, in short, an illustration of what a good marriage is.
  
• Rishi tea, particularly the Jasmine Pearl kind. It is sooo yummy, and they have such cool-looking tea pots and mugs.
  
• Belle and Sebastian, a Scottish indie band - their sound is so upbeat and kinda goofy.
• Barriques Market, a truly divine coffee shop/wine cave/deli just down the road in Madison. The interior is like a French cottage, and they have the most comfy couches and chairs next to their fireplace.
• There and Back - another in the long line of MTV reality shows, but this one follows a former member of a defunct boyband as he tries to revive his music career and fight the cheesy boyband stereotype. It doesn't hurt that he and his girlfriend just had a really cute baby. It's great to see normal people on TV struggle through life's situations and then succeed.

Have a great Sunday!

...scout's lady

Does it snow a lot in Paris?

In the midst of wet, heavy, slushy snow, I find myself dreaming of a land far far away. The steps in Montmartre are captivating, yes?

Did you Texans know that there are 2 kinds of snow?
Well, there are - wet and dry. Dry snow is great to walk around in - it doesn't stick to anything, it's very soft and fluffy. And then...there's wet snow. SLUSHY. HEAVY. The lower part of my jeans were wet all day long just from walking through the parking lot. Who knew I'd be a snow expert?!

Many of us are crossing our fingers that spring is almost here...spring and summer are gorgeous in Madison, and I invite you all to visit.

In the mean time, I'm going to bed now.
...scout's lady

Planning a Trip

I wanted to take a poll of the group: what's your favorite travel website?

The s.o. and I are planning a mini-break (quick, a nod of the cap to whomever can name the hilarious heroine who obsessed about her mini-break with a certain Hugh Grant!) to Minneapolis. I've been there once, and he's not been there, so we thought it'd be fun to get away for a weekend visit.

Any suggestions for some websites to peruse to help us plan the weekend? I'm having trouble finding a good, reliable website whose opinion and recommendations I trust.

Even better - any suggestions for fun, cheap, and CLEAN places to stay? We'll hit up the Mall of America, but any other places we shouldn't miss?

Any help would be much appreciated!

...scout's lady

Here we go again

It's snowing again (expecting 1 to 3"), and since the rest of the country seems to be getting slightly warmer in anticipation of Spring, I thought I'd post some pictures to get some sympathy. :) We're still stuck in winter. But that's okay - we've got some homemade soup on the stove making the apartment smell super yummy, we've got TiVo'd episodes of Family Guy to watch, the Oscars are on this evening, and we've got nowhere to go. What a great Sunday!



Here's the view from the driveway, looking back at my apartment building. Here's the old Explorer getting a nice blanket.

"Are cosmopolitans girly drinks?"

Yesterday evening, we both really felt like beer and pizza, so we went to Pizzeria Uno's. I immediately ordered a Blue Moon beer, and while the s.o. examined the drink menu, the waiter said he'd return with my drink and get the rest of the order then. This gives my s.o. enough time to eyeball the cocktail list and choose the "Peach Cosmopolitan."

S.O.: Isn't that the drink that those girls drink on that show?
ScoutFinch: Sex and the City? Yes.
S.O.: Are cosmopolitans girly drinks?
ScoutFinch: Well, yes. But get it if you want.
S.O.: Naw, I don't know if I can get it.
ScoutFinch: Who cares? No one's going to question your sexuality.
S.O.: Why don't you order it, and we'll pretend that I'm going to drink your beer. We'll tell him that you decided you'd rather have the cosmo.

So, after laughing at and making fun of him, I agree to order the cosmo and pretend that I'd changed my mind (even though I'd promptly ordered the beer when the waiter initially approached...but hey, girls can be fickle!).

The waiter returns with my beer, I push it over to the s.o., and ask the waiter for the peach cosmopolitan instead. He gives me a slight funny look but goes with it. As we wait for the cosmo to be made, we both sip the beer, but intent to keep up the facade, he purposefully pulls the glass to his side of the table. I can't believe that he's so embarrassed to order a girly drink...first of all, NO ONE is paying us any attention, and should they even glance over, my s.o. is large enough and intimidating-looking enough that no one would even dare to question anything he did or said. Yet, here he is pretending to sip my beer to look manly while he anxiously awaits the arrival of his peach cosmo.

The big moment comes. The cosmo arrives and is placed in front of me. I can't help but laugh. It's PINK. Of course it's pink - it's a cosmo. But still...it's PINK. And the s.o. is going to drink it. I wouldn't care except that he'd made such a big deal of it. He makes me take the first sip (the facade is still alive!), and it's yucky. I'm not a cosmo fan, so I can't be sure if it was a bad drink or if I just don't like cosmos. I pass it to him for review - he didn't like it either but decides to down the disappointing cosmo in one gulp. When the waiter returns, the cosmo glass is empty and the beer glass is more than halfway full. You can see the look on his face: This huge could-be-a-football-player dude is dating a total lush! Lucky guy!!

I think the funniest thing about last night's charade was that nothing was as it seemed. The big guy ordered a girly drink. His little girlfriend ordered a beer. But instead, the big guy has a thirsty girlfriend.

So, I pose this question to you: are cosmos girly drinks? Did the s.o. have anything to worry about?

Feel free to weigh in.

...scout's lady

Cleaning house with a "helper"

So I'm on a cleaning house kick. I have a lot to do, but I'm making progress.

Here you can see my helper, hard at work. He's protecting my newly discovered wool cap and scarf (still with tags, nonetheless!). What would I do without my cap-and-scarf warmer?!

Happy birthday, Grannies!

A day late and a dollar short...but I still love my grannies! (My maternal grandmother is a twin, and Gay and Fay are identical in many ways - looks, smarts, know-how, and tell-you-how).

HAPPY 88th BIRTHDAY!!!

I don't have a picture of them on this computer...so if anyone wants to send me one, I'd love to post it here - they're very cute ladies.

Not the most remarkable day ever...but a necessary one.

Just wanted to let you know that I'm still alive and kicking. I was in Dallas last weekend visiting my brother and his family, and from there, I went straight to Salem for business. I returned home on Friday and have been relaxing and recharging my battery ever since.

This picture represents our weekend: fleece blankets and sleeping.

Hope your weekend has been as cozy and lovely!

Snow day!!

Now it's the Midwest's turn! We're in the middle of a snow emergency, but due to the media's Northeastern (read: NYC, WDC, and Boston) bias, probably no one knows that we're getting as much snow as our NE friends. It's ok, though - I'm not bitter! :)


Here's the view from my back door. It's hard to tell how hard and fast it's coming down, but it's blustery!











Here's my driveway, along with Anne's car.

We're supposed to be in a "white-out" situation by this afternoon because the snow is coming down at a rate of 2" per hour.










I'll be staying home today - my s.o. is at work (boo!) - so I may be posting pictures of my snowman in a little while! :)

...scout's lady

Where's the birthday cake?

Phoebe: Where's the birthday cake?
Monica: Ok, we're not having birthday cake, we're having birthday flan.
Chandler: Excuse me?
Monica: It's a traditional Mexican custard dessert.
Joey: Oh that's nice. Happy birthday, Rachel, here's some goo.

Because I'm not a humongous fan of birthday cake (except the Uncle Ken special - Pollyanna Cake), I asked my s.o. if I could have birthday pudding instead of birthday cake.

It's a bit non-traditional, but it's yummy!

Thanks, everyone, for a wonderful birthday!!

It's not the greatest picture of me...I'm a little tired today. :)