Why I Actually Have to Spend Money on Clothes

Today I'm helping with 1L orientation, which should be rather fun. In exchange for 8 hours of volunteering, the law school gave me dinner last night and a free t-shirt.

Dinner might not have been my favoritest, but it was at a pretty classy pizza joint, and it's not the law school's fault that I dislike pizza. The shirt, however...

On the bright side, it's not white or see-through (or even worse, white and see-through). And it's shirt-shaped. And it has a great ND logo on the front. But...

Let's just say the mustard-yellow tent look is not so much for me.

More Than You Want to Know About VFTs

This past week (on the 6th) Mike and I celebrated our one year anniversary. Our anniversary gift, from ourselves, to ourselves, was a used Wii with Wii Fit, which we have been enjoying immensely. It's an amazing ab workout... and I'm definitely a fan of all the cute balance games. We decided to also spend 5-10 dollars on a surprise gift for each other, to make it a little more fun. Mike got me some chocolate and some silicone bakeware, which made me super happy. I decided we were in need of a "love fern", so I got him a Venus Flytrap.

At the time, the Venus Flytrap (or VFT, as it is known by enthusiasts) seemed like a great choice. They eat bugs, which is cool, and, perhaps more importantly, they were the only living plant I could buy at Meijer. Plus, as I discovered as I looked through them, they have beautiful white flowers. I picked one that looked healthy and had several blooms on it, and brought it home. The next morning, I presented it to Mike. And then (and only then) I started looking into what care was necessary to take care of the plants, to make sure I could keep this symbol of our affection alive.

(The flowers on the one I got Mike are blooming and pretty, but otherwise this is what our plant looks like)

Turns out these VFT's are the most finicky creatures known to mankind. Because they get their nutrients from the bugs they eat, they don't need any in the soil. One would think this would make them easy to care for, because you don't need to worry about fertilizer, but actually it means that the nutrients in ordinary dirt (or ordinary tap water) will give the plant root burn and kill it. It can only tolerate distilled water, and in order to give it the badly needed transplant, we had to buy nutrient-free sphagnum peat moss. The plant is also pretty picky about what bugs it can eat. Anything with a hard outer shell (like a beetle) will kill it, as will anything with any noticeable fat content (like any sort of meat). Caterpillars and other plant eating bugs are off limits unless they are killed first, because they can eat through a trap before the trap can eat through them.

If the humidity drops below 50%, it will die (which is why it needs a terrarium... which makes it awfully difficult for it to catch bugs). If it is over or under watered, it will die. If its traps are triggered too often, it will die. If it doesn't get 4-12 hours of sunlight every day, it will die. If it isn't kept in the fridge during its dormancy period, it will die. And (here's the kicker) if it is allowed to flower, it usually dies.

So, long story short, VFT's do not, apparently, make very good symbols for the health of one's relationship. I'm thinking I'll be lucky if I can keep this thing alive for a month. I guess I should start planning for the divorce?

No Rest for the Indecisive

Yesterday, after a morning of working, I finally went into the bathroom for a shower. Once inside, I made two horrific discoveries:

1. I didn't have any razors (normally this might not have been a crisis, but I already hadn't shaved for three days, and I really wanted to wear a skirt for my dinner date with Mike)

2. We didn't have any toilet paper (this one's always a crisis)

Quickly, I decided that an emergency store run was in order. I didn't have the car, but fortunately our new apartment is less than a block from a big box super store, so I figured I could jog over, grab some tp and razors, and be back within 15 minutes. It seemed like a good plan, but I forgot how evil these big box stores can be.

First, there was the toilet paper aisle. I don't mind that it's hidden in the back of the store, in hopes of enticing people into buying all the snack food you have to pass on the way. I didn't even mind (terribly) that they always put the toilet paper by the paper towels, sometimes making it hard to determine which is which, at least at first glance. What I did mind was the dizzying array of choices.

1 ply or 2 ply? 4 pack or 6 pack? Big rolls or regular sized ones? Do we have room to store a 12 pack? Scotts lasts forever... but it can't be a better deal than the store brands, can it?

I just wanted the cheapest package that would do the job - but trying to figure out which package was cheapest, given the different roll sizes and pack sizes, was much too taxing for my math skills. The cost per sheet indicators on the price tags weren't much help either, because about half of the varieties were on sale. Finally, I grabbed a random package (Scott's environmentally friendly variety, in a four pack, if you're curious) and then headed to the health and beauty department to get razors.

Here, the whole process was repeated again. 2 blades or 3? Disposable or the kind with cartridges? Do I want moisture strips?

Again, cheap was better, but I did want to spend enough to get one that would work. And, again, the price per unit indicators on the shelf tags were useless, thanks to all of the "bonus" razors in the various packages.

By the time I finally got home from the store, I was stressed that I'd made the wrong choices (what if Mike hates this kind of toilet paper?) and grumpy because my fifteen minute run to the store had taken over a half hour.

I suppose choices are a good thing, and I can definitely live with them, if it helps everyone get what they need. It does irk me, though, that I never seem to have any consummer choices when I need them (how is it that I'm lucky if a store carries 1 suit in my size? [Usually made out of linen or dyed some garish color that defeats its purpose as a suit.] I promise I'm not the only pint-sized law/business student in the world).

"Cookies" and my anti-climatic visit to a bar

In case it hasn't already become apparent, I am completely obsessed with desserts. In fact, some of the highlights of my week have been Rhubarb-Strawberry Cobbler and Zucchinni Chocolate Chip Cake - and it's been a really good week.

So last weekend, when some of my classmates invited me to go to a neighboring city's summer festival, my first thought was naturally about the bake sales. After watching the little parade (the town has a population of less than 2000, so the parade was basically a procession of horses, firetrucks, and regular cars with posterboard advertisements taped to the sides) and wandering around the craft fair, we went to go get food, and I began scoping out the dessert options.

Unfortunately, my options were limited by the $1 I had in my pocket, so the chocolate dipped cheesecake on a stick was not a possibility (Mike, who was working, usually carries all the cash, and I had forgotten to borrow any). I looked over the booths run by local church groups, hoping to find some home baked brownies or pie.

The only brownies I could find, though, were being sold by a weight-loss group and, with visions of artificial sweeteners and whole grain flours ruining the chocolatey goodness, I passed them by. At the next booth, though, I spotted a bunch of elderly women selling cookies, 3 for $1. The cookies had obviously been donated by different women - in the peanut butter cookie basket, for instance, there were smaller cookies and larger cookies and some that had been rolled in sugar. They all looked delicious, though. After much indecision, I decided to buy some oatmeal cookies - there were several different kinds in the basket with delicious looking chocolate chunks or dried cranberries.

When I handed over my $1 to the woman at the booth, she reached in the basket of oatmeal cookies and handed me a baggie of cookies. I was disappointed to see, however, that my cookies did not have chocolate chunks or cranberries or even raisins. In fact, they looked very odd - flat and perfectly circular. After one bite, I realized why. These weren't bake sale cookies! They were the Great Value brand oatmeal cookies sold for $1.50 a package and found on the bottom shelf of the Walmart snack aisle. I was grandly disapointed - although I did still eat them. After all, they were vaguely cookie-like.

In other news, last weekend was also the first time I'd ever gone to a bar (the law school was hosting a social event to help welcome new students to South Bend). I was very excited to finally get to go to one of these things - I missed most of the law school social events last year because they were all in bars and I was still underage. When we got to the bar, I realized that I'd left my ID in the car, a few blocks away. Turns out, though, that I didn't need it. No one ID'd us when we went in (the ID checker didn't appear to watch the doorway until about five minutes after we went in) and the waitress missed me when she ID'd our group before taking drink orders (of course, I did only order a huckleberry lemonade, but she checked Mike's ID, and he only had a water). It was nice not to have to go back to the car to get my license, but also vaguely disapointing to know that it wouldn't have mattered if I had still been 20.

So now I have two more tasks to add to my To Do This Summer list - get (or make) some real oatmeal cookies, and be ID'd. It's going to be a busy three weeks :)

Math I Can Handle

900 sq. ft. apartment with a deck, vaulted ceilings, a huge kitchen, and an in-unit washer and dryer - 400 sq. ft. studio with 18 inches of counterspace, an insect problem, and no internet = an indescribable amount of awesomeness.

In other words, our new apartment > our old apartment. By a lot.

Pictures may follow shortly, presuming I'm ever able to get all these boxes unpacked.

I ♥ Sleep!

You know you're an adult when you keep a running countdown in your head to track the hours left before you can go to bed.

Ok, so maybe I used to count down to bedtime as a child too, but that was just because I was worried I wouldn't get through my stack of library books before my mom made me turn the light off.

Mmmm... sleep.... only 11 hours and 16 minutes to go!

Oh Canada

So unlike several fortunate cousins of mine, and practically half of my classmates, I am not enjoying/will not shortly enjoy being able to gallivant about Europe :( On the bright side, however, I am having a splendid vacay this week in a super swanky condo on Vancouver Island, in British Columbia, with Mike and his parents.

(picture from the website of the unit we're staying in... it looks exactly like this)

In fact, from where I sit right now, I can see the Pacific Ocean... the beach seriously starts twenty feet from the back door.

The crazy part, though, is how close we came to not being here at all. First, there was the unfortunate combination of math errors, the lack of a map, and Chicago rush hour traffic that got us to the boarding gate at Midway right as they were announcing the last call for "Shaw, party of two" over the loudspeakers.

We got on the plane with seconds to spare, flew too and navigated through Seattle, and then stood in the longest line ever known to mankind at the Greyhound station, where we wolfed down our only real meal of the day (tacos from the shop next door) and watched a drunk homeless man get ejected from the women's rest room by a harried security guard.

(not the actual line at the Greyhound station, obviously... ours was much longer)

When the bus stopped at the border, we assumed the process would just involve a simple check to make sure we both had passports. Turns out Canadian border patrol officers are a bit more hardcore. We were grilled about our plans, and only cleared to enter the country with great trepidation - the officer was worried that we were indigents who would spend what little cash we had in Canada and then be stranded in the country and drain their welfare system dry. Two of the other people on our bus, both of whom had passports, were actually turned away. We certainly would have been if we weren't going to meet Mike's parents, who, as we assured the security guard, had a car and enough cash to fill it with gas and drive us back to the States.

The Greyhound dropped us off in Vancouver (beautiful city, by the way) where we had to navigate the bus and metro system with all of our luggage, making a series of connections that brought us 100 kilometers outside the city and took us several hours.

In the meantime, we befriended a British med-student/rock-climber, who desperately needed the twenty dollars of cash we had to be able to pay the airport security fee to get home (sort of sounds like a scam, I know, but we have his phone number and email address and talked with him for forever... he was legit). Then, penniless (well, we did have debit and credit cards and a Canadian nickle we found on the floor) we took a ferry over to Vancouver Island, where we were picked up by Mike's parents and got back to the condo at 1:30 in the morning. Which, Eastern Time, would have been 4:30 in the morning... which is impressive considering we had gotten up at 5:00 that day.

But we made it! And it's beautiful here! And although it may not be Europe, the people here do have cool accents, and I get to see a bunch of stuff on loan from the British Museum when we go down to Victoria tomorrow. Plus, I'm betting Europe doesn't have Nanaimo Bars...