So it's the last day of 2012

And, if I were to follow social norms I'd probably write a nice post looking back on 2012 and making resolutions for the new year. But to be honest, I don't want to do that. And really, do I seem like one whose main goal is to follow social norms? Plus, our traditional New Year's Eve celebration with my family and Mike and Ginny always entails some really nice reflection and reading of resolutions we made last year. And it truly is one of my favorite parts of our get-together. However, given the heaviness of this year's events, I'll save the reflections and tears for this evening and devote this post to....well I'm not sure yet. Probably a bunch of random things.

Like my absolute failure to eat a candy cane without biting it constantly. You know all those kids who could craft their candy canes into sharp points and wield them against their friends (or enemies)....yeah, that wasn't me. I guess I'll have to learn some other method of defending myself against the scary Christmas elves (ask me about the movie Rare Exports if you're wondering why I'd think any Christmas elves are scary).

Like my ingenious idea of the Modern Mixtape (previously known as The Mixtape of the 21st Century), which is going to stay only an idea until I figure out how to make someone at Apple/iTunes listen to me. Basically I want to be able to purchase songs on iTunes and put them in a specific playlist that has a self-determined cool title (i.e. Songs for your medial geniculate nucleus) and then gift that playlist unto one of my friends, via their iTunes account or a fancy little code they could use to download it. There it is, the one and only genius invention of mine. If any of you have an in with the bigwigs of Apple, please slip them a note on a napkin about this idea.

Like why the words genius and ingenious mean pretty much the same thing (albeit one is a noun and one is an adjective) and yet, according to other examples from the English language, it seems like they should have opposite meanings. Thank you English for the many exceptions to the already confusing rules.

Like the epic Christmas gift exchange we did the other day at Seyb Christmas. The brainchild of my cousin Hannah, we drew each other's names out of a hat and then trekked over to the big yellow house (my Grandma Audrey and Grandpa Darrell's "empty" house). Though it no longer houses the life and love it once did, it is nonetheless full of treasures and memories. We took turns (kids, then adults) searching the house for the best gifts for the person we picked out of the hat. We filled our bag(s) and then returned to Doug's house to exchange the treasures. It was a hoot and a half! I couldn't believe some of the awesome stuff that came out of there. I am pleased to announce I received a Wheatie's box from 1998 that had the Olympic Gold Medal US Women's Hockey team on it. A collector's item. Apparently Grandma believed that its value would increase exponentially. It might be worth about $5 now? But I'm pleased to own it :)

Like how Tucker might have been the real winner because he received a bag of change that Abby had found and I believe the total turned out to be somewhere around $60. Ha! I do think we all made out like bandits because we truly enjoyed spending the time with each other...and that's the real treasure :D

Ok, it's New Year's Eve and I have to go cheer for the Cyclones- it's the Liberty Bowl!

Thank you to everyone who has read this blog...you've given me an audience, which is more than I can ask for. There will be more insights, laughs and things I'm bound to learn in the next year.
Much love to you all and best wishes for a beautiful 2013.

-Rachel

Words and excerpts of life

I'm laying at home on the couch by the beautifully lit tree, listening to Christmas music. Nothing is going to move me save my need for tea or cookies. So be prepared, this one is going to be long.

Firstly, words.

(from a few days ago)  prophylaxis: prevention of or protective treatment for disease or illness. 

I find it odd that I never truly knew what prophylactic antibiotics or treatment meant. Now I do!

concatenation: joining two character strings together end-to-end

I'm learning about this in terms of computer programming! I know, you didn't realize I went to school to learn programming. Neither did I, but I'm learning it nonetheless :)

Now it's time for some stories. Let's call this, excerpts of life: specifically, of cars, of cookies, of monsters and men.

Of Cars

Two little stories. One is of how I searched for the my car in a parking garage the other day. 

1. I normally prefer free parking over $$ parking garage parking any day, even though the free parking entails a 10-15 minute walk to work (usually accompanied by a nice, cold headwind), but last Friday I had a lot of errands to run and wanted to make the most of the little time I had at work, so I begrudgingly parked in the very nearby garage. After a few hours at work I rushed to my car so I could return to my apartment and get ready for that evening's dinner party. This particular parking garage is especially confusing because there are two sets of stairs/elevators, A and B, but the only actual entrance is on the A side, while the entrance that gets me to side B is where the cashier and credit card machines sit. And although I have parked and walked up and down on both sides, I currently do not know how to get from one to the other. So whenever I park on the B side, I awkwardly walk where cars would be driving since I don't know where I should actually be walking. This fateful day, I knew I parked near the B stairs but I could not quite remember where. So I walk past the amused looking cashier (obviously amused because I look like an idiot, walking up the car lane), and then I walk up two sets of stairs and think "I must've parked on this level."  I walk to where I thought my car was...and realize it is not there. I walk to another possible area and no, it's not there either (turns out I had parked there a few weeks ago and the memories were blurring with reality).  Eventually I get the genius idea to hit my lock button a few times so the car honks. And suddenly I'm playing marco-polo with a stationary inanimate object. And I'm losing.

But I find my car. Eventually. One level above where I started. As I get in my car, finally the victor in this odd little game, some guy gets out of a neighboring car and I realize he witnessed that whole thing. And now he's chuckling. Probably because I'm 23, and not 80, which would be a much more respectable age for such behavior. 

2. Today I drove back to Newton from the Twin Cities, where I was visiting my friend Bess. It was an enjoyable ride as I metaphorically raced the storm that was inevitably going to hit Central Iowa like a ton of...snow...in the afternoon. (Ironically, I only saw snow for about 10 minutes. And that was in Minnesota. The Iowa driving was a breeze, for which I was very grateful.) Back to the story-- I'll admit it, I enjoy cruise control. I'm a bit of an oscillating driver, meaning my speed is usually proportional to the BPM of the music on the radio. And since I found this new station called BPM and it's basically high-paced remixes, I took great advantage of cruise control today.  I was cruising at a steady 75 mph on the 70 speed limit highway. (Although I hate illegal things, I feel okay about 5 mph over. I justify it by how many people pass me.) While I drive, I like to people watch as I pass people who are even more speed conscious than I am. As I pass this white suburban, I glance and smile at the man driving....ok, I may have also been bobbing my head to the radio during this glance. I wanted to think he smiled back but it was more of a "Kids these days...." shaking of the head at my seemingly reckless and youthful behavior.

So I drive for a few minutes, am at least 100 feet ahead of the white suburban and then I see a highway patrol car staked out in a NO U-TURN area. As much as I hate doing any illegal things, I hate doing even marginally illegal things in the vicinity of patrolmen even more. So I tap my breaks and slow to a comfortable 68 as I pass the cop. 5 seconds later I look to my right and there is the white suburban, whose driver is having a hearty chuckle at the situation he just witnessed. My cop-fearing behavior may have been just a tad too obvious, making my seemingly-reckless behavior a little more pathetic.  

You're welcome people of the world, for the amusement. I do try.  

Of Cookies

Let it be known, I love making Christmas cookies. Okay, I love making any type of cookies any time of the year, but especially now that the winter is a bit too cold, the days are dark far too soon and the snowstorms come with thunder (that part is just weird, I agree). This is a shout out to my girl Bess and her handy cookie-baking skills. I stayed with Bess for the past few days to enjoy St. Paul and see one of my (our) favorite bands' in concert in the hip downtown metropolis of Minneapolis (see next excerpt).  So Bess and I get it in our heads that we need to bake Christmas cookies (to complement the vast amount of brunch, pastries and coffee we had already consumed). Bess found a recipe for chocolate biscotti with pistachios, cranberries and chocolate chips...and I wasn't about to say no!!  So on Monday we gather the ingredients (from a grocery store, not from the woods, as I may be making it sound) and follow the directions to a t, measuring loosely as all good chefs do. And it's a grand success! I had no idea that you could make biscotti at home that tastes just like (nay, even better than!) biscotti that you find in cute little coffee shops. But you can, and we did, and it was little less than epic. Bess says she isn't much of a baker. But I beg to differ. As do those perfectly crisp and tasty pieces of biscotti. Well done, non-baker. I declare you to have baked successfully. 

And finally...

Of Monsters and Men

This original reason for my Minnesota trip was to see this particular awesome indie band, Of Monsters and Men, in concert at a trendy downtown venue in Minneapolis.  My mother generously gave me the tickets as a birthday present because this is one of my favorite bands, they are from Iceland and they don't have many shows in America---all reasons that the 4 hour drive was more than worth it to get to see both Bess and the band.  Although getting to the venue was a bit of an adventure...including a wrong exit, some handy mental compass-ing, a split-second realization of a one-way street, a Target sign to guide us and a girl in a fedora to assure us we were going the right way (indie concert = fedoras and hipster glasses galore)..... the concert was incredible! This band is great no matter what but in concert the depth and complexity of their sound was neigh unbelievable. The girl singer's voice is just the right amount of deep and the boy singer's voice is sweet and never overbearing. And then there is the trumpet, which adds a quality to the music that you just don't get with many other bands.  In case you are interested.....here's a link to one of their songs  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcPqLGSH_oM   Feel free to find the rest and fall in love with the band as much as I did :)

Okay, I will wrap this up soon but I just have to say...... in my humble opinion, them hipsters need to learn how to bust a move!!

No joke, I was thoroughly disappointed by the lack of dancing that occurred at this concert. And maybe this was because at my lovely height of 5'2", I was largely unable to see over the boys in front of me, but I truly think Bess and I were dancing more than at least half that crowd combined. Okay, there may have been a few heads bobbing (a.k.a. hipster glasses and slouchy beanie hats bobbing)...but that didn't even come close to the amount of jumping up and down and rocking out that we did. And am I embarrassed? Not one bit. I thoroughly enjoyed the concert and am proud to claim the "way-too-enthusiastic" label. For Of Monsters and Men, I'll be way-too-enthusiastic any day :) 

Wow, okay I am sorry this is so long but maybe you'll have extra time to read it during the Snowapocalypse that is settling upon the midwest right now.  Off to help my mom shovel! 

Stay safe, warm, and hug everyone you love :)  

-Rachel

It don't mean a thing...

If you ain't got that swing!

Normally I disapprove of the word "ain't"
But in this context...I highly approve.

I'm basically obsessed with swing dancing. I spent all day yesterday in Lindy Hop, Charleston, and Shim Sham workshops and it's been hard to think of anything else since. (This turned out to be not especially helpful as I studied the neurobiology of sleep, automatic postural control and the TRP family of receptors in heat, cold and pain sensation)

Anyway, I also went to a swing dance social last night with a live band, which was incredible. I haven't had that much fun in such a long time. Okay, I may have had that much fun on my birthday weekend, but this was still an impressive amount of fun. I think in total I danced for about 9 hours yesterday. So I guess I'm not that surprised that I woke up feeling about 30 years older, as though I had Charley horses in both my calves and one bad hip. I really was not expecting to be so sore!! But I think that's a good sign....or at least a sign I need to stretch before dancing like a lunatic from the 30's.

Besides just being in love with swing dancing, I've also recently become a big fan of making friends. I think I used to be terrible at it. And now I'm slightly better. And so it's rather enjoyable. But also, I have not met one single swing dancer that was not incredibly nice to me. I apologized kind of profusely after dancing with most of the guys saying I was sorry I wasn't more experienced and I couldn't follow better. They are seriously waved it off and said they hadn't even noticed. And then when I told one guy I was so sorry I stepped on his toes, he said "You weigh 98 pounds...I didn't even notice! And you won't hurt me even if you do :) "  So basically everyone was incredibly nice and they were better swing dancers than I've ever had the pleasure of watching.

All of this being said, I hope you won't be surprised if in the future my hair takes the shape of a short curled bob, I put on a vintage dress and I start buying a ridiculous amount of old-timey music. You'll know why.

Here's a little taste of my new-found love :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRyjW9delmo

And one from the good old days....meaning I think I was born in the wrong decade :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuLUOk--yxg

Goodnight!