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
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