They didn't take this thing down yet?

As some of you may have noticed by now, I have a tendency to do most of the posts during the low stress points in grad school. In other words, when I am not in school. Chris and I finished final papers and presentations up this week and I am now officially on the road to getting my degree. All I have to do now is write my thesis. That's all.

In my cyber-absence, we decided where we will be spending our first week as married partners- Aruba. My mom is abso-positively-lutely amazing and has traded in her Marriott Rewards points to book us a week at a resort in Aruba. Neither of us have been to the Caribbean so our only knowledge of the area is derived from a costumed Johnny Depp. I had never really thought about where we would honeymoon- I never really put that much time into the whole wedding concept before a couple months ago, either- and so I had no idea where people go post-nuptials. My only requirements were: 1) room service (get your collective minds out of the gutter, I just want to be able to watch Cesar Milan in a bathrobe while eating dinner); 2) swim up bar (Jesus' greatest invention); and 3) relaxing vibe- preferably a spa attached or near to the hotel; 4) beach with an ocean, not lake or river. As characteristic of our grad student personas, Chris and I turned on the computer and started looking at relaxing beach front hotels. I had always wanted to go to the Caribbean so we checked out the different islands. As per usual, I am going off on a tangent. At least I can recognize them as they are happening (vast improvement). Below are pictures of different Caribbean islands. Your task is to decipher whether the pics are of the same island or if different islands, which ones? Eh? Didn't expect a pop quiz while reading such a whimsical blog? And go...






Having difficulty? Someone obviously was not paying attention in geography class (but neither was I, Senor Kettle). Don't feel embarrassed or inadequate. It's not your fault that you pulled a 2 and 7 from the gene pool. Maybe one day you get a flush or the person next to you thinks she has better cards than she really does. Point of the story: nah nah nah boo boo stick your head in doo doo. This has been a message from Daniel Tosh: The More You Know.

So very slowly we are getting things in order but it is very slow. It will be really interesting once April comes around and I am working on this whole wedding shabam while defending my thesis. Fun. Probably should have planned that better but what can you do? I think Kegel the Elf (Merry Religious Holidays/Observance of Freezing Temperatures to you all) would say to grab a bottle of your favorite booze, warm yourself up from the chilly temps outside, and momentarily silence that crazed voice inside your head. Oh, you don't have that too? Huh. Should get that checked out. I wonder if Dr. Spaceman has any openings.

Well it's fracking late/early in the morning and I have yet to sleep so here's to hoping that I actually made sense in this elongated tweet.

By the why for those of you STILL struggling with the geography quiz above, here are the answers, cheaters and quitters:
From the top it's- Aruba, Antilles, St. Kitts, St. Lucia, and Antigua. Or is it? Honestly, I fracked up the order and forgot to write it down. So if you are needing an answer. You are down the creek without a paddle, my friend. You are a McMuffin lover at 10:31am or a vegetarian in Stockton.

Oh Yeah, I Have a Blog

Whoopsies. Life happens; papers and a seemingly endless requirement of drafts for my thesis happen. Farmville happens and then I have to go and check Frontierville and wait...do I still have an account with King.com? I love playing Who Wants to be a Millionaire when I am0 supposed to be researching my literature review. Wait, what?

I have a mild tendency to procrastinate. Ok, severe...A life threatening procrastination virus that I have had since high school. I really blame senioritis- the inflammatory disease that strikes poor high school seniors (which is different from the other inflammatory disease- pregnancy), I would be a great student who lives by Larry the Cable Guy's anthem. I wonder how he is doing with that career path- I hear there has been a great migration to satellite. As one might be able to guess, I should be working on my thesis but here I am going on and on about the push and pull dynamics of the cable-satellite business.

Chris and I went up to the venue a couple of weekends ago and were shocked by how awesome the area is during the fall. Seriously amazing! We gorged ourselves on caramel apples, veggie burgers, and fries and drank in the beautiful landscape. Pumpkin patch, hay maze, pony rides, craft fair, non-polluted crisp mountain air! If it were not for the lack of vegan friendly eating establishments and Nopalitos, we would have already started packing up the apartment.



We were finally going to check off the photographer on our ever increasing wedding checklist but my darling little pup (a furry offspring stand-in) got in a scrap with Terra the Terrible that required a frantic trip to the pet ER. The bill for the pet ER should not be comparable to the people ER. Mr. Mittens and Mr. Klienfeld should not be getting charged the same for medical expenses. Patched up and sent home with some eye drops (she nearly required an eye patch) Maia has since healed completely and will not be needing spectacles nor a pirate costume.

What else have I been up to in my month hiatus? Most memorably, I got the stink eye from the cashier at Ettore's. My best lady and I caught up over Vietnamese din-din followed by a romantic dessert. The last time that Chris and I went to Ettore's, we picked out four or five different desserts to test their compatibility with our palettes for our wedding. It's research, ok? Don't judge me! When Casey and I went at 830 pm on a Friday night there was a lot to choose from so we chose them all except a caramel cheesecake- it did not look appetizing in the least. So we grabbed the large gustatory selection and headed back to the apartment to change into our maternity wear and feast on some sugary sweets. In my zeal to lay claim to the slice of the fruit basket cake, which was more like a fruit cup, I did not snap a pic at the beginning of our feast. So you will have to use your imagination to piece together the mangled remains of our confectionery slaughter.


While being given the stink eye (unfortunately, her face didn't just look like that) the truly magnificent red velvet cake caught my eye and lessened my guilt for buying enough calories to sustain a small migrant family from the northeast corner of Russia. They did not have a slice of this (sad-face emoticon) so we opted for the cupcake instead- the remnants of which are visible on the pastry battlefield pic above.


We will definitely be having a red velvet cake at the reception. How can we not? Also- no one is to touch it. It is waaay to pretty to touch. Or eat. Does that mean we have to get two- one to eat and the other to look at, adoringly? But I can't make myself cut into the second cake meant for consumption. What a first-world dilemma!

I was going to end this very sporadic entry but then I remembered the most "important" part of share and tell. Chris and I will be changing our surnames. I will not be taking his surname ("What a hairy arm-pitted feminist" My razor broke, ok. I'm getting a new one. No need to name call)!!! And he will not be taking mine (??). Instead, we are adopting a completely new surname.
Chris and I have spent the last couple of summers in Hawaii and have developed a deep connection to the island. Therefore, we are going to be adopting a Hawaiian name. The name will be cloaked in a metaphorical...cloak until the wedding but you are more than encouraged to guess the name in the new poll.

Happy guessing.

New Features and Layout

...with flushing toilets!

Here is a brief overview of some of the changes that I have done to the blog over the last couple of months.

*Depending on your internet speed, you may or may not be hearing the sweetly innocent yet folksy sounds of my favorite music. Alexi Murdoch, Ray Lamontage, IZ, Joshua Radin, Amos Lee, and Rachael Yamagata are but a few of the musicians who have created the music of my soul. The player has a list of some of our favorite songs and artists, including the song that will accompany my walk down the aisle ("Somewhere Over the Rainbow"), and our first dance ("Sweet Pea"). Listen and enjoy.

*New picture of our ceremony site at dusk. There are geese in the pond...for now. Bwa-hahahahahaaa!!!

*Search feature on the left underneath the picture. Use this to find whatever your heart desires, as long as it desires the words written in this blog.

*Queries on how to plan our wedding. Current polls will be underneath the search ("Find Stuff") tab with all of the past polls located below my mini-autobiography, which was amazingly well written. Such an articulate author! Bravo!

I hope you enjoy the face lift and boob job to the blog, Joan Rivers and Kathy (with her Kath-eaters) would.

If I scream in this blog, will it make a sound? Or is there an echo? Hello out there...
Chris is watching Don Draper and Bill Maher talk about politicky-stuff so this is a good time to ramble on and on and on...

I am back in school (recall the teacher from Peanuts: Waah wah waaah) so I am going to use some of the knowledge gleaned from those hours of oh-so-much fun. First up, when writing a lengthy bit of words and phrases- summarize what you are going to discuss in the beginning:

1) I will talk about stuff tangentially related to my wedding....
2) uh, haven't thought this far. Let's just go with it, noting that we will most likely end up in a gonococcus laced (Clap On!) hot tub with the epically coiffed (aerodynamically sound!) Pauly D.

A couple of biggie small accomplishments have been pushed through in the last couple of days. Today, we drove out to the Galleria to meet our new photographer, Jessica, at a Starbucks. We decided against hiring the first photographer because it's all about the Hamiltons, yo. And as grad students we need to save up our US Presidents. By the way, did you know that there is a $100,000 USD bill? I sure as hell didn't. I really wish there will be a point in my life in which I can snort coke off a stripper's ass with a rolled up Wilson. That's the American dream, right there.

Back to Starbucks- I sipped on my Passion Tea while she talked about the package deals and pricing. I was in a state of half-sleep, trying desperately to jolt my recently awaken body to full capacity before I passed into a sleep deprived coma in the midst of bustling shoppers. Thank Florence + the Machine, I survived the meet and drink, dodging mini-vans full of middle class drones filing into the doors of the authentic Mexican eatery, Jimboy's. "Excuse me waiter/cashier, it seems as if someone emptied their stomach contents onto my plate. Oh, that's how it's supposed to look and...smell? I'm gonna need to have someone do me a solid and call Poison Control."

Speaking of things that annoy, disturb, and upset the delicate nature of my gastrointestinal system- do you know about the "sizing" of wedding dresses? *breathe in, breathe out* So take the average American woman (size 14 according to Wiki). She walks into David's Bridal/The Bridal Depot/Brides-R-Us/Dress, Train, and Beyond and goes to try on a size 14. Sorry dear but that dress ain't fitting that ass. By walking through the doors of whatever overpriced tulle factory is nearest to her, she automatically jumps up two dress sizes. Two! Is the gravity in this place different? Did we move to Jupiter? I want to go back to Earth but I will settle for Pluto. A size 14 goes to a size 18 in a snap. How does that affect the bride's self esteem? Is she really going to feel like a princess on the "most important day of her life?" I used to ridicule the women who woke up at dawn to pound the cement, eating a slice of cheese coupled with a floret of broccoli as her daily nourishment but now I hear the treadmill calling my butt. Too much junk in the trunk. What is seriously disturbing is that there are size 0 wedding dresses. Think about that for a minute. [Size 0] - [2 dress sizes] = 1 seriously malnourished woman. During her Ally McBeal days, Callista Flockhart rocked the clothes hanger look with a size 0 but her chunky ass and thunder thighs must resort to a size 4 wedding dress. If the average model is a size 2, is the average wedding dress model a size 2, a size -2, or a size 6? How does that work? Do you go back to children's sizes? Can I get the Hannah Montana themed wedding attire, please? This flipping industry is going to give me an ulcer. It is absolutely mind-boggling how they can make a woman feel like Violet Beauregarde after her life altering gum chewing incident. Oompa Loompa doom-pa-dee-do/I have another Zoloft for you.

If I don't end the rant now, it will never stop and I will be concocting Oompa Loompa lyrics for the remainder of the weekend. Moving on. Tomorrow, we once again travel up to the mountainous hills of Placerville to take a peek at our venue and Bob, the two-foot catfish. I have my pinkie toes crossed hoping that he has successfully deterred my Canadian foes from nesting in my future ceremony site. I see your Avril Lavigne and raise you a Ted Nugent. Game on, birdie. Game on.

Food Comas Abound

You think you know...but you have no idea. This is the Diary of a Mad Brown Woman.

Eh?? Anyone? No. I was the only one that watched that? Well that does explain oodles of noodles about me but I am a popular culture aficionado. Hm...maybe not an aficionado because they savor the sound, video, and images that flash before their eyes. They gently imbibe cultural artifacts, letting each bit sit on their tongue to allow for maximum appreciation. I'm not an aficionado. I am a pop culture junkie- I shoot up dangerously concentrated doses of reality tv, which is enough for those with lesser tolerances to end up in a Speidi induced coma. I greedily gulp down the high caloric content, dutifully chomping away at pop culture, one massive bite at a time. But I digress...

Well, that was only slightly tangential to the purpose of this blog but I haven't posted anything in a while so I am trying to satiate the readers, all four of them. Speaking of my absence, there was a good week or two with no substantial gains in wedding planning. We have the location, and singer but may change the photographer as we found someone for a third of the price with a portfolio comparable to the ideal of Ellie.

This weekend, Chris and I went to dine at Mama Susana's in River Park across from campus. It is the only Italian restaurant in town that serves actual Italian food. If you even mention Buca di Beppo I will punch you in the face- in...the...face. That is not Italian food and I am not even sure if it qualifies as food. Yes, the caloric content is present but who wants to actually ingest that crap? Not me. Does Buca serve hand-made, home-made, and fresh gnocchi? Unless the red dude downstairs is outfitted in a parka I am going to go with...no. Mama Susanna's sure as hell does and it is amazing. The dish was comparable to the home-made meals that I enjoyed during my semester abroad in Italy. I realized mid-ingestion that I should probably take a pic of my mind blowingly delicious dinner but I argue that my lapse in cognition is a testament to the yummy-ness of the dish. Mmmm..."knock-ees"



After a stomach expanding dinner, I had the brilliant idea of testing the elasticity of said organ by stopping at Ettore's and sampling the desserts that will comprise our dessert table. As a reminder- Chris and I are going to get an assortment of desserts for the wedding rather than the traditional wedding cake. Reasons? 1) adding the descriptor of "wedding," "nuptial," etc adds a couple of Benjamins on the final tab and that is not gonna happen when I hold the checks 2) neither of us enjoy chomping down on cake. Chris is a cheesecake man whereas I am a fruit tart gal all the way 3) we can all enjoy whatever dessert we crave at the time: pie? Gotcha covered. Chocolate? Which type? Yeah, there are multiple variations. Fruit? Have you seen this? Bam. I am amazing.

I have not been to Ettore's for nearly a decade yet even with such a long separation, I knew that they would be supplying the sugary treats for the nuptial celebration. Not quite sure why I chose to be dragged to Rick's when I could have enjoyed this the delectable Euro deliciousness all this time. We waddled into the establishment seconds away from food coma and stood in amazement at the beauty beaming forth from the glass display cases. Drool pooled under our feet as we jumped into line. A little kid was pacing back and forth eying what dessert he would conquer but homeboy never stepped in line. Sucker. It was later in the evening so they did not have a stocked shelf but we did see four of the desserts that we planned on having at the wedding so we sighed as we were forced to taste test the cakes and pastries. FML.


Oh, sweet dessert of the gods. Is that fresh mango? Whaaat? That was the best fruit tart that has ever gone down my esophagus. With descriptions like that- I should totally be a food writer: food taste good. Go down stomach. Nicole like. Nicole sleep now...I totally want to get another one of these. It was so amazingly good. Whoever made this particular tart needs an award. Send these over to war torn countries- war over. Everyone will be too consumed by their sweet treat to rip out any throats a la MacGruber.


Chris' strawberry cheesecake. He is not a fan of the non-traditional or non-chocolate cheesecake but he ingested that sucker quick. I have a feeling I won't have to twist his arm to go out on a dessert date to Ettore's.


Did somebody say eggs? We know how to grill them. Bring it on in to Omeletteville...No one said eggs? Oh, you said chocolate. Chocolate cake. Oh, yeah because of the picture. Well don't I feel stupid. Not really, I will snub Benny's and head over to Omeletteville every time I meander around 30 Rock.

Not a big choc-o-holic but this sucker was delish. Probably not going to have this on the wedding- give momma some fruit tart but it is in no way vomit inducing so help yourself.


I did not think that I was going to like this cake at all. AT ALL. It's pink. So strike 1 and it's pink- so strike 2 and 3 but this is amazing. I might actually stop gorging myself with a heaping helping of fruit tarts to get a couple of bites of this monster. If that isn't a compliment, I don't know what is and I don't want to live in a world in which my compliment isn't the compliment.

After the back-to-back entrances into an edible heaven, we crashed. Well, actually we came home and drank then crashed. I really need to stop drinking so I can work on my thesis. Who would ever think that alcohol would be such an effective procrastination tool?

To beat the oppressive heat of the weekend, we putt putted up the hill to the Sierras for a relaxing bit of natural beauty and escape from the chaos of the city.... Why can't I make a call? Do you have any bars? I don't have any bars!!!! I'm freaking out man, I'm freaking out. Flipping AT&T! Covers 95% of all Americans? LIARS!! I do not have the upper body strength to climb 2/3 up the tree to make a call.


At least Maia had some fun up there. Didn't realize my lapdog was a dirt devil at heart. Even though she was covered, and I do mean COVERED, in dirt and other nature-y debris, she still looked adorably majestic while she sat on my lap in the sun.

Well, minions. I have procrastinated yet again and should get back to reading for class, which will most likely devolve into pouring a glass of Casal Nova's Brachetto. Huh, well that sounds like a good idea...