Turning Japanese

My sister recently got back from a trip around the world, and she brought me some cool stuff from the last country she visited:

So far the only thing I have tried is the stump candy, which was quite yummy.

Next, I'm planning to have a Japanese-inspired bath with the "Dracule Mihawk" dandy bath salt and the Head and Shoulders:


Sadly, I'm not sure when I'll get a chance to use the map of all the Dairy Queens in Tokyo.

I also haven't quite decided when to use the Unique Beer Flavoring Straws, mostly because I am too embarrassed to ask the guys who work out our local beer store, which is very fancy, which beer would go best with some cherry flavoring.

There are six straws in there, so that's six tries. I kind of want to try one with a cherry coke, and see if the cherry flavorings are constructive or destructive.

Springtime in Philly

We live near an art school, and one of the signs that the weather is getting nicer is that the students start yarn bombing things. We just noticed a particularly tall one this weekend:

Technically, I think this one is actually some sort of ribbon bombing:

This also appeared, lest we forget that even in the spring, Philly is still Philly:

Viva Las Vegas

So you guys, I spent last week in Las Vegas for work. I know - totally my scene, right? However, I had three goals for my non-working time in Vegas, and I met all three of them:

1. Engage in one act of gambling: I spent $1 at the penny slots. I'm actually not really sure what happened - I just put in my dollar and mashed buttons for awhile, until the machine told me I was out of credit.
2. See the fountain show at the Bellagio (mostly because of how cool it looked in Ocean's 11). I ended up seeing it once from the ground, and once from the top of the "Eiffel Tower." The aerial view was cooler because you could see the various fountain mechanisms at work under the water, which my inner nerd found more interesting.
3. Drink something fancy at the Chandelier Bar, because I read about it recently in Arrive Magazine (the only magazine by conductors for conductors!) and it sounded neat. Also, it was the only thing I knew to do in Las Vegas besides the Bellagio fountain. Anyway, I got something called the "campfire delight," and it was basically s'mores in cocktail form. I actually had trouble finishing it, because it was so rich.

Alas, I was totally delinquent with my camera, and didn't really take any pictures the whole time I was there.  If I had been more on top of it, I would have taken some photos to illustrate the omnipresence of gambling, which was much more excessive than I had anticipated; seriously, as soon as you step off the airplane there are slots right there in the airport. There are slots in the gas stations. A lot of bars have video poker terminals at each seat, so you can play while you wait for and/or consume your drink. It was crazy.

My next work trip is to Indianapolis at the end of the month - I'll try to remember my camera, but I have a feeling there won't be too much that I'll want to take pictures of. Unless I somehow get to fly over the Grand Canyon again en route to Indiana, because that was probably the coolest part of my trip to Vegas.

More Murder Mystery

Last night was my second time attending our office's annual murder mystery party. This year the theme was Royal Ball, so sadly I did not have an excuse to wear a leotard. Instead, I was Duchess Dalia Davenport - described as having plenty of money and desire to display it, but not very much taste. I think I nailed it:

This picture captures my accessories, but doesn't adequately convey the vast amount of bronzer I was caked with.

I didn't solve the murder or meet my objective of procuring a husband, but I still had fun pretending to be Hyacinth Bucket all night (I marathon watched a lot of "Keeping Up Appearances" the night before to get into character). I think the funniest part of the evening was my "son" (the guy in the picture) - we agreed beforehand to both use British accents, but then parted ways. I was doing my best attempt at an upper class/fancy accent (like Hyacinth's), but when I ran into my son halfway through the evening I discovered that he was doing a Cockney accent and sounded like an extra from Newsies. Oops.

Let there be (less dated) light!

While we painted over our condo's brown-and-silver walls and ripped up the super-gross carpeting pretty much as soon as we moved in, there are still a few lingering remnants of it's 70s-tastic origin. Until this weekend, two of those remnants were these ribbed, fishbowl-y lights in the hallways:

Blurgh.

But thanks to our genius ability to follow directions, we now have new, less hideous lights, and no one was electrocuted!

Ben installed this one. Look how simple it is.

I installed this one. It is more complicated, because I am better.

We are now one step closer to being HGTV ready.

Another volley

Writing about our written correspondence with our friends a few months ago had the happy effect of reigniting the exchanges. Shortly after my post, we got this card in the mail:

Click the picture to see the link.

We took awhile to respond because we had a planned visit shortly thereafter, and didn't want it to be weird if they got something in the mail from us while we were staying with them. But once we got back, we sent them this thank you card:

Click!

Here's to (hopefully) round three on the horizon!

Long Day

It was really warm in the office today and I didn't have a hair tie, so I improvised a solution. Then I forgot about it for the rest of the day, and it wasn't until I was already home for the evening that I realized I had walked home like this:

I hope I don't get in trouble for stealing office supplies.