Rhode Island You’re My Home

After J picked me up from the always long train ride (after I finish this post I’m complaining to the MBTA), and went to the Pawtucket Red Sox game with his dad and his friend.  The PawSox play right down the street in RI, and J says they’re #1 in their division at the moment.  In my mind, the PawSox are infamous for having the longest baseball game ever.  This fact was noted on cups found in almost every home in RI with the score running around them.  Even though the game was in 1981, I still remember drinking from thise cups at my ex-BFF’s house when we were 13.  I wonder if they still have them at McCoy?  I’m calling J to see if he’ll bring me home one if they do.

I was going to blog about some random things, but talking about the PawSox made me nostalgic for RI.  Sure, at the moment its only about a mile away, but MA is like a different world.  Massachusetts people still talk funny, but its a different kind of funny.  And even though I’ll belt out the lyrics to Dirty Water at a Sox game like a true Masshole (“Love that dirty water…Boston you’re my home!”), but deep down, I’m a true Rhode Island girl at heart.

Aside from the PawSox, what makes RI so special?  In no particular order:

• The Size: You can get from one end of the state to the other in less than an hour.  But most RIers think that’s too far.
• The Beaches: Lots of them, wicked close.  We even have our own island!
• The Accent: Kind of a cross between NY and MA.  Lots of dropped “r”s and some extra “w”s.  As in “Oh my Gawd!”
• Buddy Cianci: Providence’s corrupt former mayor.  He served jail time (for assault on his ex’s new boyfriend, I think) and then got re-elected.  He served more time for racketeering, but is still revered across RI.  Everyone loves Buddy!  He even has his own pasta sauce.

Speaking of food, the best RI has to offer:

• Pizza Strips: Greasy dough with sauce, no cheese, served cold.  They used to cost 3 for $1.  If you want to be fancy, you can toast them in the toaster with some American cheese, but that’s a little high end.
• Awful Awfuls: The best kid is coffee: Coffee ice cream, coffee syrup, milk.  Served at Newport Creamery.  Awfully Big, Awfully Good.  If you drink 3, you get a free one!
• Coffee Syrup: Like chocolate syrup, but coffee flavored.  Mmmmm.
• Caserta’s Pizza on the Hill: Home of the best pizza in RI, and the Wimpy Skimpy (spinach pie/calzone with pepperoni & cheese) .
• Hot Weiners: Boiled hot dogs served on a bun with meat sauce (NOT chili), mustard, celery salt, and onions if you want them all the way.  The best place to get weiners is in Olneyville at 1am, when the meat is ladled onto the dog by a big fat greasy man who lines the dogs up his bare arm before loading them up.

I’m sure there are a million other things I’m forgetting, but now I’m sad and hungry.  I think I’ll go walk a mile and find some good food and good accents.

USA! USA!

As all of you who don’t live under a rock a well aware, the Olympics are
on.  Yay.

Yes, that was facetious.  Don’t get me wrong — I think the Olympics are
a great thing.  When else do countries that hate each other in real life
get together to hate each other in a sports arena?  It really is a
beautiful thing, one of those nice warm and fuzzy times where everyone
gets along and is happy with each other.  Or at least they are on TV,
with the exception of the crazy Chinese guy that killed the men’s
volleyball coach’s father in law.

And I like watching sports on TV.  Granted, I spend more time pondering
how I can get abs like the beach volleyball players then actually
watching the game (I’ve never been a fan of volleyball, or its sad
elementary school gym class counterpart, deck tennis).  I also spend a
lot of time vowing to get back in shape while showing my face full of
Cheetos, so there’s inspiration everywhere!

My problem with the Olympics is the television coverage.  I turn on the
TV ready to watch something great and memorable, and I get some random
first round Judo event.  Then I change the channel to watch “Pregnant
for Forty Years,” and by the time I return to the Olympics I’ve missed
Michael Phelps getting (another) gold medal.  I tried DVRing it, but I
don’t like fast forwarding through 2-1/2 hours of volleyball to get to
one minute of good gymnastics that I already know the outcome of.  That
thing needs a chapter selection on it!

All the good stuff is late at night, later than my 9:30 bedtime.  My
coworkers at BAC wander in bleary eyed talking about all the great
Olympic moments that happened abut ten minutes after I fell asleep.  I
feel left out.  I want to watch the Olympics, I really do.  But I just
can’t get into them much more than watching the recaps the next day.
Oh, I like the tall woman who eats all the weird things in Beijing.
Does this make me a bad American?

I feel slightly redeemed, by the way, because I did see a Phelps gold lat night.  I’m a real American now!

(Oh, and does Bob Costas age at all?!?!?)

Breaking Entertainment News!

(Well, its breaking to me, and what’s the point of having a blog if you can’t bore your readers with inane posts?)

John Mayer and Jennifer Aniston broke up!  I’m so happy, its like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders!  I think its a combination of my serious girl crush on Jen and and my serious hatred of John Mayer.  Now, lets just get her back together with Brad Pitt and I’ll be one hapy kid.

Post #100!!!!

I wrote this post in boredom today at BAC, and when I came home to post it, I noticed that this is my 100th post!  Yay me! 

I know I’ve been slacking lately.  I left you hanging with the house
updates, and I know you’re all so sad about that.  Imagine how obsessive
I’ll be when I have a baby?

The house is good.  I miss it when I go to work — how lame is that?
We’ve been in there for almost three weeks, and, as predicted, are all
unpacked.  We’re hanging pictures now, or rather, walking around with
pictures and trying to decide where to put them.  We’re hoping one of
those Starving Artist sales happens soon, because we have some very
naked walls!

The spare bedrooms have some random stuff in them, like the 4 lamps we
brought from our apartment.  The apartment had a light in the kitchen,
hall & bathroom, but no where else.  So we stocked up on lamps from IKEA
& Target so we could see.  The house has ceiling fans with lights in all
the bedrooms, basement & living room, plus recessed lighting, so no need
for lamps!  We could use some decorative lamps, not the metal & plastic
junk we have now!

Oh, but where to put decorative lamps.  Why are end tables just as
expensive as coffee tables?  And I’m very confused by matching wood or
not matching wood.  Plus, this was way more difficult when I thought I
was getting a chocolate brown couch.  Espresso does not equal chocolate
brown.  It equals green that looks brown in some light.  Who knew?  I’ve
come to accept it for what it is (read: I’m too cheap to fork over
another $200 for them to take it away and deliver something new).  We
ate dinner at the coffee table last night, something we (I) said we
wouldn’t do.  J says its because we have no table yet (ordered, coming
hopefully soon), but its really because we don’t have a tv in the
kitchen (not gonna happen).

J gave the (already dead) lawn a crew cut the other day.  The lawnmower
blade won’t go up, so its stuck at really low (that’s a technical term).
The bright side is that we probably won’t have to mow the lawn again for
a while.  The downside is that J is attempting to “fix” the lawnmower
today, and I don’t think it will end well.

I think the weirdest thing is that we don’t have anyone living above us,
so all the weird noises belong to us.  I’ll hear a noise when I can’t
sleep, and instinctively think “Oh, its just the people upstairs.”  Then
I remember that the only thing upstairs is the attic that I’m afraid to
go into, and haven’t been into since we moved, so who knows?  There
might be somebody living in there.  The fact that we now have four doors
to check is not helping my OCD in the least bit either.  And, since
we’re on a private driveway, when a car is out front it should belong to
us.  Which is why, when the milkman showed up at 4:30 am as I was trying
to fall back asleep, I was convinced an axe murdered was pulling up to
kill me.  I’m a nervous person, what can I say?

So, home ownership is so far, so good.  I guess we’ll see what the
winter heating bill brings!

Some pictures of the big move:

The first night:

The dining room (it looks a little better now, but still empty):

Living Room (again, looks better now.  The sofa is a bed with a serious sloping problem):

The Man working for his food:

 

The Basement:

Us:

The Joys of Home Ownership

We are (finally) in our new house.  Yay!  I’ll spare you all the horrid deatils of the closing, but I will tell you that from Friday at 4pm and Monday at 8 pm the following things occured:

Tears (lots of them — from me and the mortgage broker)

Alcohol consumption

Lots of fast food

J & I wandering aimlessly around the apartment, unsure of what to do

Swearing

Yelling

Punching boxes (that was me, and highly ineffective)

Lots of phone calls

Lots more crying

But, when all was said and done, we walked into our home with our own key at 10pm Monday night.  We slept on the floor, which was very uncomfortable, and forgot to pack towels for showers the next morning.  I bought beach towels at 6am at CVS, and J finished drying off with a paper towel.  The move the next day was exhausting yet uneventful, and we are almost unpacked.  We also have no furniture, and eat on folding chairs and tray tables.  But we have the Internets, and the router is hooked up, so I can stop surfing the web in the boiler room.  Its hot in there!

We also have a very dead lawn.  Very dead.  I tried raking it today, with a metal rake and no gloves.  I got some nice blisters before I put the gloves on.  Then the lint from the gloves got in the blisters, and it hurt even more.  I sclepped the dead grass into the woods in my Ann Taylor Loft bag.  Pretty fancy, huh?

So, we’re here, and I’ll have pictures as soon as J gives me back the camera.  I know you all can’t wait for the photo montages!  I wonder where my camera cord is….