Moving Toward Something

A Fair and Balanced Report of the Weekend's Highlights

Saturday morning I went to the farmers' market in search of leeks.  The week prior there had been loads of beautiful leeks, and I wanted some. This week, there weren't as many and they weren't as pretty.  But I found some that would work in soup, and that's all that matters.  Then in the evening, I found my way over to the home of my coworker and his wife, and along with ~10 other people I played Mafia.  Also there, to my surprise, was the creator of The Non-Adventures of Wonderella, a webcomic I follow.  If you read webcomics and haven't yet read Wonderella, I highly recommend it.

Sunday was a bit of a wash.  I had planned to clean up the apartment a bit, since on Tuesday I'm going to get a preliminary visit from the folks who will watch my cats while I'm on vacation in Hawaii for a week.  Instead, after talking to my parents who were worried that I wouldn't find proper attire for a wedding I'm attending in late November, I went on a frenzied tour of two malls before I remembered that I have two months in which to deal with this issue.  But anyway, I suppose it was good to find the malls and get to see a bit of local mall flavor.  West Towne Mall is a regular mall with shops, and Hilldale is the "lifestyle" mall where they have boutiques (not shops--horrors!) and you should never expect to find clothing in your size.  I have yet to explore East Towne Mall.  That will be another weekend.

So, currently on my plate is:  cleaning up the apartment (still), and getting ready to go to Hawaii.  The latter involves excavating a suitcase--they're all still full of stuff from the move--and refilling it with Hawaii-appropriate clothing and items.  Do I even have any of those?  For sure I don't own a pair of shorts.  I know I have a bathing suit somewhere.  I do have sandals.  This is all very complicated!

The Office

The office won't be ready until November, but we had an on-site meeting about interior finishing stuff today.  It was the first time I'd driven from my place to the office and...I finally got a little lost in Madison.  ;)  But only five minutes' worth of lost!

Last time I was there, I had my camera with me but completely forgot to take pictures.  This time I remembered, but the only decent picture I got was an exterior shot.  I'm clueless when it comes to taking pictures of interiors that aren't dark and claustrophobic.  Actually, I'm clueless with cameras in general.  The only reason any of the ones I've posted here are at all acceptable is that my camera is programmed to adjust for the common n00b photographer debacles.  So thanks for the camera, Aunt Kathy!

Still not lost!

I succumbed to temptation and bought a bouquet of coxcomb (or what members of my family know as "inflamed brain tissue") at the farmers' market because I'd unpacked a pitcher that could serve as a vase.  I have inflamed brain tissue in a vase in my living room now.

Today's journey was:  Over to the bank to get cash, then to Best Buy to get a USB cable for my printer (so that I can print Google Maps now instead of writing the instructions down by hand!), up to the farmers' market, over to the grocery store, and back down home.  I was going to try to fit in a visit to the Madison Public Library to get a library card, but once I was laden with vegetables and flowers I decided the library could wait a couple days.

Last night I hauled sofas around in my living room until they were in some reasonable order.  I can't put them against the walls because I've got baseboard heating, so I had to get somewhat creative.

Still haven't found the spaghetti pot.  I swear it's going to be in the last box I unpack.  Tonight there will be more unpacking and more Spore, after I go out and purchase nails (I'm feeling the need to put up some artwork on these bare walls, and I have located the hammer, but not the nails) and find a bookstore.  I have nothing to read!

The Distance

I'm having trouble getting used to the fact that while I live in a suburb, I'm actually less than six miles from Madison's Capitol Square.  Well, perhaps "having trouble" is a poor choice of words, for I'm glad to be so close in.  It's just going to take me a while to wrap my head around how when something looks like it's allllll the way across town, or allllll the way in downtown, it's probably still going to be significantly less than 10 miles away.

To give you a feel for what I'm used to, it was about 18 miles from my old house to the Minneapolis city center, and about 20 miles from my old house to the St. Paul city center.  I like my current setup much better.

In Which We Boldly Venture Forth

My friends Jen and Anders showed up Friday night, and yesterday we did some exploring.  After breakfast, we hit the Dane County Farmers' Market.  This is a year-round farmers' market that takes up the street all the way around the Wisconsin state capitol building.  I bought the makings for spaghetti sauce (except for tomato sauce; I have tomato sauce amnesia and buy some every time I'm at the grocery store because I forget whether I've used up what I have) including a pound of fresh ground bison meat.  Jen and Anders got, among other more ordinary things, some ground emu meat.  We also got raspberries, zucchini, basil, cipollini onions, garlic, etc.  I almost got a bouquet of coxcomb, but I think I'll hold off on flowers until I've got my furniture all arranged the way I want it.

I took a picture of the market (click on the little picture above for a larger version), but it really doesn't show how big it is, nor does it show the lovely capitol building.  I'm new to this camera thing, and I tend to forget to take pictures when I have the chance.  I was too busy going "OMG WOULD YOU LOOK AT THOSE BEAUTIFUL EGGPLANTS," so do forgive me.

After bringing all this back to the apartment and stashing it, we drove down to the New Glarus Brewing Company in New Glarus, WI.  A bit of background here, for those unfamiliar:  this brewery makes beer that is beloved in the region, but can only be purchased in Wisconsin because the family running the brewery doesn't like the hassle of dealing with distributors.  People drive to Wisconsin just to buy this beer.  Now, I'm not usually a beer girl, but this is some tasty stuff. 

At the brewery you get a self-guided tour--they hand you a handset, there are numbers on the wall near each thing you might to want to know about, you punch in the number, hit "Play," and put the handset to your ear.  It's pretty efficient!  Of course there was an old German document on the wall, and I had to know what that was.  It turned out to be a copy of the first ever German food quality law, which was about beer, written in 1516.

The town of New Glarus prides itself on its Swiss heritage, and it's got all sorts of little Swiss style buildings, shops, etc. on its main streets.  I'll likely be bringing out of state visitors to both the brewery and the town, unless they protest.

Dinner was at Arbat.  We walked there.

For breakfast we had tortas and cemitas at La Concha.

And now Jen and Anders are on the road, and it is time for me to do some errands.