Vacationing: Weddings, Babies, and Stuff

My sister got married! Her and her husband are a super adorable couple.  The wedding was perfect - it was beautiful, it was small, and it was relatively short (for the sake of my feet at least b/c I totally picked the wrong shoes to wear).  The wedding party as a whole had a great sense of humor which we all managed to reign in for the actual ceremony -- for the rehearsal not so much.  The pastor literally said "I really worry about all of you getting through this tomorrow."  She was just a bit too serious, but really nice and she did a good job.  The wedding photographer has a whole series of hilarious pictures that I can't wait to see!

Two of my oldest friends had babies over the summer so I got visit with all of them for a few days, which was really nice especially since I don't know when I'll see them again.  Both of the babies are boys and both are adorable.  N. is about 3 months old and has a precious smile.  J. is soo tiny I was afraid to hold him at first, but he makes the funniest faces - I have a feeling he is going to be a hilarious child.  

Also while at home I had my annual sno-ball.  This time it was mango w/condensed milk.  Actually its good I wasn't down there longer b/c I might have gained 10 pounds from eating those things.  I enjoyed lots of fresh vegetables as my dad decided to do a garden this year.  He used to do one every year, but hadn't been recently.  I ate probably a cucumber a day and way too much creamed corn.  

In other news, I still have to pack. I am very bad at this obviously.  Today I sorted through my books and I'm determined to get rid of half of them, but that still leaves me w/over 200!  Oh and I found out that I will be going to Ukraine in December. Hurray!! I might actually finish this graduate program. 

Its Spring!!!

It was 80 and sunny today!! Its about damn time.
Here are some other pictures, but from Chicago last week:

Baha'i Temple

Baha'i Temple (its huge!)

Detail of some of the inscriptions found all over the Temple.

A very cold beach

Lake Michigan

An Actual Post

I have been spending way too much time on Twitter. This has had an unfortunate effect upon me posting here, but I've never compared myself to those "serious" bloggers.  I don't even regularly review books, just randomly & sort of haphazardly (except during Halloween when I try a little harder). Anyway, this semester has been seriously boring and I have too much time on my hands - which does not mean I have anything interesting to update about.  W/o school or employment I have all this free time & zero excitement.  I did decide to read every ethnography on Ukraine ever published. Actually, this is not impressive b/c a) there are about 10 and b) I should have done it a long long time ago.  Maybe I'll try to review some of them.

The point of this post is to talk about my much belated trip to Chicago this weekend.  I have actually never been despite living pretty close.  I also did not end up doing any of the standard tourist things b/c my friend who I went to see lives there.

Karyn's Raw Cafe

A friend of mine has recently become really interested in the raw food movement.  I don't cook at all mostly due to laziness so the sheer amount of preparation (and creativity) needed to follow this sort of diet just boggles my mind.  This Karyn person though is apparently pretty famous w/in the community of raw food aficionados so we went to her cafe in the Lincoln Park neighborhood.  

The restaurant is part dining area part raw food store.  One half is a small fairly swanky looking eating area, while the other is full of cook books, self-help "change your life" type manifestos, a small conference room in the back for weekly classes on how to become a raw food enthusiast, and lots of dehydrated foods.  

All of the menu selections sound like "regular" food you've had before - ravioli, pizza, ice cream, nachos, etc - but are really very different from the food that inspired these creations. Now obviously they are different b/c they are made from raw or dehydratedfood, but they are also entirely vegan and mostly gluten-free, so you can imagine that limits the type of ingredients that goes into the dishes.  Everything was delicious and I have zero complaints about the restaurant side of things.  However, the store was just a bit too "new age" for me - not the food, but the literature being promoted.  Such as the book that practically declared you could cure everything with a salt/water concoction known as sole.  Clearly, some people are really in to this particular scene, its just not for me.

Ukrainian Village

My friend grew up here so we walked around this historic neighborhood for a while.  Many Ukrainians have moved from the area, but you can still hear Russian, Ukrainian, or Polish spoken on the streets pretty regularly.  We visited a couple of delis, which made me really nostalgic for L'viv.  Also, b/c everyone I ever met there seems to be going back this summer - except me - seeing all the imported foods made me a little sad.  I know it might be silly, but I really do love being in L'viv and while I'm not specifically attached to Ukrainian food it was just working yesterday to remind me of all the other things I am attached to.  

 

We also visited several churches.  Significantly you can find on the same long street, separated by several blocks two Ukrainian Catholic Churches (new calendar and old calendar), a Ukrainian Orthodox Church, a Russian Orthodox Church, and a Polish (Latin) Catholic Church.  That street is a fairly good indicator of the complicated religious history in Ukraine, where all those same churches (and many others) compete for parishioners, funding, and real estate. 

Baha'i Temple

If you are ever anywhere near Wilmette (close to Evanston) you should go see this architectural masterpiece.  It is one of the most amazing structures I have ever seen.  Unfortunately, they were remodeling the gardens, but the pictures of the fountains and hedges shown in the brochure are magnificent.  I have for a while been passively interested in Baha'i after hearing about it in a World Religion class, but I don't actually know that much about their beliefs or practices.  What I learned from the flyer is that this temple in Wilmette is the national center for the Baha'i in the U.S.  It was started in 1912, and finished about 40 yrs later.  There are only seven temples in the world.  It is 9 sided, domed, and carved all over with symbols of various faiths; Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and others.  I'm not even going to try to describe the fabulous lace-like stone-work that is featured inside or out, I seriously could not do justice to the building. 

I hope that was long enough and interesting enough to make up for my lack of posting.  I will honestly try to do better.

Saving the World Through Psychedelics...

Yesterday I had the "pleasure" of going to a football game.  This was only my second ever, and both times have been fairly lackluster.  First time the band - one of the highlights of our school's football matches - was suspended, and yesterday there was a serious lack of competition.  If we had lost...well, I don't think we could have lost.  I was however all psyched up for the drunken undergrads figuring I would see some interesting sights and rather happy that I couldn't yet recognize my students.

But really, they were all pretty chill.  Nothing super extraordinary happened.  One girl almost fell down the concrete stairs due to her drunken stupor, but was helped by a very nice gentleman.  And someone before the game told me that he was "saving the world from nukes through psychedelics."  Only other extraordinary sight was the girl whose boots looked more like Furbies wrapped around her ankles than actual shoes.  I wish I had a picture b/c they might have been the ugliest shoes I have ever seen (in the U.S. at least). 

Despite the lack of excitement, I did have a good time especially as the day was sort of a post-birthday celebration.  I have not been having the best few weeks since around mid-August and didn't really do much on my actual b-day, so it was nice to socialize a bit.  I also discovered my new favorite vodka.  Wish I knew where to buy a bottle.  It was flavored with blood oranges!! A bit sweet, but I like sweet drinks so it was perfect for me. 

Oh, and I am ABD now, I finished my scarf/wrap thingy, and ... I was trying to think of some more good news, but drawing a blank.  How sad. 

Computer Misery

So, this is the story of how I made my life miserable. Simply b/c I have to type 9000 things this semester, I decided to be careless with my computer and drop it. Now luckily I caught it. Not so luckily I broke one of the keys off. I thought maybe it would just go back on. So I enlisted the help of my friends who tried to put it back on. And I then left my computer in the company of one person, while I went to a meeting. When I came back, two keys were off.

Good news, the comparison between the W key I broke and the E key my friend removed revealed that I needed replacement parts. This is good to know, since we could see that a bit of plastic was missing.

Bad news, the E isn't really working properly now, so potentially random intentional removal resulted in damage to the key sensor, not just the plastic.

Yeah I know I am typing here, but it is slow b/c I have to repeatedly hit the E key or backspace to add it. Annoying. Especially while writing long papers, and when I want to type fast not at a snail's pace.

Even worse news, Toshiba doesn't sell the bit of plastic to "end-users" which I guess means me. They only sell the entire keyboard.

In other misery related news, see other blog.

Toronto

Went to the annual Ukrainian festival in Toronto last weekend. Super fun, had an amazing time. The festival itself was ok. We were there a lot, but really were only paying attention to one band - which was Ludy Dobri. They are from Ukraine, from Lviv actually and play traditional Ukrainian folk music with a modern twist. We met them last year and hung out a bit. It was kind of strange to see them in Canada, but not as weird as I thought it would be. I did see a few of the other performers. A couple of dance groups who were apparently not very good - I have no standard to judge them by b/c I know next to nothing about Ukrainian dancing. The best part really was that I got to see a lot of people that I met this summer and several people that I met last summer. This is the largest Ukie festival in North America so "everyone" tends to be there - at least everyone who is important :) Ok, that isn't exactly true, but my basic point is that I was excited to hang out with people that I otherwise would probably never have seen again. Pictures and video and all that fun stuff to be posted on Facebook at some point in time - possibly tonight. I might write a more extended version on the other blog seeing as how I was actually supposed to be doing fieldwork while there for my folklore class. I think it was all participation with zero observation this time around.

Thanks everyone!

For the past few years, probably since around 2003, my birthdays have been pretty terrible. Not necessarily the exact day, but usually the few weeks leading up to it have resulted in me not really liking this time of the year.

However, this year was very nice. I had a pre-birthday party with some friends who had just had their birthdays, and tonight we went out for drinks and food. I also got some exciting news about this weekend. Nothing extravagant, but enough for me to say that this is probably the best birthday that I have had in a really long time.

Oh and supposedly my sister is sending me some amazing present in the mail, which I will have to wait until next week to see, but the way she giggles every time she mentions it has me rather impatient to see what exactly she has decided to send me.

Update from the Northshore

So far, what I have heard is that it wasn't that bad. My friends in St. Tammany Parish don't have power, but say the storm wasn't too terrible. I think I am more nervous b/c I am not there, and just have a bit of an overreaction to hurricanes now after Katrina, and I should remember that I have in fact lived through a couple of Cat. 2 storms.

My mom in MS says they are fine, they in fact still have power, but its still hard to get in touch with people in St. Tammany Parish, namely my father and brother.

Did you know fact of the day: 2 million people evacuated Southern La. That is a lot of people!

Still a bit worried about my friends closer to Lafayette, they were really close to the eye of the storm, but again it has seriously weakened, so they should be fine. Fingers crossed.

Updated to add: There was just a tornado warning near my family in Mississippi, so they aren't out of it yet. Still haven't heard from dad or my brother. In Plaquemines Parish, the water has overtopped the levee, but it is not breached. They are dumping sand and putting up sandbags, but even some places in St. Bernard are getting flooded. Pretty serious, as water is also going under a lock there.
Water was earlier coming over the seawall in Mandeville, its pretty low lying and tends to flood, but I'm not sure how serious of a situation that it currently.
Baton Rouge got perhaps the worst wind of the storm. Gusts up to 91mph. They showed some scenes near LSU and it looked pretty bad with trees down everywhere, and that was before the main part of the storm had even passed through.
And yes, I promise that I have been doing other things than constantly watching the news.

Food and Friends

The past few days have been busy, but super fun. A couple of my friends that I met this summer came to visit. It was a bit weird seeing them here at first; in part b/c I never really thought it would happen, and also b/c it was just out of context.

I have eaten entirely too much food with them since Monday though. The first night I had amazing samosa, and then a couple of good (half priced) martinis. The next day we wandered about town a bit, had some beers, and later a mutual friend grilled all sorts of tasty food for us (steak, chicken, mushrooms, peppers, eggplant), and we spent about 8 hours eating and drinking Ukrainian vodka (cranberry-amazing-delicious-vodka). We played Ukrainian Scrabble, which I suck at, but it was fun (or funny, not sure which). Then we made a random decision to go to this dive bar (after midnight) where they have Euro-techno night on Tuesday's. It was hilarious, and a bit scary at the same time.

Today we had lunch at a restaurant that is apparently run by a cult. The people there were friendly though, so I don't think its a bad cult, but sort of a Christian/communal/miracle-faith based cult (or New Religious Movement to be non-biased). Then for dinner I wasn't really hungry, but we went to an Indian/Tibetan place. The fried vegetable fritters came with some sort of tomato sauce that was seriously heavenly, but I couldn't finish all of them. The waitress was nice enough to provide me with a huge to-go bowl full of the sauce.
I don't think I can eat anything else for at least 2 days.